Decamping

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This Dog's Life

Now that G has been a member of the household for more than 72 hours, I thought I'd share some of my observations. Being new to this whole dog ownership thing, some of these will seem kind of 'duh' to those of you who have or had dogs. Oh well.

1) He is still camera shy, but my father-in-law tipped me off that if I took pictures outside when the red light flash doesn't work, I'll have better luck. And, he was right. There's a pic of my new man at the end of this post.

2) He farts daily. The silent but deadly kind, and uniquely doggie. I don't think I need to state that we have plenty of gas in the house already and don't really need anymore. Just when I begin to articulate this particular thought out loud, he gives me that How-Could-You-Not-Love-Me look and all is forgiven.

3) He's not above pooping in the street. That was yesterday's revelation.

4) While he's partial to ladies, he loves anyone with two legs. Men, kids, ladies. He must. get. to. them. And, they must pet him. We think he'll make a wonderful therapy pet.

5) He's not much into retrieving. He will happily chase after the ball, but then he'll toy with it and ultimately hide it somewhere in the yard. I'm still searching for the tell-tale day-glo green peeking out of the bushes.

6) He loves to go through any and all bushes, plants, planters, etc. He is particularly partial to monkey grass and boxwoods. He has transported quite an array of fauna into the house via his coat this way.

7) He sighs. A lot. As if the burden of being a dog is sometimes too much. Life is rough, buddy, and if I had to lay around all day with regular breaks to go run in the sunshine and roll around in the grass, with catered meals everyday, I'd be sighing too.

8) One brushing will yield enough fur to constitute a tribble. And there's still more fur. I have tumbleweeds of fur floating around my hardwood floors.

9) He will try to cram all 73.8 pounds of himself into impossibly tight places, usually during a thunderstorm, despite the fact that we got him a perfectly lovely crate and covered it so that it's nice and dark and enclosed and give him Quiet Moments tablets. He still prefers to cram himself under my desk.

10) He must roll in the grass at least once a day and pause in mid roll to give me that, oh don't you pity me look. And then he sneezes.

11) He has the most wonderful habit of laying down next to the bed and throwing his weight against the sides so you can feel the gentle thump as he eases down next to you while you sleep. And then he sighs.

12) He has discovered the forbidden joy of kitty kibble. I was struggling to open a can of green beans with which I was going to supplement his diet, since he's a bit on the pudgy side. While I was doing this, G mysteriously disappeared. I went around the corner and there he was, head fully engrossed in kitty bowl chowing kitty food while kitty looked on. Now, the kitty who's food was being purloined himself has been guilty of stealing food from others, namely his brother. So, I could not help but feel a little poetic justice while reminding G sternly that we do not eat the kitty's food. So, now Fluffy eats his dinner in the laundry room to prevent the Bad One from stealing it. The Bad One now eats in the guest bathroom to prevent G from stealing it. I don't think G will have any worries since Mr. X and I are not into dog food, or green beans for that matter.

Despite (or in spite of) all of this, how could you not want to take this home?

I wasn't able to resist either.

He's Just Not that Into You

I've been having a hard time convincing the kitties that their new doggy brother, G, is frankly just not that into them. They have put on quite the show for him, too: hissing, doing the Halloween cat, glowering at him. But, bless his Golden little heart, he could care less. He gives them a wide berth and heads in search of his peeps for a head scratch and general adoration.

The kitties, however, watch him like a hawk. Their eyes narrow whenever he lumbers near them and they peer imperiously from up on high at this shaggy four-legged creature in their midst. When they do deign to come down from their perch in search of sustinance, they mew at him as if to say, "I know what you are and I'm not going to let you get anywhere near me." G, for his part, just kind of looks at them, maybe takes a tentative sniff and then looks at me as if to say, "what is their problem?" Oh, G, I could write a book on that one.

G, however, is not a push over by any means. The other morning I was sprawled over the bed since Mr. X had since departed for work and I was enjoying my extra 20 minutes of bed dominance. G was issuing large sighs at the foot the bed but then made a loud, "rrrrrrrrrrrmmmmmmmmmphhh" noise while quickly getting to this feet. My first thought on hearing this was, "This is not good."

I got out of bed to inspect that all limbs and fur were intact on both sides of the Animal Kingdom. Everyone appeared to be intact, although the kitties were standing in the doorway, backs arched with large puffed tails and very, very wide eyes. I knew pretty quickly what had transpired. They tried to sneak up on G and he had very plainly stated that this was not allowed. The kitties retreated to the safety of the top of the kitchen cabinets and G just went about his day. They must have either forgiven him or were driven past their fear by hunger, because they began to mouthily indicate that it was time for dinner as usual and ate with gusto.

I suspect in a few weeks, G will be as much of a novelty to them as we are: not much more than furniture upon which they may drape themselves or otherwise climb over. It's not such a bad life, G.

image: applesticker

I Shall Call Him ... Mini G

There is a very large, golden blonde pile of fur in the X household, people. We have G____! We met him today at his foster home and we knew pretty quickly that he was a very special guy. We had some lunch and talked it over and decided to give it a whirl. So, we are officially doggy parents!

Fluffy and the Bad One are doing beautifully and G has shown zero interest in them. He already loves the backyard - including rolling in the grass ("Roll, roll, roll in ze hay") - and charmed everyone at Petco. Tomorrow we'll do our first walk and see how that one goes.

Right now he's conked out on the floor with me. He seems to be doing pretty well. We've also discovered that he is camera-shy. It might be a while before I can get pics up.

Smooches, Mrs. X and Doggie Mommy to G.

