Are you ready for more tales of a demon beagle? We will continue our saga of Hank, although if you haven’t already I suggest you check out Part 1. And so, dear readers, our tale continues where it left off; with a devilishly smart beagle.
We moved into a new house a few months ago. We left the forests of Castlewood for the wilds Ellisville, a scant three miles away. As we settled into suburban bliss we all adjusted to the subtle changes; more space, more people, more traffic… just more. Madison loved the paved streets, perfect for learning to ride her bike while Hank chased her. Jack would watch and just laugh. Life was good.
Then, on one not so spectacular Friday afternoon, all hell broke loose. It started off as a typical day. I went to work and the kids were at home with the baby-sitter. Greg had the afternoon to toil at the duck club, cleaning out the barn. I was just stepping out of a meeting when I received a tense call from Greg. There was an accident and he had managed to poke himself in the eye with a wire. I will spare you the gory details, but suffice it to say that it was gross and he needed a doctor ASAP. I was at the other end of town at the time, but fortunately his parents were home to help. We all sprang into action; I rushed home while Greg was whisked away to the eye doctor. Luckily the injury, while pretty deep and very serious, would not cause permanent damage. Greg was given medicine and put into bed for the night.
To add to the chaotic nature of the evening, I was scheduled to baby-sit for a good friend. Madison had been looking forward to having the twins over for a week and quite frankly I was looking forward to having someone over to keep my little monsters occupied. With Greg settled comfortably in bed I went to pick up pizza and the kids. It wasn’t until I returned home with dinner and a couple of miniature house guests that we realized that the beagle was not begging for his slice of pie. I looked in bed with Greg, a frequent haunt of the beagle, and to my surprise he wasn’t there. I searched the house while the kids ate and then the neighborhood trying to find Hank. He was gone.
We made frantic calls to our neighbors both current and former, the animal shelters, the police and finally posted pictures on Facebook. Even though Hank was micro-chipped, we worried that he would wander into traffic and get hit by a car. We worried that he might tangle with a wild animal (Hank sometimes has “big dog” syndrome and thinks that he is tougher than he is.) We worried that he wouldn’t come home. It was the crappy icing on an already crummy cake. With a few friends we wandered the neighborhoods surrounding ours calling out for Hank, with no luck at all. We went to bed that night minus one little demon beagle.
The next morning, after more calls to our vet and the micro-chip company, we resigned ourselves to the waiting game. We got dressed and were just getting ready to leave (to another doctor’s appointment for Greg’s eyeball) when the doorbell rang. Greg and I looked at each other and ran to the door. There was a tall blonde woman, holding Hank on a leash. “Is this your dog?” she asked. Hank ran in the house and flopped on the couch. “I thought he might be yours,” she said with a smile. Then she told us how Hank had spent his evening.
Hank, sensing an opportunity in the chaos, snuck out of the house sometime in the early afternoon that Friday. Around the corner and several doors down are a couple of small businesses that operate out of older homes. One of these businesses is a tree service, whose sales force was not always good about latching the door all the way. Hank, returning to his felonious roots, took the opportunity to break in and scope out the food situation. The owner was out, running errands and wrapping up her week when she received a call from one of her salesmen.
“Did you know that there is a dog in the office?” he said.
“What do you mean a dog in the office?” she replied. “Like a living breathing dog?”
“Yep, it looks like a beagle,” he said.
“I think he may belong to the new neighbors,” she said. “I’m on my way.”
She picked up Hank and brought him home but no one answered when she knocked. Hank’s timing was perfect, I had just left to get the kids and Greg was knocked out by pain pills. Not wanting to leave Hank to his own devices she thought the best idea was to take him home with her and try back in the morning. Hank was more than willing to hop into her car and go home with her, where he romped and played with her dogs and cuddled with her husband before dining on a steak dinner. They put Hank in the garage for the evening and went to bed. Around two in the morning her husband woke up to go on a fishing trip.
“Be careful not to let the beagle out of the garage,” she cautioned. “I don’t want him to run away.”
“The beagle isn’t in the garage,” he said.
“WHAT!” she exclaimed, sitting up in bed.
“Nope. Look down,” he said pointing to a lump in the covers. “When I woke up the garage door was wide open and the dog was in bed with us.”
