"Marley and Me"

TODAY, while Nick was on his lunch break and I was home on my "research day" from rotation, we were chatting away, and of course, the dog came up in conversation, as it often does for the married child-less variety of people who happen to also be dog owners...

ANYWAY, I mentioned how it had already been a week since he had a bath but that he didn't seem to need one, as he usually does by week's end, probably because of his new, very short, buzz-cut. I am the #1 dog bather in the house --- I think the only bath Nick attended was the first one at home with the pup -- and it was only to take pictures -- SO I was making sure he agreed the dog, in fact, did not need a bath since it was my day at home and I could make it happen, should it need to happen. He agreed and our pithy little dialogue continued on until he was too hungry to pretend he actually wanted to chat and we both said our good-byes.

Just before Nick had called, Hendrix rang the cute little antique bells that hang from the door to signal his need to get out. It tickles us to death that he has learned to do this so quickly, though he rings it about every 10 minutes, leaving us to determine whether he actually needs to do the deed or just wants to get out of our cramped quarters into the great outdoors.

As I hung up, I realized it was quite a while since he went out and I quickly ran to call him back inside. Usually he comes back to the glass screen door all on his own and scratches to get our attention - seriously, he's awesome.

And he did run right in when I called, me having no idea where he was, just yelled his name and he delivered himself right through the open door and sat his butt down, expecting a treat. (We give him a treat when he comes in to encourage this fantastic behavior - since he use to totally ignore us - and he knows he MUST be sitting to receive a treat.)

THANK GOD we started all this get-a-treat-for-coming-in-and-must-be-sitting-before-treated because today, our little pup, after determining with his dad that he did not need a bath, had obviously been big time DIGGING IN THE MUD.

I snatched him up, as he innocently sat waiting, and held him tightly while getting his bath ready, lest he spread the love of mud over every piece of furniture in the house.

On the bright side, the shirt I had on was a grungy rag and I hadn't even showered for the day yet. SCORE! Down side: our small ration of hot water was spent on his bath and good old Steph's shower was a little on the luke warm side.

Lookin' a little cleaner after his bath:

*****************************************************************

A perfect segue into what I was already planning on blogging about. I finally finished the book "Marley and Me" last night. I loved it.

I say "finally" because I began reading it about a month ago. When I had just about 20 pages left to read, I got the feeling that "Marley" was slowly approaching his forever home over the rainbow and didn't feel up to "living" through those last moments. To me, the longer I put off reading about it, the longer Marley got to live. I finally worked up the courage to finish the last few pages last night, and my heart almost couldn't take.

Nick slept right through all the sobbing. So much for a shoulder to lean on.

Now, maybe this kind of ruined the ending for you, but if you haven't figured it out by now that dogs live conderably shorter lives than humans and that a book about a dog's life probably ends with the end... well, you need to get out. All that being said, I loved every page of this book. If you've ever owned a dog, plan on owning a dog, cared for a pet of any kind, or just saw an animal in a picture book, I truly think you should read it.

It's an easy, heart warming story and felt a bit like I was reading about the life Nick and I are just starting at the moment. Did I mention I'm not even a "reader"? I don't read - not books anyway. I'm always glad in the end that I read whatever book it was, feeling a bit rejuvinated and relaxed from a good tale, but that once a year book has never compared to my sister, the "book a day keeps the doctor away" kinda girl. Yeah, I was the slow one in the family. Whatev.

This is more my style: THE MOVIE IS COMING OUT ON CHRISTMAS DAY!!
And I can't wait! Probably should have saved that one book a year I'm going to read for one that doesn't have a movie coming out about it. I guess I'll learn from that mistake next year.