Saturday, March 1, 2008

The Best Laid Plans

It is a gloriously gorgeous day in Western Kentucky. Finally. Sunny. Mid fifties. Light breeze. And I'm letting it go to waste. I should be shot.



First I must admit a bit of folly on my part which turned into embarrassment and mortification. There is a wonderful blogging group called Dogs With Blogs. It is huge, with 812 blogs listed, and for the most part the blogs are maintained by the dogs themselves, with the humans acting only as secretaries or editors. Many - most - of the kind "folks" who comment on my stories are dogs who belong to this group. Each month, members of the group nominate and vote on blogs worthy of the Awesome Blog Award. This is what the Awesome Blog Award looks like:



Well, I thought it was pretty funny/cool/coincidental/remarkable/whatever that the Awesome Blog Award sported a whippet! Clearly not a greyhound, even, but a lovely whippet. So, in a fit of mammoth idiocy, I posted on the nomination forum that I thought the dog on the award looked exactly like Lindy Loo's daddy:
And I said, "OK, I am not nominating myself, but..."

Well don't they look alike?

Of course the forum moderator thought I most certainly was nominating myself, or maybe she was simply trying to alleviate a bit of my dogs' embarrassment at having such a dork for a servant, and next thing I knew this blog was nominated. I explained there had been a horrid mistake, that I did not mean to nominate myself. But it was too late, as the voting had started.

Needless to say, I came in L.A.S.T. in the votes. The dogs, having been bred for centuries to come in first, hate to come in last at anything, (I can't say it was great for my ego) and so they have been posting notices on some other dogs' blogs about putting me up for adoption and getting a new Servant. One which doesn't succumb to acts of imbecility, least of all not on large public forums. One which doesn't drop full cookie sheets of Simple Simon Bones and then start screaming NO DOGS NO DOGS GET OUT HOT HOT HOT NO DOGS. One which would maybe run the five to seven miles a day that this one plods along at a thumping walk, to get them all exercised. One which could find her way to a dog show occasionally or whoopee maybe even a Lure Trial, remember those?

And then, my local NPR station had kindly asked me to do live, on air fundraising again during the prime spot of A Prairie Home Companion. It is aired on Saturday evening and Sunday noon time, and not only was I given the honor of fundraising during the most popular show, I was given my choice of which. Trying to be a good supporter of public radio, I replied that I would take whichever day they needed me. I hadn't heard back and then yesterday, Bill said, "You haven't forgotten that we've been invited to dinner and to the symphony on Saturday, have you?" Well of course I had. I practically forget to pull my pants down before peeing and you want me to remember dinner? So I called the radio station thinking I had a fifty fifty chance. I could have been scheduled for Sunday's show and everything would be fine.

I was scheduled for Saturday's show, and why on Earth did I think it would be any different? I had to tell them I was letting them down. Great. So now I'm an imbecile, an idiot, and a letter downer duty shirker.

I actually entered two dog shows. I haven't shown Swede William or Lindy Loo or Emmett since August. There are four shows a half an hour south of Nashville on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That's a three hour drive which is close for dog shows here. I am reading in The Vagina Monologues (a benefit for our women's shelter and a charity to end violence against women and girls world wide which has accomplished miracles but has so much more to do) on Saturday night, and the dress rehearsal is Friday, so I only entered Thursday and Sunday's shows. When you enter a show, you know your assigned time can be anywhere from 8 AM to 1 PM and you have no say in the matter. I was hoping for a late ring time. Three hour drive each way and late, tiring night on Saturday. Got my ring times in the mail. Eight thirty AM on Thursday. Eight AM on Sunday. Great.

And then the jewel in my crown. We have planned that Swede William would go to his favorite Aunt Heather's house and play with his best friend Emmett and hang out with Edgar and Baby Ben when Lindy Loo became Too Tempting for Words or Living With. Things were starting to get heated up and sweet kind Heather said, "Bring him on over." We were both looking forward to Emmett (Lindy Loo's litter brother) having Swede William to play with in their nice big yard, and giving Heather extra free time with Baby Ben. When Heather and Jason go away, Edgar and Emmett come stay here, and are sterling citizens and fit in just fine. I expect my dogs to be sterling citizens if they have sleepovers at other folks houses, and generally they are.

Swede William was not a sterling citizen. Despite Heather's best efforts (and my dogs adore her, make no mistake) Swede William would not go to sleep. He would not shut up. Luciano went and stayed with Heather a few years ago and had a great time. (And Luciano is special in his head!!!) But Swede William cried and screamed all night long. She put him in bed, he cried. She put him back in his crate, he wailed. She went downstairs on the couch finally after trying to call me at four in the morning because she thought he was being emotionally scarred. We don't have a phone in our bedroom, or I would have gone and got him right then and there.

