May or may not

We may or may not be leaving town today, in which case I may or may not need to pack a suitcase and some food for the road trip. I may or may not need to figure out where all my various chargers and gizmos are and I may or may not need to decide on a holy-crap-I've-left-my-house reading list for my kindle. With all this indecision, I'm very grateful that I'm not being chased out of town by an angry mob, like the Frankenstein monster was when he had to leave town.

One thing is certain, though: Pooch is DEFINITELY going to the vet today to get her rabies shot updated. She'll be crazy pleased.

A Genuine Pooch Adventure: bounce, skip & hop

You'd think that a dog who's 11th birthday is fast approaching, would want to snooze in the sun or partake in other activities that require a minimum of moving around. Not Pooch, though. Pooch likes to bounce. And skip and hop. She's more jack-rabbit than dog. The old gal makes Dorothy skipping down the yellow brick road look like a fat, lazy cow.

The other day, Wonderpooch was jumping around, when she slipped on the parquet floor and pulled whatever-dogs-have-in-stead-of-an-ankle on her front leg. Much whimpering (mostly from the dog) and limping ensued, as well as a chat with the friendly neighbourhood vet. Now her leg is all wrapped up in bandages that aren't anywhere near as cool as Dorothy's red shoes.

Mister Chooch and I decided it was best to keep her still as much as possible. This became a bigger challenge than we had thought, since ten minutes of lying still completely erased the memory of having been injured and replaced it with the urge to dance. A couple of times, Pooch would give us little heart attacks by trying to run upstairs to see if there were any good sunbeams on the landing. Eventually it became clear that the only way we could make sure that she would stay in her bed, like a good little patient, was if we sat next to it. Which we did. For several hours, until Dog decided to pack it in for the night.

Now she's feeling much better, and suddenly her main interest is napping. Stupid dog.

The story of Stalker Kitty

Pooch is a sucker for a good walk. Mostly I just walk her while Mr Chooch is still at work, but sometimes we take her for a spin together. This is the story of when we took Pooch for a spin and met Stalker Kitty.

It was late one evening last fall. Mr Chooch brought an umbrella with him, in case of rain. Little did he know that on our way home, it would rain kittens. At least one kitten. A stalker kitten.

We didn’t see it at first. There aren’t a lot of lights on our street and there are plenty of trees, hedges and shrubs where small furballs can hide. I just happened to turn around as it darted out of hiding, heading straight for Pooch. It intended to introduce itself. I don’t know what kind of experiences it had previously had with canines, but they were clearly deliriously happy ones.

Every now and then Pooch meets a cat in the garden, but HER way of introducing herself involves chasing the cat into the nearest tree. A few of those cats will just turn around and look at her as she’s running towards them and she’s very unsure of how to deal with those. I had no idea how she would react to this one.

We didn’t really think that the dog would nibble the kitten, but we decided it would be best to move on before it caught up. Every now and then we would look and see Stalker Kitty running after us, staring at Pooch as if she was the worlds most shiny toy. Mr Chooch made several attempts at chasing it away. Each time it would hide in some shrubbery, but as soon as his back was turned, its little head would pop back out and it would be in hot pursuit once more. The only effect the scare tactics seemed to have, was that it no longer wanted to say hi to Mr Chooch. It was, however, dead set on saying hello to Pooch.

Pooch still hadn’t noticed that anything unusual was happening. Sometimes Pooch is kinda thick and not terribly observant. She mostly gets by on her looks.

As we walked up our driveway, the kitten was still following us. Because of it's short, little kitten legs, it never did manage to catch up to Pooch before she shot through the front door, heading for her water bowl at 100 miles pr hour. Mr Chooch then sprinted down into the basement to close the windows that we’d left open. Meanwhile I stayed outside to distract Stalker Kitty so it wouldn’t notice that there were ways into the house. It was a very friendly kitten. It smelled kinda like baby powder. I thought about stealing it, thinking it could perhaps live in the hobby room, or something, but reluctantly decided against it.

