Two days into the logo design for Cryer and Chase Marriage Counselors (Slogan: We Listen), and I was ready for counseling. Ms Amanda Cryer and Mr. Seymour Chase were some of the most difficult clients I'd ever had. Ms Cryer vehemently disliked the first design as soon as Mr. Chase declared his love for it. He had an instant aversion to the second design after she declared it perfect. By midnight, I was seriously considering drawing two large ears with a man yelling in one and a woman in the other when commonsense and a desire to have grocery money for this week kicked in and I went to bed instead.
When I woke up, I immediately looked at the note pad I keep by the bed in case I get creative inspiration during the night. Unfortunately, the pad was empty which meant I hadn't woken up, jotted down a brilliant idea for Cryer and Chase and slipped back to sleep without remembering last night. Just as well as the pen had bite marks on it causing the ink to have dried out. One of the basenjis had obviously been snacking during the night.
And yet now they wanted their kibble and a walk. I drug myself out of bed and shooed them out into the fenced-in backyard while I grabbed their bowls and filled them with premium kibble. They came charging back in from the yard and jumped in their crates for breakfast as I grabbed my first cup of coffee. Once they were finished eating, I opened the dogs' crates and loosened the hounds.
Then I remembered that in yet another attempt to lose 20 pounds, I had agreed to work out everyday in addition to walking the dogs if my friend Belinda would, too. I had somehow forgotten all about that promise while Belinda was away the last 5 days, but she was due back tomorrow, so I'd have to do better now. I'd exercise today and tomorrow before I saw her, so could look her in the eye when I lied about having worked out everyday while she was gone.
Determined to get going right away, I threw on some cotton shorts, a tee shirt and my old sneakers. First deep breaths, followed by side twists and basenji boy Poppi gnawing on my shoe laces and then toe touches with basenji girl Harper darting in and out trying to grab my hands each time I reached down. I was getting more of a work-out than I'd had in mind.
Still I soldiered on telling myself I'd lose those 20 pounds this time and be happier, healthier, wittier and quite possibly even the wife of Hugh Jackman if I did. I got down on the floor and started to do push-ups with my knees bent. Harper's velvety red paw started batting my head. On the tenth push-up, I heard an ear-piercing cry. I was surprised because I hadn't thought I'd done that out loud. Then I realized it wasn't me; it was Harper. Basenjis are bark less, but they are not mute, and Harper seemed adamant about proving that point this morning. I turned my head to see what the problem was and realized that her paw was stuck in my wildly curly black hair. While I had inherited my mother's corkscrew curls, I had also inherited my fathers raven black hair. The combination sounds nice until you realize the curls have a mind of their own, and in the morning the mind usually decided they should look like a prop from a 1940's horror movie.
One of the nails on Harper's front right paw was ensnared in one of curls that ravelled down to a few inches below my shoulders. I twisted as far as I could to the left in an effort to reach her stuck paw. Harper pulled back at my movement and nearly knocked the breath out of me as she yanked tighter on my hair. Poppi started jumping back and forth over Harper in an attempt to join the "game!" The screaming continued. Her paw was so deeply entangled in my curls now that I had no idea how I'd rescue her or my hair although I finally was able to maneuver over and get myself onto my back where I hoped I'd be able to reach her better. Poppi took the opportunity to jump onto my chest and begin licking my face. Knowing it was a nervous reaction to Harper's screaming, I still tried to bat him away.
I couldn't get him to budge so I was shocked when he seemed to levitate off my chest not two seconds later. I thought I heard a chuckle, but I couldn't see anything because of all the hair in my face. Anyway hearing anything above Harper's caterwauling seemed unlikely, so I continued blindly trying to reach her paw with my hand. I curled into a ball in an effort to shorten the distance between her and my right hand.
"Need some help?" a male voice gasped out between guffaws. Now Harper and I made a duet of screams. Someone was in my house, and my dogs were too busy jumping on me and getting their damn paws stuck in my hair to defend me!
"Whoa, whoa, don't scream! It's okay. It's me--Jason. You left your door unlocked and when the neighbor, Mr. Gato, called saying someone was being attacked at your address, I came in to check it out."
