electric mist

puppy love

So, the kids (i.e., big grown men I refuse to acknowledge could be the age of a child I actually gave birth to, hence "kids") came home from the job in New Mexico... with a puppy. They each contributed money to the purchase of one of the puppies anyway, in spite of Carl's story (see "puppy lust" below), but its home is going to be with one of the other boys.

When they got out of the car, this most adorable (and I will warrant, definitely not a full breed) little puppy bounded out, so playful and happy to see everyone. He was so cute, as puppies are, and I can see why the boys just couldn't resist. In spite of my extreme doubts, they have already housebroken it (I cannot believe that, but they assure me it's true) and they are playing with it constantly, handling it and not allowing it to attack, even playfully. They are going to get obedience lessons from one of the best trainers in the state (I am going to make sure of that) and they're also going to make sure while it still weighs five pounds, they get information from the trainer as to how to acclimate the dog around small kids, on the off chance that he comes in contact with a child who runs toward it, arms waving, excited.

On the lighter side, the puppy was very much afraid of our cat, who did absolutely nothing but sniff it a little. My cat, who is so extremely docile, will occasionally bristle up when an unknown dog comes around. Even puppies. This time, she just sort of blinked at him and he started scooting backward like she'd hissed and threatened to have him for lunch. Here's hoping he always has that attitude.

puppy lust

There was this moment the other night which happened, and every time it happens, I am somehow lulled into a wonderful state of denial where I think everything is OK and PEACEFUL and will always stay that way... and that moment involved having actual quiet. No phones, no rush here or there, no crazy-making deadlines, no evil villains hovering over my shoulder, just quiet. And in those moments, I bask and relax and then I say to myself, "Wow. I think it's going to be calm from now on."

Cue: insanity.

Because it never manages to actually be calm, and I'm starting to wonder if I heard about this mythical "calm" in some sort of brainwashing program I must've paid for somewhere along the line, because I can't say that I've actually had calm yet. It is the holy grail, the lotto, and it's always just out of my reach, always won by someone somewhere in Iowa, like they have things to be riled up about in Iowa.

So. Brief moment of quiet, and then my youngest son calls with one of those phone calls that you don't see coming, but makes you realize that this is only the very tip of the not-calm volacano of "Things Your Child Can Do To Make You Nuts."

Jake, (who was out of town with his dad on a construction project), called and said, "Hey Mom! Guess what?"

In the history of language, somewhere there should be a footnote of sentences that should shoot fear into your very soul. They are, in no specific order:

"Here's the red phone, Mr. President."
"Well how are you supposed to pronounce 'nuclear'?"
"I'm afraid there's a tiny bit more damage than we expected when we gave you that estimate."
and
"Hey Mom! Guess what?"

Nothing good ever follows any of those sentences, and I gripped the phone with dread.

"What?" I say, secretly wondering if I have time to get a passport.

"You know how I always wanted a puppy?"

"What always? You already have a dog."

"But I always wanted a puppy. One of my own."

"This is your dog here. She's slept in your room from the time we had her."

"Mom. I've always wanted a real dog. DeeOhGee isn't really a real dog."

"What is she, a duck?"

"She doesn't bark. And she's scared of everything. I want a real dog." (She's a rescue, and the first time she barked was a year after we'd had her, and she scared herself so badly, she ran and hid under my bed.)

"What do you mean 'real'?" (I should have known better than to ask this.)

"A pit bull. And mom! Guess what! They have some pit bull puppies for sale right here -- and they're only $50!" (My blood pressure hit six billion over 23,786, thankyouverymuch.)

"No. No way, we are not getting a puppy. Especially not a puppy that will grow up into something that will eat the cat, possibly the other dog and god knows what else."

"But it's only $50!!! And I'll take care of him! I promise!"

"Exactly when will you do that? You are never home."

"I'll stay home now! Because I'll be taking care of my puppy!"

"Riiiiiggggggggght. And what about college?"

"Oh, I'll only be gone four hours a day! And I'll be home all the rest of the time."

"You have four one-hour classes, a one hour break in between and a half hour drive to and back. That's six hours."

"Yeah, but I'm off Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I'll be home all day then."

"So I'll just tell the brand new puppy that he'll have to wait until you're home on Tuesdays and Thursdays to pee. And he'll have to hold it all weekend while you're hanging with all of your friends. I'm sure that'll work great."

"You just don't want me to have a puppy."

"That's pretty much what the word 'no' meant, last time I checked."

"But it's only $50! And I'll be moving out the next semester, so then I can take him with me to the apartment."

"Fine. When you move out, you can buy a puppy."

