Dog Sitting

I've been dog sitting for the past half of a week, for my former neighbor's dog, because her husband is in the hospital and she just doesn't have time to deal with the dog. I'm not a dog person. I don't generally like dogs, and you may have garnered from a few posts prior that I care even less for dog shit.

I'd like to note that there is just one tiny little letter separating the words dog sitting from dog shitting.

I've been dog sitting and the dog has been dog shitting. Namely, in my house. Which I am less than okay with. The dog arrived last Wednesday night, and first thing Thursday morning, while I was in the shower, she left a little brown treat in the younger daughter's room while the younger daughter was sleeping. The dog then scampered down the hall to my bedroom and left the second half of the brown treat on my floor, and then merrily (I must assume) scampered back down the hallway and left a big puddle in middle of the hallway. Holy dog shit. Are you kidding me? I blame this on myself, because I thought I had time to jump in the shower quickety-quick before I took her out. Apparently not. I also realized upon stomping into the kitchen that I didn't put the cat's food bowl on top of the washing machine the night before and all the cat food was gone. I'll have to assume the dog ate the Indoor Delights Friskies and thus, left me some Indoor Delights.

So the dog and I had a little come-to-Jesus meeting, and then before everyone left the house on Thursday morning, the dog got put in her little pen that I jury-rigged in the living room.

And yes, this is the actual dog. By the time I get done with this whole post her name might be The Dog.

She's not crate trained and didn't come with a crate (hmmm....), but came with a baby-gate-playard kind of concoction. Got home Thursday evening with Guy #1 in tow since it was The Ex's night with the kids, and found that the dog can hold all of her bodily fluids if she's in her little pen. Awesome! Maybe this will work out okay. But then I was at work most of Friday (or pretending to be after my training class finished early and there was.no.fucking.way I was going back to work) and then out with Guy #1 for most of Friday night. I felt moderately guilty, because dogs actually need some attention. I spent a portion of Saturday in the house, and the dog was more than happy to terrorize Guy #1 because he's apparently scared of animals that look like overgrown mutant gerbils. Out and about again Saturday night and still no accidents in the jury-rigged pen.

Sunday morning. It was cold and sleeting outside, and I guess I rushed her through her business outside because maybe an hour after coming back in I found a little brown cookie in the younger daughter's room. Again, I blamed myself for not shutting the bedroom doors. I don't know why she only shits in the younger daughter's room. She hasn't done anything other than sleep in the older daughter's room. Sunday afternoon and she poops outside. Awesome! That second come-to-Jesus meeting must have really done the trick.

But uh-oh. What's that stuck on the hair around her butt? The dog has long hair. Long, thick hair. She's well groomed, and often smells like whatever kind of Avon shampoo my neighbor has been washing her with. Oh, god, is that a turd stuck on her butt? Holy fuck. It is. Oh my god. Fuck. She can't come back in the house with that thing back there, and she can't reach her own butt to clean it off. I guess that's the one good thing to dog sitting a slightly pudgy Pomeranian - when she sneak attacks me and licks me on my face I know that her tongue wasn't previously on her ass.

Anyway, back to the turd stuck in the hindquarter hair. I run in the house and can only come up with... Lysol wipes. Oh well, that'll have to do. I run back outside and put the dog in a mini-headlock and proceed to do nothing more than smear the dog shit all over her rear end. Oh fuck. Oh no. This is not working. Jesus Christ. Are you kidding me again? Pick the dog up and carry her at arms length into the house and then just stand there trying to figure out what to do. Well, into the kitchen sink because I don't know how to wash an entire dog. That's just too much for me to handle. And, Guy #1 was feeling neurotic about my bathrooms on Saturday morning and cleaned them for me, so there was no way I was going to put her into one of the tubs he just scrubbed. So the dog goes right into the sink and I get her into another headlock and try to adjust the water and squirt Dial hand soap onto her ass. Oh my god this is such a mess. Oh Jesus. Well, I certainly can't bring myself to actually touch this soapy, shitty mess I've created and I forgot that I have latex gloves in my bedroom (for doing my toenails, perverts, not the other stuff) so I just get a scrub brush and scrubbed the Dial hand soap around. I am now minus one scrub brush, by the way. Get the soapy, shitty mess off the dog with water that was probably too hot and then realize I have no towel handy to dry the dog. Oh well, I guess while I've got her here in this headlock I'll just take some scissors and trim up the hair back there so I won't have to go through this again. Who knew that Pomeranians have such thick non-trimmable ass hair? This dog might just be related to The Ex. Abandon all plans to trim the dog's ass hair and try to towel dry her with paper napkins. That too was unsuccessful.