After I’d gone back inside, I watched Stalker Kitty through the window. Stalker Kitty was staring fixedly at the front door. After a few minutes a bug or something caught its attention. At that moment it completely forgot that we ever existed, as it chased whatever-it-was off into the night.

And that was the story of the very intense, yet very flaky Stalker Kitty.

Photo from BG Plus for iphone.

Rockstar Walkies and itchy toes

Throughout her life, Pooch has fine-tuned a theory. Actually, Pooch has a wide variety of theories. Such as that if she places her head on your left knee, treats pop out of you. Or that if she throws her toys at your head, treats pop out of you. Or that if she sits and stares at you for hours without blinking, treats pop out of you.

The theory I’m refering to at the moment, is a different kind of theory. It claims that walks are more pleasurable if they involve autoasphyxiation. She’s like a small, furry David Carradine. Most doggies can be tought leash manners fairly easily, since they’re pulling to get you from A to B faster. Pooch is different, though. She pulls for the joy of pulling. Them arctic breed types can be funny that way.

I have a confession to make. I was definitly going somewhere with this, but I completely forget where. I got distracted by an itch on my big toe. No matter how much I scratch it, it won’t go away or lessen at all. This leads me to believe that it’s not really located on my toe at all, but somewhere completely different. Ever had that happen to you? You know, when you have an itch on your foot, say, and you scratch your calf and it goes away. Your calf as in your leg, not livestock. That would be taking neurology way to far.

Maybe that’s why people do the autoasphyxiation thingy and die in embarrasing situations. The pressure around their necks affects other areas of the b…. uhm…. Yeah, I decided not to wrap this up after all. I’ll just leave it hanging there.

Pun intended.

Pooch's brainscape

Every now and then – and more and more often, unfortunately – it’s necessary for me to do my impression of a responsible adult. In my case, adulthood consists of reading research papers, writing research papers and growing gunk in petri dishes.

 

During these bursts of maturity, Pooch tends to get bored. So when I occasionally glance up from my Pile of Nerdy Brain-Melting-Papers, she gets excited.

 

And sometimes when she gets excited, she’ll spin around in circles. And sometimes, when she spins around in circles, she’ll bang her head on the wall and wobble a bit. She’s done this ever since she was a little puppy. By today, she will probably have had hundreds of blows to the head. This is probably why she’s the strangest dog I’ve ever met.

 

She’ll spend all day in the bathroom, staring at the laundry. Sometimes she’ll even cock her head and listen very carefully to it. She won’t eat her denta-sticks if they’re straight. I have to bend them for her. Then they’re wonderful. When we go for a walk, she has to stop in the exact same place every day to chase something that’s clearly not really there. Today she had a long grumbling exchange with her back paw, which ended with her sticking said paw in her mouth and staring into space for ten solid minutes.

 

I wish I could take a peek inside Pooch’s brain to see what she’s thinking. Then again, I’m not completely sure I really want to know…

Ghostly lumps and award-winning cuteness

sThis weekend I was scratching pooch and talking to her as if she was a big baby, the way we usually spend out weekends, when I suddenly noticed a sizeable lump above her ribs. “Oh my, we’d better call the vet,” I thought. And since I can recognise brilliant thinking when I hear it, I did.

The next day Pooch was standing on that glossy, black table in the vet’s examination room, being poked and prodded, but the lump was nowhere to be found. It was a ghost-lump. Seriously, the thing had vanished faster then Michael Jackson after the sex-scandal. It’s probably out shopping for a burka as we speak.

Aaanyways.

I also found an old newspaper clipping that my mum had been saving. It’s an interview of my favourite subject: me. Allow me to share with you my fifteen minutes of fame:

- you have to be careful so it doesn’t jump in your face, says a smiling Choochoo from Hellhole, Hickville. She’s four years old, and her and the stuffed gorilla, who’s name is “Nothing”, are the worlds best friends.

- But it isn’t dangerous, is it, Choochoo, this gorilla of yours?

