i've got pinched toes and scuffed heels.
i've got chewed insteps and gnawed tongues.
ugh.
it's the XI-mas season, and presents ARE the reason for it.
y'all can keep your warm and fuzzies for X-mas,
but we take our holiday a level higher,
one louder,
a whole lot fresher,
and with a style so hard that warm and fuzzy applies only to slippers-
and by that i mean brand new ones,
wrapped up with ribbon and bows, in with a tall pile of good-A* gifts.
y'know?
my little piggies are pork-pounded-out by the pitter-patter of my stride,
and i've got nary a pair of boots specifically made for walking.
and what's more,
because it's XI-mas,
i'm picking up pair after pair of footwear,
while my own feet continue to go on being unloved and downtrodden.
...and when i say downtrodden,
they're nipped at and stepped on and growled about,
whilst archlessly flapping their way through the roadways and trails
of this neck of the woodsly goodness.
yep.
it's safe to say i'm getting to intimately know the nooks, crannies, caves, rocks, trees,
and dead-ended side streets of my neighborhood.
i wonder if my actual neighbors have noticed crabtree and i
cavorting through the causeways and leaves and lawns of our small corner of the world.
or, that i frequently alternate between proud lauding of his behavior,
and cajoling him to stop being such an A*-hole...
ha.
that's no joke.
i have to though.
or at least, i want to.
he spends a long stretch of each day in his crate, alone.
yes.
it's terrible.
i have to tire him out in the tracts and tracks before i go and earn our kibble,
so he'll fall fast asleep, and won't feel the anxiety i'm swallowing
every second of every afternoon when we're apart.
yuck.
oh,
it's not separation anxiety-
it's time-management stress,
and movie check stress,
and good-dog training stress,
and ugly overlapping ruined routines that snag and catch and trip me up.
that's real.
i leave work in the midday now,
and go home to let him out.
i do, so can doo-doo his doings,
and then i speed back to work,
close out the day, usually without tattooing,
because how hard is it to schedule tattoos on an unpredictable schedule?
work and home and back and forth,
in as timely a manner as possible in a traffic-filled
vacation holiday-shopping destination makes for loose guidelines and not firm timelines.
i F*ing HATE that the most.
but, once the day is done,
i speed even faster back to the Folk Life & Liberty Fortress at the end of the day.
i'm sayin',
he's a growing lad, and my little guy has got to eat big to get big,
huh?
yes.
that IS a lot of back and forth.
hmmm?
yes.
it's infinitely aggravating,
and time consuming in a way that hinders, hampers,
and effectively hamstrings my productivity.
what?
oh, yes, indeed-
that's an interesting question you've brought up-
although every other excellent income-generating edifice in this entire town
has mandatory, contractual pet-friendliness,
i seem to have garnered a gross overabundance of very-specific
pet-owner unfriendliness from my own job,
and he can't come to our party anymore.
it's not him, it's me, i'm sure,
but the outcome is the same,
and we both suffer for it.
awwwwwwwwwww.
*
i'm overtired.
i am.
really.
the thing of it is-
i know my dog, duders,
and i know how he behaves when specific cues are being given.
but then again, i would know all about that, wouldn't i?
after all,
i spend every single spare minute interacting with him.
that means that i know when he needs something,
even if it seems like he's acting exactly the same to a less informed observer.
i know better.
and really,
NObody pays as much attention as i do, ever.
so,
i know what it means when he stares off the edge of the bed,
and when he whines near your neck,
or where we're at if he is only snorting and snoring,
everything is worth knowing,
and data collection is the better part of learning, predicting, determining,
and generally being smart.
as a direct result of memorizing the subtleties of non-verbal canine communication,
i'm up and at 'em at all times,
whenever his little stupid butthole beckons.
i don't get mornings off.
there is no sleeping in.
there's no rest in between either,.
...and that's the trouble
when i'm up, i'm up,
and there's plenty to do, anyway.
crabtree, however, is not concerned, at ALL.
ha.
little sleepy F*er.
i guess it's hard to be up all night?
no sh!t.
and all he has to do is not poop in my house,
get larger and more hansdsome,
and maybe get that ear back up....
with that as his only plan for the day,
he can always just crash back out and get some more zzz's after his pre-dawn jaunt.
it must be nice,
but honestly, i have no personal point of reference on those actions,
other than that he seems observably content.
so,
we'll be walking and working,
and working on our walking,
and then it's social times in the village,
and back home again, jiggety-jig,
so i can crate him up, and race back across town to the tattoo shop.
yep.
and what about when i get home from work?
oh, c'mon.
you know there's nothing but dog times ahead of me each evening.
there are no nights of fun with human friends.
no time off,
and no time at all,
and timing is everything,
so everything is nothing,
and that's more philosophical than i'd like to evaluate.
thinking is all i have time for anymore,
and thinking is NOT the same as doing something.
there's me, and there's him, and that's it.
of course,
i don't have friends,
and i kind of hate fun,
so i s'pose there's only the reality i've willed into being that i can reside within
and cultivate coincidences and conjure these communiques from.
damn.
i have a rad dog,
and he has me.
instead of every-or-anything else,
i have a singular focus,
and a four-legged homeboy who monopolizes every moment
of the small snatches of time i've got on hand.
it's all really happening,
by which i mean,
dogging and driving and driving and dogging and getting presents
and being present as i move choppily through fluid timestreams
and don't ever seem to get any on me.
-
what?
yes.
i prefer to talk about cake, too.
sometimes, though,
there's no frosting, just crumbiness;
never quiet, never soft.....
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