My favorite time of day.

 

Watch Out

 

I have a love-hate relationship.

With my watch.

It has a lot of settings that I never use. There’s one that says “Run.” I never push the button for that one. But there’s one setting that says “Sleep” and shows a little moon. That’s my favorite setting. I take that one to heart. I push the button for that one when I’m in my recliner and the ball game is on. That way I always win.

I have a friend who has a watch that calls for help when she falls down. Emergency Responders already think I have them on speed dial. There’s talk about moving their office across the street from my house. 

I’d rather have a food truck.

I think my watch spies on me at night. In the morning it always knows how many times I got up to go to the bathroom the night before. Don’t tell my watch, but I was getting cookies all those times. Well, almost all of those times. Once I got pizza.

My watch is the sort of watch that thinks it knows everything about you; when you should be asleep but are awake because you can’t remember the name of that man you need to call to clean the carpets  at the office, when you should exercise but the Greek festival comes only once a year and doesn’t walking to the pastry table count for your steps total, and when you’re doing wind sprints to practice for the Olympics.

Wait. What?

I’ve never done a wind sprint. Not even in gym class. My last gym class was in 1973.

My watch disagreed. It said I ran for eighteen minutes.

I haven’t run a total of eighteen minutes in 65 years.

It said I burned a whole bunch of calories. This is the part where I love my watch.

But one day it said I burned up a lot less calories doing the same thing I always do.

As you know, being a loyal reader of my exciting lifestyle blog, I exercise sitting down. Three or four times a week I sit down very fast which keeps my doctors happy. My watch usually says I sat down very fast long enough to subtract the steak biscuit I eat to give me the energy to sit down fast for an hour.

This time it said I was a slacker. Which is usually true, but wasn’t this time.

This is the part where I hate my watch. It is mean-spirited to lie about biscuit calories.

Then I noticed. It’s battery was low. It needed a recharge.

I did, too.

So I plugged my watch in and went off in search of a cookie.

Now we both feel better.

 

 

 

The Look Works Every Time

It’s a Dog’s Life

I apologized to the dog.

Again.

It was the cat’s fault.

The cat didn’t care. She was sleeping on my lap.

On a soft blanket.

All morning.

I had to go to the bathroom. I ignored it as long as I could. I read another chapter, okay cartoon, in my book. But some things are inevitable.

So I got up.

Finally.

The cat was mad and took over the chair I just left. She curled up like a Roly-Poly bug and put one paw over her eyes.

The dog’s feelings were hurt that I didn’t invite him to go to the bathroom.

Why do dogs get their feelings hurt, but cats just get ticked off?

Don’t give me cat grief. There are four cats in my house ignoring two giant carpeted cat trees so they can shed on my recliners and send fur tumbleweeds rolling through the living room. Each cat is capable of sleeping in my lap for 22 hours each day. They could sleep longer, but they take time off to make me feel guilty that the bottom of their food bowl is showing.

There is food in the bowl. There is a trail of kitty niblets leading away from the dish and across my kitchen floor. The dog will clean that up later. Kitty niblets make him happy. Everything makes him happy.

Except when I go to the bathroom without him.

“You’re doing important dog things,” I explained. Who is going to lick the couch cushions if I drag you along on my rest area expeditions?

He put his ears down in sad position and gazed up at me like Princess Diana used to do so she would look soulful when cameras were near. Nobody could look as soulful as Priness Diana. Except the dog.

It worked.

“Okay, let’s go.” We walked together the ten steps to the bathroom door. He wanted to go in, but I explained there wasn’t room for two pouting faces. He sighed heavily and I apologized.

When I came out of the door thirty seconds later he was so happy to see me I had to rush him out the back door so he wouldn’t water the hall carpet like a backyard garden. When he came in I gave him a treat and let him Hoover up the kitty niblets.

It's not like he never eats. He was self-trained with Door Dash delivery. He can detect the presence of a pizza left on the front porch rocker so well he can tell if it’s the one on the left or the right and whether the cushion is crooked. Enter the house with a rattly bag full of burgers and fries and you’ll never make it past the coffee table without succumbing to a drool pit.

I’m surprised that the animal rights people haven’t contacted us with warrants, restraining orders, and writs of habeus corpulence.

When that happns, at least he'll know how to pose for the cameras.

I’ll apologize to him for the inconvenience.

And give him a treat.