Almost Friday

Before I get myself ready to go,. I have to get them ready to go . They can not eat at restaurants or drink from water fountains, if they need it along the way, I have to have it handy.

- All their meals for the road, portioned out
- all their dishes
-the cats toilets
- all their water
- all their bedding
- all of Tinys special food
-all of Rockets meds
-all of Rockets anti-flea and tick meds
-all of Rockets toys
-Rocket sunglasses, the beach is bright.
- Rockets life vest, we might go boating.
-a sweater for Rocket should it get cold
- a back up collar, I don't want to mess up his nice one.
- all their shot records


 I have to remember to

- Go to Target and pick up refill of med for Rocket
- find his sunglasses
-to bring the scooper for the cats food
-to gather the dogs toys
-bring plastic bags in the car

TGIF

Photo Blogging Madness!

The cats are  doing well with their new bowls, the  old bowls are still out because I just haven't moved them yet.  I wasn't sure they were going to dig the new ones.

The solid green light means that they are eating out of their own  bowls.

Speaking of eating out of their own bowls, for his dinner, in honor of his sixth birthday, he had a  Cheese Big Mac without onions ( because they are bad, bad, bad for dogs), pickles because I saw online to avoid them and the special sauce because ew.

And for dessert, 

PEANUT BUTTER FROSTY PAWS!!!  And! I bought him a new chew toy! We went to his favorite store and picked it out together! Okay, I picked it out, he wanted to shop lift cow parts.

Happy Birthday Rocket!!

Today is Rockets 6th Birthday!!!!

Yay Rocket!!!!

That is him now

Here is him  then

And then he grew up a little

New Toy

I would have sat down and wrote a real entry but I was tried and it was a toss up between doing the laundry - up and down the stairs many times, or opening up my new toy! Which I can do from the floor and only required two trips up, one to bring the sizable box into the room and the other to fetch scissors to open it.

Actually, two of them. It is so I can buy less of of Tinys' pricey vet food which keeps him healthy but makes Ace fat and I can buy Ace grain free food which will help him get his shape back. I will also be able to stop spending my free time screaming at the dog to get out of the cats food. So much time screaming at the dog to get out of the cats food, you have no idea. One, its not really good for him as a dog, and two, its too damn expensive for him to hoover up. I'm over it.

The green bowl is Aces, it matches his pretty green eyes. Note the thick manual on top of the box. I can't start useing it right away as they require batteries I don't have in the house, of course. I am putting them out though so they get used to seeing them. It will be an adventure and it WILL solve some problems. Damn it. Hopefully. Pray for us.

Dog among the sunflowers

I didn't take the dog for a walk tonight because I did fifty minutes on the treadmill and my legs really hurt and I didn't want to put myself through it.

Also I had a plan to take Rocket to check out the five acres of sunflowers on Dix campus. I had wondered how they had managed to hide five acres of sunflowers and they did it by putting them behind the soccer fields and below the cemetery. Very clever.

Here are the best pictures I got of him among the sunflowers

Weekend

 I did almost nothing for two days, In my mind it was a very successful weekend. I slept a lot, I watched a lot of TV and I cuddled with the animals.

Sunday I took the dog for a walk, and as we got downtown I began to notice the odd rain drop. I decided to keep going because the last time it started raining I gave up too soon and it stopped almost as soon as it started. I figured that maybe the rain would just stop and we could go on.

It did stop, and we did walk. It was fine, until it started again. And we were far from home. And it just got to raining harder and harder as we plodded home. We hid in the bus station and then under  a tree for a bit, but we couldn't hide indefinitely, when it was not raining as hard we came out from hiding and just started walking.

And walking, and walking and walking.

And it just rained harder. And we got soaked. The dog was not happy. While we were downtown and it was hardly raining at all, he kept poking me with his head,  as to maybe get some part of him out of the wet. Later he just seemed to have let any hope of getting out of the rain go. That was even worse!

So we plodded home.  And it started to rain harder. And we were so far from home! And we just walked on.  We were not happy.

