Our Chewed Up Oliver

The other day I was attempting to cook (this is the first problem) on cast iron which I adore but have not mastered and my house filled with smoke. I was trying to make something special for F because he just finished some giant work project and food is his love language so we cracked open the wine and while we sipped it I basically fumigated the kitchen. We opened the doors to air the place out because our windows barely open–we bought an old brick home and have not had the chance to update some important things yet–and while I tried to tame the smoke (where the hell is all of the smoke coming from? The food wasn’t burning yet) F tried to keep our gremlin poodle, Oliver, and our “I will live and die outside” toddler in the house. It was going pretty well until Oliver’s ears perked up and he dashed for the door with lightening speed. F couldn’t grab him and off he went.

Our neighborhood, which I’ve talked about before, is one big lovely community. The kids all know each other, the dogs all play together, and the adults congregate most evenings on our front lawns for cocktails and to unwind. Our little knows all of our neighbors like family, he knows all of their names and where they live and spends most of his time outside trying to get into their homes against their will. One of our neighbors is a school teacher and while she’s teaching math to a Zoom classroom my toddler is banging on her front door while I’m sweating and trying to calmly but sternly relocate him somewhere else. Anyway, because this is our neighborhood, we didn’t worry too much that Oliver had ran outside. It was cocktail hour which meant half of our street would be outside and someone would grab him. As we all do for all of our pets and rogue kids. So F casually grabbed his wine and wandered out to grab Oliver.

All of our neighbors were out on the lawn doing their nightly social distance thing, the dogs were playing (almost everyone on our street has a dog), and F started chatting with everyone about life and RBG dying and blah blah. When one of the dogs went batshit and ate Oliver. Pause: We know the family and the dog. She is sweet as pie and typically gets along with everyone and other dogs. She is not typically an aggressive dog and is lovely. Dogs are essentially fang-having toddlers and that’s why we need to remember that they’re always unpredictable. Yes, even that gentle golden retriever who wouldn’t hurt a fly might one day eat princess the kitten. That’s why we all need little reminders that dogs be crazy. Oliver can be territorial and aggressive (though he’s twelve pounds so even on his best day he can’t do much to most other creatures) and last year Oliver got into a scuffle with her that he started. So honestly I think she remembered that she didn’t like him and was just like “oh fuck you buddy” and grabbed him by the neck and shook the shit out of him. When I walked out to say hello to everyone, F was running down the sidewalk towards our house with Oliver in his arms who was bleeding profusely from his neck. I was holding our kiddo so I tried to be super calm and was like, “take him to the emergency room right now.” And he did.

Oliver needed emergency surgery to get all of the holes sutured up and a drainage tube put in. He is healing very quickly but looks like Franken-puppy and is high as fuck on pain killers. I’m really bummed that it happened because I love Oliver and I hate seeing him with that dumb cone all bummed out all the time. Our neighbor-friends with the sweet attack gremlin (who we still love and think she’s a peach even if she is total shit head) were absolutely amazing about the whole thing and checked on him a ton and called the vet and paid the bill (even though we insisted that we didn’t blame them and it’s unnecessary) and they bought us a bottle of wine and are just so kind and wonderful. The whole street has been giving him treats and checking on him and we couldn’t feel more supported through it.

I’m starting to feel like this blog is turning into a “terrible things that have happened in 2020” listicle. Which is definitely not my intention but this year just keeps handing us crap and so crap is what I have to write about at the moment. Although I am working on a few parenting/family essays so fingers crossed I finish those soon.

Movie Club Update

Movie club is still alive and well but life become absolutely insane and I had to pause it. It is starting up again in October and there will be no more pauses. Once we go we go! October schedule coming to the blog soon!

Other Stuff Update

I’m working on the outline of my next book which is on my mental-health journey from breakdown and back. I’m either crying while writing it or laughing which is probably concerning but it’s coming along nicely I think.

I’m also working on a screenplay that is super badass. And I opened an Etsy store to channel all of my design things like end of life dog portraits and custom vagina paintings.