CHARLIE DIPODOMYS

Once upon a time there was a young woman (note: I did not use the term "lady" due to the suspicion that I never was a Lady.) who attended the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa.
She met and fell in love with a young man who was a psychology major. (Actually he was a chemistry major when she met him, but he was doing so poorly in p-chem that he changed his major.)(Or maybe it was Inorganic Chem.)(That was the year they met, and the year the young woman took 14 hours of classes and failed 7 hours and was asked to leave Modern Dance before she failed that as well.) (Well there were a lot of parties and a lot of time spent in the Student Union instead of class.)

Anyway one day in the Pysch building a student rushed past them carrying a flower pot with his hand over the top. The woman asked what it was and was told it was a Kangaroo Rat they had tried to use in an experiment gone bad and now they didn't want the rat and he was nasty and unfriendly and so they were going to flush him (or her-- who could get close enough to tell) down the Loo.

AAAAAIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

So the young woman said oh no no I'll take him! And so we (me and the young man who is now my spouse) became the proud owners of one Kangaroo Rat, one HUGE cage with about 6" of sand in the bottom, a flowerpot, and a bag of sunflower seeds.

Meet Charlie Dipodomys.

Unfortunately the young woman lived in the dorm where Kangaroo Rats were not allowed. So John took all the stuff and moved Charlie into his kitchen in his off-campus rooms.

And here he became a problem child. Charlie, we learned, was nocturnal. And angry. He was a very, very angry Dipodomys.

At night he clung to wire on the cage and gnawed, and gnawed and gnawed and scrambled around to find another spot to attack. He dug in the sand for we did not know he was burrowing creature. He buried the sunflower seeds and he HATED us. He was so cute but touching him was simply out of the question.

Thus, at the end of the semester with summer looming, came the problem as to what to do with Charlie Dipodomys. Hardly a pet, he could not go home with John and so I said I would take him. I called home to arrange transport and mentioned to my Father about Charlie. His response was extremely negative. I asked what I should do and he said "Flush him."

AAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

Charlie Dipodomys, aside from his undying nastiness, was notable for one more thing. He was responsible for the only time in my life that I hung up on my Father.

Click.

Dad called back. He was laughing. (Thank God.) He said

"Ok, Marlin Perkins, bring him along, but we are donating him to the children's zoo."

For those of you who are too young, Marlin Perkins was the host of Mutual of Omaha's very popular television show "Wild Kingdom" and someone I desperately admired.

Thus it was that Charlie Dipodomys moved from a looming death by toilet to the spacious cage at the Blank Children's Zoo in Des Moines, Iowa, where he had a place to burrow and no longer had to live in a flower pot, and where he probably ate something better than just sunflower seeds. I went to visit him once but he was just as unyieldingly ungracious as he had always been.

He was such a cute little bastard.

LONG TIME NO BLOG

And no pics because they are alllll gone.
The computer, my NEW computer, bought at Best Buy in November of last year, had a major hissy fit the other day and went from "having issues" to "Your Computer Cannot Open". Aaaaiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

I took it back to BB. They said their turnaround time for fixes was FOURTEEN DAYS!! (No I did not have the store warranty, only the factory warranty) They said further that if it was the hardware (and it didn't sound like that to them) the fix would be free but the time might be longer because they'd have to send it back to Toshiba.
However if it was software, there would a $200 charge. And if I wanted I could take it to the next town where their turnaround time was only 6 days.

I tried to calculate whether I could make it 6 days without the computer and without killing someone-- anyone.

Nope. Not a chance.

But I felt I had no choice. Technology--like electricity, indoor plumbing and dogs, are great until you don't have them.

SO I decided to go to Tinley (the next town) and bite the bullet. Then when I got to the car I thought no, I am going home. There HAS to be a better deal than this.

And there was. Across the street from BB lives a little Office Max and recently they put in a fix-the-computer thing. So I went over there and presented them with my no-start computer. The kid who was there was wearing a name pin that had "Darwin" written on it. How can you not like someone named Darwin?
Darwin listened to the whole story, including my annoyance with BB. He thought it sounded like something in the hardware, and suggested calling Toshiba. This meant he didn't know what to do and was willing (like my Vet) to find someone who knew more about it than he did, and was not going to pretend he had more expertise than he did. I liked that, too.
He spent about an hour on the phone with Toshiba, who suggested something he might try just to get a screen up. This was going to take several hours to run. It was about 3 in the afternoon.

So I left.

I called a couple of times and it was still running. I thought well this is not good.
Then just before closing at 9 they called and said it had started. WOOOHOOOO.
I went in in the morning to pay and learned they needed to do some stuff to the software-- by now Darwin was off and the manager was working on the computer. It cost $140. Everyone was helpful, eager to co-operate, and by noon I had my computer back. Minus all the data which, believe it or not I had mostly saved on a flashdrive. I have not put the photos back.

I told OMax they have a new, lifelong customer. My NEXT computer will not be purchased at BB no matter how much less it costs.

Love technology except when I don't.

DOG HABITS

Before his rear end left, Nigel would get up about 4:30 and want out. So the fact that he is doing this now is not surprising. This morning he got up at 4:30 and wanted out. I rolled slowly out of my nice bed and my bleary eyeball happened to fall upon the thermometer:

1

Ahhhh. Sorry old man, but outside is out of the question.
He labored to the back door and sat, looking over his shoulder at me.
I said no. It is one degree. I am in my jammies and you want to go wander about the ranch. Not a chance.