"Jason? Attacked?" I stammered as I pushed my hair as far out of my face as I could. "Yeah, Jason Krepsky from school," he answered. I could now see the police issue boots and uniformed legs of my old friend who'd become a police officer many years ago and had moved back to the area last year after his marriage had dissolved. He bent down to offer me a hand. "Don't touch Harper!" I yelled." She might bite when she is this upset."
"How am I supposed to untangle her if I don't touch her?" he asked. He had a point because there was no way I was getting her paw out without his help. "I have leather gloves we use when we cage feral cats. They're in the squad car," he said before he disappeared from sight. I fought to get into a dignified position before he got back, but that was a little difficult with a 23 pound screaming basenji hanging from my hair.
Soon he was back, laying the gloves down on the floor and squatting down beside me. "Just be careful," I said. "It's okay, Harper. It's okay, girl," I reassured her. "Wow! She's really anchored in there," Jason said as he reached over to put the gloves on. Then he started laughing again. He was having much more fun than I thought the situation allowed. I was trying to remember if he'd had a sadistic sense of humor in high school, too. "I think I may have to arrest your dog," he said. "He stole one of my gloves."
Oh, no! Poppi! I'd forgotten about Poppi. "Poppi! Drop it!" I demanded. "Trade him something for it if he won't give it to you," I told Jason. Soon Jason was back on the floor, gently lifting Harper up so he could disentangle her paw. It took almost ten minutes, and I was reminded in that time that Jason had had a very creative way with swear words back in the day. Apparently, he'd lost none of his creativity over the years. Finally though Harper was free and she'd only tried to bite Jason twice. She must like him.
I stood up and tried to smooth down my hair before I thanked him. "I think I that's a lost cause," he laughed as he watched me. He had tears coming out of his eyes from laughing so hard!
"Thank you, Officer Krepsky," I stiffly replied. "I appreciate your help. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get cleaned up from my exercises."
"Oh, exercises? That's what you were doing? Exercising?" he chuckled some more.
"Good day, Officer," I retorted as I turned my back on him and walked into the bathroom, slamming the door and leaving him no choice but to see himself out.
Glancing into the mirror above the sink, I almost shrieked, but I didn't want Jason to rush in to rescue me again. As a matter of fact, I didn't want him to ever see me like this again! I had dog saliva all over my face, my tee shirt was covered with paw marks, and my hair--my hair was clumped up in some spots and sticking straight out like curly spokes in others! I hopped in the shower before I had to look at myself a moment longer.
I've heard that taking a shower is a good way to stimulate creativity. It must be true because I came out of the shower with a great idea for the Cryer and Chase account. I sat down at my computer and designed a logo based on the outlines of two stylized ears coming together to form a heart. In the middle of the heart was the silhouette of a couple talking and underneath the heart were the words, "Cryer and Chase--We Listen."
It was perfect for the marriage counselors, and I knew they wouldn't be able to resist it, so I attached my invoice and hit the send button. Then I pulled my hair back with a headband and took the dogs for their walk. Well, I took them for their walk after I retrieved my sneakers from Poppi. Maybe Jason should have arrested him.
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Monday, April 23, 2012
That Was Slick!
Chapter 1
When I entered the house after our walk, there was an email for me from Cryer and Chase Marriage Counselors, slogan "We Listen." They had been referred by the owner of Pork and Beans and were looking for a logo design for their business. I would need to put that on the back burner now though as it was time to take Pop Tart to school. Poppi was a therapy dog in training for K9 Kares Readers--a group of dogs who went into classrooms to help students with special learning or emotional needs. At the request of Miss Traylor, one of the Reading teachers at Lernsom Valley Middle School, Poppi and I visited her classroom to work with Will, one of my former students who was autistic.
