The other white meat

Sunday evening, I made carpaccio for M and me for dinner. I know, making carpaccio is a little like dry cleaning...you don't really DO anything, you just display it real nice. Nonetheless, M and I had a lovely supper of it with arugula, cherry tomato salad with fresh Parmesan shavings.

We were watching the end of the first (and only comprehensible) Pirates of the Caribbean movie with the kids. They were eating macaroni and cheese out of the box. They weren't eating it out of the box, but it was the variety that comes in a box. Ew. Fluorescent orange cheese is wrong wrong wrong. I've been trying to convert the kids to the frozen variety, made with real milk, real cheese and of a natural hue, but no go.

Anyway, the kids were sitting at the fireplace, their designated eating zone outside of the kitchen, and M and I were hunched over our plates. In case you're wondering about my parenting skills, and let's be honest, you should be, we only eat in front of the TV on Fridays and Sundays. Friday night is movie night, and it's a fun treat to eat in the family room (kids on the hearth only) and we eat a fun dinner followed by popcorn during the movie. However, M and I are un-fun parents, and there is a bedtime, even on Fridays. So, if the movie goes long, or we get a late start, the movie has to be continued on Sunday. Not Saturdays, because that's when M and I try to go out. So, to bring you back up to date, it's Sunday, because the first Pirates movie is like 10 hours long when broadcast on ABC Family with commercials, even if we fast forward through them.

Cat is sitting outside the door. He's chewing on something. A closer look reveals a baby squirrel. Oh, fantastic. Squirrel carpaccio. Ugh. My appetite sank down to Davy Jones' Locker. I go outside to find that Cat, has in fact, gone all Jeffrey Dahmer on Sunday: 2 snakes, a blue jay, and aforementioned squirrel.

This is what happens when he manages to get his bell collar off. Death, dismemberment. (Actually, I don't think the snakes can be dismembered, since they have no, um, members.)

What the hell? (In case you're wondering--that's a tail. Apparently, the only inedible part of a squirrel.)

We feed the cat. Actual cat food. From a bag and/or a can. A lot. Good, healthy food and water, and the occasional leftover meat from dinner. We have provided a reasonably psychosis-free environment for the cat. In short, as parents, we have done nothing specific to raise a murderous freak. Yet, he killed representatives from the major animal kingdoms: reptile, bird and mammal. Clooney was looking mighty nervous.

That's the part that's so disturbing--the cat is killing for the hell of it. We have no assurance that he won't turn against us! Despite our affections, hospitality and substantial food budget. We've failed as cat parents! Right now, our kids seem normal-ish. But what if they decide that they're more like their feline pet than their canine pet? What if they're not all sweet and loyal and earnest, but instead grow up to be sadistic indifferent raw-squirrel eaters?

This is not good precedent. That's all I'm saying.

They're BAAAAACK

Like the swallows to Capistrano, our swallows have returned to our chimney. Actually, I found out they're swifts, not swallows. A subtle difference probably only noticed by swallows, swifts, and REALLY observant bird watchers. This is a chimney swift:

And this is a swallow:

(Don't those swallows look a little pissed about being mistaken for swifts?!)
So, I was supposed to call the chimney sweep last year after the swallows left their nest and headed on their migratory route to Peru. But, you know what often slips your mind in the day to day chaos of life?
Calling the chimney sweep.
To be fair, if I were, say Mary Poppins, or a Dickensian waif, or maybe even some kind of post-industrial revolution activist, calling the chimney sweep would have been MUCH higher on the list. But when the birds aren't ACTUALLY in the chimney chirping their heads off, it's easy to forget that they'll return. Last week, the mother bird, who apparently is a very clumsy nest builder, (appropriately, she found OUR house) fell down the chimney three times. Yes. Three times. Three times, my kids and/or husband came to me and said, "there's a bird in the house. Go get it."

