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| My Cosmo. Just look at that sweet face. |
Showing posts with label Henry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Henry. Show all posts
Friday, September 19, 2014
How I Know It's Time for the Dog to Get a Haircut...
I have two wonderful rescued dogs.
Henry and Cosmo are brothers who we adopted from a local no-kill shelter about 6 years ago and they’ve brought so much joy into our house that it’s hard to
imagine what life was like for us before they came to live with us. They came
from a litter of 7 and they all had names that started with “H”. Henry,
Humphrey, Hogan, Hannah, Heidi, Hector and Huey. Henry is, for all intents and
purposes, a Henry. He’s like a little old man, he does his own thing, he gives
not a single crap. Cosmo (the former Huey) is the exact opposite. Cosmo is a pleaser,
he lives to make you happy. And he’s a special kind of dog. If Cosmo was a
human, he’d have to wear a helmet. He’s such a sweet dog, they both are,
really. But Cozzie is just a special kind of special. He chases lights on the
wall, he will stare at dust as it rises in the sunlight and bite the reflection
of the doorknob from the bathroom door to the hallway wall. There is a
permanent line of bite marks on the wall, because Coz just can’t get it that
it’s a light and he’ll never, no matter how many times he bites it, ever catch
it.
But I digress. Cosmo is my short-haired boy. Henry is my
higher maintenance boy. He’s got some Golden Retriever in him, so he’s got long
hairy legs, hairy ears, a giant hairy tail, tufts of hair between his toes, a
big fuzzy ass and did I mention long hairy legs?
Good, because that’s key to the story.
I try to brush him and keep him knot free, but that’s not always possible with
the crazy life we lead. So there are times when the boy has some knots and I
try to work them out without having to cut his fur. Last week was one of
those times. The dogs had been outside after a rain storm, and when they came
in, Henry did what he normally does. He sat next to me, and nudged my arm off
the computer mouse until I pet him. So I’m rubbing his side, trying to make him
shake that leg and I felt something in his long leg hair, something that didn’t
quite belong there. ‘Must be a knot, he’s got a bunch’ I thought, as I watched
Criminal Minds and tried to maneuver the hair around this spot so that the knot
would work its way out. But it wasn’t working. The ‘knot’ just refused to
loosen up. I thought I was going to have to get the scissors. And then I looked
at the ‘knot’. Turns out, not so much a knot. More like an earthworm. Yes, you
read that right, Henry had an earthworm stuck to his fur under his leg. I’m not
squeamish at all, in fact, I actually started laughing at this predicament.
I asked my oldest to get a tissue as I struggled
to get the earthworm to sit still, while trying to get Henry to sit still. A
squiggly worm on a long haired dog, and neither will sit still. This ought to
be fun! So I grabbed the tissue and lost the worm. Sounds like a horrible
tequila induced nightmare, doesn’t it? I tried to get Henry to lie down on his
side so I could get a clearer view of his underarm hair and try to find the
elusive worm. But Henry would have none of it and I continued to struggle to
find the worm. Thank goodness he’s a tan dog and not a darker red color like
his brother Humphrey. I’d NEVER find an earthworm on a red dog. |
| His Majesty, Sir Henry of the Couch |
After a good 5 minutes of searching and trying to keep Henry still, I found the earthworm and pulled. Guess what. Now we had 2 earthworms. My oldest was COMPLETELY grossed out at the half an earthworm, now squiggling around on the tissue, while I tried to capture the OTHER half of the now much shorter earthworm that was squiggling around in Henry’s hairy armpit. Cue the Benny Hill music. Henry was struggling to get me out of his pit, oldest daughter was gagging over the two halves of an earthworm, both sides dancing the Macarena, husband and youngest child were laughing at me and Cosmo was chasing dust mites he saw glowing in the family room light. If Henry would just hold still, the dust mites would settle down and that would be one less thing to deal with. All I needed at that point was for the cat to come in and hack up a hairball. My night would be complete.
All good stories have a happy ending, and this one is no different. The cat didn’t hack, Cosmo didn’t catch any dust mites, Henry finally settled down long enough for me to catch the other end of that little bugger, and we went back to Criminal Minds. But we did have a good, hearty laugh at Henry and his little Wormy buddy. We’re taking Henry to the groomer on Monday.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Tuesday Tirade....
Oh for the love of all that's holy, we're getting more snow. I believe we may be making up for all those nice winters where we only had a dusting of snow, and all those blistering hot summer days when we were bitching about the oppressive heat and humidity. Well guess what! WE GET IT. You've made your point. So enough with the snow already!
