March 24, 2009

House Guest and Nymph in the Woods

I can’t remember the exact quote, but it goes something like this:

“You invite guests into your home, but friends into your kitchen.”

Our kitchen has been a hubbub of friends lately.  I love it. Jessica stayed with us for a few days while her parents visited from out of town.  Jessica staying here means Quillette stays here, which is a good thing because she’s just as talkative as I am.

She likes to steal my bed though, so Gretchen went out and bought another bed for Quillette (who is getting on in years).  Quillette loves her bed and even when it’s not night time, she sleeps all curled up in it during the day.  She’s a napper that Quillette, but when it’s time to announce the arrival of any new guests, she howls and woofs her happiness right next to me.

Apparently, Quillette will be with me for quite some time. I haven’t yet figured it out, but I think there are some travel plans in the works and I’m not included. What does this mean?  Gretchen’s tried to explain it to me, but I get all confused. “You’re not going to be here? For a week?” I ask, amazed. “Well, who is going to take care of me and better yet, who’s going to run the business?”  The answers are unfamiliar: “Jessica and Quillette will stay with you,” I’m told, “and all the clients have been notified. It’s all taken care of?”

All taken care of?

Perhaps it looks like this…

Somehow “vacation” sounds like a disease. I have yet to be convinced.

In the mean time, we walk dogs in the day and lately, watch basketball in the evenings. There’s a whole other topic I could write about.  Why do they throw the ball away? Don’t they want to keep it forever and ever?

Today, we only spent time with Lucy.  Quillette didn’t go with us because, well, sometimes Q can be a bit of a bully to female dogs and truth be told, Lucy can get a bit persnickety, too.  Best to keep them apart.

When we picked Lucy up, she was hesitant to go with us and a bit limpy so instead of playing fetch (Lucy’s preferred activity), we just went for a walk through all the wooded trails in the neighborhood.

But Lucy, who loves a game of fetch, focused her attention not on racing through the woods (something I enjoy doing), but in finding sticks to chew on. Okay, I can dig that!

So we walked along the wooded paths and searched for just the right sticks.  Lucy and I both like our sticks BIG and we love to rip them apart with our teeth.  It’s been so rainy lately that all the sticks crumbled quickly with our gnashing, but that just meant we had to find more to rip up.

In between the gnashing and ripping, we explored the woods much like wild dogs deep in the jungle. Or, in Lucy’s case, a nymph in the woods!

I tried to engage Lucy in a game of chase, but she wasn’t that interested. I even used a stick to entice her, but she was much more interested in exploring…oh, and posing.

We had a fun time smelling the dirt, sniffing the leaves, ripping up sticks, and walking through the trails.  I sure hope Lucy’s leg feels better though because a good game of fetch is calling me!  I know it’s making her itchy, too.

Eventually, all good walks must end…

Until tomorrow,

Rubin (and my house guest, Quillette)