I felt kinda bad about it, but Cleo had to learn a lesson the hard way earlier this evening.
We see a lot of cats around our neighborhood when we’re out walking, typically just sitting in driveways, sometimes on top of or underneath a random car here and there.
This drives Cleo crazy because pretty much anything she sees on four legs is a potential playmate in her eyes, and so she doesn’t understand why I don’t let her get closer when she spots a furry creature off in the distance and starts trying to dislocate my arm by means of the leash that connects the two of us.
Tonight we passed a fat, white cat just sitting right in the middle of the sidewalk, and I didn’t really see it enough in advance to walk around or over to the other side of the street.
Also, it should probably be noted that I really hate cats and knowing how they usually spook pretty easily, occasionally I’ve been known to take pleasure in watching them sprint back into the house where they belong when I “accidentally” let Cleo get close enough to unleash her enthusiasm upon them.
That didn’t happen this time, though.
Instead, the cat held its ground and got particularly defensive, which I think just confused her even more.
“If you don’t run away, then you must want to play with me!!!”
She circled him, and sniffed, and then eventually went in for a closer look…
…and jumped right back just in time to avoid a claw right across her nose!
It took her two or three times before she decided that she didn’t want to play with kitty anymore. Again, I felt kinda bad about it, though luckily she never actually got caught hard enough to draw blood or anything. But she just turned one year-old yesterday, so I figured she’s gotta learn sometime.
As we walked away, she jumped up on me and had the most confused look in her eyes, like, “Why was that kitty so mean??? Why didn’t it want to play with me???”
Sure enough, a few miles later we came across another cat right in the middle of the sidewalk, and of course, Cleo had already forgiven and forgotten the last bitchy kitty…
D&D Adventuring Fun! – Despite being a man down, we still managed to get ourselves into a world of trouble wandering around the Shadowfell, but hey, any session that ends with the party still being alive on that plane is actually a pretty good one, am I right?!
Saturday Studios Fun! – Spent the day bumming around Disney with Sara as planned – hit a lot of old favorites, not to mention got two passes at Toy Story Mania, plus we watched Fantasmic, where I apparently got some pretty sweet looking photos of the finale! Looking forward to posting those shortly over on that Disney site of mine…
Puppy Pool Party Fun! – Cleo had one of her brothers over to celebrate their birthday, as you can see quite evidently below with their joyful romps in Cleo’s new pool! And people say that we spoil our puppy… 
Good times, good times…
Something I kind of hinted at in a post earlier this week – I’m actually taking a break this weekend!!! 
It was actually supposed to be a well-deserved break for finishing a project that I abruptly started mid-February, but it’s actually taking a little longer than I had anticipated, as just about everything that I’ve ever done seems to end up doing. Nonetheless, Sara and I have both really been yearning to go over to Disney and we’ve missed out on a couple of other opportunities for financial reasons, so it was time to just bite the bullet and put the work on hold for a weekend.
On top of that, Sunday is actually our puppy’s first birthday, so we’re having some of her doggie friends over for her to play with and it’ll end up being a relaxing day to get other stuff done around the house to boot…
Friday Night – D&D
The continuing adventures of the bi-weekly campaign that I’ve been playing in for the last 8 months now – the anticipation is actually kind of high right now because we just recently had a pretty major turning point in that mysteriously as of our last session we found ourselves on another plane, so tonight’s game should be especially interesting as we try to figure out where in the heck we actually are and even more importantly, how in the world we’re supposed to actually get back home again!
Saturday – Disney’s Hollywood Studios
I honestly can’t even remember the last time we’ve been to this park, which is kind of sad! I know we didn’t end up making it over for the Osborne Lights last year, and it seems like some of the best rides were down when we came before that, so I’m kinda just looking forward to doing everything in the 8 or 9 hours that we’ll be over there tomorrow. The park is open until 10pm with two showings of Fantasmic, so hopefully we won’t have any problems hitting everything in addition to seeing fireworks at the end of the day, too. Should be lots to do – Toy Story Mania (obviously), the new Star Tours, Coaster and Tower, I’d even like to sit down for Indiana Jones … looking forward to a fun day!
Sunday – Cleo’s 1st Birthday Party
I can’t believe that we’ve had this puppy for almost a year already! I say almost because I guess technically we didn’t really get her until 6 or 8 weeks or something, but it’s still crazy to think that there was a time before that when she wasn’t a part of our family because she’s very much loved and feels right at home with us. For me, it’s especially neat to see the personality that she’s developed over the last 12 months … granted, sometimes a bit obnoxious (but who isn’t?!), but also very eager and curious, protective and sometimes sensitive, and generally at least what I’d like to consider overall pretty happy, too. Plus, for the most part she’s completely stopped peeing and pooping in the house, so if that’s not cause for a celebration, then I don’t know what is… 
I don’t know if Cleo is purposely trying to push my buttons, but she’s certainly doing a damn fine job of it!