In short, Hank broke into an office. Took a ride out to Washington, MO where he spent a relaxing evening dining on steak, playing with dogs and snuggling in some random bed. While we wandered the neighborhoods looking for him Hank took a little vacation with fine dining and lavish accommodations. It was no wonder that he was exhausted when he came home to us on Saturday. We thanked the woman profusely while Hank snored away on the couch.
We bought Hank a new collar with new tags, since he managed to lose his old tags just prior to his little adventure. (Murphy’s law in full effect, the dog will only go missing the day after he has lost his tags.) We updated his profile on the microchip to account for his new address, his greying coat and little weight gain thanks to his pillaging ways. I doubt this will be the last time that Hank pulls a Houdini and escapes for a little adventure. I tell you this story as a cautionary tale, since Hank’s sneakiness knows no bounds. Who knows, the next house he breaks into could be yours.
Hide yo’ food. Hide yo’ wallet!
Lock your doors and bolt them tight, since the demon beagle haunts the night. Hide your trash and guard your food because there is no stopping this sneaky dude. And should the beagle ever grace your door, be forewarned he has the tendency to snore. I will tell you what will lay ahead, empty plates and a beagle in your bed. That is the sole purpose of today’s blog, to warn one and all about the demon dog.
This even looks like a mug shot, doesn’t it?
Let me start by saying I love dogs. My dogs are part of my family, my furry children. I have two. We have Charlie who is equal parts chocolate lab and unconditional love and then there is Hank, who is part beagle part devil sent to test my patience. We are a dog family, so much so that dodo (which means dog) was both of my kid’s first words. It is with a mixture of love and annoyance that I now tell the tale of Hank, demon dog extraordinaire.
Hank is a smart dog. No, it is more than that. Hank is an evil genius. He is a little super-villain trapped in a 35 pound, furry body. Like every super-villain he has one key object of desire. Lex Luther had a lust for power, Dr. Evil craved millions in cash, Hank the Demon Beagle has an insatiable appetite for people food. You would think that we never feed him the way he pines for pizza or dreams about desserts. Trust me, this dog eats. He eats his food, he eats Charlie’s food and still he turned to a life a crime to get his fix.
That’s right, my dog is a criminal. At first his misdeed’s were limited to our house. He would get on the counter and help himself to anything he could find. Then he discovered the trash can and all of its disgusting food scrap glory. Out of concern for his health we tried to keep his people food addiction in check, after all he wasn’t making good food choices. His favorite, it seemed, was double dark chocolate brownies. (Which he ingested the evening Greg and I had tickets to the World Series. His timing proves that he is a super-villain.) Hank has eaten chicken bones, mouse poison, Legos and finally a glass Christmas ornament that he thought was food. We became very well known at our vet’s office.
We Hank proofed the house, keeping all of the food well out of Hank’s reach. The cookie jar was moved to a tall shelf, because Hank had learned to push the nearby kitchen chair to the counter. The trashcan was locked in the pantry and the only food Hank was permitted to have was in his food bowl. That is when my beagle turned to a life a crime. Hank started breaking into my neighbor’s houses.
I told you Hank was a smart dog. If he had opposable thumbs we might all be living in the kingdom of Hank. Even without dexterous digits Hank has mastered opening doors. He has figured out that if he puts his body weight against the door while pawing at the handle he can make his escape… or his illegal entry. While living in Castlewood, out in the middle of the woods, Hank would bust his way out of our house from time to time. He always came back in an hour or so, we didn’t think much of it. We thought he was taking little beagle romps through the woods. That is until my husband, while tinkering in the lawn, waved to my neighbor who was taking the trash out.
Jerry, the neighbor, is an interesting guy. He is pure Castlewood,which means equal parts ingenuity and kindness with a liberal splash of redneck and a pinch of crazy. He is an awesome neighbor. He is also a confirmed bachelor who lives on pizza, BBQ and Busch Light beer. He also forgets to lock his door on a regular basis, apparently. On this day, while taking out the trash, Greg overheard Jerry’s grumbling rant.
“You can always tell when Hank has been over,” he mumbled. “The trash can is knocked over, the pizza boxes are licked clean and the cat food is gone.”
“Jerry, what are you talking about?” Greg asked.
“Oh, Hank lets himself in about once a week and helps himself to the cat food and anything else that might be sitting around,” was Jerry’s reply.
