My Screaming Paparazzi

When I enter the room they scream.  No, not my fans (thanks again to all five of you).  Not even my crazy boys.

I'm talking about the guinea pigs.

Seriously.  They see me and start screeching.  Do you know how disconcerting it is to be recognized by over-sized rats who raise a high-pitched alarm to all other creatures within a two block radius?  I used to take offense, overly worried that a family pet might not like me.  (Clearly I have self-esteem issues.)  Then I realized that they do this vocalizing as a form of appreciation and begging.  They know that I am the one who makes sure they've got food, water, hay, and a clean cage.

If you have kids, you have immediately and correctly deduced that this was supposed to be their job and their responsibility.  You just know that they swore a promise to always look after these cute, vulnerable, little balls of fluff.  They very nearly swore on their mother's grave - oh, wait, that's me... and my sons will surely kill me with their lack of initiative one day.

So I go in and take care of "the girls" as we've come to call them.  They stand up on their shelf with their little paws and noses pressed against the bars as if to say, "Hello dear lady, we do so love that you bring us a spot of fresh veggies and crisps.  Please ma'am, we want some more."  Yes, they sound like Oliver in my head - another issue I'll have to hash out with a therapist someday, but just go with it for now.  I am the one to close the window when it's getting chilly, to remind the boys that the water bottle is nearly dry, and the poop has been piling up at an alarming rate.

Which brings me to my next issue: the cleanliness of their living conditions.  I actually researched guinea pig bedding options when a friend mentioned that I could do away with the ridiculously overpriced shavings and switch to reusable fleece "bedspreads" instead.  There is a market for this kind of stuff.  I kid you not.  People make piggy blankets for like $70 a pop.  But there are also YouTube how-to videos for those DIY pet owners.  That would be me.

So I dragged my boys with me to the fabric store.  Man, even that sentence sounds boring.  Yes, I forced them to be involved in this scheme of mine to furnish our guineas with visually stimulating, yet absorbent new materials.  Yawn.  They pointed at the two closest options and we left as soon as possible.  But the most important material I had to purchase online.  "Zorb" is like a miracle cloth that can hold an inordinate amount of liquid - think Sham Wow, but without the irritating pitchmen.  People use it to make homemade diapers for their kids.  (I said "people", not me!)  You sew this stuff to the fleece, the guineas love it, and appreciatively soil it all to hell. Then you remove the whole shebang and throw it into your washing machine and voila!  Fresh pen, no pee-stained paper globs to deal with, easier cleanup all around.  Right?  Well, there is still the matter of sweeping up the mind-blowing amount of little poops they produce.  Guess who ends up doing that part.  Oh yes, that would be me again!

Initially I made two blankets, and then realized that we needed to cycle through these things at a quicker pace.  My kids' friends come over to hang out and play video games and they're very nice to pretend that they don't mind the offensive smell coming from the guest room.  My boys call this the "GP room" and we used to joke that it stood for either guinea pigs or grand parents (when they visited).  Now it's really just the "Geez, pew!" room.

So I went online and ordered more Zorb.  Right around the same time I got black rubber gloves for my son's Halloween costume.  We also got a new shock collar for the dog and an orthotic neck-support pillow.  Hmm... I can just see the blushing confusion over at Amazon, thinking there's some kinky stuff going on over here.  Let's see them come up with some suggestions now!  Hey, it's what my screaming fans demand!

We're rock stars today!

Pets - They're So Relaxing

If you are a parent, you know how stressful it can be to manage your children, the household, and everything that entails.  When you're finally thinking you might have things under control and the ship is moving along swimmingly, what happens?  Someone decides that it would be a good time to add another pet.  Because we've obviously figured out how to successfully feed and clean up after small humans, so a dumb, furry animal couldn't be much harder, right??? 

You may have already read about our issues with the aquarium of horrors.   In the past we've had successive hamsters, hermit crabs, freshwater fish, and my sweet kitty, Toonces, who lived to be 19 years old (thus outliving his pop-culture name reference).We also currently house two guinea pigs and two dogs, who may or may not scheme to create horrific circumstances that try my sanity.  Those cuddly pets who know when you need a sweet, nonjudgmental, caring friend to stroke?  Yeah, those are not my pets.  These guys put me through the wringer.

Yesterday my 8-month-old dog was doing her usual wind sprints around the house when my younger son encouraged her to jump up on my nicely-made bed to wrestle with him (there are so many things wrong with this, but I'll just move on).  As she's hopping around and prancing all over, he asks "Why does she have redness on her paws?  Ohhhh, she must have gotten into my silly putty!"  What?  Really?  She's been tracking some blood-red goo all over my house?  Yep, sure enough, it's ground into the carpet in a few key places.  She also managed to wear some on her back as a badge of honor for the rest of the day because there was no way it would loosen its grip on her fur.  (By the way, she does not like anyone messing with the pads of her feet, so clean up was super-fun.)

