How do I explain the amount of stupid? No….seriously–my stupid, it burns. One week ago tonight I was sick, not stupidly sick–just a cold. You know, just sick enough that the throat hurts, you have snot and aches and everything is poopy. You can tell when I am have a cold because I tend towards dramatic noises along the lines of, “I am dying!” or “please kill me!” or my personal favorite – the dying cow noise, “uuweeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”.
Now, when I am in any true danger of death you will hear me going on and on about how, “I am fine” and I will even try to make you feel better about how I am so incredibly fine. Yeah. I think it just furthers my evidence that that rush of panic most people get just calms me the fuck down. So, fast forward from Friday to Monday night and I felt SO. MUCH. BETTER.  It was so nice not to feel crappy any longer. I knew I had tuesday off of work (Thanks to all of my service friends and family for much more than getting me a day off of work) so I thought I would finally dredge the long-term mullings out of my brain and into the real world.
and it went REALLY well–until it didn’t.
and when it didn’t? it REALLY didn’t.
So, have ya’ll ever heard of bike-joring? Probably not. But, you have probably heard of dog-sledding. Well, remove the snow, remove the sled and insert a bike and you get the gist. It’s one of those things us crazy dog people think about–especially when my lovely athlete of a dog looks at me, a couch potato of a person, with a longing to run that just about breaks my heart.
Now before you think I am a complete idiot who didn’t research the heck out of this crap before beginning this little adventure – I’m not. I’m more like the complete idiot who dismissed one wee little component because it seemed like a small risk (think Hindenberg – well, sure…hydrogen is incredibly flammable but what are the chances??).  So, on Monday night I put Herbert into his little harness, attached him with an appropriate amount of rope and bungee to the front of the bicycle and off we went to go around the block. Keep in mind, at this point I did NOT have my phone and I wasn’t even concerned about not having my phone because this was going to work! it was going to be awesome! Herbert the wonder pup was going to get to RUN HIS HEART OUT all the while assisting to drag my non-athletic-butt up the challenging parts – – IT WAS GOING TO BE AWESOME!!!
and it WAS!! At least the first half of the block was a freaking DREAM. I pedalled, he pulled, we were ROCKING.
And then I got too confident (*on the Hindenberg* sure!!! I don’t see lighting a bonfire as causing any undue safety concerns…..[please note, that isn’t what actually happened on the Hindenberg; I am utilizing hyperbole] On the slight downward hill Herbert slowed down and I sped up and the bungee/rope met the front tire and I learned how to fly for a very short distance with a rather unfortunate sudden stop.
Weeeeeeeeee-Thud-FML.
Now, for those of you who have ever worked with dogs you know the key to an epic fuck up like this is to make sure they aren’t freaked the fuck out and I realized at that point that 1. Herbert needed to know everything was okay and that he was a GOOD DOG! [because he was, he didn’t panic – he didn’t like that he was attached to the thing that tried to kill the FoodLady, but he was okay] 2. I didn’t have my phone. 3. The chain was off my bike and the fender was bent into the tire in a fun way. 4. I was going to feel pain in a few minutes and was about a 10 minute walk from the house. well, fuck.
So, I decided to walk the bike home. Before that could happen I had to unbend the fender from the blessedly unpunctured tire with my hands. It should be noted that although I knew my hands were damaged I wasn’t yet feeling the pain [*grunts* animal wounded–must escape wounding to survive, pain keeps animal from escaping – brain block pain – weeeeee!!!!!!] but right after I bent that fender off of the tire I saw the shiny stars and birds flying around my head.  Once the shinies and the birdies came the pain hit and instead of casually walking my bicycle homeward I heavily plopped my ass on the bike and performed that ungainly roll/walk thing normally performed by toddlers on their play bicycles and uncerimoniously dragged myself home with some bleedy road rash on my hands and arms and some serious OW in the bodular area. When I got home (around the block without injuries – 10 minutes; with injuries 3.284 years) I staggered into the yard and the boyfriend could hear the snot-cry-ow-fml-voice and asked how it went (I would be remiss not pointing out that he was against this experiment from the beginning and was very helpful with the first aid and the helping and such – even if he did end up doing the “I was right” dance when I was better) and all I could say was, “it went REALLY well; until it didn’t” before stopping the bleeding, digging out pieces of gravel, taking so much of the advil, embracing the ice packs, and lying very. very. still.
I have some impressive bruising, but for the most part I am damn lucky to be doing just fine. I’m not giving up on this bike-joring plan, I’m just going to more forward with more care and install a doo-dad that keeps the rope/bungee from getting tangled in the front wheel and add in some wrist protectors as well as a helmet. I am very lucky…please learn from my mistakes and think this crap through before attempting. 😉
**kisses**

**~singing~ sometimes it’s hard, to-be a kit-ten, givin’ all your love to just one dog……stand by your kit-ten, give him four paws to cling to…….**

FoodLady Chronicles – Kitten Sitings: Lately there has been a rash of disturbingly cute kitten-related events at FoodLady’s house…..Gerald-the-kitten likes to snuggle with his backup brindle (Herbert; his primary brindle is Sam), scare the crap out of FoodLady when she opens the saran wrap drawer during a power outage (still don’t know how he fit and seriously!?) and one of his favorites is to sleep in the clean laundry…..no, no….never the dirty laundry, how dare we suggest he slumber in dirty laundry?! He feels the need to remind us that he is NOT a dog athankyouverymuch.

