Finding Joy in Snarkville

I wish this was truly the beginning of a series of stupid dog jokes, but sadly, I really do live with the dumbest dog alive.

Have you read Marley & Me or seen the movie?  You know how Marley was ‘Clearance Puppy’ — well, my cocker spaniel was on sale, and it shows.  Truly he was bred to be a Christmas puppy, but by February he was a full on teenaged puppy and not as cute anymore and thus went on super bargain saver sale.  He is not right in the head.

First, he is clumsy.  He is only graceful when running at full speed in the yard — the problem is that he has the energy to do that about once per year and then must sleep it off for the rest of the year.  When walking, he falls up steps (mostly forgets that they are there and takes his front paws out from underneath him — resulting in sliding on his belly).  He has been known to bounce off the side of the bed/chair/couch when hopping up and then he is too afraid to try it again until you beg him to hop up or pick him up.

Second, he has weird rules about weather.  He hates things falling on his back like rain or snow, but adores plowing through the snow to run around.  He will have the shortest periods outside if there is so much as a mist falling, but let there be feet of snow over his head and he could poke around for hours.  With this he expects that you will be at the back door awaiting his return and will get upset and pout if you make him wait to return to his nap inside.

Third, he is clueless.  He is neither blind nor deaf, but clueless about the world around him.  When he was a puppy and would chase light beams on the carpet, he never noticed the brown bunny that would hop along outside or the squirrels that would tease him from our front steps.  He would however hunt with passion things like falling leaves.  Now that he is older, he didn’t notice the opossum that visited or the squirrels or the bunnies or the GIANT deer outside ever.  Nope, not once; until today.

Today, during our dog’s morning walk, I saw movement in the backyard a few houses down.  They have collies and so I thought there was a going to be a collie/cocker conference — but then this THING moved.  Now the deer I have that wander around aren’t small — they are more like the size of mac trucks instead of the slight Bambi like things I used to think of as deer.  This deer walked toward our back yard — he/she was 4 feet tall at the shoulder (roughly measured from a fence it walked by).  There was full stop.  The deer looked at the dog (probably wondering if it was going to give up it’s leaf diet in lieu of this tasty snack dog) and my dog was clueless.  In his defense, the deer was behind the dog, but the dog turned around to sniff something (does snow — white snow — have an odor?) and looked up.  My dog might not be bright, but his facial expressions are unmistakeable.  He clearly thought, “Um…..um…..help.” and FROZE.  There was a stare down.  The deer watched; the dog froze. Then, new movement behind the big deer, a small, slight, baby deer walked up behind.  The deer broke the stare down long enough for my dog to seize the chance to stop watching the deer and returned to sniffing.  The deer wandered off in another direction.  My dog, noticing the deer were gone, didn’t come on back in — oh, no…that would have made sense….

He started his whole sniffing, peeing, sniffing, pooping, morning routine over from the beginning with feeling this time.  URGH.  That dog is just not right in the head. (FWIW, he is now sleeping off his excitement — as I expect he will do for the rest of the day.)

Prince had the lovely job of trying to explain what happened to Duke.  I came home and was greeted by Duke at the top of the stairs screaming that he had to give me a hug.  It was sweet and I was getting choked up again.

Duke: Mama, Hobbes died.

Me: Yes, honey, he was old and it was his time.

Duke: Healy is still ok.

Me: Yes, buddy, the other animals are ok.

Duke: Healy doesn’t need to see the vet.

Alrighty then, we have our priorities.  Since this exchange I’ve been told that Healy doesn’t like the vet.

So, I’m ready for day two of 2009.  I’ve slept for nearly 12 hours, which makes me very happy — though going to bed at 7pm (I’m not kidding) was a lot weird.

Please forgive the extended absence, but things beyond my control have kept me away and then I got out of the habit.  So, I could bring you laughs a minute or I could tell you exactly what is going on in my brain.

The past 24 hours I’ve been smacked in the middle of my forehead with the concept of a blessing.  Oh sure, I could talk for hours about how I have a loving husband, an amazing child, my health, and many other trite things.  However, I’m thinking more in terms of when you think everything is off the rails and then (often on the other side of it) you realize that it was truly a good thing.

