That time the dog ran away

For the sake of his privacy, the dog in this story has requested that I not use his real name and would rather be known as ‘Einstein’. He has requested this name in order to pay homage to his hero Einstein; not to be confused with the scientific genius that is Albert Einstein, but rather, the dog from Back to the Future.

This is ‘Einstein’ on Christmas.

Now as a bit of a background to the events that occurred, my story starts with my house. Over recent months, the weather has fluctuated quite dramatically and with this fluctuation it has meant my house has shifted slightly, resulting in squeaky doors and a front door that doesn’t quite work how a front door should.

My front door has a habit of opening on it’s own accord. I’m not saying you can track me down, enter my house, steal all my health food, search through my underwear drawer and watch me sleep but and under the right conditions, the door can blow open.

Fast forward to last night, or this morning rather, when I was woken by a boogie monster telling me “The front door is open and ‘Einstein’ has gone”. I’m sorry to the person who I have referred to as the boogie monster, but at 4.30 in the morning being pulled out of a deep sleep renders most people unable to distinguish the difference between human and boogie monster.

As a side note, the previous night, I heard ‘tardis-like’ noises which then rendered me unable to sleep for at least an hour because once I hear tardis-like noises, I don’t automatically think “Ooo The Doctor has come for me”, but rather “Oh crap, remember that episode with the weeping angels….Oh crap remember that episode with Rory and Amy and the angels…Oh crap, what if the angels are outside right now” and so on and so forth.

Any who, once my brain processed the information the boogie monster had given me I ran over to the wardrobe and threw on what ever I could find OVER my sleep wear, which would have looked perfectly normal except for the fact that the dress was shorter than my sleepwear and I chose to wear pink thongs (flip-flops).

So basically at 4.30 in the morning, I looked like a hot mess. 

(And yes, there were cars on the road at that hour who would have gotten a glance at my stylish ensemble and seen me fighting to keep either the dress or my sleep wear at a reasonable length in order to prevent my underwear being seen)

Ever wondered if your dog was plotting to kill you? Me neither.

Now, I got to the end of my street and just so everyone is aware: there are about 10 different ways ‘Einstein’ could have gone; making this whole task quite daunting. I reached the end of my street and thought “Well crap, which way would I go if I were a dog?”. (Un)Fortunately, I turned to go the wrong way, I got about 5 steps and thought this is ridiculous, and turned to go back and get my car in order to drive around the neighbourhood.

(Editors note: I say ‘fortunately’ because what if I had gone the right way and missed him by a minute? Maybe my wrong turn caused the right time delay!)

As I turned around to head back toward my street, two things happened. 1) The boogie monster started calling me and 2) I spotted a large animal wandering around in the distance.

Before the boogie monster had said anything, I said “I’ve got him, well I don’t ‘got him’ but I see him and I just need to get to him” and then proceeded at 4.35 in the morning to yell out his name. Which, in hindsight if his name really was ‘Einstein’ would have been pretty hilarious. Come to think of it, I wish the person who named him had severe-swearing-tourrets-syndrome because yelling out “You F***ing Stupid F***ing Crap” at that hour would have been AWESOME.

Anyway, so I yell out to him and this dog freezes like a deer in the headlights. He just stood there like a moron until I got close enough and he realized who the hell I was, why I was yelling his named and why I was saying “Come ‘ere” like an idiot. This dog doesn’t always come when he is called, so I figured if I made it sound like I wanted to play a game, the chances of him coming toward me were more likely. If I yelled at him like he was in trouble, he would have said “Hell to the no” and ran off in the opposite direction (I would).

Now, this is where things got scary for me because this dog has obviously been out for a while and is terrified because once he saw me, it was like he had seen a cat covered in chocolate because he start bolting toward me at top speed with a stupid grin on his face. As he got closer I thought to myself “F***, he isn’t slowing down. F*** he’s heading straight for me” and I went into fight or flight mode and for a split second I considered running in the opposite direction.

Fortunately however, I stood my ground and now ‘Einstein’ is back where he belongs.

Yay for happy endings.

Although this now makes me wonder if I should start my own dog-finding company. I’ve found 2 dogs in the past and had them returned to their owners safely. ‘Einstein’ takes my dog finding abilities to the total of 3.

So, note to all (specifically me):
Check your doors, Make sure your dog is wearing his tags at all time and keep several items of clothing ready just incase you have to run out the door at ‘what the bleeding hell o’clock’ in the morning.

Day Two: Six-Word Memoirs

Hello, Hello! Well it’s day two of the 15 day challenge and todays prompt is all about writing memoirs, short ones, 6 words to be exact. I didn’t know how I was going to do mine, I mean 6 words is really hard to work with! But then I saw Suze at Suze Blog at I really liked the way she set hers out. She came up with milestones or eras within her life and used them as a starting point to create the 6 word memoir. So because I think it’s such a great idea, I’m going to follow her lead and go with a similar method.

Childhood: Daydream Believing: adventure and magical hideaways.

Teenager: Pain, Anger and Truth with Lies.

20Something: Learning from the past; moving forward.

 

To go one step further, I’m going to explain my choice of words and why I feel they describe those decades in my life. First and foremost, the fun that was my child hood! I was a bit of a dreaming when I was younger, I was the type that believed in magical beings, fairies and other such things. I use to believe the characters in my books were real and there was a world of adventure I was missing out on. When I was living in New Zealand, our area use to flood a lot and I thought that I could be like Christopher Robin (but a girl) and turn an umbrella upside down and sit in it like a boat and it would take me away to some place amazing (clearly didn’t understand the concept of what floats and what sinks!) But my point is, I was one of those creepy kids that live in some imaginative world in their head because that’s just how they are.

As a teenager, I wasn’t exactly the poster child for perfection. I was really angry, I was sad, I was a jumble of emotions and while I realise it was my teen years and I’m not the only one to experience hardship in my life, I’m just well aware that all that pent up frustration I had and the animosity I had toward my parents and my family was part of the reason I made bad choices and basically led a life of self-destruction. I wasn’t a terrible teenager but I did make bad choices and if I could go back again and do it all over again OR if I could go back and tell my 15 year old self what she’s doing wrong, I would make it abundantly clear that I’m stronger than the choices I make, I don’t need to be impressing anyone else or fighting for the attention of my parents, I just need to find my own courage and make the choices I know are right.

 

And clearly my 20something memoir is fairly self-explanatory. I’m smarter these days and I’ve made plenty of mistakes in the past that I know what I need to learn and what I need to change in order to shape the future I want. The past is the past and there isn’t anything I can do about it to change it, I made my mistakes and whether or not the choices I made back then were right or wrong, I can’t change them; all I can do is look to the future and realise that the mistakes of my past are what gave my strength in the present.