A blog about nothing.

January 16.  Today is National Nothing Day according to the Crazy Calendar.  A day to do nothing.  My human laughed when she saw that.  She said whoever declared this day, clearly was not owned by a dog.  Or two.  Or THREE.

In this house, it is RARE for all three of us canines to be doing NOTHING.  Probably between 2 and 5:14 AM.  And even THEN, we are moving about the bedroom, jockeying for the PERFECT spot to be comfortable.  Even when it APPEARS we are doing nothing – we are REALLY on high alert.  For a bird outside, the sound of SOMETHING in the distance, or a miniscule crumb of food dropping and hitting the floor.   We are ever-ready.  For anything.  And it takes NOTHING for all of us “doing nothing” canines to LEAP into action barking like MAD at an unusual sound.

Last night my human arrived home after stopping at the grocery store on her way from work.  We all demonstrated “curiocery” – that innate canine curiosity about just WHAT is in those grocery bags. We try VERY hard to stick our heads IN the bags – so it is prudent NOT to leave them on the floor.   And then Frodo MUST push his entire body front of the open refrigerator and watch EXACTLY where everything is being placed – basically checking out the buffet.  My human has to pull him out with all her might. 

My human had a steak for supper last night.  She doesn’t often have steak – but every now and then, gets a craving – and it WAS Friday night.  Well Frodo, the fridge inspector and the dog with THE BEST MEMORY around, proceeded to squeak the moment my human sat down to eat her dinner.  Why?  Frodo REMEMBERS that IF my human has steak, we MIGHT each get a TINY, molecular sized piece of fat when she is done.  So Frodo squeaked throughout her entire meal.  And while it APPEARED that Paxton and I were doing nothing, we were actually waiting for whatever it was that Frodo was all in a snit about.  Sure enough.  When my human was finished eating and she could not longer tolerate Frodo’s incessant squeaking, each of us got a TINY piece of fat from the steak.  In fact, it was SO tiny, we took one bite and wondered what just happened.  It tasted like nothing.

After dinner, my human had to drag the garbage cans up to the road.  They couldn’t pick up our garbage on our regular pick up day, Wednesday, because of the snow storm. While she arranged the refuse – including a garbage can with 2000 lbs of dog poop, we canines gave her our opinion on the job she was doing.  We couldn't JUST stand in the window doing NOTHING.  We had to howl out instructions.  When she came back in, we HAD to play some games.  And she obliged quite well.

Today we have a freezing rain warning in the weather forecast, which is fine because my human has NOTHING booked- other than laundry, and washing dishes, and vacuuming and that ridiculous activity called "dusting" and some things to do for work - and nowhere that she HAS to be.  She will stay home with US ALL day.  But don’t you worry.  We’ll be absolutely SURE she doesn’t get bored – doing nothing. And when she thanks us for helping her– we’ll say “don’t worry – it was nothing….”

©  Linda Wozniak