- Oh yes, it’s very dangerous. It eats people. And it’s very old. Nine!

- Are there more gorillas in Hellhole?
- Yes, two.

- What about bears? Are there bears here?
- Yes, on TV. And there was one up on the roof.
- What was the bear doing up on the roof?

- It ate the chimney.

- That must have been a peculiar bear. You do other things during the day, then play with your gorilla, don’t you?

- I play with rocks.
- Do you build houses with them, perhaps?

- No, I kick them. There are lots of great rocks to kick around here. And the gorilla has to eat, you know. It likes rocks. Just like the bears. All gorillas and bears like rocks. Then they become strong and fly through the air.

That article was so damn cute, it won an award, it did. Yeah, I'm adorable.

Life lessons vs. pizza

When I was a kid and I didn’t want to eat the crusts on my sandwiches, my mum would remind me that there were children starving in Africa. I thought that, in the event that I should put my bits of bread in an envelope and send them to Africa, they would be pretty inedible by the time they got there. Also, it seemed to me that the best way to help the starving, would be to not stuff yourself full of food when you were no longer hungry.

I guess what my mother was really trying to teach me, was to be grateful for the things that I had, and not how to solve world hunger.

Last night, I tried to keep that lesson in mind after I dropped my last slice of pizza on the floor. Pooch knows full well that if something edible lands on the ground, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s hers to pounce on. However, if this something edible falls directly on her head, the rules change.

At that moment in time, Pooch, at least, was very grateful for what she had…

Life and death of Mr. Sausage-Rope.

I have mentioned in the past how much Pooch loves Pigface, her hysterically pink puffer fish-pig squeaky toy. But once upon a time, in the grocery store, I bought another potential friend for her.

Mr. Sausage-Rope.

There he was, hanging from a rope with the other members of his family, just people-watching. I picked him up, dangled him back and forth a little, evaluated his shape, colour and all the little faces on all the little sausages. Briefly I wondered what it would smell like, but then I pictured myself standing there, in the middle of isle 4 while sniffing a dog toy, and changed my mind.

Into my little, blue basket went Mr. Sausage-Rope. He didn’t even have time to pack or say goodbye to his family. But I suppose that they had prepared for one of them getting bought, and that they’d therefore done all the goodbye-hugs-and-kisses-stuff. That would make the most sense.

The first thing Pooch did when she was given Mr. Sausage-Rope, was to remove one of his noses. Actually, “remove” might be the wrong word. She held him down with her front paws, grabbed his nose with her teeth and tore it off, along with his mouth and parts of his right eye. Then she spent half an hour bouncing around the apartment whilst throwing the nose up into the air and catching it again and again.

Then, after the original carnage, Pooch was content to carry Mr. Sausage-Rope around in her mouth, giving him a thorough shake every once in a while. Early one morning, I found Mr. Sausage-Rope in a corner of the kitchen, where Pooch had tossed him the night before. One of his sausages had gone mysteriously missing. The rest didn't have noses anymore.

Pooch was sleeping in the sofa, like a little angel. A little angel covered in small, brown pieces of plastic. Some of which had what looked like a nose on them.

Pooch loves Pigface and there's an enchanted acorn hat

I had just made my way up the hill and started across the green lawn, shiny with dew, which lead up to the magic castle where the Bubble Gum King lived. He had stolen my enchanted acorn hat and wouldn’t give it back. At first I had thought that the hat had simply been misplaced or eaten by giant beetles, but then the herald had shown up, reading loudly from a fancy scroll. “The Bubble Gum King has stolen the enchanted acorn hat and won’t give it back. Nanny, nanny, boo hoo.” Being the heroic no-bullshit gal that I am, I was going to save it from his grasp.
Anyway, that was the plan until something hit me on the back of the head.

Next thing I know, I’m in bed and its 3:35 in the morning. I couldn’t see Pooch, but I could feel her stare drilling into the back of my neck. Sighing loudly, I rolled over.

“EEEEEEH!”

