a strange tale about dog poo

 

O Captain, My Captain

Tomorrow I celebrate an entire year with my totally adorable sidekick, Captain, a kelpie x black lab who is  so funny and so sweet that he is the one redeeming feature of this dung heap of a year. I was planning to write a little tribute to him - but basically who needs it - we all know that dogs are the best! and rescue is fabulous, and of course I reckon he is the best dog and a GOOD BOI. 

What I can write about that is possibly the most unique thing that has happened to me this year is what happened when I took Captain out for our morning walk today. Which is incredible. Even by Mandurah standards.

So here we go....

This morning, Captain was in the off leash, and so was another dog. Now I'm not sure who started it but somehow both dogs were pooping in the same area at pretty much the same time. Maybe they were racing? Competing for turf? Who knows... but they both pooped and I had to walk all the way over to pick up poo and so did this other guy. 

I was just tying a knot in the poop bag when this guy says to me "that is my dog's poo"

Alrighty then.

Taken aback, I waited to see if he had anything else to say.

Which he did not.

So eventually I said, "Do you.... erm.... want... your dog's poo?" and held the bag out towards him.

He eyed me.

We stood in complete silence.

Then he clipped his lead on his dog's collar and walked off without saying anything.

WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED?

I thought at first maybe he didn't want to pick up strange dog's poo (like germ wise?) and then I thought maybe he needed the poo for a sample for the vet? But he said nothing. The first and only thing he said to me is "that is my dog's poo"

How did he say it? Flat. Statement of Fact. Kind of soulless. A little bit like someone who has been brainwashed or hypnotised. Possibly stoned out of his gourd.

And there you go, it is Mandurah, after all.

And I stood there (possibly) holding someone else's dog's poo and wondering if I was supposed to pick up the second poo. And wondering if someone just totally played me to get out of picking up dog shit at 6.30 in the morning.

And I still really don't know.

But I've met a lot of people while walking my dog, and this one has just become a Hall of Famer. 

In an ideal world I have another 10-15 years with Captain and a lot of people to share wonderful and awkward moments with. So here is to my dog, Captain, long may he live.

it turns out I needed some time to just enjoy this....

Well, I did it, at last, I started my bedroom makeover. No photos yet as the other half of the makeover will be after I get back from Etsy Captain's Summit in Noosa. But so far, it has been the first real action since culling belongings on and off for a year, measuring, making furniture arranging possibility sketches, making little pencil marks on walls and sticking pins in my curtains to show where certain pieces would be positioned. Saving money, ordering flat packs, assembling, freaking out that the bed head I bought to go in front of my window was too high and having to make a whole new furniture arrangement, packing all my belongings, moving everything, and putting everything that made the cut back in the room. To be honest I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. I also had sinusitis and for a few days I didn't even make it to lunch time without needing a lie down. It turned out I needed to spend some time just looking at the water and doing basically, jack. Look who also enjoyed the down time...

But I'm back up and energized again, and since it has just been my parent's wedding anniversary, and we actually did nothing (I remembered a day late, and they didn't remember until I mentioned it) I thought I'd tell the story of how we celebrated my parent's 40th Wedding anniversary in a Coffee Club.

First of all, my parents eat at the senior citizen mandated dinner time of 4.30 pm, a time that fancy restaurants are not ready to take you, and if they did, my parents would still rather be at home squabbling about who is talking during the tv (Mum won't let Dad talk during The Bold and the Beautiful, Dad won't let mum talk during the news) and getting into their pjs and locking all the doors and windows by 5.30pm and thinking how contented they are to have their work done for the day.

So to celebrate a special occasion, we eat out, at lunch time. In a place that Mum chooses, because she is wildly difficult to please, and there are maybe two Mum approved restaurants in all of Mandurah. It has to be a place that you can walk in without a reservation somewhere between 11.30 and 12.00 and lately, for the past few years that place has been Happy BBQ Chinese Restaurant. Of course Mum does absolutely no pre-special occasion research, so once we turned up on a day that they were closed.

The year of the infamous 40th Wedding Anniversary, I recommended to Mum that she check that Happy's would be open, and she swore black and blue and two ways to Sunday that there is absolutely no way that they would not be open. However, when we arrived, they were, indeed, not open for business. So we were standing in the carpark at the mall, and I'm thinking, thank God we can go down to the foreshore and eat at one of the many wonderful restaurants in the area that I love. But NO, Mum thought that driving somewhere else when she was HANGRY and having to REPARK the car was too much effort so she suggested we go into the mall and eat at The Coffee Club.

We found a table for 4 (though really it seemed like it was only comfortable for 2 people) in a room packed with at least 50 people all talking at once so loud that no one at our table could hear each other and we sat more or less in silence for an hour, celebrating a Ruby Wedding Anniversary with grilled fish and chips.

