The Royal Treatment pt 1: Dog Dreams become Dog Realities

I think it’s time for us to begin talking about this.

Royal Olives-Yeo

Long before our dog was even born, his name and breed had already been selected. I’ll admit, at first, I wasn’t too keen on the idea of a Golden Retriever, simply based on aesthetics. All the Goldens I’d seen in my life had seemed somewhat unkempt. In my misguided viewpoint, they looked so plain and ordinary to me. Nic, on the other hand, was convinced that a Golden was the dog for us. After some back and forth, I relented, inevitably realizing that I’d fall in love any dog…..except maybe a poodle.

So the search “began.” Quotes employed because we were living in San Francisco at the time and although we really wanted a dog, we knew that we wouldn’t really have the living space for a medium-to-large size dog that Golden’s tend to be.

About a year before our dog was born, his name (and sex, obviously) were decided. Nic and I love the film the Royal Tenenbaums and Nic suggested that we give our imaginary Golden the name of the Patriarch character played by Gene Hackman. Again, I should be forthright in admitting that I was neither excited about getting a boy dog (I’d always had girls) or the name of Royal. However, daydreaming about the invisible male Golden Retrieve we were yet to own, day in and day out, broke me down and I was ready to be in his presence.

The question then became, how do we get him? At this point in the story, we had moved out of the city to Santa Cruz, to ten acres of land, where it would be easy for us to raise a dog. Taunting us was a ready-to-be-reused dog pin, right outside of the unit we were living in where my sister had kept her two beautiful malamutes, Koyuk and Starr, some years earlier. If felt like owning a dog without actually having a dog. And it was a bit torturous.

Our searches online (Puppy finder, Puppy search, Doglist, Craigslist, whatever) returned very disappointing results. We weren’t trying to be cheapskates, but we also didn’t want to spend $2,000 on a dog (which is what most places were asking). We also wanted a puppy and there were no golden puppies up for adoption. Those of you who vehemently disapprove of breeders, and are angered by those who do not adopt are most likely fuming right now. You’ve every right to be upset, but like I said, we’d already had this imaginary dog in our minds for over a year, and it was hard to settle for anything else…not the greatest excuse, I know, but it’s true.

Nic worked with a woman who has a beautiful golden named Sunny. She had gotten Sunny through a breeder that she just happened to be friends with and who lived down the street from her in Sonoma. She mentioned to us in passing while we were still living in SF that they were going to be breeding their dog soon and that a litter would be ready in about 9 months. Well, at the time, 9 months seemed like an eternity and we thought we wouldn’t be able to wait. So we didn’t really consider that to be an option and continued on with our lives. Months went by, we moved, we were trying to acclimate to our new environment in Santa Cruz (still are), struggled with jobs, struggled with family, and all but forgot about Kate’s proposition. Then one day, the litter was born and Kate got in touch with us to see if we were still interested. The answer, of course, was yes. I contacted the breeders, put down a reservation deposit for one male golden puppy, sight-unseen and it was done. All that waiting, and hoping, and wishing and all of the sudden, we were about to be parents. The only rub was that we needed to wait until he was 8 weeks old before we could get him and we still had about a month to go.

Kate became our inside source, our on-the-scene reporter, if you will, who monitored the puppies progress. People who were calling or stopping by to see the puppies were already picking out the ones they wanted to take home with them, once they were of age, and since we were too far to select the puppy we wanted, we gave Kate the ok to be our official puppy selector. Our only requirements: Mellow. With that, we started getting daily photos of the ones she thought we’d like best. They were all cute, but the presses stopped when she sent us the picture of this one particular puppy they had temporarily named “Doc.” We immediately called Kate and said; “That’s the one!” and from that point on, he was no longer called “Doc.”

And so it was, on April 23rd, 2010, we climbed in the car, stopped in Oakland to get our friend and godfather-to-be, Ryan, and headed north to Sonoma to bring our son Royal home. When we arrived, Kate was in the yard holding him…and he quite literally, was perfect. It’s been six months now since that day we first met him and it’s hard for us to imagine him not in our lives at this point.

The Opposite of a Gearhead

Now, I’ll be the first person to admit that I know very little about cars – to perhaps an embarrassing extent. I like classic cars, that much I know. But I can point out very few and say, “Oh, I know what that is.” As my boyfriend put it, I’d probably be happy driving my 2005 Honda Civic the rest of my life. .