Man, I needed a shot of tequila after all of that. Holy god. Actually, what the dog and I both needed a nap after that whole ordeal. But, not for me. Off to see the VCU game. Back in the pen, little fluff ball doggie. No problems Sunday night or Monday morning. At this point we've all kind of adjusted that the dog might be here for a while because my neighbor's husband is still in the hospital. The dog seems like she's enjoying us, the children are enjoying her and the cat lives in the basket on top of the dryer, right next to her food on top of the washer. No more Indoor Delights for the dog, that's for damn sure.

So, we continue on with the dog. I told my older daughter tonight, though, to quit asking me if the dog can come live here for good. The answer is a resounding NO. I'm a cat person. I want to feed the cat, put water in her bowl, scoop the litter box and have a lap available for her to climb in and get petted. I don't want to have to let the animal in and out and in and out and in and out one more time. I don't want to have to crawl around on my hands and knees with carpet cleaner, I don't want some jury-rigged pen in the middle of my living room and I don't want to have to chase a dog around around with Lysol wipes. The dog can visit, for short periods of time... but I'm a cat person. Big ups to the dog for reinforcing that.

Stupid Stuff In My Head

I had planned to sit down and write this awesome piece on the youth basketball league game I went to this afternoon, but it will have to wait until tomorrow night because I've got too much other stupid stuff in my head just dying to come out.

First of all, to pic or not to pic my blog out. I'm so undecided on this whole thing I just don't even know what to do. I want to have some pictures to break up the monotony of the writing, and because I think I'm the only person in the world without any pics on my shit. Not OF my shit, but ON my shit. Big difference there. But then I don't want to try too hard and have obvious and contrived pictures that go with the writing and so it ends up being ho-hum in the end. Or maybe I'll just randomly find some crazy ass picture and then I'll write around the picture. Which I can totally do.

And this is what I've ended up with.

Some crazy ass picture of a crazy ass cat with some crazy ass curly hair. This totally looks like a cat that could be living in my house, if it weren't for this Screaming Mimi Siamese cat that already lives here. The kind of cat that would very nonchalantly wander through the living room when I've got people over, and the conversation would stop short and heads would turn in unison to watch the cat walk by, flop down in the middle of the living room and then lick where it's testicles used to be, since pets only seem to lick their genitals when company is around. I mean, I would totally do that too if I could. Um, yeah, not. I don't play for that team. But the end result would be someone saying, "What the fuck happened to that cat's hair?" or "Oh my god, did you curl your cat's hair?" And then I would explain, no, I didn't curl the cat's hair because I don't have a curling iron that small, but I do put scrunchies on their tails every now and then to see what happens, kind of like when you put napkin-booties on a cat. Napkin-booties on a dog don't work quite as well because a dog will just lay down and eat the napkin off of it's paw. A cat will act highly insulted and pretend like nothing is happening here, and will limp off in the most offended manner.

