Expose Puppy to More Stuff*

 

Because I am sometimes too argleflipping dumb to live, last night, waiting for hellhounds to eat their supper,** I decided to roll up my next hank for Second Sweater***.  I was going to need the second ball soon, it would be a nice mindless, even soothing, task, in its repetitiveness, and the only thing I had to do is PREVENT IT FROM GETTING SNARLED UP.

You see where this is going.  I rolled up about 80% of the wretched thing without mishap and then . . . I have no idea what happened.  The gremlins shouted, Hey!  Yarn rolling in progress!  She’s getting away with it!  STOP HER!  And they did.  Golly frelling howdy did they ever.  And, because my stress level is totally off the planet† I instantly entered orbit around Sedna and was pretty sure I’d stay there till I got the slumgullioned thing untangled . . . which is to say that I’m even shorter of sleep today than recently.  ††

But Pavlova was provided with an adventure that further served to wake me up at least briefly.  I’ve told you before that I brought hellhounds home mid-October—in fact exactly the mid-October Thursday that a town near here has a Fun Fair, one of those appalling things with Rides and Junk Food and Shoot Something and Win an Ugly Prize stalls and NOISE.  Especially NOISE.  You can hear the thing several miles away, as well as recognise the flickering Mordorian glow on the horizon.  My hellhound puppies were way too traumatized by coming home with me that Thursday six years ago for any consideration of further excesses, but I think of bringing puppies home every year at this time, because the fun fair posters are everywhere.  And here I am, bringing another puppy home.

But Pavlova has been here four days††† and so far as I can tell is up for anything.  So because I have so much free time for socialising my puppy I bagged her again and we went to the fun fair.  In the rain.

When I first stuffed her in the bag‡ she was all, No!  No!  Want to play!  I wasn’t running up the walls of your kitchen‡‡ nearly long enough and I’m sure I was about to convince Chaos to play with me!‡‡‡  But as we got closer to the scene of anarchy and pandemonium she quieted down because, you know, wow.  I think even my nine-and-a-half-week-old (mini)§ hellterror was impressed.  I wouldn’t go near a fun fair if I didn’t have a puppy to socialise, but it was impressive, not necessarily in a good way.  About halfway through, as we strolled the perimeter, she started ducking down into the bag briefly and then popping out again, as if taking a few deep breaths in the dark and (comparative) peace.  Or possibly wiping the rain out of her eyes.  I could have used a bag to duck into myself.  But her heart rate never changed so I assume she put it all down to another of those weird human things, like being praised and given food for having a crap.  Well, yes, if you want more crap that’s the way to go about it. . . .

* * *

* You’ll get another KES here in another day or two.  Probably Saturday night.  But right at the moment I haven’t got time to write any more eps, and I’ll get paranoid if I drop below ten or so ahead of what I’m posting.  Give me a few more days to get used to fitting Pavlova into a schedule that was already creaking at the frelling seams, and I’ll be able to start up with KES again.  I’ve just found out a plot development that makes me laugh and laugh.  I had suspicions, but . . .

** Pavlova of the beach-ball tummy blessedly crashed out in her crate.   Which is now on the kitchen table, not the Winter Table over the hellhound crate.  Which means there is now no kitchen table.  There is, however, still a Winter Table to put plants on when the temperature starts threatening to dip below freezing.  ARRRRGH.  THERE IS NO LONGER ANYWHERE IN MY KITCHEN FOR ME.  But hellhounds were absolutely not going to put up with being the ground floor with a puppy on the first floor.  Not only wouldn’t they eat their supper—they usually finally, wearily, only-to-please-the-hellgoddessly, cede the point and eat their supper inside their crate rather than out of it, although we’ll have been playing tiddlywinks over the floor for some time previous—but I would keep finding them crammed in the furthest corner of the kitchen looking miserable and threatened.^

^ Maybe you need to know my hellhounds, but that tail-wagging in the video is not happy, welcoming tail-wagging, it’s The End of the World Has Arrived placatory tail-wagging, with the humped backs and the low heads.  They are since chiefly manifesting the Archimedes Fallacy.  Remember Archimedes when Wart first meets Merlin in THE SWORD IN THE STONE?  There is no boy.

There is no puppy.  But they still don’t like poltergeists overhead.

*** Diane in MN:

Have I mentioned that I’ve started another sweater? No, I haven’t finished the first one.

So why are you supposed to have finished the first one?

Thank you.  This one’s a completely plain crewneck pullover.  Far fewer bits to fit together.  Or not.

† Did I tell you, first night, I half-waking-nightmared that I’d killed her?  By putting a towel over her crate to block out the daylight since we were getting to bed rather late as usual.  I had SMOTHERED HER.  Actually I hadn’t.  There were, you know, gaps.  But I have the meanest superego anyone has ever had.

†† But I have a new ball of yarn.  And the hellhounds ate supper before I finished untangling.  How’s that for a kick in the head from the god of irony.  Who is in league with the yarn gremlins.

†††  FOUR DAYS?  FOUR DAYS?

‡ Not for very much longer

‡‡ RAAAAAAAINING.  And while hellterrors appear to be impervious to the elements, she’s only little.

‡‡‡  And the Pope is not Catholic.

§ I got a blast from Olivia last night by email.  SHE IS A MINI AND HER EARS ARE GOING TO COME UP.  Hee hee hee hee.  I had no idea Olivia was going to be so much fun to tease.