Dangerspouse Rides Again

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Garage - Track




Feb. 18, 2004 - 5:09 p.m.

I'd like to post a brief entry about my dog's shit. Normally I wouldn't, being a sensitive, tasteful man. But normally my dog doesn't have such pretty shit.

I think I mentioned in an earlier missive about my Pembroke Welsh Corgi "Casey". (tuff517 has a cute pic of a Corgi pup on her page today. Can you see why we had to bring one home?) If you saw any of the Westminster Dog Show, either this year or last year, a Pembroke Corgi won the Best of Herding Group. It was the little tailess thing that could have fit entirely inside the ear of the winning Newfoundland.

Anyway, Casey's a great dog. He has a serious butt fetish, probably learned from his father. I know all dogs do, but Casey really takes it to another level. I'll spare you all the details but one: our cat. Casey and Gloria came home to us the same day, almost identical looking golf ball sized balls of fluff. They're the same color, and almost the same size. The only real difference is that the cat has a tail. And is smarter. But they think they are siblings; they sleep together, eat next to each other, chase each other. The cat gives Casey mice. Casey gives the cat cunnilingus.

Well, that's probably not exactly true. More to the point, it's analingus. Constant analingus.

The cat, after two years of having a nose and flitting tongue constantly applied to her bomb bay doors, has either grown resigned to it, or grown to enjoy it. Either way, she is often seen strolling around the house just on two front paws, her entire back end lifted into the air by a corgi snout crammed as far as an unlubricated snout can go up it.

When she leaves, he comes over and licks my face. Mmmmm. Cat butt breath.

Man's best friend.

Anyway, last night I was making dinner. I had a couple of smoked ham hocks I'd been soaking since the day before, and I decided to build a black bean soup around them. So I also soaked a pound of dried beans, then a few hours later started the sofrito. A sofrito is a base of spices used in a lot of cuisines, and in this case consisted of lots of extra virgin olive oil, scallions, yellow onion, garlic, green bell pepper, oregano and a few other spices, and cider vinegar. This all simmers for a bit to meld the flavors, then you add the whole shebang to the soaking beans and hocks. That mess simmers for a week and a half, and viola!, Cuisine Cubano. Or Anglo-Hispanico, anyway. It's all good.

By 3 o'clock the sofrito was simmering along nicely, which was a feat in itself considering I was also engaged in a spirited game of "Spikey Ball" at the same time. "Spikey Ball" is Casey's favorite game, and woe betide the person who will not play it with him when he's in the mood. The game basically revolves around me (or anyone) trying to kick a spikey green rubber squeeky-ball past Casey while he plays goalie in the doorway between our living room and kitchen. We call him "Corgi Schwab" when he does this, after the NJ Devil's backup goalie Corey Schwab. It's kismet, I tell you. The dog gets really excited when he stops the ball from getting past him, and equally excited if one gets by, since that means he gets to chase it down the hall. Either way, he always trots it over and deposits it at our feet. And then barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks and barks until you kick it again. Or until we shoot him. Which may not be long in coming after yesterday.

So there I stood chopping sofrito ingredients in the kitchen, every few stokes stopping to boot a sqeeking green ball past a yapping corgi. A pan of hot olive oil to the left of my cutting board burbled as I added to the mix.

One of the few things I own that anyone should be jealous of is professional cookware. Not anything like "All-Clad" or any of those other boutique lines that cost as much - and look better than - a Faberge egg. I'm talking about cookware that's used in professional kitchens. I was a working chef in a previous life, and got used to shopping at restaurant supply stores at an early age. I still do, even though I'm not in the business anymore. While the aesthetics of real cookware may pale a bit in comparison to Calphalon, et al, the cost is often a third of those pedigreed lines. And the cooking properties are the same, if not better. I highly recommend anyone looking to stock their kitchen to shop at these places rather than Swankydale's.

Why that little tidbit? (Or "tit-bit", to use the original phrase. And I do.) Well. NewWifey(tm) knows how proud I am of my cookware, so shortly after we moved in to Dangerhouse one of the first projects she undertook was to build a wire latticework that she affixed to a wall of our kitchen. Then she inserted "S" hooks into the hang-holes of the handles all my pots and pans, and hung them artfully all along the wire frame. It's brilliant! And very handy, let me tell you. Just reach over and grab a pan - no more banging and clanging through cabinets.

The only minor inconvenience is that the "S" hooks stay on the handles of some of the pots, since the diameter does not allow them to release easily. This is not really a factor when cooking - the hooks can even go into the oven. But you do have to be aware of them.

Why do you have to be aware of them?

You have to be aware of them because if you are wearing a billowing New Jersey Devils Martin Brodeur #30 replica hockey jersey and twirling around to kick at a spikey rubber toy so that the dwarf herding dog who used to be such a cute little ball of fluff will shut the fuck up already! and you are only inches from the pan with the "S" hook that has boiling oil and onions and vinegar, well....your shirt might snag the "S" hook and you will suddenly launch a Medieval defense against the troops trying to scale your castle walls.

And that's exactly what happened.

