What does the big hand say?

Everyone who is familiar with me knows that I have never respected a schedule unless it has to do with employment and even then, it's performed with impertinence. I don't plan. I have trouble showing up on time. Nothing in my life is based upon the face of a clock.

The dogs are no exception.

We walk when I see a break in the day. They eat when I remember. I let them out sporadically throughout the day. Sometimes they ask and sometimes I just think it's a good idea. I will wait until their stench literally makes me gag when I lean in to pet them or I'll bathe them because I "like it when they are really shiny" and there is truly no other reason. Nails are done every three days or two weeks later. I mean, seriously, there is nothing we do that is synonymous with timely manner. Maybe buying their food? Maybe.

All of a sudden the James is on an extremely rigid schedule.

He stays in bed no later than ten but gets up no earlier than nine. When I wake up I not only get the hairy eyeball but it's often followed up with a dissatisfied grunt and jerky disdainful kicks that gets him as far as possible from the stupid creatures who wake up at such an hour and then thought it was okay to disturb him.


Once out of bed he ambles about in the outdoors, taking his time, sniffing about and checking out the scenery with movements that are so unhurried I sometimes wonder if we have somehow gotten stuck in slow motion land and he has become a slow motion dog. I don't panic though because next up is food and feeding time gets pretty stupid. There are the pills.

Waiting in the CVS drive thru to pick up the pills...


He wont take them unless I wrestle his mouth open and shove them down his throat OR mix them with yogurt and delicately spoon feed them to him. I usually go the fight free yogurt route. I like to believe he appreciates that. Once that's done he hawks me and the food container as if my slow movements are going to get us all killed. Food is taken very seriously. Unless you count the totally insane jumping around at dinner. Which brings me full circle to why a schedule matters. Or why it started to matter.

SIDE NOTE: Cranberry juice is liquid awesome. I drink it all day and never tire of it. I find it a little to sweet straight from the container so I normally add a giant quantity of water to it. That way my teeths don't hurt from the holy hell sweet. Someone ran out and got just straight up cranberry juice and not paying attention I made up my normal water cranberry mix. Holy shit do they have to put a lot of sugar in cranberry juice. And for good reason. Now that I have successfully pulled my extremely puckered mouth from the back of my skull I will never ever say that cranberry juice is to sweet. The opposite effect is that appalling.

It used to be that the dogs got dinner at some point in the evening. Usually after it was dark because dark is night and night reminds me I have animals to feed. Well not anymore. Jim is now all over my shit as soon as that clock hits six. I mean right on the nose. (Well unless he's trying to trick me into 5:30 because he tried that once and he had been so on the money prior that I didn't check the time and just fed him. Big horrible mistake. The muscle at 5:30 can be incredible at times.)

So yeah, where in the jumping jelly beans did this come from? I want to know who taught the James how to read a clock and why! This is ridiculous. My dog has better scheduling than I do and has no problem pushing my ass around every evening just to prove it.

OMG. I only have ten minutes left. I can't work under this kind of pressure. Out.