Miss Traylor, straight out of college, was a good friend of mine despite her die hard enthusiasm in the face of 7 straight periods of classes overflowing with 30 plus twelve and thirteen year olds. If Miss Traylor was undaunted by the prospect of grading 214 Reading journals--most of which started with, "I like this novel because the author writes good,"--she certainly wasn't going to be discouraged by Will's unwillingness to read his assigned novels. Soon she'd struck on the idea of inviting K9 Kares Readers into her class to work with Will and several other students who were struggling, and although still in the early stages of training, Poppi did seem to be helping Will.
When we arrived at school, I made sure to "exercise" Poppi before entering the building. The only patch of grass near the parking lot had a huge "No skateboards, No Smoking, No Dogs" sign in the middle. Poppi loved to lift his legs on it, and I felt any sign that put dogs in the same category as smoking deserved whatever Fate dealt it. I looked up to see a student sitting next to a window with a prohibited cell phone snap our photo just as Poppi was finishing. I had a feeling we'd be on YouTube before lunchtime and I'd be wishing we, too, had followed Cryer and Chase's motto, "We Listen!"
Oh well, there was nothing to be done about it now, so we headed for the Reading classroom.
I positioned Poppi on the Reading Corner Rug as noisy 7th graders began pouring into the classroom. Slim, gangly and taller than me, Will was the last to enter. Walking carefully so as not to touch any of the other students who were jostling toward their chairs, he spotted Poppi and--in a remarkable transformation--smiled and rushed to pet him. Poppi immediately jumped up and began trying to lick his face. A stern "Sit" command, didn't have any affect on Poppi, but Will instantly hit the rug. Sometimes you have to take what you can get, so I told Will thank you and gave Poppi another, "Sit!"
He grudgingly complied, and Will took a novel out of his backpack and started reading it to him. I moved out of the way, smiling at my little curly-tailed pup's power to put Will at ease. Miss Traylor was beaming from her chair in the small reading circle. I was beginning to suspect medication.
As I walked around the room, stopping to help or encourage students as needed, I realized that they were overly excited even for 7th graders. Ever curious, I started to listen for the source of the excitement. "It was like magic!" Rebecca chattered to Brittany. I didn't think she meant A Separate Peace which was the novel they were supposed to be reading together. Brittany giggled and replied, "The way he made that Pyrex cylinder disappear like that was, yeah, magic!" She ended her statement on a bit of a sigh, and I realized she was talking about Mr. Stein.
A former front singer for a punk rock band called Chomp It!, Mr. Stein now taught 7th grade science, but hadn't lost his charisma as far as most of the female students were concerned. Even so, none of them believed the now bald Mr. Stein could possibly have been the wild-haired member of a band whose claim to fame back in the late 80's was making it to the Top 10 in West Germany with the tract, "Jelly Donuts in Berlin" from their Chomp-N-Donuts album. Mr. Stein liked to call it their strawberry jelly and dough album as it had helped finance his first year in college.
One of his favorite lessons was teaching the students about the refraction index. It was a great science lesson that every teacher who taught the period after his classes wished he'd stop using. I shushed the hyped-up students and earned an evil look (which I decided to ignore) from Brittany.
As long as she went back to focusing on her work and Poppi stayed on the Reading Area carpet, even if he was now eating a tissue from Will's backpack, I'd feel the day was a success. When the bell rang, Poppi jumped up and tried to jump on several of the students, but I was still going to call it a success. He is a basenji, after all!
I chatted with Miss Traylor for a few minutes before venturing out into the hallway. The students had gone to their next classes, but I ran into my dear friend Senora Damalta as I stepped into the hall. Tall with honey-colored blond hair, Senora's blue eyes were usually glittering with intelligence. However, now they were apparently on the verge of tears as my favorite Spanish teacher dragged me into the faculty room. She grabbed her insulated lunch bag out of one of the oldest operating refrigerators in Eastern, PA, offering me half her salad which I declined, as she blurted out the reason for the impending tears. Today four students were demonstrating in halting Spanish how to make tacos at a table set up next to her desk.
