Challenge #01578-D117: What if Dog Was One of Us?

:A god is in the shape of a doggo, to travel the mortal realm:
Using godly powers for pets FTW – @recklessprudence

People often wonder what it would be like if the Almighty came to earth to see the hatred and strife that humanity perpetuates on itself. What people forget is that God is love. And there is only one mortal form that holds only pure and unconditional love. It has four legs, and a waggy tail.

Grace was not thinking any of this as she sat on the stoop, freshly evicted, with all the personal belongings she was allowed to keep in a cardboard box. No job. No hope. Not even money for a meal. And the growing fear that she would die on this stoop and nobody would care. So far, she had yet to stop crying.

And something licked her hand.

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Good Boy is live!

The potentially stomach-twisting story of an old man and his dog…

Dry run day today

It’s Friday. The last school day before I’m off to strange lands.

So, of course, I’m making Hubby do everything I usually do whilst I’m here to supervise ‘cause I’m a paranoid B.

So far he’s woken up Chaos [Autistic, age 6] to come on a walk with him, Mayhem and the hound, and then left her lag behind 'cause I was there to hold her hand. Not encouraging, Hubby dear.

He also somehow managed to ninja some cereal into the house under the guise of bringing fizzy drinks home. I applaud that. Anyone who out-ninja’s me is worth a gold star. It means I have much more to learn about being an urban ninja.

FYI- No, I do not do any of that shuriken, wasabi or fu-jitsu. I’m just talking about being sneaky. Whenever I’m a step or three ahead of whomever, I show off the evidence and calmly announce, “I am ninja.” Fun.

It fits well with my passive ability of Blend Into Scenery - something that always happens when I’m trying to make an inquiry in person at the info desk… But I digress.

It’s very hard for me to sit back and watch. I’m a Mum. Meddling is what I do. I have to fix, twiddle, tweak or otherwise make sure others are going in the right direction. Or the right direction according to me, if I have to be honest.

From the sound of things, breakfast went off without a hitch and lunches are in progress. I’m fighting the instinct to get up and help Chaos get her clothes on.

That’s Daddy’s job, today.

Now the internet is fixed…

I’m not diverting the ponies. They have served their purpose in keeping a nice, long queue for me.

Besides, I’m likely to fill up my queue with Thailand stuff anyway.

Got Hubby to walk the dog with me, this morning. As always, his ideas of hound control and mine differ greatly. And as always, his are super effective. When I get back, I’m going to have to use them.

In the great field of canid-related expenses, Hubby is now talking about fencing off the backyard as a dog run. His proposed fence line means moving the metal shed, ‘cause right now, it’s square in the way. And it might screw up the drainage ditch. We’ll have to think about that.

Anyway, it’s all gas at the moment. We may yet decide to put the hound in a better home with lots of things he’s allowed to chase. We’ll see.

As for preparing to travel, I have accomplished most of the things I needed to do, and only a few piddly details remain. My biggest worry is that the rest of the family will leave me a big mess as a welcome home gift.

But that’s another day. If I deal with things as they come, I can relax. And that’s the whole point of having a holiday.

After eleven days of ponies…

You get this. An explaination as to why eleven days of ponies.

Long story short, the Internet died at home and I can no longer rearrange my posts, and posting more is a pain in the arse on my mobile devices.

But fret not, loyal followers! Soon, I shall be posting from/about Thailand! Pretty pictures, ahoy. Diatribes about why can’t we do X possibly accompanying same.

And in other news, the Hound has reached a point of annoyance where we really really really have to either shell out for training, or find him a new home.

Anyone want to help us with him? He’s a year and a half old, border collie cross, fully immunized, neutered, and needs a lot of space to run and chase things. Oh, and things to chase.

If you’re interested, please message me. Remember, we’re in Australia, specifically, the bit called Burpengary, so no international requests, thanks.

I’ll see what I can do about posting a photo RSN.

Two problems, one solution

I’m moderately proud of myself, this morrow [7th April] as I found two problems with one solution.

Since we had the jungle lawn slashed down to lawnlike levels, we’ve had a LOT of grass lying around in clumps. Including clumps near the fence, which threatens the wood palings.

We also have a lot of pit traps where Hound decided to imitate Simon from the Yogscast and diggy diggy hole.

So early in the morning, before the sun decided to threaten my unhealthy pallor with melanomas, I took out the rake and the mulch bucket, and redistributed the dead grass clumps by the fence.

I filled four holes and topped up the compost tumbler.

This may not seem like an earth-moving accomplishment to you, but Hound digs holes big enough to hide himself in. And he’s about labrador-sized.

The process goes like this: Rake up a small stook of dead grass, compact into bucket until bucket overflows. Haul bucket to nearest doggy diggy hole. Upend bucket over hole. Attempt to stomp down, lose sight of leg up to mid-shin. Keep calm and recover leg, continue compressing until compression is not an option. return with bucket to rake. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Just clearing the fence line is accomplishment enough for me.

Ugh.

Kids are coming home, soon.

My week off is nearly over. Soon, it shall be back to the slog of chasing after two kids and a dog and bitching about various life trials.

Good news: It means I’ll have blogging material again [seriously, you’re all two posts away from ponies as I write].

Bad news: I’ll have two shoulder surfers and a hound to worry about.