Yesterday, I spent the night without my luggage in Atlanta.  Why?  Because we spent 45 minutes waiting for a gate, only to have the gate changed to the furtherest gate from where we needed to be in ATLANTA.  We ran.  We missed the flight.  However, since it was the airline’s fault, we got meals AND an all expense paid trip to the local hotel.  Whoa, control the excitement.  (I ought to say that I didn’t sleep much last night and I may be a bit giddy.) I called my parents to tell them what was up and casually mentioned, “You know, this could be a good thing.  We won’t be on the road at midnight on New Year’s Eve.”  And I think I was right.  We had no delays, no gate issues and our bags appeared when we did.  Though the trip lasted 24 straight hours, I think it all worked out for the best.

Now for the bitter sweet one.  This morning we had five animals, 4 cats and a dog.  Yes, I fully accept we are insane.  The eldest of the animals is *MY* cat.  We got a call while we were gone that he wasn’t doing well.  I have known for some time that he was declining and the time was coming.  I never expected that I’d come home from my trip and need to take him to the vet.  Tonight, we have four animals — a nearly respectable 3 cats and a dog. (more…)

Dear Snarkville Cats,

I realize that you outnumber the humans in this house, but we need to sit down and get some rules that shall be followed from this point forward.  Failure to follow my simple rules will result in the removable of all kibble and perhaps your fur coated body from my presence instantly.  Remember that despite what your feline brain tells you, you indeed live here at my whim and I do not exist to merely serve you.

1.  There is NO appropriate time for you to lay across my neck.  No, not even then. Or then.  In fact, if I’m horizontal, you are absolutely NOT to lay across my neck and PURR loudly.
2. My toes, under my blankets, are attached to me and are not in fact devious mice like creatures that must be hunted and pounced on at anytime, most especially at 3am.
3. When I have a laptop in my lap, this is NOT the time to decide I’m lonely and need your company.  I do not wish to have you standing on my lap between me and my laptop.  In addition, when you do find the appropriate times to come to my lap, kindly take a seat and do not stand there with 14 billion times your body weight pushing down on all four of your paws at once.
4. If I put you out of my lap, this is not a game in which I’m asking you to keep coming back.  I put you on the floor for a reason (most likely to grab my laptop again) and I don’t want you to return just yet.
5. Feeding time in at 10pm at night.  Not at 3, 4, or even 5am.  No, I’m not getting out of bed because you are pawing at me for an hour in the early am.  If another cat in this house ate your food, learn from it and eat when the food is put down.
6. If my hands are outside of my blanket, this is not an invitation for me to pet you.  No, not even if you are kind enough to push, forcefully, your head under my hand.  If I am asleep, I do not wish to be woken up to your attempts to STEAL petting from me while I sleep.
7. Speaking of sleeping, when I’m on my stomach, my lower back is NOT a bathing location.  EVER.  You are not to crawl up and sit/lay/lounge in the small of my back and bathe LOUDLY.
8. You are also not to grump when I roll over to get you out of the small of my back.
9. You are NOT to puke on my bed.  ’nuff said.
10. Duke wants to play with you and he has learned to be gentle.  Please forgive him past tail pulling and get over it already.  The looks of “when is this thing going away” don’t work on me and I will be happy to hold you down for some 4 year old to pet you.
11. I know your schedules during the day is tough — what with the sleeping, puking and shedding thing needed to be done.  Please do us all a favor and pick up after yourself.  After you move my shoes around because you MUST put your face in them, could you put them back where you found them.  After you play for hours with some random lego piece/marble/Duke toy, please return it to his room where he can step on it and not me.  I’d be happier if you’d clean up the puke and the hair bunnies — but alas, I know when I’m asking for the moon.

Finally, this is *MY*  house and I let you live here.  Should you wish to continue to enjoy my good graces, you need to follow my rules to the letter.  I shall post them for your review at each of the litter boxes, as I know you’d prefer to have something to read as opposed to that pesky covering thing.  (Speaking of which, whichever one of you spends more than 4 minutes covering your work, please use the downstairs box so i don’t hear it at 2am.)

Yours,

The Management

…If only I had a whistle in my step… and wasn’t feeling like two of the Dwarves (Sleepy and Grumpy).

I 5 very specific reasons I’m both Grumpy and Sleepy.  And what kills me is that I feed them, walk them or clean their litter boxes, and even snuggle with them.  You know how they repay my love and affection?  By taking over my side of the bed AND demanding I pet them at 2am (seriously, I don’t LOVE any furry animal enough to rub their head at 2am.)

I keep wanting to plan for a nap today, but frankly, I’m so tired, I don’t think I have the energy to nap.  I need more coffee for sure.   However, I totally have the energy to poke any cat in this house who THINKS about taking a nap today.  Seriously, I may just be forced to take them all to the vet for fun.  I don’t care how, but there is NO way there will be all day napping for the animals.