The rubbery spikes of Pigface the squeaky toy dug into the small of my back and I had to shift a little. Pigface is a pink mockery of nature, a round freak with the body of a puffer fish and the face of a laughing pig. The spikes used to be in an assortment of different colors, but after spending hours and hours being carried around in the dog’s mouth, it was now simply just pink. Pooch loves Pigface. And when Pigface squeals it’s quite obvious to her that it’s in distress. Horrified, Pooch grabbed her beloved toy and dived into bed where she commenced the necessary licking and sympathetic whining that it took for the thing to feel better about itself.

In the meanwhile, I took the opportunity to crawl back under the duvet and concentrate on going back to sleep. I was nearly there when Pigface came flying towards my head again. Then Pooch got up on her hind legs and put both front paws squarely on my face, managing to squish my mouth and my nose together. Clearly she was serious about the whole getting-out-of-bed-thing.

Reluctantly, I complied and was rewarded by a happy roar and dance from Pooch which sent Pigface flying into the kitchen, and that in turn had Pooch flying after Pigface to make sure it was alright.

Usually there’s some sort of reason for why Pooch would throw a hysterical fit this early in the morning, so I staggered into the living room to check around. After concentrating for a couple of minutes, I managed to persuade my eyes to open enough for me to have a look around. And indeed, in the middle of the room, was The Reason. A big, wet pile of Reason.

“Next time the Chinese students from across the street offer you an eggroll, just say no!” I yelled back across my shoulder. “Or at least try to not swallow the whole thing at once.”

I cleaned up the mess, threw it in the garbage and left the bag in the hallway. Hell, if the upstairs people can keep their trash out there until it stinks like the inside of a bin, then my little bag could certainly stay there until morning.

It was now 3:58 and I was looking forwards to crawling back into bed, only to find that this might be a bit more tricky than I had anticipated. Sprawled out on my bed, lay The Pooch, on her back with her front feet tucked under her chin, her back feet straight out and her head on my pillow. She was snoring gently and her little toes were wiggling in her sleep. I always have trouble waking Pooch up when she’s all cute looking. So instead I slipped under the cover, very gently so not to wake the sleeping doggie, and ended up sleeping rather badly on the edge of the bed with barely enough duvet to cover ping-pong ball and no pillow to speak of.

I will be hitting the coffee hard today.

The art of injury

For the first seven years of her adorable life, Pooch was a very cost efficient doggie. This made me happy, as I am a chronic student and therefore as broke as an investment banker during the great depression. She didn’t require much veterinary attention. She had no interest in food, other than what it took to keep her alive.

As of the last year or so, though, that has changed. She injures herself. She eats. Probably because you burn off a lot of fuel when all your energy is directed towards hurting yourself. Of course, when you insist on running everywhere as fast as you can with your eyes closed, it usually results in injury of some sort. I suppose I should be surprised that Pooch has lived to be eight years old.

Last week we visited the veterinarian, yet again. This time it wasn’t an injury that brought us there, though. It was those stinky, brown blobs that have been coming out of Pooch’s ding-dong every now and then over the past couple of months.

“You’ll need to bring in a urine sample,” the vet told me on the phone.

And so, being the devoted dog owner that I am, I search my cupboard to find something in which to gather up Pooch’s toilet treasure. It took me a while. My cupboard is an unbelievable mess. For instance, I had no idea peanut butter could grow such a thick and glossy fur. I named it Johnny and threw it in the trash. Then, as luck would have it, I stumbled upon a lovely, little Tupperware box which was now given a purpose that the creators probably never thought off.

I was very happy with my cunning pee-harvesting plan. However, Pooch refused to cooperate. I always imagined that Pooch pees on thing that she consideres to be hers by right.

“The oak tree… MINE! The neighbour’s fence… MINE! The neighbour’s underpants that blew off the clothes line… MINE! Ludo, the sleeping cat…. MINE, MINE, MINE!”

