Let’s have some happy puppy stories on this blog — enough sadness. My dog, Wacky Dog, was Good Dog and Crazeeeee Dog and he was awesome. So my Thursday Thirteen is in his honor…

And this post is in honor of Leanne, who is saying “No more Thursday Thirteen.” I am hoping she changes her mind. Because I love the Thursday Thirteen.

THIRTEEN HILARIOUS STORIES ABOUT WACKY DOG

13. One time a pig truck drove by us on the highway. An extremely large pig truck that was full of smelly, yummy, snorting pigs. You have never seen so much happy sniffing in your life as my dog that day, with his head hanging out the window, tongue out and drooling.

12. There was the time two girl dogs fell all over him at the park. No, I cannot go into details, but he was Happy Wacky Dog. Then there was the time I was throwing a tennis ball for him and a guy driving by yelled, “Sit, Ubu, sit! Good dog!” out the window at him, which cracked me up.

11. When we first got him my husband said NO DOG ON THE BED! Which explains why a week later there we were, napping happily with Wacky Dog snuggled between us. On his back. Legs waving in the air. Snoring. (This is my happiest dog memory.)

10. About a week after that, we couldn’t find the dog. Called for him, and up he popped from under a quilt on the floor, where he was completely covered up, snoozing. Woof!

9. I have beautiful memories of Wacky Dog and Wacky Girl, age two, racing laps around our kitchen, into the entryway, the dining room, and back into the kitchen. (This is Wacky Girl’s earliest memory, and how sweet is that?)

8. My son’s second-earliest memory is of his sister chasing him around, into the kitchen, the entryway, the dining room, and back into the kitchen, with Wacky Dog chasing both of them.

7. The Dog Who Loved the Game of Pounce. Wacky Dog liked to watch us from across the yard, and when we’d call him, he’d skulk, wiggle, hold as still as he could, for as long as he could stand it, and then finally SPRING across the yard and race to us. Pounce!

6. The dog loved to howl and never missed any opportunity to do so. He could bay like the hound dog he was. We’d have “Family Howls” where we’d all throw our heads back and bay. The neighbors, they did not know what to make of this.

5. There was the time he crawled through the window.

4. There was the time our housesitter and her husband did not know what to do with him — he wouldn’t stay in the house (without chewing it to bits), you couldn’t crate him, he wouldn’t stay in the back yard (why should he, when he could sit in the front yard instead?) and they couldn’t take him with them.

Solution: “We put his bed on the front porch, told him ‘Stay’ and ‘Good dog!’ and he was still there when we got home!” What a good puppy. He loved everyone and everyone loved him. “People aren’t strangers to him,” one of my girlfriends said, “just friends he hasn’t gotten to know yet.” I loved seeing kids’ reactions to him. They’d ask, really quietly, “Is it OK if I pet your dog?” then would love all over him while he wiggled and smiled. He was a smiley dog.

3. There was the time he rolled in a dead porcupine at the beach. Actually, this was not hilarious to me at all, and only hilarious to him for the first couple of sniff-happy moments. Yowch.

2. When one of us would call, “Who’s there?” he’d bark like a maniac. Ditto if you just said, “Who” or “There?” Also, he loved squirrels, birds and cats, and didn’t mind sharing his yard, but when I would tell him, “Git ’em!” when I saw a squirrel, he would go into this barking frenzy and chase it out of the yard. Then he’d strut.

1. This one isn’t hilarious, but I am happy knowing that he had almost ten great years with us. (We’re not sure how old he was, but think he was one or two when we got him.) It makes me smile thinking of all the good times we had.

Love you, Wacky Dog. Miss you.

Your Wacky Family

dear internet,

I miss my dog. The way he slept at the foot of my bed. His crazy Tourette’s-style barking that lasted daily from 3 or 4 in the afternoon until my husband got home at 6 or 7. The kids running to the window to see if their dad’s car had pulled up (at 3:30, 3:45, 4 p.m. — you get the idea) then telling the dog, “He’s still not here, Wacky Dog!” This used to crack me up. His soft nose. His soft ears. The way he’d nuzzle my hand. The way I had to look behind me before I pushed my office chair back, because nine times out of ten he was sleeping there and I didn’t want to roll over his foot or floppy ear.

I miss him all the time.

Please tell me this will get better because I feel like it won’t ever.

Our black cat, Wacky Cat One, has started greeting us at the front door when we get home, just like Wacky Dog used to. She’s never done this before. This makes it a little better. That, and everyone being so nice about the whole thing. I wasn’t the only one who was nuts about that dog.

