Sunday, July 23, 2006

Chaos Strikes

So it seems that yesterday's events were a mere hint as to what was to come later that night. I went to work, and tried not to sleep in front of my computer. Suprisingly, for only having 4-5 hours of sleep, I got a bit done. Then I packed it up and headed for home on a nearly empty tank of gas. I ended up paying more than I wanted to, but oh well. It got me home. I would have filled up earlier but my getting lost did not help me for time.

I pulled into my driveway, new clothes bundled in hand along with the mail, my bag that I take to work, and my keys ready for the door. Our garbage can was tipped over (it's the big kind with wheels, a handle, and a flip-back lid issued by the community, not the little round ones you get at Lowes), and one of our Malibu lights was knocked over. I figure it's from the storm we had yesterday afternoon. I turn off the alarm and open the door, only to get assaulted by Emian and Sorina who were oh-so-happy to see me. Their happiness lasted only seconds.

I plowed my way through the door, pushing them aside with my feet so they didn't get out, dropped my clothes just inside the door, reached down, and grabbed them both by the collars. We have a playpin for them to stay in because they haven't learned yet how to hold their bodily functions, and linoleum is much easier to clean than carpet. As if to prove that point, I saw two wet and runny mud pies in the middle of our living room carpet, basting and soaking.

A deck of cards now lay strewn about the floor, intermingled with a plethora of packing popcorn from a small box they had found and had taken to shaking about. Their bed (that we had taken away because they kept eating it instead of sleeping in it) was now further eaten, with bits of foam laying about. A foot scrubber lay in the floor, with it's trendy little hanging cord, now untied and laying a foot away from the scrubber. I found a small sliver of what looked to be a piece of a pencil (the common yellow wooden sort) on the floor, but I have yet to find the rest of it. I'm sure it will show up in the back yard soon - eraser and all. My sandals were laying upside-down in the middle of the floor (luckily no damage was done), one of their squeaky toys was now shoved under the couch, my husband's socks were wet from slobber and in front of the fireplace, their leashes were strewn about the kitchen, and the broom was also laying down in the middle of the kitchen. And to top everything off, the place reeked of a bio waste pond. A great thing for someone who cannot handle that smell due to a pregnancy. (Literally, the smell makes me cough to the point of gagging violently. I don't actually lose my stomach, but sometimes it feels the same.)

And all I wanted to do was come home from work, get some food, take my vitamins, and get some much overdue and needed sleep. I kept thinking of Dante in Clerks exhasperating, "I'm not even supposed to Be here today!"

So I scolded the puppies - probably a little harsher than was appropriate, and returned them to their 'cage.' The playpin had been covered by a heavy piece of wood and part of the playpin itself (it's a plastic sectional playpin) because Sorina had escaped previously in the week and had made plops all over the carpet. Now, the section of playpin being used as the roof of their 'cage' was laying inside and the wood was shoved over to one side so they could get out. Clever dogs.

They were so upset from my scolding, that they layed in their playpin without covering for quite some time. I didn't even hear hardly a wimper. They knew they had done serious wrong.

So I begin the cleanup process, starting with the mud pies, while I call my husband and fill him in. When I hang up with him, my parents called me, which lasted about an hour and a half. There is still a stain in the carpet. I can't lift it for love or money. I'll try some more today.

So I get off the phone with my parents, get another piece of wood for the top of their cage, since the plastic doesn't work. And I sit down to a microwaved baked potato. I needed to eat something, and it was already 10pm. As I'm eating, I hear one of the cats puking on the stairs. It's Mikey... again. He doesn't take pills well, and the vet had given us some anti-nausia pills for him. He refused it in the morning, so now he was ....rather.. I was paying for it. I was past getting excited now. I just went back to eating, took my vitamins, got something to drink, then went upstairs to make sure the pups hadn't made it up there. They had.

There were two poop piles in the hallway and another in the bedroom. Small favors - they were actually solid, and didn't stain. There was more cat puke though. There was a piddle in the master bathroom - again, small favors that they piddled on linoleum and not the carpet. Clothes had been tossed about, but nothing damaged that I could see. So I go back and clean up everything, calling my husband again for another update. I don't regret him leaving for the weekend. He needed the vacation - I just wish all this chaos would have happened on another weekend.

I leave the non-bio messes for the morning, and try to go to bed - finally. But now the puppies want to bark and howl and cry and squeal. That lasted for about a half hour, then they finally got tired and went to sleep, only to start it again at 3am. At 5-ish, all of my husband's alarms start going off that he forgot to turn off in his absence. At 7 the puppies howl some more, so I let them out to go potty - to discover one of them had piddled in their cage. I wasn't suprised by this, and didn't scold them. Besides, I was too tired to care. I just cleaned it up and put them back. Then I went back to bed. But they kept howling, so I didn't really sleep - I just layed there til about 9. I get up, ready to grudgingly clean the rest of the messes made by the puppies, then maybe get some breakfast, only to find another poo pile in their cage, more yack on the stairs, and the stinch as strong as last night's. I lit some candles. It's helping.

I threw on some of my new hand-me-downs (the denim skirt is really cute and comfortable, too!), and walked the dogs for their morning pit-stop, cleaned up the last of the bio messes (though the 2 stains still won't come out yet), came back in, and began the daunting task of damage control. I took a break long enough to write this and calm down some.

I'm going out to eat some breakfast now.

Oh, and Deva - you may be the only one posting. I didn't send this to too many yet. :) I kinda wanted to get a feel for this blog thing first, before I terrorized too many people at once. heh. Call it the test group before Total Global Insanitization.

I still have my old MSN Groups habit of Ctrl+A, Ctrl+C before hitting the "Publish" button. How sad is that?

3 comments:

D.B. Echo said...

Such is the life of a Domestic Zookeeper. At least no one was trampled to death or had their arm torn off. And the snakes didn't get loose.

As I read this I was afraid you were about to describe coming home to a breaking & entering. So your adventures, while unfortunately timed, were nowhere near as bad as I expected.

You should add a Sitemeter to your site to see how many people are visiting, and where they are coming from, and why or how they are finding you. (Searches for "Cathy Baker Hee Haw" make up a surprising number of hits on my site.) You may have a lot of readers, most of whom are stunned speechless by your posts!

Domestic Zookeeper said...

Yeah, but I'm not that interested yet. In any case, the saga did continue just slightly. As I went out to lunch, my first choice (Cracker Barrel) was packed beyond fathoming, so I turned around and went to Souper Salad! As I approached the door, I was putting my keys away, they slipped, and stabbed my big toe. So now I have a chunk taken out of my toe. Thanks to the wonderful invention called Sandals. Oh well. At least I got to come home and FINALLY get a 2 and a half hour nap.

Erica said...

Cracker Barrell?? You have a CB near you? I'm so visiting. More than you care to have me visit! I love CB! Its all about the Barrell.

I need to figure out how to add more links to my sidebar so I can add this blog. Help Web Mistress!