Feathers and Furries and Frogs, Oh My!
Sometimes life is great! There's nothin' I love more (besides takin' care of terrorist fe-lyings) than watchin' other canines act silly.
Maury was visitin' last week, but he was real subdued since I last wrote about him--for the most part, that is…
Maybe it's because the season is changin' or maybe they know there's another hurricane wanderin' in our general direction, but whatever the reason, critters started findin' their way into the house. Well, not into the whole house--just the sunroom which is our room. (It's all vinyl and wrought iron so accidents don't matter quite so much, and AHM keeps the door ajar so we can go in and out. Doggie doors don't always work with geriatric, visually impaired oldersters.)
It started with The Bird--a little one who obviously mistook all the plant stuff inside for the plant stuff outside. AHM has a drill for when that happens which involves rushin' around slammin' doors to keep the idiot flapper in the sunroom. Mostly we just sit around and watch the show, but this time Maury was here.
Guess he thought AHM had ordered up fresh food for breakfast (we don't call him Maury the Mouth, aka the Eatin' Machine, for nothin') or else he was practicin' for the Olympic springboard diving medal. When that bird zoomed across the room, Maruy went up in the air, jaws snappin', did a couple of twists and even threw in a half-gainer before landin' in the big metal water bowl. You'd be surprised how fast even the hard-of-seein' can find the outside door when faced with a flailin', flyin' Jack Russell and a water bowl tidal wave.
AHM yelled, Maury tried to retreat, which involved much slidin' on wet linoleum with four legs goin' in four separate directions, a couple of belly flops, and a sloppy dive out the door into the outside water bowl. The Bird just sat on the top of the roller shade and laughed. Okay, it chirpped, but it sounded like laughin'. Eventually it came down to sit on the window ledge and let AHM pick 'em up. (She does that kind of stuff all the time--little wild things always let her pick them up and carry them around. Suppose it's a lesser-of-two-evils thing--her or us.)
Lots of nasty words later, AHM had all the water mopped up, and things went back to normal. Maury hid in the dog bed in the farthest corner of the bedroom and my kid Hem would occasionally wander over to taunt him. When that got borin', Hem went outside and found another playmate--a shrew.
We all learned long ago not to bring our dead trophies home for AHM to have stuffed and mounted 'cause she doesn't ever do that--just tosses the critter into the trash bin as if our hard work was nothin'. So now we bring 'em back alive. She's not pleased with that either, even tho' it's much harder to do. So there was Hem playin' on the floor--the shrew would scurry one way, then another, then forward, then back--and Hem would herd him around until the thing was runnin' in circles. (Little Girl thought she'd join in until it headed toward her and she retreated under the bed. She's larger than any of us and is the biggest coward.)
Naturally AHM eventually discovered the unexpected guest and went through the pick-'em-up-put-'em-out routine again (the shrew was staggerin' around like he was on a three-day drunk, so it wasn't hard) and gave us the usual lecture. We all sit politely and listen, of course, but Hem was obviously not pleased. He went back to harassing' Maury and chased him outside.
Everyone sorta' behaved for the rest of the day--AHM had to go to work in the afternoon and while I know she'll always come back, some of the others wonder so they're reeeeal good just in case. We made it through dinner without one fight--even Maury figured out it wouldn't be a good idea to irritate AHM any more--and settled down for the evenin'.
Most of us settled down. Maury, on the other hand, was in and out, in and out constantly, givin' us the antsies with the endless back and forth. Then he came back inside, hoppin'. Yeah, that's right. He was hopping.
AHM was workin' on the computer with Hem and me sittin' close by hopin' she'd let us do some surfin' when Maury hopped into the room. Kinda' hopped, really, 'cause we have polished, hard-wood floors and his paws kept slidin' out in front. So it was more like a hop-slip-thunk into the room.
We all just sat and stared for a few seconds, tryin' to figure out what the hell he was up to this time. Then Maury hopped onto the white sheepskin sleep pad--and shoved his nose right up a frog's butt! Yep--a big ole' frog was now leapin' around the room. AHM almost threw the keyboard.
More shoutin', more Maury skiddin' on the wood and linoleum to get out of the way, and one last wild thing for AHM to gather up while mutterin' somethin' about Noah and the Ark.