But never, unfortunately, has Pooch wanted to own a Tupperware box. As soon as she sat down to do her business, I would slide the box underneath her and immediately she would stop, looking at me as if I’d suddenly grown tentacles and turned orange. Every time I managed to get half a drop at the very best.

Desperate to squeeze som wee-wee out of the doggie, I patiently led her all around the neighbourhood in search of things for her to do her business on. I don’t mind telling you, I got some very strange looks. Not just from Pooch. But eventually I did manage to get about a tablespoon worth, with some help from the rain.

Then mum called to remind me that a urine sample needed to be kept cool, or it would give a false reading. Suddenly I was torn between having to get a whole new sample tomorrow or putting the one I already had in the fridge. Neither option seemed appealing. Reluctantly I wrapped it up in umpteen plastic bags and stuck it on the top shelf. Instinct told me to move everything else on the top shelf to some other shelf, but the fridge was full. There was no place for anything to go.

The strawberry jam never hurt anyone. The butter never said a cross word to anyone and the half carton of juice was completely innocent. But now they are all pariah – outcast.

Because the universe is a bitch with a very developed sense of irony, Pooch’s tinkle turned out to be completely normal. There were also several absolutely regular blood samples and a completely necessary ultra sound test, for which the poor doggie had to have her tummy shaved, which made it all itchy and nearly drove her nuts. Her temperature also needed checking, they said. That took two vets and a muzzle. Pooch hated them both with the fire of a thousand suns, but then they gave her chicken and she got over it.

Dogs tend to find it kinda hard to scratch their stomachs, so if it’s itchy, all they can do is spin around in circles and shriek. Which she did. Lots. Which in turn nearly drove me crazy.

Anyways, they couldn’t find anything wrong with her, so the stinky blobs of death remain a mystery. I’m working on a theory, though. It’s got aliens in it.

Circus farts, q-tips and pig-bottoms

After eight years of semi-anorexia, Pooch suddenly got it into her head a couple of weeks ago, that it was time to start eating like a normal dog. One of those normal dogs that not only eat their regular dog food, but also scoffs down garbage wherever she can find it. Combined inside her belly, all these elements starts to produce impressive amounts of gas. However much Pooch might eat like a normal dog, she sure doesn’t fart like one. Pooch’s farts smell like the circus, bringing back memories of popcorn, pink sugar floss and elephants.

Pooch isn’t shy about where she releases her airy creations, either, as I discovered the last time I had people over. There we were, eating muffins, drinking coffee and having very intelligent conversation, when the smell of clowns chasing each other across a floor of sawdust suddenly filled the room.

Pooch lifted her head off the floor, sniffed twice before she got up and left. Luckily, it’s summertime, so we could just open up all the windows.

Speaking of summer. I think perhaps I’m on my summer vacation. I could be wrong. The professor in charge of the project I’m on, is away this week. When he gets back, he might just pile more work on me. The last time he got a hold of me, it ended up with me having to insert huge q-tips up the bums of very large, very uncooperative pigs. As in pork. I didn’t just go down to the bar one night. Mr Professor said I had to practice, cause I’m being shipped off to Lithuania in the fall for a research trip to do the same thing to wild boars. Only they’ll be dead. You should never sneak up on a wild boar and shove a cotton stick up its ass. That would be stupid.

And finally, to celebrate my triumphant return to blogging:

Pooch becomes the victim of a bath

Most people carry around an internal to-do list. I do, as well. It’s always got stuff on it like going the dishes and dusting and vacuuming and all those domestic things that make me angry and impossible to be around. That’s why I find it best to put these things off. But I digress.

There are certain to-do things that gradually sneak up on you, until they become inevitable truths. That happened to me last week.

Pooch needed a bath.

There are several problems that occur when I try to bathe Pooch, all of which stem from the fact that Pooch hates bathing. Pooch won’t even go outside when it rains. But I’d much rather have a wet’n whiny dog than a stinky sticky dog, so the job had to be done. I didn’t have much trouble tricking her into the bathroom. A little bit of sausage was all that it took. ‘Course once I closed the door behind us, Doggie Doodle started getting suspicious.

