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Tag: Muriel

A Dog’s Life in Two Acts

“What’s next, chief, eating trash? Harassing rabbits?”

Muriel and I have been coworkers since our first week together. (Her name isn’t really Muriel, that’s an alias selected because she’s frequently told “You’re terrible.”) For our first year together, we worked from an office where she made new friends every day. Since then, we’ve worked from home.

Every morning, including weekends, she follows me into the office and looks at me expectantly. Her preference is obviously for an exotic wilderness assignment, maybe a bit of bird-chasing or ritual squirrel murder. Then she watches me sit at the desk and open my computer, and perhaps notices the nearby stack of ’80s celebrity tell-alls and Kristy McNichol DVDs.

Low to the Ground, Loves to Chase Birds

Muriel, looking disreputable.

Springtime is here and soon I will celebrate the anniversary of my dog’s adoption. We’ve packed a lot into the last four years, both good and bad, and this is my tribute to herincluding a rare photo of your mysterious blogger in the wild. Without further ado…

Part I: The Doggening

Muriel was a promise made to my wife early in our relationship. When she moved into my house from her studio apartment, amazed my mortgage payment was less than her rent, she wanted to adopt a dog. I wasn’t as enthused. “There’s too much going on,” I said. “We’ll get one when you’re done with fellowship.”

Fellowship seemed far away. She was a resident then, in year two of what felt like 8,000 years of training. That meant a paucity of free timeshe regularly pulled 30-hour shiftsand a tremendous amount of high-interest debt. Her med school loans were more than double the outstanding balance of my mortgage.

Weekend Viewing: Rent-a-Cop

“Hold me, Burt, I’m sho shcared!”

It’s been an annoying last couple of weeks around here with medical appointments, my dog’s tooth saga, and too much ice and snow. With any luck, things will calm down now and I can resume watching terrible movies like Rent-a-Cop.

The original plan had been to spotlight this atrocity on February 11th, the national holiday known as Burt Reynolds’s birthday. Other things came up and now the aim is to watch it, deeply ponder it (as you might an ancient philosophical text), and then write about it next month, when Liza Minnelli turns sheventy-shixsh.

As for my dog, Muriel’s tooth was extracted yesterday. Even as she periodically whimpers from mouth pain, she’s aggrieved at not being permitted to gnaw on chew toys. (Little does she know this torturous deprivation will last for the next couple weeks.) And, like Liza recovering from another hip replacement, or Burt in the wake of his City Heat jaw injury, she prefers her pain pills wrapped in American cheese or a hickory-smoked Greenies pocket.

UPDATE – 03.12.2022: The Rent-a-Cop post was published today, on Liza’s 76th birthday.

Dog Day Afternoon

My dog’s birthday barkuterie board.

Today was going to be another Hallmark day with a review of Annie’s Point, a 2005 Hallmark original offering featuring Betty White. (Why not make the most of that UP free trial?) My dog had other plans. She gets an impromptu trip to the vet instead, and Betty’s probably pushed back until Wednesday.

Muriel (not her real name) got a little overzealous in her bone-chewing and has injured her mouth. She continues to eat and yell at us apace, but the sudden, eye-watering halitosis suggests that, at the very least, an antibiotic is in order.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, she broke a tooth. She’s scheduled for an extraction next week, which was the earliest slot available, and was sent home with pills. Hopefully she doesn’t become Neely O’Hara (again). The Annie’s Point review has been posted and is linked to above.

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