Saturday morning was horrible, horrible, horrible.

It all started at 4:30 a.m. when Ame dropped by to say hello to me while I slept. This wasn’t odd at all though as she likes to stay up late and play video games sometimes. The little tickle in my throat from the night before had blossomed quite a bit so I was feeling a little bad. Ame went to get me some water and cold & flu remedy, and, on her trip out to the kitchen for the glass of water, she discovered her computer was unexpectedly off and wouldn’t turn on again. Enter: Steve, the home sysadmin.

After doing the simple stuff, like checking the power cables and discharging the capacitors with no resolution, it was time to open it up. Oh, lovely, the only point of failure I’ve ever experienced on that particular board had failed again - I call it the northbridge fan, but who knows what it’s called. The problem was, there’s evidence this was not a new issue. I called it as a red herring at the moment and looked for something else, but I couldn’t find it so I shelved it and resolved to look at it later after more rest.

By then the dog was going nuts because we were both up and that’s the signal to go outside and potty. Remember, I’m still under the weather at this point, and for extra bonus points also hungover – we had Bobby over for dinner the night before and I had “some” wine. Ame was understandably upset her computer was toast, so after taking care of Snickers’ urinary needs, she wanted to toast up some Eggo waffles to chill out.

She popped in a couple frozen waffles into the toaster, and placed the remaining waffles back in the freezer. The act of closing the door caused a bottle of hazelnut booze to fall and smash on the floor. We were both in the kitchen, and one of the great things about owning a small dog, is they are your ever-vigilant shadow. The bottle smashed right next to him, simultaneously scaring the shit out of him and soaking him in hazelnut flavored alcohol.

He jets off, we’re all freaking out, I checked him for wounds, ask if Ame’s okay – thankfully they both are. It’s time for an emergency dog bath and a cleanup in aisle one. We wrestled the dog into the tub and I started cleaning up the mess – not without some difficulty though: I cut my hand on some broken glass, and had neglected to put a mop pad on the swiffer so that wasn’t so effective until Ame corrected me.

It’s 6 a.m. at this point and guess what? The animals were hungry! I was pretty rocked at this point, but this went off without any problem, and after taking Snickers down and up again with no incident – he even pooped as per his bowel schedule, all great. Ame, The Unlucky Beast, was ready to try again with waffles upon my return. We’re nervous that something else was going to happen. Things went fine, she had her waffles and we went to sleep.

That’s the account of the whirlwind of that accursed Saturday morning. Ugh.

The move is (mostly) over, and Ame and I are in our new place. I’m finally more free to begin posting again, especially since I’m definitely not dead.

It’s quite nice really, just full of all our old crap. Well, most of it at least. Some of it has since gone on to garbage heaven for various reasons. One of the reasons, of course, being that either of us couldn’t arsed to give a damn about some piece of junk we hadn’t seen for more than a year. I imagine there will be many more trips out to the new (oh boy!) dumpster at our new apartment.

Which, to be maximally irritating isn’t a dumpster at all! To be fair, the fact that it is not a dumpster doesn’t bother me. There exists but one trash compacter to service the whole apartment complex. It is more than capable to handle the load for… (numbers whizzing by in my head) 500 residents or so and their various trash needs. This one compacter is on the northeast corner of the community, while our apartment is on the southwest corner. There is no convenient Rubbermaid dolly, no intermediate dumpster, no trash pick-up service, no vacuum-tube trash-chute (which would be super-cool by the way – such a system would have to move hundreds of pounds of bulky goods reliably), just the long haul out the back 40.

The new place is on the top floor too, which we chose, by the way. At the old place, we were on the ground floor and the tenants above would make a fair bit of noise and thumping – the elephants we called them.  Now we don’t have to put up with that bullshit, and it’s our turn to be the elephants! A wonderful reason to not be up on the third floor though is Snickers is terrified of stairs. Whenever he has to go out, and boy howdy is that ever more often than I’d like it be, I have to carry him up and down so he can do his dog business. There are other pros to that con though. Chiefly among them:

Zombies.

Would you like to be on the ground floor when they attack? Thought so.

Ame and I don’t live in a house just yet, but we still have neighbors. Technically, they’re fellow tenants of the “apartment community,” but it’s all the same really. Just like the general population, most people fall below the radar and go unnoticed and undetected, but there are those that grab your attention and sometimes you feel bad for not having paid a nickel first for staring. I usually catch these exhibits in their natural habitat while I’m walking the dog.

In the next building over, either there’s a new resident or someone has a new boyfriend. Whatever the case, someone is the too-proud-to-realize-they’re-ridiculous owner of a tricked out black SUV. Whenever they pull into the parking spot, they, presumably to corral their booty-call, honk their horn to signal their arrival. The most horrible, slightly off-key, and off-meter rendition of the most famous phrase from the theme music of The Godfather blasts the parking lot. It must be hilarious to play Speak Softly Love because they keep doing it again and again.

