You Know You've Hit Rock Bottom When You Start Reading Amish Romance Novels With a Glass of Red Wine

My sister tried to talk me down from the precipice, but it was too late.

Bonnet ripper ^

I'd already read the first free sample chapter of "Miriam's Choice" by Emma Miller, who I googled and can only surmise from the results that she either doesn't exist or is so ashamed of writing bonnet rippers that she uses a pseudonym, and was beyond saving. 

I've discovered a hereditary problem, which I'd originally assumed was a quirk that belonged exclusively to my sister. She has this...problem where once she starts reading something, she can't stop. There's been more than one conversation between the two of us that goes like this:

Me, "Whachya read'n' thur?"

Seester, "This God-awful book. It's horrible, like eating an entire handful of those yellow jelly beans, thinking they're lemon, when they're actually butternut-ass flavored."

Me, "Y you keep read book then?"

Seestur, "I have to finish it. It's horrendous, and I hate it, but I have to finish it. Could you check on the gourmet muffins that I'm baking while I finish crocheting a coffee mug shaped like Lincoln's face? Oh and don't touch the smoked salmon hors d'œuvres, I'm saving those for the five course meal I already prepared while I read this book and continued to crochet."

Me, "Gurg."

Seestur is inhuman, and amazing, but mostly inhuman. This seriously happens though, and I assumed that it was just her "thing" but no. No, it's not.

I mentioned that I was thinking about downloading this book, for three USD mind you, and this was her advice:

Seestar, "Stop. Stop everything you're doing and remember: you are a college graduate, you are under the age of 65, and there is still life left to live."

Couldn't get enough bonnet ripping? Buy more, now, do it now!

Despite her warning I downloaded the book, finished it in one sitting with a glass of red wine and chocolate covered acai berries, and bought another book from the same series which I finished later that night.

I was an Amish romance novel reading maniac. There was fire, tousling of auburn hair, hand holding, and even, yes, yes it's true, a stolen kiss. I couldn't stop. Previously cohesive portions of my brain started to melt and soldered themselves to new pathways that screamed, "BABIES! YOU MUST HAVE A LITTER OF BABIES, NOW!" and "PIE! GO MAKE TWENTY DOZEN PIES AND FEED THEM TO HUNGRY AMISH MEN RAISING A BARN!"

I made a gigantic dish of steak and mushroom pie instead. Batman likes this because the fire alarm went off. Most dogs fear the fire alarm, but I've conditioned mine to come running to the kitchen. He waits patiently while I bat away smoke from whatever I burnt beyond recognition into the pan. He cleans up attempt #1 while I restart whatever process it was that I forgot about, causing the initial smoke and the burning, and the "Crapcrapcrapcrapcrapcrap!"

Batman would eat muriatic acid if it tasted like bacon. Also, he can pick his nose with his tongue kinda.

 My shame knows no bounds at this point. At least something good came out of this horrendous event though. The second attempt at steak and mushroom pie/thing is edible, Batman enjoyed cleaning up the first attempt, and Emma Miller doesn't have anymore books in this series (which means I'm FREEEEEEEEEEEE).

 Paolo Conte - "Gong-Oh"

Camping

Batman and I are going camping.

He's bringing his squeaky lobster, and I am bringing ear plugs.

There will be pictures later.

Batnapping

Batman and I visited a park.

We played fetch,

for an hour.

Then we commandeered a baseball field,

for another hour.

Batman found a baseball,

and peed in the dugout.

Batman & Ellie 4Ever

Batman made some lady-dog-friends this week. It seems Boxers are a popular breed in this neighborhood, I’ve seen several different boxers running around, but the girl that caught Batman’s eye is only two houses down the street.

(Lucentio falls for Bianca instantly in this clip from Zeffirelli's 1967 movie version of The Taming of the Shrew)

Meet Ellie and Maxi, both very sweet dogs, but it’s a bit of a Taming of the Shrew situation, or what they might call a “grenade” on Jersey Shore, when you add Batman to the mix. Ellie, the younger pup, is sweet, docile, and slobbery. Maxi, older but not by much, is heavier than Batman and acts like an 8 month old puppy. Her tongue is also three inches too big for her mouth causing it to dangle out one side. While Ellie drools away Maxi wants to wrestle Batman to the ground and make him cry, “Uncle!” like the amazon boxer dog that she is.

Meanwhile Batman is VERY big on personal space. He’s happy to invade yours, but protects his own with a ferocity that Freud might describe as hyper-anal retentive. Batman’s message to the world is, “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”; meaning, he wants to be able to choose to come up to you for attention/treats and not have you slobbering all over him attempting to pile drive him into a choke hold.

(Petruchio chasing Katarina around also Zeffirelli)

If Maxi is the shrewish Katharine, making Ellie the temperate drooly Bianca, Batman is happy to let me play Petruchio. In this way he safely Lucentio’s his way with Ellie without fear that the playful Maxi will pummel him into the fence.

