Last night's snack

Ugh… Last night wasn’t so much fun. I think I may have ate too mu… Nahhh… Well, geez, let me just start at the beginning.

There is dog food that lives in a cupboard under the counter. I can’t open that counter with my hand. I mean, I can open Tupperware, glove compartments, you name it. But even Dad has a hard time getting that cupboard open sometimes. I don’t understand why you’d keep supper in a hard to open place, it is one of the many hang-ups that Dad has about food.

I have a new roommate, a blind wiener dog that Dad dotes on for some reason. Personally, I have little use for her, she mostly just lies around. Until last night.

The wiener dog is not what I’d call mentally gifted—she doesn’t know how to play and is always running into things. She’s not particularly dexterous, either. But she is persistent.

When Dad left last night she started bashing herself against the dog food cupboard, did it about thirty times, and hard. I thought she had completely lost it. And then the cupboard popped open…

So I had a little teeny snack. Hmmm… well, it was a pretty big snack. It was almost suppertime anyway. After I was done eating I decided to lay down, have myself a little nap. When I woke up I didn’t feel that well—maybe a wiener dog allergy.

When Dad got home I figured he’d be pissed at the wiener dog for breaking into the cupboard. Boy, he gets angry when I open stuff. But he ignored the wiener dog and got COMPLETELY weird with me. Holding me down, poking me in the gut and doing that weird thing he does with his finger on my gums, the whole time jabbering wildly with someone on the phone.

Camilla came over and was really upset about something she calls “bloat.” Camilla is nice, pretty much my favorite person, but lets face it, she has some pretty up tight tendencies. Worse than Dad in some ways. Next thing I know I’m in Camilla’s car with Dad yelling at Camilla about her driving… Then we’re at this place called the emergency vet. The emergency vet is evidently where Dad goes when he’s too stressed out for the regular vet. Dad says the emergency vet is the worse thing ever—it has something to do with his credit card. Personally, I prefer the emergency vet—there’s a lot less waiting around on cold floors.

This morning was awful. I was still a little nauseous from the allergies or whatever it was. But the worst thing—and this has never happened before—

NO BREAKFAST

Dad says that there’s no breakfast because that’s what the emergency vet said (yeah, right), and made a wise crack about bankruptcy and a cheaper brand of dog food. He didn’t eat anything either, but a couple hours later he snuck out of the office and when he came back he smelled like those egg and cheese burritos from the Kiva.

I guess he’s feeling better. Me, I could use a snack.

A friend just shared the following passage from a book she's reading about two British sisters emailing to one another across the Atlantic. An ongoing joke is the terrible behavior of a third sisters (ridgeless) ridgeback:

Had a long chat with Anna this evening. Don't know if she's told you but she has started Toulouse-Lautrec in obedience classes because he was so appalling in the summer. Her friend Zoe (a great dog lover—until now at least) looked after him while she was in France and he traumatized her children really badly by constantly stealing their food. He was so dreadful they got to the stage of just flinging their food at him if he came in the room, to stop him jumping on them. So poor Zoe in addition to having a great stinking Rhodesian ridgeback roaming round had three terrified children throwing sausages across the room in self-defence. She's only been to two classes so far but he's apparently already showing signs of being unteachable and is very disruptive to the other dogs. Anna says she bloody hates him and they should have got a proper Rhodesian ridgeback with a ridge not a cheap one without a ridge as she's sure that's why he's so stupid.

Lucky for Zella, her father is very strict.

Sunday afternoon

This was the scene last Sunday afternoon. Dad has been watching football all day, fed me a miniscule lunch. Geez, I'm hungry. Made himself an enormous sandwich, even though he hasn't done anything but lay around. I'm gonna eat it if he turns his back. He won't even know it was me. Let's put this on the clock for reference sake:

2:01:04: I'm half dozing, eyes closed, breathing deeply. Operating by smell and sound alone.

2:01:30: Dad puts sandwich down on table. I can tell he's looking at me. Thinks I'm asleep.

2:01:35: Okay, now this part I'll never understand. He goes to the bathroom. I mean, the guy goes to the bathroom before he eats. Probably because it takes him almost twenty minutes to finish one little sandwhich. I'd pee first, too if I thought it was going to take me half the day to finish a meal.

2:01:36: Moving. Up on table, grab sandwich, swallow it on way back to napping spot.

2:01:49: Toilet flushes. Sound of running water (another weird thing about Dad, his hands have to be clean before eating). I'm curled up back in my spot, eyes closed, breathing deeply.

2:01:51: Dad back in the living room. Immediately sees that the sandwich is gone. Starts yelling. Staring at me. I drowsily open my eyes and stare back.

2:01:55: I don't understand. I mean, it was a good sandwich, but it's not like he even wanted it. He picks at his food like it's grass in the yard or something. And he's making this huge fuss about it... I think he may have an eating disorder.