Tired tired tired blah blah blah blah

 

Tired.  Oh, I just said that, didn’t I?

But first, a story about life with dogs.  When things are not going well generally* it’s very easy to slide into a grim sort of Put Harness On, Take for Hurtle, Open Tin of Dog Food, Sprinkle with Chicken Scraps, Watch Hellhounds Not Eat and Hellterror Jaws Blur into Engulfing Machine and forget that these are your hellpack and not just random furry moochers that exist to make your life more complicated.

One of the pubs on the main street was having some kind of private party yesterday that involved a large bunch of grey balloons tied to the pavement sign out front.  Grey.  Who on earth** would want to advertise their festive event with grey balloons?  Anyway.  The sign in question is one of those mini sandwich boards that stand on their own little feet and are usually set out in a manner to cause a maximum of pedestrian traffic disruption.  On our way to the cottage from the mews*** the balloons were on the far side of the sign and Pav gave them only a cursory glance.  On the way back . . . there was a large flapping Yog-Sothoth right at her eye level.  And she wasn’t having any of it.

Hellterror.  Bouncing up and down on four little stiff legs.  BarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkBARK.  If she had a ruff it would be standing on end.  Tail like a flagpole.  Head straight up and ears stiff and alert as phased-array radar.  BARKBARKBARKBARKBARK.

I walked on past this demonstration of the imminent end of life as we know it.  I turned around.  Yo, Pav, I said.  Her concentration wavered just long enough to cast me a you-must-be-joking glance, and then returned smartly to her duties as herald and alarm.  BARKBARKBARKBARKBARKBARK.

Pav, I said.  I didn’t want to order her to come to me because her recall is ordinarily surprisingly good and I don’t want to damage it by stressing it beyond its strength.  She paused long enough this time to give me a beseeching look, with that ‘it’s not that I want to be doing this’ expression of gallant anguish.  Barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark.

I bent over a little and said her name again.  She stopped briefly . . . her tail dropped by about a micro-millimetre . . . she was tempted . . . no.  Those grey balloons were a threat to world—nay, universal order.  BARKBARKBARKBARKBARKBARK.

I knelt on the frelling pavement and called her.  Paaaaaaav.  She stopped.  She looked at me.

The tail dropped, the ears flattened . . . and she rushed past Yog-Sothoth and hurled herself into my lap/arms.

My hellterror.  Mine.

* * *

I was going to go on and tell you about Street Pastoring on Friday night† and my voice lesson today†† but . . . I think I’ll go to bed with a good book.  And maybe a few furry moochers.

* * *

* Peter has backslid rather.^  Probably from overdoing it.  And my ME is a drooling nightmare.  Probably because I’ve been overdoing it.

^ But he did come last night to the galactic super-gala Christian unity festival doodah including, as part of the floor show, Maxine and my intake of Street Pastors being superfluously blessed and re-sworn in by forty-seven bishops, including three from the planet Dzorkek, and the live video link to the Vatican+.  What a scrum.++  Eleanor, bless her, gave Peter and me a lift, since parking was also going to be a scrum.

Having been sternly admonished that the usual rule applied and to wear something over my logo I was wearing a hot pink gilet and wondering if we were going to do a synchronised Busby-Berkley number when at a signal no one had prearranged with me we all stood up and ripped off our Clark Kent disguises.  Got there and discovered that nobody was doing Clark Kent.  Which at least made the wodges of Street Pastors easy to find:  the old guard were there in force.  May I remark here about the total weirdness of wearing a highly visible team uniform.  I stayed the hell [sic] out of school sports and my horse riding was always solo, even if I had to wear a number at a show.  Bell ringing has been enough of a shock to the cranky individualist system and at least we don’t wear uniforms.+++

Peter claims he was glad to have come.  And I’m sure there were a few other non-Christian family members scattered through the heaving mob.  But I don’t want to know how often he wished he was at home doing the crossword.

+ Joke.  But I actually wonder if anyone has tried to get our new pope interested in the Street Pastors?  We’re a small but increasing global  phenomenon, all committed Christians welcome and never mind which church you go to, and Francis, despite adhering to the hoary party line about celibate male priests and abortion#, seems to be pretty enthusiastic about humanity first and categorization second.

# not in conjunction, we hope

++ Aggravated by the large area cordoned off for the Dzorkekians, who have special needs from an Earthly point of view.

+++ Although I do have a Guild sweatshirt somewhere.

** It may be different on Dzorkek.

*** The hellhounds are unlikely to have found Yog-Sothoth very alarming, although they would have examined this manifestation closely.  But hellhounds and I hurtled in the other direction yesterday.

† IT DIDN’T RAIN (much).  How amazing is that?

†† Speaking of overdoing it when the ME is biting.  But I’m not giving up my voice lessons.  Not.