Here’s why the puppy made me cry, this time: She’s deceitful.

She’s used her wily chocolate lab-ness to forge a way into my heart. She rests at my feet during the day when I write. She sends herself to her crate any time she feels tired. She “leaves it” when we sternly say said command, if she shows too much interest in something. She has started walking at our side on walks, not tugging or chasing down geese like she were training for a gold medal. She’s turning into the dog of picture frames. You know, the friendly, family dog whose picture you replace with your own, but not before thinking, “What a picture perfect dog.”

Until tonight. As a consolation for not venturing onto the hopping streets of Denver in search of green beer, we stayed in and I made macaroni and cheese. It’s a consolation in our book; stop judging. And to counter the creamy, cheesy, carby goodness, we were going to have a salad. I was so excited for the lone cucumber in our refrigerator, I even sliced stripes down the side, like they do in restaurants and on cooking shows. Then I chopped it and set it aside until the timer beeped.

Enter Kona, who has never eaten human food. She jumps up, weasels her way around the sharp knife on the cutting board, eats the entire cut cucumber and saunters off to sit at my husband’s feet. I didn’t realize it until minutes later, when chastising her was futile. And now, all that’s left to our salad is spinach and nuts. Pathetic.

OK, so it may seem like a dumb reason to cry, but it’s not only for the lost cucumber. I thought we had developed a level of trust, and I see I was mistaken. Back to square one, Kona puppy. I may forgive, but I don’t forget.

It would have been a nice day for a run, if I hadn’t had a dog attached to me.
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Not my brightest day, the other day. I baked a chocolate bundt cake to take to dinner with friends. To cool it, I put the bundt pan upside down over a wine bottle. And the cake plopped out, crumbling on the stove in millions of little pieces. This is not the first time I’ve done this. And I even described the cake as “plopping” when I documented it last time, four and a half years ago.

Then I took Kona for a walk in the snow. I let her off the leash in the park, threw a tennis ball for her to fetch, and the ball disappeared into the 12 inches of snow. Oopsies. She doesn’t do well knowing objects could be in her mouth but aren’t in her mouth.

She does love the snow, though.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nau7-fEc8Q[/youtube]

The night after my throw-down with Kona, she woke up at 4 a.m., yelping periodically. By the time we got out of bed three hours later, we decided something was wrong. Hubs and I dropped her off at the vet, and one of us was crying, because he/she didn’t know how to help poor Kona or what was wrong. OK, it was me.
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I’ve come to accept it as a fact. I’m a sweater. Not like a cardigan or pullover; I’m one who sweats profusely. I’ll admit that Dove Clinical Strength deoderant is a staple in our house. And I wear colors that don’t show sweat easily, when I know it will be a particularly juicy day. I live my life and don’t let the sweat hold me back.
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I’m not claiming a JFK-size conspiracy theory here. I’m just saying sometimes everyone else seems to be in on a joke that’s on me.

The other day just before leaving work, I partook in five-o’clock potty time. (One of my former coworkers started this tradition, because she didn’t want to have to go to the bathroom if she got in a car accident on the way home. I know, it doesn’t make sense, but I still practice the ritual daily.) Anyway, by happenstance, I checked my teeth in the mirror, and there were remnants of lunch’s broccoli. Obvious, green, top row, one tooth over. So, out of the many people I talked to between lunch and 5 p.m., no one could mention this little imposter? Were they all snickering about me as I walked away, as I’m sure they assumed, to gnaw on some foliage at my desk?
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