Marital statuses on facebook. I think they might have added to the list. This is what it used to be:

Single - I think we all know what this means. Not taken. Or pretending to be not taken.
In a relationship - I think we all know what this means. Taken. Or pretending to be taken.
Engaged - Only one or two steps away from the wedding ring. Rethink! Rethink! Rethink!
Married - You failed to rethink, or you rethought and decided it was too late to get out of it because you've already put down a non-refundable deposit on the honeymoon.
It's complicated - Finally rethinking and deciding it's not all that it's cracked up to be.
In an open relationship - This says, "My other half and I have decided to just go ahead and sleep with other people. It's cool."
Widowed - This might happen if the other person didn't really agree to sleep with other people and doesn't really agree with you doing it, either.

This is where the list stopped, until sometime last year, late summer-ish, I think.

And then they added:

Separated - Revisiting the whole rethinking part.
Divorced - Rethinking has been completed. Who knew that filing fees through the Circuit Court were so fucking expensive? I bet there would be a lot less marriages (and consequently less divorces) if the goddamn marriage license cost $750 instead of a mere $25. Just saying.

And I think they've most recently added:

In a civil union - This one actually means I'm gay and had to choose this one because "In a Relationship" really doesn't define this level of commitment and I'm not legally allowed to marry in my state. And I want to make a socio-political statement to everyone who already knows me.
In a domestic partnership - And this one means we are SHACKING UP, baby. Why buy the cow when the milk is free? Hellllll yeahhhhhh!

Here's how the last twelve years of my life would be in facebook relationship statuses. I say twelve because I was with The Ex for twelve, married for ten. Yes, we had a very strained ten year anniversary two days before I moved out. I bought him a set of plates at Wal-Mart to make up for the ones I was taking with me. Just to define boundaries, I told him two days prior to the anniversary I would appreciate NOT getting a card. That I would then feel obligated to sneak off and throw away.

Single - The Army guy I just fell in like with went back to his regular stationing in Texas. I'm lonely and you're available.
In a relationship - I am still lonely and you're still available. Sure, we can call this a relationship.
Engaged - I've convinced myself that no one else will ever want to marry me and my biological clock has become a ticking time bomb. Yeah, we can give this thing a whirl.
Living together - This was about when I became The Housekeeper and Laundress.
Married - Everyone said that getting married on a rainy day is good luck. In my heart I knew it wasn't true.
Thinking I don't really like you that much but I can convince myself otherwise - This phase lasted until the birth of the older daughter.
Oh, God, now we're stuck because we have a child together - You are effectively stuck with me forever because I am not putting my child(ren) through a divorce. I don't really care if we don't get along and have nothing in common. We now have DNA in common so let's just suck it up.
Making it work - This was the phase of me really trying hard to fall in love and make it stick.
Second child on the way - This might just cement the previous relationship status.
In my head it's not working - Realizing that I have two children I gave birth to and one I married.
I wish he would just cheat on me because maybe then he would leave me alone - Does this really need a description?
I don't even remotely like this man - This might have come into fruition around year eight of the marriage.
I am miserable - Year nine of said marriage.
Separated - Oh, sweet light at the end of the tunnel. Oh, agonizing guilt for doing this to my children.
I will never date again - Because I am really scared this might happen again.
I need to get laid - Well and often. Because a girl can dream, right?
Dating website - Which worked out very nicely after I finally stopped changing my mind. Mad props to Guy #1.
Pending depositions and divorce - Again, why are these court fees so high? That's almost two months worth of before and after school care for the one child I am responsible for paying for.
Divorce - I anticipate it will be a sad and sobering relief. Life lessons do not always come cheap. Maybe that's what the court fees are trying to tell me, or it's the government's way of trying to restrict divorce without really restricting it.

There we have it. My marriage in facebook relationship statuses.

And I'm still looking for that ghetto necklace that says 'I heart midget porn'. I could totally rock that out in a suit with some spectator pumps, but not the platform spectator pumps, because then it would look like I was just missing my stripper pole. Nah, I'll stop talking shit. I would never, ever wear that to work, just because of what I do. Which is not stripping. But I would wear it to the mall to eat a quick dinner at the food court with Guy #1 before I slide up in my favorite big box bookstore to get a second grade science workbook for my older daughter.

