Coffee heat rising

Dogs

DoggieScam?

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Good grief! Did you know you can buy a “service dog” vest from freakin’ Amazon???

I had no idea: imagined you had to get them through your doctor or through some agency for the disabled.

Jeez. How bizarre.

But bizarre or no… One of these things would allow me to take Ruby into a local grocery store or Sprouts, and also to take her on a bus or a cab. And since I’m deeply NOT inclined to leave her home for any length of time, it would give me a whole lot more freedom to trek around the city. Wouldn’t have to depend on my son to get groceries. And…hmmmmm…..

This could be a very good development.

I do not go off and leave her alone for hours at a time. And since I’m no longer driving a car (thanks, Kid! Thanks, Mayo Quacks!), this means I can’t go anywhere that’s not a very short errand.

But if she could be passed off as a “service dog” (whatever that really is), I could take her with me into the local stores and probably even on local public transit or cabs. This would give me one helluva lot more mobility and access to shopping and other key needs.

Otherwise, I have to ask my son to do my grocery shopping…and since we’re having some difficult times just now, that’s problematic. He is truly maxed out, to the point where it has become clear that I have to quit pestering him to run errands for me.

Hmmmm….  Let’s ask the Uber driver who lives across the road if he’ll take a “service dog” in his car.

If he will, that will magically solve a major problem: how to get from Point A to Point B when that junket will take some time — so I don’t have to leave her cooped up in the house for hours.

Interesting….

Good Morning, Dogmerica!

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WHY, oh why are people SOOOO STUPID?

Just back from the morning (almost typed “moroning”….talk about your Freudian slips!) hike around the park. That’s a mile or so of trotting along  behind a very bossy corgi, dodging fellow dog-slaves around a lovely, grassy expanse.

Well. It would be lovely if my fellow humans could manage to cling to just a smidgeon of their brains.

Idiots.

The ones who take the proverbial cake are the nitwits who imagine their dog “just wants to pwayyy” with my dog.

Me: Please keep your dog back.

Nit: It’s OK. They just want to pwaayyyy…

Me: No, stupid. My dog just wants to eat your dog!

God, but I’m tired of stupid! 

Apparently we have a bottomless supply of it, though. Don’t seem to be able to escape it.

Please. When you’re out with your dog…

a) Keep your dog on its leash (!!!); and
b) Refrain from imagining that every other dog you encounter wants to be your doggy’s little pal!!!!!

Some of your fellow human idiots are mightily tired of being dragged into dog fights!

Eeeek-a-Dawg!!!

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Ohhhh my goodness!  This evening I truly thought the Pool Dude had left the side gate open, that Ruby had found it, and that she’d taken off for Yuma!

Couldn’t find her when I went to call her in for the night. 

The back door to the house, in lovely weather like we’re having now, hangs open most of the time, so she comes and goes as she pleases. Consequently, the side gate to the yard is normally closed and latched.

But…Pool Dude was here. What does he know of dogs and of gates???

This evening she disappeared from view. Didn’t come to call. Ohhhhhhh sheee-ut!

And yes, the side gate was unlatched.

Ho-leeee shee-ut!!

Called and called.

No dawg.

Went inside to put on the clodhoppers, so as to go out through that gate and trot off down the road, calling and calling and calling…no doubt fruitlessly.

Just when I got back to the side yard, though: she surfaced.

No, she had NOT run away down the road.

THANK YOU, GOD!!!!

* * * *

Whew! After this, forgodsake, REMEMBER TO CHECK THAT GATE in the wake of any workman who stumbles into the yard!!!!!

The Morning of the Morons!

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No kidding: Every moron on the planet is out there on the sidewalks with their dog! Come 7:00 in the morning, they all pour out of their houses and prance back and forth around the park.

Gawdlmighty, am I tired of stupid! 

The favorite Idiocy Trick hereabouts is to come bounding up to you and try to set their dog loose on your dog. They just want to p-w-w-a-a-y, the idiot coos.

No, dear…. My dog just wants to eviscerate your dog.

WHY, why in the name of GAWD are people so effing STUPID!?????

Well, we got out into this very lovely morning, around the park, across the road just south of it, back up into our part of the ‘Hood…surprisingly, without an overt dog fight. That, primarily because the Human dragged Ruby away from several impending altercations.

