THE LOST DOGS OF LANGSTON.

Entry 24.

Gianangelo Hatchett Norwood. Stop eating the kitty food. I told you about that. You need to act like a blogger's/ridiculous small-time vaudeville/cabaret performer and erstwhile vistual artist's dog because that's what you are. Just accept it and act like it. Okay, do we have an understanding here? Are we communicating? Good.

Now. To get on with it.

Yesterday was the end of a long cycle of endless barking at night that went on for a week or more and sometimes woke me up suddenly like at one o'clock in the morning precisely and then would stop abruptly so that I would worry that "something" had happened. Unfortunately I was either too tired or too discombobulated or too lazy or too afeard to go outside to check at one o'clock in the morning, having heard of one Wade Wharton who did the exact same thing one night and got bludgeoned to death. I take these things very, very seriously.

Wade Wharton wanted to be famous and he was a very very wonderful artist and personality in Huntsville Alabama whom many of you may actually remember. His house nd grounds looked like they do in Big Sur where people are artsy and progressive and whimsical and fantastic. He got a lot of attention when folks from the city wanted him to clean up old rusty structures on his grounds. Little did they know that old rusty was soon to become the new fad in yuppie decorating. Pity for them, they coulda capitalized in ways they never dreamed possible.

People are so short-sighted sometimes. I sure am and it's the main thing I lament the most about the human condition.

So. Yesterday morning it was about to rain and I was hoping it would hold off until I could get Cinderella 2.0 into the car. We affectionately named her Annie Belle, that is, a couple of really good friends did and so she has a better name and it's the one I told them to write down for her at the vet's when we finally got there after a week of worry and barking and having to spray Cutter on myself against ticks which were/are all over Annie Belle. Maybe not so much now that she's been at the vet for a day and a half getting spayed and all her shots and everything she's supposed to get to be a normal dog for the very first time.

Well I thought normal dogs liked to go for car rides. Not so Annie Belle. She would rather be at her own steering wheel of her own existence, like most of the rest of us. We practiced getting her into a car even, a couple of days before her delivery to the vet date. I threw a hot dog into the car and she jumped right in. Surely she would do it in even quicker time for a hamburger! I took the hamburger out yesterday morning. My heart was pounding. I even tried to calm down before I did this but to no avail. They know when you're scared.

They always know. Dogs are smart. They know when you have got something up your sleeve, too. When you have something PLANNED for them. They always know.

So I get out there and I'm having no luck with the damned hamburger and it's all over the back of the car making a mess and I'm jumping up and down in the eight o'clock to eight-thirty time frame and sweating and cussing and blaspheming up a mighty stream of all manner of expletives and the neighbors, all two or three of them, are probably wondering what is this crazy woman doing with this poor dog. So I end up having to pull her some with the leash which I didn't want to do (we got a collar onto her, by sheer force of will, pure luck and the grace of god combined, or maybe it was magic) and her being somewhat damp by this time because the rain is falling and those icky ticks all over her and yes I forgot to spray the Cutter on because I was nervous and forgetting things, well I screamed and stomped around for a few minutes more and yelled at various deities for help and wondered why they weren't helping and then I dragged her to the car again using the part of the hamburger this time that had the meat in it (the other half of the bun with the pickles and the mayonnaise was face down in the car seat by this time) and then I just took a deep breath and wrapped my arms around her and picked her up and hauled her big ass into the fucking car. And shut the door behind her.

Don't you ever let them tell you that I am not a total ninja badass bitch girl because I fucking am. I can haul a ninety-pound wet dirty tick-covered dog into a car, a dog that isn't even my dog, ANY fucking day of the week, even after not sleeping worth a crap for a whole week or more because her male entourage was surrounding her and barking all night because of her being in heat because of her NOT GETTING SPAYED WHEN SHE SHOULD HAVE BEEN.

Yes. I am a total ninja badass bitch girl and don't you ever forget it.

So. We drive to the vet's brand new beautiful office in the somewhat drizzly mist (it's really not even raining yet, why am I complaining) (I'm not, it was a beautiful drive and I was really proud of myself for having gotten the dog into the car despite being nervous about it) and as I drive with XM Sirius Real Jazz Miles Davis playing Someday My Prince Will Come, (I forget which version or actually don't know which version as I am not that much of a jazz connoisseur really, even though I could be one if I wanted to) I speak as calmly to Annie Belle, and to myself, as I possibly possibly can. (Two possiblys there for emphasis.) I tell her that yes I am sorry for putting her through this ordeal and that I have prayed and worried and contemplated and sweated over it for days because I never know if it's the right thing to do or not, I hate getting them cut on because I always worry because surgery of any kind is always a risk. You just never know. So I hate that but I don't want her having five HUGE puppies to deal with and then she would get the mange and be thin and get all pitiful and have to be brought back to life like we did with Cinderella Senior and of course you don't want that, Annie Belle. And may I please ask you have you thought about this, Annie Belle? Have you and Roscoe (yes the puppies would probably be inbred one way or the other, that's how dogs do it sometimes and I know it's weird but the ancient Egyptians used to do it too so maybe it's not as strange in some cultures as you think, but it's unpleasant at best so let's not dwell on it too much) even thought about how much those hypothetical puppies you were sorta planning on having are going to COST? I mean they're EXPENSIVE, they're HUGE!!!! And there would probably be at least FIVE of them and have you thought about how much all those vet bills for the rabies shots and the distemper vaccines and the neutering/spaying operations and the kennel cough and the Parvo vaccines and whatever other stuff dogs need to start out life are gonna cost? Not to mention FOOD and DOG TOYS, for chrissakes!! I mean have y'all thought about this? And then when they grow up, do you have your retirement plans in place and your savings accounts for their six-year stays at Princeton or Dartmouth or Sarah Lawrence even, or any one of the finer schools? And their clothes and their cars, and all their little plastic crap for their dormitories and their cell phones and their iPods and their books and their downloads and their cans of Dinty Moore Beef Stew and their Pop-Tarts and whatever else it is they're going to need? Kids are EXPENSIVE and I would really venture to have at least a seven-figure income a year before I'd even consider having a child myself. Which is why I never did it and that's why I am telling you all this, Annie Belle, is because you need to THINK about these things before you go creating a whole 'nother life, you can't just breed inordinately if you want to do it properly.

And yes there are ways of doing things properly. Which is why I'm taking you to get spayed, that's just what we do, it's the right decision and the right thing to do whether I am worried to death over it or not, so we won't be overrun in the neighborhood with a big bunch of wild overgrown worm-eaten flea-and-tick-ridden puppies who don't have homes wandering everywhere eating people's goats and pigs and human children and whatnot. And I know I've said this before but I don't understand why it doesn't make sense to people who shoot deer, oh we have to wave our fricking guns around like we love to do and cull the herd they always say so the deer don't starve to death, well why don't you spay and neuter your cats and dogs too so they don't starve to death being feral and getting into people's garbage and getting shot at, it would seem like if you are pro-life you also have to be a little bit pro-death too, it's even in the bible in Ezekiel about that "a time to kill, a time to heal, a time for every purpose under heaven blah blah blah yes I can use the bible too to get plenty of quotes to support MY agenda just like you can, ha ha ha" but nobody wants to listen to me.

But someday soon they will. So I'm just gonna keep typing all this stuff until they do. That's what a blogger does. That's what I do. I also get dogs and cats spayed and neutered, always have, always will. Whether I'm up half the night the week before worrying about it or not.

Because it's just the proper way to do it.