Out of my pocket II

I woke up at noon today and decoded a string of dreams before rolling over and forgetting all of them.

Now I’m in a bad mood. A sad mood. A wish that I were glad mood.

I wish Happy hadn’t snapped at Jeremy. It’s really bugging me. It reminds me of those temperament tests they do in shelters to see if a dog is adoptable. They use a rubber hand on a stick to grab at the dog’s food dish while it’s eating, and baff it around the ears to see if it will bite or growl. I have never had a dog that would pass that test. It makes me mad, because I love my dogs. I loved Sarah when she bit at the postal worker’s pants (she was the size of a foot), and when she bit Derek’s hand at a party. I love Happy, even when she acts like a shit. And she acts like a shit whenever a loud kid, or a grabby kid, or Jeremy (neither loud nor grabby) walks in the door. But I wish so much that she would be consistently normal around everyone. Like, here, read this:

When a kid came near, even a toddler, both dogs would sit down, tails wagging, and let the child approach, then gently lean over to give him or her a lick.

That’s from Jon Katz’s A Dog Year, describing the author’s saintly golden labs, Julius and Stanley. But not every dog is a golden lab! Some dogs are weird, and edgy, like we are. I should point out that Katz admits this, and that rest of the book is about him adopting a neurotic border collie and descending rapidly into hell, in a nice way. But it still gets me down.

It sucks to feel ashamed of your dog. It SUCKS BUTT. I’d resisted caps lock until just now, too.

By the way: I had to rewrite this post from memory after Blogger ate it. I couldn’t be bothered to include the paragraph about oatmeal. It’s possible that Blogger will publish the first try after all, in which case, you’ll be able to see my self-editing at work, and judge me for it. Blogger sucks butt.