Those with weak constitutions or currently eating delicious food, proceed with caution.

This title speaks for itself and believe me when I say that I am not exaggerating.  

What I have to say may shock and disgust you. 

It was a Monday. 

Now, I'm not one for superstition.  Sure, I knock on wood from time to time and I used to hold my breath crossing bridges as a kid.  But Monday's?  The only reason they seem to be worse than other days is their inconvenient location after the weekend.  Poor Mondays.  They get a bad rap. 

I will say that this particular Monday has made me a little "stitious", if not superly so.  

It began around 5:00 am with a smell.  

I was resting peacefully, another two hours of sleep ahead of me, both dogs beside me on the bed.  Or so I thought.  

Suddenly, my slow, deep breathing caught the fist whiff of stink.  Noting too foul at first.  I chalked it up to a typical dog toot.  Both Bones and Lily have been known to give off some noxious fumes from time to time.  The smell roused me from my deep sleep, but I rolled over unconcerned.  

After several moments the smell didn't dissipate as I thought it would.  In fact, it got stronger.  I felt my irritation rise, thinking that one of my dogs was really stinky and how dare they wake me up like this.  I tossed and turned for a little while, trying to change my position to hopefully escape the stench when I realized that Lily was not, in fact, on the bed. 

My eyes flew open and immediately narrowed in the early morning darkness.

LILY. 

The smell.  Her absence.  The sound of her collar clinking in the distance.  I felt my stomach sink as despair washed over me.  Clearly this was not a simple case of canine flatulence.  This was more serious.

I grabbed my phone and switched on the flashlight so I could make sure I didn't step in any warm and smelly surprises on my way to switch on the light.  

"Lily" I grumbled under my breath, groggy but quickly becoming more alert in my anticipation of the fecal carnage I expect to find.  I can see her cowering, tail tucked, in the dim circle of light my phone gives off. 

I switch on the overhead light and squint against its sudden brightness. 

I am filled with instant relief.  

Ahead of me are 4 small poops, well formed and not too sticky.  An easy clean!!  The smell had led me to believe something much more nefarious was afoot. My heart was significantly lighter.  While I was still annoyed at Lily's seeming lack of control, I would lose little sleep over this.  I scooped up the poop with a large wad of TP and flushed it all down the toilet.  I did a light cleaning of the carpet, sprayed some febreeze, cracked the window, put Lily in her kennel (in case she decided to leave more gifts between now and my normal waking time).  Then I fwumped back into bed.

I thought the story of the Monday morning poop fiasco was over. 

Little did I know....unspeakable horrors awaited me.

I'm going to speak them anyway. 

I awoke at my normal time, the room a little chilly from the cracked window, and prepared to meet the morning.  

I stumbled to the bathroom to relieve myself, then went to let Lily out of the kennel.

I was met with the same smell as before.  

My stomach clenched.  

I groaned loudly my unhappiness and approached the kennel where all I could find was Lily looking guilty and poopy paw prints.

There had been poop.

There were paw prints to show it.

Were was the poop......

WHERE WAS THE POOP????

I knew.  I knew because I know my dog and one of the most annoying and horribly disgusting things she does is this: if she has an accident, she does everything she can to hide the evidence.  And in her supposedly clever but truthfully unhinged mind that means she must EAT IT.  

I had been lucky before, but not this time.  She had eaten her own waste.  This would be ok if it were only going to result in a doubly digested, absorbed, and refined fecal discharge later.  But no.

Oh ho ho ho no.

I'm not that lucky.

And experience has taught me one very important thing when Lily eats her own droppings.

What goes down, must come back up. 

At this time I would like to warn you once again to please set aside any and all delicious food.  Or better yet avert your eyes altogether and simply scroll down until you reach the pictures and more pleasant things. 

If not, know you read on at your own risk.  

I pulled Lily out of her kennel to rid it of the poopy paw prints.  My only thought was to get it clean and un-stinkified so that I could shove her in it again before the inevitable happened.  You see, her kennel has a removable plastic bottom that makes messes relatively easy to manage.  Her kennel was the best place for any and all disgusting things to happen.  

I thought I had time.  

I thought I could be fast enough. 

I THOUGHT WRONG. 

As I am spraying the plastic bottom down to rid it of any and all feces,  I hear it. 

A sound most horrifying that I can only imagine will give me night terrors in the years to come.  A loud, wet, hack/gag.  

I wish I could describe to you the emotions I felt.  I feel like I can only compare it to a combination of the revulsion one might feel in sticking their hands in a hole crawling with bugs mixed with the terror of a painful and inevitable death (a la Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom-for both feelings).  

I rushed out to see that Lily had done the worst thing she could do and I hadn't been quick enough to catch it.  

On the carpet was, in my mind, a veritable lake of vomit.

But not just any vomit. 

Poo vomit.

And let me tell you folks, if you think you've smelled bad smells, you haven't.  

You've not smelled anything close to a bad smell until you've smelled the smell of poo vomit.  IT'S PARTIALLY DIGESTED POOP MIXED WITH MOSTLY DIGESTED FOOD AND BILE.  

If there was a way to recreate it and bottle it, I could make a fortune selling it to secret government organizations to be used as the most effective form of torture ever created. 

But I digress.  Back to me trying my best to get you to puke. 

