riley, go get my brain
Nov. 4th, 2011 12:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sisalikA few days ago, Riley was playing with her big beef bone. It's a thing I picked up at the grocery store, all nasty with smoked jerkylike bits of meat trailing off the end like sticky savory streamers, a bit thicker around than my wrist. She loves to play with it, and by "play with it" what I mean is that she [BANG] picks it up and drops it, [BANG] repeatedly, on the hardwood [BANG] floor.
Having got thoroughly [BANG] tired of the noise, I said, "Honey, go get your bone." She went and picked it up, [BANG] dropped it, picked it up again, and stared at me wondering what to do next. "Bring it in the room," I told her, meaning my room, where there are throw rugs on the floor for her to dirty up. She did, and settled with it on the bed. We've had a long-established rule about no animal-product toys in the bed, ever since I found a gummy wet beef bone UNDER MY PILLOW, so I glared and said, "Get that off the bed." She huffed at me like a teenager and did. Then she found the one bit of uncovered wood floor in here and [BANG] went back to playing with the bone, so I told her to take it back on the bed, where she and it happily stayed until about two in the morning when I found it under my left knee and threw it across the room. [BANG]
I ask her to get stuff for me all the time. Riley, where's my phone? Riley, bring your dish over here so I can give you dinner. Riley, you need thumbs. If it's a thing she knows how to do - meaning a toy - she'll do it. "Go get the" is a recognized bit of programming language, for Riley, but most of the time I follow it up with my crazy primate noises and she can safely ignore me.
My desk light went out yesterday, and this would not be a big deal except that all of the light bulbs in this house go out at the same time. The one on the front porch snuffed it a few days ago. Ditto the one on the stove. I am not a particularly housekeepy sort of person, so I wind up shuffling around in the dark, slamming my toes on things like big nasty beslobbered beef bones (which left a fantastic scab that keeps knocking into everything else, ow), glaring at the light fixtures and wondering, DO YOU ALL HAVE A SUICIDE PACT? Which, in my world, is possible.
Then, this morning, my last bastion of illumination went out: the light by my bedside. Riley was in bed with me, as she tends to be, and had gotten up to avoid all the flailing-around and being hit with knees that happens to her when I get up. (Note that I am always subjected to the flailing-around and being hit with shoulders and giant clawed feet when she settles in for the evening.) This was annoying, but not catastrophic, because I had bulbs - those fancy energy-saving twirly ones - but I just needed to get around to putting them in.
I said to the dog, "Honey, go get me a light bulb." Out the door she went. I wasn't quite awake enough to process this yet, so I sort of waited there in the dark.
Then she came back and poked her head into the room with her ears perked and her forehead all deep in wrinkledy thought -- "Wait, what?"
Just as well. I think her slobber would melt the sockets.
Having got thoroughly [BANG] tired of the noise, I said, "Honey, go get your bone." She went and picked it up, [BANG] dropped it, picked it up again, and stared at me wondering what to do next. "Bring it in the room," I told her, meaning my room, where there are throw rugs on the floor for her to dirty up. She did, and settled with it on the bed. We've had a long-established rule about no animal-product toys in the bed, ever since I found a gummy wet beef bone UNDER MY PILLOW, so I glared and said, "Get that off the bed." She huffed at me like a teenager and did. Then she found the one bit of uncovered wood floor in here and [BANG] went back to playing with the bone, so I told her to take it back on the bed, where she and it happily stayed until about two in the morning when I found it under my left knee and threw it across the room. [BANG]
I ask her to get stuff for me all the time. Riley, where's my phone? Riley, bring your dish over here so I can give you dinner. Riley, you need thumbs. If it's a thing she knows how to do - meaning a toy - she'll do it. "Go get the" is a recognized bit of programming language, for Riley, but most of the time I follow it up with my crazy primate noises and she can safely ignore me.
My desk light went out yesterday, and this would not be a big deal except that all of the light bulbs in this house go out at the same time. The one on the front porch snuffed it a few days ago. Ditto the one on the stove. I am not a particularly housekeepy sort of person, so I wind up shuffling around in the dark, slamming my toes on things like big nasty beslobbered beef bones (which left a fantastic scab that keeps knocking into everything else, ow), glaring at the light fixtures and wondering, DO YOU ALL HAVE A SUICIDE PACT? Which, in my world, is possible.
Then, this morning, my last bastion of illumination went out: the light by my bedside. Riley was in bed with me, as she tends to be, and had gotten up to avoid all the flailing-around and being hit with knees that happens to her when I get up. (Note that I am always subjected to the flailing-around and being hit with shoulders and giant clawed feet when she settles in for the evening.) This was annoying, but not catastrophic, because I had bulbs - those fancy energy-saving twirly ones - but I just needed to get around to putting them in.
I said to the dog, "Honey, go get me a light bulb." Out the door she went. I wasn't quite awake enough to process this yet, so I sort of waited there in the dark.
Then she came back and poked her head into the room with her ears perked and her forehead all deep in wrinkledy thought -- "Wait, what?"
Just as well. I think her slobber would melt the sockets.