FoodLady Chronicles – it’s not just me edition: After living alone for a couple years I began to think that perhaps I was just bat-crap-crazy and things like this only ever happened to me. Now that I no longer live alone I have determined that either I’m not bat-crap-crazy OR, the more likely scenario, I found the perfect bat-crap-crazy person with whom to live. Lately, the household of the FoodLady has been having issues with ticks. Ticks are my second least favorite blood-sucking vector of disease (first least favorite: mosquito) here in the tropics and if you have never dealt with them please consider yourself very lucky and do. not. move!
The other night I saw the beloved boyfriend grab something off the bed and fling its corpse into the trash. Somewhat distractedly I asked, “tick?” He turned to me and with wide eyes while while slowly shaking his head, whispered, “…..no……bigger…..” I kid you not, he sounded like the Sixth Sense kid saying “I see dead people.” My immediate loving and supportive response was to crack the hell up because I have been there. Tropical insects….not for the faint of heart.

We are currently enjoying that particular stage of doggie development I have lovingly entitled, “The Asshole Stage”. It usually begins around 6 months old and, provided you don’t kill them, usually gets better at about 15 months old. Puberty generally turns everything into an ass. So our precious 8-month-old-hell-monster (aka Sam-puppy) has been having trouble settling down at night which is rough, but the other night was exceptional in its roughness:
22:10 – lights out, happy sleepy time.
00:07 – FoodLady, FoodDude, Life(dog), Herbert(dog) are all happily still asleep. SamSam (hell-puppy) says, “Bark! Bark! WakeUpEveryone! Bark! I’mBored! Bark!  IFoundTheCatAgain! Bark! DidYouKnowWeHaveACat? Bark! (he rediscovers the existence of the cat daily) iFartedAndWeShouldAllEnjoyMyAroma
Bark! WakeUpHumans!!!”
The bipeds wake up, gag at the smell, settle everyone back down, attempt further sleep.
01:34 – SamSam “DangerBark! DangerBark!” And then Herbert joins in, “DangerBark! WeHaveASituationHereFoodLadyGetUpBark!” and with that I am UP. I do a quick look through the house and nothing is on fire, no person has invaded, and as I blink blearily and walk around…..there is just nothing.  The brindles (Herbert & Sam) are dancing around me but not showing me anything so I think, “oh well,–I’ll just use the restroom and attempt this sleep thing again”.  Given the frequency of critters invading my bathroom (spiders, blue crabs, bugs of all kinds, etc.) I have learned not to pee in the dark. I flip on the light and when I try to walk in the two brindled dogs bump and push and squeeze me against the wall and I’m all grumpy and thinking many bad words about annoying brindle-colored dogs and after grumpily fighting my way to the toilet I sit to pee. Sam-puppy flees and Herbert flips around into a guard position and I see it. Now, centipedes are a fact of life in the tropics and even though they are creepy as hell, they don’t normally freak me out but this one was FREAKY. It was only about 6 inches long but it was about 1 1/2 inches wide and it was PISSED. It was rearing (which is just extra creepy, btw) and headed for Herbert (and me) I made Herbert get in the shower (he wasn’t happy with this plan but did it) and put the bathroom trash can on top of it and pressed down with both hands–it wouldn’t squish. *shudder* Okay then. I wake up FoodDude and he gets the machete and after chopping it to bits we check the pups. Herbert seemed okay but Sam was limping and couldn’t put weight on one paw. Well, crap. So, yeah….the brindles kept me from getting stung and I was grumpy about it at the time and QUE THE GUILT. Good Brave Sam-puppy! Good Brave Herbert! I feel it is important to share that Sam is not a stoic dog. He proceeded to let us know in a melodramatic display of floppery that he was a HERO! and now that he was dying! he would need to be snuggled and carried and he needs ALL of the biscuits so he can go on. So, due to the guilt, we piled the poor boy into the bed and I spent the rest of the night awake making sure he was okay and wishing I had an organic vapor respirator because the farting…..well, it was bad. It was incredibly bad. In the morning it was easy to see poor Herbert had also gotten stung because he was stiff and sore–poor stoic Herbert (more guilt). But what about poor short-legged Sam-puppy, you say?  Yeah, at sunrise he was joyously perky and full of all of the happy vigor! (It is a bright new day! I found the cat! Did you know we have a cat?! I like destroying things!) He leapt around the front yard happily destroying something foam-based and barking at anyone who dared to use the road in front of his yard. Meanwhile,  the FoodPeople prepared to zombie through the day. I’m not sure how, but Sam-puppy wins. ♡

I gave you a personal card because, well, we had a connection. No, probably not a ‘hey baby, how you doin’?’ connection; but more of a ‘you love dogs? I love dogs too!!! let’s be best dog friends’ or a ‘you’re a diabetic!? I’m a diabetic too! Let’s be diabetic friends!!’ kind of connection. I tend to use this card instead of my go to, ‘for the love of all that is holy I am just trying to buy some paint at home depot and get out of here to go home and maybe actually *do* the painting and while I am legitimately pleased that you have a dog at home that you love and that you want them to be as well behaved as Herbert is being while I do the self-checkout there is really no way I can help you right now – please have this card‘ card because you were apparently being rather awesome when we met. So, thanks for that! ~smiles~

FoodLady Chronicles – Awwwww Edition: FoodLady! Dis bed is too small for me. I usta fit it, I know I did. *grumpgrumpsigh.

FoodLady Chronicle – Sweet Baby Cheezus That is a SMELL edition: Dear Herbert, I do not know what you ate that is causing the vapor cloud of nasty wafting up from below my desk but it was with serious trepidation that I lit a candle. Please, for the love of, well, FoodLady, do not eat that again.