"But then I'll be home and do you know what they cost there? $650. And this is the only kind of puppy I've ever wanted. Ever."

"So, save up. Because we're not getting a puppy."

"What if I get him and bring him home and then if you really don't like him, I could sell him to somebody there for $650. And I'll make $600!"

"How much you wanna bet me he doesn't have papers?"

"Papers?"

A few minutes later, I got off the phone and called his dad, who assured me that he would go out to the Wal-Mart, where apparently these adorable-but-cheap puppies were being sold by someone in the parking lot. He assured me that when he got through with them, I would no longer be the bitch that ate all of happiness. When he got back to the hotel, he called me, laughing, saying everything was fine and Jake was cool with not getting the puppy. I asked him how on earth he had performed this miracle, and he related this story.

He said, "I stood out in the parking lot, talking with a lot of other parents who were also being shanghaied by their kids and we started discussing how much work puppies really were. And then I said to Jake, 'You want to know what it's like to have a puppy? I'll tell you. First, you walk into that Wal-Mart and go straight for the little restaurant and get you a 44oz drink and drink it all down in one standing. Then you hunt out the cutest girl to wait on you and you look at her with your adorable eyes and ask her if she'll take you to the hardware section, and when you get there, you ask her to wait for you, while you roam around, clueless, and then you finally pick up a claw hammer. Then you go back out, looking all cute and everything, and ask her to take you to the furniture department, and when you get there, you ask her to wait. Then you walk around and around the furniture, sniffing it, and when she gets distracted by another customer walking by or the phone or some announcement and she has her back turned, you start beating the crap out of the nearest piece of furniture, splintering and shredding it. When she turns around, shocked and horrified, you keeping smacking it a couple of more times until she shouts at you, then you drop the hammer and try to look as innocent as possible, like it couldn't possibly have been you to upset her so much, and when she shouts at you again, that big drink will kick in right about that moment and you just start peeing right there, half on the furniture, half on the floor, and then you look up at her and bat your eyelashes and ask her for a date." That, I told him, is what it's like to have a puppy every day until they get old enough to really start training, and even then, it's still like that until they get the hang of that training, and if you can't be consistent with their training? It's like that for a lot longer. And all of the other parents were laughing and nodding, and even the woman trying to sell the dogs was laughing and nodding and Jake decided that maybe he better wait."

I really love my husband.

(But that calm thing? Ain't ever gonna happen. I demand a refund.)

do they sell insurance for that?

Carl came in earlier today from an errand, and our dog, DeeOhGee, came bounding in with him, smiling from ear-to-ear and wagging her tail with extreme delight.

Carl: We just went for a ride. DeeOhGee loves riding.

Me: I know. I take her for rides all the time.

Carl: Well, she likes riding with me best.

Me: That's ridiculous. She loves riding, period.

Carl: Yeah, but I let her drive. She did pretty well until the squirrel ran across the road and then she wanted to plunge the car after it, but I talked her down. Tomorrow, she's going to learn how to parallel park.

Me: Just exactly what is in those new vitamins again?

happiness is...

So I got the cat the new basket.

Have you ever tried to put a child down or hand him over to someone and he turns and grabs for you with all four limbs and has a look of such abject horror, it's as if you're about to feed him to cannibals after he's used for Satanic worship? That was Puddy when I tried to show her the new basket. Hated it. Scared silly.

I paid $19.95 for this stupid thing, which was just silly to do because she'd been perfectly happy with a $1.98 Wal-Mart basket, but this one had a nice comfy lining and everything. (The bigger shocker I think was that Carl, who is so not a cat person, went with me to PetCo to find her a basket.)

I ended up holding the basket in my lap, letting the cat sit in it and pet her for a while. She was rigid at first, then she finally relaxed. Then she started kneeding it, once she decided it wasn't going to suck her into a vortex of hell, and I think she ended up deciding it was a good thing:

this is just sad...

Remember how I described Puddy's basket on my desk (my former "in" basket)? And how she would leap into it, sliding it closer to the edge of the desk each time, then at least once a week, tumble over the desk like Wile E Coyote going over the cliff? Well, she finally destroyed the basket, to the point where the bottom had completely fallen off the rest of the poor thing, and the sides were so frayed, there was no hope of recovery. I don't even know where the bottom went to, but I set the "top" over on my side table next to my desk to remind me to buy her another one. I'm so used to her hopping up on my desk, I didn't even pay attention when she did it again today until I realized she was lying down on the side table and when I turned, I just totally cracked up. This is just so sad:

Yes, I am going to get her another basket today.