I do love to walk with Ruby through the neighborhood: it’s such a lovely venue. It would be made a lot more lovely, though, by the presence of humans with functioning brains….

Weird, gray day

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First week of May and here we are submerged in a steel-gray morning. In Arizona, of all things!

Seriously: the sky is a weird, smooth, featureless gray lid. Ruby and I have circumnavigated the’Hood, returned, chowed down…now sit here wondering what to do next. If anything.

“What to do next” will probably amount to “go back to bed.” The Human is feeling unduly tired — sleepy, actually — and does not relish pretending to be alert and constructive. Wunderground predicts today’s high will have us sweltering under 80 degrees, followed by a bracing low of 66 degrees.

Yeah. We’ll believe it when we see it.

A jet plane roars overhead. The top of the neighbor’s tree sways gently in a breeze so vague we can’t feel it over here. Not that it matters.

Should pay a visit to one of the local stores. But am totally NOT in the mood to stroll around the sidewalks and the streets

Oh well: we won’t starve.

Not till tomorrow, anyway. 😀

{sigh} I find myself contemplating the possibility of returning to Sun City. 

My house, right here in the ‘Hood, was built by Del Webb — the entrepreneur who brought us Arizona’s Sun City tracts. So a move out there might not feel especially drastic…except that it’s too far from my son and there are no wonderful little kids frolicking around.

And course, except that you’re BLASTED all day long with jet airplane noise, emanating from nearby Luke Air Force Base.  That racket starts at dawn, rolling you out of the sack and souring your mood for the rest of the day.

So…no. Ain’t movin’ back to Sun City, no matter how much crime and B.S. we get here.

Errands to do this morning were skipped by the obligatory Doggy Walk. One opts that at one’s peril! 😉

Did you know that you can go into a dime store or a drugstore and buy a FAKE SERVICE DOG HARNESS for your canine sidekick?

No kidding! I was over at the neighborhood drugstore the other day, and damned if I didn’t see a whole bouquet of the things hanging from a hook in there.

For a fleeting shady moment, I actually thought GRAB IT! 

Then Ruby could come with me into the Albertson’s and the Sprouts and the computer store and…I could get my errands done in one swell foop with the daily doggy-walk!

By golly, THAT would make life easier!

In England — at least when we were there some years ago — they let you bring your dog in most retail establishments. And restaurants.

Yeah. You’d sit down at a restaurant table and there at the table next to you would be someone with a dog in a harness, pooch parked on the floor next to its human. Go into the equivalent of a drugstore or a dime store, and you’d be likely to encounter a similar pooch. Same, amazingly, in grocery stores.

I’m not inclined to fake my dawg’s status. But...hmmmmm…..  It’s somethin’ to think about! 😉

Seriously: it sure would make life easier: being able to kill two outdoor errands at once — doggy-walk and store visit.

But gosh. It really does seem like there’s a limit. Or oughta be, anyhow.

 

A Minor Miracle(???)

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Wow!  This morning the spavined hip hardly hurts at all. 

Well. Yeah: it does hurt. But NOTHING like it has!

So…jeez. Maybe there’s hope. Maybe this gawdawful thing will clear up.

Soon as I finish swilling a mug full of water (too lazy to fix coffee just this minute), the plan is to take Ruby out for a Doggy-Walk. If we can make it to the park (that’ll be a miracle…), she’ll be beside herself with doggy joy. She does LOVE the feel of grass under her little feet. So adorable!

Last time or two ago that we visited the park, some sh!thead pestered the bejayzus out of me. That’s why you need a German shepherd, not a corgi.

Unfortunately, I’m no longer strong enough or patient enough to handle a GerShep, so nowadays I have to take my chances with the f**king general public over there. That day I dodged around to the front of a neighbor’s home and leaned on their doorbell. Asked them to call the cops. That shed the sh!thead, anyway.

Godlmighty, but I’m sick of living in Phoenix. Don’t know where on earth we’d go, though, if we tried to move out of here. I’m afraid these little phenomena are characteristic of the society in general: America has become the Land of the Sh!thead. About the only way you can deal with that is either never to go out without a male in tow (a male human, not a male Chihuahua), or never to go out at all.

For the luvva gawd, I’m an old, ugly woman! It’s not like I was a nubile young thing. What about an old hag attracts sh!theads?

Ohhhh well. On the positive side, it sure is nice to be able to walk up the hallway without hurting like the dickens. For a change.