Two Housey Things: Tony Hawks and Garage Dog II
3/27/2

When I was getting home yesterday, and not feeling too swooft either, it was your standard drive down our road and turn into the house. All the houses look the same, or really I think there are about 10 different plans, but at least one sixth of all houses look like ours, so it didn�t look like the kids were standing in front of my house.

After all, my house doesn�t have kids standing in front of it.

Well, there was the streetlight and there�s the neighbor�s Chevy Tracker that is trying to beat the Hyundai cars in a depreciation race...looks like those kids are in front of my house.

I�m feeling like crap, and just follow my normal pattern: Once I�m 30 feet past the manhole in the street I can hit the garage door opener and it�ll open.

Our garage door sticks a little and thus makes a Bang when it first starts opening. I�d like to get it re-hung, but it�s very low on my list of priorities.

BANG goes the door.

The two kids, which I must say are about 14 years old, pop up into the air in shock and then speed away on their skateboards. Oh, they were the Tony Hawks from down the street.

I looked around and there was nothing out of the ordinary in the yard, nothing damaged. I say that, but there was a suspicious looking small stone in the driveway. Hmmm.

The second housey thing was this morning. All night we had heard one of the Garage Dogs, which are now actually Chain Dogs, whining. I slept through it, as Garage Dog Man has made me able to sleep through much, with his ritualistic neglect of his dogs.

Ten minutes until the alarm goes off, both Aisai and I think that it�s the tiny puppy he just got has wandered into our yard. When Aisai and I walked on Monday, we saw that he had his two big dogs chained in the back yard, but also had a tiny puppy which was just wandering around.

We looked out the window into the back yard and looked on the patio and didn�t see any tiny puppies. We looked on the front porch and didn�t see any tiny puppies. So, we assumed we were wrong and went back to bed.

RRRrrrrriing. The alarm went off.

I almost got up.

�Whine whine whine...wh wh....rrrrwhine,� said the dog.

�Ok, that was here.� I say to Aisai.

We hop up and go look out the back and sure enough, we�d just not seen him the first time, there was a Malamute, Garage Dog II, in our backyard.

Jeans and socks and shoes and shirt and a jacket...ok, let�s get him.

Aisai asked if I thought it was safe to go out to him. Sure.

I opened the sliding glass and walked out and said, �Hey, you baby.� And the dog jumped for joy and did his happy dog dance. Or as much of his happy dog dance as he could do since his �chain� was wrapped around a bridal wreath shrubbery, a cedar tree, and a cherry laurel tree. At the end of the high tension style wire that was his chain replacement, was a horribly bent up spike thing.

I took the dog side while Aisai took the tree side. Garage Dog II was jumping all over me and licking me and getting mud on me. He was really strong and, though terribly boisterous, really a good dog and fun.

After Aisai and I got him untangled, we walked him down to Garage Dog Man�s house. It took Garage Dog Man about three minutes to open the front door, maybe longer. We gave him his dog and he thanked us. I wasn�t upset about the dog. I feel sorry for the dog since he gets chained, but there is no law against it. It was really fun being around a dog again.

When I was on my way into work, I thought about how powerful he was and how well Aisai and I had worked together with that cable and the dog. I have handled dogs in a professional capacity during my life, and Aisai was a good complement. The dog had horrible leash manners, but really only wanted to have fun and be with us.

And today, the 626 goes back into the shop. It�s either a throttle positioning sensor or the fact that there is too much transmission fluid in the thing. We�re taking it to Universal. Aisai has a Meeting Of The Minds at the Underground Lair that lasts until ten, so we�ll take it in after that. We have a spare $400 for it.

I want a dog. Badly.

I even commented to Aisai, �You know, it�s that we insist on doing things right that keeps us from having a dog.� I�ve wanted a dog for so long, but I won�t have one until we have a fence and we are home more hours per day than we are now. A dog can pick up some bad habits in the nine hours we are gone from the house. Plus, I�d rather that we and the dog enjoy each other�s company.

The same goes for us having kids.

Minus the fence.