Domestic Psychology

imaginary comic strip

// March 20th, 2013 // No Comments » // animals, pets

Since I didn’t take a college level class on how to draw Grumpy Cat, a textual comic strip of a daily scenario in this house.

The first frame is a drawing that represents a cat, sitting on a closed toilet seat, staring at the person sitting in the bathtub. The cat is unreadable, like the world’s best poker player. He is a mix of saucer eyed Keane drawing and Scooby Doo haunted house painting with moving eyes. The cat is creepy. The person in the bath is awkward and cartoonish with random globs of soap bubbles that they failed to rinse. The bather has all the grace and beauty of Laurel AND Hardy. The first drawing in this comic strip is more Edward Gorey than Norman Rockwell.

The cat in the middle frame has transformed from stalker to sleeper. The cat is curled up and softly snoring atop the bather’s clean, folded towel. The shivering bather, squinting as wet hair drips mercilessly into soap stung eyes, makes futile attempts to coax the sleeping cat to move. The cat has the density of concrete, but clings to the towel like velcro.

In the final frame, the cat glowers on the bathroom floor. The cat is uncertain how he ended up on the floor, but he knows it wasn’t by choice. The bather has rubbed the towel on their wet skin to replace droplets of bathwater with cat hair. Holding a towel with one hand while attempting to pick cat hair off with the other hand, the bather mumbles unseemly comments about cats, but the cartoonist avoids the cliche of symbols in favor of the nondescript squiggle.

I never said it was a funny comic strip.

Gimli and the Brain

// November 25th, 2012 // No Comments » // animals, humor

After a long day of, well, I don’t know how the days disappear so quickly, but I was tired so, we did something. I sat on the bed with a heating pad under my feet as I clicked buttons on my computer. The dogs snored from the floor beside the bed and Gimli the cat darted about the house as he usually does. After the cat circled our bed twice, I realized he was carrying a toy. This is odd for two reasons. First, because the cat flings his toys from place to place instead of carrying them. Second, the cat doesn’t walk around the bed. He walks the side of the mattress. Sideways. He navigates our room like a cross between the creepy baby in Trainspotting and a Parkour YouTube celebrity.

I left the comfort of my heating pad to check on the cat and it was immediately clear that he was carrying a real mouse. A freshly dead mouse gently draped from the cat’s mouth and I imagined the mites and filth that parasitically live on mice. I called stacheman to help me save the cat from whatever cooties the mouse was incubating. Stacheman walked in the room. He walked in the room quite quickly for someone who usually claims he couldn’t hear me calling him. He looked at me trying to convince the cat to drop the treasure and he giggled.

I scooped up the cat and held him away from my body instead of carrying him snuggled against me. As if the cat wouldn’t notice that he was being carried like a toxin, I baby talked to the cat. “Good Gimli. Drop it. Good kitty. Spit it out.” I had Stacheman tickle the cat’s toes. The dead mouse remained firmly in the cat’s jaws.

I marched up the stairs with the cat in my outstretched Frankenstein monster arms. Stacheman walked behind me. Silently. As we walked past the wall of the bathroom, I yelled for Doug to come help us. I alarmed Doug. “What is it? What happened? Details! I need details!”

I started to take the cat, the dead mouse and Stacheman into the occupied bathroom, but we were turned away. Doug did not appreciate the entourage, which would normally seem weird for someone who loves an audience, but even extroverts have their limits.

Our redneck Fellini parade marched toward the kitchen and I tried to formulate a plan. What if I put the cat in the sink and CRUNCH.

“I stepped on it! I stepped on it and it popped like a victim on Fringe. Burn my foot!”

I hopped on one foot howling for Clorox as Doug finally joined the sitcom already in progress. He looked at the furry body that was now accompanied by a crime scene pool and splatter of blood. “Where’s the head? I need to find the head before you put the cat down.” I continued hopping and screeching that the remains of the head were probably on my foot while Doug ignored me and searched the area for a tiny amputated mouse head.

As Doug declared the mouse disfigured, but intact, I realized that Stacheman was still by my side. Smiling. Stacheman silently watched and enjoyed the entire freak show with a giant grin stretching from earlobe to earlobe. It was almost as though this exact moment was the culmination of an elaborate plan that was orchestrated before Stacheman ever asked for a new kitten. Like the Brain’s plan to rule the world, the hilarious prank had finally taken place. Stacheman gleamed.

I shoved the rag doll cat in Stacheman’s arms. “Go brush his teeth!”

Bumpy Day

// April 26th, 2012 // No Comments » // animals, children

Hump Day. Wednesdays are the middle of the work/school week. It’s the day that sends us sliding down the hill toward the weekend. Wednesday is a metaphorical bump in the road. Sometimes, Wednesday is less of a playground equipment ladder to climb and more of an obstacle course.

It began with a ringing phone, except that it was a melody instead of a ring, but everyone already knows that part of the story. The caller ID on the phone shined brightly. “Nurse Mary”

Sweet, wonderful Nurse Mary spoke in her soothing voice as she explained the thirty minute nosebleed, broken glasses, and kickball incident. It was clear that there was no immediate danger, but a need for a precautious checkup and an afternoon of cartoons on the couch. Instead of scooping up the injured 9-y-o, I asked if TCAPs were finished for the day. I hate myself for being prepared to force a child in need of snuggles to sit with a scan sheet for another hour, but that is where we are with standardized testing right now. Pass TCAPs or fail a grade is a reality.

Luckily, the TCAP testing was completed for the day and an unusually quick visit to the pede eliminated any worries about Voldemort nose syndrome. The expensive, specialized glasses for “weak eyes” absorbed most of the kick faceball’s impact. Except for a week or so of very odd bruising, Amy is going to be fine.

