Tag: pets

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The Three Houndini

The dogs left again sometime between being fast asleep on the porch at three in the morning, and when I got up for work at five. Eaddie went out to look for them while I was in the shower, but didn’t have any luck. I made it to work a little bit early, but not nearly as early as I wanted. The morning went by pretty quickly, though I kept wanting to fall asleep. I hardly saw anyone all day, which was both good and bad.

Summer had dinner going, so I fed the fish and made it home. Neither she nor Eaddie ever saw the dogs, but I looked down and back up, and they were all three sitting on the porch. I had to assume they were in the neighbor’s yard.

Eli was with us all evening for sloppy joes, and then drove Eaddie to meet us at the dog wash again. Stilgar had stuff all over him, and I couldn’t tell what. On top of crusty stuff, he was full of stickers from the yard that wouldn’t come out. At least he smelled a bit better when we were done. The neighbor brought Muad’dib and Chani out of her back yard again when we got back, and Chani seemed a little more sluggish than before. She’s been pretty quiet, but it seemed worse. I’m sure they’ve been passing something around, or possibly getting sick from stagnant water.

I rode the Onewheel to my parents’ house to try and sew up some pants, but Dad didn’t have any grey thread and I just headed back home for the night. I wound down quickly so I could actually get to bed by ten.

Unrested

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Crabby

I woke up early to try and beat the pups before they got out, but I was still too late. I wandered around outside a bit and then saw them right outside the gate. The neighbor said they had been in their front yard all morning, so I shuffled them back inside. They were out of food, so I got dressed and went to the Neighborhood Market for some more. I picked up some breakfast sausage as well, and made myself some eggs and a bagel to go with it. Summer wasn’t ready to eat when she finally woke up, so I just took a shower and got ready to meet my parents for their trip to Fort Smith.

The first order of business was to drop off some mint at the Midland Market Oriental food store. Then we dropped Mom off for a nail appointment and then I went with Dad to the magic club meeting. They had a show-and-tell with their assorted magic wands and canes, and the disappearing cane stole the show. I ended up holding Larry’s phone so Patrick could see things in a video call. Mom finished up, and we were eventually the first ones to leave so we could get her.

Our next stop was Red Lobster where I could finally get the crab and lobster I had dreamed of all week long. The restaurant was pretty empty for being dinner time, but the food was great. It really makes me sad that they’re doing so poorly, because I’ve always loved eating there.

Afterward we went to a couple Oriental food stores, but Truong Son was closed and we ended up back at Midland for what we needed. It was a super short trip though, and then we headed home.

Eaddie and Eli were out front with the dogs, who all had bright, new collars of blue, red, and pink. I was pretty frustrated, because Summer and I had just talked about how we needed to have a family conversation about the dogs when I got back, and here they were making purchases without me. On top of that, I found that Muad’dib and Stilgar both had choke collars, which was absolutely not what I wanted for them. Chani’s was too big, and I later found her with her with the collar strapped between her jaw and the back of her teeth so she couldn’t close her mouth.

I made Eaddie clean her room and then tried cleaning up some random things myself. I finished up some of Allen’s wine as the girls wrapped up their evenings, and eventually got to bed.

Half thoughts and half naughts.

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Dreg Lobster

I woke up really early a few times this morning and saw the dogs were still outside, but the girls were fast asleep. I had hoped they would eventually wake up and take the dogs to the Liberty dog wash like they promised after not taking them last night, but it just never happened. The last time I woke up and was ready to stay awake, the girls still hadn’t budged and the dogs were gone. I made a quick circle around the block, and even ran back by the garage sale, but didn’t see them. I came back home because it started sprinkling and just fumed over half-finished tasks.

Summer wanted to come home from work on Friday and work in the yard, but the fence wasn’t repaired. The girls wanted to bathe the dogs outside and left the hose and a bunch of flea and tick shampoo sitting out on the ground in the sun. More soap and some rubber gloves were up on the deck, but the gloves had been torn up, along with the foam handle on the hose sprayer. If I hadn’t made Eaddie take care of it before she went to bed, she would have still had suitcases in her floor from her band trip. I was sick of it.