By the time I get to the bird, it has 1) fallen down a chimney 2) landed in a foreign place where windows masquerade as exits 3) been stared at by small, noisy people and 4) been sniffed by a dog, which probably in bird instinct seems a lot being inspected for dinner. (Fortunately, Cat has not been in the house for these incidents.) The little bird is shaking and when I pick it up, its little heart is on the brink of exploding. I take it outside (check for Cat) and wait for the little critter to emotionally regroup and fly off.
When drunk mama bird finally gets her nest built, she'll lay eggs and then we'll have squawking babies in the chimney. They are so loud, it's like having a chorus of pissed off squeak toys in your chimney. At dusk and dawn when mama feeds them, they flutter and compete for her food. It strongly resembles the chaos on our side of the chimney with yelling and competition for attention.

Which prompts me to hope WE don't disturb the birdies: can't you just see mama bird rolling her eyes? "JESUS, people. I just got these noisy whelps down for a nap and you're down there in the middle of the day raising all kinds of hell. Help a mama out and shut it!" So, when mama fell down the chimney for the final time, I called the chimney sweep. Who is coming today. I'll probably be disappointed when it's a two-toother from the country instead of Dick Van Dyke, but whatevs. BUT here's the real problem. While "researching" for this blog, I came across this:

Chimney Swifts are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1916. Nests, eggs and birds cannot be removed from chimneys. However, if you see them around your chimney, be sure to close the damper to prevent them from entering your house.Chimney Swifts are fascinating and extremely beneficial birds, even though their sounds are not music to everyone's ears. Two parents and their noisy young will consume more than 12,000 flying insect pests every day. Unfortunately their numbers are in decline due to loss of habitat-first large hollow trees, and now open and large masonry chimneys.

I suspect that the Alabamian two toother is probably pretty soft on the enforcement of the 1916 Migratory Bird Treaty Act, but this leaves me with a bit of a moral dilemma, no?
The moral dilemma has an element of karma thrown in there, too: if I evict drunk mama and her family, will I be attacked by 12,000 more mosquitoes every time I go out to the pool? But, crap. The guy is probably on his way! What to do?! What to do?!? Do I sit and listen to screaming birds for the entire rest of the summer? Do I oust a threatened and beneficial migratory bird species? ACK! I can't take the pressure. I think I should just close the flue and hope for the best. I'm setting up a poll. Vote on the birds' fate. This will have the ancillary benefit of seeing just HOW many readers I've lost since my hiatus.

What happens at the kennel stays at the kennel

Attention, burglars: we'll be out of town for Mardi Gras this year. So, I had to make reservations at the dogtel for Clooney. Until dogs are allowed on cruises, he is relegated to shore. Holland America does not like the idea of dog poo on their decks, I guess.

Clooney has traditionally stayed at the vet's office. However, when we pick him up, it always seems like he's been on a terrible bender: he's got nasty junk in his eyes, and he smells like his own pee, and basically I feel like I'm picking him up in the middle of the worst hangover of his life.

I just can't get behind that. I feel terrible that he's been spending an entire day barking his head off while trapped in a little crate. It's unpleasant. And maybe it's not his pee that he smells of--maybe it's from the crate above him--and that's just wrong. NOBODY (except those freaks on HBO) want to be pee'd on without consent. That's just gross.

So, I ask around for suggestions. Of course, CC has a dog. And CC's dog stays at the pet motel. I call the pet motel, and they offer 2 services: Indoor/Outdoor facility and suites.

First, their Indoor/Outdoor option is nearly 2x as much money as the vet's rent-a-box. But, pweshus wittle cwoonsey will get his own bed, and a doggie door to the outside whenever he wants/needs to go. Seems humane. The indoors are heated and cooled to 72 degrees. Which is good, since he gets cold easily.

The Dog Suite option cracks me up. It is more than 3x the vet's rent-a-box, but get this--features human day bed, real plasma TV, and a phone jack with speaker phone so that humans can check on their canine campers. This option provides same doggie door access to the outdoors and 4x/day human interaction.