Stay tuned for other good stuff about the the championship youth league basketball game I went to today, Mrs. Second Grade Teacher, and Lunchtime Musings and other stupid stuff in my head.

Freakshow of the Day

Okay, this is going to be a little different than my normal freakshow commentary. This will have to be a visual description, because I would do a cut-and-paste on the picture, but I've decided that all pictures on the internet probably have thousands of images of child pornography embedded in them, and if I download anything I will then infect my computer with child pornography and then I'll end up on the news, like the 76 year old grandma who the RIAA went after when the whole free music download thing blew the hell up. Sadly, this fear will probably keep my blog picture free, but I've been a little worried about polluting what I write with images that might or might not be mine, stolen, embedded with other less desirable stuff, etc. And then, I don't know if what's in my brain, and therefore on the screen, could translate well to a picture. Some things should remain pure. My body is not one of those things, but my words might be.

Reading and writing, that's serious stuff to me. I have a whole bookshelf full of books, not as many as I've read, because that would just be impossible to keep up with, but my bookshelf is full of most of my favorite shit, my shit I re-read every few years, or my books that have some kind of sentimental value. And yeah, some of it is complete tripe, but I'm just not going to apologize any more for reading Jackie Collins. There's just something incredibly comforting in standing in front of my bookshelf (especially when I've alphabetized it and categorized it, which I'm saving for a winter panic attack, I think) and touching all the spines, getting the books out, thinking about how many times I've read them or how many times I haven't read them yet. I'm that person who will open a book, and I have to smell the pages. A book smell is a good thing. I do this in my favorite big box book store, when I want to go and read for free and the library is too cheesy. There is nothing quite as calming as pulling a fresh book off the shelf, flipping the pages, reading a paragraph here and there, feeling that this might be the book I want to quick read for free. And then... I commit a heinous book crime. I crack the spine. Cracking the spine of a book is like taking the first sip of someone else's ice cold canned drink that they just popped the top on. Yeah, bitches, I just stole the best sip of the whole drink. Gotcha. Cracking the spine to a book is just like that. So I crack the spine to the book, feel the crisp pages flutter between my hands, inhale the essence of the book... and damn, are those pages stuck together? Holy shit! Is that what I think it is? Goddammit, this is a public store. People are nasty.  No, seriously, it never happened there. But this one time, in a prison library...

Man, I really got off the topic there. Freakshow of the Day. Here goes. Remember, this is a little different for me.

Hi,
I would describe myself as kind,warm,intelligent,cute,classy,and funny. I am a single white guy.
I am looking for a daytime weekday intimate relationship with a attractive white woman. My main interest is to orally service a woman. I can host at my place. I am disease/drug free, and you must be also.

Okay, the written part is a little cheesy, but not the worst I've read. Not the best either, but this is craigslist. Standards are low here. Mr. Man is 35, and he's included two facial shots. He looks normal in that dweeby kind of way. But then, there's another picture. This would be the full body shot. Well, at least he included more than just his genitals. This is the picture I want to put on my blog, but I can't, what with my fears of embedded shit and all.  He's balding, but not completely chromed out up top. He's got the ring around the head, and then, on the top, where he's balding, he's got a little fluff of hair that's the shape of a mohawk, but the consistency of a Rogaine commercial. Bushy eyebrows. Straight nose, normal mouth. He's standing up, obviously wherever he might live, and this is his laptop cam or something that's taken his picture. He's naked, except for the pair of white cotton underwear that look like boot camp issue. Since no genitals were exposed in the taking of this picture, I feel okay in sending this link to all of my girlfriends, even the married ones. And one other friend who will probably unfriend me tonight. Because he's a guy. So here's the emailed conversation that subsequently ensued between me and one of my girlfriends, who also has no life.

The original email was entitled, "Oh my god I'm so glad I'm single" and the body of the email, immediately on top of the link said, "Because this is what's out there waiting for me."