I sat on the porch until Summer finally came out, and I lit her up for it all. She took the Pathfinder around the block and ended up finding the dogs just as I took the Onewheel back out again between raindrops. She got them home but wanted to take them straight to the wash with Eaddie, so I loaded up and drove separately to meet them. She really wanted to get a leash so we could obey the rules of the wash, so I stopped by my parents’ house and got an old choke collar and some rope from Dad.

The wash would only start with a $10 payment for 10 minutes, but you could add five more minutes for $4. Since we only got one dog out of the car at a time, we just started three different sessions. Muad’dib was the first to go, and the most upset by the whole process. He also hated the leash, but would behave fine without it, so we eventually got him finished and back into the car. When we took Chani, someone had peed on the tarp, so we threw a towel in to soak it up before it got onto the upholstery. By the time we finally got Stilgar, someone had pooped as well, and it wasn’t at all solid.

We had occupied the only working bath out of the two in the room for just over thirty minutes while it rained outside. Another guy came in and talked to us while we worked, and then wanted to show off his giant dog as we left. Once we got the dogs back inside the fence, we cleaned up the car and the tarp, and made sure they had plenty of food. Nobody was permanently emotionally scarred by the bathing, and I pulled a few more ticks before we went inside to clean up ourselves.

We left for Little Rock about three hours later than I wanted, so we’d be late for lunch. Eaddie was feeling sick from lack of food, so we stopped at the Morrilton Drive Inn, which had new owners and was now called Nooner’s Diner. We had some fried pickles and mushrooms, which didn’t seem like a good idea for an upset stomach, but it got us on the road again. It wasn’t anywhere near a typical meal time by the time we got to Red Lobster, so I wasn’t completely confident we would actually get to go back for a second meal, but I still ordered something other than what I really wanted. I figured the crab pasta would be filling enough to get us through some shopping. I hated it. At least the girls liked their food.

I expressed some pretty strong feelings when Eaddie said Autumn had texted her asking to trade vehicles so she could have the Pathfinder, so Summer held a grudge against me for most of the rest of the day. I just can’t abide terrible people, and that whole family is rotten in spite of any good deeds in the past. There’s no one-time-saves-all in my Book.

After we ate, the girls wanted to stop at Ross, but then didn’t want to actually shop for anything, so we left and went to Shoe Carnival. They didn’t have a whole lot that interested me, and what they did have was too expensive. I finally found a pair on clearance that I thought would suit my needs, and after coupons I only paid $10.

Next up was Old Navy, where Eaddie actually got excited to try on some clothes. I was feeling so parched that I couldn’t wait to find a fountain, so I bought a $3.50 Dasani, but I would have let myself die of thirst if I had known the price before I cracked the top.

I took us to Kohl’s after that, and it seemed like about half the store was a clearance section for the ladies, so Eaddie looked everywhere and tried on a bunch of things again. At least they had a bottle filler, and I drank several more full bottles while I waited.

Finally, I took us to Baskin-Robbins for some ice cream. I was pretty disappointed in the portions for the price, but it was tasty. I couldn’t convince the girls to go to Red Lobster again, so we headed home where the puppies were all still waiting for us. Eaddie and I played with them for a bit, and all of their fur felt way better after their bath in the morning. Hopefully the ticks fall away and everyone will be happy. The girls went to bed pretty quickly, but of course I still had chores.

Maybe we just need a morning walk.

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Secondhand Dogs

By the time I got out of bed this morning, the dogs had disappeared from the back yard. I came back in to get dressed, and then rode around the neighborhood on the Onewheel to see if I could find them. I talked to over a half dozen groups of people because so many were outside either on a day off, or working on utility lines all through the neighborhood. I figured it wouldn’t be a terrible thing if we never saw them again, but I wanted to be sure they weren’t just wandering around. My last stop was a garage sale just a block in the wealthier direction, and just as the question left my lips, I glanced down and saw Chani laying on the floor of their garage. Then I saw the other two laying just behind them. She said they fed them some Blue Buffalo and called Animal Control, but that they probably weren’t coming.

