Good vittles, love and kissin'

[lizblackdog]

most excellent afternoon/evening :-D

The Summer Palace on Wimborne Road does the most awesome deep-fried salt-and-pepper "mixed meat" (duck, beef, prawns and chicken) and their pancake rolls are the best I've ever tasted. Doctor Who was... hmmm, I'm thinking the plot was a tad predictable and some of the dialogue was kinda lame, but there was Maureen Lipman and there was Tennant with a duck's arse, and it was oh, so beautiful and atmospheric and a lot of fun. And there was other fun too, tired as we were, and that was different because of tiredness; but tiredness can make it better, sometimes. Today was one of those times.

Cass/Faith likes to sit on the back of my computer chair and purr on my neck while I type. She also showed signs of doing a Monty* when the Chinese food arrived, but I hissed at her and made her stop. Being small, cute and preggo doesn't exempt you from basic table manners in this house.

Note to self: get a squirt bottle or a water pistol. Might help with Squish's yapping too. That's getting somewhat excessive and he doesn't seem able to connect the word "no" with it as he would if it were something physical he was doing.

I have ordered Spike a new harness. I don't get paid for another week but Mum agreed to cover it until then. Watching someone you love karate-chop himself in the larynx every time he sees something interesting gets old very fast.

Still tired, but oh, so happy.


*Monty was one of my Auntie Jeannie's cats. He was a rangy, manky tabby with snaggle teeth, a hit-and-miss attitude towards the litter tray (on a good day he'd go in the same room as the tray) and a purr like a rusty chainsaw. He was as omnivorous as a half-starved boar-pig and only very slightly less pushy. If you were unwise enough to eat anything in the same room as him you needed to keep a hand free to bat him out of the air every time he tried to take a flying leap into your plate or attack your fork on its way to your mouth. It didn't matter what you were eating. I once lobbed the hard tail-end of a French stick at him to get him to bugger off and let me eat in peace, and he pounced happily on it and ate every crumb in about fifteen seconds.

Comments

[ex-ramona222.livejournal.com]

She has to push the limits to know where they are. Just further evidence that she is very much your cat. ;D

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

So very true! Bless her heart.


And I did give her a bit of chicken after we'd finished, like I do for the dogs. I just won't have the furry crowd begging, nagging and dribbling while I eat. Drives me nuts, that.

[ex-ramona222.livejournal.com]

I have the unfortunate characteristic of thinking it's cute when Cynthia attacks my food. She's just so stealthy - she lies beside me facing the other way, looking for all the world like she's dozing, and then WHAP! reach around blind grab for whatever her paw lands on! It's hard to practice aversion training when you're giggling!

...of course it would help if I stopped eating on the sofa. :D

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

it IS damn cute. I even found it funny when Monty used to do it, and he was NOT a cute cat. But they outnumber me three to one now. I have to stand firm!

"It's hard to practise aversion training when you're giggling"

this is why Spike gets away with so much of the shit he does, like playing tug with the leash. He can always make me laugh, the bastard.

[ex-ramona222.livejournal.com]

Oooooh that's one that Mackie gets away with too! Not really tup of war, but if I'm dawdling and he want to go he does grab it with his mouth and basically reverse the leash dynamic. Technically probably a big dog training nono, but how can I have the heart to tell him to stop when he's just letting me know that he wants me?

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

Spike uses it as a displacement activity sometimes, to stop himself barking obscenities at strange dogs across the road when I've already told him I'd rather he didn't. Usually it's just letting off steam though. But he's been underexercised the whole time my arm's been buggered, so I let him get away with it out if guilt.

I've been taking a tuggy out with me on walks this week, and allowing him to let off steam with that at the same time as practising his tugmonster on/off switch. The only trouble with that idea is that he picks my pocket if I take my eye off him for too long.

[ex-ramona222.livejournal.com]

Hee hee - yeah, the books don't tell you this, but compromise is definitely an integral part of training. Otherwise it's just chasing leaks with a bucket instead of building the roof that will fit. :D

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

Spike's a dog that will do anything for you if you ask nicely and meet him halfway. He really doesn't do well with being ordered around sergeant-major fashion, though. This was why we quit obedience classes. There was only one within bus/walk distance, and they were all about the leash-jerking and telling me I wasn't praising him excitedly enough. I know my dog! If you make excited noise at him he goes fruitcake! Leash jerking is bad!



...actually, they asked us not to come back. The class was held in a scout hut on a playing field and there was football happening outside. These days Spike can watch football without explosions and pitch invasions, but this was a few years back and it made him rather disruptive.

But we weren't gonna go back anyway, so there!

[ex-ramona222.livejournal.com]

...actually, they asked us not to come back.

