Dog: FAIL
Some things may be looking up. No, no, nothing about ARCs and books scheduled for publication in September*. Both hellhounds ate lunch today for the first time in weeks. Of course then we had an unexpected meltdown about dinner, arrrgh. However, eating was eventually accomplished at dinner as well . . . and then they got all cranky about Pav getting bits of chicken for afters too. Guys. Your neurosis is showing.
But I was thinking despairingly today . . . I may not only be starting to hope strenuously that Pav doesn’t get too big to pick up**, I may spend my declining years specialising in dogs that are small enough to pick up.*** It is the simple truth that Other People’s Dogs are starting to undermine my delight in my own dogs. Yes. It’s that bad.
I think it was two days ago I was giving Pav a last quick sprint around the centre of town. It was after dark and New Arcadia is not known for its heady night life. There were only a few people on the street. Two of them were standing talking to each other outside the Troll and Nightingale. Between them was a lying-down dog.
I am paranoid, but like the old joke goes, even paranoids have real enemies. This dog was just lying there but I knew I didn’t like the look of it, and I had taken note that it was not wearing a lead. I think we’ll not worry about it, I said to Pav, and picked her up. I then strolled out into the street, so we would be passing Ominous Dog at a little distance instead of possibly invading its private space by passing it on the, you know, public pavement.
We hadn’t even come level with it when it LEAPED to its feet and came barrelling straight at us, barking and snarling with all its hair up. OH GREAT. THIS IS GREAT. I REALLY GOT UP THIS MORNING SAYING PERHAPS TODAY IS A GOOD DAY TO DIE. I yelled, which is what I usually do in these situations, bellowing is less embarrassing than shrieking and if by any chance the human involved is going to do anything this is a SUGGESTION THAT THEY DO IT NOW.
They never do, of course. In this case as I yelled I swung around, on the theory that fewer dogs will attack a human than will go for the hellterror in the human’s arms, and Toxic Purulence Dog swerved off at the last minute, circled around us and came up behind me again. I don’t suppose I did feel its hot breath on the back of my neck but I felt as if I was feeling its hot breath on the back of my neck. Not a small dog. Just by the way.
Its human said, Awwwwwww, he just wants to say helloooooooo.
Words failed me, which is just as well. You can neither argue nor reason with these troglodytes—and in this case I guess there is more going on than mere denial. This guy’s getting off on his evil dog, in some weird passive-aggressive way. Toxic Purulence Dog eventually peeled away and left us alone, and I, even more eventually, put Pav back on her own feet.†
I was out with Pav after dark again tonight†† but we were at the other end of town. We were walking past one of the sports grounds which was all lit up because they were playing one of those men-in-shorts-kicking-balls games. I therefore couldn’t see much into the dark beyond, but I was pretty sure I was seeing . . . an off lead dog and a human. I picked Pav up. As we got closer . . . IT WAS TOXIC PURULENCE DOG AGAIN. How did we get so lucky? And it ran straight at us††† while its human said, Awwwwww, now, Uncle Wiggly‡ . . .
It swerved off again, a little sooner this time. Small favours. I tracked it going down the other side of the football field and thought, we’ll just take an extra loop around the hedgerow so we don’t all arrive back at the car park at the same time.
I was nonetheless looking around like Ripley in Aliens as we got close to the car park and . . . saw a large familiar-looking dog just jumping into a car. ‡ We lingered a little longer before venturing to cross the tarmac and . . . violent, hysterical barking broke out from the car we’d seen. I risked looking over my shoulder and . . . yup. Toxic Purulence Dog. Slightly muffled by being behind a closed window.
Here’s the really incredible bit. The troglodyte lowered the window so Toxic Purulence Dog could jam its head and shoulders through the opening and scream at us. I wondered in a cool detached way if TPD was actually going to get out and come after us again. . . .
What is the matter with people?
* * *
* SHADOWS’ official pub date is the 26th of September, if you want to draw a big red circle on your calendar. I Remember the Good Old Days when authors got their first copies weeks before the rest of the world did. Now it’s the other way around. With pre-orders and things readers who are not merely enthusiastic but organised may have your book in their hot little hands weeks before your publisher’s warehouse sends it to you.
