Back in the Saddle.

I've successfully reached Day Two with my blog. Wait, maybe I should wait until I actually hit "Publish" before I start celebrating.

The unthinkable happened last night:  I went to Pet Supermarket to get some dog food and I came home with a canary.  I'm not sure why anyone even allows me to go to a pet store by myself.  They should totally know better, but I caught Richard at a good time:  He and Aidan were playing Call of Duty, so they were only paying me less than 1% of their combined attention.

So I'm at Pet Supermarket and I've got a cart.  I've got puppy food and dog food in the cart, which is what I'd gone to get, so now I'm in perusing mode.  I peruse the fish tanks, I peruse the cats, I peruse the rabbits, guinea pigs, and ferrets.  I peruse the parakeets, the finches, and...hark, a canary.  I'm thinking it's the coolest shade of pale yellow I've ever seen.

I walk back to re-peruse the fish tanks, knowing myself too well.  I had to get away from that bird.

I peruse the beta fish.  I peruse the fake aquatic plants.  Then, once again, hark.  The song of a male canary.

I'm pretty sure I left rubber on the floor of the fish area while I peeled out toward the front of the store.  The added 80 pounds of combined dog and puppy food really helped out in that regard.  I grabbed a white cage, some colorful canary food with little bits of candy-looking pieces mixed among the boring seed (wow, at $7.99 a half-pound, this stuff better be good), some songbird food (because, hey, why not?), and then went to the front.

"I NEED THAT CANARY," I wanted to say.  I realized that sounded creepy, so I toned it down a bit.

"I'd like to buy that canary," I mumbled in the sort of way that sounded really casual and cool.

I bring the canary home, and I was pretty sure Richard was going to toss me to the curb.  After a few minutes of the silent treatment, during which time I was trying to do homework, I broke down and went inside.

"Richard," I said.  "Are you mad at me?"

He gave me an answer, but he had the tell-tale signs of "I'm just saying I'm not mad at you but I'm still mad at you."  I had to pull out the big guns.  Who can do homework when they're in the middle of being madded at? To be the recipient of someone's silent treatment really sucks.

"Richard," I said.  "What about the time you and Aidan came home with a rabbit and a big screen tv?"

He claimed he remembered none of that, but I knew better.  I know tv's are pretty much his weak spot, so I stuck the knife in and twisted.

"Look, Richard.  I brought home a bird.  A canary bird, mind you.  Its song is going to melt your heart.  This also means that I owe you one, see?  You're on the one-up list now."

He gave me that blank stare, bowl of cereal balanced in his lap, spoon halfway to his mouth.

I cleared my throat.  "What I'm trying to say, babe," (he can't resist when I call him 'babe') "is that, well, you know that 70-inch tv you've had your eye on?"  Ahhh, now he realizes where I'm headed with this.  "Now you can come home with that, and we're even."

(PS:  We would totally not be even, but it did get me out of the dog house.)

I'm naming my bird "Eggman."

I guess the tv will be called "Large Boy."

sigh

Til next time,
Cherstin