I ran home to get the Pathfinder, and one of the ladies gave me a pair of shoes that one of them had been chewing on. I didn’t really want to encourage chewing on shoes though, so I ended up throwing them out. One of the ladies said Stilgar had rolled onto a “MAKE OFFER” sticker from their sale, which I thought was really funny. I got them home and fed them some more, and then Dad came over with some flea and tick shampoo from the old house.

Eaddie had a hiking trip with some friends and left, so I got a roast going in the slow cooker before Summer got home from work. Julie invited us out to the airport where they were grilling burgers, so I took a shower and ended up going out there. Eaddie brought Eli back and they stayed home with Summer.

I took the Onewheel with me, but didn’t really have much use for it. They just had a bunch of friends out in camp chairs, and we had simple burgers and stuff. I left when Dad did, and stopped by the old house to feed the fish before going home. Then I got the dogs out of the back and took them for a walk around the block. They did pretty well for the first stretch, staying right by me. Then they got distracted by a toddler with a diaper, and took off after some sort of critter. They didn’t get super far, and would periodically lag behind or run ahead of me before circling back. We made it back home though, and everyone came in without too much fuss.

The others were sat inside watching a movie, so I cleaned up in the kitchen and then wound down for the night.

No leash; No problem

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Bad Spartacus

I got to work a little early today and was greeted in the parking lot by three puppies. One had bright blue eyes, save for one little pie slice of brown, so obviously he was Muad’dib. Chani was smaller and darker. Stilgar, though; Stilgar was scruffy. Someone mentioned that they were likely dumped there at the school, which was upsetting. They would occasionally try to come into the building, so they hung around the back doors all day.

I went in and cleaned up a little more. Then I took screenshots of the configuration for one of the switches I haven’t been able to reach in preparation for Ben’s visit. I had a plan. He arrived a little late for lunch, so we immediately left for the Junction Cafe where we had a couple burgers. His with brisket looked way better than mine with shrimp. It was odd. Not bad, but less than half the size of his.

After we ate, we headed back to the office and got his little computer to put on our network. He never got it fully working, but then as I was trying to configure switches, the second core switch restarted and then broke everything downstream. Hours later, we came to the conclusion that they were basically all screaming that they had the same IP address, and were unable to reach DHCP. Due to the arrangement of the core switch and those leading to the servers that hosted DHCP, they wouldn’t talk again until I finally pulled every last fiber connection out of the aggregation switches and left nothing but the core and a link from it to the servers.

We brought everything back online and then left. The dogs were still outside, and I was torn. I love the idea of having a well-trained dog for a pet, but I just don’t want animals around holding us back. On the other hand, people were leaving, and the dogs hadn’t moved all day. I sent one last picture to Summer, and she said (perhaps jokingly) to bring them home. I couldn’t ever get more than two into the Model Y at once just because they kept jumping out, so I decided not to risk any damage to her car.

I drove home, ate a couple slices of pizza, and changed before taking the Pathfinder back to the school. I had to stop at Casey’s for some gas, and then made it without incident. They weren’t there. I walked around the back dock area where they had been all day, and they weren’t anywhere to be seen. Then I figured I should check by the fieldhouse just to make sure they hadn’t followed where people were gathered. That was when I saw one of them out in the grass. Usul. Then another. Stilgar. I struggled to get them into the trunk where I had laid out a tarp. Chani was nowhere to be found. I called for her, but nothing. I finally gave up and drove back to the building to wash my hands for the drive home. That was when she came running up to the car, from who-knows where. She resisted, but we finally got everyone loaded up.