First of all, if I'm the human interactor, I'm a little bitter that the dog is livin' in the lap o' luxury and I'm wearing doggie themed scrubs and am picking up his crap. Maybe the tech just goes in and watches TV with the dog. Maybe there's playtime. Who knows? It's a freaking dog.

But, then I got to thinking that maybe there's doggie pay per view. Wouldn't it be hilarious if you go to check out Rover and he's run up a HUGE ppv bill? A combination of bad animal flicks like The Chipmunks (a movie about potential food items) and Marmaduke (a buddy flick) and Marley and Me (a doggie tearjerker) and Dog PORN?!?

I love it. I could sit here all day and think of dog porn movie titles, but for G rated purposes, one is already an ACTUAL movie "Cats and Dogs 2: The Revenge of Kitty Galore." Imagine Rover guiltily looking out the window to see if anyone's watching, stepping on the red button on the remote that looks like a tail, and kickin' back with a rawhide treat watching some doggie love.

I googled dog sex, to see if I could find something humorous to post to this article, but now simply just want to wash my eyes. I did find this, however, which tickles my funny bone:

Yes, that is a white fluffy dog humping a doggie sex toy. Again, I find myself imagining the human being working for the company that makes these toys. Picture a Chinese factory worker, getting paid some horrifyingly small amount to make these dogs. "I wonder where these beautiful toys wind up," he asks himself. "Perhaps they are toys for wonderfully happy children." "Or maybe, they are virtual companions for disabled people."

Nope, Sorry. The toxic fumes you inhale every day which are probably going to kill you, Xi, for which you are chained to the assembly line and get paid a nickel and a half per day under inhumane conditions with repetitive motion and no light is to build a toy for Americans' dogs to hump. Bummer.

ANYPOODLES, poor Clooney The Mistreated is getting basic services only. No sex doll, no cable porn. He's just gonna have to ogle the chihuahua in the dog run next door.

Crazy like a fox

I took Clooney to the vet yesterday. He's been licking and chewing at his skin for weeks now, and it's to the point that he's driven to distraction by itching.

I didn't go to the regular vet. The regular vet is the guy who gives rabies shots, flea repellent, heart worm prevention. The regular vet is the guy who has giant posters of anatomical cross sections illustrating cat's urinary systems and dog's inner ear. The regular vet has Milk Bones in a jar and rewards Fido for a nice, passive inspection process. The regular vet has an office with technicians and is, you know, regular.

I went to Dr. Apocalypse. Dr. Smoke and Mirrors, Dr. Magic Wand, Dr. Pixie Dust. Dr. Pixie Dust has NO pharmaceutical-sponsored diagrams. Dr. PD has a bag of Purina with a skull and crossbones drawn on it. Dr. PD has a Milk Bone Box with the nuclear waste icon. Dr. PD's office is like going into a palm reader's lair. Walking through the door suspends all disbelief. Walking through the door transfixes you, engages you, and absolutely renders everything you hear in that examination room compelling, factual and completely plausible. Despite the fact that there's a 50-50 chance Dr. Pixie Dust is a quack.

A few things about Dr. PD--he is an actual DVM. He got his degree at Auburn. (Which, for the record, has an excellent animal health program) He is by and large sane in his appearance. It's what he says that is alternately paranoid bat-shit crazy and completely and totally true.

In his examination room, I listen to what he has to say (and he DOES have a lot to say) and I think about the world, the toxins humans pour into it every day, and the new "science" of food. Then, I pay my bill, go outside and see the bright, shining light of day, and think, "nah. That was nuts."

We first visited Dr. PD when we got Clooney. He gave us his lecture on the four horsemen of the Apocalypse: milk, wheat, soy and corn. Not what you were expecting, eh? He explained that these products should not be in dog food, and are inserted in various amounts to add volume cheaply. These foods, he very rationally told us, are toxic to dogs, and to humans (a big leap, yes. But WAY beyond the purview of this blog right now) and that we need to feed the dog limited ingredient foods developed by such noteworthy dog-food companies as Dick Van Patten (of Eight is Enough. I wish I were making this up.) These food brands include such non-traditional combinations as salmon and sweet potato, bison and potato, duck and rice, elk and sweet potato.

