She was a star from the get-go, as evidenced by her photo shoot (above) for an Omaha World-Herald features article when she was just two months old, shortly after we adopted her from the Nebraska Humane Society.
Tom Cruise might have had Renée Zellweger at "hello," but Molly had Mrs. Favog and me when we saw that patch.
Almost a decade later, Molly had the opportunity to flex her doggie method-acting muscles for a spoof of that infamous Tiger Woods post-scandal Nike ad. (No actual canine pee was deployed for the video -- just tap water. But Mollster really sold it, didn't she?)
TRULY, our little Molly was one of a kind. Our hearts now are broken.
It started with the sleet Wednesday. "It" is what this Omaha World-Heraldarticle refers to in today's editions -- a rare May snowfall:
The 3.1 inches of snow that fell overnight in Omaha set three records for May - but not a fourth. Omaha now has two new daily records and a monthly record, but not a new calendar day record, according to Barbara Mayes, meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Because the snow straddled midnight, it set two daily records: • 1.9 inches on May 1 exceeded the previous record of 0.2 inches for that date in 1911; • 1.2 inches on May 2, the first recorded snowfall on that date. On the other hand, because the snowfall straddled midnight, neither single day accumulated enough snow to exceed the 2 inches that fell May 9, 1945. That remains the most snow to fall on a single calendar day in May. Until this year, it was also the most snow to fall in the entire month of May in Omaha. This year's 3.1 inches breaks that monthly record. The 2.7 inches that fell in Lincoln Wednesday and Thursday set two daily records, Mayes said: • 2.5 inches on May 1, first recorded snow on that date; • .02 on May 2, first recorded snow on that date.Neither day's total was enough to beat the calendar day set on May 3, 1967, when 3 inches fell. That amount also remains the monthly record for May in Lincoln.
MOLLY THE DOG couldn't believe her eyes. She knew this wasn't supposed to be "cold white stuff time." It's supposed to be "hot tickly stuff under paws time." This confused her greatly. In fact, her confusion was such that bad consequences began to stem from it.
LIKE THIS. After surveying the shocking scene outside, the poor thing began to lose corporeal integrity. Over the next few minutes, it got worse and worse. And then. . . .
And then. . . . And then, Molly the Dog was but a vaporous presence. I'd hear a mournful "WOOOOOOOOOOO!" and see what seemed to be a ghostly apparition shambling around the house. Soon enough, all that was left was the "WOOOOOOOOOOO!" It was awful. It hadn't even begun to properly snow yet. COME THIS MORNING, this (below) is what we found when we opened the front door. On May freakin' second. Snow. Slushy snow covering the front stoop. Soupy snow covering the driveway and street. Heavy, wet snow covering the greening lawn. Shoveling off the stoop and the front walk was like shoveling the last half of a Slurpee. It was like the Jolly Green Giant spilled his snow cone -- hold the syrup. It sucked. Sucked worse than a snow cone with no syrup, because with that, at least you have shaved ice on a hot summer's day. MAY 2, Omaha, Neb., was no hot summer's day. Or even a lukewarm one. It was a windy-ass, snowy-ass day. Halfway through spring. I think Molly the Dog may have had the right idea with that losing-physical-integrity thing, dammit.
I know we live in interesting times, which dictate that we hate those whose politics differ from our own -- especially if they're president -- but I say you just can't hate a man who puts this out as the White House Christmas card. This is because there's at least a spark of good in anyone who loves a dog. Particularly when he puts that dog -- in this case, Bo the First Dog -- on a Christmas card as charming as the one above.
Molly the Dog, who is Important
I agree with President Obama on many things and passionately disagree with him on other things, particularly the social issues, but at this time of year, when it seems to me we ought to go the extra mile to see the humanity -- and the divine spark -- in our fellow man, there's only one thing you can say: Merry Christmas, Mr. President. If you're in the neighborhood, drop by for some egg nog -- or some adult beverages. We can talk sports and music, and we can solve a few of the world's problems while we're at it. And give Bo an extra dog treat. He's a good boy.
I have pretty much drifted through my adult life, doing a little of this and some of that, but still not knowing my true vocation.
No more. Praise the Lord, I saw the light.
I now know what I was meant to do in life, and I owe this big change in my aimless existence to a couple of big, big dogs by the names of Sadie Sue and Boo Radley. We have been foster pet-parenting the old girl and her big little brother for the past couple of months while their real parents' house has been torn asunder and put back together in a radically different order. I think the technical term for this is "remodeling," and the aim of this major surgery -- involving sledgehammers, flooring, cabinetry, lots and lots of drywall, lots and lots of tile, lots and lots of construction workers, stainless-steel appliances and a stained-steel I-beam that now holds up the second story -- has been to create the "Kitchen of the Future."
