Lara Zielin

Bar-B-Que Heaven might not look like much, but it is aptly named. Their food really IS heaven.

As many of you know, being from Wisconsin makes a strong love for cheese — and a good steak — all but run in my blood.

But I also love good barbecue.

Being down in Austin for the South by Southwest Interactive conference, I thought I’d take advantage of the embarrassing meat riches all around me. Let me tell you about this one place.

It’s called Bar-B-Que Heaven and it was just this little shack on the corner of the street, next to a service-station-looking place. There is no place to sit. But their smoker and grills are visible right out back, so you know this is the real deal. And, let me tell you, eating their brisket sandwich is like tasting rainbows. And not in a Skittles way. In a magical, am-I-dreaming-this, holy-crap-this-is-amazing kind of way.

As we were waiting for our food, I also spotted a sticker taped to a nearby post. Parental advisory: I have not tested the website this sticker promotes. I’m scared to. Enter the URL at your own risk.

But, I mean, it’s super cute, and I do think women are a little like donuts — or at least I am — since I’m kinda pink and sparkly (on the inside) like the one in the picture here:

Anyway, I’m super sorry for the vegetarians reading this post. And for the women I’ve possibly offended with the donut link, which I’m too scared to click myself. I hope you still like me when it’s all over.

In the meantime, I’ll be over here, eating more barbecue.

I never claimed Amos was the smartest beagle. The naughtiest? Maybe. But his little canine brain is still trying to work some things out. Like whether the hose is friend or foe.

All I can say is, if Amos and the hose had a fistfight, I’m pretty sure the hose would win.

Love Week continues on Larawrites.com!

Many of us have heard the oft-quoted scripture from First Corinthians about love being patient and kind.

I’m here to tell you love is also illogical.

Allow me to introduce … Amos.

Amos is my beagle. I have blogged about Amos before — namely when the little beagle Uno won Best in Show at Westminster and I begged people to please, please not run out and buy a beagle. I had myriad reasons. I still do.

Like, this past Christmas when we came home to find Amos had devoured our advent calendar — cardboard and chocolate and all. He’d left slobber-laden ruins strewn on the carpet like holiday snow. Sad, spitty, disgusting holiday snow.

When we first moved into our Ypsilanti home, Amos burst through the door and promptly peed on the fireplace. Of note: he’d been house-trained for years.

In this picture, he’s chewing on a toy that was once a full, stuffed, glorious Lion King that even roared.

These days, we call it Lion Shred.

Amos has chewed my kitten-heel Kenneth Cole shoes, Rob’s glasses, the television remote, and countless pairs of my underwear.

One time, he ate three used tampons and then, an hour later, threw them all up on my favorite chair.

We recently put a baby gate up to keep Amos from getting to the cat food in the basement. He chewed through it while we were at work, ate all the cat food he could, then pooped Meow Mix and splinters for two days.

Amos has been sprayed by a skunk — twice. He rolls in every kind of feces or dead thing he can find. He has eaten I don’t know how many fresh cat turds right from the litter box, has humped every pillow in the house, and he farts liberally.

In a word, Amos is disgusting.

Amos is needy, not to mention vocal. He whines when we have guests over. He whines when we eat dinner. He howls when he’s had to wait at the door for more than two seconds after peeing on all my flowers.

By all accounts, I should really not like Amos.

Not one little bit.

But the thing is, I love Amos. And Rob does too.

Amos is delighted by everyone and everything and, like so many dogs, he’s overjoyed to see us — even when it’s only been five minutes and we’ve been three feet away the whole time.

Almost always, Amos looks like he’s smiling.

And he lets us put bunny ears on him, even though he doesn’t really like it.

Every day is new and exciting and joyous for Amos, even if we’re doing the same old stuff we did the day before.

Amos loves to stick his head out the window when we’re driving, and sniff everything in the wind.

Amos has spots on his back that look like Mickey Mouse, and a white tip on his tail that flashes when he wags it.

In the winter, he likes to catch snowflakes and play in the snow.

When we drop food on the floor, he happily eats it. His ears are really soft, and his belly is pink and spotted where the hair is thinner.

When we visit our cabin in the woods, Amos loves to run and chase squirrels.

There are days when Amos shreds my last nerve. Days when I wish he’d just pipe down. Days when I wonder why the heck we didn’t just get a German shepherd or a lab.

But then Amos curls up on my lap, pretending like he’s half his size, and we cuddle and it’s all somehow okay. I love him and, in his doggy way, I’m pretty sure he loves me.

It’s illogical. But that’s okay. In this, I’d rather have full heart than a sound mind.

And to you I ask: what or who have you loved in a completely illogical way? Who or what is your Amos, so to speak?

Easter was a blast this year.

All the animals had such a good time.

Some more than others.

Thank you, Easter bunny! Brawk brawk!

STATUS: Stupidly excited that I made Pancake a lolcat. See below. And if you lurve it and think it’s funny, please go to the lolcat site and give it a high cheezburger rating. (It’s kind of dark here and hard to see here so, really, just go to the lolcat site).

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Uh, yeah. So the part where Pancake’s a lolcat? Go there.

I found the following in the pages of my What on Earth catalog yesterday, and I couldn’t help but think, who would wear this? I had a post up earlier that hinted that maybe a pedophile might really enjoy this, but I’m revising it because that’s just plain wrong. So funny I want to laugh out loud and blog about it, but still wrong.

STATUS: Ready for a vacation to someplace that’s not grey and snowy.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: Garfield minus Garfield. The comic strip gets infinitely more funny — and sad — when the orange cat is taken away.