You interrupt MY sleep time, then I interrupt yours.  That’s fair, right?  And highly productive, right?

First, a HUGE thank you to anyone who supported my friend.  I checked in with him last night and I think he was just shy of HALF of the replacement iPod — guys, that’s half in something close to 7 hours.  That’s about the most amazing thing I can think of, since frankly neither of our two blogs get HUGE traffic numbers, after all this isn’t Mir or the Yarn Harlot.  I digress.  Thank you for the bottom of my heart.

Now, in other news, I think I may have finally stopped crying about it.  Yes, I totally think I’m an emotional wreck because of the PMS thing, but seriously if I thought about it yesterday I teared up and not just those wet eyes that you can wipe away tears.  Oh no, because apparently my hormone levels were at an all time high, I was in full on tears streaming down the face crying.  It was really rather embarrassing.

Prince came home last night and asked about how Healy was at his follow-up vet appointment (the one for his booster shots) and I said, “I couldn’t even take him, I’ve been too emotional.”  Prince tried to use this as a reason for me not to go to knit night, but seriously as if that was going to happen.

So, today, Healy and I MUST set off for his booster shots.  While I’m gone, I’m opening up Healy’s room for the other kitty’s to smell and try to get used to the fact there may be another cat in this house.  I’m REALLY hoping that we might begin the Kitty Summit sometime this weekend or next week.

Finally,  I need to reach out for some advice.  I have a fair bit of traveling coming up over the next several months.  I’ve been trying to plan my knitting out for these trips.  Which do we think makes more sense:

1. Attempt to see each trip as a challenge to complete a project and begin it while waiting in the airport with the intention of being done by the time I return to my house?  This should/would yield three FOs, but if I were foolish to only bring it to work on, then I run the risk of being done knitting well before the trip is over.
2. Seek out the one big project with the hope that over the course of my three trips that I’d have it done. I’m not entirely sure what this project would be, unless it was one orange blanket (for which I want it noted that I started and ripped out my entire first square — I really need a REAL plan and not a ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ plan.
3. Suck it up and knit socks, and have the traveling sock with me?
4. Something else I’m not thinking of yet?

Happy Friday, folks.  Enjoy the weekend an wish us well as we attend birthday number 4 (or is it 19?) of the season this weekend.  (At least this one is NOT in the land of the Rat Pizza Joint.)

Ok, naming the fur ball is becoming a problem.

Our last cat was named for a boat (despite anything you might have heard). When naming him, we decided that we would name our future animals from the wealth of  boat names. So we have a list to work with (a rather LONG list).

Now, we quickly eliminated dumb names like Fir, Birch, Blueberry, Anvil, Active, Durable — oh, did I mention we were working from Coast Guard Cutters? Seriously there are WHOLE classes of boats that will not qualify. Then there is a wealth of girl names (Spar, Isis, Althea); names that won’t work because of his color (Mellon; Blackberry); and other unacceptable names (like anything with just a number; most of the island and river names; the nautical terms class; American Sailor/Mariner/Seaman; you see where I’m going here). Finally, I was also veto’d on Semper, Cutter, and Cartigan — the last of which is one of my favorites.

Prince wants a name with distinguished record, which eliminates some (depending on your definition of distinguished).  URGH. Also, I should mention that the kitty in question has not shown any distinguishing personality characteristics, other than his very loud purring motor.  Seriously, how am I expected to know if a name fits this cat if I don’t know if he’s a cuddle bunny or a terror?

So, this has lead to me going through the list and trying to narrow the choices. I keep thinking I have a great name (Storis, Argus, Hamilton, Healy, Blake….) only to try to use it with the cat and  it just doesn’t work. Now, Prince thought it should be Healy, but I can’t stop thinking about the kids I HATE with the wheelie shoes. Now, he’s taken to calling the cat, Hudson. I’m currently thinking he should be Dexter because of the added dexterity of his extra toes.

And what I can’t shake is that I think his name should be Sherman, but even though he’d be named for a boat that wasn’t named for that horrible Atlanta burning general, I’m not entirely sure my mother (who already is pretty sure I have four or five screws loose now) will forgive me for it.

Oh and if I push hard to break the ‘tradition’ (which it isn’t tradition until there is more than one of them), his name should be Sterling (like in Silver).

What the heck am I supposed to do?