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Miss Carol and me got up early this morning so we could walk Cutter and Tug before the tourons flooded the beach with their touroniness. It was a high dawn with a marine layer on the horizon so not so much of a sunrise, but nice and deserted.

While the dogs were running like prisoners set free, I thought I’d steal from Stephanie at chocolateandwhine.com and take some angled photographs because hers always look cool and, hey, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?

All was golden until I downloaded and realized what I’d done.

And then I got seasick and threw up in my mouth.

The end.

Life’s funny.

As if I needed any reminders, last night I was working late and Miss Carol had gone to bed and I’m thinkin’ the dogs are with her ’cause that’s how it works. I feed and walk them and they adore, absolutely adore, Miss Carol. I think it’s a guy thing.

Anyway, I got through doing what I was doin’ and went out to turn off the living room lights and go to bed and there was Tug. Sleeping curved around the fireplace hearth. Waiting on me.

As a cheerleaders love for her quarterbacks winning touchdown pass coursed through me I stood watching Tug and thinking back.

Cutter was our first pick. When we went to the dog lady that day four years ago, it was Cutter that sealed the deal by falling asleep in the crook of my arm while we watched a whole litter of labs roll around and be cute.

It wasn’t until after, when we were back home and Miss Carol decided we needed two puppies that I realized Miss Carol was crazy.

But when we went back to pick up Cutter there was Tug sitting all by himself in the corner of the big crate he and his siblings had grown up in staring at all the empty spaces where they used to be. Wondering where they all went.

And we brought him home and now he waits up for me.

Tug.

Boy howdy.

What a difference a couple of weeks and a couple of slatherings of Miracle-Gro make.

Two weeks ago I was looking at our pathetic, anemic little garden and thinking about all the work it’s gonna be to move the dirt and just dismantle the whole freakin’ mess.

Fast forward fourteen days.

Now, thanks to the miracle that is Miracle-Gro, not only am I not thinking about paving the whole thing, we have thriving glowing vegetables that we can almost hear growing. The tomatoes are lookin’ perky, the lettuce is hugely romaine, and the beans are climbin’ their strings.

We feel just like real farmers.

But it makes me wonder- if I just keep slatherin’ the stuff on will we get Jack in the Beanstalk style beans and jungles of lettuce and tomatoes the size of my head and squash that’d make porn stars blush?

I don’t know what’s in Miracle-Gro but I likes it.

I’m stranded in my Me Only Room.

A little over a week ago I was walking Cutter and Tug and I was wool gathering instead of paying attention and a couple of tourons walking their dog managed to surprise me.

Cutter and Tug were in the sandy grass next to the road and were able to really get some traction and pull mightily towards their new best friend that they were bound and determined to meet.

Normally we either let them run the beach or when we walk them on the road we try and keep them on the road because there is less traction on the asphalt when they’re trying to meet new people giving me a better chance of holding onto the little muscle heads.

But, like I said, this time I was surprised. I managed to get them pulled back away from the tourons and their dog and back onto the road but as I walked away I could feel something clippin’ in my left knee.

Later that night it was stiffening up and by the next day I couldn’t bend it. I started popping aspirin and, hoping to walk it off, continued to work; hobbling around on my good leg.

That didn’t work and it just got worse as the week progressed and became the weekend. I certainly wasn’t going to miss out on the holiday weekend so I iced it when I could and continued with the aspirin prescribed by Dr. Oceandoggy. On Sunday my brother and I tore down a shed that I’ve been meaning to get rid of and by the time we were through with that nonsense my knee was really swollen and tight as a drum.

On Monday I finally succumbed to Miss Carol’s badgering and went to the doctor. They told me it was swollen, which I knew, and that the fluid causing the swelling was probably also the cause of the pain, which I suspected, being the doctor kinda guy I am.

Speaking of doctors- any time a doctor tells you something is going to be uncomfortable and then leaves the examination room and returns with reinforcements you can bet it’s not going to be uncomfortable at all, it’s going to be downright painful. And it was. He produced a needle the size of a ball point pen and, while they held me down, stuck it in behind the kneecap and into the joint, sweeping it around trying to siphon up the fluid. Once is never enough for this kind of thing so they did it twice, once on each side of my knee.

