Sad day/Almost happy day

Hello from Sidney,

Strange title, you say? Well, yesterday was a sad day because one of my favorite comedians, Richard Jeni, killed himself. I can almost guarantee that you've never heard of Richard Jenni, but the man was a comic genius. He is probably only remembered from his starring role in the short-lived comedy series, Platypus Man (here's a link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112124/ ).

He was brilliant, but the show was pretty much boilerplate comedian-in-a-sitcom schtick. I seem to remember it was cancelled mid-season.

On the other hand, it was almost a happy day because the wife's little idiot orange Pomeranian (Fizzy) NEARLY choked to death on a piece of steak. It sounds horrible, but it was actually pretty funny.

The story goes like this: Chase, the boy, didn't want to eat his pot roast, so he was surreptitiously dropping large-ish bits of steak onto the ground in the hopes that one of the 100 pound German Shepperds would happen by and relieve him of the trouble of having to eat it. However, funnily enough (my own expression, thank you), the only dog small enough to fit under the table undiscovered was the 5 pound Pomeranian.

She took advantage of this once in a lifetime (for her, anyway) opportunity and began "wolfing" down the meat. Sadly, depending on your perspective, having no teeth, and an esophagus roughly the size of a soda straw, she got it just past the back of her throat where it wedged rather nicely.

Now, Chase and I both heard her scrambling about under the table, but neither of us particularly care for this dog, so we didn't bother looking under to see if she was actually in any kind of trouble. Also, Chase didn't really want to bring any attention to his underhanded activity, so he was doubly not interested in checking it out.

Fortunately, again depending on your perspective, Suzanne sensed the danger from the other room and came a-runnin'. She dove under the table and pulled her out, and began trying to pry her little jaws apart. It was pretty obvious at that point that something wasn't right, and Chase and I nearly paid attention. (Neither of us like this damn dog, remember.)

She finally jammed her fingers down the dog's throat but couldn't get her fingers around the half-dollar size piece of meat. So, she decided if she couldn't get it out, she'd help jam it the rest of the way down her throat.

When I saw this, my medical training immediately came to the fore, and I let her know that she was probably jamming the food down the dog's trachea, and not her esophagus. I guess the wife figured it was worth the risk and finally got it all the way down.

Well, long story short, the little dog's tongue went from blue back to pink and she survived. I guess it wasn't her trachea after all.

After the wife got done yelling at Chase, she took the dog into her bedroom to love all over her or something. This whole time, we neither of us stopped eating dinner or even got up from the table, for that matter. I looked over at him and he looked back at me, and I asked him if he felt bad about nearly killing the dog. He said, "Nah, I don't really like that dog."

I said, "Yeah, neither do I." And we finished our dinner. He asked if he could have some dessert, but I told him no since he nearly killed the dog. He shrugged and went off to play on the computer. Who says I don't punish my kid??

Anyway, tomorrow is the release of God of War II, and we're all really excited. Well, me and the boys are anyway, the wife really couldn't care less. She's just not much fun, I guess.