I swear to God, every time I bought that bag of food, I laughed. In what Universe was a 12 pound dog, with only a faint genetic wisp of wolf left in his DNA meant to eat ELK? I mean is there anything funnier than the image of Clooney, long (well-maintained) hair blowing in the breeze like Fabio, chasing down a herd of elk, culling out the weak, and bringing one down with a swift leap and fierce bite to the throat?

Honestly, I am laughing now, just describing it.

After a while, Clooney grew bored? Ill? Intolerant? to the Dick Van Patten food. I went back and bought an alternate brand, whose name I can never recall, but whose bag looks much like a tampon/Masengill ad. The packaging offers water color renderings of open prairies, deer and bear standing harmoniously together, fish jumping in the stream. It's like Snow White's menstrual cycle, illustrated. Clooney ate this brand with enthusiasm for weeks.

But then. The Itch.

Poor Clooney. He has been itchy and licky and miserable. Without exaggeration, he will sit and lick his feet (a notorious sign of allergy or skin irritation) for more than an hour at a time. I'm thinking to myself, I'm feeding the Masengill food, what more could be wrong with this poor dog? I then started reading about environmental allergens. Did you know that some dogs are allergic to GRASS?

OK. That does make the fantasy of Clooney hunting the elk even more comedic. Now he is sneezing uncontrollably as he's stalking the herd.

Maybe Clooney, in all the generations of tinkering that have been done to his genes, suffers from grass allergy. What the hell, Dr. PD probably knows about this.

I go in to Dr. PD. Without examining the dog, he begins his diatribe. I intervene early, not wanting to listen to the litany of ailments caused by corn gluten. (And there is a list, by the way.) I proudly announce that I feed my dog Masengill dog food, fresh non-municipal water, offer him no treats or human food, and bathe him only in unscented, unperfumed oatmeal based baby shampoos.

AHA! I must be the perfect client for Dr. PD! I think for SURE I am going to get a quick rundown of what to do and be out the door.

Wrong. He begins to tell me about the cellular process of allergy. About mast cells, and histamines and leukotrienes, and nano-charges of cells. I start to have flashbacks to our first visit. We had this little puppy and got a huge lecture about food, and the dog fell asleep, and M swears he fell into a corn-gluten-induced coma. And we all left the office shaking our heads and thinking this guy was a nut job. Until we bought conventional, non-Masengill brand dog food and the dog barfed non-stop for a week, developed a yeast infection in his ear, and developed malaise unlike any puppy should have. We tried the Dick Van Patten stuff within a week, and voila! Perfect Puppy. Crap. Hate it when the nutjob is right.

So, back to the current appointment. I blacked out for a while during the part about nanovolts of human cells and free radicals. But then he said something that started to resonate: this has been the worst allergy summer for humans and animals in the past 15 years. (This is documented fact, per the news) during the oil spill, hundreds of thousands of gallons of dispersant were sprayed over the gulf. This highly volatile dispersant, in Dr. PD's opinion, evaporated readily, was absorbed into the high humidity air over Mobile and, at the molecular level, has created poor air quality and stimulated everyone's allergy responses.

OK. STOP. I know. Bazillions of quantity of air in the world. Relatively small quantity of toxic crap. True. I get it. But, pollen levels are unusually low this year. AND, when my parents came, my mother's allergies went into hyperdrive. AND, government air quality standards have consistently identified Mobile's air as fair to poor all summer. AND, who trusts the government or BP to tell us what REALLY went on this summer? Perhaps the dispersants are the equivalent of thousands of poorly-maintained diesel trucks driving around? I'm just saying. It's possible right?