Greg apologized profusely the asked, “Jerry, how long has Hank been doing this? ”
“Oh, just for the past 6 months or so,” came the reply.
“Jerry! Why didn’t you tell us sooner?!”
“Well, it is survival of the fittest at my house. If the cat wants the food the cat should defend itself,” Jerry said.
Like I said, part kindness and part crazy equals VERY understanding neighbor. Little did we know that this was just the tip of the iceberg of Hank’s criminal activity. He had broken into 4 of my 6 neighbor’s houses. Taking advantage of an open door while unloading groceries or a screen not quite latched properly he would make his move. Every time he went in on a search for food. At one neighbor’s he ate the rottweiler’s food, proving that he was fearless in his pursuit of culinary crime. At the other neighbor’s he cleaned up some leftover oatmeal from breakfast.
He was well known in the neighborhood, despite our efforts to keep him on the straight and narrow. Whenever our backs were turned he would escape and head out on his criminal escapades. Our neighbors would kick him out and send him home. Hank would crawl into bed at night content in the knowledge that he had the world (or at least Castlewood) on a string.
That is until we moved, and Hank went missing.
(Stay tuned for part II)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Chaos, Criminal Minds, Dessert, family, kids, Recipe
Hi. Long time, no see. You may have been wondering where I have been for the past several months. In short, I was busy. The long story, I was busy with the following:
So I just discovered Pinterest, I know I am a little late to the party. So far I have to admit that I am not really sure what to do with it, but I like it. It is kind of cathartic to slip into fantasy land and peruse my dream bathroom or find the perfect bedroom oasis for a fictional house that I may someday own.
I have found some interesting recipes that I will have to try when I return to the land of carbs, but that too is its own form of fantasy for me right now. (I mean really, a FIFTEEN layer cake! WHO KNEW?!) So between the home decor/remodeling porn and the food porn I have stumbled onto a project that I could reasonably do (without knocking down walls or spiking my blood sugar.) 
Behold, my first Pinterest project, a sign for the new baby’s room. I was relatively easy to do. All it required was crayons, a canvas, hot glue gun and hair dryer. The how to videos are all over Youtube and the variations on this project are all over Pinterest. I have to say I am pretty impressed with myself for a little Wednesday morning crafting. Who knows, I have a few blank walls to fill… this Pinterest thing could get dangerous. We will see.
Okay, okay. It has been too long since I found myself here. My little blog has sat neglected for too long. It seemed that every day there was something a little more pressing to be done. The laundry, the grocery shopping and general house-wifey duties. And lets not forget Damn You Auto Correct dot com, I mean is there anything more funny than random strangers embarrassing themselves to friends and family with an unfortunate spell check? It never gets old!
But between the time lost perusing the interwebs, and catching up on Criminal Minds I realized I was letting a lot of things that I like to do slide in favor of things that are easy to do. I quit creating things in favor of vegetating in front of the television or computer, and hours would pass in the blink of an eye. Wasted time that I could have spent doing something more productive or more fun but instead I watched yet another pedophile get beat up by Elliot Stabler (on SVU, my Lord is he dreamy!) So, today I turned off the television and turned on some motivating music.
Well first I made the mistake of listening to the Sarah McLachlan sing the song from Toy Story and blubbered in my kitchen for ten minutes. (I am not sure how that song made it on to my I-Pod) But then I put on some peppy music and got to work. After an inauspicious start I have managed to clean up my house, color some pictures with my kiddo, get in the garden for a bit and pull some weeds… and now here I am.
I imagine you will see more of me, but don’t judge me if I relapse. After all, Criminal Minds is a REALLY good show… and Derek Morgan is too sexy to quit cold turkey. But I will try to turn off the boob tube and get back to the things that mean more to me than a made up killer on the TV screen. I will keep you posted.