** I can’t think of Pav as ‘small’ however. She’s just . . . low slung. She’s so frelling solid.^ When I think of a small dog, I think of the sort of critter that you’re afraid of breaking if you pick it up wrong or hold it too tightly. It’s not merely a question of weight: Pekinese are solid little beggars. Bichon Frises, in my admittedly limited experience, are not, although they may weigh half again to twice what a Peke weighs. While I’m not going to try dribbling Pav like a basketball^^, I’m quite sure she’d bounce and come up smiling.^^^
^ Even if she’s too thin.+
+ . . . mutters: she is not too thin.
^^ and am only occasionally tempted . . . STOP EATING THE CARPET. STOP EATING THE SOFA. STOP EATING THE HELLHOUNDS’ BED. STOP EATING YOUR LEAD. STOP EATING MY JEANS/SHOELACES/SOCKS. STOP EATING . . .
^^^ Love the bullie grin. Just saying.
*** My second to last dog will be a Yorkshire terrier. Then I’ll get one of those mobility scooter things and have an extra-large basket put on the front in which can ride a mini-bullie and a small whippet.^
^ Hazel, at nineteen pounds, all of which was leg and spine, curled up on your lap beautifully. Pav, at twenty-seven pounds, doesn’t fit in your lap at all, partly because she’s a rectangular solid and doesn’t bend very well.
† Pav was all, Okay, that was fun and exciting! What’s next? I was shivering with adrenaline and had to sit down for a minute. No, no, no, said Pav. Sitting down is not fun and exciting. Perhaps if I eat your shoelaces you will be aroused to take an interest.
†† I spent most of the afternoon IN THE GARDEN. Which I will probably tell you about tomorrow. (*&^%$£”!!!!!, etc.
††† And Pav sat up Very Straight and said, Ooooh, this is fun and exciting! —She’s been freaked out a couple of times by big dogs rushing up to her, even big friendly dogs. I would love to know what she’s thinking when we’re having an encounter while I’m carrying her. As I’ve said many times, she’s very, very good about being carried, because of all that holding when she was a baby; picking her up is, in fact, a good way of telling her to calm down; nine times out of ten she collapses instantly.^ But what she is thinking while Armageddon is racing toward us? ‘I’m taller than he is’? ‘Nobody goes up against the hellgoddess and lives’? ‘Wheeeee’?
^ The tenth time, of course, there is major blood loss, and you feel as if you’re holding onto a small exploding galaxy.
‡ Not Its Real Name
‡‡ I hope I’m imagining it that the troglodyte waved at me.
Weekend
It was a fair old flaming rubbish tip of a weekend. And it started off so well. I made it to Aloysius’ early Saturday morning silent prayer meeting. Did I tell you* that in response to my nagging about a silent prayer service at a more civilised hour than eight frelling a.m. on a Saturday** he’s begun, just for the duration of Lent, a Wednesday afternoon silent service before the daily Lenten (ordinary) prayer service . . . which I think chiefly gets me off his back for three (?) more weeks but hey, whatever works. I had told him about taking a blanket to sit in the monks’ chapel and he looked thoughtful and said that I’d probably want a blanket for St Margaret’s lady chapel. So I went along this Wednesday with my becoming-well-travelled blanket and YAAAAAAARG &^%$£”#@???**{~] COLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! St Margaret’s*** chapel makes the monks’ look tropical.† St Margaret’s is relatively new build, but the electric fire on the wall in the chapel I swear is older than I am. And I was sitting RIGHT NEXT TO IT on Wednesday afternoon and all that happened was that the right side of my face got rather warm. Saturday morning at 8:30—and who is at their best at 8:30 on a Saturday morning—I had to sit against the wall so as not to block ingress (and heat) to other worshippers—all of whom, bar Aloysius and me, got to sit in CHAIRS††. As it happens we were—ahem—thin on the ground on Saturday††† so during the five-minute break to thump some life back into frozen extremities I also shifted over to sit next to the heater again. This meant that for the second twenty-five minutes of life-sapping cold I had a little hot space between my shoulder blades. . . .