After the students had cleaned up and left the room to go to lunch, Senora discovered that the blown glass beads she'd brought back from her recent trip to Europe had vanished from her desk. I asked her if any of the other students had approached her desk during class, and she replied that no they had all been too busy watching the demonstration and then eating tacos while the Carlos, Roberto, Jose and Marco cleaned up afterward. Roberto had spilled some of the vegetable oil he'd brought to fry the hamburger and had made quite a mess apparently. I had no idea who Carlos, Roberto, Jose and Marco were because Senora called all her students by their "Spanish names." Sometimes I wondered if even she knew their real names!
Senora insisted that the beads were on her desk when class had begun and that none of the four boys had left the room with anything other than what they had brought for their cooking demonstration. I was as baffled as she was and was ready to admit so when Poppi decided he'd been ignored long enough! He grabbed my friend's napkin and pulled it off the table. Unfortunately, Senora's bottle of ice tea was resting on the napkin at the time. It shattered on the hard linoleum floor. I was simultaneously apologizing to Senora and trying to push Poppi away from the bits of glass which seemed to be everywhere when she laughed and exclaimed, "Oh that Pop Tart! He makes me laugh even on a bad day like today."
Luckily, Senora is a dog person. She offered to hold the Popster as I got down on my hands and knees and used half a roll of paper towels to sop up the tea and gather the glass. Thankfully, it was a sunny day and the little bits of glass glittered on the rather dirty floor. "Refraction again!" I thought just before I cut my thumb on a particularly sharp piece. I let out a shout and poor Senora, who is deathly afraid of blood, almost passed out. I wasn't worried about the cut though. I was too excited about solving the "Case of the Disappearing Beads." I mindlessly tore another piece of paper towel off the roll and wrapped it around my thumb as I excitedly asked Senora what kind of oil Roberto had brought in to brown the taco meat.
Thinking I was the one who was now light-headed, she suggested I sit down. "No, this is important!" I fairly shouted. "What kind of oil was it?"
"Uh, vegetable oil, Wesson, I think. Why?" she asked.
"I know who has your beads! He may be sneaky but at least we know he listened in science today!" I exclaimed. "Blown glass is mostly made of Pyrex," I started to explain.
"Mr. Stein was teaching refraction again, wasn't he? I knew those kids were too wound up today!" she interrupted catching on quickly. "Wesson oil and Pyrex have the same refraction index. When he puts a Pyrex cylinder in a beaker full of Wesson oil, the cylinder seems to disappear in his demonstration," she moaned.
"Because the light rays refract off the oil and the Pyrex at the same angle, " I finished for her. "And the same thing would happen with your blown glass beads! Roberto dropped them in the bottle of oil and walked out of the room with them right under every one's nose, I'll bet."
After thanking me, Senora rushed out of the faculty room to go have a talk with the principal about the slick Roberto, and Poppi and I headed toward the parking lot. Poppi lifted his leg on the sign again even after I'd lectured him the entire way out of the building about the obvious benefits of listening.
As we pulled into the driveway at home, I saw my neighbor Mr. Gato, mowing his front yard. He was a fanatic about his yard and was constantly spreading chemicals in his war on weeds. Oh, well, at least today he was just mowing and the sound drowned out the harsh barking of Benito, his German Shepherd. Of course, as soon as I stepped out of the car, he slowed down and started to shout at me about the sorry state of my lawn and the evils of the dandelions growing in it. I took Poppi out of his crate, put his leash on and walked him into the house without even turning around. Poppi's wrinkly basenji face quizzically looked up at me with such insistence, I shamefacedly admitted, "Okay. We don't always have to listen!" He wiggled his curly tail as if in agreement and tried to chew his leash before I could remove it.
When I entered the house after our walk, there was an email for me from Cryer and Chase Marriage Counselors, slogan "We Listen." They had been referred by the owner of Pork and Beans and were looking for a logo design for their business. I would need to put that on the back burner now though as it was time to take Pop Tart to school. Poppi was a therapy dog in training for K9 Kares Readers--a group of dogs who went into classrooms to help students with special learning or emotional needs. At the request of Miss Traylor, one of the Reading teachers at Lernsom Valley Middle School, Poppi and I visited her classroom to work with Will, one of my former students who was autistic.