It's not bad enough that we've missed about seventy-bajillion days of school, but we've also had to reschedule dozens of basketball games! If we don't soon get these kids back to school they're going to have to make up all of their missed games in one day. (Although, they WILL sleep well if we do that. Hmmmm)
My girls have been complaining that even when they have off school due to snow, it's not really even a day off because I leave them a list of chores to do. Yes, that's right. Free slave labor! I put those kids to work and I work them to the bone! I work them for hours and hours, not giving them a break, to HELL with child labor laws. This ain't no democracy! Want to see the long list of things I "MADE' them do last week when we had a(nother) snow day? Here it is:
16: Unload dishwasher, help get all clean clothes off guest bed, clean your room
14: Load dishwasher, help get all clean clothes off guest bed, clean your room
What kind of horrible mother AM I?? Who makes their kids work this hard? Shouldn't I just let them be kids, let them do what they should be doing, like what normal kids do? You know, texting, snap-chatting, insta-gramming and tweeting? Kids don't even go sledding anymore. They don't want to go outside where it's cold when they can stay inside and be warm and work on their iPhone Brain Rot.
Here's what happened when I came home from work after leaving them with that huge, and totally unreasonable list of things to do while they were off from school. I was getting ready to make my macaroni, cheese and ham casserole (a favorite at Casa Snarkfest) and I needed to find my 9x13" casserole dish. It was in the sink. Dirty. Still.
When I questioned WHY said casserole dish was still dirty, the response I got was "It wouldn't fit in the dishwasher." When I questioned why no one chose to actually HAND wash that casserole dish and anything ELSE that didn't fit into the dishwasher, the response I got was "Well THAT wasn't on the list."
That was when my head exploded. There was brain matter everywhere. On the clean dishes, on the stove, on the dog's fur, it was ugly. Once again, I used my go-to phrase: "Are you fucking kidding me?" My tirade that evening was second to none and now I think that my kids understand that when I say load the dishwasher, the final result means that there isn't a fork, spoon or cup left in the sink. If it doesn't fit in the dishwasher, wash it by hand. It's not rocket science, but if I have to explain it again, flames will shoot out of my eyeballs and Godzilla will rear her ugly head again. And nobody wants that to happen.
My dogs love the snow but I think even THEY are tired of it. This is what Henry looks like when he comes inside from being out in the snow.
Look at that sad face!! Poor thing looks like he's got little white tumors all over his fur. That's the face of an unhappy dog, covered in balls. That can't be comfortable. Mother Nature is making my dog miserable. So please, Mother Nature, give my dog a break. Give my kids a break. And for heaven's sake, give ME a break! NO MORE SNOW!!
It's not bad enough that we've missed about seventy-bajillion days of school, but we've also had to reschedule dozens of basketball games! If we don't soon get these kids back to school they're going to have to make up all of their missed games in one day. (Although, they WILL sleep well if we do that. Hmmmm)
My girls have been complaining that even when they have off school due to snow, it's not really even a day off because I leave them a list of chores to do. Yes, that's right. Free slave labor! I put those kids to work and I work them to the bone! I work them for hours and hours, not giving them a break, to HELL with child labor laws. This ain't no democracy! Want to see the long list of things I "MADE' them do last week when we had a(nother) snow day? Here it is:
16: Unload dishwasher, help get all clean clothes off guest bed, clean your room
14: Load dishwasher, help get all clean clothes off guest bed, clean your room
What kind of horrible mother AM I?? Who makes their kids work this hard? Shouldn't I just let them be kids, let them do what they should be doing, like what normal kids do? You know, texting, snap-chatting, insta-gramming and tweeting? Kids don't even go sledding anymore. They don't want to go outside where it's cold when they can stay inside and be warm and work on their iPhone Brain Rot.
Here's what happened when I came home from work after leaving them with that huge, and totally unreasonable list of things to do while they were off from school. I was getting ready to make my macaroni, cheese and ham casserole (a favorite at Casa Snarkfest) and I needed to find my 9x13" casserole dish. It was in the sink. Dirty. Still.
When I questioned WHY said casserole dish was still dirty, the response I got was "It wouldn't fit in the dishwasher." When I questioned why no one chose to actually HAND wash that casserole dish and anything ELSE that didn't fit into the dishwasher, the response I got was "Well THAT wasn't on the list."
That was when my head exploded. There was brain matter everywhere. On the clean dishes, on the stove, on the dog's fur, it was ugly. Once again, I used my go-to phrase: "Are you fucking kidding me?" My tirade that evening was second to none and now I think that my kids understand that when I say load the dishwasher, the final result means that there isn't a fork, spoon or cup left in the sink. If it doesn't fit in the dishwasher, wash it by hand. It's not rocket science, but if I have to explain it again, flames will shoot out of my eyeballs and Godzilla will rear her ugly head again. And nobody wants that to happen.
My dogs love the snow but I think even THEY are tired of it. This is what Henry looks like when he comes inside from being out in the snow.
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| Henry has snowballs. Sadly for him they're the only balls he's got. |
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