WM

Wacky Dog is gone. I had to take him to the vet last night because he was sick again and they don’t know why. His exam was fine, his tests have been fine. And it was complicated by doggie senility (he was 11 or 12). And all of the crazy, wacky, kooky, awful and awesome stuff that made him both the best and the worst Wacky Dog in the whole world had gotten a lot worse. You couldn’t leave him outside and you couldn’t bring him inside. I keep thinking it wasn’t time. Because I wanted more time. But there is never a good time, we know that. He was not doing well. And he was my dog. As much as my husband and the kids claimed him, he was my dog. So I had to decide and I am miserable now.

Here are some pictures of him. I don’t want them full-frame, but you can go look at them.

I have no perspective on this. He was my best friend and always listened to my problems and even when I would get so frustrated and furious with him (for destroying our house, our yard, my sanity. for eating wood and puking it up. for peeing on my leg) he would still come up and nudge my hand. You know how dogs can never tell when you’re coming home? Since they don’t how to read a watch? I love that about dogs. Because you can be gone for five minutes or five weeks and you’re going to get the same exuberant greeting when you return. So what I am hoping is that all those times I yelled bad dog at him or was mean to him, that maybe he forgot that, too, the way he forgot that I’d always come back home after I left. Even if he remembered every slight, I know he forgave me.

I loved him always and I hated him occasionally and I am feeling so awful because of that. It was like taking care of a chronically ill relative. After awhile, you have caregiver fatigue and find it difficult to make decisions and then once you do, you regret it. Or you wish them gone (not dead, just gone) and then they’re gone and you feel like hell even more.

I have written about him so much.

His life in the witness protection program

His fan club

His ginormous fear of fireworks and bubblewrap

His dislike of Halloween costumes

His health problems

And more health problems…

His scabs

His need for pharmaceuticals

Songs for Our Dog (and Bong Hits for Jesus)

Do you love Portland, Oregon? I do not.

For my Thursday Thirteen, and for my husband, I present:

THIRTEEN REASONS PORTLAND IS LOUSY

1. Lousy rain. Nine months out of the year it rains. That’s as if, say, you got pregnant and it RAINED THE ENTIRE TIME. Now do you see what I mean? No wonder snow looks appealing to me. (I hear a chorus of voices chanting, “Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.” To you I say, cheerily, “Stay dry!”)

2. Lousy mold and mildew that go hand-in-hand with rain. Lousy bronchitis, asthma and sinus problems that go hand-in-hand with mold and mildew.

3. Lousy schools because of lousy tax structure/property tax fiascos.

4. Lousy lack of American Girl shops. (Wacky Girl’s complaint. She has already mentioned — several times — that Chicago has an American Girl shop. FYI. Cuz Iowa City is three hours from Chicago.) Also, lousy lack of kids on our block, and for several blocks around us. Also, lousy school transfer system that makes it super-easy to transfer out of your neighborhood school (we did). Thus, none of the neighborhood kids know each other, because no one goes to school together.

5. Lousy idiots: Libertarians (“The government needs to cut the fat!”), Republicans (“Fewer taxes for big business = Oregon Good!”), Democrats (“Oh. Geez. No, I don’t want to make anyone mad by asking for, uh, anything. I’ll just shut up now.”), Stinkin’ Dirty Hippies (“If you and Hockey God? Want to have kids? That’s cool and all, but I don’t think I should have to, y’know, pay for them with my taxes? I mean, I’m cool! It’s all good, right? It’s not that I don’t like kids…”), Stinkin’ Oregon Trail Pioneers (who didn’t actually COME OUT HERE ON THE OREGON TRAIL, MIND YOU, but act as if they did, thus: “My family pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and I don’t see why I should goddamn help you just because you can’t figure out how to find your ass with both hands.”)

6. Lousy lack of air-conditioning in most houses and numerous buildings here. People, it is true that in the “olden days” it was only warm here two or three days a year, but summers are frickin’ hot now. Once the monsoon season is over, that is.

7. Lousy frickin’ drug houses, frickin’ off-leash pitbulls, shepherds, boxers and various other breeds of dogs, frickin’ idiots who won’t stop meth production and leash their dogs. (Which is of more importance to me? I do not know. They both bug me equally. Both bite.)

8. Lousy service in every restaurant in town, except for a handful of the high-end places.

9. Lousy drivers and lousy, horrible traffic.

10. Lousy expensive houses. (Really shouldn’t include this one, because I want to cash out and blow. So I say, “Expensive houses good! Give me some money!”)

