Madness takes its toll
Reasons why I hate summer that have nothing to do with bitching about excess heat.
1. I can't wear my coat. This means I have to carry poo bags, lumps of sausage and rubber balls in the pockets of my trackie bottoms (Colonials: that's British for sweat pants). My coat has zippered Spike-proof pockets to keep balls in. My trackie bottoms don't. Today he pickpocketed the ball while I was busy leashing Squish, so we had the fun of walking to the park with him in I HAS A BALL mode. Spike has to have low-friction soft rubber balls because he's already worn a quarter-inch off his canines from tennis ball abrasion; so there's the added fun of him dropping the fucking thing every ten yards and having to lunge after it like a Great White after a surfboard, jerking me and Squish along behind him like forgotten fishing tackle.
The other day he attempted to pick my pocket on the way home from the park, caught his muzzle in the pocket, and dragged my trackie bottoms plus underpants down to my knees on Woodbury Avenue. That was even more amusing.
2. Squirrel season. My street is lined with huge mature oak trees and every damn squirrel for miles around arrives here in spring when the leafbuds become edible, and stays till the acorns are all eaten. First they spend a while doing happy squirrel mating chases all over the place; then they make more squirrels, and right about now is when all the stupid new young squirrels are learning what dogs are by dashing right in front of mine. If I had terriers we'd have killed many by now - as it is, they've just nearly killed me with the yanking and the barking and the 'splodey.
3. Fox season. They've been here since about February when they started fucking noisily in the dead of night and setting the dogs off. Now they're all in hunting overdrive for their newborn or almost-born cubs and they're every-fucking-where. It's rare for me to walk dogs after dark without bumping into one, and the other night there was a heavily pregnant vixen hunting moles on the lawn right underneath Spike's lookout window. They excite the dogs more than squirrels and cats put together and garnished with sausage. Every hair on Spike's back stands on end, he hurls himself at the window and barks like a ship of the line's full broadside. Squish is possibly even more disturbing; he is a hunting dog by nature and foxes make him bay. Unfortunately he bays soprano, and the noise that comes out of him sounds like a pig being tortured. The two of them going off at once has to be heard to be believed.
So yeah. Roll on winter please.
1. I can't wear my coat. This means I have to carry poo bags, lumps of sausage and rubber balls in the pockets of my trackie bottoms (Colonials: that's British for sweat pants). My coat has zippered Spike-proof pockets to keep balls in. My trackie bottoms don't. Today he pickpocketed the ball while I was busy leashing Squish, so we had the fun of walking to the park with him in I HAS A BALL mode. Spike has to have low-friction soft rubber balls because he's already worn a quarter-inch off his canines from tennis ball abrasion; so there's the added fun of him dropping the fucking thing every ten yards and having to lunge after it like a Great White after a surfboard, jerking me and Squish along behind him like forgotten fishing tackle.
The other day he attempted to pick my pocket on the way home from the park, caught his muzzle in the pocket, and dragged my trackie bottoms plus underpants down to my knees on Woodbury Avenue. That was even more amusing.
2. Squirrel season. My street is lined with huge mature oak trees and every damn squirrel for miles around arrives here in spring when the leafbuds become edible, and stays till the acorns are all eaten. First they spend a while doing happy squirrel mating chases all over the place; then they make more squirrels, and right about now is when all the stupid new young squirrels are learning what dogs are by dashing right in front of mine. If I had terriers we'd have killed many by now - as it is, they've just nearly killed me with the yanking and the barking and the 'splodey.
3. Fox season. They've been here since about February when they started fucking noisily in the dead of night and setting the dogs off. Now they're all in hunting overdrive for their newborn or almost-born cubs and they're every-fucking-where. It's rare for me to walk dogs after dark without bumping into one, and the other night there was a heavily pregnant vixen hunting moles on the lawn right underneath Spike's lookout window. They excite the dogs more than squirrels and cats put together and garnished with sausage. Every hair on Spike's back stands on end, he hurls himself at the window and barks like a ship of the line's full broadside. Squish is possibly even more disturbing; he is a hunting dog by nature and foxes make him bay. Unfortunately he bays soprano, and the noise that comes out of him sounds like a pig being tortured. The two of them going off at once has to be heard to be believed.
So yeah. Roll on winter please.