People Plan, God Laughs…that about sums up yesterday evening.

I got home and had all the dinner preparations in motion, as planned, when I opened the front door. The rice cooker had the rice cooked and warming, the 18 eggs with chopped Shitakes were beaten and chilling in the fridge, and cheese slices were stacked and ready to be plopped and melted onto the top of the mounds of dinners. All I had to do was go through the process of putting dinner together (30 minutes), doling out the bowls (10 minutes), and getting Baby and me in the truck to go to the Rodeo Arena for our Drill class (15 more minutes). I had about 30 minutes to spare for poop pick-ups, water bowl duty, and miscellaneous happenings.

One part transpired exactly as I planned it and when I planned it to happen. I opened the front door. The rest … eww.

The odor that met me at the door was reminiscent of doo-doo. And it didn’t take long for it to overtake me, and I didn’t have far to go to find the source. Lilian’s crate, right by the back door. Actually, and don’t tell me dogs aren’t brainiacs to some degree (like when it suits themselves), Lilian had turned rear end to the crate door and let her rip. She had diarrhea, OK? It was the most unpleasant thing to say the least.

After I went into my own drama queen scene, that was to get un-crated friends of Lilian to back away from the area, I grabbed the roll of heavy duty towel papers, a plastic bag, and got to work. Originally, I held my breath, but that was a bad idea. When I thought I would faint from lack of oxygen, I had to open my mouth to gasp for air. No, not a good idea.

I couldn’t open the back door yet because the other dogs would have charged through “it” to get out. The fresher air would have been nice, but the extra paws to clean were highly undesirable. Not to mention the pavers and ugh! No, I just suffered through that first part of the clean-up, and made sure everyone knew I was suffering. Oh, I’m good at groaning and ranting when it comes down to stuff like this.

Once I completed that little song-and-dance, I opened the door, and after the stampede, I turned Lilian around. She was still in her crate-on-wheels trying to maintain that princess Lilian look.

After the crate door was facing out, I opened it, and she sprung out. Glad to be free from, well, you know. And she had to go some more. Eegads!

I rolled the crate outside and started working feverishly on cleaning. The blankey was relatively untouched. Remember, she aimed it all outside the crate. But the Nylabone was touched. I put the blankey in the washer, and got the hose and soap and rinsed rinsed rinsed rinsed rinsed. Sometime around that point, I got the shakes. Yessum, that’s when I knew my plans – the ones I had all weekend to take Baby to drill class and work her recalls to the bone – the ones I pan fried special chicken treats for – the ones I was looking forward to all weekend – those plans were out that window.

I pushed Lilian’s crate back in the house, ate some canned chicken and Abuelita Corn Tortilla Chips, drank juice/seltzer, whatever, I knew it was going to take an hour for me to get back to “normal.” I persevered, though. Finished making the dinners, and by the time I got to the part where I was doling out the bowls, I just wanted to collapse somewhere. And I did. For all of 3 minutes before Raven started screaming from her crate. I didn’t have the umpf to stuff a Kong with banana to quell her savage beast long enough for everyone to finish their dinners. So I screamed back, but sooner or later (OK, sooner) I figured it was better to just get up and let her out. I did that.

By then, my driving time to the arena had been cut into and I was still not feeling well enough to rush around and pack everyone in their crates while I take off with Baby Puss Diva. So I ended up staying home, reviving, pouting and worrying the heck out of myself.

What will Baby do at the dog obedience trial on Saturday? Will she come when I call her in on the recall? Will she sit there and look up trying to figure out if she heard someone say something? Will she run out of the ring (again)? Now I know why I’m having acid reflux enough to cause this, that, and the other, which in turn gives me the shakes.

I guess Lilian was feeling left out being she hasn’t been blogged about recently.

I was thinking that last night. I would have rather not gone through this, however. If all she wanted was a little blog space, I’d be happy to give it to her!

<sigh>

What will Baby do on Saturday?

Eeegads!

Helen