Little Red Riding Hoods




My father is in town and I can hear him the in the next room talking to Dogger. I don’t have many conversations with her, we don’t have that much to talk about "So, Dogger, what did you do today? Did you see that story in the paper about that thing that happened at that place to those people? Wasn’t it terrible/wonderful/a PR nightmare?", Dogger looks at me and says "I didn’t eat the cat today. Give me a snack".

I have conversations with Brosky and Alphagals dogs. They are great conversationalists. It may be that I have known them longer and we have more of a history but I don’t have to interrupt myself every few seconds with NO! No! Put That Down STOP it! Ow! No Biting NO! it kind of makes me lose my place and my desire to chat.

My nephdogs on the other hand are perfect. I can have discussions with them about things other then what’s for dinner or what room mate they did not eat today, although they both tend to turn the conversation to dinner an awful lot. The big dog lies about eating. He will suck his little cheeks in and whine like he didn’t just eat his dinner and the dinner of the little anorexic dog." I’m a Poor Pathetic Dog, and I am starving", so I say "Oh, you poor pathetic, starving dog! I will feed you. What a nice boy!". Liar Dog. Good thing he is such a handsome dog, you have to be really good looking to get away with that kind of shit.

Dogger is also a very attractive dog. I think she suffers from the Pretty Girl Syndrome. She knows that her good looks are going to open doors and boxes of snacks for her so she really doesn’t bother with getting smarter or staying up on current events. She doesn’t have to, she’s pretty.

She is enrolled in Puppy School and I am hoping that this will open her mind to education and self improvement. I think she’s hoping it will open boxes of snacks. I am afraid she is just going to shame herself. The Puppy School instructor was very excited about her, sigh, class got rained out last week and I know I didn’t drill enough on the one skill we did learned. She is sitting on command, more or less but that wasn’t the skill. It was tug, tug, tug on the lose leash and sitting. We did that, she did that. And then. And then it got dark and I lost my daylight . Now I have to rush around just to get Dogger on a walk by 5 pm. Sigh. We can’t walk and drill and get back before it gets dark. Even with a big dog, I’m not walking in my neighborhood in the dark.


How did Halloween work for ya’ll? Get many kids at your door? I got two groups, actually, one kid and one group. I even dressed up! I was all dressed and ready to go, and the kids were ready to trick or treat in a different neighborhood. I have enough individually wrapped, snack sized bags of pretzels to start my own airline. I would take them to work but health care workers would eat their own hands if you dipped them in chocolate – and they would eat that before they ate anything as healthy as pretzels. They all know the risks associated with living forever and they have no intention of doing so. I’m not going to eat them and they won’t get eaten at work either. Anybody want a bunch of individually wrapped, snack sized pretzels?

I put a lot of thought into my costume for this year. Last year I was really cute but it was hard to keep myself motivated between door bells. I eventually took most of it off and then had to rush to get myself put back together and then I don’t think anyone noticed I was dressed up anyway. Maybe in their worlds grown women dress in red velvet opera cloaks casually. Maybe they knew somehow that I had no heat. Maybe little red riding hood doesn’t live in this neighborhood. The hoods who wear red here go by a different name and they are wolves. Grandma doesn’t let anyone into her house. Her grandkids know better then to just show up. Grandma shoots first, checks I.D later.