Before we lost our minds and decided to get a puppy, we'd been living a relatively chaos-free life with just one dog for the past 6 months.  And the guinea pigs, but they don't really count so long as you give them some veggies and clean their cage regularly.  They only scream when I walk in the room.  Honest.  Have you ever heard a guinea pig squeal?  Snowfall has some aversion to me so she goes into a full conniption fit when I open the door.  Anyway, our deaf (and dumb) 14-year-old Australian Shepherd had been living the good life as the sole canine.  He thought he had earned a gold-lined walkway to the pearly gates, but now he has to contend with this manic German Shepherd who just wants to get him to play - even if that means she has to surprise tackle his arthritic hips and nip him to make him chase her.  Aww, aren't they cute playing in the backyard?  See how his lips are pulled back and he's frothing?

Just when we thought we'd fixed up the drip system from our last dog (I'm getting to that, bear with me) she has figured out that she likes the taste of PVC.  I saw her running through the yard with a sprinkler head in her mouth, trailing 3 lengths of drip system tubing, looking like a giant furry lobster with its antennae waving in the wind.

She's gotten to 3 of my shoes - from different pairs of course, and is currently working on our leather couches.  Here's my attempt to shame her into better behavior.

I'm sure we are far from the end of it, but I'm hoping to keep the destruction to a minimum. Our last dog, Timber, was the master of ruin.  Unfortunately after he attacked me he could no longer live here anymore.  My kids were more devastated by the fact that he had to go than they were about the fact that I had fatty tissue sticking out of the jagged tooth-shreds in my arm.  Before all of that, though, he worked hard to trash what he could around here.  He ate rose bushes, sago palms, screens, and baseball gloves to name a few items.  He routinely pushed over the trash cans and spread the contents around.  I won't add all of the pictures, just a snapshot of the mayhem he caused.

Didn't want to be outside in the rain

Before it was chewed in half

One of the many times I re-screened the doors

But my most memorable "What the hell just happened here?" was when we came home after spending a full day at an amusement park for my son's birthday.  It had been hot, and we'd left plenty of water and shade coverings for the dogs out back, but Timber apparently decided he'd rather be in the house.  He climbed up onto a hose box, pulled down the window screen, crunched the crap out of our blinds, and tried to get his big fat ass in through our kitchen window - where he would have landed in the sink - if he had been successful.

So here's hoping for some sanity while I wait for the next household tragedy.  It could be lurking right around the chewed-up wall.

We Are Serial Murderers

We don't pick our victims haphazardly.  Much research and observation goes into choosing the next casualty.  How does the subject move around?  Are they skittish, scared, and excitable, or confident, relaxed, and comfortable in a group?  What do they like to eat?  And what is their price?

It doesn't matter what precautions we take - we always end up killing the poor, helpless inhabitants of our saltwater aquarium.  I can't tell you how much money we have literally flushed down the toilet.  So many fish have come and gone in the past five years that I can hardly remember them all.  Some were a good fit with our tank-mates, and some (we found out quickly after insertion) were not.  Not sure if you have high blood pressure?  Just try chasing down an aggressive fish with a small mesh net, while it darts in and out of rocks, and your body will let you know.  

We have a great local aquarium supply store and we look up information online before any purchases.  Somehow, our tank has become the stuff of fishy nightmares.  I feel like the girl in Finding Nemo - Darla, the "Fish Killer!!!"  Today I came home to find two fish laying down - that's never a good thing if you know fish.  Thankfully my boys are old enough that they aren't so traumatized every time this happens.  We are currently down to about a half-dozen inch-long fish...  in our 90 gallon tank.  Talk about overkill.  (Oops, I shouldn't say "kill").  Why is this so hard?  We test our water, clean the tank properly, and attend to any maintenance needs that are required.  I guess some people are just not meant to own certain living things.

I'd like to think it's not just me.  I must admit that my cat did die last year, but he was 19 years old!  I'd had him since my college days.  So long, in fact, that he had outgrown his 90's pop-culture name.  "Toonces" drives no more.  Our old dog is deaf (and totally clueless), but still kicking at 13 years old.  So, it can't be all bad, right?  I'm not the Merchant of Death or anything.  Right?

So long "purple-yellow" and "bluey" (can you tell my kids came up with these creative names?).  I'm sorry you've gone down the swirly rivers of the afterlife (aka voyage to the water treatment plant).  I've got to go plan my next murderous rampage trip to the fish store.