No poodles, no puddles

Until I met the once and future Mrs. Ex-Haredawg, sometime around the middle of the crack of 1978, I hadn’t realized I wanted kids. I hadn’t even thought about it, though I did carry a condom in my wallet, in those days the condom was less than two weeks old at any given time, never made that condom shaped embossment that happens to leather wallet when something never moves. The seahag did not entice me with her child bearing hips or anything; she was five months pregnant when we first met. I was back in town from … somewhere else … and this friend of mine (one who had emptied all the contents of my wallet on some occasion, I’m delicately saying the condom, and none to delicately saying the cash) ran into me and asked if I could bring a friend of hers some marijuana. I did, not knowing it would be the beginning of a long fall from grace and good humor.

 

She had been kicked out of her parent’s house for being a pregnant catholic school girl (ok, she went to public school as a teen, but she had been in St. Thomas Aquinas catholic school during her K through 5^th). Ok, bad communication skills; because her parents were very catholic (when alive, I have a feeling they’ve since changed their minds) and she was very pregnant, they didn’t want the humiliation of harboring a sinner. So, what’d I do with a pregnant, sheltered, catholic girl? I took her hitch-hiking to San Francisco by way of St. Mary’s Georgia. The seed of planting seeds took hold. At the time I told myself that I was a good human, that I was rescuing her from the world. Hindsight is twenty-twenty and to say I was attracted to her fertility still sounds really wrong, I mean not correct, I just know rescuing is not correct.

 

This is the long story short already. We got married, moved to Oregon where I had a scholarship at PSU, she had a bad infection a year in, we were told the chances of having a kid were marginal. That’s when I realized I wanted kids. A year later (give or take a couple of months — I know when my son was born, I just don’t remember when the doctor proclaimed his prophecy of doom) we had a beautiful bouncy baby boy. Two and a half years later, a raging, brilliant baby girl. Four and a half years later terms of endearment were Fuckwad and Twatrot, I moved out and the ship was righted.

 

What I did always want as a kid were dogs, lots of squirmy, face licking, shoe chewing puppies. My father claimed he didn’t like dogs and used all the lines parents use to not get you a dog. This happened when I was young, I mean before, as a teen, I hated all grownups, especially parents. Even then I knew it was because dogs scared the hell out of him, I have no idea if there’s such a thing as caninephobia, but he had it whether it exists or not. At the end of third grade we had some kind of quiz, the top scorer of which got to take home the class pet, a Guinee pig. I don’t recall if I got the top score or if the top scorer didn’t want Alejandro. I snuck Alejandro home and was able to hide him for almost two hours.

 

My dad was cool with it, after a fashion, and as long as he didn’t have to touch it or anything. When Alejandro turned out to be female and pregnant, my dad actually built this cool four-square cage, with Guinee pig sized doors to it. By cool I mean well-conceived. My fathers two biggest flaws were fear of dogs and thinking he knew how to build shit. Now that he’s passed those flaws seem quaint, I mean he never exceeded those, unless you count hubris, but, shit, then we are all terribly flawed.

 

Although I could wax poetic for pages about the joys of fatherhood, for the purposes of this poorly conceived entry, it was easy to talk the seahag (once and future first ex Mrs. haredawg) into getting a dog for the kids. By the time I met the second future Mrs. Ex Haredawg, I was a full-blown dog advocate and dog co-conspirator. The kids had two ugly ass standard poodles at their moms, and two beautiful strawberry blonde pit-bulls at their dads. Ok, so I would hold any dog responsible for the poor taste of hanging out with the seahag, but poodles are the only breed that I have never met I could tolerate let alone sort of like. I’ve been bit by a lot of dogs, some accidental, while playing, some aggressively. The majority of aggressive dog bites have come from poodles. The seahags poodles never bit me, but that’s because they were always in the backyard or crated when I came to pick up the kids. They wanted to bite me, bad. I’m none to fond of snack dogs in general, but I’ve met a few I’ve kind of liked. I can’t in good conscience consider a snack bite as a real bite, it’s like getting bitten by a cat, not healthy, but, in and of itself, not painful. Shit. I forget I’m a stranger here this go-round. A snack dog is any dog with toy in front of their name (e.g. toy poodle) or one that can fit in Paris Hiltons handbag.

 

I’m a long way from my grown ass kids and my almost grown ass grandkids and a long way from my dogs. I suppose I could have a dog here now that my father has passed, but the poor hypothetical beast would need 24/7 scrutiny as my mom can’t feel her right leg and even playfully or accidentally things could go bad. Heh, I do keep three dogs at the GF’s house. They really are hers, but I’m not sure the dogs or her know that. There’s reasons besides me smelling like a pack member that those dogs always give me a warm reception, I won’t list them though. Dogs, too, have a right to privacy. That’s why I didn’t get em cell phones. Heh. Silly as it sounds those statements are accurate if not a full disclosure.

 

Ok there’s two orphaned paragraphs below which could have just been scrapped. I would have had to write them again anyhow, because the content, at least the intent of the content, makes me smile.

 

 

 

 

I made a friend on OD! Forgive the exclamation mark, it’s the silliest of all punctuation, it’s like a grace note, if the reader or musician doesn’t know how to inflect all the prompting in the world won’t help. I haven’t made a friend on OD in a long time. Ok, I haven’t tried, it’s like saying ‘I can’t get published!’ but not sending out the manuscript.

 

I guess Trump has entered the war on drugs. I haven’t read the actual bill, but I had to read my doctors interpretation of it this morning. It’s not even worth mentioning except I had to go in at 7:20, pay for a doctor visit and no doctoring was involved just signing what amounted to drug use agreements. I’ve already forgotten what it was called, something that doesn’t sound like a noun but is as it applies to the document. Face to face is what the office called it, saying something or other is what the fed’s call it. From what I gather the law mandates doctors to talk to their patients. What a novel concept. It’d be funny if it didn’t cost money, time and energy. Also, I got screwed, figuretively, without lube, literally. But, I’m going to try hard not to whine about that part. Yet.