We did not go out.

However, Cooper and Conley went out, albeit not for long. They may just be dogs and covered with fur or hair but stupid they are not.
How do I know they want in?
Cooper stands back a bit from the door and gives a sharp bark. Then he waits. After about 30 seconds, he will repeat the bark. But if there is no response, the wait-time becomes shorter, say 15 seconds. Then ten. Then a note of real impatience creeps in.
"Woman! Open the door!"
He learned this from Zelda. Mitchell would never have commanded me in this tone. And sure enough, I hustle over and open the door.

Conley is less circumspect in letting me know that he wants back into the house. Cooper and Conley are the two who will come in regardless of what the others are doing, in other words, independently. Nigel and Llewis used to wait for each other, now Llewis waits for everyone. Sometimes Llewis is so slow that Cooper asks to go back out and look for him. Seriously. He will go back out and stand at the turn in the sidewalk and look first one way and then the other, and if he doesn't see him gimping towards the house he will go out into the yard and bark at him. "Get in here! God you're slow!"

Conley leaves no room for indecision. He attacks the door. The door used to have a lovely screen on the bottom, but no more. It now hangs in dismal tatters. There are paw prints and mud all over the door for Conley rears up and SLAMS his front feet against the door, barking, over and over and when I appear to open the door he backs up, still standing on two legs, and then falls to all fours and rushes in the door, stopping immediately to see if I have treats (O when do I not?)

Llewis is the original Pokey Little Puppy. Possibly because of his leg he just almost never rushes. Once in awhile he will run. If I step out holding the dog bowls, he will run. If DadPerson goes out and has not been home, Llewis runs. When he does the Basset 475 (he cannot quite manage the Basset 500) he runs, and when he is trying to catch and kill Conley, he runs.
Otherwise he cannot be bothered. I hear him coming from around the corner: pad pad swish drag. Pad pad swish drag. It's like the sound track from The Night of the Living Dead. And here he comes, tail wagging slowly, eyes quizzical: "Yes? You called?" (ten minutes ago.) "There was a scent over by the shed, so sorry." But he isn't sorry, not at all. He stops half in and half out so even when it is 1 and there is a blizzard I cannot close the door, and he looks at me kind of sadly: "Is there a treat for this, or shall I stay here?"

All but Nigel, who used to jostle with Conley to be the first inside. Now he is the first for everything. Treats, belly rubs, tickles, walks and unsolicited hugs. He looks at Conley triumphantly from his place high on my bed. I see it all in his eyes:
"Ha you little Thug. Nyah Nyah."
And Conley does the only thing he can to drive Nigel mad: he walks over and goes in Nigel's pen, rearranges all the blankets it took Nigel ten minutes to get Just Right, and goes to sleep.

THIS BE COOPER

This be Cooper. Since MP has a cold she said I cood write if I didint do dogspeek. I do not spell so good. And she say thats ok.
I dont like it when she not feeling good because she grumpy but mossly because she parta the flock. See I a herding dog. I herd things. I keep order. It is a touff job what with Basset hounds. They dont herd so good and they dont keep order. You should see! Allygator mouff with horrible sounds. Wrassling in the living room. Why they call it a living room if you canit live in it withouht a bunch of Bassets grrring and sliding aroun on the rugs?

I have three legs. Or maybe I should say I have one less than I did.
I had something in my leg that hurt and made me limp. There is a name for it but we are not allowt to say it out loud. They (the dog doctors) say the leg has to go. I did not reely unnderstand what they meant. Of course it goes, it's a leg and legs go. What they ment was they gone make it go away forever. I went to sleep and they magikcally disapeered it. IT kinda scary they do this so eesy they disapperd my ...my....an I still miss them.

See? Count them. One too three. No fore.

I usta be a show dog. I went to dog shows. I got all spiffied up. First Aunt Annette the groomer would groom me to peeces. She very good and no exzactly what to not touch wif sissors. (Anything.) She get me all clean and pretty. Den MP trim my back legs from da hock down an my feets. At the sshows she put me on a teble and spritz me with stunky stuff, brush and brush and brush and fluff and rearrange my fur an trim my feets and put on a speshal leesh an we go trot aroun a place an some stranger touch my.... to be sure there are two and then there were but thats before they made them disappeer. Sometimes I win and sometimes not and then won day in Wisconsin I gots to be whut they calls a champion, maeke no differments, I still da same dog.

Whut I like best of all is when da whole flock here togedder and I nose where dey all is. What I don't like is when one is missing, even Mp or DP or even Bassets. MP used to say da best part ob the day when everyone else in bed and she nose rite where they is. Yeah. I get that.

Well Ise just babblin here. I not feelin reel good these days sometimes. Nobody seem to know exactly why. I tell em, I'm eleben, I had dat word nobody say, prolly got it agin someplace secret inside. Sum days I no eet. Some days I frows up. Sometimes I gets the odder end going. I no gots the zippy in my step like I used to but it's ok because MP still haul me onna bed and cover me wif kisses an hugs and rub me all ober and sing our special song:
you is my sunshine
my only sunshine
you makes me heppy
when skies is grey
you never nose dear
how much I love you
please dont take
my
sunshine
away