In the end, Dr PD suggested I make Clooney home cooked meals for 5 days to see if the licking stops. If the licking stops, we can start examining the food for triggers to the itching. If the licking doesn't stop, we can try a drug for 5 days to see if the licking is externally caused. If the licking stops then, we wait for the heat and humidity to die down along with the quantity of pollutants in the air.

Oh, fine. You're right. In the light of day, this all sounds like nonsense and insanity. It's like recounting a dream you had to some one and you realize that describing a monkey in a wizarding outfit offering you a telephone made of cheez-its really doesn't do justice to the strangeness of the dream, but instead makes you sound like a raving lunatic. I'm just saying.

If the dog stops licking, I'm going to let you know.

Because Dr. PD will be promoted to Grand Poobah of the Pixie Dust and I will begin following his advice on EVERYTHING. Except maybe fluoride. Fluoride HAS to be good for you, right? Seriously. Doesn't it? Right?

For the birds

New house rules: if you have a place to sleep, you sleep in it.

Last night, the usual suspects paraded through my sleep. S came and got me to cuddle with him. This was around midnight. Then, at 1:15, the most horrible sound: like animals pacing? Burglars burgling? Serial killers sharpening axes? I was awakened, and tiptoed out to the hallway. Not to worry, though, because apparently, if a serial killer makes the slightest sound, S will instantaneously wake, rise, and greet him in the hallway with his blankie as his only defense.

S was already in the hall when I got there. We looked around, dumbly, wondering what had brought us here. Suddenly, one of our brown bellied barn swallows ( although some googling of images suggests we might have the slightly rarer Northern Rough Wing variety. But, honestly, what right minded northerner would roost here? Wait a minute...) rose from behind the chair, flapping, flopping, floundering into the wall, the ceiling, the light fixture, the window, drunken. S/he was the most recent BBBSwallow of the week. We have had either the same uncoordinated visitor, or the entire extended family over the past months.

Finally, he ran out of gas and collapsed in a heap of Legos. (not the most comfortable place to collapse, I think) I picked him up, and went downstairs to release him out into the sweltering night. As I opened the front door, Cat came running from across the street. Of course Cat makes it impossible to set Bird free.

I learned this little nugget LAST BBBSwallow season. One of the babies fell through the chimney (which is where their nest is) and into the house. Wrongly, I assumed he could fly. I cradled him, cooed over him, and delicately took him outside to set him free. I gently tossed my palm skyward, and instead of launching into the peculiar, angular flight of the swallow, he kinda flopped a little. Cat swooped out of nowhere, and Baby Bird was No More.

Despite the late/early hour, I did not want Bird to die. I let Cat in the house, closed the door, went back outside and tossed my palm gently skyward. BBBSwallow launched and rose into the black night like a bat. I turned, went inside, tracked down Cat, picked him up and then put him out into the inky night.

I returned upstairs to wash my hands of avian flu and cat scratch fever and S was waiting for me. He could not go back to sleep after the BBBSwallow incident, and required cuddles. I cuddled, cradled, and cooed him back to sleep. I returned to my own bed, sweet bed, and fell asleep again.

At 4:30, S was back. Wanting to play Wii. 4:30 is NOT an appropriate time to play Wii. Or to be in my room. Or to be conscious in any way. I went BACK to his bed, to soothe and cuddle, though I accidentally nearly crushed Clooney. Somehow Clooney had already been delivered to S's bed. I know S had to have crept in and dognapped him from his cushion, because Clooney is too small to jump up onto S's bed. So, there we were, a non-sleeping threesome. The sky's first lights were slicing into the room, and I knew I was doomed: there really is a limit to how many times I can ask my body to go to sleep in one night.

Eventually, E could be heard karate fighting his invisible demons, and so S went off to find his brother, a companion in Wii.

I toddled off one last time to bed, this time in the well lit hall. I left birds and boys and dogs behind me, and hunkered down under the nice cool covers of my own bed.

And fell asleep one last time for the night.