You look amazing!

I'm going to start this off by saying that as fun as it would be to write a recap blog post after the season finale of every Bachelor/Bachelorette, I'm never watching the show again.


That being said... I AM FULLY AWARE of how hard I bashed last season with Ben and Courtney. Because it was stupid. (And for the record, it was one of the lowest rated/appreciated seasons in history. And they're still together? What?) This season, unfortunately, was kind of maybe a little bit good I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I KNOW I SHOULD HAVE BETTER TASTE THAN THAT AHH FRICK ME I'M SO EMBARRASSED. But that's why I'm never watching it again. It'll end on a good note.


Whatever. In spite of my plummeting dignity, I'll be the first to second the statement that Emily Maynard was one of the best, if not THE best (not the best, the best was probably the first one, but we'll take second, thank you) bachelorette in history. And she had the greatest final three guys in history. Whatever. I'm going to say whatever a lot this post.


...whatever.


BACK STORY.


Okay. So once upon a time, there was Emily Maynard, and her fiancé died in a plane crash, and she had his baby and named her after him, and she decided to be one of the three classy women to ever appear on the Bachelor, and surprisingly "won." Unfortunately, her new fiancé dumped her, so in the long run, she lost. And she still had this daughter that needed taking care of, so obviously, it was reality TV to the rescue. Again.

I already explained the whole process of Bacheloretting in one of my previous posts, so I don't think another derision of how ABC is destroying love is necessary. And I can't explain what all happened until you kind of figure out what's going on. So I decided I would psychoanalyze (some of) the guys so you could at least pretend you knew what was going on.


DESTRUCTION OF CHARACTER a la LYDIA.
These are the important ones, or the ones I didn't forget.


Arie.
I know what you're thinking. "Who names their kid Arie?" Well, he's foreign, so get over yourself. Arie is a race car driver from Arizona who likes to do all the normal things that every normal person does, and really likes to make out, according to these last ten publicly broadcasted weeks. Arie was the favorite from the beginning, as evidenced by Emily's actions, Emily's feelings, celebrity media's expert opinion, America's observations, and pretty much everything other than the season finale. Woops. Personality-wise, he's a pretty chill, nice guy, but according to the outtakes, he might actually be funny. Too bad no one noticed.


Joe.
Emily went on a date with Joe because she thought he looked like Matthew McConaughey.
He does not look like Matthew McConaughey. 


Kalon.
Everyone hated Kalon. He showed up in a helicopter with Louis Vuitton luggage. Mistake. That in and of itself should give you enough insight into his personality right there, but, alas, there's more. He also was rude, abrasive, unthinking, and called her daughter baggage. Emily told him to "#*&# #%$#@% *%&#*@."  (not really, but basically) I would say that I think Kalon was a little misunderstood, and that as he was brought up in the rich community, in context, he might not be such a jerk. Unfortunately, rich people are usually jerks, so that really doesn't help his case. I'll stop now.


Charlie.
Charlie hit his head a long time ago and that was basically the only cool thing about him. I'm sure he was great.

Ryan.
Ryan told Emily he wanted a trophy wife. He told her she couldn't get fat if they got married. He wrote her a seven page letter two weeks after meeting her. HE SHAVED A PATTERN INTO HIS BEARD. He used every pick up line imaginable and the only things that made them bearable were Arie's reactions. He was real smooth, smooth enough to almost talk her out of sending him home. He usually made me worry, but when he told Chris Harrison (the host) that he was excited to get married and chase his wife around the kitchen with a spoon, I fell off the couch laughing.


Stevie.
Stevie was really cool because he was a party MC and could dance. Then...he wasn't. 
I don't know. He fought with Kalon a lot, and I started to side with Kalon because Stevie wouldn't SHUT UP.


Alejandro.
I heard he was nice, but I didn't pay attention. I was too distracted by the phrase "Mushroom Farmer" that appeared under his name every time he talked, and I spent the half of the season that he was present convinced that he was a drug dealer.


Alessandro.
He was boring and scary and had a weird name and looked like a grandpa.


Travis.
I would probably want Travis to be my best friend. He showed up on the first night with an egg that he said "symbolized their relationship" and how he would take care of it, and apparently he sang to it and tucked it in to bed every night.
He lost.