But the rest of the weekend was a trifle dire. Darkness started his double-ended geysering trick again on Friday . . . which I initially thought was a one-off but was nothing of the kind, and indeed has been much more severe than his having-bolted-a-sandwich-end-found-in-a-hedgerow-when-the-hellgoddess-wasn’t-looking usual and . . . I’m kind of worried. This is not only hard on my nerves (and my washing machine) but on Darkness, whose gut is already not of the strongest and most resilient. I will probably take him in for a chat with the vet, but I don’t want to put him on ConMed drugs unless I absolutely, absolutely see no alternative. His ‘picture’ has changed and I’ve changed his homeopathic remedy accordingly, so it’s possible that next time we’ll be back to getting through it faster. But . . . I’m worried. He’s six and a half years old, which means he’s in his mid-forties in people time, and wear and tear starts catching up with you. . . .
I missed my Saturday evening service—my favourite church service of the week—with the monks, because I didn’t want to leave Darkness that long, and my concentration wouldn’t have been up to much anyway.
And then Peter went down with one of his streeeeeeeeeeeeaming colds, I will leave it to your vivid imaginations, but he does stream like no one else and his colds tend to roar up on him like a charging lion.‡ And while it does seem only to be a head cold, still, when you’re eighty-five, it’s all a little precarious.
Oh yes and then my front door lock at the cottage jammed and WOULDN’T LET ME IN AND MY HELLCRITTERS, one of them in a somewhat parlous state, WERE ALL CLAMOURING ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR AND WONDERING WHY I WASN’T COMING IN TO TELL THEM HOW WONDERFUL THEY ARE.‡‡
I had very little sleep Saturday night between worrying and lurching awake every time I thought I heard a hellhound change position downstairs, and very nearly bottled out of ringing on Sunday. I only dragged myself to New Arcadia because I knew Niall and Penelope were away and so they were very likely to be short-handed—and I was out of bed and dressed and everything, I was just brainless. There were exactly six of us, and I was the weak link—and I tend to get buoyed up a level if the rest of the band is good. So not only did we sound not bad but it was fun. I’m really not used to Sunday mornings at New Arcadia being fun.
Darkness seemed to be stable enough that I went off, with only a few languishing backward looks, to the abbey for the afternoon service ring . . . and that was not bad either despite quite a plethora of rogues. I appreciate that they want to shovel as many unsteady learners as possible into a touch to give as many (unsteady) learners as possible time on a rope but having the gorblimey treble going walkabout when I’m ringing inside on bob major, which I haven’t rung nearly enough to have any automatic pilot for and am still very dependent on the treble being in the RIGHT PLACE, was not friendly. And there were three of us with erratic wanderlust in the Grandsire triples plus a rogue conductor and . . . nobody died. I wasn’t brilliant, but I kept my line, even when some of our other variables were not keeping theirs.
It was a beautiful, very nearly spring day today . . . and Darkness has eaten both lunch and dinner with evidence of pleasure . . . and no unseemly results (I think). Maybe the week is going to improve. . . .
* * *
* I looked back in the blog and I don’t think I did
** Not that a freelancer cares that it’s a Saturday. But it’s the principle of the thing. Also, eight o’clock . . . no way. It’s almost cruel that they decided to move it to 8:30. Because then I did have a chance. Rats.
*** I seem to have named St Margaret’s of Scotland a little too well.
†Of course I’m not sitting on the frelling floor at the monks’, where there are definitely polar winds. Yet. I haven’t yet clawed my courage together to ask a monk if it would be acceptable for me to sit zazen—cross-legged on a cushion on the floor—so long as I pulled myself together and behaved once the service starts. They know Aloysius—and I’d be very surprised if they didn’t know something of the Zen Christian subset in the Christian contemplative tradition—so this won’t be entirely bonkers-sounding. I hope. Except for the polar winds of course. Maybe I’ll just not get around to asking till later in the season. Although I kind of suspect that while St Margaret’s chapel may warm up by June, the monks’ old stone sanctuary with the vaulted roof is going to stay brumal.
†† I know. I’ve just been saying I’m going to ask the monks if I can sit on their floor. I’ve never been sane, rational or consistent, why should turning Christian make me morph into someone else entirely? I will merely become a sort of heightened insane, irrational and inconsistent. Or maybe God will improve my circulation. He’s known to move in mysterious ways.
††† There’s a lot of flu going around. That’s a lot. What is it about March? Doesn’t this happen every year? It’s like all the bad evil germs and dormant viruses that have been lying around going la la la la all winter suddenly wake up and think, Hey! Spring! I was going to cause way more mayhem before spring! —And explode into unseemly activity.