The drive home was reasonably quiet. They were super active at first, but they settled down within just a couple miles, and by the time we got through Ola, they were all laying down in the back. Someone did something to cause a couple yelps, but otherwise they were completely silent. I got home and pulled into the driveway right behind Summer as she got home from work. Eaddie and Eli were inside already. As Summer approached, I opened the hatch for the big reveal. Everyone hopped down gently on their own, and then followed me obediently into the back yard. Maybe it was thirst or hunger, but they really were perfectly behaved.

I took the kids to Walmart while Summer played with the dogs on the porch. They needed some lunch supplies, and we got some dog food and treats. I decided to pick up a few groceries as well, and then we headed home. The dogs got really physically rowdy when the food came out, so that was a challenge. I ended up just making three piles on the ground for them to eat. Then they each gently took a treat and I left them to entertain the kids so I could go inside, cool off, and dry out.

Twice today, I asked myself how I got into this mess. I guess it could be messier.

Good dog.

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The Dust

The network never came back up last night, so I tried to get in to work a little early to troubleshoot it. The bird woke up while I was in the shower and was chirping all through the house, so I took it with me. I decided to stop at Sonic for breakfast for the first time, and it was some pretty good food for a price. Somehow, no matter how early I leave, I seem to always get to work at the same time.

Todd had already been running things down, and we went back to the core closet to find the VxRail and server switch had no power. Todd thought it was the switch, but it turned out to be the power strip and backup batteries. We moved some things around and got it going again, but then I had an adoption, controller, or DHCP issue as all the switches tried to come back up.

It took all morning, but I eventually got connected to the three core switches and just started turning off ports to distribution switches. As soon as I disabled the fieldhouse switch, everything else started coming right back up. There had to be something down there running a rogue DHCP server, but Todd couldn’t find anything.

I was able to feed the bird some egg and a couple flies I swatted on the loading dock, but as quitting time approached, it got super quiet. It was a fast decline after that. It rained super hard on the ride home, but I got the fish fed and then ran to PetSmart for some crickets. By the time I got home, the bird wouldn’t respond to any bird sounds and wouldn’t open its mouth. I ended up taking it to my parents’ house where Dad had a pipette to give it some water.

While I was there, one of the leak sensors went off at the old house, so Dad went to investigate. The bird was come-and-go by the time he got back, but it ended up having some spasms and died on the table after we gave up and ate dinner. I headed home to bury it, and then assembled the Tiki Retreat fire pit that was delivered in the rain.

The girls both got home super late. Eaddie crashed a graduation party with some other friends, and Summer had to close the wash. Hopefully I can decompress from the week quickly tomorrow night and be productive the rest of the weekend.

Death squawk. :(

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A Sparrow: Gus

Traffic was awful in Dardanelle this morning, but I made it to work. Kim and I chatted for a while, and I never really did find a project. Kids came in sporadically to turn in Chromebooks, which was good. I also learned that about 30% of ninth graders have been suspended this semester, and I’m sure several of those were repeat offenders.

At one point, I had to go to the maintenance office to help Toby ask his vendor for a real attachment instead of an Office 365 share, because Kim couldn’t think of that herself. While I was there, I heard a bird in the building somewhere. Evidently some kid had brought it to Keith, and he didn’t have the heart to tell them they couldn’t do anything about it, so they were just going to keep it in a paper box until after school and then throw it back outside. Stephen was convinced it was a barn swallow, but the color didn’t look right to me, and Merlin identified it as a house sparrow.

I intervened.

A little while later, I headed home at quitting time. Dad had been mowing the lawns at the old house. I showed up to feed the fish, and then he helped me find a worm out back to try and feed the bird. It wouldn’t open its mouth, in spite of how chatty it was.

From there, I headed home and warmed up my leftover Mexican to eat. Summer came home and laid on the couch, but Eaddie was out all night with Eli. I managed to shoot a fly with the Bug-A-Salt, and after trying to hand it over to the bird a few times and it spitting it out, I finally just gave it and walked away. It immediately swallowed the fly. I don’t know why it swallowed the fly that time. Perhaps I can keep it from dying after all.

