Poetry

           One of my earliest memories of music is listening to "Ninja Rap" by Vanilla Ice, from the soundtrack of the 1991 movie "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: Secret of the Ooze". I'm not entirely sure why this song stood out to me so distinctly, but if I had to guess, it's probably because it's the goofiest thing that's ever been committed to film. At the climax of the movie, the ninja turtles end up in a night club where rapper Vanilla Ice is performing. They end up fighting a bunch of evil ninjas on the dance floor while Vanilla Ice performs a song about the ninja turtles. Once all of the bad guys are defeated, the ninja turtles go up on stage and start dancing with Vanilla Ice and his posse, at which point The Shredder emerges from backstage and threatens to destroy them all. To verify that I didn't just imagine this, I looked up this clip on YouTube and it happened exactly like how I imagined it.            The only l...

You know those people that think that owning a dog is somehow a personality trait? Those people that think the mundane things that their dogs do are super unique? That's me. I'm those people. So, allow me to indulge myself and talk about the one thing in my life that brings me joy. My dog's name is Lucy. When we got her, we were told that she is a border collie, schnauzer mix, which ended up being very much not true. In reality, she ended up being 3/8 beagle, 1/4 labrador, 1/8 golden retriever, and 1/8 lhasa apso, and 1/8 unknown. When we got her, she was about 2 months old and 12 lbs . Her face was black, and the rest of her body was white with black spots. She had a tiny head with big floppy ears and long gangly legs. She's changed a lot since then. In the 3 years since we got her, she's grown considerably, now weighing just under 50 pounds. Her head is still a little small for her body size, but it's much closer to being in proportion than it used to be. She...