Aaron.
Aaron was a biology teacher, so I thought, "Hey, maybe he's cool!" and then after a while I thought, "Hey...maybe not." He got sent home at the same time as the guy who looked exactly like him whose name I can't remember. The end.


Chris.
Chris pretty much fell in love with Emily the first night, and acted that way until the very end, all the while making Lydia more uncomfortable than she has felt in a very long time. I don't know if I was the only person who felt this way, and I very well might have been, but every time Emily said, "Chris is so hot," I thought, "WHY?" and when she would say things like, "He's so sweet and he makes me feel so comfortable!" I would think, "HOW?" and when she would talk about how he seemed more mature than he actually was, I would think, "NO!" And pretty much every rose ceremony he would look so scary and intense that I would cling to the couch in fear and wonder why the heck she called his name and found it attractive when he grinned at her like a hungry hyena.


Doug.
Doug was a daddy, so he got an extra bonus for that. He was super nice and stuff, and he really liked Emily, and he got the "first impression rose," which means absolutely nothing except a free pass to Go and collecting $200. I'm also pretty sure he was friend zoned on national TV. Bummer.


Tony.
Tony was also a daddy. He was so much of a daddy, in fact, that he went home because he missed his son so much, according to Emily's jurisdiction and his wishes. I know it sounds like he got dumped, but he actually stopped crying when she told him she thought it was best if he left, so no one really knows what happened.


Jef.
Jef was Emily's schoolgirl crush of the show. She had more obvious connections with some of the guys, but she was secretly obsessed with him and how cool he was. I mean, come on, he showed up on a skateboard. He also had his own company that built wells for impoverished countries. She would basically stare at him and then wonder why he wouldn't talk to her, even though she was too nervous to talk to him, and then ask him later why he didn't like her. He was totally the same way, and it really would have been cute if they were still in high school.
Also, every time he saw her, he said, "You look amazing!" which is why I titled this post the way I did. Also because I am uncreative and sleepy.


Nate.
I think Nate cried.


John.
John introduced himself by saying that all his friends called him "Wolf," and he put it in his description, so everyone read John "Wolf" every time he said something. For the entire show, no one knew any good reason why anyone would ever call him "Wolf." Therefore, no one called him "Wolf," ever, and it was so awkward. But then he wore pink pants to one of the final events. That was fun.

Michael.
No one gave Michael a chance. He was a rehab counselor with a ponytail.
In other words, HE SHOULD HAVE WON.

Sean.
No one knows why he didn't win, but it's okay, because he might be the next Bachelor. He never said anything wrong. He was so nice to her and never a jerk to anyone and just a big hunk of...well, honestly, we could just stop at hunk, but he was also a big hunk of love. And a hunk of hunk. During one of the dates, when they talked to her mom friends, he said, "I think our families would blend well because they're both centered on family and faith." Their response? "Would you take off your shirt?"


BRIEF REHASH OF (subjective) IMPORTANT EVENTS.


So Emily's kind of boss, and decided to hand out an extra flower a couple of times, and send some people home in some under-the-table (polite) kind of ways, and that, I think, is a tribute to her desire to actually maybe form something meaningful. I mean... she has a daughter. And she sent home people because they had different goals for family life, or different perspectives of how a home should be. The result? She ended up with the best final three men in Bachelorette history: Sean, Jef, and Arie, who I already gushed about plentifully.


The night she completely gained my respect (on the Bachelorette? Wait what is respect?) was when she was supposed to hand out the fantasy suite invitations, a.k.a., the sex tickets. The three guys, in any other season, would basically get a free pass into her room all night. If she wanted them too. Which apparently was key, because Emily gave both Sean and Jef (she actually had the sense to say she didn't trust herself with Arie, which...was awkward, yet still smart), but she told Sean after giving it to him that she wanted to preserve a good standard for her child and for her family, and that even though they could hang out for a little while, that she would send him home before anything happened. Then she gave it to Jef, with the intention of repeating the phrase above, except before she could, he told her that he wanted to preserve a good standard for her child and for her family, and that he didn't think it would be a good idea if anything happened.


I'll just fast forward to the end. He won.


Yes, it was sad when Arie got dumped, and supes awk, because he was all stoked to propose to her, but he didn't know that Emily had already announced to America that she picked Jef, as well as secretly decided to introduce him to her daughter, who loved him, and, of course, that was the end of that. So Arie just got to brim with excitement for their last date while we just sat there groaning the whole time.
...I cried.