Then there’s Blue Mustang Guy. I’ve figured out he lives on the third floor of my building, but Blue Mustang Guy pays a little extra per month for a covered parking spot for his tuned-up early-model blue Ford Mustang. He is out there nearly every day, during the day, tinkering with it, adjusting it, revving it up, and, while I’ve never seen him do it but wouldn’t put it past him, rubbing it with a diaper. One of these days I’m going to leave a gift as if it were from the car itself on his doorstep or on the hood. What is the gift? One of those freaky muffler attachments you install on the exhaust pipe so you can have sex with your car.

Ame and I live in a pretty nice apartment complex too. I don’t get why we have these kinds of freaks – especially car nuts. We’re moving in the next coming weeks, so we won’t see these freaks anymore, but I have no doubt we’ll be seeing all new ones.

Ame and I are hosting a Dungeons & Dragons game at our place with a bunch of people that I’ve known through the years – all from my alma mater. I’ve mentioned Chad and Bobby before, but Dave and Matt and their wives have joined in as well.

I haven’t played or DM’d in awhile, so it’s a lot of fun. I’m running a 4th edition home-brew campaign and so far, the players are really liking it. Ame started off as the Dungeon Master, but I have since taken over duties and made the campaign my own.

The first week, Ame and I thought Snickers would be a big butthole and get in the way. In reality, he caused the least amount of trouble and people spilled their drinks on the floor at least three times. Eris wanted nothing to do with the whole group and sulked in the furthest corner she could find.

Since then, it’s been hard to get people together due to real life getting in the way, even when we try to hold it on Saturday. So far Ame, Chad, and Dave and his wife Traci are the core members. Matt and his wife have since dropped, not because they don’t do D&D, but they’ve moved quite far away to be practical.

This last session though was a blast: Under cover of darkness, my players infiltrated (ala Rambo: First Blood Part 2) and torched the bandit camp west of town and discovered the trapped, secret vault of treasure. Chad’s character, a druid named Elgar, brazenly walked into the main building and threw a Molotov cocktail at the guards and caught them all on fire. As that fire quickly spread, Traci’s cleric, Sam, blocked the door and wailed on them as they vainly attempted to escape.  Ame (Orianna) and Dave (Lyfe) have just discovered the vault of treasure that I’ve yet to roll up. They should hope I roll well!

These characters and players (except Chad) are all still new, so this whole bit of adventure should push them over the top to level 2. I hope they don’t find the treasure disappointing though – they are level 1 still after all. It shouldn’t too bad though, they’re all gamers (except Traci), so they should understand a level 1 treasure might not be the best, but should only get better.

Snickers is a loveable dog, he really is. He just does things that are gross. Most notably, he eats his own and the cat’s poop. Whenever I take him outside to do his doggie-business, it’s a race to the finish with him. The apartment complex management puts out little doodie kiosks from which cheap plastic bags are dispensed, complete with trash cans at their base after business has concluded. I almost have to dive in for the kill with one of these flimsy bags to get to the poop before the dog does.

This is ridiculous!

Why should I have to fight the dog for his poop. Obviously I’m only reinforcing the behavior by acting so excitable when he poops. This tells him that the poop is worth something, and, being a dog, he then must have to have it more than anyone else! He performs, what I call the poop-whirlwind. Snickers doesn’t poop in one place. He’ll pop a squat and then meander around, still in a squatting position. This poop-whirlwind allows him to lay a circular pattern of droppings and continue to poop, all while he eats it. To bolster the technique’s effectiveness, he spins with his butt away from me so I cannot see what he leaves, if anything. I have to assume he has, so I investigate. All the while he has already (*) left another prize for himself in which he will happily partake.

Fortunately for me, I firmly believe my sense of sight is better than this poor dog’s sense of smell – and I wear glasses. It’s sad though really. I think it’s an effect of his upbringing, and it’s all here and the links therefrom. Ame attributes his poop-eating habit to the conditions of his life before living with us, but I know better: He’s a dog. I digress, but I can see six feet away, even in the dark, better than he can sniff out his quarry from mere inches.

The best is when I defeat him and get all the nuggets he leaves. Bad is when I know he beats me to one or more. The worst is when I’m not sure if he gets any or not. I shiver in disgust as I write this, but would you want a dog with maybe-poop on his tongue? At least when I know he gets one I know to tell Ame, “don’t let the dog lick you!” Sometimes she’ll ask me and all I can say is “I dunno…”

Another similar and fun (read: gross) thing he does is eats the cat’s poop. Eris poops in a litter-box like most indoor cats, and when nobody’s looking and the laundry room is accessible, Snickers usually pilfers some litter-covered poop. The latest few times I’ve caught him, he just digs out the turds and places them in cachés. For later I guess? Who knows…

* It was at this point – not before, no no! – I realized I was making a post all about a dog who eats his own shit. Not in the planning phases, not in the ‘twinkle-in-my-eye’ phase… No. During.