This plan worked somewhat well for Batman.

 

In the time that Maxi was distracted, Batman ran up to Ellie, sniffed her derriere incessantly, barked at her, pretended to ignore her, barked at her some more, and adoringly watched her drool. I’m not sure why she drools so much when she sees Batman. Perhaps it’s a sign of submission, maybe a school girl crush, either way it doesn’t seem to bother Batman much.

Unfortunately, I am neither as drunk nor as persistent as Petruchio when dealing with Maxi; who happens to have the attention span of a fruit fly in a room filled with overripe papayas. Batman’s slobberfest of a date ended almost as quickly as it started when Maxi trucked over.

Everything officially came to an end when Maxi jumped Batman, who snapped at his beloved as he attempted to shake Maxi off of him. After nearly having her face taken off Ellie started having second thoughts, leaving Batman to deal with Maxi, who got so excited that she bit her lolling tongue.

I’ve seen the Three Stooges make better first impressions, but I think that this whole thing went rather well. Batman made a skeptical girlfriend, what smart girlfriend or boyfriend isn’t skeptical though, and Maxi probably doesn’t remember what happened at all by this point.

Good Morning, Love Batman

There’s nothing like being slobbered awake when you’re still semi-conscious in the morning, especially when this face is the slobber source.

Batman began life here fearfully, and I’ll admit that he’s still afraid of some things (stares at the dish washer, TV bunny ears, and garage and everything in it skeptically), but he has conquered some of his fears. He no longer cowers when we turn on the ceiling fan, instead he watches it while glued to my side.

Other big dogs still freak him out. He gave one a piece of his mind while on a group walk when we had to board him last week, and was sentenced to solo walks.

This might have been their conversation:

Big dog, “HI HI HI HI HI HI HI, *slorp*, HI HI HI HI HI HI!”

Batman, “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, respect my personal bubble! I bite you face off!”

He later went on a group walk with the hors d’oeuvre dogs, due to a clerical oversight (someone didn’t read the note saying don’t put Batman with the other dogs didn’t they…). Strangely enough Batman didn’t eat a single Chihuahua, Cocker Spaniel, or Heinz Mini Seven. Instead he “made friends” with lots of tiny midget-dogs that he can lord over. I like to imagine that, while we were gone, Batman pretended that he was Willy Wonka in the peanut butter kong factory, and he presided over an army of oompah loompah dogs.

Despite all the fun Batman had while he was boarding I think he was happy to come home. We went for extra long walks, and found a great park to play at and taunt the pit bulls trapped in their back yard watching us. These were disturbingly huge dogs in a back yard that included pieces of busted furniture, but that’s another story…

All was well until this morning. I took Batman outside to “do his thing” after being slobbered awake and noticed a blood spatter on the cement. More upsetting though were the tiny bloody spots on the side of his barrel chest. I wiped them, but couldn’t find a source and went back inside confuzzled (Mary and Max anyone?). 

By this point I was in CSI mode and watched Batman’s every move as though he might spontaneously start spewing blood from wherever it was that he was leaking.

No dice.

As we came inside though I noticed another dried blood spot, and wondered what the heck was going on with Batman. Blood spot (A), led to blood spot (B), to blood spot (C), until I discovered that the Batcave contained more blood spatter than any of the other blood spots combined.

(These pictures don't do the Batcave justice. Take me at my word when I say that there are little dried bits of blood all over the cave walls. Ugh.)

Me, “What in the Sam Hill were you DOING in there Batman?”

Batman, “Slobber you face, I go sun now.”

Batman licked the side of my head while I was still inspecting the blood spattered Batcave. As I backed out I noticed his bloody elbow, and have no idea how he managed to scrape his elbow inside his kennel, let alone rub it all over the walls…

 (Again, you can't see the blood but I promise it was there.)

This discovery led to a full Batman inspection resulting in the discovery of this little beauty.

(The discoloration that looks like a freckle in this photo is actually a warty looking growth.)

After doing twenty minutes of dedicated internet searching I have diagnosed this as either an interdigital cyst or an interdigital furuncle. Since it's "crusty" (gag), I'm guessing that the abscess "popped" (hack), and should heal soon (shudder). According to lowchensaustralia.com I should foment Batman's paw humidly or "form a cataplasm of bread crumb soaked in hot milk". I plan to keep the interdigital warty bugger clean until it dries up and falls off, leaving the bread crumb cataplasm as a last resort.

 

In my expert, non-veterinary/new pet owner, opinion the only logical conclusion is that one of Batman’s oompah loompah minions contracted a demon. Thus possessed, the tiny whatever-it-was attacked Batman, scraping his elbow and giving him scurvy/the warty growth between his toes.

Sooooooooooooo, that was my morning, I hope yours goes much better and involves a minimum of blood spattered furuncles. Batman is sunning himself, and I’m off to clean his cave.