Thanks, y’all – I am absolutely overwhelmed with suggestions for dog names, and emails about the dog. I won’t respond to each of them, because that would take forever, just take this as a blanket "thank you".
Apparently my readers like suggesting names. As I said (typed) to Athena earlier, I can only imagine what would happen if I were pregnant and asked for name suggestions (I’m not – pregnant or asking, that is. Besides, we picked out the names of our future children before we ever even met in person. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll mention it again – Molly Jayne, and Seth Forrest).
I really like the name Sally for the dog, but Fred is partial to Sadie and, well, she IS his dog, so I guess he gets final say in the matter, though he hasn’t decided for sure. At least, I don’t think he has.
I went to PetSmart this morning and got a couple of bowls – for water and food – a leash, and a couple of toys. $61. I’m a damn idiot for buying pet supplies at a pet store, when Target was RIGHT THERE. I mean, I’m a damn idiot in general, but that’s one specific description of my idiocy. Just so you know. I need to buy a container to keep her food in, but the ones at PetSmart were $36 – that was the least expensive one – and since I can get a covered trash can for less than $10, and that’s what we keep the cat’s food in and it works for us, I believe I’ll be buying the same thing for the dog food.
Which reminds me – Fred opened the bag of dog food last night and offered each of the cats a piece, and Tubby ate his and begged for more. We put the bag in the kitchen closet, and Tubby spent half the evening sniffing at the bottom of the door and trying to figure out how to get in there.
The dog is doing well. She spent last night outside on a comforter (shhhh, I’m still working on Fred about the outside part…) with one of my stuffed animals by her side. This morning she bounded back and forth across the yard, and we heard her bark for the first time. She has a deceptively deep bark for a little skinny thing. Luckily she doesn’t do it much.
I went out after I lifted weights this morning and sat in one of the chairs we have out there, and she settled right in against my legs and seemed happy. I left the back door open, and Spot stood and stared at her for a long time. She spotted (hee!) him and walked toward the door, and he arched his back and backed up in horror. She hasn’t really tried to get inside, and she obviously understands what "no" means.
You know what our adoption of this dog means, don’t you? It means that we’ve transformed from crazy cat people to "those weird people next door with ten thousand animals." Because it was bad enough having FIVE cats, but now we have FIVE cats and a dog. And next, we’ll of COURSE have to get a dog to keep this one company, dogs being social creatures and all, so we’ll have FIVE cats and TWO large-ish dogs, and then the spud will want a parakeet, and an iguana while she’s at it, and how about a couple of fish, and the next thing you know, the health department will be breaking down the door, where they’ll find me dead on the floor, having inhaled more cat hair, dog hair, parakeet feathers, fish goo, and iguana scales (?) than my body can process at one time.
Anyway.
So, we had to drop Fred’s Jeep off yesterday to be worked on, because it was doing all sorts of weird little things that needed taking care of, besides which it needed it’s 50,000 mile tune-up (or whatever the hell they do), and the nice car guy called Fred mid-morning to tell him the many, many things that were wrong with the Jeep – and there were MANY little things wrong with it – and how much it would cost.
$1200.
Gah. I just KNOW that it’s more than likely that all these little things, or at least some of them, were caused by that damn accident he was in a few months ago.
His Jeep wasn’t ready until this afternoon, so I went to pick him up at work, and I was sitting at a red light. Ahead of me was a middle-aged guy in a red convertible, and there was someone trying to get out of the parking lot we were sitting next to. So he waved her out, letting her go in front of him, and she crossed the lane to our left, to get to the left-most lane. Then he waved to the car behind her, to let THEM go as well since our light was still red. She, car #2, also needed to cross the lane to our left, to get to the lane on the other side of that one, and a car was pulling up slowly in that lane, and Mr. Convertible held up his hand to order them to stop. Which they did, since they were stopping to let her go anyway, but Mr. Convertible was FAR too pleased with his traffic-commanding self, and he smiled to himself and checked his three hairs in the rearview mirror.
I briefly considered making a citizen’s arrest. I could have charged him with impersonating a traffic cop. And then I would have left him, cuffed, on the side of the road as I took off in his convertible, which I would have needed to seize as evidence.
Just doing my job as a concerned citizen, ma’am. Nothing to see, move it along…
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