Oh and when the waitress brought my meal, somehow, the fish came off the plate, flew through the air and landed in the palm of her hand. I know, what the? And she put the fish on my plate and then asked me "Oh, would you like a new piece of fish?" By the way, if you happen to be in food service, this is a terrible position to put your customer in - by making me the hard arse if I would prefer a clean piece of fish for my lunch. The correct thing to say is "let me get you a new piece of fish". I did very awkwardly and with much embarrassment request a new piece of fish, and I tell you that fish came back pretty freaking quick. I hope she just grabbed a piece of fish (not with her hands) that was about to be put on someone else's plate and make that someone else wait a little longer for their fish, but I admit there is a 50-50 chance that I got my original fish after a 10 second trip to the kitchen.

And so its probably just as well we did not attempt to celebrate, in any way, the passing of my parent's 42nd wedding anniversary. Its also lucky that I accidentally observed aloud the other day, that Happy's is open in a new location, after the anniversary had passed, though I guess we'll go there for Mum's birthday, in July, if they are open.

how I got my dog

This is my dog, Fizzy, he's a rescued border collie x kelpie and today is our third anniversary or "gotcha day" if you are familiar with rescue terminology. Since he is such an important part of my life, I thought I'd share how miraculous it seems to me that he is mine, and the magic he works daily on our family. To be honest, I don't think we'd have made it this far without him.

Fizzy is my very first dog. I never had a dog when I was a child. I wanted one desperately. I don't think any child has ever been sent more gaga for want of a dog. We would be out and about as a family and I would see a dog, with a collar, and tags, and a family of its own on the horizon somewhere, and I would be crying and begging my parents to save this poor, wretched homeless dog that needed us. Loudly. Passionately. Blind to all the facts. I am sure many a family left in a hurry "quick Marge, put the dog in the car and let's get out of here!"

I was hysterical in my desperation to have a dog. To add fuel to the fire, my Dad was always whistling or singing 'How much is that doggy in the window'. He's not an evil genius or anything, he's just oblivious to the effect he has on the people around him.

I left home, lived in student housing (no pets allowed), lived in share houses (no pets allowed), lived in rentals (no pets allowed) and dreamed of the day of owning my own home and buying a dog even before fully furnishing the place... and somehow ended up back with my parents, and nothing wears away your morale more than being an adult and needing your mummy and daddy's permission to get a dog.

I wasn't overly hopeful about the chances of getting a dog - my parents never gave me any signs of hope that they like dogs at all.... they didn't want to pat dogs when visiting other homes and had steadfastly resisted all forms of begging and pleading for over 20 years.

But my Mum knows how much I need pet therapy for my mental health, and a 19 year old cat that poops on our beds during the night was a) not going to live forever and b) thankfully, not going to live forever. I said to Mum, "Mum I'm never going to have kids, and all I've ever really wanted was a dog. What if I die and I've never even had that experience of owning a dog?" (Oh Yes, I Did) and she told me that when my poor old scared cat left our lives I could get a dog.

Dad said "it will have to be an outdoor pet" and I said yes, mainly, but we've got to at least let is sleep in the laundry at night. So he made a pet gate for the end of our hallway. I still was a bit nervous about his attitude to our potential new pet, but Mum assured me he would be the softest of all of us and would let it in even if we didn't want him to.

And she was right. My dad, freaking loves this dog. My dad has never raised his voice to this dog, he is more patient and kindly with the dog than with us... but bygones....

We adopted a friendly but frightened, beautiful 8 month old boy named Tizzy (I renamed him Fizzy) and from the first day he has brought us nothing but joy. He is the most perfect pet we have ever had. He is gentlemanly, eager to please, grasps his place in the home (he never jumps on their bed or the couch) he doesn't dig, or bark, or steal our food, he is gentle and exceptionally patient with children, he brings joy to the elderly nearby who have no pets, and is everybody's favourite dog. They tell me every day.

My parents say "you could not have gotten a better dog" and I glow.

Fizzy is amazing, he has brought magic into our home. It brings me joy to see that he is pet therapy for both my parents and not just me. I accept many things about my parents that I previously would have fought them on because I think "they let me have a dog, let go of it". We laugh together, we enjoy his antics, we enjoy his love, we share his love.

For three years we have had better lives because he is with us.

a typical day in the nest

Morning has broken - my mother will rise and turn the television on by 7am and it will remain on until bed time. I hate television.

I squabble with the dog all the way around the block - he is afraid of an increasingly inconvenient list of things  all of which can be found in our 'hood or flying overhead (drug houses, airforce jets, small poodles, eagles, strange smells, hoon drivers, the rubbish truck) we tend to go the direction he decides moment by moment, is less threatening, and usually end up stranded with no "safe" Fizzy approved way of getting home.

While my parents breakfast at a table that had been almost completely set after dinner the night before (tablecloth, cups, saucers, bowls, cutlery, cereal... basically everything but milk and the teapot) I rush to the computer because my first thought is whether any orders have come in for my business Starzyia overnight, or if I have any customer questions to respond to, I love this!

I lovingly wrap any orders for my customers so I can ship them when I go to the shops, which is early, but fits around any doctors appointments my parents might have.

