Ornoth

I spent last weekend in Pittsburgh for my BFF Inna’s milestone birthday. First time I’d been there in a couple years.

As always, the main activity in da Burgh was eating. I had an interesting jalapeno steak & cheese at Fat Head in Southside; basil-laden slices from Aiello’s; fajitas at Mad Mex in Shadyside; and a bisonburger and a Nestle Crunch & Nutella frappe at Burgatory, which is in the Aspinwall Waterworks strip mall.

Non-food activities included a trip to the Regent Square Yard Sale, where I picked up a copy of the excellent Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for a dollar at the Wilkins School Community Center book sale.

I helped Inna find the Homestead Labyrinth, we visited her friends Jay & Amy, and stopped in at her mom’s to say hi, pet her cats Theo and Pumpy, and play Dominion (I won, despite it being my first time playing the game). And we got a galloping greeting from an orange tabby at the Shadyside Plaza pet store.

Of course, the main reason for the visit was to celebrate Inna’s birthday. I also finally got a tour of her new apartment, and we had some great conversations that covered topics like meditation practice, our interaction patterns, and how habits work.

But of more interest to you are probably the two running gags we christened. The first came about thanks to Inna’s habit of continually scanning the area around her for dogs. While crawling through Regent Square traffic she exclaimed, “Puppy!!! Uhh… no… WHAT?!?” as she did a double-take at the man walking his beagle-sized black pig on a leash in the park. That was pretty priceless.

Equally amusing was my expression of frustration at a sign advertising “fresh corn” in May. Obviously it wasn’t local, “It probably had to be flown in from some place like Iguanastan.” Aside from the awesome new place-name I’d coined, the joke was immortalized moments later when we passed a native Iguanastani woman in a hijab walking nearby.

All told, a pretty good visit, and it was great seeing Inna—and da Burgh—again, especially since it wasn’t in frozen February!

Is nothing sacred anymore?

Fifteen years ago, in northern Maine, a little kittycat was born. A certain little girl saw him and gave him the name “Pug”, which was later modified to “The Puggle”. He’s been my roommate now for eleven years.

Now, there have always been synonyms for “puggle”. Everyone knows that a baby echidna is called a puggle. And certain Brit quarrymen use a tool they call a puggle.

But this is too much. People who, having way too much time on their hands, make a habit of cross-breeding dogs have gone One Step Beyond. They caused beagles to have extramarital relations with pugs, and have dubbed the resulting offspring “puggles”, as you can see at the breed’s official homepage, puggle.org. They have apparently become all the rage in the doggy world. Me and my roommate… we find it repugnant.

As you and I know, there can be only one Puggle. The self-cleaning Eviscerator who also cleans bike chains, camps out in bass drums, and flosses before and after meals. An avowed misogynist who has earned the seasonal nickname Puggle Claws, whose only known weakness is strength-sapping sunbeams. He’s the One True Pug, who likes to “reach out, touch face”, and remember: it’s not sex unless Puggle is watching.

“You call that a Puggle? Naw, mate… That’s a Puggle!”