Which, after all this time, labor and -- yes -- money is starting to look a lot like the woo-doo Kitchen of Today.
ANYWAY, I have been reliably informed that big, big dogs and construction workers coming and going is not an optimal combination. So we got the dogs instead of the cool new kitchen.
I know, Molly the (little, little) Dog. It sucks to be you. You will be rewarded with limitless dog treats as you await Mama and me at the Rainbow Bridge when your time on earth is done. Soooooooo . . . back to my true vocation. These slobbery and hairy weeks at La Casa Favog, as it turns out, have been a time of self-discovery for yours truly. At age 51, to my great surprise, I seem to have an innate talent heretofore unknown to me.
I am a great hair sweeper-upper. An artiste with a broom, as it turns out.
And I just wanted to share this with you. See the top picture? Some of my handiwork from this afternoon. I do this every day, three times a day -- take hairy floors in the living room and kitchen and sweep them clean, creating neat little mountains of fur and then dispatching them out the back door.
I'LL BET the rabbits and squirrels are scared spitless at the overwhelming scent of danger that now wafts over their previously unremarkable universe. Tee hee. Just a little devilish lagniappe that comes with my new career, which I discovered on Monsters.com.
After 5½ years of college and decades of drifting between this dead end and that, I now know I can step right into a fulfilling life as a minimum-wage barber-shop floor sweeper.
It's not everybody who, thanks to a couple of monster dogs and a yappy one, stumbles into a perfect career for the new economy. I am a lucky man.
They have neber been a mor biger threat to our charish Amerikan ideels then thiss. It am not souprizeing thet it's comms from Iowa, where peeples is commerniss. And meen.
I wil not go to Iowa no more, bekuz the commerniss thayr wil put me in jayl for being all abowt free x-presshun and thee rite to re-dres greevances kommitd aginst you. I do not like the Iowa kops, bekuz thay are agunts of a repressiv regeeme.
THEE PRUFE of Iowas commernisum is hear in this artikl from thee Asocciated Paws. Uh, Press:
A man accused of urinating on the office chairs of fellow office workers in West Des Moines has surrendered to police.
Raymond Foley, 59, turned himself in Saturday to face a charge of second-degree criminal mischief.
Foley declined to comment Tuesday, other than to acknowledge that he no longer works at the Farm Bureau office in West Des Moines.
Police say some co-workers had complained about stains on their chairs. A security system was installed, and police say it caught Foley in the act.
ME HOPE the Iowas free x-pressur gets a gud lawyer whoo don't like cats. I rekommenn Sadie. She forgets stuf sumtimez, but she can still bite gud.
Tell her the Iowas commerniss kops is skwrruls. Totaliterryun oppressurs is whut thay reely is.
Molly the Dog can't believe it. She thought the humans were supposed to be the smart ones.
Silly dog.
I suppose it would be too much to assume that the canine on the Milk-Bone box is named Mini. I suppose it's too much to assume that both dogs on the boxes of Milk-Bone "Mini's" answer to Mini.
And I suppose it would be a really gigantic stretch, at this point, to assume the United States hasn't become a nation of blithering illiterates.
OR THAT in another 20 years, as Americans devolve into communicating by a series of grunts and clicks, creatures such as my little friend Molly will come to be known as "the articulate ones."
For all I know, she already may have better mastery of the difference between possessives and plurals than your average U.S. high-school graduate.
Come to think of it, that may explain why, after giving the box of treats a good going over, Molly looked at me, cocked her little head and asked "What the hell, Dad?"
This house is run with a firm hand, which happens to be a paw.
Molly the Dog is the boss of us, and she knows this. Her pets deny her nothing, especially since the sad passing of Scout the Dog.
It's OK. Molly the Dog is a kind-hearted and benevolent master -- just so long as she gets hugs, is fed on time and gets to lounge in the big, blue chair.
A few centuries of religious wars, Karl Marx, the Franco-Prussian War, World War I, Adolf Hitler, World War II and the Berlin Wall apparently weren't enough for Everybody's Favorite Troublemakers.
No, that wasn't enough, because they largely left out the dogs. Until now. Until Gunther and Georg decided that multinational conglomerates need to start targeting ads at our pets, not just our kids.
If there's anything I don't need, it's Molly and Scout watching their favorite shows on television, and then pestering me after every Beneful commercial just like I did my parents for Great Shakes, G.I. Joe and a Gilbert American Flyer train set.
But no. It's not enough that me and the missus drag our sorry asses to Hy-Vee every week to get dog food by the sackful for the two simple-minded loafers getting dog hair all over our couch while we're out of the house.
Now we have to have the little bastards reminding us that it's either a sack of Beneful atop the fridge or a puddle of piss on the dining-room floor.
