Picking Your Poison

Things are hopping in the Addiverse. Between Freckles barking incessantly and a recent bout of food poisoning (that really kept things hopping), it's been like having the circus in town.

I suppose the dog is number one on the list, as she's the loudest and most obnoxious. She's taken to barking non-stop in the morning. It's piercing as it echos through the kitchen and interferes with my desire to enjoy my coffee in the solitude of the wee hours. This started after Lucy died, so our first thought is that she has finally gotten past her depression stage and has moved on to her anger stage: "WHERE IS THAT DAMN OTHER DOG?" It's tough to understand the disappearance of a sister and even tougher when you are more blind and deaf than not. I know she misses Lucy and see her look for her at times--well, look for Lucy's food, which is the same thing as looking for Lucy. That said....

....after much observation, I know we've moved  from anger to "now I've got them trained." I daresay we have reinforced this "bad" behavior and Freckles now knows that we are her minions. We wanted her to shut up so we've accidentally trained her to be rewarded before shutting up. Our "Stop barking! Here's a treat" equals "if I bark, they give me a treat." Dang, I hate when that happens. She's trained us to do EVERYTHING in the exact same order every morning. Pee, treat. Eye drops, treat. The wife gets up, peanut butter treat. Louder, non-stop barking, treat. Barking, get put on the couch and go to sleep. It's not until she's on the couch after this routine that she stops barking. Weekends are a drag because we don't do things in the same order as on weekdays. That messes with her routine, which messes with our piece and quiet.

There is a saying "pick your poison." It is usually used in reference to choosing your alcoholic beverage. In this case, I say we have to pick our poison of barking until your eardrums bleed and waiting for the extinction of this behavior OR being trained by the dog to follow the same routine and to dispense treats as desired. I think it's clear with which poison we choose.

Speaking of poison, I had a delicious case of food poisoning on Monday. Well, I suppose I should say Sunday Night but the worst of it was Monday morning. The wife was sure it was the flu and I was sure it was food poisoning. It's pretty hard to prove which is which, even after a detailed research effort on the internet, as many of the symptoms are the same--both feature things shooting out of your body, feeling absolutely horrific and even having a fever. I didn't have the achy feeling like you get with the flu and this hit suddenly--I was totally fine and then WHAM! The flu tends to start slowly and lead to misery, then aches and pains and delirium. My poison started with an intense, sudden, surprising stomach ache and "moved" (quite literally) from there. I thought I was was going to die. I shat like I was preparing for a colonoscopy. The thought of eating or even drinking anything made me gag. At one point, I curled up in a little fetal ball on the floor in an effort to feel more comfortable. I think that scared the wife--I'm not known for curling up in a fetal ball on the floor. Thankfully, it left as quickly as it came. Twenty four hours later I was back to eating like there was no tomorrow and I felt perfectly fine.

Told her it wasn't the flu.

The culprit? I'd bet dollars to donuts that it was.........

.....the church pot luck.

This is why I despise pot lucks. I'm not a fan of leftovers, I am always skeptical about food left out for any duration and I'm always suspicious about the various cooks who have prepare potluck food. You don't know what's going on with that food or in their kitchens. I almost never eat at the church potlucks--I stick to the cookies and brownies as I figure those are the least likely to cause issue. I ate some rice product (I think it was rice, I'm not sure--it might have been risotto or pasta or something--it was kind of mushy) that had been sitting out for an unknown duration, was barely lukewarm and involved some "gravy-not-meat-gravy like" substance. I ate a whole bunch of things because I was hungry. Talk about picking your poison. I shoveled all sorts of foods so figuring out what might have been the culprit is difficult. Chicken-tainted hands/cross contamination, foods not kept at appropriate temperatures, fecal-surprises-under-the-preparer's-fingernails, hidden meat products, spoiled ingredients....it's all possible in a potluck.

Call it a pot shot in a pot luck.

I didn't call around because I figure I'll hear about it at church next week if anyone else got sick. I suppose it could be something from our house but I'm pretty sure that's not the case. I didn't eat out that weekend, I didn't cook anything real and there's no poop under my fingernails. I didn't handle the dog's poop or touch any canine fecal matter anywhere. The wife didn't cook anything, either--no raw chicken flopping around on the counter for this family.

I'll pick a barking dog over food poison 100 out of 100 times. A barking dog will stop if you give it a treat. Food poisoning will not stop if you give it a treat.

Oh, someone's barking. I best go get a treat. Call me Pavlov.