Animal magnet

Every morning, as soon as I wake up, my animals expect me to follow a precise routine. The dogs especially let me know about it if I do anything wrong -- perhaps because they benefit the most. I'm one of those pet owners who makes sure the food bowls are brimming with food all the time. I don't pre-measure the food, nor do I only feed at a certain time.

However, every morning, as soon as I get up, Diva and Toby herd me to their food bowls. First stop is: "Breakfast Nuggets!" I try to liven up their canine palates, after all, it must be so boring to eat the same food every single day! So, I put in 5 big chunks of a dental food -- I have to scatter it around in their individual bowls too, because they like to root through the smaller dog food and find surprises!

Sometimes, there are slight deviations to this routine -- the main one being that Toby has to go pee before she gets her nuggets. At these times, I have to watch, because Diva will slink over to Toby's bowl and polish off her share. Heh-heh-heh!

Next stop, is "First Medicine" ("Second Medicine" occurs in the evening -- heh-heh!). I have to time this right -- sometimes I go down and clean the kitty litter while they are eating their nuggets. But I have to be quick, otherwise Diva starts barking at me to hurry up. I'll scoot up the stairs where they crowd around me for their respective thyroid pills wrapped in pieces of processed cheese. The timing of the medicine is key -- I have to make sure I give them their medicine at the same time -- exactly.

Diva will eat anything, wrapped in cheese or not, but Toby is a finicky little squirt. She spits things out. So, when she sees Diva getting a morsel, she gets jealous, forgets her finickiness and wolfs it down too. Then, they each get a milk bone.

Afterwards, when I plunk down in front of the computer and start to blog, the Majestic Nut graces me with her furry presence. She jumps on the desk and walks back and forth in front of me. She paces directly between the keyboard and my body -- this is my que to bend forward and let her rub her body against my forehead as she goes by. Then she turns around and does it again. With each pass, she initiates the full body rub by starting with her furry little cheek. Then she angles her body in and arches her back in delight.

Sometimes I have to kiss her body as she walks by too! Hee-hee!!

Who has who trained?

Well -- not much to say about training, only that I am very slowly getting rested. I went for a 2.5 hour ride yesterday and was astonished at how the wind didn't bother me. Usually I'm grinding away in my easiest gear and hardly pedaling at all. Yesterday was the first time EVER, that I could actually put it into a harder (or maybe I should say, not as easy? Hee-hee!!) gear, and then actually push it a bit when the grade of the road slightly changed. I have never been more surprised in my life!

Well, that's not precisely accurate...About 30 minutes into my ride, a black bear scampered across the road right in front of me! I just about fell off my bike, as I was climbing up a hill. For the rest of the ride, I saw huge piles of bear poop on the shoulder of the road.

One more animal story to tell you... On the way home from Susi's a couple of weekend's ago, I saw something moving very slowly in the middle of the road. As I drew nearer I was alarmed to see it was a procession of Mama duck and her baby duckies! All at once, I slammed on the brakes, punched on my four way flashers, swerved into the opposite lane and waved my arm like crazy out the window to the oncoming traffic. Would I have risked a head-on collision? Yes. I didn't have time to think, and my gut reaction was what it was.

Fortunately, there was enough of a gap in traffic that I didn't hit anyone -- the oncoming motorcyclist flashed his old light at me, but slowed down nonetheless. Whew!!