But I gotta' tell ya', the show was almost better than my fantasy of seein' the Rockettes Christmas extravaganza at Rockefeller Center.
posted by Harrison at 1:19 PM
Maury was visitin' last week, but he was real subdued since I last wrote about him--for the most part, that is…
Maybe it's because the season is changin' or maybe they know there's another hurricane wanderin' in our general direction, but whatever the reason, critters started findin' their way into the house. Well, not into the whole house--just the sunroom which is our room. (It's all vinyl and wrought iron so accidents don't matter quite so much, and AHM keeps the door ajar so we can go in and out. Doggie doors don't always work with geriatric, visually impaired oldersters.)
It started with The Bird--a little one who obviously mistook all the plant stuff inside for the plant stuff outside. AHM has a drill for when that happens which involves rushin' around slammin' doors to keep the idiot flapper in the sunroom. Mostly we just sit around and watch the show, but this time Maury was here.
Guess he thought AHM had ordered up fresh food for breakfast (we don't call him Maury the Mouth, aka the Eatin' Machine, for nothin') or else he was practicin' for the Olympic springboard diving medal. When that bird zoomed across the room, Maruy went up in the air, jaws snappin', did a couple of twists and even threw in a half-gainer before landin' in the big metal water bowl. You'd be surprised how fast even the hard-of-seein' can find the outside door when faced with a flailin', flyin' Jack Russell and a water bowl tidal wave.
AHM yelled, Maury tried to retreat, which involved much slidin' on wet linoleum with four legs goin' in four separate directions, a couple of belly flops, and a sloppy dive out the door into the outside water bowl. The Bird just sat on the top of the roller shade and laughed. Okay, it chirpped, but it sounded like laughin'. Eventually it came down to sit on the window ledge and let AHM pick 'em up. (She does that kind of stuff all the time--little wild things always let her pick them up and carry them around. Suppose it's a lesser-of-two-evils thing--her or us.)
Lots of nasty words later, AHM had all the water mopped up, and things went back to normal. Maury hid in the dog bed in the farthest corner of the bedroom and my kid Hem would occasionally wander over to taunt him. When that got borin', Hem went outside and found another playmate--a shrew.
We all learned long ago not to bring our dead trophies home for AHM to have stuffed and mounted 'cause she doesn't ever do that--just tosses the critter into the trash bin as if our hard work was nothin'. So now we bring 'em back alive. She's not pleased with that either, even tho' it's much harder to do. So there was Hem playin' on the floor--the shrew would scurry one way, then another, then forward, then back--and Hem would herd him around until the thing was runnin' in circles. (Little Girl thought she'd join in until it headed toward her and she retreated under the bed. She's larger than any of us and is the biggest coward.)
Naturally AHM eventually discovered the unexpected guest and went through the pick-'em-up-put-'em-out routine again (the shrew was staggerin' around like he was on a three-day drunk, so it wasn't hard) and gave us the usual lecture. We all sit politely and listen, of course, but Hem was obviously not pleased. He went back to harassing' Maury and chased him outside.
Everyone sorta' behaved for the rest of the day--AHM had to go to work in the afternoon and while I know she'll always come back, some of the others wonder so they're reeeeal good just in case. We made it through dinner without one fight--even Maury figured out it wouldn't be a good idea to irritate AHM any more--and settled down for the evenin'.
Most of us settled down. Maury, on the other hand, was in and out, in and out constantly, givin' us the antsies with the endless back and forth. Then he came back inside, hoppin'. Yeah, that's right. He was hopping.
AHM was workin' on the computer with Hem and me sittin' close by hopin' she'd let us do some surfin' when Maury hopped into the room. Kinda' hopped, really, 'cause we have polished, hard-wood floors and his paws kept slidin' out in front. So it was more like a hop-slip-thunk into the room.
We all just sat and stared for a few seconds, tryin' to figure out what the hell he was up to this time. Then Maury hopped onto the white sheepskin sleep pad--and shoved his nose right up a frog's butt! Yep--a big ole' frog was now leapin' around the room. AHM almost threw the keyboard.
More shoutin', more Maury skiddin' on the wood and linoleum to get out of the way, and one last wild thing for AHM to gather up while mutterin' somethin' about Noah and the Ark.
But I gotta' tell ya', the show was almost better than my fantasy of seein' the Rockettes Christmas extravaganza at Rockefeller Center.
posted by Harrison at 1:19 PM
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