So we’ve been known to give her bones from time to time, occasionally as a reward, but let’s face it – more likely as a bribe when we really need to get something done that requires a lack of Cleo-intervention. This normally works out well for everyone – we buy them in bulk from Petco for about $1.50/bone, and in return said bone typically buys us an hour or so of peace and quiet. Cleo’s happy, we’re happy – everybody’s happy … well, that is until she decided to start hoarding them…
…hoarding them outside, anyways…
You see, normally if anything she might hide one of her bones in the blankets of our bed or under a couch cushion, and it’s all cute and funny because she’s so intent about what she’s doing, even though nobody else in the house has any desire whatsoever to actually steal one of her bones! But the problem comes when she decided that it was far safer to store her most prized of treasures outside … underground … in the dirt, because well, as you might guess where this is going – who in their right mind wants to eat outside?! … and thus she brings said dirt-covered bones back indoors, proceeding to track dirty nastiness all over my freshly cleaned carpets!
It’s bullshit, I tell you! Bullshit…
The last 24 hours I spent way more time in the company of the Rug Doctor than I had originally anticipated, but nonetheless I was still quite pleased with the overall result…
Before
After
A couple of notes:
- I have vague memories of my parents renting one of these beasts to clean the carpets in our house and I can definitely see why they made an effort to get everybody out to make the juggling a little bit easier. It’s hard enough not to walk across the floors afterwards yourself, much less convince an antsy dog why she can’t play in the giant play space that has been created for her where all of the furniture used to be…
- Pretty much every pee stain vanished without a trace, though we did liberally apply the pre-treatment spray prior and then made sure to use the pet stain detergent in the actual machine.
- Don’t forget to tip the machine over to fully drain it out before loading it back into your car to return to the store. It took me dumping 1/2 gallon of soapy water into my trunk to realize this one.
- And finally, no matter how nice and fresh and clean the carpets look, don’t become dissuaded to the fact that they will get dirty once again. Case in point – Cleo went and took a big, old giant piss right in the middle of the living room not 20 minutes after I had first turned the machine off! I guess at least I didn’t have to use paper towels to clean it up this time…
I just love this picture I took when I was out on my walk with Cleo a little while ago. Believe it or not, I actually found this guy just hanging out in somebody’s driveway - it’s actually not the first time I’ve found a crayfish in our neighborhood, and I’m still fairly baffled because in either situation it’s not like there were any ponds or drainage ditches anywhere even remotely close by that he could’ve originated from or anything!
Very weird, and I especially enjoyed the final pose that I caught on camera – this was after a good minute and a half of Cleo trying to make nice with him by way of her mouth, so I guess I can kinda see why he might’ve been just a wee bit defensive at that point… 
Wanna know one of the more obnoxious ways of being woken up in my house?
How about finding that your dog has gotten herself into the bathtub and now can’t get back out again?!
Go figure, this is the one puppy that not only doesn’t fear baths like any good, god-fearing dog should, but actually looks forward to them to the point of begging at the side of the tub for us to let her play in the water.
Apparently this time she got tired of begging and didn’t realize until it was too late that there isn’t always water waiting for her inside said bathtub…
Ok, ok – I swear I’ll be done after this one, but I just couldn’t resist – it’s a wonder these dogs didn’t rip each other limb from limb over the last week…
“I’ll bite your face off and spit down your neck!!!”
“Lend me your ear!”
“Stop biting my mouth!” “No, you stop biting my mouth!”
“Ooof! Forgot there was a door there…” “Me too…”
I’m pretty sure Mom is buried under that big, old pile of dogs somewhere…
“Come on, let me tell you ’bout my best friend…”
Ok, I guess I can do just one more post!
Really, after finding these photos of dog and baby amongst my other road pics, I’m not sure if I’d be able to forgive myself if I didn’t post these! Technically some were taken by my wife, and some of the really nice looking ones are more likely than not by my sister with her fancy-dancy digital SLR, but regardless of photographer all are 110% adorable…
Come on, say it with me – on the count of 3 … “Awwwww…”
So apparently I need to buy a new pair of shoes…
I know that I can’t complain too much because when you compare the ratio of Shoes Lost to Cleo between my wife and I, she’s still had many a more sacrifice than I have … the only difference is, I don’t have nearly as many alternate shoe options as she does!!! I basically only have two pairs of shoes – a dress pair and a pair of tennis shoes, and then also a pair of flip-flops that I don’t really like anyways, but bought as a replacement when Cleo destroyed the pair that I did like. Plus, it doesn’t help that I’m kinda picky when it comes to buying shoes for myself – if I had the money to buy several reserve pairs in advance when I finally found something that I liked, I’d have worn the same style of shoes for the last 10 years!
What sucks right now was that as of this morning, even my backup pair of shoes has a hole in it – dress shoes, as you can see, are pretty much toast, but about a week ago she got a hold of one of my tennis shoes and chewed a hole in the toe, which so far I’ve just been wearing anyways because it’s been at night when there’s no one but me to know about the hole, anyways. I do have to make more of a conscious effort to avoid puddles, though.
Just how I wanted to spend my already busy Thursday night – shoe shopping!
