Guess who came back!?
At 4:47 in the morning. As you do.
lu 'posed to feel gilty? lu feel fine. also, already messed up bed to make commfee nest. okaa?
Yesterday at lunch I drove out to the shelter and perused their 72-hour stray animal hold. If you ever want to depress yourself, go do that for an afternoon. It was packed, PACKED, with scared, shivering animals and teensy puppies and kittens and really mean dogs who charged at me when I so much as looked at them, which made me sad because I knew they'd be unadoptable.
Talu was not in any of those cages, and as I was leaving I saw three men carrying a plastic bag with a dead dog inside. "Is that a...blonde dog?" I asked.
"Nope. It's a black Great Dane," they said, tossing it in the dumpster.
I don't think I could work at the animal shelter.
Edsel and I had traversed the woods last night, and man, what a sleuth that Edsel is. "Eds smell bunnii! This fun!"
After Columbone and I did that useful excercise, I printed out flyers on all the spare paper I had in the house. I stopped at using the backs of old depositions, but I had to sit there and talk myself out of it. Then I went to every single house on my street and put the flyers in doors.
You know, people's porches are interesting. Some are so inviting you just want to sit right down and admire the view and drink some lemonade. There are nice chairs, and sweet plants, and cute doo-dads and so on.
Then other people kind of use their porch as a catch-all, with gardening tools and old things they should just throw out all up in there, and broken doorbells. It's kind of fascinating.
I totally need to take the shovel off my front porch.
At any rate, I met a lot of nice neighbors, who said they saw me walking Tallulah all the time and would keep a lookout for her. There was one perfectly pressed lovely Southern lady, who has this old shaggy dog that sits under her car most afternoons.
"Tallulah's missing?" she said, smoothing her wrinkle-free lacy shirt. "Well, SHIT."
I love her.
"Harvey sits under that car for years at a time," she said. And before you get all up in arms, Harvey goes INSIDE. He is a totally spoiled, indulged dog. But when she is outside, he likes to sit there, sort of motionless, under the car. Anyway, she said, "But when Lou across the street decides to barbecue a chicken? Harvey TAKES OFF and there's no stopping him! I know how you feel, honey."
I even talked to the Springer Spaniel lady, who I have always detested, because she is all trendy and bitchy and gives my mutts dirty looks. I apparently had put a flyer in her door and there she was, walking her fancy dog.
"We're out looking for Tallulah!" she said, tossing her perfect coif. She is one of those silky-haired people. "Oh, we feel terrible for you."
Okay. So now I don't hate Springer Spaniel lady. Even though she decided her dog felt terrible for me.
Anyway, Edsel and I went to bed at 2:00, because I stayed up to watch a bad movie on BET, in which the guy who starred in the movie kept taking off his shirt at every turn, and this was not a bad sight, and then I just got interested in how they'd think of another way to show him shirtless. There was a funeral scene, and I wondered if maybe it would get hot in the church or something.
I put my dirty laundry on the front porch, as you guys suggested I do, and I'm sure the mailman does not think I am certifiable.
At 4:47, Tallulah did not even have to bark. She made, like, half a noise, and Edsel and I bounded out of that bed like we'd been shot out. I was out of bed in the middle of the night so fast you'd have thought another princess was getting married.
And there she was. All, "heyyy." And she didn't even want to be nice to us. She charged past us to her water, and I press press pressed on all her bones, because I can't believe she isn't hurt. I mean, I SAW that car hit her! I fed her, but she didn't seem starved, and she smells all earthy, so I know she was in one of the parks or woods near here.
Edsel could not keep his annoying snout off her, and I could not stop pressing on her, and I am certain she deeply regretted coming home at all.
We all got into bed and Edsel got in his usual spot at the foot, being beta backup dog and all, and Talu pressed her spine up against mine, with her head on the other pillow.
I reached back and scratched her big silly neck, and she gave a big satisfied sigh, then Edsel gave a big happy sigh, and I have never been so glad to be lying down with dogs in my whole life.