There is some truth to that, I suppose, though I do have interests in certain cars. Although not for the same reasons that most automobile aficionados do. Whereas some might prattle on about the power of a vehicle, or size of it, or it’s collectability, I will marvel over a car of small size, or odd shape or endearing (read: freakish) qualities, similar to how one is intrigued by a clown car. For example, I would buy a smart car. There size and shape alone makes me giddy every time I see one on the road. In my head, I imagine it making that bubbly Jetson hover-car sound that is instantly recognizable. As an added bonus, it’s energy efficient, so you can’t go wrong there. I’m having a difficult time convincing others that it’s a cool car, however. The closest I’ve come was the other evening when Nic and I were walking in the Fillmore. Parked on the street was a smart car painted entirely matte black. It looked like Batman’s bite-size batmobile. I was told that I may get one – but only if it were to look like that.

I’ve seen this three-wheeled car around town (Santa Cruz). It haunts me in a sense. It’s white with bright yellow trim. I’ve never seen the driver, so I’m convinced it’s remote controlled. In my attempts to find out what it is online, I came across a website dedicated to 3-legged vehicles. I think I may have to want to have one. They have such non-threatening names like the Sparrow, the Cursor, the Freeway, and my favorite, the Isetta. The Isetta was one of the most successful “microcars” in the years following World War II and was originally developed by an Italian company specializing in refrigerators – which would explain a lot in terms of how it looks.

My Brother-in-law just bought a 1962 red Chevy Nova. As soon as I climbed in, I felt like I was stepping back in time. And when he turned on the radio, music from its era appropriately emanated from the car’s speakers (once the radio transistors warmed up, that is). It’s got no bells and whistles (yet), just a great classic look and feel – like a distinguished grandpa.

I should probably be embarrassed that I’m (again) not exuding the required masculinity on yet another “man” topic. Truth is, I’m a big kid, and have surrendered to the fact that I probably always will be. So those of you sitting in judgment can go waste your money on your flashy mid-life crisis sports cars, while I will coast by you at a considerably slower speed in my grandpa clown car, flipping you the bird.

CUT TO: Attic, part 1

For some reason, I was curious to see how many films used "attic" in the title. I was dumbfounded to learn how many there are! Who knew? And this is a condensed list. I'm thinking a film festival is in order.

Flowers in the Attic (1987)

Aliens in the Attic (2009)

The Attic Expeditions (2001)

Toys in the Attic (1963)

Angels in the Attic (1998)

Man in the Attic (1953)

The Attic Door (2009)

Music in the Attic (1950)

The Attic (1980)

The Attic (2008)

Watcher in the Attic (1976)

Rachel's Attic (2002)

Three in the Attic (1968)

Voices from the Attic (1988)

Na pude aneb Kdo má dneska narozeniny? Translation: "In the Attic or Who Has a Birthday
Today?" (2009) -

Alice's Attic (2009)

A Man in the Attic (2007)

Attic Man (2004)

Dreams in the Attic (2000)

Don’t Look in the Attic (1982)

Monkeys in the Attic (1974)

Notes from the Attic (1993)

The Axe in the Attic (2007)

Attic of Terror (1937)

The House with an Attic (1960)

Glass from the Attic (1986)

In the Old Attic (1914)

L'attico (1962)

Love in an Attic (1923)

Our Attic (2008)

The Secret in the Attic (2005)

Static in the Attic (1939) - not to be confused with the line "Static in my attic" from B-52's Channel Z.

The Angel of the Attic (1916)

The Attic (2009)

The Attic Above (1914)

The Attic Princess (1916)

The Haunted Attic (1915)

The Little Girl of the Attic (1915)

The Man in the Attic (1914)

The Man in the Attic (1915)

The Portrait in the Attic (1915)

There's a Werewolf in My Attic! (2008)

They Came from the Attic (2009)

Up in Mary's Attic (1920) - this just sounds like porno.

Up in the Attic (2009)

Woman in the Attic (2003)

I didn't even bother to include TV shows with "attic" in the title, though I did come across a 2003 show from the Philippines called Oktapbang goyangi (Attic Cat) described as a show about "a rich lost-in-life college boy who wants the sexy rich girl who wants the successful business man who wants the poor but responsible girl who wants the rich lost-in-life college boy."

Graphic Content

I can’t have a blog about the attic without mentioning my comics….or as some would say, my “graphic novels”.

To begin, let me just say that I’m on the fence about that nom de plume for what most know of as a “comic book.” True, not all are funny or comical, and, in fact, the vast majority of them are not…still, “graphic novel”—as an alternative—just sounds like you’re trying to put a $10 whore in a $1,000 gown. They aren’t novels. If it were up to me, I’d call them “Illustrated Stories,” but that has no ring to it whatsoever. So for the purposes of “The Olive Attic,” I’ll just simply call them “comics.”

