~ Best Laid Plans…miss the Runway ~
Keira is in Mom’s office, partially to keep Mom company, and partially to purloin a crumpled sticky note teetering on the edge of the wastebasket. I watched her from the doorway, patiently waiting for Mom to turn in the opposite direction of the object of her current desire.
Keira turned to give me the “You’re blocking my getaway” look. Not wanting to interfere, and lunch being some hours away, I headed to the living room couch.
Tucker was already curled up on one end, and I followed suit at the opposite end, but I got bored after a while. I’d been hoping Keira would make her move and come racing out of the office with a wad of discarded paper in her mouth, with Mom following in hot pursuit repeating, “Release Keira, release!” Since that didn’t happen (Keira probably fell asleep), I let my increasing boredom drive me into finding a way to drum up some excitement on my own. It’s the least I could do, considering the circumstances.
Tucker was dozing off and on, opening his eyes slightly when he thought he heard Mom coming towards the living room. He looked so peaceful and content. I knew just what to do to get things going.
My end of the couch affords me a view out the patio doors to the backyard. I adjusted my position just to get Tucker’s attention and was about to say, “Hey Tuck, it looks like there might be rabbits coming down the hill.”
Before I could execute my little plan, Tuck with his eyes still closed said matter-of-factly, “Dad saw a lizard in the yard yesterday.”
What? Wait? What? My brain cramped a bit at this new information. As the days got warmer, I’ve been carefully and thoroughly looking for my chase-about little friends to no avail.
I involuntarily popped up on my front legs to scan the backyard through the glass and ask Tuck for details like, where, when…and where’s Dad now?
Tucker took his time to answer (he does that on purpose). An electric charge built up in my legs to the point that I had to jump down and race to the glass doors to scout the grounds from floor level.
“I think it was yesterday…no wait…the day before…somewhere over by the pine tree.”
The painfully slow delivery of information wound me up even tighter to the point I thought I would explode.
“Where’s Dad right now, Tuck?”
He raised his head to look towards the door to the garage.
“Muddy Paws!” I said out loud, not meaning to.
“Hey, No swearing. Watch your mouth, Hazel. As sheriff of the pack, I could impose a fine.”
I ignored Tucker and took the risk of scratching at the door to the garage. Even though scratching at doors, like swearing, is not allowed, but this was an emergency. There might be lizards to chase by the pine tree, and I can’t see over there from the patio doors.
No answer at the first pawing. On my second scratch Tuck jumped down from the couch with a, “Hey knock it off, Haze. You’re gonna get us in trouble.”
No answer from the garage yet, and Tuck’s interference wasn’t helping to calm me down.
I ran back to the glass doors to check if I had missed anything, and while I was hurriedly looking in all directions, I had the brief thought that everything that was about to happen had started with my decision to play with Tucker with a little lie. I tried to frame it in a way that I wasn’t really lying about the bunnies, but overall, it was kind of a selfish thing to do. The next thought I had was that I could just calm down and get back up on the couch and wait patiently for lunch time. I almost did just that.
Almost.
I caught the slightest movement near the apple tree. All thoughts and actions were now focused into a laser sharp determination to find Dad NOW and get the muddy paws door open this instant!
With a set of sharp barks to alert all to what I perceived as an urgent matter, I turned in full rocket dog mode, only to collide into Tucker.
Taking great offense at the force of the collision, he responded with his own urgent matter barks. This triggered Keira in the other room to use Mom’s leap from her office chair to grab herself a fat wad of various papers out the garbage can.
Dad, having come back into the garage from the outside, heard the commotion too, and entered the living room at about the same speed as Mom and Keira (who had deftly pulled out ahead of Mom), coming in from the opposite angle. This confused me and Tucker, and we took off in opposite directions to get out of the way.
I’m pretty sure all this wouldn’t have turned into a contact sport if Mom hadn’t noticed envelopes and printer paper sticking out of Keira’s mouth. Mom altered her direction ever so slightly and yelled, “Keira! Stop!”
At that very moment Tucker shot through Mom’s legs as she stepped forward.
On my end, I was passing behind Dad, but turned and swung my hindquarters around to see what Keira had done. My 30-lb. “quarter panel” met back of Dad’s left knee, with a fair amount of force.
Tucker’s surprise passage between Mom’s knees startled her and caused her to turn mid-stride. That turn sat her down firmly, but safely, onto the couch.
Dad, after impact with my hind end, caught the kitchen island with his left hand, lifted his right hand in the air to steady his mug and its contents, and assumed a kind of “call to prayer” position on one knee. The one knee I accidentally took out.
Mom took a deep breath, but before she could share her current thoughts on everyone’s behavior, Dad shouted, “Hallelujah, no one is bleeding…and nothing got broken, and no coffee was spilled.” He raised his mug higher. “And bless whoever invented coffee.”
Mom got up to find Keira nonplussed at all our acrobatics, busy with her personal form of shred-style origami behind the couch.
Dad got up, refilled his mug, and knowing Mom would be letting us know how we could probably improve our indoor behavior, headed for the garage.
Mom did. But before she did, Tucker came alongside and said, “Sorry about all this Haze. I was just bored. I lied. Dad didn’t see any lizards.”
Muddy, Muddy paws.
~ Hazel Bazel Rocket Dog ~
