Diary of a Lesbian Housewyfe

Despite my completely latent penchant for rising early these days, I forced myself to stay in bed until 7:30 before going out to play frisbee with Cappy. Playing frisbee is his favorite thing besides playing ball in the evening. We have a twenty to thirty minute playtime each morning and afternoon where I run him until he is taking rests on every throw. Then, I know I’ve tired him out enough to be calm for a while. This dog exudes enough energy to run all the lamps in New York City, so two playtimes a day is just my daily self-defense.

So, I’m out at 7:30 playing frisbee with Cappy and I see a hot air balloon rising over the trees. I think anywhere you have lots of tourists, you’ll find hot air balloons, and we have our share for sure. However, this time I remembered that this weekend is the Balloon Rodeo (or “Rainbow Weekend” - which I don’t really use because, for me, that was a couple of weeks ago at this point).

Tomorrow, during my playtime with Cappy, I should be able to see dozens of balloons rising over the trees and playing with each other. Since hot air ballooning really only works in the cool of the day, you have to rise early to see it, and now my early rising may finally pay off.

Pictures tomorrow if it does.

Okay, so I think that my dog, Cappy, is pretty darn cute. He’s also strong and young and a pain in the ass. Especially over the last couple of days.

Right now, he’s lying on his bed and panting. Sometimes I think the panting is just a way to move rather than anything else. He seems to move almost constantly until he passes out. Part of this is just his age and breed (18 month old border collie/australian shepherd mix). I am actually hoping that most of this is his age. I know. I live in a dream world.

He’s been trying my patience for the last couple of days by leaping and jumping and nipping at heels and bumping my keyboard tray back under my desk. Just this morning, he decided to bark instead of poop during his 6AM outing. 6AM! If I was one of my neighbors, I just might snap. Of course, I pulled him inside (by his lead!) pretty quickly, but still. I am blessed with good patient neighbors.

I think of him more as a task sent by God than a pet. My sweet honey-bunny says that he is “teaching me to be a leader.” I alternate between feelings of superiority (”I am the leader!”) and whininess (”but I don’t wanna be the leader!”).

I know that soon he will be past this puppy stage and his brains will come in and I’ll have to work harder to make sure that he has enough exercise because he will be happy to sit at my feel while I knit and crochet and read. For now though, I’m not sure I’m embracing this task sent by God. My little not-Lassie is definitely pushing my buttons this week.

But he’s still so cute.

I don’t know why I expected him to be Lassie-like. He’s not ever been that way.

This Sunday, I rose sleepily and put Cappy out on his lead just like usual. Then, bed, pillow, sleep…maybe not even in that order. I woke maybe five seconds later to hear Cappy going apeshit on the end of the lead. Barking, yelping, flipping out. I thought he might have hurt himself, and I ran out the door in my pjs and with my winter booties only partially attached to my feet.

Cappy turned and looked at me.

“What’s up, mama?”

Oh please. He sat firmly and primly upon the snow. His lead had been tangled around our aspen tree and the top of the next-door fence.

Wait! Something you should know is that the snow in our front yard is between three and four feet deep. That’s after the thaw last week.

I knew there was no extraction with Cappy at the end of the lead, so I climbed up the little path that he’s formed up onto the snow bank. Steps one, two and three were no problem.

Step four? Clunk. Suddenly, I was sitting on the snow - one leg firmly attached to the dirt, the other lying atop the snow.

Jersey pajamas were not made for protection from the snow.

I began to pull my foot out of the snow and realized that only my foot was coming up. The shoe remained at the bottom of the hole. Arrgh! I decided that Cappy could help.

“Cappy! Come help me like Lassie! Come here boy!” And Cappy pranced over to me. I hugged his neck and detached him from the end of his lead.

“Pull me! Pull me, Cappy!” I grabbed his collar.

Cappy looked deeply into my eyes, and leaped up to punch me in the shoulders.

“No! Lassie would never do that! Be Lassie! Be Lassie!”

No, Cappy would not be Lassie. Cappy will only ever be Cappy and I should know that.

