Unintentional Clumsy Moment #1543

I live with two roommates, and one of them has two dogs. One of those dogs is an adorable but odd terrier who is mesmerized by light and never seems to get tired. The other is a sweet-as-can be old Labrador who begins to wag her tail violently every time you even look in her direction.

Thalia is staying with my Mom right now, and Shema, the labrador, seems to have noticed, because she has decided that whenever I am home, she must follow me EVERYWHERE, hoping for a treat, a round of ball, or just to sit with me.

I'm usually okay with it, except when it comes to bedtime, because then Shema decides it's time to get sneaky, and tries to edge her way onto my bed. First there's a paw. Then, a quiet, sneaky head, then another paw, and if I still have not noticed, suddenly I get a huge big dog stretching out.

Thalia is 6 pounds. This dog is not. My bed is not that big.

Off the bed she goes.

Last night, I was exhausted, because I had gone running after work, and taken Shema with me. As such, she had decided to adore me and tail me the entire night, and spend most of the evening chilling on the floor in my room.

When I wanted to go to bed, I hopped off the bed and told Shema is was time for bed, so she needed to go.

All she heard was 'time for bed', and so she hopped up on my bed and stretched out.

I gaped for a bit, sighed, and decided I was too tired to fight it. I crawled into my bed, yanked at my covers (much harder now that there was a HUGE DOG ON MY BED), and closed my eyes, deciding Jackie would come looking for her pooch eventually.

Twenty minutes later, I suffered from a MAJOR leg spasm. This happens usually right before I go to sleep, where my limbs just jerk out uncontrollably, flailing about every which way.

Unfortunately for the pooch, my body jerked and my leg collided directly with it. I heard a bark, my back muscles twitched, and suddenly Shema was scrambling off the bed and running out of the room.

I felt horrible. I kicked the dog! I considered running after it, apologizing profusely, but considering my back was throbbing, and I was half asleep, I just collapsed back onto my bed.

This morning, at 6:30AM, Shema had apparently forgiven all. She was scratching at my door, and greeted me with a sniff, a tail wag, and a doggie smile.

She got an extra biscuit, and in my shame, I allowed her to sneak her way onto the bed for the morning.

I'm such a sucker.

Nature is a City Dweller

Usually bogged down in traffic, the 10 West Freeway from Santa Monica to Downtown usually only offers a view of smog, the bright lights of downtown, and the blinking crimson glow of brake lights.

Daylight savings times has brought with it a new wonder. Three days ago, I glanced up at a street light that overlooks the freeway, and nearly did a double take when I discovered what looked like the outline of a falcon perched atop it. Naturally, at the time there wasn't much of a chance to confirm or deny this, but considering I've been finding birds of prey in all sorts of unusual places lately (namely my own backyard), I figured I couldn't discount this incident. The next day, around the same exit, I glanced up again. Yet again, there was the bird. Unmistakably, a falcon. Yesterday, there it was again.

Things like this shouldn't astound as much as they do, but as much as I am a city girl at heart, I have a thing for the wild. It's for this reason that I drag my poor little pup to the canyons (or what passes for wilderness in Los Angeles) for a weekly hike. Thalia has every reason in the world to hate these hikes. She's a spoiled princess who much prefers nestling into her plush sleeping bag on the bed than a good walk. But she's also a chunky princess who needs to shed some pounds, and needs to learn how to be a dog. So, however against her will, she is dragged up to the canyon every week. Every week, the experience proves nearly traumatizing for the 7 pound pup, who freezes up in fright at even the sight of the bigger dogs that haunt the off-leash playground.

Because of her short stubby legs, she can't make it up the steepest part of the climb, so I end up taking with me a backpack with a soft dog purse stuffed into it. She ends up stuffed into it for the hardest part of the climb, and then once we're at the top, one more time she's back on her feet, on her leash, tugging and freezing at other pups on sight.

This past Sunday, I decided to do something different. At the end of the steepest part of the hill, I decided, with the help of my friends, to pull her out and try something different. She was let out of the bag, and immediately, began the old routine of freezing up and staying put. I picked her up, carried her a few feet, and set her down again. She took her time, but after a good ten minutes and a couple false starts, her ears started pricking up, her tail began to slowly levitate, and soon the little chihuahua was acting like a dog. When the time came to put her in the bag, she resisted. Instead, she headed proudly down the mountain, for the first time in a while, actually enjoying this hike like a regular (pint-sized) pooch.

I guess like dog, like owner. Even a city dog can develop an appreciation for a taste of the wilderness.

Wake Up Calls Aren't What They Used To Be

So my effort to better myself has been going fairly well. At least in the physical sense. Getting up at 5AM to workout is not nearly as painful as it once was, but I have noticed that the weekends throw me off quite a bit.