The cat will not be fine. The cat is no more. She has ceased to be. She has shuffled off this mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible.

Aspie Caveman was born a cat whisperer. Feral cats purr in his lap. House-cats are magnetically attracted to him. All cats absorb the excess stimulation that make Aspie Caveman’s senses sting and burn. While his affection for animals is not limited to cats, cats are the peak of the Aspie Caveman hierarchy.

Aspie Caveman sat and pet the cat as she breathed her last breath.

Everyone cried.

So, we had a cat funeral. There was brush to clear and dirt to dig. Tired and dirty, we stood in the rain and created closure. A kazoo hummed taps and we stared at the cardboard box in the hole.

Doug: “Evan, do you want to say something?”
Evan: “Yes. She’s gonna come back as a zombie cat.”

Sorry, squirrels

// January 16th, 2012 // 1 Comment » // animals, home

Before:

Now:

This story is background for another story

// January 3rd, 2012 // 1 Comment » // animals, Doug, home

The weekend before Christmas, I asked everyone to help me scrub a layer of dust and dog hair off of everything in the house. Let me be more specific. My exact words were, “I need everyone to help clean the house this weekend. We have company coming over and there is dog hair and dust everywhere.”

Apparently, what they heard was, ‘Mom wants something done around here.’ Their application of this interpretation was to spend the December weekend putting out grass seed and aerating our very large lot.

The aerating machine completely covered the yard in giant dirt plugs. The short bus dog believed those dirt plugs were snacks from the cat and spent an entire day trying to eat all the dirt plugs. I don’t know if the dog forgot that it tasted like dirt after each and every bite or if she was eternally optimistic that the next one would taste like something other than dirt. I only know that I am a sympathetic puker and the mere thought of the dog barfing up mud puddles made my stomach hurt.

A few days later, it was the evening before Doug’s parents arrived and I repeated my request for help with the cleaning. Let be more specific. I said, “Please help me scrub the floors.” I have no idea what anyone actually heard. Their response was to completely empty the bathroom contents all over the living room floor and start working on the floor trim that has been ignored since last January. They weren’t making the bathroom sink functional. They were putting a row of tile on the walls.

It’s impossible to get upset with well-intentioned efforts, but if eye-rolling created muscles, I would be able to see the craters on the moon without a telescope.

Furry

// November 7th, 2011 // No Comments » // animals, pets

The weather is getting colder and most people are dragging out their winter clothes. It seems like animals should be growing winter coats to prepare for their five minute excursions outside for potty breaks. My two black German Shepherds have decided instead to shed their fur in giant clumps and single hairs on every surface in the house.

I usually spend my Saturday washing every sheet, pillowcase, mattress pad and blanket on the six beds in our house. Even though that was three days ago, the blankets were too nasty to tolerate this morning. I cheated and pulled all the blankets off the beds, but left the mattress pads and fitted sheets on the beds. I knew it was a stupid shortcut.

At the end of the day, I pulled our warm, clean blankets out of the dryer and walked in our room eager to crawl in the bed and read a chapter of a book. I turned on the light in our dark, cool, basement bedroom to find a sleeping dog stretched out on our unprotected sheet like a cat in a sunbeam. The sleepy fur child lifted her head and smiled at me so that I could only respond to her with ear scratches and baby talk.

Tomorrow, I will strip our bed and do the laundry correctly. Tonight, I will snuggle with my large dogs while they share their fur with my bed, skin and lungs.

Dogs are children too

// September 23rd, 2011 // No Comments » // animals

If you ask the question,
“Would the dogs prefer a sliced or unsliced antler?”

And you answer it,
“Let’s get one of each and see which they prefer.”

Then you will spend an entire day saying things like,
“Stop that growling right now.”

And,
“Be nice. Kisses. Be nice.”

Until you finally say,
“Find a way to slice this other antler or I am throwing it in the trash.”

I’m a dog toy

// September 13th, 2011 // No Comments » // animals, me

Our washing machine is tucked underneath a staircase. At least half a dozen times a day, I am standing at that washing machine to sort, spray, load or unload laundry. At least half a dozen times a day, one or two dogs stand on the stairs with their head poking between the railings to watch me playing with the laundry. One of the dogs, I’m not saying which, drools on me every single time. Apparently, shrieking “Oh, yuck!” is a positive reinforcement to the droolly dog. Does that mean that I am the bell?ikoni

Dog tales

// June 16th, 2011 // No Comments » // animals

When I sit down at my computer, the dogs consider it a challenge to become the objects of my attention. They sneak up and smack my mouse hand with their heads. They lick my elbows. They put their heads in my lap and make sad eyes. They lick my elbows. They toss their metal food bowls as though they didn’t eat an hour earlier. They lick my elbows. Depending on your position in the cats vs dogs competition, I either have the cleanest elbows in town or the nastiest.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _

I walked in the vet’s office to pick up the dog who had been dropped off for her checkup earlier in the day by Doug. Two basset/beagle mix puppies were charming everyone in the building with their puppy howls, barks and kisses. After I loved on the puppies enough to guarantee looks of betrayal from my dogs, the puppies went to an exam room and the girl at the desk asked how they could help me.
“I’m here for the bad dog.”
In one movement, the girl picked up the phone, clicked a few buttons and spoke to someone in the kennel area.
“Dharma‘s mom is here.”

Ick. Ick. Ick.

// October 21st, 2010 // 3 Comments » // animals, kid quotes

Evan: “I buried the mouse that the cat killed.”
Me: “Thank you for being so helpful. You didn’t bury it with your hands did you?”
Evan: “No. It had some red stuff, so I ran over it with my bike to get all the red out. Then, I buried it. I used a shovel.”