And finally! We were getting closer to the house, the rain stopped and the sun came out! Hosanna! The dog and I were soaked to the bone, dripping wet walking down the sidewalk, in the sunshine. We were getting closer to the house when a woman saw us and she said "Were you walking in the rain?"

I just said "yes" and kept going.

The only good thing about this sudden shower was that Rocket was soaked,and I have needed Rocked soaked for months. Rocket needed a bath and Rocket was going to get a bath. I stashed him in the entry way and turned on the hose. He was initially not very excited about getting even more wet, but  he calmed down! I was floored! He let me wash him and he didn't leave any bruises, I wasn't mentally injured either! I was shocked by this very good dog behavior, so unlike him!  and he is now clean and he smells good too.

Warehouses

Think happy thoughts for the cats in your life. My Moms cat was assaulted by  mugger and got stabbed and now she's got PTSD and she won't eat and she's going to go back to the vet again and she's 16 years old! She is too old for this shit.

Two of my Internet Famous cats that I follow online have been sickly, both hospitalized, which gave me Kitty Sickness Flashbacks, one had crystals in his urine just like Tiny and the other may have had that but then ended up heading down Fatty Liver Disease Boulevard, which is what Tex had , twice , it is when a fat kitty stops eating suddenly and the body starts to take up the slack and the liver suffers as a result and the animal can and will die if the animal doesn't start to eat on its own quickly. The first time, Tex started to eat again and lived another five or six years, the second time he didn't and had it and  liver cancer simultaneously and died a few days later.

My fat Internet Famous Kitty , got out of the hospital, and was eating, then stopped, and was worrying her person hugely, but then she noticed he was having a hard time in the litter box and had an idea. She gave him  kitty stool softener and left him alone. And he was healed. That was potentially his problem all along .

Other Internet Famous kitty, has only two legs, is also out of the hospital, and seems to be getting better, like Tiny, but isn't eating as well as they would like. I remember those days too well. Cats either eat too well or not enough.

On other animal news, Rocket and I went further downtown than usual and checked out the new train and bus station, or as much of it as we could. Its not nearly as open and the ribbon cutting would have you believe. We couldn't get near it. We were shocked at the transformation in the warehouse district and how different it is!  The warehouses are gone and now there are condos everywhere ( and two feet off the train tracks, active train tracks! How fun! and How loud!, around the clock.), we used to play down there and it was so picturesque, and I took a lot of pictures of the dog there - it isn't anymore. Its shoulder to shoulder condos. It just looks expensive and not at all photogenic.

Dog Day Afternoon

\

Sunday I took Rocket over to Dix for the the Pup Up Dog Park. A good time was had by all. And by "all" I mean hundreds of dogs and people! It was a full house! The field that was being used had been an activity space for the patients at the hospital. It had  playground equipment and a basketball court and baseball field and some work out areas. It was fully fenced and is now crying out to be a dog park. It has trees and seating and easy parking and would be a great dog park.

Rocket played with the dogs but his favorite activity was going up to people and saying "Hi! I'm Rocket! Pet me!" The crowd was packed with professional dog petters  and  so they were happy to do whatever he wanted. And he was such a whore too, he would just trot up to a seated person and say "Hey, why aren't you petting me?"

I missed the memo about bringing  a blanket and chairs and lunch, because the people who did get the memo looked like they were having a blast. I still had a really good time.He did this over and over again. I think he spent more time with people than he did with dogs and he spent a lot of time with other dogs.

Look how big that dane is compared to Rocket!

Shopping

So much shopping!  So many trips to and from various stores. I did my shopping and then the animals shopping, and  food shopping for a tree! So much shopping for the animals! The cats food had run short and I forgot to go to the vets, but that's alright because I can go to Petsmart and buy it form them right? Not right, they won't sell it to me because there is no script number on my script!

This is a new wrinkle. I have been buying this cat food from them for months and now they are all picky about numbers? How rude. It did help that as I walked into the Petsmart the clerk all but shrieked at  me : HI WHAT CAN I HELP YOU FIND??