I end up pressing the snooze at 6:30AM (a later indulgance than the usual rooster-braying 5AM weekday hour), and if that happens I end up sleeping in until 10AM, which annoys me to no end. Fallacy of being a morning person - the hours between 8-10AM on a weekday are invaluable. They can be used for doing any sorts of nasty chores or working out or things that just need to be gotten out of the way before the fun begins. If you sleep through it? It's... a pain.

Of course when THAT happens, it becomes a bit of a chore to get up at 5AM. My weekend habit of pressing the snooze and crawling back into bed manifests itself and I'm up at 7AM, stumbling into the shower, and scurrying out the door - neglecting not only my morning workout, but my dog's morning walk (though the poor dear DOES get let out to go pee eventually), hungry and grumpy on top of all that, because I've also managed to upset my evening. Mostly because now that a work out was not taken care of in the morning, it will have to happen in the evening, and that's completely distasteful when there are twenty other things I'd rather be doing.

Apparently, my puppy agrees that becoming too friendly with the snooze is a bad habit, because this morning she decided to leave right under my alarm clark a present of the dark and stinky kind. One I did not discover until I was stumbling around the bed barefoot, ready to shut off the buzzing, and found my feet sinking into something soft, squishy and wet.

Immediately, I knew what it was, and my glare jerked toward my dog. Thalia, nose poked out from beneath her very own sleeping bag, seemed unrepentant.

Her large ears quirked, her muzzle quivered, and then her chin came down again.

Feeling highly undignified, I hobbled as best I could to clean myself up, and then returned to my room to assess the damage.

Again, my little chihuahua, not more than 7 and a half pounds (and she is on the fat side), merely stared at me from her place on my bed, as if daring me to comment on her little surprise for me.

I glowered. I simpered. I knelt down on the floor and scrubbed her mess out of the carpet, and in my head I thought what a fool I could be for a little animal who I love so dearly.

Actions are not without consequences - this is not the best habit of hers, and tonight will be spent in her crate, so as to avoid another... surprise, but I have to admit - the puppy gave me an entirely new menace this morning that swept the sleep from my eyes.

I'd rather she not make it a habit though. This by far has been the grossest thing that has happened to me, since the morning my old cat Cleo put a dead mouse in my bed and I slept on it all night.

... and I just revisited that moment.

I think I'll need about three more showers today.

This is the City. Nature is supposed to stay away.

I suppose this is the problem when you've got a pops who used to grow up on a farm and has a green thumb. Even if you live in smoggy, congested Los Angeles, you're going to have a little bit of a farmer's paradise in the backyard. It's a necessary evil. Thanks to my father, we have avocados, plums, figs, persimmons, pineapples, chilies, lemons, oranges, tomatoes, jalapenos, and God knows what else growing behind our house, which, I have to admit, can be very nice.

It attracts a lot of wildlife to our backyard that we normally wouldn't see in the city, and it's not uncommon to see a menagarie of birds and squirrels in our trees, fighting to get to the fruit before we can.

This morning, however, I got a close encounter of the natural kind that was both breathtaking and frightening.

Running late, I was jogging into the backyard to go to the backhouse for a frozen meal for lunch. We do this because our freezer in our REGULAR house is stuffed, and so any frozen meals get regulated to my grandmother's freeezr because she has the room (I know. It's fascinating.). On my way, I passed underneath the avocado tree, and was startled when I heard the massive flutter of wings and branches above me.

I glanced up and stopped dead in my tracks. On the lowest branch, no more than four feet above me, I was staring straight at a hawk. A huge hawk. A beautiful, majestic bird of prey.

"Oh my God," I found myself breathing out loud. "You're a long way from home, aren't you?"

Immediately, I backed away, and scrambled into my house for my camera (Because I'm a geek, and the first thing I thought was, 'This is SO going in my blog!'), but when I returned, the bird was nowhere to be found.

Saddened, I began to circle the avocado tree, and stopped short when I came across a mess of feathers and flesh on the ground. I glanced up, and again, on the lowest branch, I discovered the picked over, freshly eaten carcass of a pigeon, feet attached.

Naturally, I took pictures. There's something wrong with me.

But it was at that time when I heard the jingle of a collar, and I looked back to the house and realized my Chihuahua had followed me out.

My little chihuahua. Who, at 6 pounds, is a fat chihuahua, and yet, still no bigger than a pigeon.

"Oh..." I breathed. "Crap."

This is the problem. My dog is an indoor dog, but she absolutely LOVES the backyard. She loves to sit out there and sun herself, to bark at squirrels and birds, and every morning she goes out first thing to take care of business.

