A week’s diversion

My supervisor, his wife, another couple from the church and a single woman from he church have all departed for a cruise.

So I, for whatever brain-lapsed reason, offered to keep the dogs, a total of five. They’re in one location, which is my supervisor’s house. Maybe five miles away from work and my house. No big deal, but it does mean driving daily, plus running out here at lunch to give them a pee break.

Four of the dogs are English springer spaniels, two brown and two black. I think I have the names straight now. They’re all related, although I don’t know exactly how. The other guy is a black furry fella about half the size of the spaniels. Poor guy gets lost in the shuffle.

To a canine, they have bad breath. I know this firsthand.

Even though I arrived yesterday, tonight will be the first evening with all five because the two belonging to the one person had a playdate.

It’s been warm – and by this I mean in the low 20s – so they’ve been outside and playing in the snow for a good bit of the day. They usually get treats when they come inside, but I’m not playing that game. Three times a day, sure, but they’ve been in and out about six today. No way.

So we’ll see how bored they get with me. Right now, the two are outside again and loving it. The three that live here aren’t so keen on going outside and seem fine to crash on the floor.

Normally, they stay in the kitchen, I guess, but I’m letting them in the living room, too. My instructions said this would be OK, as they wouldn’t pee or poop on the carpet, which is off-white.

Sadly, you can’t always control where you barf, and that happened twice on the carpet in the first half hour, plus twice as you walk out the door. Someone – and I’m not sure who – gouged herself or himself.

So that was fun, but fortunately, it’s been better since.

When there were only three here, I tried to lie on the couch and watch “The Bourne Legacy,” but Bella wouldn’t get out of my face and when I pet her, both Casey and Bailey got jealous.  Had to move back to the kitchen table, where it looks like I’ll set up shop until Saturday.

I’ve got free rein on the food here, but I opted to bring all the MREs from Gray’s house. I hadn’t eaten any since I got to Minot, but I really need to get rid of them.

So I popped one open and tried to read the directions, but decided I’d just throw it into the microwave, which worked just fine.

But I do want to give the little baggie cooking mechanism a shot. The directions on the back instruct you to put the little package of food into this bag, and then heat the bag. To circulate the air, you are supposed to prop it up on, and I quote this from Department of Defense explicit directions, “a rock or something.”

Tonight, I ate beef stew, and honestly, it wasn’t bad. It even had Louisiana hot sauce in it – a tiny little bottle. I’ve no idea how old it was, but it’s been 30 minutes and I haven’t cramped up or died or anything. I think the pound cake was worse than the stew, actually.

I haven’t touched the banana strawberry shake, but it can’t possibly be any worse than the Atkins shake I had this morning. It was left over from Hope Village volunteers, no clue who left it but I have a hard time throwing food away, so I saved it.

Drank it this morning with my waffles and Lord, it was horrible. But I have minimal milk right now and I was trying to use up some stuff and not buy anything I won’t finish by Saturday. I hauled a bunch of stuff over to this house for the week and I do not want to haul any foodstuffs back.

Tomorrow’s dinner will be a chili and macaroni MRE – other than the veggie burger, this is the one that scares me – but first I have to get one more of those Atkins things down at breakfast.

Yuk.