Okay, okay. I admit it. I have been gone for a while. Life just snuck up on me and before you know it a couple weeks had passed me by why my blog sat… lonely and neglected. And for what? Well, I am not sure really. I mean, it has been hectic in the “life is crazy just get used to it” kind of way. Hmmmm, here is what I have to show for the past few weeks:
When my daughter says you look sparkly it is not a compliment. Sounds counterintuitive right? I firmly belong to the “more bling is always better” school of thought. And who doesn’t want a little sparkle in their life? The other day however, my kiddo was just finishing in the bathtub. “Mom, my fingers are sparkly,” she said looking at them quizzically. I held her water-wrinkled little hand looking intently for some rogue glitter that Johnson & Johnson may have missed. (I will cry when we outgrow the ubiquitous pink bottle by the way. It smells like baby heaven.) She pointed to her pruney fingers; “see they are sparkly like great mammo’s fingers.” (Sigh.) I will not tell my grandma the new meaning for sparkly. After all, she is the one who taught me to love the bling.
My dog’s strength is directly proportional to how much he hates something. His name is Hank, and he is 35 pounds of personality. I am convinced he is half beagle and half demon, sent to punish me for my sins. (I am Catholic, okay. Guilt is part of the package.) There are days when Hank is too weak to drag his body off of the couch to go outside. He has whined to be helped onto the bed and then lacked the strength to do anything but flop onto the pillows. And yet, in a recent trip to the vet, it took my husband AND the vet tech four sets of arms to hold him down while the vet gave him… wait for it… nasal spray. Then Hank had the strength of 10 beagles, and was not afraid to use it. Whipping his head back and forth he barked as if the devil himself was trying to vaccinate him. If there were only some way we could harness this power for good and not evil, I think the whole energy crisis would be solved. We would be a beagle powered society. That’s green, right?
I suck at economics. This semester it is my whole focus. I thought I would get my economics requirements out of the way. I thought the plan was pretty brilliant, if I do say so myself. Might as well keep my brain in economics mode all semester, right? I have Microeconomics on Mondays, Macroeconomics on Tuesdays and “Panics, Depressions and Recessions” online. Doesn’t that sound fun? There was only one flaw in my plan. I am not an economist. Therefore there is a limit to how much a non-economist can absorb any given week. It is a problem. The main problem is the reading. Not that it isn’t interesting, it is… sometimes. It is just that I can’t get more than three or four pages in without falling asleep. Which brings me to my next point:
I am very well rested.
Finally, my daughter turned four this week. We had a party (I will tell you all about that later) and we ate a LOT of cake. (It was delicious.) This week has been a mix of emotions for me though. My baby is getting BIG. (sob) It really hit me this week, watching her strut her four-year-old stuff. She is not a baby anymore. She is not even a toddler… she is a little kid. Excuse me while I go sit in the corner and cry a little. Pass the chocolate please.
It happens pretty rarely; a perfect storm of silly and surreal that can spin a normal day into one that leaves you giggling. It is the type of day that convinces me that the great creator has a sense of humor. It is the type of morning that amazes me that human beings are at the top of the food chain. It is the type of moment that leaves me looking for the hidden cameras.
This morning, on my way to sign my daughter up for preschool (at the crack of dawn on a Saturday I must add) I was left laughing and scratching my head in puzzlement.
First there was the woman walking her dog. The lady was a trooper to be sure given the 6 inches of snow on the ground and the bitterly cold winds. Her fluffy white dog, a little less than a trooper I guess. That is why her “walking” the dog meant carrying the dog down the street while she walked her self. Maybe the woman was scared to lose her little white fluff-ball in all of that snow, but she was the only one getting any exercise.
I turned the corner and slowly made my was to Starbucks when I saw the second surreal sight of the day. At first I thought it was a small child walking with his dad. As I pulled to the stop sign I realized that it was no child… It was a great dane, in a coat and hat. To be more clear, a matching coat and hat with his owner. To be EVEN more clear, a knitted red and white hat with a huge red pom pom on top for both of them and blue puffy nylon coat… for both of them.
Just when I thought it could not get any more odd in the world of dogs and men I saw the icing on the cake. A woman driving down the road with her chihuahua perched like a princess in the back windshield on a pink pillow… with a feather boa wrapped around her. The dog had the boa, not the woman. I am not sure which is weirder… but I have to respect the need for some marabou-feathery goodness on a cold Saturday morning.
All of this happened before I made it the half a mile to my local Starbucks, my caffeine haven. By the time I got there I ordered an extra shot of espresso, because obviously I had not left the world of dreams.