What do you mean, I'm not working. I am so too. Okay, I am working on entries and not taxes. grumble grumble grumble.

puddy

I have a Calico cat, one year old, that Carl named "Puddy." As in, "I tought I taw a puddy tat." (Hey, he really hated cats and mostly because he was horribly allergic. I figured if he named her, he would bond.)

Puddy had stowed away in a toolbox of Carl's truck last winter just before Christmas. When he arrived home, he said, "The toolbox is meowing, and you can't have it." Ha. She had been abandoned by her mother, she was barely weaned, and the dog they keep at their workshop had gone out into the field next door and brought her back, trying to clean her and take care of her. Puddy was dying, and I think she realized somehow that Carl would end up loving her. Or, well, at least letting her live.

She's been an interesting cat. She fetches (her most favorite toy in the whole world are the pull tabs from a gallon of milk. She will fetch this until your arm falls clean from your body from exhaustion.) Her most cherished sleeping spot is the in basket on my desk -- though sometimes she gets a little rambunctious hopping into the basket and it scootches a little closer to the edge of the desk... each time... so that it ends up half-way hovering over the edge... so that when she sits up and puts her weight in just the right spot, down goes the basket, down goes the cat, whose head somehow stretches and stays above the desk for a brief second, like Wile E. Coyote going over a cliff. Which just cracks my ass up. And then she walks around the desk and sits and glares at me with a, "I am planning evil revenge, just wait 'til you go to sleep," look.

Unfortunately, she's just not the brightest lamp in the shop. She's always been a little hesitant in jumping, and she'll study something for thirty minutes, start little attempts for another five before she'll actually make a leap. God forbid she was wanting to sit up here by me and I have to get up and leave just after she manages to get here. Lately, though, she's been getting a bit braver and pushing off harder from her initial jump, so she's making that leap up to the top of the monitor without much trouble. I have a set of baskets (a file type of thing) next to the desk that she can jump on easily, and she usually uses that as a staging point to the next spot, that monitor. Only, she's been getting braver and braver, stronger and stronger, and barely touching the baskets as a midpoint in the jump. Until yesterday. She jumped so hard and she pushed off at that midpoint as she was flying by it, which gave her a bit too much momentum, and as her front paws reached the middle of the monitor, she suddenly had a horrified expression because her back end had too much momentum and it went up and over her head, like an Olympic handstand leap, and then down the other side... and whooosh, there she went with it, thoroughly humiliated. Of course, I laughed, she glared. It is our ritual.

Right now I am eating a grilled cheese sandwich, and Puddy is doing her very bestest vulture imitation: she's sitting on the absolute edge of the monitor, hunkered over, her beady eyes half-closed as if she's about to take flight and swoop down to get something. I raise a tiny little piece to give to her and she doesn't really want to eat it so much as smell it, and she stretches... and stretches... and kerthunk, falls off the monitor. She doesn't even eat it, she's so disgusted.

Luke came home from his university with a "lost cat" poster he had seen on a light pole. This university is about an hour from here, and someone had put up a photo of a Calico cat... named "Puddy." Same spelling and everything. Carl snatched the photo and examined it, and I noticed he was actually relieved when the markings on that cat were so different from ours. He loves that cat. Now, if I could just get him to quit coloring spots on her with markers when she's sleeping on the desk, we would all be happy.

DeeOhGee

My dog, DeeOhGee, is giving it every ounce of effort to crawl inside my skin right now; it is thundering and lightning like Noah's trying to make up for lost time, and DeeOhGee is deathly afraid of any loud noises, particularly thunder. She weighs 35 lbs and isn't exactly a lap dog, and at 8 years old, you'd think she'd be a little more used to rain by now, especially here in the deep south, but each thunder roll makes her cringe. (In fact, she never even barked the entire first year we had her and I wasn't sure she knew how to bark until one day, someone came to the door and pounded on it, scaring me. I didn't know the guy and I wouldn't go to the door, and he pounded it harder and harder, as if he was angry, and all of a sudden, she WOOFED this deep, baritone WOOF, and scared the guy away. Of course, she also scared herself so much, she ran the other direction as if to get away from that crazy woofing sound and it took me an hour to find her hiding under our bed.)

I guess her fear comes from having been abandoned by someone -- Carl found her on a job years ago and she was obviously someone's former pet, but it was also obvious that she'd been beaten and was scared silly of everything. I doubt she would have survived if Carl hadn't adopted her on the spot.

It looks like it's going to rain for a few more hours; I suspect she's going to end up sleeping on the foot of our bed, even though I usually don't let her do that (she wiggles and snores so much, I can't sleep). But it's either that or listen to her crying all night, which I just cannot bear, it breaks my heart.