today twiddle thumbs's brother worked on our cars. i thought the deal was that we were going to get to her parents' house early and make everyone breakfast. it turns out, it was more like we were making breakfast for ourselves there. seemed a bit silly. as usual, we did the soyrizo and tofu thing and her parents thought it was eggs, not tofu. i made vegan pancakes and they seemed to like them. while her brother was working on our cars, there really wasn't much for us to do. it was hot as hell. waiting around in that heat was agony but working on cars in that heat must be torture. so we really owe her brother a great deal of gratitude for working on our cars for nothing in the heat. to think that i got new brake pads installed for the cost of parts only. that's the cheapest brake job i've ever had. i know i should learn to do these things myself but i gave away the few car maintenance tools i started to acquire to her brother years ago so that's partly why he works on my car i guess.

one thing i did to kill time was get the brilliant idea of taking their dog for a walk at high noon. her little sister warned us that the dog doesn't go for walks. i have never met a dog that doesn't love to go for a walk, that doesn't get crazy excited when you bring out the leash. and then i met this dog. it didn't move at all when i showed it the leash. no excitement. i thought we could just try walking one lap around the backyard for starters. it was the worst dog experience i have ever had. i think watching "the dog whisperer" must have gotten to my head. i tried to make it a pleasant experience for the dog. i didn't want to force it. but i also didn't want to baby it and spoil it more than it already has. it's time for the dog to grow up, so to speak. well, she wouldn't have it at all.

i tried to gently tug the leash to get her started and she wouldn't budge. once she finally started moving forward, she was doing the crocodile death roll to get the damn leash off. she started biting at the leash. at those moments i would say "no" and stop walking to adjust the leash so it was out of her mouth and fix the collar if it needed fixing. the cycle repeated. we didn't get far at all. i was getting very frustrated. she was biting the leash so much that her teeth started bleeding. i felt bad for the dog that she couldn't understand something so simple as to go for a walk but i can't feel pity for it. and i didn't want her to think she had won. you see, part of her mischief is that she was faking how bad it was. i could tell. she was breathing hard like she was exhausted. i wouldn't look at her and that breathing pattern would stop. then i'd turn my head to look at her and she would start up again.

at one point twiddle thumbs came out to see what was going on. i explained to her how the dog was pretending and told her not to look at the dog so she could see for herself. the breathing returned to normal, you couldn't hear it at all, and then twiddle thumbs turned her head to the dog and she started up again. after awhile of this sorta shit, i just wanted the dog to be calm and stop having a fit. i had given up on the idea of one lap around the backyard because the dog was hurting herself too much by pulling on the leash and trying to bite it. once the dog was breathing calmly for about 5 seconds straight i took off the leash. she bolted to her dog house and hid in there.

i think i went in the house and once the dog came back around i went back outside. she wouldn't come to me. she definintely didn't like me anymore. i just wanted to make sure she drank water because she exhausted herself in the struggle. i called her over and i was close to her water. i'm sure she didn't understand but i pointed to it and told her to have a drink. she finally came over and instead of drinking water, she sat in it like it was a bath. i guess she was hot, not thirsty!

twiddle thumbs and i hung out in the backyard and it wasn't long before the dog returned to hang out in her usual spot, close to where we were sitting. i told twiddle thumbs to give it a try, to try to walk her because i didn't think she would listen to me at all anymore. instead of letting the dog come to her to put on the leash, she went up to the dog and so the dog bit her. it freaked twiddle thumbs out and so that was the end of twiddle thumbs's attempt to walk the dog. there was obviously nothing more with the dog we could do that day. even if we had been successful and actually got the dog to walk even just one lap around the backyard to start teaching it that dogs go on walks, i don't think it would have done any good. her owner never takes her on walks and i'm not going over there everyday just to walk someone else's dog. the dog is spoiled and out of shape. of course it didn't want it walk and resisted.

we were still waiting for our cars so we went shopping to kill more time. big 5 was having a sale now that summer is coming to an end. we finally got a tent! we went to two different big 5 stores. the first one ran out of the tent on sale that we wanted. they called another store and put it on hold for us. i saw they had some other things i still need, like a tarp, but i figured i'll just get them at the second big 5 we're going to. well that second store didn't have any tarps! i don't think we ever brought a tarp when i was growing up but i learned in new zealand to be prepared for rain! that tarp enabled us to have a nice, dry breakfast.

when our cars were finished and we went home, it was just too damn hot. i couldn't sit there and do anything. just too hot to move. we decided to go to the movies immediately. went to see "rush hour 3". it was pretty funny. by now i think they're just trying to milk all the chinese vs. black racial jokes that they can. since it's a jackie chan film, it's still pretty tame and family-friendly but i think the "rush hour" series is his most adult releases for language and concepts.