You know that thing they say, about best-laid plans? Yeah, that one. So this morning I get up early -- and by "early" I mean "mostly on time" instead of "half an hour later than I should have" -- and I'm stoked because though I didn't sleep as long as I should have, I now have time to pick up caffeine on my way in to the office.
Only, I go out the door and there's this shaggy black dog. And I look at him and he looks at me and I go, "Aw, fuck," and he goes, "OMG, will you scratch my head? It totally itches." And usually in our neighborhood it's not wise to pick up stray animals because they're numerous and probably have a home somewhere that they will make their way to when they feel damn good and ready. Except that yesterday some guy came to our door and asked![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
malnpudl if she knew a shaggy black dog and who it might belong to, because he'd hit it with his car. We didn't know -- neither of us had seen this dog in the neighborhood before -- so it stood to reason that here I would be, on a Monday morning, with a dog limping up to me with a funky smooshed eye and a piteous look and a coat full of thistles.
Needless to say, I did not arrive to work on time, but I did arrive with dog drool all over my center console. The dog -- whose name turned out to be Leo -- didn't have an owner-contact tag on, but he did have a rabies vaccination tag with the name and number of a local animal clinic, and they were able to track him down from the serial number on his tag and figure out to whom he belonged. It would've been nice if the douchebag who'd hit the dog had bothered to do that, instead of leaving the poor critter to wander around injured all night, but whatever. I'm awesome. The people hadn't gotten in touch by the time I dropped the dog off with the vet, but I hope things turn out okay for him. He was sweet, and if only we could find a way to harness the power of his drooling as an alternative energy source, we could totally kick foreign oil.
Meanwhile, I have a midday pet-sitting gig this month, in which I run over to a friend's house on my lunch break and do a few chores with the animals and then wish I'd thought to bring something to the office to eat for lunch because I didn't have time for food. Yeah, I'm very smart. It's nice work if you can get it, though, and I'll be paid enough in the end to get Juno the saddle I've been eyeing (and it's an adjustable gullet system thingy, so universe willing I won't have these "several saddles and none that actually fit my horse" problems anymore), and it's nice to have some animal time in the midday break. My charges include three little dogs, at least half a dozen cats (every time I turned around there was a new and different one, so lord knows how many are actually there), a blind old bunny, a collection of parakeets and cockatiels, and a mess of doves. (I don't know what the proper name for a bunch of doves is, but "mess" is certainly apt.) I had to repel the advances of an aggressively loving blind cat (if you don't pet him soon enough, he starts attacking your legs) and rob some doves of their eggs. They weren't happy about it, but you know. They're doves. What're they gonna do?
In closing, while I am telling random stories about animals, let me tell you about this one time when FANDOM MADE ME A HERO. See, I had these friends at school who for their end of year project had acquired a horse carcass from the local large animal vet and were planning on cleaning the bones and turning it into one of those display skeletons you see in museums and classrooms and stuff. And my friend Jamie -- who is awesome, by the way, and used to race dog sleds, and I wish to God I hadn't lost her number -- was complaining to me about how involved it was going to be to get the bones completely clean. Apparently the method they were planning to use involved caustic chemicals and boiling and other... things I don't want to think about, particularly.
So I, being brilliant, said, "What about a flensing chamber?" and she sez, "A what?" and I sez, "It's a big box full of beetles. You put the dead thing in and you get magical clean and sparkling bones out." And it turns out that in Montana they don't really have flensing chambers so much as they have beetle pits. And not so much for museums I guess as for taxidermy. But WHATEVER. I was totally a hero, and it was all because of that time when I saw Gary Cole lock Bruce Campbell inside one of those (while he was alive, OMG!) on American Gothic.
Thank you, fandom, for making me look knowledgeable. THE END.
Only, I go out the door and there's this shaggy black dog. And I look at him and he looks at me and I go, "Aw, fuck," and he goes, "OMG, will you scratch my head? It totally itches." And usually in our neighborhood it's not wise to pick up stray animals because they're numerous and probably have a home somewhere that they will make their way to when they feel damn good and ready. Except that yesterday some guy came to our door and asked
malnpudl if she knew a shaggy black dog and who it might belong to, because he'd hit it with his car. We didn't know -- neither of us had seen this dog in the neighborhood before -- so it stood to reason that here I would be, on a Monday morning, with a dog limping up to me with a funky smooshed eye and a piteous look and a coat full of thistles.Needless to say, I did not arrive to work on time, but I did arrive with dog drool all over my center console. The dog -- whose name turned out to be Leo -- didn't have an owner-contact tag on, but he did have a rabies vaccination tag with the name and number of a local animal clinic, and they were able to track him down from the serial number on his tag and figure out to whom he belonged. It would've been nice if the douchebag who'd hit the dog had bothered to do that, instead of leaving the poor critter to wander around injured all night, but whatever. I'm awesome. The people hadn't gotten in touch by the time I dropped the dog off with the vet, but I hope things turn out okay for him. He was sweet, and if only we could find a way to harness the power of his drooling as an alternative energy source, we could totally kick foreign oil.
Meanwhile, I have a midday pet-sitting gig this month, in which I run over to a friend's house on my lunch break and do a few chores with the animals and then wish I'd thought to bring something to the office to eat for lunch because I didn't have time for food. Yeah, I'm very smart. It's nice work if you can get it, though, and I'll be paid enough in the end to get Juno the saddle I've been eyeing (and it's an adjustable gullet system thingy, so universe willing I won't have these "several saddles and none that actually fit my horse" problems anymore), and it's nice to have some animal time in the midday break. My charges include three little dogs, at least half a dozen cats (every time I turned around there was a new and different one, so lord knows how many are actually there), a blind old bunny, a collection of parakeets and cockatiels, and a mess of doves. (I don't know what the proper name for a bunch of doves is, but "mess" is certainly apt.) I had to repel the advances of an aggressively loving blind cat (if you don't pet him soon enough, he starts attacking your legs) and rob some doves of their eggs. They weren't happy about it, but you know. They're doves. What're they gonna do?
In closing, while I am telling random stories about animals, let me tell you about this one time when FANDOM MADE ME A HERO. See, I had these friends at school who for their end of year project had acquired a horse carcass from the local large animal vet and were planning on cleaning the bones and turning it into one of those display skeletons you see in museums and classrooms and stuff. And my friend Jamie -- who is awesome, by the way, and used to race dog sleds, and I wish to God I hadn't lost her number -- was complaining to me about how involved it was going to be to get the bones completely clean. Apparently the method they were planning to use involved caustic chemicals and boiling and other... things I don't want to think about, particularly.
So I, being brilliant, said, "What about a flensing chamber?" and she sez, "A what?" and I sez, "It's a big box full of beetles. You put the dead thing in and you get magical clean and sparkling bones out." And it turns out that in Montana they don't really have flensing chambers so much as they have beetle pits. And not so much for museums I guess as for taxidermy. But WHATEVER. I was totally a hero, and it was all because of that time when I saw Gary Cole lock Bruce Campbell inside one of those (while he was alive, OMG!) on American Gothic.
Thank you, fandom, for making me look knowledgeable. THE END.