It’s true. I confess. I read comics. Go ahead, say what you need to. Call me what you will. I want us to get all the standard insults onto the table and out of the way. I know what images pop into your head when you hear that phrase. And, to be fair, I tend to think the same when I imagine the “type” of person who reads comics. Yes, as a recent attendee of Wondercon, you would actually be correct in that assumption and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why that is. Maybe it’s the sci-fi fan crossover. I don’t know. But there are a lot of us, though not enough, that don’t fit that mold. Still, in high school, and to a lesser extent now, I feel like I have to hide the fact that I read comics. It’s one of those topics you steer clear of in meeting people, like politics, religion, or being gay. And much like those hot topics, you have to read your audience before making that declaration.

Let’s turn back to how this all relates to the attic. In sorting through what’s there, I decided, much to my boyfriend’s chagrin, to catalogue my comics. My six long boxes worth of comics. I admit now, 500+ in with three and a half boxes left to go, that I may have taken on a bigger project than I initially thought it would be. Nic (boyfriend) doesn’t quite understand my interest in comics in the first place, and understands even less why I would want to spend hours inputting them into a spreadsheet, especially when it’s mirroring the database nature of my 9-5 job. But I think there’s some benefit to it. Amidst some fairly standard comic titles, I’ve come across weird comics that I forgot I bought like “Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew in the Oz/Wonderland War;” more issues than I care to admit of "Alf," "Bill and Ted's Excellent Comic Book," and, a comic called “Dead Clown,” which is just as creepy as it sounds.

I like to think of this process of archiving my comics much like someone would archive art for a museum. Though, that said, I don’t necessarily treat my comics like they are some sort of relics that can’t be touched at or read or exposed to the elements. Too many who collect them see it as a way to offset their income in their retirement. To them I say; “It’s not gonna happen.” There’s really not money to made in re-sale, no matter what condition you keep them in, unless of course you’re one of the 100 or so people in the world who still own Detective Comics #27 (first appearance of Batman) or something like that, which recently sold for $1,075,500. So why do I keep them, you ask? It’s most likely a nostalgia thing. But beyond that, I genuinely like them. I like the aesthetic of them. I like interesting panel layouts, I like the collaborative nature of writers & artists, and I like the soap opera nature of the stories. They’re immediately gratifying, and their short, 20-40 page temperament make for a quick escape when you’ve got a million or so other things going on in your life.

Urban Planning

My Family’s attic is fairly spacious but obnoxiously awkward to stand up in. It’s got an A-Frame set-up where you can only really stand erect without having to tilt to one side or the other in the very center of the A. And there are no windows, just the din and quiet hum of the florescent lights overhead. It was ok to play in there when I was a kid because I was short enough to not be bothered by the roof, but as an adult, it’s just a pain in the ass to have to go in there – Especially when you have to navigate around all the crap as well as watch out for cross beams, spider webs, and an awkwardly angled roof.

But in my younger days (a phrase that pains me to write), I’d spend a lot of time crawling around in there and subjecting my toys to kinds of odd storylines. I had a lot of different types of toys, so there was often a lot of crossover in regards to the adventures I chose to set them off on. For example, I had both Ninja Turtle toys as well as Ghostbuster toys, so in the middle of the Turtles trying to thwart some misdeed by the Shredder, there would be a ghost situation that needed handling that they were not equipped to deal with so they outsourced that job to the Ghostbusters. There was a lot of work distribution during my type of playtime and delegating authority was commonplace.

After many instances of this, I realized that this environment really needed some cohesive urban-planning. I mean, I had a sewer-system (Ninja Turtles); a firehouse (Ghostbusters), a mansion/batcave (batman), and a castle of sorts (He-Man/Castle Greyskull). I laid down some boards painted grey and voila, a city street. I thought I was a genius – a 10-year-old god amongst plastic men. Though now that I had erected my city, I became less interested in the denizens of it and more concerned with expanding their empire. I wanted to keep building. So I searched for other things to add to the neighborhood. A phone booth was installed (Bill & Ted toy), as was a police station (Police Academy – short-lived, terrible cartoon). Every time I visited a toy store, I’d try to imagine how I could incorporate some random playset into my town. Could Barbie be allowed to open a salon? Would the citizens appreciate a Hot Wheels racetrack? Perhaps Strawberry Shortcake could be permitted to open a fruit stand? It consumed me.

My city’s in boxes now, which is for the best. I was unable to set-up any sustainable commerce anyway so it was doomed to failure. Perhaps my current dislike for the show Robot Chicken stems from the fact that I’m simply jealous that, in their adulthood, they’re able to make money doing what I did as a kid.

The Ultimate Executive Lunch

This falls into the category of unclassifiable. It's not quite a joke, and not quite a self-help book. It's not really a sticker book, and it's definitely not a novel of any sorts.

