Quiet

Howdy blogaroos. Squirmy here on another frustrating Friday. Why is it frustrating? Because we have another winter storm in the forecast. This time we will get snow. It seems like almost every Friday we have the threat of a storm – or we actually get a storm. I hope my class isn’t canceled, but then again, I don’t want to drive with the Warden if it’s bad weather . When it’s slippery and snowing, she drives like the Boss when he’s forced to go for a walk on a rainy day. Like a sloth swimming in a pool of molasses. She’s painfully slow. Anyway, we’ll wait to hear from our coach.

In other news, according to the crazy calendar, today is something called Quiet Day. A day to lower the noise levels around you to promote a more relaxing, stress-free environment. I’m here to tell you – “quiet” is a foreign word in our household. The poster child for the anti-quiet movement is the Boss. He has a comment about EVERYTHING. It starts the second the Coyote and I are released from our crates each morning. The Boss shouts out a happy “good morning” even though he’s been with us all night and he’s standing right next to us. After that, we ALL join in on the morning greetings as we get ready to go out for our morning constitutionals. We’ve never recorded the sound level, but it’s no doubt in the dangerous level for hearing. The Warden should be wearing ear protection.

After walks – it’s time to shout out breakfast instructions. The Boss and I do a duet on this one. The Warden has tried everything to get us to stop. Sometimes she just leans her head on the wall with her back to us. And she waits for us to stop. The wait time fluctuates. Sometimes she actually shouts “enough/QUIET!” Which gets us to stop for 3 seconds. Another strategy is to slam our metal food dishes together, which is kind of like her being the cymbal player for the choir. The loud noise also gives us pause, but not for long.

After breakfast, while the Warden is attempting to eat her meal, the Coyote and I begin wrestling. That has its own set of squeaks, growls , barks and the sounds of body slamming. As well as the Boss who sometimes acts as the fun police as she shouts out his directions to stop.

We generally are quiet when the Warden goes to get washed up and dressed, however, yours truly now has a pretty consistent solo song as soon as I hear that shower door close. Gotta make it sound like someone is invading our territory. All in good fun.

Besides meal times, the Boss shouts when he is bored. For no reason. Also, if he thinks it’s time to go to bed, he lets the Warden know.

Another great time to make noise is when the vacuum cleaner is running. It’s kind of like we want to see if we can be louder. All of us at once. Great fun.

But THE absolute BEST time to be unquiet is when the Warden gets on the phone. Classic.

So I’m not even going to PRETEND that we will celebrate Quiet day. If we did, the Warden would be calling the vet because it would signal that something is wrong. Very wrong. Sure – we know that quiet helps with things like blood pressure and heart health. But don’t they have pills for that?

On a much more somber final note – while we strive to provide some comic relief in your day, we cannot pretend that all is right with the world right now. It seemed that people were finally beginning to see some relief from the Great Pause – and it looked as if life was about to return to a new normal – and bam – humans forget what the word “peace” means. Actually, they don’t FORGET – they choose to ignore it. Kind of like the Coyote when he refuses to come when called. He KNOWS what it means, and he KNOWS there will be a reward if he comes, yet he chooses to ignore it. Bad move. All around.

We send our thoughts and prayers to those in peril during this difficult time. We only have one world folks – and we need to respect everyone on it. We don’t have to love everyone – but we need to respect them. And with that respect comes peace…

Have a good one. PEACE and paws up. Stay safe.