But then Jef proposed with the biggest flipping ring I've ever seen.
...and I cried.
And then her daughter ran out and they all hugged.
...and I cried.


...and everyone laughed at me.


So naturally, I really hope that they last because then MY TEARS WON'T BE IN VAIN.
Have a nice life. I apparently don't have one anymore.


fin.

Because she isn't dead.

Today, as many of you realize, is July 11th. It is the day that copper mines were legalized in Chile, the birthday of Kyrill, Prince of Preslav, and the deathday of Bob Sheppard, New York Yankees and New York Giants announcer. But most importantly (not really, but this is what I'm going to write about), this is the day that my beloved doggy turns one. I've been trying to write something about her for a very long time (this post will have no flow at all), because she's something of an adventure, and it's actually kind of exciting to me that I finally get to post this.

So. In honor of her living, this is Coda's life story:

Once upon a time, there were some dogs of nondescript origin that had a baby, and then a bunch of people adopted her, and now she's ours.

Now for the nonsense.

Coda is a very special dog, and I mean that in every sense of the word. When we got her, she almost knew how to sit and lie down, and was a little potty trained. (In the long run, we all know that there really is no middle ground between "not potty trained" and "potty trained.") Since her arrival, however, her ability for tricks has expanded, and she is now capable of

• only pooping in the grass.
• only peeing in the grass.
• letting us bathe her.
• running through the poop after her bath.
• sitting (she can't lie down anymore).
• shaking paws.

When I first met Coda, she growled at me very viciously, because she had been adopted while I was away being a studious little collegiate. She could be a very promising guard dog, as she holds her ground up until she sniffs you, and then immediately becomes your best friend. So if she never sniffed the burglar, it would be fine.

Coda is, like every good American, of questionable descent, and no one knows exactly which breed she came from. She's probably part lab and part shepherd, as she looks exactly like a lab, but with a more pointed nose and ginormous bat ears that point up when she becomes interested in looking into our windows. She's black. Which contrasts nicely with the rest of the albinos that live in this house.

I call her lots of things (dog, Coda, puppy, sweetie, honey, it's like she's my child and this is kind of weird). I usually just let whatever name rolled off my tongue be the one I called her by, and hoped that she would realize it was her if I used my ridiculously high pitched quirky dog owner voice. You know that voice, the one you only use for dogs and babies. The one that every person uses to say, "Come here puppy! Come on! Ohh who's a good boy!?" whether they're talking to a baby Labrador or a wolf. But yeah. It's for that reason that most of the names I gave her sounded idiotic, and also the reason that I somehow ended up always calling her Boog. Or Boogy. Sometimes I mess up and call her Boob. Hopefully she doesn't start responding to that.
...not like we say that a lot...whatever.

Coda has a lot of gifts (you can refer back to her list of tricks). The other day she ripped the screen door, and we had to replace it, so she ripped it again. Also, whenever we eat (actually, whenever I eat, because she's figured out that I'm a sucker), she gazes at you pensively until you "drop" something, and if you decide not to "drop" something, or if she's unsatisfied with the amount you've dropped, she'll just keep gazing, and eventually rest her paw on your knee, and if that doesn't work, you have no soul. (They don't call them "puppy dog eyes" for no reason.) When you go to give her a treat, she immediately sits down and holds out her paw for us to shake because she's so used to what we expect of her. Also, before this summer, when I didn't spend as much time living at home, Coda discovered an effective way of using her cuteness and overactive bladder to interrupt all my phone calls with my mother.

Here are some fun facts about Coda: 
1. She's in heat. 
For those of you who don't understand, heat for a dog is like something else for a woman, but it lasts two weeks and only comes twice a year and gets all over your backyard.
2. She's terrified of ducks. I'm serious. 
We have a pool, and whenever the ducks come and land on it to swim around and poop in it, she starts barking for her life and ends up hiding in the side yard with her tail between her legs. Seriously. Once, a brown plastic bag landed on the pool, and she thought it was a duck, and she begged for ten minutes to get inside. It was pretty embarrassing.
3. She likes everyone better than me. 
4. She likes her dog food with ketchup.
5. She's not allowed on the furniture.
6. She takes naps on the couches when we're gone.
7. She is a supremely courageous shot-getter.

I think that's enough rambling for now. Have a nice day.