Friday, November 28, 2014

Gobble gobble, Go to work


Yep, I worked Thanksgiving. I don’t care, truly. I don’t have kids, I don’t know how to cook and besides, Eliza worked yesterday, too, so I spent the afternoon fumbling through YouTube keyboard lessons and playing chess. Alone. I’m good with it. I’m one of the rarities who doesn’t mind spending time with nobody. I’m odd like that.

But really, holidays, most of 'em, are for families and children. None of my family was celebrating yesterday, either, because they were also working, and we have no kids, so the day was just another Thursday for this hack. Oh, sure, I would rather have had the whole day off but then again, that’s any Thursday, so there’s nothing special.

I know, I know, you are wondering what I did for Thanksgiving dinner. My holiday feast consisted of four slices of reheated pizza, a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, an orange soda, and an obscene amount of big-ass marshmallows. The way I see it, I simply avoided the Tryptophan coma, which is probably a myth, anyhow. I’m a natural skeptic.

So yes, I tested batteries and sold brake pads and stocked shelves and gave passwords this Thanksgiving. Things could have been worse. I could have dug ditches or been homeless or choked on my Jack in the Box lunch. There’s always a silver lining. Besides, I made a little jingle, and jingle always helps out.

I watched Janis Joplin interviews after work, I played some bullet chess, I listened to piano stuff on YouTube, and then I wrapped the night up watching full stand-up comedy acts and laughing to the pets. Oh god I’m lonely. I kid, I kid. Save me.

Anyhow, I hope y'all had a great Thanksgiving and Black Friday isn’t gonna pound your ass into the ground like it will mine. Actually, I’m not sure it’ll be so bad at the auto store. It’ll be better than what the poor saps at Wal-Mart will have to deal with. Lawzy, I can’t even imagine that.

*shivers*

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

You are alive and okay: Remember that


Last night E and I were sitting lazily after dinner, trying to figure out what shows to watch on a brisk Fall evening when a facebook group we’re in notified us a dog had been hit on our block and someone was staying with it while rescue came.

Being lovers of small, furry four-leggers, we bundled up, grabbed flashlights and headed down the street. We were met with a grizzly and heartbreaking sight. There was indeed a man tending to a super cute and terribly injured dog. It was white with curly hair and looked like a Poodle or a Maltese——and it was running around in circles due to a brain injury. The person who hit the poor thing never even slowed down, a neighbor reported.

I ran home to grab blankets while E stayed with the injured dog. When I returned with fresh, clean warmies, I found she had relieved said man of watchdog duty, pardon the pun, and was sitting alone with a shivering but no longer spinning cutie. She’d covered it up and it was lying by a fence, obviously aware but very damaged.

Long story short, we waited with it until the guy came to take it away, and that’s when we found out it was a girl. I lifted her up and into the truck and she had no objections whatsoever, thankfully. When we set her down she began to spin again, back arched unnaturally. The driver said that he was going to put it to sleep sooner rather than later, that it wouldn’t recover from its injuries.

We walked home with heavy hearts, but also with a sort of good feeling, a sense that we’d done the right thing. The man who was watching her first had left us his business card so we could update him afterward. We called and told him the outcome and then gave our own little doggy lots of loves.

Remember, folks, no matter how bad your day/week/month/year/life is going, you aren’t spinning around in circles because of awful and irreversible brain damage. Get out there and make someone smile, give your pets a hug, hop on facebook and let someone know that you think about 'em.

Because we never know when or why.