I was looking for cat food and I knew where it was. I didn't need her help or to be screamed at. I found my food and returned to the registered and handed her my script. And she called her manager who told me and my script to go to hell. They didn't even let me negotiate. Absolute dicks. I walked out and went to the grocery to find cat food that might not hurt my cat. I immediately  tweeted a complaint at Petsmart that they haven't responded to yet.

Cats turn into real hipster foodies after you feed them wet food a few meals in a row. They also eat it a lot faster than they do their dry food. They just suck the wet stuff down, the dog runs up there to eat their food and there isn't anything there to eat. He licks their bowls, but I think is out of habit. They clean their plates.

Okay. So, I bought what I thought would feed the cats for two days. Wrong. It fed two cats for a day and a meal. I also noted that the dog was running out of food. Fine, I thought that  would kill two birds with one trip to the store. I know they sell Freshpet at Wally and they sell the dogs food there too. Well, they sell Freshpet for dogs not cats. This was more than a little frustrating. I got the dogs food and we went on to a different, further grocery store to get more food for the cats. I am hoping they don't refuse to eat their kibble when they get reacquainted with it tomorrow when I pick more up from the vet .

I did buy myself toilet paper, go me! at Big Lots and while I was there I found some fairly decent vegan ( I normally take a firm stance againts vegan anything) red sauce with no added sugar and very low carbs and that was a sign I needed to make spaghetti squash and ground meat dinner again. I almost bought a different sauce made from a different squash but I wasn't sure I liked the squash and it was higher in carbs and so I gave it a pass. I might get it the next time I'm in the store and I probably should have picked it it up just because it was interesting.

Thursday

(Today we are not thinking about all the things that have anniversaries today. April 19th is not a nice day)

I think I learned an important lesson today : Do not lay down after work. Just don't. Stay vertical at all times.

I could have gone for a nice walk in the nice weather  but No, instead I took  nap instead and wasted most of the daylight. I should have taken a walk, a walk would have been better for me and the dog. Walks are good, naps may feel good but they aren't good for you. Naps are the devil.

It doesn't help that the dog and both cats think thats naps are a very good way to welcome me home and they all are huge fans of napping and if they can celebrate that fandom by showing me how much they love napping by napping with me?! The day just got better! All three of them already sleep 17 hours a day, if they can sleep an extra hour or so with me as a back up guest daytime sleeper?, why not? I'm there all night but there is just something special about napping together during the daylight.

I blame work making me work too much. I need to work less. Or take more breaks, I haven't taken a good break at work in too long. I need to do more playing on the computer and less time working on it. I should be wasting more state time.

The dog likes the walks, I think, but clearly he can and does live without them too. I need them more than he does and clearly, I also live without them just fine too. I think in all honesty, I take him downtown so other people can admire him. They get so happy when they pet him and I watch them relax and and calm down just by petting his ears and talking to him. He is a furry antidepressant. The longer they interact with him the happier they become and the more they smile and less stressed out they become.. They talk to me about their current pets and pets they had as children and stories about those pets and they go to a softer, less rushed place. I've seen it time after time.

They pull out their phones and show me pictures of pets both living and gone on and tell me stores about their fifteen year old cockapoos. II never guessed so many people were walking around with pictures of their late pets on their phones, a lot of people have a lot of pictures of late pets. I know because I've seen them. Of course, I also have pictures of my late pets on my phone too.

Wednesday

Two mornings in a row I've had  my routine disrupted. Monday, I was dressed for a warmer morning than I encountered - Sue me, Sunday was gorgeous and I figured that Monday was be equally so. It was not.

I had to change clothes - a bigger issue than you might expect, I had plenty of time to over think my choices the night before but a very limited time the next morning! My over thinking does not like to be on a timer, I need time to fully explore every possible avenue and normally this takes some time, having to do it on a much compressed schedule was stressful. I do not need stress first thing in the morning. Normally, I try very hard to avoid any stress at all in the morning by making things very easy for myself and doing things exactly the same way and on the same schedule and not having any surprises - like a change in weather! Fortunately, I had time on the walk to decide what I was going to change into and it was available and so it wasn't as stressful a change in my morning as it could have been. But it was enough. 