As the sun went down, I turned out the lights and the bird quieted down. I guess I’m committed to taking it to work tomorrow. It looked like the internet went down at the school earlier in the evening, so with any luck it will be back up by the time I get there. Otherwise, I guess I’m in for a treat.

I would have preferred a swallow.

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Little Brisby

I got up this morning and started a couple corned beef briskets in the slow cooker. Summer had to go to work for a bit, so I cleaned the kitchen and got showered so I could ride to the Neighborhood Market for some potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and onion. I threw everything but the cabbage in with the corned beef, and waited for dinner to be ready.

Eaddie ended up going shopping and to Bona Dea, and Summer came home to mow the lawn. I went out back to check on the basement, and to my surprise, we had caught our rat. I brought it around to the front of the house so I could clean up the poop it had left on the workbench, and then Summer finished up outside and we got cleaned up for dinner.

Dad walked over from their house to join us for dinner. I got the meat and potatoes out so I could stuff the whole cabbage into the slow cooker. Eaddie eventually made it home and we ate. The meat was pretty tough, but still tasty. I wasn’t sure if it was due to the age or how long I cooked it, but dinner was still good. After we ate, I rode the Onewheel alongside Dad as he walked home in the dark.

The girls made it to bed early, and I was slow to get there myself. I brought the rat into the garage for the night and gave it some cereal, but as cute as it is, I think it’ll be best to take it out to the trail tomorrow for release.

Unstable Unicorn

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Silly Rabbit

We woke up in the middle of the night to some rustling in the bedroom. I assumed it was a cat, and let Summer investigate. It wasn’t until I heard her say that it was the bunny that I got out of bed. I just knew if we didn’t find it, it would die in the house from starvation, but I also wasn’t willing to stay awake tearing the room apart to find it. I told her to wake Autumn, but we went back to sleep instead.

I made it in to work a hair early, but there wasn’t much going on. Kyle came in and wanted to know what to do about the Chromebooks that wouldn’t update, and Brody called with the same question he’s already asked me, along with nearly every other staff member about. Greg was out running fiber all day for the new jumbotron, so it was mostly me with an intermittent Kyle in the shop. It aggravated me a bit the way he seemed to expect me to just figure out the problem and give him a fix, especially when I explained exactly how he could contact Google support himself.

Gary, Thomas, and I met Brody for Taco Tuesday, where he struggled to finish six softshells. He’s always complaining about what he normally orders, but just tacos are so cheap. It’s hard to pass up on a Tuesday. When we got back to the shop, I tried to go upstairs to collect some Chromebooks off the stage, but ended up on a side quest.

I’ve been asking for over two years to get a tire inflator chuck with a built-in pressure gauge for our air tank. I couldn’t get the tires inflated, so I asked Thomas directly if I could go buy one, and he had Tammy give me the credit card so I could go to Leonard’s. That’s the story of how I found the one item in the world that Leonard’s Hardware doesn’t have. They had something similar, but not the gun style with the clip-on valve stem bit. I ended up going to Harbor Freight, where they had just what I needed for a fraction of the cost and quality.

With my tires at an appropriate 30psi, the ride with the three tech tubs full of 15 Chromebooks was super smooth all the way down to the basement. It was quiet for the rest of the afternoon until Thomas came down and asked Gary and me to help with something relatively urgent tomorrow. I left work a few minutes late, expecting to meet Eaddie to ride the Grom, but she was out on her bicycle.

Once Eaddie made it back, we went to the aquatics center where Dad thought some guys would be paramotoring. Summer and Autumn met us out there as well, but after signing into Dad’s Facebook on my phone, we discovered they actually went flying on Monday, so we missed them.

Summer had let Autumn take Eaddie home since she was feeling pretty rough with her head cold. The girls found the bunny before we got home, which was a relief. Then we all ate, except for Autumn, who I have to assume is filling up on junk food at school before she gets home. Then Autumn wanted to play Phase 10 with us while Eaddie watched TV. From there, it was a relatively early night to bed for everyone.