Because the backyard is closed off from everything, at times we just let her roam out there with Lucy, our poodle.

Finding a hawk in our backyard is the equivalent of discovering a serial killer in your kid's playground.

Thalia went about her business, and I stepped up the search, walking around my backyard in my work clothes (a snazzy sweater and black pants with Harley boots, cause I like to keep it real) and my camera, and moved over to where my dog was peeing, and glanced up.

Sure enough, there was the beautiful, dangerous, killer bird, cocking it's head and looking down with interest at the fat teeny dog moving happily around.

I reached up and with a flash, took a picture. It took offense, and with a graceful expanse of its wings, soared above us over the backhouse and out of the yard.

Concerned about the potential horrible death my dog would face should the hawk decide it was an easy meal, I gave my dad a call on my cell phone and related the news. His response?

"Oh. So that's what's been killing the birds. I thought it was the cats."

Reassuring, Dad. Reassuring.

Ski-Lucy & Thalia

Ski-Lucy & Thalia , originally uploaded by Mistiec_Flores.

First off, hello from a pissed-off Thalia and a happy-go-lucky Lucy, who are trying on their Christmas sweaters and their new goggles which were bought for their bike rides.

Thalia was not happy with her fashion statement, and let me know it.

But alas, as tortured as the pooches are, they are the lucky ones. There's a beautiful little dog who lives a few houses down that used to belong to my cousin, until her father gave her away to the neighbors. This puppy is just a gorgeous little girl, happy as a lark, but a bit of an escape artist. She has decided that she wants to belong to us now, because she now has a frequent habit of escaping, and then coming and hanging out all day on our porch. I don't have the heart to turn her away, and the other day I actually went over and told them that the dog was running around. She had run into the street and I was terrified she was going to get hit. Their response? "Oh she's fine. She'll come back when she's ready."

Me: *blink*
Them: Does she bother you?
Me: ... well, no... but... street...

Anyway, the dog spent the rest of the afternoon on our porch, where she would wag her tail until someone opened the door and petted her, and then played with our pooches, and then settled back and waited for another treat or for someone to come out again.

I really just want to take her and tell them their dog has picked us. Phooey.

Speaking of animals, my aquarium has been ALL kinds of weird lately. The other day I went and bought two frogs and three guppies to replace my poor little Tubby and my little frog that died, and apparently, there was some additional specimens playing stowaway.

After I put the frogs and the guppies in the tank, I began to peer into it to see if they were getting acclimated. I discovered, nestled in the lily pads that I keep uptop for the frogs to chill on, something that looked like a little black worm. Very much alive. I also discovered two more ghost shrimp. But the worms worried me. Were they worms or were they tadpoles? Were they even alive or where they just pieces of poo that looked to be swimming by the current?

Just to be sure I did a couple water changes and cleaned up the tank.

The worm things kept moving.

Last night, the worms were still stuck in my head, and I had a dream where they grew over night into these ... snakehead fish like the kind I saw on the discovery channel. They grew a foot had banged the glass open and my fish were all flopping all over the floor. Yeah. That was a nightmare.

So I get up this morning prepared to leave and once again look in the lilypads before I go. My search for worms becomes quite a shock when I blink and see two... things swimming around in the lilypads. Are they baby guppies? Are they tadpoles? I have no idea. But they're ... in there. And I have no idea where they came from. Did the change in the environment scare the female guppies so much that they pooped out two baby fish? Did the frogs come knocked up?

I have no clue.

But I guess I'll find out.

In other news...

1. I had an impromptue pumkin carving on Saturday. I carved four that night. Sometimes I wonder what's wrong with me. And then I remember it's called hyper-focus and it's from the ADHD.

2. I bought this candy bowl on sale that's like this skull... and it's motion sensored so when someone grabs a piece of candy, the eyes light up and this skeleton hand comes out of nowhere and tries to grab your hand. Teehee. I'm not sure if it's work appropriate but damn that's going to be funny.

I hope.

It Never Rains But it Pours (Dogs and Cats)

Oh my God, you guys.

Good news first: We've found a home for the kitty. A friend of my sister is coming to pick up the kitten this afternoon, and luckily, aside from her eye problem, she's in perfect shape for it. She's a happy, fat little thing, who has taken over the household, scrambling up and down the stairs, playing with Lucy, and snuggling up to everyone and everything she can. She responds to 'kitty' now, but that's hardly my fault, since we had to call her something. But looks like she'll be getting a good home nevertheless.