I turned the shower on.

Pooch hid in the corner and did her best impression of laundry.

I wasn’t tricked by her sneaky disguise, got her out of there and into the shower, accompanied by loud objections from my bath-victim. Earlier that day, I’d been to the pet shop to buy her a shampoo which I had snuck into the bathroom cupboard when Wonderpooch wasn’t looking. Doggie can tell pet shampoo from any other bottle of product. That is her superpower. And once the identification has been made, you’ll never get her out from underneath the sofa.

This whole thing was carefully planned in advance, you see. You can’t just spring this kinda thing on Pooch without planning it out first. If I did that, I would be the Ed D. Wood of animal trainers.

“For removal of coat build-up,” said the label on my chosen shampoo bottle. Boy o boy does Poochiebaby have coat build-up. And you know it’s gonna fall off eventually, giving room to new coat build-up, in what seems like an endless cycle of fur. In fact, Doggie Woggie’s got so much coat build-up, sometimes when I wake up in the morning it’s as if she’s given birth to puppies during the night. I was so focused on the labels intriguing message, I didn’t even notice the fact that it was bright red and strawberry scented. Hell, not even strawberries are as strawberry scented as Pooch’s new shampoo.

That whole day I didn’t need eyesight to tell Doggie’s whereabouts, I could just sniff around for the smell of strawberries.

Now I not a bit more about what it must be like to be a dog.

Let the Pooch soar!

I took Pooch with me to the woods the other day. Pooch likes the woods. It’s very high up on her lists of favourite things, along with tin foil, mice and the colour blue. At one point, she decided to climb onto a pile of wood and soar like an eagle down to the forest floor. As it turns out, Pooch is big on the falling, not so much on the soaring.

After her crash landing, which was promptly followed by the
running around like a maniac, I wasn’t very surprised to discover that she’d
managed to tear parts of a claw off. On our way home, she became increasingly
whiny, so I decided to distract her by slipping on the ice and smashing the back
of my head on the concrete. Then I stumbled around like a drunk. It worked like
a charm. Pooch forgot all about her toe. It was brilliant. Afterwards I felt
pretty damn dizzy, but true genius has always been described as rather dizzying,
so I suppose that was just to be expected.

In further news, my body and my head are having an ongoing debate about olives. The body tries to convince Bergerac (my mind) that olives are good, but Bergerac won’t hear of it. Since Bergerac is the one in charge of the mouth, Body needs to be sneaky in getting its point across. Body has the advantage of controlling the arms and hands, and those are always ready to stick olives into the mouth whenever Bergerac isn’t paying proper attention. Nothing has been settled yet, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

To poop or not to poop

There’s an understanding between myself and The Pooch: I walk her and she might just choose to take a nap when we get home, rather than try to sit on my lap while I’m working. Other times she’ll forego on the nap, run to fetch her ball and proceed to throw it at me, convinced that this will make the thought of playing with it completely irresistible. After all, it usually works when I do it to her.

We were halfway through our Sunday walk, when all of a sudden, an elderly woman comes running towards us. Her arms were waving in the air, determined to get my attention.

“You know, it’s perfectly alright for you to walk your dog,” she says when she catches up to us. “But it’s very, very important that you pick up its poop after it.”

I thought that she could not have noticed the big, black, shit-stuffed doggie bag in my hand, nor the seven empty bags sticking out of my pocket, so I held the warm, swelling back up in the air and informed her, in a slightly cool tone of voice, that I always picked up after Pooch.

I assumed that she would back the hell off. No such luck.

In stead she goes on and on about how important it is to pick up those previously mentioned poops because people stepped in them, and so on and so forth. There was a small river running along the road where we stood. I studied the river, and then I looked at the lady while I contemplated whether or not I had the energy to throw her in. Probably not. Sick of listening to the sad tale of innocent shoes being thrust into piles of dung left behind by other dogs and their irresponsible owners, I pulled a fistful of empty bags out of my pocket and held them in front of the meddlesome woman’s face.