Girlfriend: Ha, now that is one hell of a birthday present to give yourself. are u sure u r ready...u may want to pace yourself.
Me: I've been laughing about that since I've seen it. I even sent it to one of my guy friends.
Girlfriend:  i am just not believing he posted it...poor thing has no idea that he is the butt of a joke tonight. (He also has no idea he's going to the topic of most of a blog post)
 Me: Did you show [insert her husband's name here]? Because that's just hot and I know you want [insert her husband's name here again] to be just like that guy.
Girlfriend: well i am waiting for him to get home. he is on evening shift and got called out so u r my entertainment for the night. u and that hunk of a man u found. i bet he is hung like a mule. (Yes! Women really do discuss this)
Me: I can't tell because he's squeezing his legs together so tightly. (Yes! Women really do discuss this in GREAT detail)
Girlfriend:  he is trying not to crap his pants when he took that pic.
Me:  I think he might have had to go pee-pee because he was so excited. Kind of like [insert other girlfriend's name here]'s dog when it breathes.

Girlfriend:  could be....maybe he had to get drunk in order to get his clothes off to have his mommy take his pic (Ahhh, she threw out the mommy comment - nice addition to the shit talking that women do)

Me:  She should have waxed his chest. That is disgusting. All that hair. Ew. (No man who looks like a bear shall ever get between these legs. Again. Because my standards are raised)

Girlfriend: your cat may like him

Me: Neither of my cats will ever meet this guy. (My girlfriend's a little slow and totally did not get this comment)

Girlfriend: well then looks like you are back to the drawling board or calling the one with the lysol can (That would have been a link last week that I sent her with some guy holding a Lysol can up next to his junk)

Me: I think I can just do without.

Girlfriend: awwww

Me: Please. If that's what the available male population looks like out there, I'm better off. Would you want to date some dude in tighty whitey's with his legs squeezed together, looking like he skinned a bear and put it on his chest? I think not. Don't cry for me, Argentina. (She didn't get that last comment, either) 

Girlfriend: i think i would stay single, buy sex toys and drink (This is the exact same girlfriend fucking hassling me to have sex toy party. I'm resisting because I'm good with what I've already got, thanks, but now I'm rethinking it because that would be one hell of a blog post)

Me: What do you think I do every night?  (She doesn't know about my blog and I'm not giving that little detail up, either)

Girlfriend: oh, that explains the early morning moods. (That's because I kind of made it to work on time on those days)

Me: I thought my mood had much improved since I left dickhead. Someone told me other day they don't hear me yelling as much in my office anymore.

So that's it. My Freakshow of the Day. All of a sudden I don't know if it's the guy in the saggy underpants or me.

Yay! Cat Puke

My new cat seems to be settling in pretty well. I did not want a new cat. I did not want an old cat. I did not want any animals, even though I promised my older daughter that we would get guinea pigs in a few more months. I promised her that only because I knew the guinea pigs would need to go with her to her father's next summer, and he hates rodent animals. But she didn't know that when I promised it, so it was more like me being the cool mom.

The cat who I just had put down, I got him back in the fall of 1992, when he was about six months old. He was a gorgeous Russian Blue, and if you don't know what that is, look it up because I'm feeling a little anxiety ridden and assholish tonight and don't feel like explaining. I'm pretty sure a good dose of hot sex could fix this, but that's another topic. I got this cat before I realized what a pain in the ass animals are, but by the time I had realized that, I had already committed to him. Until I had my children, he was my child. He slept in the bed with me, listened to all my problems, laid his big fat ass right up on my chest when I was trying to nap on the sofa, hid under a chair and clawed my ankles when I walked by, all the things that cats do. He ignored me periodically, and demanded that I never ignore him.

