Weekend activities, plus Day 12
Oops, missed yesterday's entry. I actually ended up spending very little time online over the weekend, and while I didn't get as much done as I'd been hoping, I was still fairly productive. Crowning achievement: bathing the dogs.
So, last weekend I was enjoying the weather, sitting out in the backyard with a book while the dogs played in the sun. It was nice. Then a motherfucking squirrel decided to taunt Seamus, who was under the fence in the blink of an eye. (We have an 8' wooden privacy fence, but it doesn't come flush with the ground in several spots, and I've done a bit of patching with chicken wire, but clearly I need to do more.) Behind our fence is maybe a 4' space, then there's the 4' chain-link fence of our neighbors to the rear. With proper motivation, Seamus can clear a 4' chain-link fence with no problem. In Seamus's mind, a motherfucking squirrel is proper motivation. Mom standing in the brush between the fences, sweetly coaxing you back over while she herself is being munched on by mosquitoes, is not.
I decided, then, that I would just walk around the block and fetch him out of the neighbor's yard via their front gate. I decided I would not stop to grab a leash from inside the house because it would take too much time, and because thinking things through in the moment is not really one of my strengths. This means that once I succeeded in getting him out of the yard, I had to walk him back home by his collar, which is rather a pain in the neck, literally and figuratively. In the process, I realized that Seamus does not smell good, and while the brackish mud in the neighbor's yard is at least partly to blame, I didn't actually remember when his last proper bath was. I resolved, then, that I would take the opportunity while the other human occupants of the house were out of town this past weekend to give the dogs baths.
I started with Seamus, because I knew getting him into the bath would be more difficult. He hates baths--not as much as he hates squirrels, of course, but still--and he's stubborn. Luckily, I'm more stubborn. Also bigger, and in possession of opposable thumbs. So, it involved carry-dragging him from the living room into the bathroom, then lifting his ~65 pounds of dead-weight (a master of passive resistance, that one) into the tub, but then I was able to bathe him! And now his fur is all soft and shiny and better-smelling.
Tiwa was easier, if only because I could get her into the bathroom of her own accord. Still had to lift her squirmy ~65 pound self into the tub, but that was less of a challenge after everything else. I bought an oatmeal doggy shampoo for her, which I hope will help with her sometimes-itchy skin.
Afterwards, I mopped up the bathroom, then stripped off my soaked clothes and put them and the towels I'd used in the washer. I threw on a big t-shirt and settled in to watch TV and knit.
Whereupon there was a knock at the door.
I briefly debated just pretending no one was home, but I think that's a bit less convincing with the car out front. Turned out it was someone I actually needed to talk to (the owner of the security company that runs our house's alarm), so I went with the old "pretend I'm wearing pants even though I'm totally not" trick. Worked pretty well, as far as I'm concerned!
Anyway, I'm rather sore today. I was pretty good about lifting with my legs rather than my back, but my back is still a bit achy, and as I move around I'm finding various complaining muscles: good morning, bicep! Oh, hello, glutes! It's the good kind of sore, though, the kind that reminds me that I accomplished something.
And now for something completely different... Day 12 of the music meme, "A song by a band you hate." I literally can't think of a band I hate. There are bands out there whose music isn't to my tastes, and/or whose members subscribe to ideologies I find distasteful to repugnant, and/or whose members are simply assholes, but I don't tend to pay them enough mind to hate them, if that makes any sense. I just kinda go, "Not for me," and move on with my life. *shrug*