‡ I guessed wrong about the homeopathic remedy for him too. The problem with Peter’s head colds is that they come on so fast you don’t have time to change your mind if the first thing didn’t work. It’s not this simple, of course, but it is this frustrating.
‡‡ I got in eventually. Atlas took the freller apart today and OILED THE CRAP OUT OF IT and at the moment it is working beautifully.
‡‡‡ Even if I did have to go to my voice lesson today without having practised properly first because Peter had A Guest and the cottage was full of Atlas.
News of Fresh Disasters
Last night the frell . . . I mean, the adorable clever obedient hellterror and I had just come indoors from our final struggle of the day for the Domination of the Young Canine Large Intestine and there was the most colossal ROAR—and the house shook. I reverted, as one will do, to an earlier and more blizzardy era and thought eeep, I didn’t think we’d had enough snow for it to come off anyone’s roof like that, and I’m glad the hellterror and I weren’t outside when it happened. There are at least three roofs that slope into my garden*: my own, Phineas’, and the mini-cottage at the end of my detached neighbour’s garden. I reopened the kitchen door cautiously and stepped out. I couldn’t see anything unusual in the dark: it just looked like my garden, covered in somewhat patchy and trodden-on snow. I had to go back indoors briskly because Pavlova was terrorising Darkness again.**
By morning*** I’d forgotten about it. Maybe the new proprietors of the Troll and Nightingale had had a visit from some of the old clientele. And then coming back from hellhound hurtle one of my neighbours said gravely, I’m so sorry about your wall.
WALL? I said. WHAT ABOUT MY WALL? WHAT WALL?
You don’t know? he said, his eyes opening wide and getting all shiny.
TELL ME, I said.
He pointed up the half-flight of outside stairs to my greenhouse. That wall, he said. Between you and Theodora. It’s fallen down.
Yes. It has. There is a gigantic hole ripped out between my garden and Theodora’s, taking the back of my greenhouse with it, and crashing into what used to be her lily pond, of about ten foot square of (ancient) brick and flint wall.
And neither of us had noticed. In her case it’s a little niche-y place next to the mini-cottage and not in straight view of any of her windows, and in my case because my windows all look either front or back and this is to the side, and hidden by my extremely enthusiastic little apple tree.
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.
. . . However, Noble Wolfgang, my seventeen-year-old scion of German automotive engineering, started at the first twitch of the key after three days sitting undisturbed in a snowbank. Looking for the positive here. I need some positive. Waaaaaaaaaaaaaah.†
* * *
* Plus the Blight. The Blight is on the top-ten list for the Ugliest Shed in the Universe, and it sticks up over my wall from one of the grand gardens on the main street. I hate rich people. The richer you are, the more selfish and careless of the hoi polloi you also are. I’m sure there are exceptions.^ But none of them live around here. I can pretty much tell what you’re worth by how much of a jerk you are. Grrrrrr. And one of the non-exceptions has a blightingly ugly shed roof that ruins the view from my office window—but it’s at the far end of their garden so they couldn’t care less. ‘Conservation area’ status—the nonsense that prevented me for several years from cutting down a 900 foot Leylandii at Third House that terrorised the neighbourhood every time there was a wind—only counts if the tourists can see it, whatever it is. I’d be curious to know if my predecessor tried to stop them from building the Blight. It was too late when I moved in.
^ Shovelling acres of money into good causes and new opera productions may get you into heaven, but it doesn’t necessarily make you kind and sympathetic to the lower classes. There are some serious disconnect issues among the unnecessarily well-off.
** We walked home again as a quartet last night. And I find there is a down side even to the potentially excellent possibility of being able to hurtle three hellcritters together occasionally, which is that Pavlova clearly feels that she is GAINING GROUND and SHOULDN’T SHE BE A FULL MEMBER OF THE BAND NOW? No. Next question. —Moaning ensues.
*** I’m trying to roll myself forward so that morning has some practical meaning in my life again. If I’m going to try to start ringing Sunday morning service at New Arcadia again (and, very tentatively, I am), and, more importantly, if I’m ever going to make it to Aloysius’ silent prayer group at 8:30 on Saturday morning—and if I’m going to try to make morning Mass at the monks once a week—I need to get up earlier. A lot earlier.
