WIP Wednesday 129: Wednesday's Child

Housewives Tarot

.... is full of woe. And disgust. And even though I was not born on a Wednesday, I sure am feeling aggrieved - it started first thing this morning when I got out of bed: I put my slippers only to instantly shake them off as they were soaked in cat pee from Moonheart, Mini Diva's cat who has raised the Art of Passive-Aggressive so high that all others bow to her expertise and thoroughness; thoroughness illustrated by not just drenching the slippers, but also the surrounding carpet.

Daringly barefooted, I shuffled downstairs to find that Sebastian had eaten over half a big bag of pfeffernusse I had left on my desk, leaving me only the empty cellophane. You'd think this snack would have satisfied him, but no, when I let him out, he pooped and promptly ate it.

Cat 2, Inky, now seems to grace us with his presence only when whichever old lady who cossets him up the road has run out of food; she must have laid extra supplies in as we haven't seen him for a few days. Which leaves Cat 3, Jewel, who managed to extract herself from her cone of shame during the night and then scratch herself to pieces.

Destructo Boy's Beaver Scout group has collapsed abruptly in a messy morass of personality clashes and unprofessional behavior, and emails to the hierarchy go unanswered, apparently leaving us with the choice of letting him go to Cubs, for which he is too young, or moving to another Beaver group elsewhere.

Mini Diva is home sick, DH's monthly eye checkup told him he needs another injection (after about 6 months without) and to stop smoking on pain of blindness: which to me is more scarey than death. I am having internal thermostat issues which result in night sweats and thus wet pyjamas to go with the damp duvet - but hey, I guess at least they match my slippers for moisture levels.

And to cap it all, after I posted a picture of my progress on my Spring Green cardigan last week, I had to rip it all out and start again, because not only had I discovered what then became a glaring mistake, I had also managed to completely and totally forget which row of the pattern I was on, and I didn't have the necessary synaptic connections sparking to work it out. So last week's

looks unsurprisingly similar to this week's

If you made it this far, I am totally impressed - well done ! Reward yourself by heading on over to Tami's Amis for happy people ....

Mayhem

I haven't had a proper dog since my ex-husband took mine (a beautiful Alsatian named Jezebel) in the divorce; of course, we have since owned the much-loved and missed Maximus Pratticus, but he was a stately old gent who, when outdoors, was occupied with sniffing and creating scents above all other things.

Not so Sebastian. Sebastian is a fiend for a ball. He doesn't give them back, of course, but will drop it within a 10 foot radius or so if one is sneaky enough to have brought another ball to distract him with - otherwise he goes off a ways and chews it to rubbery smithereens.

Sebastian did not used to see the squirrels, the grey ones that plague the park: he was focussed too much on his ball. Until early last week, when a dozy one didn't move quite fast enough and was in the path to the ball. Sebastian gave chase and - much to both my surprise, and his - caught it. Never having had a mouthful of warm mobile fur before, he dropped it almost instantaneously, in shock. It scrambled desperately up the nearest tree while Sebastian circled the base regretting his accidental act of mercy.



Ever since, he makes sure to give a good snout to all the squirrel-laden trees in that section of the park, but has not managed to get anywhere near to another live squirrel. Note the word 'live'.

Because while Mini Diva, her friend L., Destructo Boy and I were out walking the dog in the park on the weekend, some other canine predator had managed to capture and kill a squirrel. The other dog's owner had generously left the spoils of their successful Alpha for someone else to find - and deal with. Oh joy.

Persuading a stubborn dog who has learned his lesson all too well from his earlier mistake, to drop a succulent mouthful of still-warm bleeding prey is absolutely impossible. Sebastian only had the bottom half - who knows where the rest was - and that was bad, bad, bad, since even the most stoic amongst us, ie. me, blenched at the sight of squirrel guts draped all over the undeservedly proud dog's muzzle.

It seemed that my predicament attracted almost every other dog owner in the park - except for the perpetrator's owner. Or maybe they also returned to the scene of the crime just to quietly snigger up their sleeve. We received much sympathy, and comfort in the form of 'don't worry, the park-keepers like it because the squirrels are such vermin' as well as undeserved congratulations for our shameless dog who is obviously a cad amongst dogs, happy to garner a hunter's reputation from someone else's work.


Seeing as how I hadn't brought my phone, DH was in blissful ignorance of the havoc, which meant I had to choose the lesser of two evils: let the dog carry the bloody remnants home through the streets or somehow prise him from it. We found a secluded corner, and I straddled the dog, forced his jaws apart just enough for the squirrel carcass to plop wetly onto the path, while I screamed like a fishwife at Mini Diva to pull the damned dog away as hard and fast as possible.

I haven't seen L's Mum to talk to since, and I will totally blame any mental trauma that may be suffered by L on DH: it's his fault because he should have been there; he also should have reminded me that now we own a proactive young carnivore, not an soft old cushion of a dog.