It had a rather peculiar effect. Granted, she turned around and started back towards her house, but she kept on talking about poops and shoes and whatnot, while looking back at me. Perhaps she’d been inhaling them, or something.

I looked at Pooch. Pooch was looking at her ass, as if it was a foreign object that she’d only just discovered.

Next time I’ll throw that woman in the river. Definitely.

Pooch in the mood for love

I am currently living in a hell of screaming and howling and the constant sound of IIIIIII and pitter-patter of claws scurrying from the door to the window. Back and forth, back and forth.

The Pooch is in heat…

Granted, the pooch has been in heat before and she’s always been a little whiny during that period, but this is the first time that she’s ever had a hunky man-thing sitting right outside her bedroom window. And if Pooch had been given more experience with hunky man-things over the years, she would have learned to separate them from the sickly boys with dickey tickers, like the one sitting right outside said window.

Last night she became ready for the making of the pups. On that very day, I decided to let her come with me to take out the trash. Pooch loves taking out the trash. She’s also a big fan of fetching the mail and raking leaves. Not that she helps any, she just likes to watch.

Anyway, our trip to the trash bins took us right past where Hunky Man-Thing sits on his lead. Pooch looked at him. Hunky Man-Thing looked at pooch. Then Pooch realized that I we were heading back to the house – the complete opposite direction of where her heart (and other bits, obviously, that I won’t bring up here) told her to go. In protest, she planted her bottom firmly on the wet lawn.

Great.

So I pulled.

Pooch resisted as best she could. If she’d had those big, bulgy buttocks that some creatures have, I’m sure she would have clenched onto every little piece of grass.

Eventually I dragged her onto her feet, and she walked all of two paces before dropping down on her side and immediately beginning to screech. It was like watching a two-years old throw a tantrum in a store.

I ended up having to drag her along like a carcass. The only thing which separated her from any piece of roadkill, were the high-pitched squeals emanating from her.

Two more weeks of this. I’m going to lose my tiny mind.

Poor lucky number two

Last night the Pooch woke me up at two am by crawling into my bed and sitting there, staring at me in the darkness like some furry totem pole. I was very tired and didn’t particulary feel like crawling out of my soft, comfortable bed, but I could see from the way her enormous ears were pricking up that she’d already heard me blink and knew that I was awake. She does that, you see. She sticks her face right up in your face and listens intensely for the slightest little flutter of the eyelids.

As much as I disliked the idea of dragging my carcass out of bed in the middle of the night, experience has taught me that the Pooch usually only has two reasons for waking me up at ungodly hours:

1) She’s about to do her impersonation of a busted fire hydrant and projectile vomit everywhere.
2) She’d like to demonstrate her explosive diarrhoea.

Both of these things are better done outside.

So I slithered out of my sheets, into my pants, got the pooch’s collar and outside we went. It was windy. And cold. And windy. Did I mention that it was cold?

The first thing the pooch did was sniff a variety of bushes and trees in the yard. Then she sniffed them again, before she finally decided to pee on lucky number two. After that followed ten minutes of staring blankly into space, before turning around and heading back inside. No projectile anything and absolutely no explosions in sight.

It turns out that Pooch now has a third reason for waking me up in the middle of the night.

3) The Upstairspeople are being noisy and my bedroom is pretty soundproof.

Who missed me?

I’m sitting at my new kitchen table in my new apartment in an old house on an ex-farm in a far bigger hellhole than the one I lived in a few weeks ago. It’s nowhere near big enough to justify fear of terrorism or those little signs warning you to beware of pickpockets and thieves, but it is big enough to have more than one mall.

I can theoretically go shopping whenever I feel like it. That can’t be good for me, considering that when it comes to shopping, I have the self restraint of a psychotic monkey.

There are people living on my roof. Four of them. Well, they’re not actually on my roof, but on the floor above mine. I can hear every little noise they make. I know that one of them whinnies like an overexcited horse on regular intervals, and I wonder if he’s the same one who sounds like a cow with some horrible disease when he’s having sex. I suppose I shouldn’t ask.