Tuesday,  I set out to walk the dog and got all the way to end of the street before I discovered that I had left the house without bags! The horror. I had to turn home and the dog got to "walk" the backyard instead of around the block. I felt bad for him. I'm hoping that Wednesday dawns as warm as it is supposed to and that I remember to bring bags on our walk, these disruptions are not okay.

Speaking of disruptive, I accidentally locked Tiny kitty in  the downstairs bedroom over night! I had to go in there to get a shirt to wear to work and I thought the kitty was upstairs already. I went upstairs with the dog and went to bed immediately. I was tired and I thought both cats were there! I feel like a bad pet person, I should have counted noses before I turned off the light. Poor kitty! locked into a room all by himself! Crying by the door all night! Well, I bet he slept on the bed a lot of the time, he isn't a dumb kitty. The bed is very warm and soft and I know he likes that in a bed. It was still mean of me though. Tonight I put him upstairs early. He is already complaining but I think he would rather be upstairs with me than downstairs ny himself.

Monday

I was so good this weekend! I mowed the front yard, I did laundry and put it away and I got my weekly shopping done and put gas in the car!  And on Sunday I watched  several episodes of Monk one after anoter which is kind of like reading one of those books set in a yarn store where the main protagonist is a cat who solves murders.

I also spoke with the lawn mowing guy about mowing the jungle in the backyard but he ran away and hasn't been back, and so I don't know the status on him actually doing anything about the jungle - but I know I am not going to tackle it.

I might just have to get used to the Natural Look.

My front yard looks great, very sleek. I am happy with it. Right now however I am listening to the wind outside and hoping that everything stays where I left it outside. Already my lovely vines around my front door have been blown down and are now my  climbing vines are crawling  around my front porch deck. This is not lovely. The culprit, along with an assist from the wind was the wire that I had around my front door snapped and my plants fell to the ground. Not okay at all.

The dog and I took a walk while we waiting for it to get ugly, while it was just windy, we could have taken another walk later but it was much visually uglier then and I didn't to hedge my bets. It still hasn't really started raining yet so I could, in theory go out now but I really don't want to and I don't think the dog really wants to either. Its very windy and he hates wind, it makes him uncomfortable and upsets his inner sonar or doggy GPS or whatever. Its just easier to take him outside and let him pee under the carport and not mess with a full on walk.

Oh. And I forgot. The dog had a chance to kill a mouse on Friday and he completely muffed it. We were coming back from our walk and I saw what I thought was a baby bird on the ground, running. And then I thought "Baby birds don't run that fast. Have I seen a baby bird run?" , and then we got closer and I discovered that it was not a baby bird it it was a mouse!

Now, I just had a discussion with Brosky about how his much smaller and younger dog killed a Vol - On Purpose. His dog is a Boxer, a dog from a breed without a prey drive, and she still killed the little beast because she knew it needed killing. My older and bigger dog and from a breed with a well developed prey drive just chased it up and down and sniffed it! He could have killed it with a single tap from his paw! All he had to to was throw it in the air a couple of inches with his nose and he could have killed it from fear alone. But NO. the little beast went on the spread disease another day.

I was very disappointed. This is the same dog that tries to climb trees to get squirrels! Like he would even know what to do if he caught one! I would probably end up with a pet squirrel.

Hoppy Easter!

Its the Easter Doggy!

Tuesday

Things I think should be a Thing -  If you wake up and its raining and dark, you should be able to go back to bed. Really. Especially if its a federal holiday, the Olympics are on, there is a Without a Trace marathon scheduled, your cats have no food left, and you need to get someone to replace your headlight.

Its a pretty specialized requirement and very few people would make the cut. So I don't think it would get abused.