11. Lousy ocean that is too cold to swim in. Lousy traffic from the lousy casinos, to and from the coast. Lousy car wrecks up and down coast highway.

12. Lousy general lack of community and caring. Believe it or not, I am seen as one of the more caring members of our community. Yeah, I thought that was funny, too.

13. Lousy history of racism that goes back decades and continues here to this day, although people try to hush it up. Have had it with Portland.

You guys. Happy Valentine’s Day! All I want for a present is for my household to be healthy and happy again. We have not been happy here for a long time now. Wacky Girl has to miss the class party today; she’s still running a fever, pobrecita. (And just blew her nose, loudly, to accentuate the point. She has her head buried under a leopard-print comforter.)

Kisses to you and yours.

WM

Oregon, I love you Oregon. Your deserts — so near. Central Oregon — so lovely. Your beaches — from Portland, only two hours away! Your big mountains, also only two hours away! We can ski, snowshoe, swim and surf. Bring a wetsuit, though, and possibly the Coast Guard. It’s a little rough, our beach. (And I’m talking all of the Oregon coastline, until you hit far, far south.) It’s rocky and often rainy and windy and sunny and gorgeous, sometimes all at the same time.

I hate you, Oregon. Your lousy schools, your rude citizens… (It did not used to be this way, I’m speaking as a native here. However, a new transplant, a woman who moved here from the Bay Area with her pre-teen daughter, recently described Portland to me thusly: “Portland is like a really beautiful woman, and you think, ‘She seems nice!’ Then you find out she’s this rude, evil bitch.” I apologized because, you know, I Am Portland, Hear Me Roar, and told her, “I could not agree more.”)

… your hellish traffic, your mold and mildew that clings to our lungs and sinuses and makes my daughter’s asthma come back…

(We hate you, asthma. Bugger off.)…

…and brings my bronchitis back for its twice- or sometimes thrice-yearly appearance. Will it turn into bronchial pneumonia? Will it not? Will antibiotics work, or will my lungs kill me this time? Stay tuned.

Hockey God and the kids and I have been dreaming — in all honesty, it’s my dream, I’ve just dragged them into it, now — about moving away. We’re thinking Iowa, where his family lives.

“We come from Iowa/
Iowa!/
corn in every hand/
finest in the land/
we come from Iowa/
Iowa!/
That’s where the tall corn grows…”

Do we really need:
7 Bed, 2.25 Bath
3,400 Sq. Ft.
7.38 Acres

???

Do we?

Well hell yes we do, because it’s priced to sell at $269,900, and that is much less than you could get a fixer-upper for here. And “here” would include no acreage, no view, plus lousy schools, bitchy people, more rain than you could ever dream of, and possibly a drug house or two on the block. Because, you know. “The neighborhood is transitional! That’s why we can get you in at this price!” Love, Your Realtor.

We love Iowa. We’ve started job-hunting. The kids are already starting to pack.

More on this later… of to take Wacky Girl in for a doctor appointment. Asthma.

From the last few fortune cookies we’ve nibbled on here:

“Your mentality is practical and alert.”

“You will win favors when you expand your social circle.”

“Work on improving your exercise routine.”

“The softest voice sometimes carries the most power.”

“Children will play an important role in your life.”

On the news just now:

“Tough week for an Oklahoma family who is trying to relocate to Portland. Everything they owned has been stolen.”

Welcome to Portland — here’s a nice drug house for you to live next door to.

I called my girlfriend today. Let’s call her M, because that’s her name:

me: “Was it your birthday on the fifth?”

M: “Of October. It’ll be coming up again next October.”

me: “It’s not October?”

M: “And… Anna Nicole lives on.”

me: “Seriously. It’s not October? What the hell month is this?”

M: “Hon. It’s February.”

me: “Hmmm. So Happy Valentine’s!”

M: “Thanks, babe.”

My favorite spam I’ve ever received:

“You A Winner!”

No, YOU a winner!

I, I am NOT a winner for “Share the Love.” Dammit. Terrible Mother, you rock.

Back to my list: To my kids, everyday I say, “You’re the best.” For my Thursday Thirteen, here are “Thirteen Other Ways I Get Them Talkin'”:

May I start by saying, if you ever meet us in person, you’ll be thinking a better question is, “How do I get them to stop talking?” Nonetheless, I’ve heard that some of you have kids who clam up. Even Wacky Girl, for example, has been known to tell her father, Hockey God, “Ask mom, I already told her,” when he asks, “How was school?” (more…)