I feel atrocious about the whole thing. Poor, poor, dear Heather! I would never ever have taken Swede William if I thought he would deprive her of a minute's sleep much less all night long. All NIGHT!!! I feel a moliminous amount of guilt. I retrieved him immediately when I got her phone call, which I doltishly answered with a cheery, "Was he a very good boy last night?"

Ah. I see that as I've been writing this, the sky has clouded over. At least I'm not wasting the perfectly good sunshine any more.


I don't have anything to wear to a symphony???? All of my dressy clothes have liver stains on the pockets from dog shows.




hug your hounds, mine deserve better.
Oh and go visit the blogs who won! The winner of the Awesome Blog Award is the very deserving Ruby at http://wonderruby.blogspot.com/ , and the Featured blog is the fantastic http://cubbygoesdigital.blogspot.com/ . You will see why we had no business in the embarrassing confusion.

15 comments:

  1. But we are mere servant - destined to repeatedly fail to meet expectations...

    Don't beat yourself up - the waggle clearly adores you!

    I'm glad your visit went well, and thanks for the hilarious reports!

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  2. A note from Heather:
    We feel horrible over here that we couldn't make Swede happy. We were just trying to lend a hand, and we thought it would have been a fun time. Baby Ben didn't even pick on William after Patience left. He was good and Edgar didn't do any bullying either. Even our walk was great. The poor William just was sad and missed his family. Have fun at the Symphony Patience. Don't feel bad about last night. Heck - I took a three hour nap this afternoon and I haven't seen the dogs all day.

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  3. Patience, I feel your pain.
    It must be in the air. This idiot servant apparently can't even get the lawn mowed for her whippets....and in my frustration with the &*% mower, I accidentally let the dogs out and some MEAN cat beat up on Reilly (well, maybe that is not exactly how it happened). You don't think that Katinsky creature came to Texas, do you?

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  4. Well we have to admit they have been going around and um,,saying those things....BUT we think nothing of it because we know they are only kidding!!! A day at your house sounds like a day at ours!! Love A+A

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  5. Ok, if this is the second post from us, don't post this one. Blogger is giving me fits. We like your blog. We love your dogs. We enjoyed your book when muzzer read it to us. But please, if you ever visit us, pull your pants down before you pee, or Teka will spend the entire time with her nose between your legs

    kisses
    gussie

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  6. Wow, after reading that, I think I had a very good day Patience! lol!!

    And, not to make matters worse, but don't forget, daylight savings (hahaha) time mandates that we change the clocks on 9 March ... spring ahead, lose an hour.

    See you next week,
    Sharron

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  7. I love this...
    "I don't have anything to wear to a symphony???? All of my dressy clothes have liver stains on the pockets from dog shows."

    SO my life right now! Thanks for the laugh this morning, Miss Patience!xox

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  8. We love your blog, Patience and we love your book too!

    Love ya lots,
    Maggie and Mitch

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  9. Dear Patience - as I was reading your blog about the warm, sunny weather I was reminded of a blog I read by a lady up in Canada, who is a knitter. And also an author (of knitting books). She decided she needed some time away from her family to really get some work done on her new book, so they found her a little cabin, out in the middle of nowhere.

    If you look at the last few posts here:

    http://yarnharlot.ca/blog/

    you can see photos and the works.

    She is quite amusing (even if you know nothing of knitting) and reminds me of you.

    Take care!

    Kathy & the crew in Amherst, VA, where it is warm and sunny today.

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  10. Hi! Well 1) you totes deserve an award so there's no embarrassment there! Some day you will get your due... 2) too bad about the show!

    wally

    ps. Thanks for alerting me to the piracy problem! I have sent an e-mail and I hope that resolves the issue. That must be especially infuriating when you have a professional writer on staff there!

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  11. Heads up waggle. That Kandinsky kitty is in deep doo-doo. Poor creature has been using Photoshop to create false impressions with respect to your Servant. We think the Kandinsky may be hitting too much catnip...you KNOW what that can do to a cat.

    Is there an intervention service in your community? Twelve steps for kitties ?(or should that or shoud that be 108 steps since they have nine lives....we can't keep that cat stuff straight). We were all excited about kitty-que sauce, but this is pathetic. Poor, poor creature.....

    Gabi, appointed scribe for the Wayward Whippets

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  12. To Patience - All of us have Doofus moments, its ok.

    To the Whippets - Have you checked Craigslist, I hear you can buy anything on that site. ;)

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  13. I see Swede William has the same gene pool as his cousin Bruiser. Don't feel bad, Bruiser is very VOCAL when his "Mommy" leaves him.
    He can out cry any whippet known to man.

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  14. Shut out by a bunch of dogs, now that takes the cake! :) We all love you, or we wouldn't come by so often. You'll get your groove back - no to worry!

    Woofs, Johann

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  15. What was wrong with poor william that he would cry all night. He must have missed you.

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