There it was.  The poo vomit lake.  Staring me in the face.  Sneering.  Telling me that I would have no shower this morning, no breakfast, no chance to slowly and pleasantly greet my morning and my week.  No.  There wold be no time for simple things such as these.  If I wanted to be rid of that smell I would be spending my morning cleaning up the worst smell in the world that has taken the form of something the consistency of pea soup. 

You're welcome, pea soup lovers.  You can't say I didn't warn you. 

I closed Lily in the bathroom (the only place in my living space with tile) and proceeded to do what I could.  Imagine trying to clean pea soup off of carpet.  Medium length fiber carpet.  Imagine trying to do it with a quickly dwindling supply of paper towels (cause folks...if I used a washable towel to clean this it wold be thrown out and possibly incinerated.).  Imagine trying to mop up a lake of poo vomit with paper towels that you might not have enough of while trying not to pass out from the smell. 

I promise that I am only slightly exaggerating for the sake of humor.  Only slightly.  

I did what I could and then thanked all the stars in the heavens that Erica (who I live with) has a carpet cleaning vacuum.  Much like the ones you can rent.  Bless the person who invented such a device for without it...I would have had to burn a hole in the carpet.  Or simply replace the whole of the basement every time this poo vomit thing happens.

And yes...this very thing has happened before. More than once.

I use the carpet cleaner to suck up the rest of the nasty and do my best to shampoo it.  But if you knew what this smell was like you would understand that this was not enough.  I went over it again and again.  Then I soaked the spot down with a heavy duty carpet cleaning spray from the pet store.  Then I threw open the windows making the basement cold, turned on my wax melty thingy that makes my living room smell like cookies, covered the still damp spot with that good smelling arm and hammer baking soda smell remover stuff....and finally felt like I had done all I could. 

 I let Lily out of the bathroom so that I could get the plastic bottom of the kennel from where I'd left it drying in the shower so I could sequester her in her kennel.  

MISTAKE.

In that short time, Lily made her way to a new spot of carpet and ejected yet ANOTHER POO VOMIT LAKE onto the carpet.  I cried out in horror and despair!  No creature has ever made the equivalent of the sound that emerged from my lips.  I am ashamed to admit that a swear or two accompanied the sound. 

I was already going to be late for work!  The carpet cleaning vacuum was already disgusting and needed to be cleaned.  The place still smelled of rotting death and here was a second lake of disgust to clean up.  

Worst of all, I was out of paper towels.  

So...on the verge of tears I had only one option for that stinking pile of digested poop and bile pea soup.  I had to use the vacuum to suck it all up.  No pre removal.

And so...I did.  The vacuum sucked it up, leaving in it's tank a mixture most foul.  I gave the new spot the same treatment as the one before and prayed that Lily's stomach was empty.  By this time I was exhausted and already late for work (luckily my schedule is usually a little flexible).  Bones was anxious because he could sense I was angry but didn't know why.  Lily was anxious because she knew I was angry at her but didn't know why. 

And I was just angry and upset and worn out. 

I tell you what, Garfield hard it lucky.  I'd take a pie to the face every day of the week if it meant never having a Monday like this ever again. 

To make matters worse, I had shut Lily in the bathroom for the day to avoid further mess to the carpet or her kennel.  

Guess what I came home to?

A sloppy, runny poop patty and poopy paw prints all over my shower. 

ARRRRRGH!!!!

   

Picture courtesy of the great Jim Davis. 

Ok.  Lets abruptly move on to some nicer things from previous weeks. 

We have mule deer on our property. Probably 6-10 in total?  I usually only see 6 at a time.  A few of them are young and pretty darn cute.  They are more scruffy then the white-tailed deer I am used to but they are still cute to see. 

It's been slim pickings with the cold and all the snow. We don't have the best food sources for these guys which is why I'm surprised we have so many.  

The other day I caught this little one munching on bird seed.  And not even the good stuff, the chaff left behind from the birds on the ground.  But munch away it did, right next to our visitor center building.  And it was cute. 

 Sorry for the chatting in the background in this one. 

Mom, you might want to look away for this next one. 

I wanted to share a picture of one of my favorite creatures.  At least my favorite snake.  I have a favorite tortoise and hope to develop some kind of relationship with one of our birds at some point. 

Anyway, this is Paintbrush.  He's a milk snake.  And I took him to the indoor farmer's market a couple weekends ago.  I know not everyone sees it but I think he's one of the cutest things. 

Another video or the deer.  More than one this time. 

This promotion brings with it new challenges and I often wonder if I am up to facing all of them.  Things have gotten busy and I find myself working extra hours, worried I won't meet deadlines.  Knowing that it's just a matter of time before I let something slip.  

I let my insecurity reign sometimes.  I wonder if I will really add to this position or simply be adequate.  I have this desire to rise above mediocrity but at the same time a great fear of falling should I rise too high.  

It doesn't help that I have a side of me that just wants to sit in pjs all the time and simply cuddle with my dogs.  

But there is a thirst to prove myself. And to go above and beyond what is asked.  

I might not be able to do it right now, but I have time.  And in time will come familiarity and things will get a little easier.  Then perhaps I can find ways to really shine and not just be another voice in the background. 

I think it's time to end.  I thank you for bearing with me in that disgusting and sorry tale above.  

I promise my next post won't be so poopy.