Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Una after her bath

Just before I woke up this morning, I dreamt I was chatting with Richard Pryor, just telling him about some dreams I'd just had. I asked him if he ever got ideas from dreams, and he had a long, thoughtful answer.

At the end of it, I asked him for an interview for Wild Violet, and that's when I woke up.

She doesn't know it yet, but my dog, Una, is getting a bath when we get back from this walk. She's going to the pet sitter's tonight, as The Gryphon and I will head for Otakon tomorrow morning. Of course, she prefers to stay at the pet sitter's than at the vet's. Last year, when we picked her up after a weeklong vacation, she started a riot. She backed into a corner of her pen and barked, getting all the other dogs to join in.

Una is starting to get the allergies she gets every year, which make her stomach pink and irritated. So I'll be packing up some hydrocortisone spray and giving the pet sitter instructions to spray her belly to soothe it every once in awhile. Whatever she's allergic to gets The Gryphon, too: he had to take allergy medicine at the bus stop the other day.

I told The Gryphon to pet her before heading for work today, because she would be at the pet sitter's by the time he came home. He did give her plenty of head pats, which didn't prevent her from barking at him to express her displeasure when he left from work.

The pet sitter has another dog staying there this week, in addition to her two usual dogs, so she'll hopefully make another friend. Una has a good time at the pet sitter's.

Normally I'd be pretty excited about Otakon, but this time I'm looking forward to it with some trepidation. I'm going to be in a position with more responsibility than before and I'm not entirely sure I know what's expected to me. It seems I'm expected to pick it up as it goes along, and this is distressing to me. I like to know exactly what I'm getting into.

I was going to ask a friend of mine who served the same position, but I forgot and now I suppose it's too late to expect a response in time.

Someone in the neighborhood, someone is cooking fried onions, a suffocatingly greasy smell on top of a pleasant morning.

Cicadas are humming their chorus in the trees. Makes me want to go camping or something.

Otakon is fun, though. You get to meet a lot of people. And some old friends will be meeting up with The Gryphon and I on Friday for dinner and hopefully to check out a movie at Otakon.

Una has her share of neighborhood friends. She makes them wherever she goes. As I was walking her this morning, a passing stranger said, "Cute dog."

And then there's a police officer who usually smiles and waves when he drives by. This time he called out the open window, "How you doing?"

"Great. It's a nice day."

"Yes, it's beautiful."

Maybe I should be more like Una, smiling and smelling the flowers, living the moment.

As it turned out, Una had more to contend with than simply a bath. After I finished with her bath, I checked my e-mail and found a message from the pet sitter, informing me that one of the dogs who was staying there might have a case of kennel cough. She wanted to warn me so that I could check with the vet to see if Una was immunized.

Naturally, she wasn't, so I got them to work her in for a quickie. Una was still damp from her bath, and she wasn't in the best of moods when I loaded her into the car. As soon as we pulled up in front of the vet's office, she began whining and barking. Her caterwauling (dogerwauling?) continued the entire time we sat in the waiting room. She never used to be afraid of the vet's until I started boarding her there on a regular basis while I was dating The Invisible Man. Now the poor thing thinks every time we go there I'm going to leave her.

It might have been easier if they'd given her a simple shot, but the kennel couch vaccine has to be injected up the nose with a plastic syringe. The veterinarian assistant they assigned to the task was clearly nervous and didn't do a very good job of making friends with Una before attempting the procedure. I had to hold Una in a bear hug, and she still thrashed her head around until finally we had it done.

She was very grateful to get in the car to go home, not realizing that when she got there she would get her monthly application of flea and ticket repellant (which she absolutely hates). I can only hope she has a good enough time at the pet sitter's tonight to make up for all this!

Copyright 2005 by Alyce Wilson

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