I told you that Aloysius sent me home with an armful of books on Zen and Christianity, or even Zen Christianity. One of the things everyone seems to say on all sides of all available fences is that you need a community. The pure-Zen lot say the same, and I know my experience of sitting at the zendo in Maine supports that. Granted that I started sitting zazen because I was having a very bad stretch of life, but however rosy and pink your personal circumstances, you are going to do better in company.^ Therefore it seems to me that Aloysius should be holding his silent prayer group at least twice a month, which means—if I’m going to go along and be ballast, because while I’m a very new Christian I’ve been sitting off and on for decades, and silent prayer is something I settle into with a grateful sigh of welcome familiarity—getting up not just early enough to go, but to have given hellcritters a token hurtle first. See: being able to hurtle all three together occasionally, like last thing at night and first thing in the morning.
^ I say this with all the teeth-baring resistance of the extreme introvert.
† Inspecting the damage and discussing what the *&^%$£”!!!! we do now with my equally unfortunate neighbour, etc, meant that I missed my voice lesson.
Dog days
The other kind of dog days: the COLD dog days, where you lie around in a stupor of semi-congealed blood and frost-bitten brain cells rather than crushed to your hammock by sultriness and the weight of your chiffon Mother Hubbard. It was seriously below zero last night, but the temperature creaked up enough* this afternoon for it to start raining, and the hellcritters and I were at the mews and all our rain kit was at the cottage arrrrrgh. And the temperature is re-plunging even now, and at about the time hellcritters and I want to go home all horizontal surfaces between there and here will be sporting a jazzy veneer of smooth tranquil ice. Maybe I’ll try to go home early tonight. . . .
But dog days should concern dogs. Hellhounds and I had three classic encounters today. The first was with the little old lady with the King Charles spaniel, who screams if it gets too close to the hellhounds. The little old lady screams, that is. First time this happened it totally freaked me out but we’ve got mostly used to each other and it hasn’t been bad in a while. She even smiles (the little old lady, not the spaniel). From a safe distance. But I’m pretty sure I can guess what’s going on: she’s lived in her house and walked her dog all her life and she’s not going to give it up without a struggle, even if she’s getting tottery and one good yank from an excited King Charles spaniel could have her over. My original thought was that if she can’t keep her blasted dog under control she shouldn’t be out there with it . . . but as my sixtieth birthday recedes on the horizon behind me my view of the infirmities of age is evolving. When I’m 103 I’ll be out there with leads looped around my Zimmer frame. I may have moved on to Yorkies and Italian greyhounds by then.
Second encounter**. You know you get tired of knowing what’s going to happen. We came around a curve in the path and there, still at a little distance, was one of the big black thug-type Labradors, the kind with a head like a Volkswagen camper van or a small lorry, and it was in classic dog-thug stance. I promptly got hellhounds on short leads and dragged them onto an alternate path that there happened to be one of at that point—this bloody dog was emerging from the end of a long narrow fenced piece of footpath . . . and do I have to bother telling you it was off lead? Hellhounds and I were moving briskly (but not too briskly) at an angle away from where dog-thug was trying out its range of Mean SOB postures . . . and eventually—EVENTUALLY—some irresponsible twit of a woman strolled into view, casually took in the scene and called her dog. Who ignored her. Of course. It made to turn off the path it was on and come after us. The twit grew loud and angry. The dog continued to ignore her.*** At which point the twit’s voice changed and she shouted gaily at us, Oh he’s friendly! One of these days I’m to shout back, Oh I’m not!
We got away—because we had that alternative path to walk down as if we’d meant to all along and couldn’t care less that Conan the Labrador was flexing his muscles from the other side of the hedgerow. I was still shaking with fury and adrenaline when we SAW ANOTHER DOG . . . also off lead, and we were by now onto that narrow fenced stretch, with nowhere to get away. But while this is not something I’d ever rely on, I also knew at first glance—as I’d known that the Lab was trouble—that this dog was not. It saw us, but it wasn’t fussed, and it also kept checking back with its person—which is something I always look for† but hadn’t identified as such till Southdowner pointed it out—it’s one of the ways you know instantly if a dog’s under any kind of control or not. If it’s obviously in a relationship with its person, you’re probably not about to die. If it obviously isn’t. . . .