And the Bad News:
My grandma has a poodle that she deliberately got pregnant. Let me preface this story by saying I did NOT agree with that. I'm a big supporter of PETA and am viciously aware of how many animals don't have homes (witness my cat rescuing), and believe all pets should be spayed or nuetered. When my grandmother and my aunt mated their white minature poodles to have 'just one litter' I complained vehemently. But the deed was already done, and my grandmother is relatively old fashioned and has had litters of puppies before, so she just thought this would be business as usual.

So last night I came home late because I stopped at PETCO to pick up some kitten formula and food for the kitten. Thank God, I did, because I had been home little more than an hour whwen my sister finally told me that J-Lo had her puppies that afternoon. At the time, my Grandmother and my Mom had gone to the store, and no one had checked in on the dogs (my Grandmother has recently moved into the back guest house) all afternoon. The minute my sister said the dog had 'already killed two' I heard warning bells in my head. Immediately, I raced to the backhouse and sure enough, J-Lo was in the corner of her bed, and on the other side, freezing and barely moving, were six puppies. Three were already dead. Two had bite marks on their heads, one bleeding profusely, and only one seemed actively moving around, searching for a nipple that J-Lo refused to let her have, preferred instead to shove her away with her paw. My Grandmother arrived home at that time, and I grabbed her, and we both managed to get the three remaining puppies and brought them to the main house. We had no puppy formula, all we had was the kitten formula I had just bought, and so that's what they had as we vigourously rubbed them like crazy, trying to bring their body tempature up, as they were freezing cold.

Research on the internet gave us a little insight as to what we could do, and so the rest of the night me, my mom and my grandmother spent very long hours trying to save the tiny newborns from certain death. Lucy, the little nurturer that she is, didn't understand what was happening, and spent most of the night sitting next to the heat lamp, whining as the puppies cried, unsure what to do.

Luckily, they survived the night, and my heartbroken Grandma is going to go to Petco to pick up some formula and a heating pad to try and keep them going.

Meanwhile my sister got delegated the task of giving the kitten a bath, which she got through lots of little scratches and a yowling kitty. Who now smells fresh and not of stinkiness.
So our house has become some sort of impromptu animal hospital, with three newborn (two still sick) pups and a bouncy kitty who doesn't quite know what to do with the new arrivals and has even tried to sit with them in an effort to warm them up.

Of course, this could all have been avoided if my grandmother had just spayed J-Lo like we all advised her to do, but lesson learnt, I guess. All we can do now is do what we can to save the little guys.

Odd night for me, but here's hoping at least one of those little guys make it.

Weekend went by fast, but the kitty is still with us.

Went by like lightning, with a lot of things done, which I will post to my blog later, but of course, had to update on the kitty.



The feralness is almost completely gone now, after spending the entire weekend with me. She's bouncing around, pooping and peeing regularly, and gets along well with the dogs. Thalia has adopted a 'i'll sniff you when I'm curious but otherwise let's just ignore each other' stance, whereas Lucy has fallen completely in love. She bounds into my room first thing in the morning in search for the little ball of fluff, and a good part of her day is spent chasing after it, licking it repeatedly, and whining when it can't be found.

On the kitty's part, she's doing well. She recognizes my voice now and comes to me when I call her, and has learned how to use the litter box, eat solid foods, and climb the bed. Quite a surprise when I wake up to a purring pile of fuzz underneath my chin. She doesn't cry when she's picked up anymore, and has taken to spending most of her day playing with anything she can find, including the dogs. It breaks my heart that we can't keep her. But I have a deathly allergic grandmother who lives with us, and the family's firm 'no cats' policy, so we're working hard to try to find her a home, and get her to a vet for her eye infection. Thus far it's manageable with a little drop of visine and regular cleaning, but she does need to go to the vet soon.

Because kittens are cute, and because she needs a home, and because Lucy fawning over her is adorable, I uploaded a quick music video with some of her antics. No name for the kitty yet, it's the one thing that's keeping me from getting too attached. Downside? She's starting to answer to kitty, and comes out of her hiding places whenever she hears the word. Oops.

Got an unusual surprise this morning...

I live in the ghetto, but my Dad, who grew up on a farm in Mexico, sometimes forgets that, and as a result we have an abundance of plants in our backyard. It's a little freaky honestly. We're tripping over plums and tomatoes and figs and avocados and now, a small pineapple, that he's especially proud of.

Because of the whole 'ghetto' thing and my dad's plant menagerie, we sometimes get more of the urban wildlife than we'd like. Particularly squirrels and stray cats. The squirrels eat our plums and avocados and the cats like to dig into our basement and have a colony of feral cats that we then have to trap and take the shelter. One time I found a cockatiel.