I don’t know what the rest of the day has in store for me, but it has got to be good! With a start like this, how could it go wrong? I have a new theory… pink marabou-ed chihuahuas, red hatted great danes or pampered white snowballs who can’t walk in the snow must be good luck. It is like the opposite of a black cat crossing your path. Maybe I will buy a lottery ticket.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I am not sure what it is about me, but this camel really liked me. Always fun to view Christmas lights and pet the animals in the manger, but the camel was a little sassy.
This camel knows nothing about personal space.
The camel whisperer doesn’t have the same romantic ring to is like horse whisperer or ghost whisperer or even dog whisperer.
Excuse me ma'am, you have a little something on your coat.
She just told me that she likes my hair cut. Don’t you wish that you spoke camel?
Or maybe it was the carrots… No, I think it was my sparkling personality.
My Saturday nights used to be very different. As I sit here and write this a flood of memories comes rushing back. It is eleven o’clock on a Saturday and I have been in my pajamas for close to two hours now. There was a time where my evening wouldn’t even begin until eleven on a Saturday. There was a time when, on a whim, we jumped in the car and ended up in Las Vegas—twenty-four hours away. There was another night we talked ourselves into a rooftop party and toasted our slick talking with champagne; on someone else’s dime, because free drinks always taste better.
We stayed up late and we woke up later. We went interesting places and met interesting people; at least they seemed interesting at the time… I have the tendency to make “new best friends” when I drink. We were young and vibrant and each upcoming weekend held the endless promise of a good time (even if they didn’t always end up that way.)
We played kings, we played circle of death and we played quarters; drinking whatever cheap beer was on sale. When we decided that we were too mature to bounce money across the table we switched to a more grown-up game—“drinking” Trivial Pursuit. (The rules are simple, if you miss the pie piece you have to take a shot, if you get it right then everyone else has to take a shot. By the end of the game NO ONE feels smart.)
We were young, we were dumb and we had a lot of fun.
Flash forward several years and now I am sitting on my couch, trying to stay awake past 10:30 on a Saturday night. I spent the evening hanging out with my three year old and my husband; just your typical, ordinary evening. Not that I am complaining, I love my family and I love the time we spend together. Every now and then I am just struck by the contrast in my life as it is now, and how it used to be.
After dinner it was bath time for the monster, but before she could head for the bathroom she had to say goodbye to the ornaments on the Christmas tree. I am sure it makes sense to a three year old. She looked at me and said, “Fie meese turks eesh.” Again, I think it makes sense to a three year old.
“Five means fish eat?” I asked as I helped her into the bathtub.
“No. Fie meese turks eesh,” she repeated.
Now usually she is pretty clear when she talks, and most of the time I can understand her. Even when she is not so clear I can usually speak toddler. But some nights I get a little rusty and tonight was one of those times. Thus started the new game we play on Saturday nights, Toddler Translations.
Fight me, wish heat?
Flies eat goose wheat?
Flight wings with sweets?
“Five means roast beef?” my husband yelled from the kitchen; wishful thinking from Mr. Drive Through Menus on the Brain.
My daughter shot me a look that said, “My parents are idiots” before yelling “NO! FIE MEESE TURKS EESH.”
“Five means twist east?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied, obviously exhausted by her parents idiocy.
I looked at her trying to find meaning in the phrase, five means twist east. She smiled back at me as if she had just said something completely profound.
It was not the first Saturday night that a half-naked, incoherent person sitting next to me thought they were the next Confucius. I guess the more things change…
The moral of this story is:
Things will change as you start to age
It’s time to let it go, just turn the page.
So although your partying has greatly decreased
You’ll giggle as your toddler says: Five Means Twist East.
I don’t know what it means either. Any ideas?
It is finals time, which can only mean that I am in constant search for more caffeine. I think the barista may have noticed that my need for energy was slightly more profound today. It could have been the crazy gleam in my eye or perhaps the weird twitch in my forehead that only comes from an overly full cranium. Maybe it was in fear of the overly large, Irish-afro I was sporting because I neglected to try to tame my tresses at all today.
Regardless of the reason she added an extra boost of caffeine to my already juiced up beverage, making my day. (Or at least my two hours until the buzz wore off.) It is the simple things in life that bring me joy, like free espresso. So a haiku for the barista at Starbucks, who added a little sunshine to my day.
My sweet barista
The extra shot was sublime
Bliss with chocolate
It may not be Shakespeare, but a small token to show my gratitude. Well, that and my change in the tip cup.
a life just ordinary 