Sunday, September 12, 2010

Runaway Sookie!

Well...the weekend is almost gone...again. I hate that it goes so fast but I know I'm not the only one who feels that way.

As a whole, the weekend was quite nice. There were moments of stress and panic but, for the most part, things went well.

Weather-wise, it was mostly a beautiful weekend. We had a bit of rain on Saturday morning. It was enough rain to send the garage-salers under shelter but it lasted maybe ten minutes at most. When it was done...it was done. The sun came out, the ground swallowed the fallen precipitation and it was as if it never happened.

Sadly, my garden is not happy about this. My garden is thirsty. I water it bi-nightly with a hose/watering can but it's not enough. It's crying out for a rain that doesn't want to fall. When it does fall, the ground is so dehydrated that there's not enough moisture to satiate it.

We still wait for our rain, even with the meager shower we got yesterday.

Still, as far as garage sale-ing goes, it was a pretty good morning. I didn't buy too much but I did manage to score a set of four salad plates, new in the box ($1) and a set of four dinner plates, new in the box ($2) by designer Tracy Porter. I estimate I got at least $50 worth of plates there. They're also really pretty so I will use them rather than e-Bay them. I was pleased, to say the least. I also got a garden gnome ($2), a Julia Childs cookbook ($.25) and some Avon pumpkin spice bubble bath from my Avon-Lady-Who-Is-Also-My-Next-Door-Neighbour. All in all, it was a good garage sale day.

As a whole, though, the day was not as relaxing as I'd have liked.

I was woken up by Ms. Rory Wrigglebottom at 4 a.m. She needed to go out. I humoured her. We went back to bed. At our normal weekday 6:03 a.m. wakeup, Rory woke me again. I ignored her until 6:45 a.m.

By this time, she'd progress from gently nudging me with her face to full-on, sitting on my head and bathing my ear with her tongue. This meant she really needed to go out. I finally sighed and let her and Sookie outside. Since this tends to happen every weekend, I've got into the habit of cracking open the back door, letting the pups out and then going back to bed to doze until they're ready to a) come back to bed or b) to have me get up with them at a reasonable hour.

This didn't happen. Instead, I went back to bed, as normal. Then I heard Rory yipping. Normally, it's Sookie who yips so I was a little surprised. I gave her a few minutes to settle down. Still she yipped. Concerned, I got up to see if she was ok.

Well, it turned out that Ms. Sookie had found her way under the garden gate and was running in the road, trying to find squirrels. Needless to say, I was no longer sleepy. I threw on some clothes and went to try to catch her. By this time, she was quietly waiting by the gate, ready to come in.

I was furious but also relieved. I knew, deep down, that all she wanted was a bit more freedom but I couldn't help being upset that she'd 'run away.' Also, I was relieved that no cars had come down the street.

After that, I spent quite some time securing the gap under the gate so a repeat escape wouldn't be feasible.

Silly Captain Monkeypants.

I came home from garage sale-ing, let the pups out only to hear Rory barking. Again.

Yep. Sookie was out. Again.

This time, I was both furious and upset. I managed to catch her and bring her in, much to the bemusement of the neighbours.

Why is it that it's so upsetting to have a scene like this witnessed? To my neighbours, it was an amusing scene of escaped dog. To me, it was a completely relieved scene of me managing to coax my dog to safety before one of the many bargain-hunting garage sale-ers didn't see her in the road.

Needless to say, I went to Lowe's, bought a few paving stones and finally succeeded in securing the escape routes.

It was not a fun day. I'm just glad Sookie is fine. I'm sure I over-reacted but, at the same time, she's a sheltered pup who doesn't know the danger of a high-speed motorist.

Sunday was better. There were no escape attempts. In my efforts to try to entertain Sookie in case she was trying to escape out of boredom, I took her to the local state park. She, Rory and I walked 2 miles around a pretty lake on a beautiful autumnal day. It doesn't get much better than that.

I think the walk worked. Since then, the pups have been fighting sleepiness. I think that tonight, they might sleep well. I know I will.

It's been a busy weekend. As always, it wasn't quite what I planned. But I can't complain.

It was still a weekend.

Happy Monday!

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