And I'd like to thank Holly for my shiney new Redneck of the Year award!

No matter how much I tried to run from it, no matter how many guys from NY I dated, no matter long I lived in the most "metropolitan" part of my home state, my dog has now qualified me as a certified MI Redneck.



How might you ask?



take a look at the pic below and see what you notice:

notice anything? Well I mean besides the fact that the inside window is horridly dirty and the outside one relatively clean (I'll explain that later.) Yes, you notice the obvious mud caked paw prints all over the metal frame... Notice anything else? Like they're mysteriously lacking from the lower window section? As is any glare from either the porch light or the camera flash?

Yes, my dog ripped out my screen and knocked out the storm window to my screen door frantically jumping and pawing at my door to get in because - get this - there was a black milk crate and a small garden spade in my garden. Yes, my evil going-to-take-over-the-world landlord/twinplex neighbor left them near our garden for a short bit as she was obviously trying to undo some of the extreme craziness the previous mad-gardener home owner left in our garden - er I mean set her plan in motion to take over the world by first eliminating all golden retrievers with her black plastic death ray and it's power component cleverly disguised as garden tools. And this, just one day after Monkey declared that this dog had "no fear factor" because he could run the hand vac for three seconds in the same room as her without her wetting my carpet.

I had to coax her off the 2x3 foot cement slab "porch" just to pee, which she did with her entire body shaking... I then closed the back door to use the little girl's room myself and before porcelain hit flesh I heard the *BANG*BANG*BANGing of her literally JUMPING and pawing at the door trying to get back inside away from the evil death ray. I opened the door and had a Plexiglas storm window come falling towards me.. Somehow, in rare pre-first coffee reflexes I grabbed it about a half an inch from my tow with ninja-like agility.

The funniest thing of all is that while I've always LOVED Golden Retrievers, and I adore Holly, I now realize that I love Golden Retrievers in the MOVIES.. You know, the ones that viciously growl and protect their beloved family against the mildly mentally challenged burglars trying to get to the kid that overheard them talking about the bank heist they were planning at the local diner while he waited for his waitress mom to give him money to see the matinee at the local movie theater. Instead I got something akin to the female dog version of Richard Simmons with endless amounts of energy that can be both exhausting and downright friggen ANNOYING at times. Picture his reaction to a burglar and you've pretty much nailed Holly down. Oh and more hair than a grizzly den in the spring. You know, those movie dogs never shed a single hair.

So there you have it folks. While I might eat, and even MAKE, sushi, know which wines to serve with which meats, and only listen to country music when I'm going to hear my dad play, I am now officially a redneck from MI.