spinster-in-training

I woke up this morning, probably around 7am, to find a tick crawling up my leg. Picked it off, went to the bathroom, and was headed back to bed, when I heard something in the bushes in front of the bedroom’s street-facing windows. Now, those bushes have been cut way back (by awesome hubbin), so for them to bump up against the house loudly enough for me to hear in the bedroom meant something on the larger side was fucking around *in* them.

So I sneak out the back door, and walk around to the front, to catch whatever it is in the act – and it’s three dogs. And not the feral dogs I’ve seen before, but obviously some neighborhood jackass’s pets that s/he’s let out loose to go to the bathroom, and they’ve found their way into my yard to fuck shit up. So I yelled at them, loudly, and they ran into some other bushes on the side of our house, after snorting at me like they weren’t afraid. (Yeah, right, if that was the case, they wouldn’t have run off; which is why I didn’t immediately run back in the house and *hide from them*.) This was around 7:20, 7:30am, and I was pretty loud and cursing. So, some of our near neighbors might have been woken up. (As far as I know, these dogs aren’t from any of the nearer houses to us, they’re from the houses a street behind us or so. Judging by where they headed when they finally left.)

I was barefoot, and suspected they’d be right back to fucking our bushes up once I left, so I went inside to put my shoes on (after finding a tick on myself, no way I’m getting in the grass barefoot). On my way back out, I grabbed the big tall-ass stick Greg keeps by the back door, in case I ended up getting charged by some angry dogs under the misapprehension that *I’m* in *their* territory, instead of vice versa. When I get back around to the front of the house, sure enough, they’re back at it. So I chase them off for real this time. As I’m heading back inside, I realize they had pulled off one of the gutter drainage pipes from our house, and had been fucking with it – that’s what I heard knocking against the house. I take a closer look, and see tooth marks chewed *into* the metal at each end – and that’s when I realize they’ve chased something into the drain pipe and were trying to get at it.

I pulled the drain pipe out to look into it, but couldn’t see anything and couldn’t see out the other end. I know this wasn’t the smartest move, putting my eye up to a pipe with some animal inside it, but when nothing shot out either end as I began to move the pipe, I figured it wasn’t close enough to my end to jump at me easily. Since I couldn’t see into the pipe nor out the other end, it made sense at the time to tip the pipe up and place the end of it on the ground – thinking maybe I could dump the poor animal inside out. I tipped it up, and felt something big-ish scrabbling around in the pipe. At this point, it occurred to me that, instead of a mouse or mole like I’d been thinking, the drain pipe was large enough that it could actually be a rabbit, or a cat, or a smaller dog. But I can’t lift the pipe without it getting loose and running away (surely it’s panicked enough at this point to just run for it), so I yell for Greg, since I’m right in front of those front-facing bedroom windows.

Yeah. I woke Greg up. On a Saturday. Before eight in the goddamn morning. This is why he’s awesome: he pulled on shorts and shoes, and came right out. I explained the problem, and he went and got an old Harris Teeter crate we somehow wound up with, so I could tilt the pipe up under it, and whatever was inside would run into the crate. Then, if it was someone’s pet, or a badly hurt rabbit, it couldn’t get away, and we could follow up accordingly.

After some maneuvering, we realized it was stuck and couldn’t get out the end that was down, so I flipped the pipe over, and it slid down to the bottom. Greg got the crate ready, I tilted the pipe up – and it shot the fuck out and into the crate. And proceeded to go buckwild, so it was hard to tell what we’d caught.

Until it started jumping, and managed to flip the crate over (Greg hadn’t been holding it down, and I don’t blame him, because the crate had holes, so something could bite or claw out through the holes), and hop off, and then run the fuck into the bushes.

But I got a good look at it: one of our yard rabbits, the smallest one, panicked but physically unharmed.

So, my husband got up before 8am on a Saturday, even though he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep (once he’s up, he’s up), because I was yelling at him for some unknown reason. Then he came out and gamely helped me – and it ended up being one of our yard rabbits. He is totally my hero (as if he wasn’t before)! It’s way too early to be awake on a Saturday, and yet I’m beaming from ear to ear and just feel so good and happy. And I’ve gone out a couple times to check, and those damn dogs haven’t come back again.

But I guess we really need to put a fence up, since not just the feral dogs*, but also other neighbors’ loose cats and dogs get into our yard as well. I’m not really mad at the dogs, because they were just doing what dogs do. But if I ever figure out which asshole is their owner – that person I will strangle with my bare hands.

*The feral dogs are actually the most well-behaved animals, other than the yard rabbits, to get into our yard – they’re always just passing through, or laying down and resting, and not chasing squirrels even, so I’m not too worried about them going after the rabbits. Especially as infrequently as the feral pack comes through this way.

Also, he was a total sweetheart last night, and worked up in Photoshop for me the design for my next tattoo. Which, if all goes as planned, will be on my leg later this afternoon. (They were too busy last night.) This is either the third or fourth tattoo design that’s he cleaned up for me in Photoshop (translated the original picture into something more easily tattoo-able, or just more to my liking), and that’s not counting the two or three Myrna Loy pics he’s worked on. (Until recently, Myrna was going to be my next tattoo, but then I decided that the Prisoner design – original series – I’d made to screenprint on a tshirt, which Greg also helped me with tremendously, really just needed to be inked onto my body so I could always wear it. So, that’s the plan for tattoo #9.)

Edited to add: So I made breakfast for him (it was the least I could do), then came in here (my craft room) to sing his praises on the blog and on facebook. And it is now 9:24am, and he’s back in bed, asleep. Which is totally awesome and deserved. (I, however, am awake, since I conked the fuck out at 10pm last night. Time to read some blogs and make some comments, then get my shred on, then shower, and then get a tattoo. Woo woo!)