Trashy, Trashy

I have literally been in libraries since before I was born. My mother was a librarian and while I gestated for nine months, occasionally numbing her leg with a well-placed kick to the nerve, she was happy to peddle books. My maternal grandmother too was a librarian, although apparently not a particularly good speller and was thus made to promise that she would never work as a cataloguer in order to get her diploma. True story. My paternal grandmother also had a career in a library. Our family produced librarians like some produce doctors or lawyers. I even asked my mother when I was a precocious 9-year-old if I was required to become a librarian when I grew up. This was the last profession that I wanted, but I was sure that because of the family history, that it was my lot in life. Luckily, she absolved me of any requirement to be a librarian.

Just because I'm not that interested in librarianism, doesn't mean that I don't love books (or even libraries for that matter). Like with most things in life, I go through phases with reading. Some weeks I'm interested in non-fiction, others I'm into classic literature. This week's phase: trasy, trashy fiction. We all have those days when all we want to do is curl up with a trashy fiction novel and let go to the torrid affair being played out in between the pages. I didn't realize that I was in the mood for trashy fiction until I was at the library this evening and stumbled across one my favorite guilty pleasure authors: Philippa Gregory. History and soft-core porn rolled into one.

I can't wait to revisit Elizabethan England where in Ms. Gregory's version, Elizabeth did sleep with Dudley and consummated their great love. The husband and I also just finished watching the Masterpiece Theatre's "Virgin Queen", their version of Elizabeth's life, so I shouldn't have too much difficulty conjuring up the necessary costumes and finery. By the way, the young man they got to play Dudley in that version is nothing short of Walking Sex. I had to be careful not to drool all over Mr. X. Yum-my. He's apparently now tackling the role of Heathcliff, which should be extremely entertaining to watch.

Any other suggestions for truly trashy fiction? Keep in mind that I have already read the Gold Standard of Trashy Fiction, Valley of the Dolls. It doesn't get much worse than that.

image: oldtasty

Oh My G__________!

The hubby and I visited the in-laws this weekend, and while we were there I diligently checked e-mail and voice mail just in case we heard from the Dog People. Nada. This afternoon, Sweets and I were laying in bed (fully clothed people, get your minds out of the gutter!) and the phone rang. I assumed it was the in-laws calling to find out if we had gotten home, but I could tell immediately that it wasn't.

It was the Dog People.

And, that which I had lost all hope of happening, has worked out. G_______ has been matched to us!!!! Holy crapoly! Turns out, our matchmaker is kind of new to this matching thing and while she had put us in for G_________, she kind of forgot to tell us. So, the fact that he is listed as "adoption pending" is absolutely correct - our adoption pending!!!

Next step is hear from G's foster mom and go and visit the little man. If there is 'mush love' (their term) then, we get to take him home with us!

I seriously had begun to not believe in happy endings, but this definitely made me think twice.

This and That

I feel chatty, so I will recount the various goings on at the House of X. Get ready, it's pretty boring. I recommend having a pillow nearby in case you suddenly fall into a catatonic state from the sheer excitement.

I got an email last night from the Matchmaker at the Golden rescue organization which was worthy of a whoop until I read that they somehow had it in their heads that we had indicated we could not adopt a dog until July 28th. Um, nooooo. I sent a very nice email back essentially saying that wasn't us and could you please put us on the regular adoption track ASAP? They also sent some information on introducing dogs to cats. That should be an entertaining read. Although, I doubt they espouse Mr. X's idea of putting them all together in a steel cage match where only the winner emerges victoriously. Yes, he was kidding.

My parents are climbing the Swiss Alps. They called me yesterday to complain about a) how tired they were, b) how sore they were, c) how freakin' tired they were and d) how they didn't think they could do four more days of torture. I was a little incredulous since they had signed up voluntarily and I asked my dad if he really was secretly expecting an escalator, to which he feebly responded, "well, yeah." Oy. They both kept mentioning how many rocks there were. Well, duh!

I went to Bunco last night and thankfully, did not come home with Pinkey. In fact, I came home with $8 and had two ice cold Dos Equis to boot. Not a bad haul for a night spent throwing around little plastic dice and dishing about the neighborhood gossip.

Speaking of neighborhood gossip, I don't know how much longer I can handle being on the Board of Directors of our little home owners association. Our neighborhood is being torn asunder and divided into two camps: those who want speed bumps and those who do not. Oh, the horror! Seriously, people, we spent at least an hour debating this issue at the general meeting last year. Snore. Obviously, we live in an affluent community because the topic of greatest concern is whether to stick asphalt bumps on the road in an (ineffective) effort to control traffic speeds.

I have been listening to iTunes radio today - switching between the R 'n B channels and classical. Yes, I have very eclectic taste. It reminds me of the Old School station I listened to in the town where we lived. I loved that station and our current city has squat. So, iTunes it is for my fix. I also have access to XM Radio online, but their R n' B stations just aren't cutting it for me. Now, their alternative stations - that's another story entirely.

Our latest Netflix arrived in the mail. We've been Netflix subscribers since 2005 and we love it. Netflix was the only way in which I was able to watch all three seasons of Grey's Anatomy in one summer just in time to catch up to the fourth season - and just in time for the writers' strike! Recently, we watched the first season of the Tudors and both agreed that while it was extremely entertaining, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers was no Henry VIII. The chicken legs are the first dead giveaway as is the whisp of an Irish accent and don't even get me started on the lack of red hair! But, Sam Neill was fabulous. We are also making our way through the Sharpe's series starring - wait for it - Sean Bean! Mr. X and I have been having a grand time watching these gems of 90s production values and bodice-ripping. And, of course, my weekly Sean Bean dose, fully endorsed and encouraged by Mr. X.

That's all the news that's fit to print for now. Scintillating as always.