Classes on scientific research methods have started, and it turns out that I’m a geek. I shudder at the thought of how my courses in microbiology and genetics might leave my social life in ruing once they begin, seeing how I’m utterly engrossed by models of dispersions and project design. Not to mention completely riveted, wrapped up, fascinated, captivated and engaged.

I have a thesaurus, I do.

And Pooch has a boyfriend. He lives across the yard, and she goes to play with him three times a day. Morning, afternoon and night. They’ve become quite close, but not yet to the point where she’ll let him sniff her bottom. But now he’s made the mistake of going camping with his family. Pooch looked for him every day for the first week and then she noticed that golden retriever next door…

So I guess Pooch has two boyfriends. But I have a thesaurus, I do.

To deep fry or not to deep fry.

My head is empty. I don’t know where my brain went, but I think I might have packed it in one of my boxes. I’m sure I can do without it for a few weeks.

Yesterday I tried my hand at deep frying bananas in batter. They didn’t turn out quite like I’d imagined, I have to say. The inside was completely mushy and on the outside they looked like poops. Still, they were good, though. Especially with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. And all the while The Pooch regarded me with her I-can’t-believe-you’re-eating-that-look. I had no idea she had one of those. And then came the overwhelming desire to throw up like that kid on the Exorcist.

Today I have a bag of frozen French fries in the freezer, and I am ready to deep fry once again. Sometimes my memory is more selective than that of Pooch.

Reasons to hate moving

I hate moving. I don’t know if I ever mentioned that, but I truly, honestly do. It makes me tired and cranky and generally induces a state of blah. More importantly, I barely have time to blog.

I’ve spent the past few days ransacking every nook and cranny of my house, stuffing crap into boxes. All of it in preparation for tomorrow and that critical moment, judgement day, the arrival of….the realtor. I’ve discovered a bunch of junk that I didn’t even know that I had, stuff that I can’t believe that I have and stuff that I sincerely hope I never paid money for.

Memory is a strange thing. Take Pooch, for example. Once, when she was a tiny pup, many years ago, my mum squirted her while watering the flowers. Now she keeps at arms-length whenever I water them. That she remembers, but every summer she eats a bee.

Other than stirring up philosophies on memory, moving makes my brain stop working at crucial times. Last night I tried calling a friend of mine several times, only to get a busy-signal every time. Eventually I discovered that I’d been calling my own cell phone number. Seriously, if you actually use your cell phone to call your own cell phone, you shouldn’t just get a busy signal. There should be some sort of machine to make fun of you for that.

Spring springing and sumo gymnastics

Spring has sprung. I know this for two reasons:

1) The other day I picked a gigantic tick off from behind the pooch’s ear, where it had settled quite comfortably in the soft, downy fur with its enormous, blood swollen ass in the air, like some sumo gymnast. Now that ought to be an Olympic event, if you ask me. I’d watch a sport like that.

2) Yesterday I gave the pooch a bath out on the porch. There’s not a creature on earth who hates bathing as much as the pooch does. She’ll take cover under the couch as soon as she sees the shampoo bottle. The trick is to wait until she’s not paying attention – which isn’t as easy as it might seem, since the pooch thinks I’m the most fascinating thing ever created – and then take care of the bath preparations (bucket with water, sponge, rubber gloves and shampoo. Not very complicated).

When it comes to the actually bathing process, she is somewhat conflicted. She hates the getting-wet-part but she quite enjoys the getting-the-shampoo-massaged-into-her-fur-part. After all, who wouldn’t? That’s my favourite part whenever I go to get my fur… uhm… hair done.

Anyway, her conflicted emotions keep her from running away, even though I’m sure she entertains the idea, long enough for me to bathe her properly. Once the bath is over, however, she storms around in a fit of joy so overpowering that it’s difficult for me to dry her off properly.

So you see, it’s spring. Although I suppose you might have noticed that yourself by now.