The morning walk with Mia the puppy dog. Timing is everything. Start too early, feed the bugs. Too late, get beat by the heat. It’s a tight window that grows smaller and smaller as July, August and September are the months of the endless heat with no reprieve from the insects that feed on blood.
There is no escaping from the mosquitoes and no-see-ums at sunrise and sunset. Biting flies patrol during the heat of the day and different breeds of mosquitoes come out at night to feed. And lawn mosquitoes. Step in lush grass and the feast is on especially in the shade of a tree... Where an inviting chair or picnic table is often placed, calling you across the lawn to sit and drink a frosty adult beverage, out of the beating sun, perhaps partake of some marijuana, feed the bugs.
You know you have the right buzz when you no longer care about the biting and the itching. Just happy to be in the shade. The combo buzz I’ve always called it. For me it's the best buzz ever, a couple of beers, a couple of joints and a waterfront view of our buggy paradise. It's either coincidence or proof the creator loves us, that hops in beer and marijuana are from the same lineage of plants.
The puppy dog has expensive, the only dog food that she’ll eat, at home. She has 10 different varieties of treats to choose from. Yet on walks, she licks at the garbage truck juice on the road. She seeks out iguana turds like a delicacy. As she takes her sweet time sniffing around, the bugs make a meal out of me.
Why don’t I stop her from such behavior you might wonder. It’s not as easy as you might think. She’s smarter than me.
Is she giving me the, “Quit jerking the leash, I’m looking for the exact spot, perfectly aligned with the magnetic poles of the planet where I may leave my stool,” look? Or is she slowly working her way towards an iguana turd? She's a great actress.
The key is to keep moving in order to stay ahead of the bugs, but alas, little Mia puppy dog is still adjusting to life on planet Earth. She's not sure what to think when I try to kill a mosquito that has landed on her. She looks at me like, what are you slapping me for?
One thing she has in common with T-Bone is they both think chicken bones grow from the ground. T-Bone spent a lot of time at Gilbert's Resort plucking lost hot wings from the sand. He was too fast to stop. Once he found a chicken bone it was crunch, crunch gone. Not to mention all the construction workers in my neighborhood that throw their chicken bones on the ground instead of the trash for some reason furthering my dogs' suspicions that chicken wings grow from the ground.
I was spoiled by T-Bone. He was not a poop eater. He didn’t roll around in nasty smelling anything. He was quite prissy for a dog. Probably because he was a singer and the star of the show when he sang.
He used to sing-along with me when I played my shows but just on certain songs like Copperhead Road and any Johnny Cash.
A lot of times when people would walk up to tip us, they would set their drink down on the stage then reach for their cash. T-Bone would help himself to their drink, especially draft beer, thinking they had placed it there for him. In his defense, he was an incredibly friendly and gentle dog. And handsome.
Customers would often buy him a cheeseburger which I would have to cut up for him. If you sat a whole burger down in front of him, he would look up and stare at you with his head cocked to the side as if to ask, “How am I supposed to eat it?” Just a little spoiled, maybe.
He was clever but not smart like Mia. Maybe that's why she's such a typical, gross little dog. She rolls on the dead lizards that the cat murders and leaves on the welcome mat. She rolls on bugs, living or dead. She rolls on stuff in the middle of the road that has long since been dead and smushed into the pavement. Yet if you fart, she'll run out of the room.
Our teenie tiny Lily was a mess. Bless her tiny little heart, I carried her more than she walked on our walks but her legs were only two inches long. She was like carrying a portable heater in the summertime. No matter how hard I tried to keep her dry, by the time we got home she was soaked with my sweat.
Her little poops were so small I often couldn't find them where they fell, disappearing into the pea rock. Unfortunately, just like on Star Trek, she did have a problem with cling ons. Sometimes they had to be cut out of her fur.
She also had a problem with eating things off the floor and having bowel movements that were attached to one of our long hairs, it resembled anal beads. We often had to pull hair out of her butt. She even pooped a Q-tip once, how she passed that I'll never know.
Little Lil had a bark that was so piercing and loud it rendered your mind inert. The only way you could stop the torture was by picking her up and holding her. If you had to pick up something else and set her down, the barking would begin again until you picked her back up.
Mia has a tiny little bark comparatively. T-bone had a mighty woof and could howl on key. He was good at phrasing for a dog. Probably why he was such a prima-donna sometimes.
The one thing they all have in common is our big cat Tinker. He loves his puppy dogs. T-Bone outgrew him, but for the little dogs he is a major part of their lives. He is the chew toy that fights back. Sometimes he’s even a kitty couch, he’s always a good napping partner though.
Thinking about naps it's about nap time for the old man. ☮️❤️😁🎶👣🖖
Tinker & Mia clening the grill. Silly Lily (top) T-Bone (bottom)
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