I probably laughed a little too hard at that. :D

It was that book I was telling you about - Smarter Than You Think - that totally turned me off of the whole drill sargeant relationship. Once I tuned into the joys and ease of the reciprocal relationship it became a hundered times more fun to have a dog. It's a good thing I read that book before Mackie came along too, or our "relationship" would consist of nothing but a lot of yelling on my part and a lot of laughing at me on his part. :D

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

one day I will read that, I promise. I just can't afford books. The new harness is another week on ramen and cheese sandwiches here... Asda were doing a cheese special offer and I got a dirty great cheddar brick for three pounds. yay protein!

I love topbit. not only did he pay for the Chinese food today (and I have enough left to eat tomorrow, and prawn crackers) but he brought me two sacks of cat litter :-D

(this isn't actually why I love him. but it really bloody helps!)

[ex-ramona222.livejournal.com]

It's a good read that I do think you'd enjoy if/when you ever get the chance, but I really wouldn't sweat it. I think you have the fundamentals of it going on already. You listen to your dogs as much as you direct.

Damn, you just gave me the most awful craving for a cheese sandwich, and I finished off the last of my bread last night. I wonder if I have any crackers that aren't stale...

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

it's a good thing I like cheese so much. There are thirty-odd pounds of raw meat in my freezer but it ain't for me...

[kyra-neko-rei.livejournal.com]

Sounds familiar.

Went to a cousin's graduation party yesterday, and while I was sitting out on the back deck with a beer and a turkey sandwich chatting with Graduating Cousin and Graduating Cousin's Older Sister and numerous of their friends, the neighbor's little white poodle-ish dog came over. She sniffed at my turkey sandwich and I, very stupidly, tore off a piece of turkey and gave it to her, thinking, OK, I've given her something and now she'll leave me alone.

She got the rest of the sandwich. (It's amazing how effective just sitting down and looking up with puppy eyes can be.) She didn't get the beer though. (Too bad. It was damned lousy beer.)

[kyra-neko-rei.livejournal.com]

I think I like Monty.

Reminds me of this cat that sort of wintered over at my grandma's place a few years ago, who just turned up again this weekend. Big black and white tom, solid muscle, with one ear torn off in a fight. Real tough guy. So my youngest cousin named him "Cuddles." He was very lovey-dovey though. Nice loud purr.

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

he sounds great! my kind of cat!

Monty was smelly and annoying but he was such a character, you couldn't not love him. And he was a real cuddler as well. He could drown conversations out with that purr.

Looking back, I wonder if he had a dash of Maine Coon in him. He had that distinctive facial bone structure thay have, and those lynxy tufts on his ears too.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

omg. that mixed meat sounds DELISH.

And Cassie/Faith? Huh?

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

Well, you know how Spike and Squish have long strings of names after fictional characters because I am a drooling fangirl with too much time on my hands? Although Cassie's stuck as the actual name I call her by, I've been musing on suitable fannish names while I got to know her better. Came to me the other day: Faith from Buffy.

it is delicious. it's still good reheated too, and I have half of it left YAYYY!!!

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

Well, she looks like a Cassie to me, but I'm sure you know her better. :)

LEFTOVERS!! YUM!!!!

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

I find I can't actually call her anything but Cassiecat. I just like identifying my pets with characters. I can't decide if that's a way of understanding them better, or just a daft fannish mental aberration, or both, but I like doing it.

cat fur makes me sneeze, I find. /random.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

I'm not allergic to cats at all, but if hair gets in my nose (dog, cat, human, whatever) I'll sneeze. :)

And, yeah, regardless of her 'proper' name, she'll always be Cassie. :)

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

I'm OK with dog hair - cat hair is so much finer and fluffier, though. I have to wash my hands after petting her or my nose tickles for ages. Same with Mum's Maisie. I wonder if I'll adapt after living with her a while?

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

I never have. :) Mollie's hair is extremely fine/fluffy, almost like down.

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

Every time I see that icon I smile. She has such a lovely face!

ah well, I can live with nosetickling. She's worth it.

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

dunno, did the tired thing while 69'ing one time and we both almost suffocated

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a story you need to tell some time!

I did say sometimes. Sometimes the tiredness makes everything more intense. Or it could be that when isn't feeling so urgent and frenetic you take more time to relish each sensation. Something like that, anyway.

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

Gah, I didn't think you'd still be up! The e-mail Ping distracted me from the post I'm typing in nasty_pets that I just mentioned elsewhere in your LJ.
I have TONS of bad sex stories I should share.
Maybe this's because of all the bad sex?

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

It's only ten past one here. Not that late.

must do a kittens ticker...

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

That'd certainly be a much sheerier ticker.
Pets comment almost done.

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

CHEERIER.

[lizblackdog.livejournal.com]

I knew what you meant!

*kisses*

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

's ok
I'm slowly sdjusting to living my life without sex or BDSM play
I just plant to drink more
a LOT more