Miss Traylor, straight out of college, was a good friend of mine despite her die hard enthusiasm in the face of 7 straight periods of classes overflowing with 30 plus twelve and thirteen year olds. If Miss Traylor was undaunted by the prospect of grading 214 Reading journals--most of which started with, "I like this novel because the author writes good,"--she certainly wasn't going to be discouraged by Will's unwillingness to read his assigned novels. Soon she'd struck on the idea of inviting K9 Kares Readers into her class to work with Will and several other students who were struggling, and although still in the early stages of training, Poppi did seem to be helping Will.
When we arrived at school, I made sure to "exercise" Poppi before entering the building. The only patch of grass near the parking lot had a huge "No skateboards, No Smoking, No Dogs" sign in the middle. Poppi loved to lift his legs on it, and I felt any sign that put dogs in the same category as smoking deserved whatever Fate dealt it. I looked up to see a student sitting next to a window with a prohibited cell phone snap our photo just as Poppi was finishing. I had a feeling we'd be on YouTube before lunchtime and I'd be wishing we, too, had followed Cryer and Chase's motto, "We Listen!"
Oh well, there was nothing to be done about it now, so we headed for the Reading classroom.
I positioned Poppi on the Reading Corner Rug as noisy 7th graders began pouring into the classroom. Slim, gangly and taller than me, Will was the last to enter. Walking carefully so as not to touch any of the other students who were jostling toward their chairs, he spotted Poppi and--in a remarkable transformation--smiled and rushed to pet him. Poppi immediately jumped up and began trying to lick his face. A stern "Sit" command, didn't have any affect on Poppi, but Will instantly hit the rug. Sometimes you have to take what you can get, so I told Will thank you and gave Poppi another, "Sit!"
He grudgingly complied, and Will took a novel out of his backpack and started reading it to him. I moved out of the way, smiling at my little curly-tailed pup's power to put Will at ease. Miss Traylor was beaming from her chair in the small reading circle. I was beginning to suspect medication.
As I walked around the room, stopping to help or encourage students as needed, I realized that they were overly excited even for 7th graders. Ever curious, I started to listen for the source of the excitement. "It was like magic!" Rebecca chattered to Brittany. I didn't think she meant A Separate Peace which was the novel they were supposed to be reading together. Brittany giggled and replied, "The way he made that Pyrex cylinder disappear like that was, yeah, magic!" She ended her statement on a bit of a sigh, and I realized she was talking about Mr. Stein.
A former front singer for a punk rock band called Chomp It!, Mr. Stein now taught 7th grade science, but hadn't lost his charisma as far as most of the female students were concerned. Even so, none of them believed the now bald Mr. Stein could possibly have been the wild-haired member of a band whose claim to fame back in the late 80's was making it to the Top 10 in West Germany with the tract, "Jelly Donuts in Berlin" from their Chomp-N-Donuts album. Mr. Stein liked to call it their strawberry jelly and dough album as it had helped finance his first year in college.
One of his favorite lessons was teaching the students about the refraction index. It was a great science lesson that every teacher who taught the period after his classes wished he'd stop using. I shushed the hyped-up students and earned an evil look (which I decided to ignore) from Brittany.
As long as she went back to focusing on her work and Poppi stayed on the Reading Area carpet, even if he was now eating a tissue from Will's backpack, I'd feel the day was a success. When the bell rang, Poppi jumped up and tried to jump on several of the students, but I was still going to call it a success. He is a basenji, after all!
I chatted with Miss Traylor for a few minutes before venturing out into the hallway. The students had gone to their next classes, but I ran into my dear friend Senora Damalta as I stepped into the hall. Tall with honey-colored blond hair, Senora's blue eyes were usually glittering with intelligence. However, now they were apparently on the verge of tears as my favorite Spanish teacher dragged me into the faculty room. She grabbed her insulated lunch bag out of one of the oldest operating refrigerators in Eastern, PA, offering me half her salad which I declined, as she blurted out the reason for the impending tears. Today four students were demonstrating in halting Spanish how to make tacos at a table set up next to her desk.