The day I put him down, I didn't think the vet would do it, because he had refused to put him down four months prior, and I was scared that I was going to have to take this cat back home and watch his quality of life decline even more. He had stopped eating at this point, but I managed to get him to eat cheese popcorn and shrimp once a day or so. Because that's what he loved. Cheese popcorn and shrimp. So I took him to the vet and the vet, bless his heart, didn't even examine him. He just asked, is it time? And I started crying. Yeah, it's time. I had never seen an animal put down before, because when you grow up in the country, you generally say goodbye to your animals when you find them dead in their pen, they get hit by a car or they just go missing, and you know that they went off somewhere to die alone. Putting an animal down was a new experience for me, and it was hard. I kept thinking, this can't be it. This can't be the end of this 18 year relationship. They took him in the back and put in a catheter in his front leg, and then brought him back to me. He was laying all wrapped up in a blanket, and we snuggled for a little while, and I talked to him about all of the things that we had done. Sounds stupid, but he knew. He licked my hand, and I put my finger up next to his paw and he curled his claws around it, like we had always done. I always thought that was his way of holding my hand. The vet comes in and it's time. I kissed my oldest baby one last time and told him that I loved him, and the vet gave him the injection. For that one moment in time, I wanted to say, no, wait! Not yet! Not now! I'm not ready! I need more time! Please! But it was too late. As soon as those thoughts entered my brain, I felt him go limp and I knew he was gone, and I just sobbed. I sat there on that hard ass bench in that vet-smelling examination room with the blinds pulled on the door, and leaned my head up against the wall and sobbed. And I knew I wasn't crying for him, I was crying for me. Because that's what we do when we lose someone. We cry about what we've lost, what we've had, what we won't have again, nothing else. And then they took him, and that was that. I had him cremated, because I just didn't have it in me to bring him home and bury him. I just couldn't do it. I picked up his remains the other day, and started crying all over again. Goddammit, I hate crying.

I came home that day and threw all of his stuff away, and I cried about that, because that was the finality of it, and I didn't plan to get any more animals any time soon. Definitely not a dog, because I am diametrically opposed to dog shit in my yard. Definitely not a cat, well, because I need a break. Definitely not fish because I don't want to have to clean some scuzzy tank, and birds are too loud. I'll take a couple of months off and we'll get these fucking guinea pigs, because that's what Mommy promised. But the guinea pigs are no big deal, because they can stay in their cage, and well, when some hot guy asks me to run off to somewhere fabulous for the weekend when my children aren't here for some fast and furious horizontal action, I can just run the guinea pigs in their cage over to The Ex and then take off for fun times. So we can definitely do guinea pigs.

But then my other mother called. I've mentioned her before, and this would be my former neighbor who is now exclusively the neighbor of The Ex. But she's my other mother. Actually, she reminds me of my grandmother, and that's why I will move heaven and earth for this woman. I have issues with my grandmother dying before I was ready to let her go and without me being able to say goodbye, and really, we never appreciate our grandparents when we're kids. My other mother, she's a lot like my grandmother, so much so that my mother has even commented on it. I can't say no to my other mother, because it's like going back in time and getting that extra bit of love from my grandmother, but I only had to run across the cul-de-sac for it. Like I said before, people come into our lives for a reason. I like to think my grandmother sent her to me, because my grandmother wasn't ready to say goodbye to me, either. Actually, my grandmother is with me every day, because I named my younger daughter after her. But in spirit, my grandmother and my other mother are pretty much the same person. So this is my chance, maybe my only chance, to do for my grandmother what her cancer robbed me of.

She wanted me to take her cat, because she's selling her house and moving back to West Virginia. Which I'll also have issues with, but it's cool, because we can skype. I'm a little sketchy on the whole heaven thing, largely because I'm very sketchy on the whole religion thing, but if there's a heaven, I wish we could skype up there. Anyway, she's got this cat, and she wants me to take it. I can't say no to this woman. I can't, I won't, end of story. The cat came to live with us on Sunday, and the older daughter is okay with it, even though I made sure she understands that we won't be getting guinea pigs after all. Because this is her other grandmother, and she can't say no to this woman, either. We wake up this morning, the cat is yowling a good morning to us, the day gets started and then we see it. Cat puke. Right next to the front door.

Great. Here we go again.