Monday, September 1, 2008

Dog Days of Summer

When you have a water dog and you don't have wild water nearby, you improvise. Loki approves of his wading pool. He loves to jump in and out all day. He's happy. We're happy.

Unfortunately, Loki's not too good about wiping his feet before he gets in the pool. What you see here is the cleanest this water has been. Ever. He doesn't mind. We do.

Before we had kids, our house was reasonably clean. After all, we only had two cats, and they were fairly good about keeping the dirt to a minimum. We won't discuss the hair, shall we?

Once we had Skimbleshanks, the house was relatively clean, but pretty much kid-ravaged. Oh, well, we said. We added Buddha boy and a miscellany of dogs over the years. Our house became lived in. You know, the kind of house where you'd feel comfortable pulling your feet up under you while you sat on the couch.

This weekend, I washed the couch cushion covers and vacuumed their usual home. The horror! The horror! Dog hair, treat wrappers shoved down the cracks, two remotes we haven't seen in months, pens, pencils, highlighters, a tiny marble, plain old dirt. Our vacuum threw up. I was relentless and without mercy: I put in a fresh bag.

Next up is the vinyl and hardwood. They seemed like such good choices once upon a time. Now, not so much.

The dog days of summer may mean something else to most people, but to me, it means: those dogs ... what a life they lead. The phrase "leaving a trail of destruction in their wake" leaps to mind.

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