I was standing at the stove, stirring idley and daydreaming how I'd spend the MegaMillions lottery I was going to win that night. The dog dropped Spikey Ball behind my right foot, backed up into the doorway, and commenced yapping. I put the wooden spoon down - again - and turned quickly, hoping to kick the ball by him before he got set, so it would take him a few seconds longer to retrieve it. A few seconds where I'd have the luxury of taking two uninterrupted breaths in a row before kicking the ball again.

This time though....

As I wheeled around, I felt a heavy tug on my left sleeve. I should have stopped, but the rotational momentum of 220 pounds of man flesh will not be denied and I continued full circle. A sudden lessening of tension on my sleeve, and then -

CRASH...SPLATTTT!!

The "S" hook had latched onto me as I spun, and the entire pan full of boiling olive oil got frisbee'd off the stove and onto the floor. Whooooaaa! Get back! Somehow, some inner core of my Animal Brain over-rode whatever veneer of evolution I had pasted over it, and without thinking my muscles contracted, rebounded and contorted me away from the spray of molten death. I landed on the edge of one heel, flailing diagonally into our glass topped kitchen table, which thankfully stayed anchored and intact. The dog, meanwhile, was far enough away in the doorway to be in danger. But he immediately bolted over to investigate.

Fortunately, I can't afford to heat the house adequately. The floor was it's usual ice rink temperature, and the oil cooled down almost immediately as it spread out. So when Casey reached the edge and gave an exploratory lick, his tongue did not swell up to fill his entire mouth cavity. In fact, he liked it - he really, really liked it!

Now, I'm not the most tidy of Dangerspouses. But even I would not go so far as to leave an Exxon Valdiz slick on my kitchen floor...at least while I was living with someone else, anyway. So I dutifully went to the hall closet for a mop and cleanser supplies. When I returned, what did I find but that the corgi had licked up a good third of the mess already! And was still going strong.

Well, who am I to impede nature's progress? If the dog wanted a bit of Spanish in his diet, I can certaily understand that. We all like a little variety. I let him chow down.

He ate the WHOLE slick. Spices and all. I mean folks, we're talking seven large scallions, two medium sized sliced onions, chili flakes, vinegar...and probably close to a full cup of oil.

Not even a burp.

The floor was still a bit tacky in spots, so I mopped anyway. But overall, he did a great job. He downed an entire bowlfull of water, and I went and started a fresh batch of sofrito.

Fast forward to today, 1pm. Casey is dancing on his hind legs, the tips of his ears turning yellow. That's his secret signal to me that he wants to go walkies. So I bundled up like Randy from 'A Christmas Story' and we headed out onto the tundra.

Sure enough, he wasn't kidding. Every ten feet, lift the leg. Every 20 yards, squat. For a mile and a half. His entire body only displaces maybe a cubic foot of volume, but 90 percent of that is waste material. I'm convinced he has no organs other than a bladder and a colon. A huge colon.

We soldiered on.

I'm normally a study in nonchelance when my dog is taking a dump 4 inches from my Nikes. It's not that I don't care. It's just that if one of my neighbors looks out their window and spots Casey arched over, extruding a massive right at the base of their mailbox, I don't want them to think "Good Lord! Look at that little dog depositing a Shuttle booster rocket on our lawn! I can't believe the guy walking him doesn't clean it up!" Instead, I'm hoping that once they see my carefully practiced blank expression they'll think, 'Oh my, that man is so lost in thought that he doesn't even notice his little dog has just made a new ornament on my car hood! Oh well...."

However, this time it was hard NOT to notice.

On his last dump of the walk, right in front of our steps, his shit was bright green.

Not faded, drab, olive green like poop sometimes gets if you eat enough pennies (don't ask). I'm talking NEON green. (Yes, I could have found a different pic. No, I didn't want to.) Yup, that's exactly the hue that emerged from his little corgie asshole.

I couldn't figure it out at first, so I did something that I usually avoid at all costs: I knelt down for a closer look. Even that view didn't clear the mystery up, so I grabbed a frozen stick and did a bit of dissection. And it turns out it really wasn't much of a mystery after all. What I was basically looking at was a half pound of compacted scallions, bathed in an olive oil sheath that was refracting the light perfectly in the green spectrum. Once I broke the surface tension, the effect was lost and I was nose-to-stool with your typical Baby Ruth.

The dog, meanwhile, became very agitated that someone was muscling in on his poop. Dogs are funny that way. It's theirs not until it leaves their bodies, but for all time. So when it looked like I was about to abscond with his irreplaceable intestinal cargo in my nose, he had to beat me to it. No sooner did I attack his precious feces with the stick and make my diagnosis than he swooped in and devoured the entire pile! Whoosh! Guano in 60 seconds.

What could I do? Other than fight the urge to retch, I mean. We continued up the steps to the front door and I unhooked his leash.

My dog loves me. LOVES me. And never is his love so profound as when I unhook the tether that links us after a walk, and he is free to gambol and cavort on his own again. The first thing he does after *every* walk is jump on me until I sit down. And then he climbs on my lap and licks my face in gratitude. Today is no exception.

Casey has just eaten a pile of bright green sofrito shit.

Do you know what his licks smelled/tasted like as they slobbered all over my face this afternoon?

Do you?

Yup.

.

.

Cat butt.

Thank god.

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