The doctor is hoping that it’s not a tear in the ligaments or tendons or whatever so after the needle fun he gave me a prescription for an anti-inflammatory and sent me on my way telling me to stay off my feet and call him in a week if it’s not getting any better.

And here I am. Stuck in my Me Only Room writing long, whining posts because I don’t have anything else I can do. I can’t go anywhere because I can’t drive my truck because I can’t work the clutch. I’m stuck. It’s a really weird feeling this humbling helplessness. I’ve never been laid up unable to do the things I want or need to do.

This sucks.

And 2nd, and 3rd, and 5th.

My brother and his girlfriend rolled into town on Thursday evening for the holiday weekend pushing 84 hours of future fun before them and bringing plenty of beer and alcohol to add to the already overflowing stockpile we had accumulated in our garage. When my brother and I get together it’s kinda like a train wreck, but in a good way. Something to be survived and remembered and reminisced about. Like a marathon.

It was three and half days filled with laughter and good food mostly dominated by Miss Carol’s barbeque that we hope to soon be selling online if I can just get my shit together and get the necessary permits and licenses and insurances and lease the kitchen and staff it and build the website and jesus god is this a lot of work. But I’ll get it done somehow ’cause it needs to be done. We’ve received so much positive feedback in the last year of test marketing that we feel pretty good about it.

But more on that later.

One of the many things that we squeezed in this weekend in amongst the beach and stuff was a run over to Blue Pete’s on the other side of the bay for appetizers and beers. It was a beautiful night to be on the water and one of those evenings that make you really appreciate everything and everybody in your life and kinda cushions the cold hard slap of reality of the Monday morning that’s always hovering, a dark shadow on the horizon.

I know it sounds like the entire weekend was one never ending 4th of July party. And it was. But we did take some quiet time to thank our founding fathers for their sacrifices and the greatness that is America.

Or at least I think we did.

We got us some retard dogs.

Labrador Retrievers are supposed to be genetically predisposed to bound into the water and swim and and retrieve. Right?

Not Cutter and Tug. No way.

I’ve tried to get them to retrieve something, anything, for a long while now and it usually goes something like this- I’ll take the two of them into the yard and make them sit and let ’em know it’s Training Time. Then I’ll take a new toy or ball or whatever and toss it across the yard. Cutter will race for it, pick it up, shake the life out of it and start back to me. Tug will just sit, eyeing his brother, thinking what a suck-up he is and waiting to attack him. When Cutter gets about half way back with the toy Tug will launch and run him down and they’ll both wrestle and growl and carry on and then they’ll trot over for a biscuit leaving the toy behind. I’ll walk out and retrieve the toy, get them to come to me and toss it again but by then they’re thoroughly bored with the whole thing and they’ll just sit and stare at me.

Them’s my boys.

Then, the swimming. They are four years old and have never actually swam in the ocean. They’ll run through the water chasing each other but that’s about it. We’ll walk the beach watching all the other Labs swimming and retrieving and Cutter and Tug just bound around peeing on everything like retards cut loose for a day. We’ve tried to convince people that they’re special hybrids, a science experiment gone sadly awry. Labs that don’t swim. Jeez.

But then, last weekend, something happened. For whatever reason, Tug suddenly turned and pounded into the waves and went SWIMMING. Cutter pranced around back and forth in the shore break trying to figure out what had gotten into his littermate. When Tug finally returned Cutter pounced on him and chased him up the beach. But he SWAM! I’m hopin’ that Cutter will join him this weekend and then we’ll just have the pesky retrieving thing to clear up.

Maybe they won’t be retards forever.

Miss Carol has a new boyfriend.

Nopey, nope it’s not the flowers. I gave Miss Carol a monthly arrangement for a year for her birthday many, many, many years ago. Little did I know that  just like herpes they just keep coming and won’t go away.

Nor is it the Australian dolphin sculpture that I scrimped for and saved for and winced for when I finally bought it for Miss Carol.

And it’s definitely not the cheapy deapy NOAA weather radio that I listen to every morning to plan my day whilst I make Miss Carol’s coffee.