Anywayz, early this morning I was taking the dogs out for their morning peepee, when I heard an odd scuffle. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something fluffy, that could either be a rat or a kitten. Taking the chance, I walked over and there, hidden behind my dad's tomato plants, was a teeny tiny kitten, scared out of his or her mind and hissing like there was tomorrow.

Unsure what else to do (since I had dogs and the Mom was nowhere in sight), I scooped up the little guy and brought him in. Bad mistake. I'm already taken with the little bugger. As is my Mom, who has decided, even if we're not sure if we're going to keep it, that it shall be named Indy (for Independance Day). Thalia wants absolutely nothing to do with the foul smelling creature (Odd considering she's the one who actually grew up with a cat), but Lucy has decided that the new kitty is her new toy. She wags her tail, wines incessently, and begs and pleads and does every trick in the book that usually gets her a treat, in an effort to be given the cat.

Thus far her pleas have gone unheeded.

So now I've got a kitty in need of a vet appointment and some TLC. Anyone in LA need a kitty?

I may have been the last person on the planet to have seen this link -

But I still have to share it. Because it's made of awesome.

Basically these guys rescued a lion cub from a Harrad's and when it got too big to keep in their flat, they had him reintroduced to the wild in Africa. A few years later they went to visit, but were told he wouldn't recognize them.





And to prove this story is actually real:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-452820/Christian-lion-lived-London-living-room.html

RIP, Froggy Friend...

I lost a frog this morning.

One of my African Dwarf frogs and that freaks me out because he was only 2 and a half and so far has been the happiest camper ever. I bought these floating lily pad things that are supposed to help the fry hide, but the happiest inhabitants of those bushes seem to be the small cherry red and zebra striped shrimp I've got, and my two frogs.

They hang out up top like lily pads and just chill for hours. Tubby also uses it, since he's blind and can only use one limb he tires out easy and so he digs himself into this one spot and just kinda... hangs there.

Of course that requires way more hands on care with a fish than I've ever done before, because every morning at feeding time, and at night, I have to help him wiggle his way out so he can eat food.

Still, I'm bummed about the frog. He was a sweetie and now his mate is alone. Plus I can't figure out why he died, which means I need to really clean the tank tonight, and test the PH, because the last thing I need is a mass killing, considering I've got two baby fish in there who are still developing.

Tanks are work.



Rest in Piece, Max, my Froggy Friend.

The Fight To Save the Fish

I'm completely attached to my fishtank. There. I said it. I hold no shame. I spend a lot of time on my tanks, and have gotten to know each and every one of its inhabitants. There's the reclusive catfish, who spend all day hidden away in a sunken ship, getting larger and larger. There's titan, the two inch long king of the ghost shrimp, who lords over the bottom of the tank with his claws, greedily steeling all the best bits of food for himself.



There's Max and Mona, the cowardly but sweetly dependant african drawf frogs, who dig into the gravel when they're scared and venture out to scavenge what they can.



Among the fishies, there's also Tubby, the beer-bellied brown molly who flutters around up top and is the first to greet me when I show up with the food. He is the house favorite, and the 'pet' of the aquarium.

Tubby, recently has been terrorized by Cartman, the newest white molly who has decided that for some reason, Tubby will not do. Somehow or other, it is strongly suspected that Cartman ripped off half of Tubby's right fin. It completely destroyed Tubby's equilibrium, and having been Nemo'd, he can no longer swim upright, or even straight. He swims in circles, and it's painful to watch.

I decided to do everything I could to save the little guy, and so I bought him a breeder tank, isolating him from Cartman's cruel attentions.



So far, the plan seems to be working. Cartman can't get to Tubby (though god knows he tries), and Tubby seems to find the lack of current a good thing. He's actually getting used to being Nemo-d and uses the little flipper in a way that, when he's not panicking, gets him up right and able to float a bit. I figure a few days in the holding cell and he might get strong enough to make it in the larger tank.

That still leaves the issue of Cartman, the bully, however. Who I strongly suspect is the one who chewed off Tubby's fin to begin with (My mother discovered him chasing Tubby, and was so annoyed found my net and grabbed Cartman and stuck him in a plastic bag in the water until I got home with the breeder tank). If Tubby does make it, I think Cartman might be going to The Aquarium, my local fish monger. They took my algae eater a while back when he just got two big for the aquarium (a good seven inches long).

The one downside of Operation Save Tubby is that I appear to have confused Max, the larger of the African Dwarf Frogs. He has inherited an acute case of cage envy and keeps trying to figure out how to get into Tubby's breeder tank. I installed a reef to help him get up to the surface faster, hopefully that'll keep him from tripping into the breeder tank. There's not much oxygen in there.