This one actually went on heel—still off lead—when we got closer. I hoicked my sagging jaw back where it belonged to enable me to exchange pleasantries about the blasted weather with the bloke. I wish well-trained dogs weren’t the exception rather than the rule. SIIIIIIGH. In another couple of months Pavlova will be old enough to do the short form of the river walk—which means starting to meet up with the local canine thug population. She’ll probably still be small enough for me to pick up†† at that point. But she won’t stay that small. And mutant or no, she is a bull terrier. And my hellhounds, nonconfrontational non-hierarchical friendly sighthounds that they are, apparently permanently hate the half-dozen or so dogs that finally pushed them too far.
Sigh.†††
* * *
* I can’t quite bring myself to say ‘warmed’
** After I had to carry Chaos across the minor lake caused by the riverbank breaking at one of the low places in the path. Darkness waded stoically through. Not Chaos. Chaos is delicate. Darkness leaps twenty feet in the air straight up, shrieking, if the puppy gets anywhere near him, but he can cope with hostile terrain.
*** Of course.
† I have a gigantic advantage as a dilatory dog trainer—that I work from home, and hellcritters are under my feet all the time. I met another woman who wanted to talk to me about whippets and whippet crosses because she’s looking for a puppy and as I know there aren’t a lot of sighthounds in this area, barring adopted ex-racing greyhounds. She wanted to know where I let them run, and I told her, and she said, Do they catch rabbits? And I said yes. And she said, And do they come back to you? Sighthounds being a trifle notorious for not. And I said . . . yes. Well, they do. But it’s not because I’m such a fabulous trainer: it’s because they’re used to having me as a fixed and constant reference point. When they’re off lead, they check to see where I am—and I don’t push this. Mostly they’re on lead, which is safer all round.
We’ll see if this system works with hellterrors. I’m not counting on it.
†† I can carry Chaos across a lake, after all.
††† The rest of the day mostly sucked pond scum too. And I went off to choir practise tonight hysterically convinced that there would be crap in Pav’s crate by the time I got back, since she had declined to have her late afternoon/early evening crap before I went.
There was no crap in the crate. And my high A was still there. So I guess it hasn’t been that awful a day.
Keys
I have a small furry demonspawn hellterror under my feet again as I write. It’s very distracting, being lifted off your chair by small but intense volcanic eruptions at ankle level. The accompanying sound effects are pretty discommodious too. The footwarmer aspect is appealing, but the staying-on-top-of-the-rolling-beachball skill is challenging. I’m improving though. And she’s getting bigger. What do you do with a two hundred pound Mastiff puppy in a strop? Straitjacket?*
I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. I doublelock and throw bolts and things anyway because I lived a long time in major cities as a single girl, and some instincts, once dug into the synapses, are permanent.** Also, paranoia is one of my gifts. This is only sometimes a good thing. I am so freaked out by the dog-theft warning that last night I shot awake every time a hellhound rolled over, convinced that I was hearing dog thieves.*** Yes, my doors and windows are all locked, but as the cops and the ex-military life-skills coaches like to tell you, someone who really wants to get in can get in. The trick is to be less worth it than you are a pain in the ass to crack. Two middle-aged hellhounds, an admittedly glamorous (if stroppy†) bull terrier puppy and a lot of books don’t sound like a fabulous haul to me.
I hope.
The good side of living in the middle of town and being conspicuous (but what dog person, licit and illicit, doesn’t clock every dog in the area) is that you are conspicuous, and you are surrounded by a lot of people who know and recognise you. And my cul de sac is little but crowded. There’s always someone around. There are occasions when I wouldn’t at all mind there being FEWER people in the immediate vicinity. But this isn’t one of them. I hope all my neighbours have restless insomniac visitors until . . . the dog thieves recognise the error of their ways, decide to lead blameless lives hereafter, and enrol for courses in fashion design and farriery.
Sigh.