Cats really, really, really like to be fed on a schedule. Very focused, very OCD. If you go to bed without feeding them they do really cute things to remind you to feed them, or they would be really cute things if they were not being done at 2:15am, like camping out on your face and purring for an hour, its cute, its warm and kind of fun - the first time. And then its not. It's like why don't you go to sleep, and they say "Why don't you feed us" and I say "Because there is no food" and they go "Why didn't you go buy some earlier?" and I say "Well, because it looked like there was more than it was and frankly, I don't want to abuse the script I have for the food because the small print limits me to only six refills and if I can just go to the vets, I want to just go to the vets, which I can do. Tomorrow." And they say "I'm hungry NOW" and I say "Hey, fatty, I think you can suck it up for a few hours". And they say "Hey, lets go chase something loud across the floor for a couple of hours!"

I didn't get a lot of really good sleep Sunday night. I got sleep but not sleep-sleep. I kept getting woken up by cats looking for the kibble I had hidden somewhere on my person. Because I do that, hide cat food in my pajamas and in my hair. Just to be mean to my cats.

SIgnificantly later, I got the cats there food. I thought I was going to get food immediately when I had lunch, but I noticed that  I had no gas and while I might be able to get the cat food I would not be able to get the cat food to the cats - and irony they would not appreciate . 

The car gassed up, I was able to score the cat food and make an appointment for Rocket to get his bordetella shot on, note to self: THURSDAY AT 5PM.

Oh, and after work, I got my light changed. I had really wanted to do it myself, but, I would need supervision the first time or at least watch someone. But, I can say I watched someone do it and it doesn't look that hard. In any case it cost me all of $6.  Its a done job and I'm happy.

Um. Ice dancing is on, if I had a choice between watching snowboarding and Ice Dancing, I think I'd rather watch ice dancing. Are we going to medal in snow boarding though? I mean if there is a chance, I can see why we are here, because I think there is like between no and  not a chance in hell in ice skating  . But do we have to watch all of them? Can't we switch back and forth? What if we don't want to stay up all night?  NBC Fail.

Thursday

If I didn't have to buy a new toilet, I would very likely entertain thoughts of buying two of these

Do you know the stress these babies would save me? I could feed Tex food that would not make him fat, I could save money by not have to feed  expensive vet food to two cats, I could not have to scream at the dog when he eats the cats very expensive cat food. But sadly, these feeders are very expensive. Very, very expensive. But jeebus, the stress relief!

It is to dream the impossible dream. Because I am buying a new toilet because my old toilet has cost me $340 over the last two months and it should have cost me $128.


And I'm not even going to waste my time and yours with thoughts and prayers for the poor kids in Florida. The Republican leadership doesn't care and doesn't want those episodes to stop. They don't care. They don't care about adults, they don't care about children, they don't care about Americans. Lord have mercy on our souls. The Republicans certainly will not.

Tuesday

Today was very pretty. Very bright, very sunny, very lovely. Cold and windy as it wanted to be. Very bitchy weather. I took the dog for a walk because he didn't get one at all Monday because it was still raining and I could tell he was getting antsy.

 I walked out the office and was shocked to see there had been no change from lunch. So no walk in the morning and no walk at night either. My fitbit is going to be snarky about how many days I exercised this week and there is no way to tell it that it rained. It doesn't cotton to any excuses on your part. It fully expects you to get out there, rain or shine and do your part.

So Tuesday, in the interests of making it up to my fitbit and the dog, we took two walks, one in the morning, when it was still wet, and one after work, thankfully, sans rain. I thought after work because it had managed to get colder and now it was windy - that I would change things up by not wearing the cheap one-size-fits-all knit gloves that I wear every day as they are not very warm and I am tired of cold hands. I went with much warmer mittens, I thought these would improve my  hands warmth.

I discovered why adults don't wear mittens, even though they are warm, much warmer than one-size-fits-all knit gloves. We need our fingers. We need to be able to use our hands and mittens impede use of hands. Kids can really rock flippers, we as adults can not. I mean, I'm sure they are great for making snowballs and riding bikes but they suck for trying to tie up poopy bags. I'm just saying, adults need to adult and mittens don't make it easy.

I also chose the wrong hat, I have the right hand and chose the wrong hat and I ended up with cold ears a hundred yards from the house. Not okay. The slacks I wore to work weren't made for the cold either, I could have changed into much warmer pants, should have, could have, would have. Didn't. Did have cold legs.