AND WOULDN'T you know that, according to Reuters, the people destined to throw the world into chaos every generation or three, those g*ddamn Krauts, are behind the whole doggone thing:
Nestle, one of the world's biggest makers of pet food, said on Friday it had launched the first television commercial designed especially for dogs, using a high-frequency tone to grab their attention.
"Dogs' hearing is twice as sharp as humans. They can pick up frequencies which are beyond our range and they are better at differentiating sounds," said Georg Sanders, a nutrition expert at Nestle Purina PetCare in Germany.
Nestle asked experts in pet behavior in the United States to research what would appeal to dogs and used the results to create the 23-second commercial for its Beneful dog food brand.
The advert, to be screened on Austrian television this week, features a tone similar to a dog whistle, which humans can barely hear, as well as an audible "squeak" like the sound dogs' toys make and a high-pitched "ping."
"So delicious, so healthy, so happy," ends the commercial in German, which features a dog pricking up his ears.
"The television commercial aims to reach both the pet and the owner, supporting the special one-to-one relationship between them," said Xavier Perez, Brand Manager of Beneful for Europe.
NO, IT'S NOT enough that Molly yaps and yaps and yaps at me when it gets within two hours of meal time, and that the elderly Scout attaches his creaky little body to my leg like a furry tumor. Now it's going to start in the middle of Rin Tin Tin reruns whenever the Beneful commercial comes on.
"DAD! DAD! DAD! Beneful! Now! Get Beneful! Food! Food! Get Beneful! Now! We'll pee!"
Scout the Dog (left) and Molly the Dog happily pose inside the semiwarm house Tuesday on a frigid, icy Omaha afternoon.
They tell me it beat going outside -- it was, like, 1 below zero at the time -- that it seemed to amuse me, and that they try to be indulgent toward their pets.I can't speak for Mrs. Favog, but this pet is grateful for his masters' beneficence.
It's not enough that Nike is trying to profit off Tiger Woods' bad behavior; now it's trying to make a buck off my dog Molly. I certainly hope she negotiated a good contract, though I have my doubts.
They're probably paying her in dog treats. She's not bright, you know.
They even have a slogan: "Your dog poops, our shovel scoops!"
Seems to me a reasonable price, and one I'm sure many yard-conscious Omahans would be willing to pay. I, however, am not one of those yard-conscious Omahans.
THE FIRM also will mow, weed and fertilize your yard. But here's the deal, at least from my perspective as the neighborhood lawn reprobate: Leave the poop, and you don't have to fertilize.
Because,you see, I have a slogan, too. But I can't say it here.
Oh, what the hell. Parents, take your kids away from the computer screen.
Here's my slogan, which has worked surprisingly well for me the past 21 years. Ready? Kids safely dispatched?
OK. "My dog s***s, and there it sits." Go ahead, call the neighborhood association. I wouldn't blame you.
Tell them to watch their step, though, when they come to take me away.
Have a houseful of dogs, especially those of the yappy variety? Has your locality just been smacked good by a blizzard?
Are the drifts in your back yard deep enough for Fido to disappear into, never to be seen again . . . at least until spring?
Well, Bucko, Revolution 21's Blog for the People and 3 Chords & the Truthhave the helpful hints you needed yesterday.
Follow your host, the Mighty Favog, as he shows off the Wintertime Canine Superhighway of Bidness Doing. All you need to keep your furry friends happy, dry and . . . alive . . . is a snow shovel and the basic knowledge one can gain from listening to Frank Zappa's 1974 album Apostrophe(').
AND ALL you need to remember is "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow":
Dreamed I was an Eskimo (Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da) Frozen wind began to blow (Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da) Under my boots 'n around my toe (Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da) Frost had bit the ground below (Boop-boop aiee-ay-ah!) Was a hundred degrees below zero (Booh!) (Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da) And my momma cried: Boo-a-hoo hoo-ooo And my momma cried: Nanook-a, no no (no no . . . ) Nanook-a, no no (no no . . . ) Don't be a naughty Eskimo-wo-oh (Bop-bop ta-da-da bop-bop Ta-da-da) Save your money: don't go to the show Well I turned around an' I said: HO HO (Booh!) Well I turned around an' I said: HO HO (Booh!) Well I turned around an' I said: HO HO An' the Northern Lites commenced t' glow An' she said (Bop-bop ta-da-da bop . . . ) With a tear in her eye: WATCH OUT WHERE THE HUSKIES GO AN' DON'T YOU EAT THAT YELLOW SNOW WATCH OUT WHERE THE HUSKIES GO AN' DON'T YOU EAT THAT YELLOW SNOW
WELL, THAT'S ALL your fearless leader has for you right now, my children. So, until next time, this is Mighty (Nanook) Favog signing off.