I was running late this morning, but when am I ever not running late? So, McKinley, relax, situation normal. Since the hellterror started getting her own mini hurtles I’ve been putting the hellhounds in Wolfgang after their full hurtle while the little ’un and I have our scramble. Not today. In the first place it’s TOO COLD†† and in the second place you can’t bolt and barricade a car sufficiently and I imagine the fuel consumption rates on an armoured vehicle are out of my price range. So I brought a somewhat bemused Chaos and Darkness back indoors while I took Mayhem out.†††
This did however mean that we had a welcoming committee when we got back to the cottage, with considerable confusion on all sides since dogs LIKE THEIR PREDICTABLE SCHEDULES.‡ Hellhounds are saying, we’re supposed to be in Wolfgang.‡‡ Pavlova is saying AAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEE. Darkness is saying, What are you doing with that—thing? Pavlova is saying AAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE. Chaos is saying oh, hi, you again. You know, boss, we were having a nice nap before you opened that door. Pavlova is saying AAAAAAIIIIIIIEEEEE. Nobody died, and nobody suffered (serious) friction burns from Pav’s flying lead. But it was pretty exciting there for about five minutes.
And my keys disappeared. Disappeared. Disappeared. DISAPPEARED.
I spent something like half an hour looking for them. How far could they have gotten? I’d only just unlocked the door and let Pav and me back in.‡‡‡ And I was thinking IF THIS IS A SIGN IT’S THE WRONG SIGN. YES OF COURSE I HAVE A SPARE SET OF HOUSE KEYS, although I’d find it pretty much of a ratbag to remember some of what else is on that ring till I need it and it’s not there, BUT I’M STILL TOTALLY FREAKED OUT ABOUT THE DOG THIEF WARNING AND IF I CAN’T FIND MY KEYS which have got to be RIGHT HERE SOMEWHERE I’M NOT GOING ANYWHERE EVER AGAIN.
I did find them, eventually. I have no idea how they got there: flung by an exuberant hellcritter, presumably. But I found them.
. . . And I have a sleeping hellterror. Finally. In my lap. She doesn’t FIT in my lap any more. But you can see when she is trying to calm down and get a grip, and on her pillow at—no longer under—my feet she kept climbing pathetically up my leg and trying to get in my lap. ALL RIGHT ALL RIGHT. But it’s going to be interesting in another ten pounds and a few more inches of leg.
* * *
* You or him/her?
** I hope they’re permanent. When I’m a little old lady, even more of a space cadet than I am now, and a single girl again I want to remember to lock my doors.
*** My probability of any sleep tonight dropped like a stone when hellhounds and I hurtled back to the cottage this evening and I found one of the local free papers on the mat with a front page story about a family dog being killed by an ordinary burglar in a bad mood because he didn’t find what he wanted.
† I’m looking on the bright side. She won’t need another puppy hurtle tonight, she’ll—eventually—wear herself out tantruming. Tiring things, tantrums. For both of us. The hellhounds are mildly fascinated, in a distant we-never-did-anything-like-that way. Of course you didn’t. You were the souls of courtesy and restraint from the day you arrived and as your first act destroyed my herb patch.
†† You forumites are absolutely right about hats. I’m very good about getting the woolly scarves and the hoods out for hurtling as soon as the weather turns grisly but I hadn’t made the connection to rehearsal in a gelid church, which is dim of me when I’d had enough sense to wrap my neck up. I will have to examine my hat selection.^ I’m usually thinking in terms of wind resistance but the icicles hang pretty straight down indoors at St Frideswide. Maybe I should knit something.
^ And find the sheepskin inserts for the All Stars. I was wearing long johns and a second pair of socks but that was not enough.
††† You can stop re-earning your sobriquet any time, honey. I’ve just texted Olivia: I’m going to tie her little feet together and hang her from the ceiling any minute now. And to think you and Southdowner conspired to give me the easy one.
‡ Which is a bit of a problem in this household.
‡‡ All wrapped up with just their noses sticking out. I live by cold ears and trembling. If their ears are warm, they’re fine. If their ears are cold but they’re not shivering, they’re fine. If their ears are cold and they’re shivering, they need their woollies, and I do tend to swathe them round in the car, when they’re lying down. Chaos is as much a wimp as I am: I’ll have him wrapped up in two layers of blanket before Darkness needs one. But it has to be pretty extreme before they need their coats while hurtling. And it makes me kind of nuts seeing tough little terrier types with thick rough dense coats of their own swaddled up in heavy wool fleece-lined jackets. Good grief.
And if hellhound ears are warm and they’re shivering GET A GOOD GRIP ON SHORT LEADS FAST because they’re about to take off after something.
‡‡‡ I knew I had unlocked the door. See: dug into the synapses.