So I had cold ears,  my chin wasn't happy about the whole thing, my hands that were warmer than they are normally under the circumstances but were all but useless and I had cold legs. But it wasn't raining, I had to find something to be happy about, at the very least, for the first time since Saturday night, it had stopped raining. It would have really sucked to be out in the cold, driving wind and damp. I mean if it was still raining I would have been where I was all weekend, under a blanket with the dog watching TV, but where are the health benefits there? There are none.

Walking and getting exercise are good for you.  Its good for me, it's good for the dog, its good for us. I tell myself that as I slog home every night and my legs are tingling from the cold and I can't feel my hands or my ears and my nose is running. "This is Good For Us."

Monday!

Wow, so much has happened since I saw you last! I woke up Thursday morning with no internet, Thursday after work, I still had no internet so  I tried to install my new modem, I found out that I didn't need my new modem because it was for a provider I don't actually have, I wiped out my internet connection and my phone service in the process, I yelled at a lot of people at two different multinationals, I uninstalled my new modem, I moved a thousand pound dresser around more than I would have prefered, I got my phone service back and my internet turned back on. I also turned off the other provider that had someone turned itself on and sent me a modem I did not ask for.

A lot of people got yelled at, if I, the consumer, is going to move a thousand pound dresser around, there is going to be blowback. And if it ended up that I didn't need to move that dresser the first time much less the second time and this was YOUR mistake? Expect hissing.

I knew I didn't need to be dealing with installing the modem when I opened the box and took one look at the instructions and the mess of cables and there was a lot of instructions and a mess of cables!  and said "Nope". "Above my payscale. I am uncomfortable doing this job myself. This looks like a skilled job to me". And then I have to end up doing it any way and then when I am through I lose my landline and my internet, and I call the people responsible for making me lose them and the response is "We can send out a guy soon" and "Soon" is  in a "few days" and then we start talking further about why there is no place for my phone cord and  the person I am talking to gets flustered and says they don't "do" phones and doesn't know what I am talking about.

And then I call my service and we have a talk and it turns out they didn't send me a modem and they don't have any idea why I lost service in the morning but to plug my cables back in to their box - more moving around of the thousand pound dresser, and magicly my phone works again and once the right cables are plugged back in, I have internet again.

Friday, after work  went to a friends art exhibit and ( the dog was in the car, in a thick sweater, don't worry about him) we left the thing and and then went to the store and bought random things because I was bored. Because through all of this it was bitter, bitter cold and I haven't left the house except to go to work and then it actually hurt to do so. So I was happy to be out and about, even though it did hurt to go outside.

Anyway. I have been eating raisins at work. So I bought some to snack on while I sat around the house watching TV and being cold all weekend.

I honestly can not remember what else I bought. We came home, I unloaded the car and the dog and started to put stuff away. I then remembered that the city had changed the trash day to Saturday and so I put the garbage out.

I came back in the house and found my raisins on the floor.

The dog and I went to the Animal ER.  Long story short. If you have dogs and cats in your house, treat raisins and grapes like toxic cleaners and keep them locked up. They are very, very bad for your pets. If I hadn't gotten back into the house quickly or if he had actually liked them more, he could have been very, very ill. Kidney failure ill, some dogs die ill. As it was he only ingested 29 raisins and it still required that he be made to vomit, eat a lot of activated charcoal and have three blood tests over two days to measure his kidney functions and they kind of wanted me to have him stay there for the weekend but I said no dice, I would bring him back to the hospital for the required blood draws.

Fortunately, his initial tests were completely normal and they stayed that way all weekend. We got very lucky. I am also lucky to have insurance, hopefully they won't cancel me for useing it .

Colors

Yesterday I inadvertently traumatized myself by wearing brown shoes with gray pants. I thought that the pants were brown - they looked brown under the available light and I went with that they were brown, they were most sincerely not brown.