After the students had cleaned up and left the room to go to lunch, Senora discovered that the blown glass beads she'd brought back from her recent trip to Europe had vanished from her desk. I asked her if any of the other students had approached her desk during class, and she replied that no they had all been too busy watching the demonstration and then eating tacos while the Carlos, Roberto, Jose and Marco cleaned up afterward. Roberto had spilled some of the vegetable oil he'd brought to fry the hamburger and had made quite a mess apparently. I had no idea who Carlos, Roberto, Jose and Marco were because Senora called all her students by their "Spanish names." Sometimes I wondered if even she knew their real names!
Senora insisted that the beads were on her desk when class had begun and that none of the four boys had left the room with anything other than what they had brought for their cooking demonstration. I was as baffled as she was and was ready to admit so when Poppi decided he'd been ignored long enough! He grabbed my friend's napkin and pulled it off the table. Unfortunately, Senora's bottle of ice tea was resting on the napkin at the time. It shattered on the hard linoleum floor. I was simultaneously apologizing to Senora and trying to push Poppi away from the bits of glass which seemed to be everywhere when she laughed and exclaimed, "Oh that Pop Tart! He makes me laugh even on a bad day like today."
Luckily, Senora is a dog person. She offered to hold the Popster as I got down on my hands and knees and used half a roll of paper towels to sop up the tea and gather the glass. Thankfully, it was a sunny day and the little bits of glass glittered on the rather dirty floor. "Refraction again!" I thought just before I cut my thumb on a particularly sharp piece. I let out a shout and poor Senora, who is deathly afraid of blood, almost passed out. I wasn't worried about the cut though. I was too excited about solving the "Case of the Disappearing Beads." I mindlessly tore another piece of paper towel off the roll and wrapped it around my thumb as I excitedly asked Senora what kind of oil Roberto had brought in to brown the taco meat.
Thinking I was the one who was now light-headed, she suggested I sit down. "No, this is important!" I fairly shouted. "What kind of oil was it?"
"Uh, vegetable oil, Wesson, I think. Why?" she asked.
"I know who has your beads! He may be sneaky but at least we know he listened in science today!" I exclaimed. "Blown glass is mostly made of Pyrex," I started to explain.
"Mr. Stein was teaching refraction again, wasn't he? I knew those kids were too wound up today!" she interrupted catching on quickly. "Wesson oil and Pyrex have the same refraction index. When he puts a Pyrex cylinder in a beaker full of Wesson oil, the cylinder seems to disappear in his demonstration," she moaned.
"Because the light rays refract off the oil and the Pyrex at the same angle, " I finished for her. "And the same thing would happen with your blown glass beads! Roberto dropped them in the bottle of oil and walked out of the room with them right under every one's nose, I'll bet."
After thanking me, Senora rushed out of the faculty room to go have a talk with the principal about the slick Roberto, and Poppi and I headed toward the parking lot. Poppi lifted his leg on the sign again even after I'd lectured him the entire way out of the building about the obvious benefits of listening.
As we pulled into the driveway at home, I saw my neighbor Mr. Gato, mowing his front yard. He was a fanatic about his yard and was constantly spreading chemicals in his war on weeds. Oh, well, at least today he was just mowing and the sound drowned out the harsh barking of Benito, his German Shepherd. Of course, as soon as I stepped out of the car, he slowed down and started to shout at me about the sorry state of my lawn and the evils of the dandelions growing in it. I took Poppi out of his crate, put his leash on and walked him into the house without even turning around. Poppi's wrinkly basenji face quizzically looked up at me with such insistence, I shamefacedly admitted, "Okay. We don't always have to listen!" He wiggled his curly tail as if in agreement and tried to chew his leash before I could remove it.
Friday, April 20, 2012
Hell in the Hallways Has Moved
My blog Hell in the Hallways has become a fiction blog, now called Days of Whines and Cold Noses. Watch for the first installment of Bree and her dogs' adventures by the end of the day Saturday April 20th. Thank you for your patience.
