House Tearmainn

Another day down, and my cope has been increased a couple of hundred percent. Today was mostly a school prep and stay-at-home kind of day. Any day which gets the younger two watching Star Wars and wrapping up reading a Harry Potter book to the eldest is good in my book. I could do without being sick, which I seem to be, but no other complaints.

I’ve still got a few school-prep things to take care of before bed, so I’ll try to keep this brief. Again. It’s funny how different it feels writing these posts on different platforms. They come out better when written on the Mac and the iPod, and more businesslike on the PC. That would make for an interesting Mac/PC commercial… but I digress.

Tonight is about dogs, and Dog. I’ve had one of my occasional mad desires to bring a dog into the family lately, and been struggling about it a bit. For the first time in a couple of years, though, I’ve been serious enough about it to call the landlord. Had to leave a message, haven’t heard back yet but it’s a holiday weekend so we’ll see. The whole topic is so fraught with weird baggage for me that it’s hard to explain.

Growing up my mother was fond of getting us dogs and then finding excuses to give them up or put them down. Since reaching my majority I’ve had no better luck, and indeed made some shitty choices of my own where pets go. In fact, as far as guilt goes I’ve got more dog related guilt than any other kind. And yet.

Enter Dog-with-a-capital-d, spirit of compassion, fidelity, and a compelling need to lick asses. In short, pais’ newly found totem. What, you thought that “ritual work” was code for “hot slave fux”? Well, that too… but you miss the point.

So I have latched on to the idea of bringing in a 4-legged friend to the house for a variety of reasons. I think it would be good for pais during this period to have someone to watch over, a reason to go out for walks a few times a day, and someone cuddly to play with when I’m not about. After she’s working, the eldest will also be home from school early for the foreseeable future, and so the critter wouldn’t be alone much. The kids are all old enough to hold their own, and not to irritate the pup, but still young enough to play constantly.

Good for us, but what about the dog? I just can’t bring myself to like small dogs enough to own one, and this place isn’t exactly a mansion. The yard is tiny and not fenced. There are a lot of stairs. A few years from now we’ll want to move, and I doubt I’ll have enough money for a house at that point, so what then? Can I really and truly guarantee that I will never need to find it a new home?

Truth be told I can’t. Were it just us I could at least comfort myself that in the event of housing emergency we could move to some crappy place in Dorchester or something that would have no problem with pets, but with the kids at home I just don’t have that kind of freedom. ‘Course the fact that I can’t scrape up the $500 or so necessary for adoption fees, first vet visit, new gear, etc. thanks to the paycheck snafu I guess the point is rather moot. Er, even if the landlord said it was ok.

I hate it when I answer my own questions. I had intended to look at this situation more through the M/s filter, to see how those early experiences had affected my mastery, and specifically how the hell I could think I was ready to own a person if a dog was too much trouble. Guess that’ll have to wait for another day, though, I’ve got to go take care of my people.