Laughing At Or With Me

Today was one of THOSE days. It started innocently enough with Moira getting everyone up at 5:30, as she always does. UHM and I went through our usual routine of getting ready for work, although UHM needed to leave a little earlier than usual. She left and I finished up with the dogs - letting everyone out in shifts, filling water buckets, etc. And that's where things went awry.

When I went to crate Bogey and Georgia, I realized we were out of treats. Horrors! I grabbed a few pieces of kibble to use as treats and called the youngsters into the room where their crates are. Georgia went in her crate, then Bogey went in his. As I gave them each a couple pieces of kibble I noticed that someone had spilled a bunch of water in B's crate. That really needed to be mopped up before I put him in there for the day. I trooped back to the laundry room, with Bogey following me to get a towel. I mopped up the crate, trooped back to the laundry room with the wet towel and then got a new towel to go in his crate. B went in his room and I moved on to getting the rest of the Horde in the house and crated.

Late this afternoon UHM calls me and asks, "Do you know what YOUR puppy did today?" That's always a bad sign. Apparently, in my distraction over the lack of treats and wet crate, I forgot to latch Georgia's crate. She took advantage of the freedom to wander the house, raid the litter box and spread litter and clumps of cat pee all over the house. This was discovered when the dog walker arrived midday.

When I got home this evening I avoided all the piles of kitty litter scattered throughout the house, let the big dogs out in the backyard, changed my shoes and got the baby dogs out of their crates. While I was in my room changing shoes, I realized Georgia had been in my room earlier in the day and pottied herself on the rug. GREAT! Something else to clean up. I took the baby dogs out the front door for a quick potty break and then headed back into the house to start the clean up. But first, I needed to take a bio-break myself.

While I'm in the bathrooom, I hear the unmistakable sounds of Georgia chasing/harassing Grace the cat. Grace is elderly and can't move as fast as G so I jumped up, hollered at Georgia to "leave the kitty", struggled to get my pants up and bolted out of the bathroom intent on saving Grace.

While I'm hollering at Georgia and trying to catch her so I can crate her until UHM gets home, I hear someone say my name at the front door. Thinking it was UHM needing help carrying in groceries or something, I responded with a rather loud and nasty "WHAT!!!!!"

It wasn't UHM. It was one of our lovely neighbors, her husband and their teenage son, who is home from college, coming by to deliver a Christmas gift to us. I'm standing in the living room, screaming at both the dog and my neighbor with my jeans unzipped when I realized just who was at the door.

Of course I pulled my sweater down over the unzipped jeans, apologized profusely, accepted their lovely gift, got the jar of homemade chocolate sauce out of the fridge that was our gift to them and promised to see them Friday evening at a get-together at their house. I wonder if my blush will have faded by then?