Dog Tired: Prologue
Harper's persistent pawing at my face and nuzzling of my ear woke me up. "'Harper' my middle-aged butt," I thought. "'Harpy' was more like it!" I'd been up until 3:00 working on a graphic for a new BBQ joint getting ready to open in town. Specializing in pulled pork and specialty coffees, Pork and Beans, wanted me to design a logo around a dancing, gas-passing pig. It had taken most of my contracted time to convince them that a pig juggling bags of coffee beans might attract more customers. Being a freelance graphic designer is not as glamorous as it sounds.
Which is why at 8:01 AM, I wanted nothing more than to pull the covers up over my head, but Harper didn't care. Harper, kennel name CH Sunstroke's Tequila Mockingbird, JC, is a 5 year old brindle and white Basenji with a stubborn streak as wide as her kennel name is long. Her normal breakfast time is 8:00, and apparently she felt she had "starved" long enough. I remove her paw from my nose and reluctantly got up--cursing her and her entire breed under my breath.
This wasn't at all fair to the only male in our household, Pop Tart, aka "Poppi," who truth be told, was always willing to sleep as long as possible. Talk about my kind of dog! However, he jumped out from under the covers immediately when he heard the kibble going into bowls and charged into his crate for breakfast. A crated Basenji is a Basenji who will not try to chew his other Basenji friend's face off while eating.
Both their trim dog bellies now full, they were ready to come out of their crates. Poppi began playing his favorite game--try to put the leash on me while I run excited circles around the room! My peace lily took a header off the end table as he bounced off one of its legs. At least during the time it took to clean up the mess, the coffee finished brewing. Pork and Beans had given me a sample bag of their "Jump out of Bed and Squeal!" ("JOBAS!") breakfast blend, so I could better understand the concept they were tryng to sell. All the coffee in the world will never make me a morning person. After tasting a sip of "JOBAS!" I felt all the real coffee in the world may never make me feel like a person again.
In need of caffeine nonetheless, I grabbed the coffee added low-fat creamer and managed to corral Poppi by luring him with a blueberry treat into a corner near the pantry. Harper had been impatiently waiting at the door to the pantry as she knew where Poppi's juvenile antics would lead. At only one and half years old, once he wakes up he has more energy than a Pork and Beans large espresso.
The sun gleamed on the basenjis' coats as I stepped out the door with my hot coffee in hand. Harper's light stripes became more visible and Poppi's black, tan and white coat (called "tri" for short by Basenji enthusiasts) shimmered like glass. Looking at the dogs frolicking ahead of me as we approached the sidewalk, I thought maybe I actually could face the morning.
That's when all hell broke loose. A German Sheppard came flying out my neighbor's front door closely followed by his owner, Mr. Gato yelling, "Aqui', Benito, Come!" Benito obviously did not speak Spanish or English, as he took off at a run and headed straight for Harper and Poppi--mostly straight for Harper since he adored her. Like an 8th grade cheerleader being forced to endure the attentions of the captain of the chess team, Harper glared and snarled.
I tried to place myself in between Benito and Harper, but Poppi picked that moment to come to Lady Harper's defense. Poppi's leash wrapped around my right ankle tipping me off balance. Benito jumped back at Poppi's unexpected challenge, and Harper sensing weakness lunged after Benito.
My left shoulder headed in one direction and my right ankle turned in another, I learned why yoga will never be my exercise of choice. My coffee flew up in the air and completed a beautiful arc before crash landing on my back, sprawled with the rest of my body on the ground.
Mr. Gato finally had his hand on Benito's collar and was dragging him away. "You have such mean dogs! Benito just wanted to play! You should get nicer dogs," he proclaimed as he dragged his paragon of virtue out of my yard.
Five blocks later and the sounds emanating from my Basenjis made me wish I hadn't convinced the owners of Pork and Beans to rethink their logo. A flatulent pig would have been the perfect symbol for the eatery if my dogs were any indication. By the time I got back to my yard, I had a whole new understanding of what the "Squeal" in the breakfast blend was, also. I was almost ready to thank Benito for my only getting two sips of coffee until I saw the other mess he'd caused on my grass.
Follow along for the rest of Bree's day in upcoming posts.
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