Miss Carol’s new boyfriend is her brand new sleek shiny slender super sexy new iPhone 3G. She don’t know it yet, but she’s about to be smitten and carried away by it’s Appleness.

And I’ll miss her.

Miss Carol is corporate so she has had to put up with the Windows world, carefully and completely shielded from exposure to the wonderful beautifulness that is Apple and Mac. Poor, poor, Miss Carol.

But all that’s about to change and I can only hope Miss Carol remembers me.

Mighty Whitey ain’t lookin’ too good.

Six or eight weeks into a two or three week renovation I’m guessin’ it’s a ways away. BOB swears that this is the week that the heavy lifting will be done and by Saturday Mighty Whitey will be in the spray booth.

But he said that last week.

And the week before.

And, um, well, the week before that.

As credibility curls up and dies, I’m trying to remain positive and upbeat and hopeful that someday before I can’t afford gasoline I’ll be able to take Mighty Whitey and Miss Carol and Cutter and Tug down to Hatteras one more time.

But I ain’t so sure.

So another several weeks have passed and we’ve fought off both Bambi and bunnies in our relentless pursuit to watch slowly dying green plants slowly die.

I think we bought bad dirt. Can you have bad DIRT?

As if our farming incompetencies weren’t slack enough, we woke one morning to find that most of our pathetic garden had been an anemic salad bar for varmints. I rushed to Home Depot for materials and put our plants into prison. I also constructed string poles for the tired little green things we’re euphemistically calling green beans.

And then we watered and watched and watered and watched. At one point during the watching I saw our little bunny friend sitting in the yard staring at her imprisoned dinner with her ears slicked back and her big, dark, puppy dog eyes brimming with desire and I almost went out and opened the gate for her. But I didn’t. Instead, I kept waiting and watching while nothing really grows but nothin’s really dying either. It’s kinda like plant purgatory.

Miss Carol remains annoyingly bubbly optimistic about our future harvest but I’m not so sure tomato plants can survive the winter so I’ve decided enough’s enough and I’m gonna bring out the big guns. I’m gettin’ us some MiracleGro super duper plant food stuff and chemically jump start the garden.

We may glow in the dark after we eat it, but dammit, we’ll have us a tomato sometime this year.

OK.

Granted, walking the dogs twice a day every day gives me lots and lots of time to think and not much to think about, it still surprised me when I realized that not only have I somehow internalized their doody habits but have also unconsciously built an entire framework of poop rules to deal with having to clean up after them.

Welcome to my world. It’s fun, right?

I should just stop here, but, and yet, somehow I cannot.  So.

First the dance- when it’s time Tug suddenly stops, looks confused like WTF?, and jerks around at the end of the leash like a fish on the line, looking for a bush or something to tickle his butt. Cutter, on the other hand, pulls like a locomotive, his nose to the ground, grinding his way to the perfect spot.

Then the stance. When Tug assumes the position he’s all tippy toed looking like he’s passing a Buick and slowly inches forward plopping away. Cutter just settles in like an old man reading a newspaper and, you know, poops.

As a responsible pet owner I carry crappy plastic bags to pick up the boy’s doody like it’s the treasure that it is. And as a fairly lazy responsible pet owner I’m constantly alert for ways to shirk my doggy doody removal responsibilities.

Soooo. Now that I’m waaaayyy too far down this particular road to turn around and go back for directions here we go:

1-If we’re on the beach I always, always pick it up. The only thing I want squishing between my toes at the beach is sand. Really.

2-If we’re walking on the roads and they poop in a neighbors yard I always pick it up. People know where you live. It’s a small town.

3-If we’re walking on the roads and they poop in a rental and no one is home, it didn’t happen and I walk away whistling. Life is good.

4-If we’re walking the roads and they poop in a seasonal rental and no one sees it-see #3. Ahh, yes.

5-If we’re walking the roads really late at night or really early in the morning I usually pretend I can’t see it and do the walking and whistling.

Welp, there ya gots it.

More than you could ever wanted to know about the other end of my dog’s lives. I could probably simply simplify my life and just walk my dogs and pick up their poop and honestly how pathetic is this entire post?

Jesus.