More Madness
I seem to be unable to escape a life in which canine madness predominates. And by this I mean, even though Faye went to a wonderful new home on a ranch with three adorable boys who are madly in love with her, I once again find myself with two grumpy canines in the house and a never ending cycle of opening the backdoor to let them in or out or to just stand there and stare, and continuously dirty food bowls, paw prints on the floor, and little tumbleweeds of hair drifting about in the currents of the A/C. And not to mention that one of the dogs currently staying with me is the Queen Of All Things herself, and she won’t let me forget (not in a million years) that Her Opinion Matters Most (and no one elses’ ever matters).
Beau is not so happy with this arrangement. I saw a drastic improvement in his behavior once Faye left (can we say, war over the sofa, 24/7 wiggleworm and running 4 miles a day with continual hyperactivity??) and for two weeks or so things were as normal as they ever are around here. Then Penny showed up and he gave me the, oh-no-you-friggin’-don’t look, and now it’s a competition to see who can behave more badly, who can be loudest, and who can possible act the most jealous. Beau pretty much ignores Penny as much as he ignored Faye - but the problem in this is that Penny is short, fat and geriatric, and she hates to be ignored - hates ever more to be trod on by a large grey and white galumping moose. Every five seconds she is expressing her displeasure that he should be within a twenty mile radius of her royal self, despite the fact that this is Beau’s house and I am doing Penny a favor by keeping her here and not banishing her to the kennel (even if the kennel won’t take her anymore). The crazy bat queen must have her way at all times and immediately or there is several minutes of growling, barking and snarling while slithering around on the floor on her good front legs and gimpy back ones, oddly reminiscent of one of those dancing-flower fireworks.
My parents (and brother) are happily galavanting about in cool, beautiful, scenic and interesting San Fransisco. I, on the other hand, am stuck in hot, muggy and rainless Texas with a large grumpy moose who hates company, and a small fat badger that hates everything. Which is all fine when they are at their respective houses with their respective slaves to wait on them hand and foot - it’s when we get these two irascible creatures together that canine madness ensues. Here I am trying to write a parasitology paper on Hydatid Disease with moose grumblings in the background because it’s been twenty minutes since he last ate and angry badger opinions being spat at me from behind him because HOW DARE HE SPEAK IN HER PRESENCE.
I am going out of my mind at the present moment.
Saturday cannot come soon enough.
better than hanging out with humans, moose on the loose, pack mentality | Comment (0)Sadly, Rather Unlike the Adult Beverage
Hurricane Ike came this morning. It’s the first hurricane I’ve been through in the eleven years that I have lived in Texas. My parents and brother hunkered down in Katy, which got more than we did up here, but still the show was impressive. At least I have power, water and television reception at this moment, whereas, last I heard, they have no power, no water and they are spending their free moments cleaning up the debris in the yard. Luckily, no damage to the house or the cars. The worst I got here was just down old dead branches falling out in to the yard (thank you Mother Nature for doing something I had been postponing). But it was never too serious or worrisome - I even caught the friendly squirrel at her feeder I put up several time today in the wind and the rain.
It came about 7 this morning, at least enough for there to be a sizeable difference in the wind speeds. It’s normally pretty windy here, being that it is flatter than Kansas and all, but the winds picked up rather quickly in about thirty minutes and I would say there were some strong gusts, maybe up to 75 mph, but a constant blow at about 40 or so. I woke up and it was still dark, but Beau was pacing around my room, looking forlornly in my direction as if to say, “Are you up yet? Oh God, we’re going to die and the girl is not even awake!!” We went outside, and thank god yet again for teaching him to pee on command - he pottied after a bit of persuasion in the howling wind and driving rain. Of course, I had to be standing in the lawn under my tree in the danger zone, but we got it accomplished, and damp and wind blown we went to have breakfast.
The rest of the day has been, shall I say, uneventful. I chose this weekend to paint since we got out of school on Friday (who knows why since this thing didn’t even come until this morning). I repainted the kitchen because I hated the turquoise in there and I started on the living room. Mostly as a procrastination from studying, also because I want to impress my parents with my skills when they come up this Friday (I’ll be babysitting grumpy corgi, Ms. Penny, for the week). Beau lounged on the sofa, snoring and every once and while looking up when a strong gust would come by, but otherwise unperturbed as I painted, made soup and watched movies.
So my first hurricane was… a success? At least there was no damage and all we got was a lot of free water for my lawn and some wind that knocked stuff out of my trees that probably should have been knocked out eventually anyway. No lightning, no thunder, no tornadoes, no moments of adrenaline or even slight worry.
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