Growlithe

Sunday, our class will have done three film shoots, including building elaborate sets. On the last shoot, Karolina is the production manager, so she’s still quite busy. I’ll throw in a growlithe because no one has posted here in a while, even though throwing has nothing to do with writing a blog post.

I like how this drawing has almost every possible way of failing with watercolour paint.

I know I’ve told this story before, but the only Pokémon cards I ever had were hand-me-downs from my cousin. One of the few that I did own was a growlithe, so naturally it was one of my favourites. I think it was quickly stolen by someone though; it went missing fast after I obtained it. POINT IS, I have a connection to growlithe.

Growlithe is also important because before I had a dog, I had a pretend growlithe (among other things).  When you’re homeschooled and forbidden from doing most natural, fun kid-things, the only thing you can really do is imagine up crap like that. I walked it around the Guild Inn park frequently (which at that time, to me, was Narnia) and made it spit an ass-load of fire at my sister as much as possible.

After a while, my mom got the hint, and began training my sisters and I so that one day we could take care of a dog. Oh boy, this is a great embarrassing kid story.

My parents bought us a robot dog. It kind of looked like those little annoying terrier toys with pink bows that would lurch forward a few inches and then do a back flip, but it was far more advanced. It was controlled by a “leash” (piece of cable) with a remote at the end, so you could control the dog’s direction, make it bark or sit, while looking like a complete retard who takes robot dogs too seriously. Our mother would take us around the park or down the street with this thing, and every once in a while she would throw little pieces of paper behind the dog that were coloured yellow or brown (representing urine or poop, for those of you who are having a hard time following). We would have to react accordingly.

She even made us train the robot dog to do its business outside – for a month she’d walk around the house with that stupid robot dog, leaving pieces of paper everywhere. We’d have to shove the robot dog’s face in the paper and scold it, then take it outside.

However annoying “Coco” the robot dog (yeah we really strained our noggins coming up with that name) was, my sisters and I were relentless with our dog-responsibility training, and eventually the exercises became unbearable for my mother, who had a bit of a breakdown and walked Coco into a deep puddle. This didn’t ruin the robot dog, but it did give her a chance to pretend to rescue Coco, only to switch out the batteries. Shortly afterwards, we got a real, live dog.

My parents were either evil or geniuses.

Growlithe is adorable and evolves into something awesome, we all know this. What more can I say?

COSPLAY:

• As far as growlithe ginjinkas go, this is pretty good.
• Hilarious.
• Why do people think that these kinds of poses make them look more like Pokémon?
• This is just insulting.

REAL LIFE GROWLITHE!:

• I can’t find evidence of a dog being in this photograph anywhere.
• Growlithe live in volcanos – except when the festive wreaths come out, of course.
• Oh brother, too adorable to make fun of.
• Oh brother!
• This is too adorable for anything.

ARTS AND CRAFTS:

• I used to do this, too, when I was really little. Put the eyeballs on top of the face as opposed to within the skull.
• Problem solved!
• Something is wrong with this hat. It is too smug to be a hat.
• Whatever this is, it’s adorable.

DRAWINGS:

• One of those epic toons.
• Not epic in any way. This is worse than my dreams where I live in a universe created by Rob Liefeld.
• “Growlithe Americanized”. Looks more Russian to me, but whatever – making fun of Americans never gets old for some people.
• This facial expression is awesome.
• This is so bizarre… I love it forever.