To be honest, I've no idea where this came from or what its intended purpose was. What I suspect is that my dad, in all his good intentions, saw that I had an interest in scratch-and-sniff stickers, and came across this book, most likely at the dump or someplace similar where items like this are meant to be discarded and thought to himself; "my son will love this," and voila, I became the owner of it.

That was a frequent occurrence. He would notice my interest in something and get me an item or items along the line of that thing I liked but yet somehow not quite right. Kind of like a Mexican knock-off of a Batman toy where his batman logo on his chest is just wrong somehow. Words can't describe what exactly is wrong but you know it is. Kind of like a "what's wrong with this picture" puzzle.

Anyway, I digress. The Ultimate Executive Lunch by Professor Tymus Munney (oh, right, I get it) is a book, I believe, for those looking to lose weight. It purports that by simply smelling the scents of your favorite dishes, that your senses take over and you no longer have to ingest them, thereby putting on weight. From the book:

The removal of the taste sensations cleverly avoids the act of swallowing—so no ingestion of calories, cholesterol, salt, triglycerides and the many other components of food which, in one way or another, experts tell you are harmful. You are left with the Olfactory sensations of food—the mouth watering fragrances that assail the nostrils and stimulate the anticipation of the pleasures to come. The masterstroke of The Ultimate Executive Lunch is that it stops right there. No chewing, no swallowing, no wondering if it's good for you. Simply a menu each day to titillate and satisfy your sense of smell. No timewasting at the restaurant or staff dining room. No hassle with who pays the bill. No time away from the important task of making money. Just sit at your desk and scratch the labels for each day's Menu.

…And then it does just that. Page after page of "meals" like Stockholm Succulence (a scratch and sniff sticker of a sliced pickle), Hawaii Hello! ("a freshly macerated tropical fruit nectar"), Mexicana Iceberg (a sticker of a shrimp), Entente Cordial (cheese). If this sounds weird…you should smell it. And no, it did nothing to my hunger. In fact, it just made me hungrier.

Oh, and if you think that it's just a cure for fatties looking to cut back, it appears to serve a purpose for drunks as well. There is a whole cocktail section. My favorite? The Friday Treat…which smells curiously like a vodka tonic. And again…just made me thirsty for one…

The Diary of a Sixth Grader: Part 1, Nine Naughty Nanooks Knitting Ninety Nikes

And now, the first in an ongoing series which is a window into the soul of my younger self…in the form of my 6^th grade Classmate Composition Book. My teacher was Mrs. Cornett, my favorite during my time in middle school, and this was my day-to-day journal for the 1989-90 school year.

"After School"
September 7, 1989
After school I went to Erik's Deli and I got a bottle of apple juice it was good. Then I went home and took off my shoes! At 5:30pm I went to my piano lesson. I learned to play the cowboy blues and the tarantella I can't wait to play it. After my piano lesson we went to Carpos it was pretty good. When we got home I saw the kooky series Batman it was a good show and I'm going to see it tonight again if I get their [there] on time. Well I can't wait till today so I can have more learning and fun and meet lots of new friends. TiLL tomorrow.

"Untitled"
September 8, 1989
I am 3,002,420 and still living. I am totally healthy cough! cough! oh! Excuse me I must have a frog in my throat. I am very wise because I like to be wise. I help other people by giving them haircuts and going to the store for them. Well I will tell you how wise I am why just yesterday I found my cat! Oh yes their [there] was the time when I solved 2+2 and did you know what the answer was 4! hee! hee! well I hope I become taller tomorrow.

"Untitled"
September 13, 1989
Their [there] once was a beetle who tried to cross the road to get to the beach! brooom! Their [there] goes another car a Ferrari I think? Anyway the beetle tried and tried and took half of his day but he finally made it.

"Unbelievable Recipe"
September 19, 1989
I just created this unbelievable recipe it's called the blue and black and red and ornge [orange] phantom. It looks like an aliean [alien] from the planet crouton who has a cold. The ingredients are apples, lemons, cherries, grapes, pears, ornges [oranges], watermelons, cantaloupes, bananas, ice cream hot fudge, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, cucumbers, a pinch of vanilla, food coloring, my bracelet…huh! My bracelet never mind now I am ready to taste my masterpiece! Yuck! It tastes like soap!

"Big Ears"
February 14, 1990
Hello my name is biggy ear, people always are making fun of me and I haven't got and valentines because nobody likes me. The next day he got tons of mail.

Sigh…so, yeah…I was slightly scattered, not the best speller, more than a little bit lonely at times, and overly sensitive about my ears…more to come.