We shop or run errands.... if Dad comes there is a walker to collapse and shove into the boot and he likes to do it himself (which takes 50 times as long as if I did it but its better if I stand back and let him do it himself while I cop dirty looks from passers by at the sight of an 80 year old struggling to lift a walker into or out of a car while I stand doing basically nothing)

No matter the size of my "to do" list compared to the size of their lists, I will always, always be the one waiting for my parents. Its impossibly freakish the way it turns out. I play games on my ipod while waiting. Sometimes I wait so long I worry they have forgotten where we said we'd meet and agonize over whether I should look for them at one of our other meeting places. Sometimes I wonder if at least one of them has collapsed in the centre and I can't understand any of the PA announcements in the mall.... its all gibberish. I could be getting paged and I wouldn't know.

My father who recently passed his driving test to remain on the roads, will insist on driving and will quite roughly hit the curbs at least once there and back. It makes me incredibly nervous when he checks his wrist watch while driving, fails to register the time, and looks about three more times before asking me what time I think it is. Why time is important I don't know, none of us have anywhere to be in life, really. Though I think about Hawaii quite often.

After unpacking any shopping, I have to take the dog out at least to the park (3 houses down) or to the end of the street because he absolutely will not take a crap in our yard, though my life would be much easier if he would. He likes to do it in the 'hood to mark his territory. He is submissive to every other dog in the world but he can fake a good confident "this is mine" poo, I think, I'm only guessing.

At least once a day the phone will ring and my dad will answer it even though he cannot hear anything on the phone, and usually ends up hanging up because he couldn't understand the person's accent, or if the person is lucky, he will come and grab either Mum or myself to get to the bottom of what is going on.

At least once a day the phone will ring and my mum will hang up summarily on the person, because when she said "hello" they didn't say "hello" back right away which she believes is 100% proof that the person is in a call centre. They might just be a medical receptionist distracted mid ring by a patient or other staff member or any number of other legitimate callers who have just been given the Short Shrift.

I hardly ever answer the phone. I'm the one who can hear, does understand, doesn't abuse a call centre person until they've earned it, but I HATE phone calls.

Lunch time! I eat in my room while watching an episode of whatever show I'm binge watching on dvd.

After lunch I either: create new products; conduct photo shoots; write blog articles or my email for my VIP members; update bookkeeping; unpack supplies parcels; shop for supplies online; or when it hasn't been achieved in the morning - housework or garden and yard tasks my parents can't do.

At least once every hour while they are awake, my parents have a bickering match that begins over not being able to hear or understand each other and sometimes I have caught them arguing the exact same side of an issue only in different words and not comprehending that they are actually in complete agreement with each other. I face plant.

Nearly every day I will be actively involved in a dispute with one or both of my parents, in which I am treated incredibly rudely, and let's face it, I'm not one to cope well with being treated unfairly. Because of the way I was treated by my father as a child, I refuse to take abuse from him now. So when I call him on his current behaviour.... which I call "holding a mirror up" things tend to go badly. My intention is to show him how he has just treated me, but being unable to perceive that in the first instance, he still cannot detect it when it has been replayed for him. Its the biggest emotional void in my day and is one of the things I have to work on letting go of. But it sucks that I have to let go.

There's usually no way in hell I can get access to one of the toilets when I need it, because since Mum had bowel cancer she has had irritable bowel syndrome, and Dad has heaps of troubles himself. He will usually crap in the bathroom in the morning when I want to clean my teeth. Then Mum does it. Then Dad does it again. There is always spare underwear and a plastic bag in the car glove box. Unless I go to consult the map and the underwear is no longer spare... Eww!!!

Dad likes my cooking, mum does not, plus Mum can no longer eat foods that contain fructose since her bowel surgery. I don't like Mum's cooking (and never have) and don't want to kiss goodbye to so many gorgeous fruits and vegetables, plus I don't really eat meat... so every day there are two dinners prepared in our house. But not at the same time because the kitchen is too small. So I often cook early in the day and reheat for dinner. If I'm smart and cook for 4, I can get by having a day off in between cooking, and have a hot lunch and hot dinner every day. I buy my own groceries and only make the things I like, so its pretty good.

I come home from walking the dog to potent mixed aromas - Deep Heat and gravy would be one of my least favourite combinations (considering I hate both, and together, forget about it!) Whatever the smells are that day, they are bound to clash with the smell of my dinner.... and again, I eat alone in my room. Separate meals, at separate times (I can't force myself to eat dinner at 4.30-5pm every day anyway) this is the most independent part of my day.... the closest I come to living alone.

The dishes are washed and put away, the table is set for the morning, and I work on Starzyia tasks until 7.30 which is my designated computer shut down time. Relaxation begins and the dog loves his cuddles on the bed while we watch an episode or two on dvd.

A basic day in the nest! There are lot of things that are the same each day, but the variations are insane - the actual subject of any bickering match is sure to be one for the record books. I hate the tension, I like peace and quiet, but as long as we are having insane arguments and getting in bizarre predicaments I figure I might as well treasure them as the uniquely hysterical hilarious moments of our lives. There will be plenty of them. I hope they make you smile.