Friday, September 2, 2011

Sominus Interruptus Droolius

We had a surprise thunderstorm last night.  The dog let me know about it by getting up on the bed, shaking violently, and drooling.  On me.  There is very little that is as refreshing as the copious drool of a terrified dog spraying across your back at 3 AM.

I am not at my best at 3 AM.  I am not even a little bit coherent.  Unless there is something to startle me into alertness (gunshots; direct lightning strikes; my beloved making sounds indicating that he may be dying on his side of the bed) I am likely to grunt and roll over.  Which is what I did.  Several times.  I was feebly trying to escape the drool.

Unfortunately the dog was HIGHLY alert and unfazed by my ability to move several inches on the bed.  So the water torture continued.  I patted her on the head reassuringly in the hope that she would settle down.  This has never worked before, but I am dumb as a stump in the middle of the night and I always try it.  She shoved her head under my hand with the implication that if I directed all my attention to petting and comforting her, she would agree to drool onto the bedding instead of my skin.

Eventually, my three on duty neurons collided and formed an idea.  Drugs!  I would drug the dog.  We have drugs to give her if there is a storm coming.  Actually she and I take the same drugs - me for travel, her for travel and storms.  So all I had to do was find an appropriate bottle of pills for either of us, and I would be golden.

I dragged her into the bathroom with me.  No way was I leaving her alone in the bedroom, possibly to lose bladder control and/or eat the trim around the door.  As soon as I opened the bedroom door she wanted to bolt for the basement, but I am not JD and I do NOT go down to the basement in the middle of the night just because my dog is anxious.  That would make ME anxious.  I've owned this house since 1999 and it still freaks me out down there.  It's way too Silence of the Lambs in the basement.  And there was that one time with the bat.  So no.  No basement-going.

I lucked out in the bathroom and found two and a half pills.  She only needs a half pill.  I have no idea whose pills they were, because at some point they'd been relocated into a small ziplock bag for travel (which, if you recall, is appropriate for both of us.)  No matter.  I pried her mouth open and put the pill on the back of her tongue.  If she had been a cat she would have given me the stink eye and spit it out, but thank goodness she's a dog and all she did was pant and smile.  The poor dupe.  She really believes we can make the bad noises go away if we just try hard enough, and she sucks up unbelievably in an attempt to make this happen.

So with my dog possibly on the way to being medicated (I didn't pry open her mouth again to see if she had really swallowed) I dragged her back into the bedroom and climbed back in bed.  And waited.  Within minutes, the dog heaved a HUGE sigh and curled up at the foot of the bed.  And stopped vibrating violently.

Man, I love drugs.

As soon as the dog ceased and desisted with the Magic Fingers imitation, I passed out again.  Seconds passed.  The alarm went off.  Really, world?  Shouldn't I get some sort of morning deferral based on my heroic pill-finding action?  I'm not asking for a lot here. I just want an extra, say, hour.  Just enough to turn me into something other than a heavy-eyed redheaded zombie.

But, no.  No deferral.  Not even a wait list.  I had to get up and feed animals and go to work.

As a result today was not a stellar work day.  (Though, I must say, Dawn for some reason had cupcakes and my GOD the one she gave me was good.  )  My mental fog allowed me to perform some activities which I usually find distasteful.  Generally I procrastinate the yucky stuff, but I find that either insufficient sleep or a really solid cold is enough to protect me from the feelings of rage I usually get when I have to deal with certain things.  So assuming I'm alert on Tuesday, I will at least have the satisfaction of knowing that my zombie self took on some of the dirty work.

Dinner tonight was courtesy of the farmer's market - a fragrant tomato sliced up and dusted with garlic salt, one of the sweetest ears of corn I've ever eaten, and a piece of baguette.  I'm pretty sure the baguette will not survive the night.  No potassium sorbate, or whatever it is that they put into foods so they don't immediately get stale / mold / shrivel into nothingness.  Of course, that's why it's so good.  Baguettes that can last several days typically have all the flavor and texture of a rubber eraser.

I think that once I've prodded myself into cleaning the litter boxes, I'll make an early night of it.  They aren't calling for storms, are they?

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