But I also have Plans. One is a trip to the cinemas for good behaviour - dependent on Mayhem’s actual good behaviour… and another is a trip to Chermside where they have a Build-A-Bear.

I might make it two trips in one. It depends entirely on how much I feel like risking another hound escape.

There’s a whole week to make a decision though.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

So I’ve arranged a little something in my queue…

Basically, I had nothing to write, yesterday [27th Feb] and queued up all my attempts at Doctor Whooves care of Generalzoi’s pony maker flash-toy. Then I found out I did have something to say and had to rearrange things.

‘Cause who wants eleven days of ponies before you get to find out stuff?

…okay, so some folks might want to see it. Desperately. I can promise you it’s not that magical. Really.

So from now on, I’ll rearrange my queue when I actually have content so the ponies are bringing up the rear. If you see them, it means I’ve (a) stuffed up somewhere, (b) been really really busy and unable to blog or © decided to let them go 'cause I have twenty bajillion entries.

Chaos has grown to the stage where she can reach the key in the gate. Which means we have to find another legal way to keep the gate locked, yet allow access to people who need to read our meters.

She proved this, of course, by opening the gate and letting the dog out for an adventure.

Twenty harrowing minutes later, we got the hound back home by the simple expedient of ignoring him and opening the gate for him. Gah. Miss Chaos got a lecture and I had to put the gate key away, well away from the gate.

We’ll figure out another stopgap RSN.

In the meantime, I really want to finish the First Mum’s Kit for a new mum in the family, find some heel inserts to soothe my spur(s) [we only found one. Haven’t looked at the other foot, yet] and get all my shit together for Thailand.

So far, I have a power adaptor and a pair of ballet flats for travelling. I need to get a shitton more crap.

Ah, but I have plans. I’m going to prepare an itemised list of the things I’m packing and have it in my carry-on. And I may spend some time being inspected because I’m being too helpful. I just kind of expect that, these days.

Drama Llama is moving in….

The dog somehow got into my car. He chewed the back seat. He chewed the driver’s seat belt. He didn’t get into anything else, thank goodness, but I’ve been packing death.

It could have put the kibosh on my travel plans.

Thanks to the blithe spirits, the insurance mob told me they’d spring for everything shy of $500. Ouch. But not so much ouch as total replacement would have cost sans insurance.

I need to pack summer stuff and I may be buying most of it in foreign lands, ‘cause everything over here is winter themed, now. Blarhhhh.

And I have to get special shoes just for the airport so I don’t track foreign greeblies into other countries, or track them back into here. I’m thinking Ballet Flat type shoes. At least the heels can’t fuck up my feet.

It’s them or some converse sandshoes.

I did get some hep shots. Last week. My shoulder is still effing tender. They weren’t kidding when they said there’d be soreness in the arm.

And in six months, I can do it all again so I’ll be protected for twenty years. Yay.

One more week of hobbling and I should be back on my feet. IF I can find some of those damn spur heel inserts in a ladies’ size ten, I should be able to walk around without too much further pain.

I might have to order them in. More $$$ down the drain.

On the plus side, I have a rental car for the week it should take for my car to get fixed. I just have to remember to not be paranoid about qualifyers. And be completely paranoid about locking the thing when everything that should be out of it is out of it. And do the same for my beloved zippy little car when it comes back home.

And a nice person from the RSPCA is going to come around for free and help us teach the hound not to chew the expensive things.

Now I can’t work on the adventure map 'cause I have to stake out the front door and the phone for the people who are supposed to come by and do things. Nargh.

As the Drama Flies: episode 2

As you may be aware from the previous episode, I have been invited to Thailand for a few weeks, and also begun the process towards getting a passport.

This involves getting hold of a registrar’s office official copy of my birth certificate and my marriage licence. Which means getting hold of the department of births, deaths and marriages.

Sure, you can get lots of information online, but you can’t order a copy of your own ID papers.

I eventually figured out one has to turn up in person with every document you have, fill in a form, and pay a staggering fee to get a couple of official pieces of paper mailed to you.

Now, a little backstory. When I left to pick up the kids, the hound was on his long leash. When I came back, he was sitting on the verandah. He sat like an angel when I opened the gate to come in. After I freed him from the leash [still attached to the harness which was attached to him] I figured I could rely on him to sit like an angel every time the gate opens.

He sat like an angel when I went to the courthouse to get my paperwork filed.

He sat like an angel when I came back.

He took off like a rocket when I trusted him the third time that gate opened - when it was time to pick up the kids.

I tried to catch him, and lost sight of him. Therefore, I was obliged to go pick up the kids with visions of dire consequences dancing in my head, and worried tears dancing in my eyes.

Mayhem was understandably upset. I was crying. He was crying. Even Chaos, who’s normally scared of the hound, was crying.

We worked on some Missing posters, and discovered our printer was shit out of ink.

We just got to the point where we were expecting ominous phone calls when a familiar bell sounded and the hound gallumphed in for hugs and loves.

We fed him and hugged him and gave him skritches… and discovered he was bleeding from his nose.

New panic time! Yay. Not.

Dragged family and Hound off to the vet’s. Got hound checked out, also got hound immunisation boosters while we were there.

Hound is fine. None the worse for his adventure.

I feel like I want to melt into some comforting figure’s lap and cry the whole world away.