I looked like a People of Walmart all day. Not a good look, and then later, I sneezed all over myself and discoved hat my nose was bleeding! I doscovered this on a red sweater so that was marginally better than discovering it on a white shirt, but only marginally because it was a bright red sweater and not  a blood red sweater. It wasn't, it is now.

Such a super awesome day. For today, I checked that my pants were absolutely the color that I thought they were, absolutely gray and that they matched my shoes, it is important. The day was better from the start.

 I need to be more careful when I go pants shopping that I don't buy in the inbetween family of shades, I think that was the problem. I think the pants were kind of both brownish and grayish in the wrong light and that is fine when you are trying to match a printed sweater it is not fine when you are wearing the wrong shoes. You think I am over reacting here, but I'm not! You spend the day in brown pants and gray shoes and you tell me how you feel about yourself by the end of the day? It is not going to be good, I can tell you that.

Being a walking Fashion Don't is embarrassing even if a grand total of no one sees you and fewer that than that even register that you have made this mistake - because you notice for them and that is almost worse! I went to Wally dressed like that but nobody noticed because half of them were talking to themselves and the other half were wearing pajamas - No joke at all. A lot of people talk to themselves at Wally and a bunch of people feel comfortable wearing their pajamas to go shopping at the Wal-Mart.  I haven't noticed it at my Wally, but that the Garner Wally, a lot of the clients are pajama clad  and bonkers. For real. The Knightdale Wally the clientele are poor but proud, wearing street clothes and keeping their mouths shut. Whatever their psychosis is, they keep it to themselves.

I think I also go to Wal-Mart too frequently.

Monday

I have discovered that dozing with the dog on the couch is a very time consuming task. He's just so amenable to it! He's warm and squishy but solid . He is what I imagine those really expensive mattresses are like. I've never tried to balance a glass of wine on him but I bet it wouldn't spill after he had been a sleep for a while. I have however never bounced on him, I don't think he would like that. I think that would result in spillage. And  an unhappy dog, why would I intentionally make my dog unhappy?

But besides being incredibly comfortable and warm and lovely and all kinds of positive, couching with the dog is  also a  terrible time suck. I think I'm only going to hang out there for a few seconds and the next thing I know its been thirty-five minutes or more! It's the or more! that is very concerning and troubling, its really bad to say you are going to go and just lay down for a second or so and the next thing you know its been much more than a second or so - and its that "or so" that becomes entirely too long. It is for that reason that I am forbidden from doing  this in the morning, I don't even look at him on the couch because it is such a strong urge to go and curl up with him. I don't have a spare "or so" to burn in the morning.

In the evenings when I do have a lot more "or so's" I go to see if he will let me curl up with him because sometimes he doesn't want to share space on the couch, he can be in a mood, and he will get up and go elsewhere and that makes me feel really unloved , I mean if your dog doesn't even want to hang out with you, what kind of person are you? But then, what kind of dog have you raised?  It can really mess up my evening - right up until he needs to go pee and remembers who opens the door around here.

But if he doesn't need to pee,  I can always get him though. I just pull out the blanket and he is drawn in like a moth to a flame or a weim to a comforter. All of a sudden he wants to curl up on  my lap, he wants to be my friend, he wants to spend time with me his best friend ever. And I let him do it, every single time because I am sooooo easy.

I  was sitting on the chair watching nothing on TV and I saw the dog curled up on the couch like he is in the morning when  I don't dare go near him, but this time? It was not in the morning and I was like "Hmm. I see no good reason why I can't go curl up with him now.

And so I did. I muted the TV and went to the couch and curled up  around him and it as exactly like I thought it would be. It was so perfect and warm and soft and puppy lovey that I fell a little asleep and then I woke up and I was a little, okay , a lot concerned that it had  gone from the night before to the day of and I came up with a lot of reasons why I should not be curled up with the dog right now.

Fortunately, it was still the night before.

I was now very awake, he needed to pee and since it was not hours later than I had thought it was, I needed to do all the little jobs I didn't do because I fell asleep when I was curled up with him and so I took him out and did my boring little jobs and got ready for tomorrow and he went back to sleep.