I half expected to come home to a bowl of Trix in the floor as bait.

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Split My Life into Pieces

I woke up pretty rested, having held Split Lip in my hands most of the night. He didn’t leave the way he normally would after I fell asleep, at least until hours into the night when he wanted to go outside. When I finally got up to go to work, I scooped him up and carried him off to the vet. I actually felt a little bit hopeful that he seemed to eat a bit of canned food before bed last night.

When we got to the vet, I parked next to Robyn, who was there dropping off a cat as well. They were super busy running in and out with animals, so we chatted while we waited. Just after she left, I heard the spew of diarrhea in the carrier, so I pulled it out of the car and threw some napkins in to try and cover it up the best I could. It didn’t keep Split’s tail from getting in it though. It was actually kind of normal colored and had some solid in it, which made me even more hopeful. I thought maybe he had just powered through some mouth pain so he could eat last night.

I carried on to work feeling a little better about the ordeal, so I stopped and grabbed a slice of breakfast pizza on the way. From there, things slowly started going downhill.

Sandy emailed me to say Dover couldn’t meet my salary request, so they went with another candidate. I would have liked a raise, even if it was only an opportunity to say no to a couple thousand dollars for a lateral step to their pay scale. I wasn’t heartbroken about it though, and in fact had at least a little bit of relief in sticking with what I know.

I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out why imaging the student laptops was suddenly destroying my task sequence flash media. Ben called a couple times and we chatted about Impero some more. Overall, not much was really accomplished.

Dr. Pearson called about split sometime in the middle of the day, and let me know that she couldn’t find anything in his mouth that would cause the grinding sound we were hearing. Without any real answers as to why he wouldn’t eat, her best guess was that he was wasting away from some kind of cancer, and that it was best to let him go. He was already sedated for the examination, so it was a pretty easy decision with the expected fallout throughout the rest of the evening.

I stopped by to get my pet carrier, then picked up a shirt that Ben got me for toughing it out while everyone else was quarantined. The girls didn’t have karate, so I stopped to see Summer briefly before making it home. When I got there, I realized they had not cleaned the cat carrier at the vet, so I hosed it down a bit and left it out to dry.

Autumn made dinner, so I eventually made my way across town. Summer spent nearly the whole evening on a video call with the automotive guys at the ATCC. Autumn’s hamburger meat with rice reminded me of eating leftover taco meat over steamed rice as a child. Then we played a round of Mario Kart before Summer went to sleep and I headed back home.

It really feels like the end of an era. I’ve never truly been here, home, alone. I had my childhood at home. Then I moved out with Angie and we got Kitty, turned Big Kitty, turned Momma. Little Kitty quickly outgrew Big Kitty, but size didn’t matter when he became Daddy. They had five distinct little kittens while we were away in Hawaii just over 15 years ago – Split Lip, Grey, Chewie, Momma’s Clone, and a fifth that we managed to give away before having to come up with a way to describe it against the others.

Daddy and Clone disappeared after I put a bunch of them outside to keep the males from breeding and spraying everywhere. Chewie stuck around the neighborhood, but quickly came down with a dickborn disease, and I had to put him down suddenly when the vet said he had developed jaundice. For a long time, it was just Momma, Grey, and Split. Then Momma blew up like a balloon and I put her down suddenly after a completely worthless trip to the vet at Town and Country. Years later, Grey got the same thing, and Dr. Tanner easily identified and fixed the issue, giving us a little over two more years.

I had been over the whole idea of having cats, and largely pets in general, for a long time. That whole second era of my life had dragged on enough, and I felt like I was never really able to pick up the pieces and move on. Maybe I used the cats as an excuse for being an awful human, but I wanted the chance to find out for sure. I had been ready to move on for a long time, and I guess he was finally ready too.

I’m gonna miss you, buddy. We’ve sure been through some shit together.