Last night was the first meeting of the young adult book club that some friends/colleagues and I started. We’d decided to read The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing to kick things off and, I gotta say, that book is like The Patriot meets Roots meets …. what’s the most depressing movie ever? Boys Don’t Cry? Maybe. So mix all those things together and you’ve got Octavian — and an urge to hurl yourself off a building. I’ll probably take some crap for this because a lot of people loved this book. None of them, however, attended book group last night.

I also felt my age last night because I was schooled in the meaning of “pwn3d” — pronounced “poned.” It basically means getting embarassed or shown up. Which takes on a layer of irony because I was pwn3d when I didn’t know what pwn3d was. D’oh.

Yesterday, I also got another lesson in pop culture, which apparently has been around since 2006 but I’ve been too busy working and writing young adult novels to notice. It’s lolcats, and below I’ve pasted the original lolcat, which not only makes me laugh so hard I want to cry, but it also looks exactly like my own cat, Pancake.

STATUS:Totally digging Steven Speilberg. China is a walking human rights disaster and Speilberg finally pointed out the emperor has no clothes.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: The 3day.org site, which has information on a 60-mile walk to raise funds for breast cancer research. Yours truly (and a shiny, happy colleague) will be participating this September.

I love that the little beagle Uno won Best in Show at Westminster, but now I’m worried that everyone and their brother will want a beagle as a pet. They’re deliciously cute as puppies, but they’re a ridiculously challenging breed. I know this because I own one. So, seriously, if you know anyone considering the purchase of a beagle, please have them stop and really, really consider whether this is the breed for them. Because, among other things, they’ll need to:

- Have huge amounts of space for the beagle to run around in, and be willing to exercise said beagle all the time. Twice a day at minimum. For the first year, anticipate that your dog will never be tired. Not once.

- Listen to howling. Beagles are vocal. You will lose sleep. Accept this now.

- Come to terms that you will be ignored, and discipline won’t be easy. To say beagles are stubborn is to say Britney has problems, which doesn’t begin to describe the drama and difficulty, which your neighbors will witness as your own breed (pardon the pun) of local paparazzi.

- Understand that loyalty is almost nonexistent. The mailman? Your beagle loves them more than you the minute they see them walking in the distance. Those other people at the dog park? Just anticipate that your dog will spend more time with them than you. This just isn’t a loyal breed.

Of course there are up-sides to owning a beagle. When I think of them I’ll post them. Just kidding. We love our dog — he’s happy, fun, cute as a button, and cuddly at night when he’s tired. We are dedicated dog owners but it’s been a long road with lots of challenges. We even had Amos up for adoption for a bit, and a wonderful family took him in but eventually brought him back. So we figured that was the universe telling us this was our dog and we’d just better learn to live with him. Ultimately, that was the right thing for us to do. But I wish someone had told me at the outset what owning a beagle would really be like.

STATUS: Not surprised Kid Rock is jail. Slightly surprised that Dumbledore is gay.

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: The site for those of us who wish to look like Alec Baldwin. Don’t miss the FAQ or About Us pages.

This was one of those perfect fall weekends that makes your heart ache it’s so pretty. So, instead of blathering on about the colors, the smell on the breeze, or how freaking cute the dog was the whole time, I’m just going to post more pictures. You know what they say — a thousand words and whatnot. Also, it was Mrs. Hess’ birthday, so that last one is of us celebrating at the French Laundry in Fenton. Yummy!

STATUS:Eeeeelaaaaine! Eeeeelaine!

FAVE LINKEY-POO RIGHT THIS SECOND: http://www.engrish.com/ Happy bruising … I mean browsing.

So, this past weekend Rob and I went up to our little cabin in the woods for a much-needed break. It was late on Friday by the time we headed up there, and we were on some desolate backroads in the pitch dark. At one point, Rob said, “I’m going slow because there are a lot of deer out here.” No sooner had he said that when we saw a glowy pair of eyes in the bushes. Rob slowed waaaaay down and then, suddenly, the deer came galloping out of the bushes and started heading straight for us. Rob pulled the car way over to the side of the road to avoid the deer, but I think it was Cujo deer or something. It was after us. We were almost at a complete stop when — wham — the deer smacked into the side of the car.

Rob and I kind of looked at each other for a second, and I of course pictured a dead, mangled deer on the road and a crumpled left-side of the car. But neither of those things happened. Like a bad hangover, the deer shook it off and trotted on. And my car was fine, save for a couple little indentations and a few tufts of deer fur stuck to the door. So I guess Rob and I are, like, the two people in America who have been hit by a deer, versus the other way around. Why is this not surprising to me?

After we recovered from being practically run off the road by Bambi, we were able to have a blast at the cabin. Amos, too. Here’s a picture of him, running around and being silly. Like the beagle he is.

Yay fall! 

STATUS: Dandy Warholled. Rob’s been on a kick listening to them and I’ve followed suit. We used to be friends, a long time ago.

There’s been an editing delay. I KNOW, you were as anxious as me to find out what Stacey was going to recommend-slash-change, but I guess we’ll have to wait until next week to find out. Bummer.

In the meantime, I’ve decided I need a miniature poodle. This is entirely logical and I don’t care what anyone says — carrying a tiny dog in a purse is NOT retarded. This past weekend I visited a little pet boutique shop called Toys and Teacups and almost walked away with a miniature black and white poodle. Who I may or may not have named Puddin. Only there was one itsy bitsy (like Puddin) problem: He’s $2200. [Insert heart attack here.]

Oh, did I mention Rob doesn’t think this is a fantastic idea either? I totally see his point. I do NOT need a $2200 miniature poodle.

But dammit, I WANT one.

Waaaaaaaaaah.