I hauled my foot out of the snow, now fending off my ersatz rescuer who continued to leap and bark around me (not running off though. That’s a plus for him!). I could see my shoe, so I reached into the hole and saved it. Then, one foot bare and one shod, I limped into the house, yelling “Come on Cappy! Come on boy.”

And he trotted happily into the house.

What a good boy.

Fridays are writing day, so I usually won’t blog today. However, I do have a quick story to tell.

Two weeks ago on a Friday, my kitty, Asiago, disappeared. At 3:30AM, I woke and saw him at my feet on the bed. When I woke up fully at 7AM, he was gone. Since this wasn’t unusual, I didn’t become concerned until midday. Asiago missed dinner as well as breakfast, and I began to panic. Cappy, our puppy, had escaped and been at large in the community from 1:30 until the morning. We heard reports that he chased the bear, dodged a spraying skunk (we’d suspected that) and pooped in several yards which were not ours.

My sweet honey-bunny and I started off by just calling for him off and on over the weekend. The skies opened on Saturday and Sunday, sending heavy rain and hail down to dim our hopes even more. Saturday, we reported him missing at the animal shelter, and Monday, my sweet honey-bunny created a gorgeous little flyer that I took up and down our street.

By the following Monday, I became convinced that a cat I’d seen in the listings of the Steamboat Springs Animal Shelter was Asiago. I showed the picture to my sweet honey-bunny and she agreed. We drove over, but found merely a six-month old yellow tabby kitten. Darling? Yes. Adorable? Yes. Asiago? No.

After tearing myself away from the little bundle of love, we got back into the car and I reported him missing at my vet. They didn’t have high hopes, and I sighed as I hung up the phone. Frankly, the tears almost escaped a couple of times, but I was determined not to give up hope.

Finally, on the tenth day, I spent some time playing ball with Cappy. Since it is premiere week for the television shows, I decided to play ball until dark during the commercial breaks (yes, it is another “do nothing chore” - Love them!). We went outside and Cappy ran after the ball for his allotted three to five minutes. Then we went back in and I completed washing the dishes while I watched the show.

At the next commercial break, I grabbed our Chuck-It ball thrower and headed back to the door. When I opened the door, Asiago came running in, skittish but seemingly fine. I stood still and then screamed, “Asiago! Honey, Asiago!”

My sweet honey-bunny came running. A great celebration followed with laughter and tears and pets and a little bit of “Hey, get off me!” from Asiago. We closed the door and fed him wet food and several Greenies to celebrate. After a little catnip cigar, he settled back into his usual chair and took a nap.

<>A miracle. I certainly don’t see them every day, and I’d kind of given up hope that they could occur at all.

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Here’s the routine. I have Cappy, my 9 month old border collie/australian shepherd puppy, on his leash and we walk around the car. He stops as soon as he sees me circle around the back to open the hatch. Then he stands there at the very end of his leash - as far away from me as he can get- and stares.

“Mom! Don’t make me get into the car.”

(Yes, I anthropomorphize him calling me his Mom. That’s just what I do.)

Instead of calling him over (since every Web site and book I’ve ever read tells me not to call the dog if I’m going to make him do something he doesn’t want to do), I haul him in like a fish, grabbing the leash and going hand over hand down the line. His feet move independently of his desires, taking one step after another towards the dreaded car. When he finally arrives, I give an enthusiastic “Jump in!” and pat the floor of the car with my hand. I do this every single time, like he’s going to magically change his mind one day after being dragged out to the car.

A girl has to have hope.

Cappy looks at me with a little fear in his eyes. I know he’s not really afraid of the car, so he must think that I’ve lost my marbles. He never, ever gets in the car on his own. He knows that. He knows I know that. Now he just thinks I’m crazy and he’s surely not getting in the car now - not if a crazy woman is driving!

“Come on, Cappy! Jump in!”

Okay, so I’m getting a little desperate. He’s not that big, but how embarassing is it if your dog doesn’t even want to go with you?

Finally, he wins. I pick him up entirely and plop him into the car. Sometimes, when I’m not feeling so butch, I put his front feet on the back bumper of the car and then lift in his back end so that he’s forced to make a little jump into the car.

I’ve almost convinced myself that putting him in half at a time will teach him to jump into the car.