February 2007 Archives

I am sitting here at 4:30am, in the wee hours of the morn, repeating the phrase "I love my life" over and over again. Out loud. While rocking back and forth in the fetal position.

You see, I do love my life: I have a beautiful house, a beautiful wife... everything from that old Talking Heads song. But I also have three beautiful dogs and some beautiful cats. The oldest dog started barfing at about 1:00am. Smelly barf. "Guu! ...Gu! ...Guuuuuurp!" noises. The whole bit. We wake up, clean barf, throw the dog outside for a bit (did I mention it's only five f'in degrees outside?).

Back to sleep... a bit grumpy and a bit woozy from the mad dash from sleep to the cleaning supplies. A beautiful sleep, with my beautiful wife in my beautiful house.

...Guuuurrp!

It's the other dog. All over the dog bed at least. Mostly. We get up, we clean. We collectively create a new species of being called "The Grumps", which hover behind your peripheral vision poking you in the temple like nasty evil cherubs, and who also swear like sailors.

Back to bed. Two ears (one each on yours truly and aforementioned beautiful wife) are perked up listening for signs of another barfer. Nothing... Nothing... and eventually we both drift off to sleep. And then it's there: the expected and feared noise of dog digestive noises. It turned out to be a false alarm, but the dog, the bitter taste of bile in its mouth, started to lick. Long wet licks, a pause in between each one sufficiently long as to give the (false) hope that it might eventually stop, but short enough so that it peppered our brains like a buckshot of No-Doze.

So I've had it. My beautiful wife is asleep in our beautiful house and I am up with the dogs, who were immediately cured of all symptoms once they realized that they succeeded in ruining my night. When it's not all covered in hound yak and I've had a good night sleep, my life is pretty sweet. Right now, I just need to sit here, rocking gently, and remind myself that I love my life.