Touched

The last of my three boys, Otto, went to doggie camp today. It is for the best all.

Otto suffers from OCD. It is tragic, but he is able to live a happy life in spite of this - - although certain special kindnesses must be shown him by the rest of the family members to ease the impact of things-that-bother-the-dog. These include, but are not limited to:

• No rustling of paper or plastic bags within the house
• No movement of large pieces of furniture from their assigned location
• No placement of unusual objects in any part of the floor space (including grocery bags or frankly anything that does not belong in the previously unoccupied floor space)
• No leaving of the vacuum cleaner anywhere except in the far western corner of the dining room AND it must be left in the position that the canister is on it's wheels and floor brush thingy is stuck in to the back.
• No screen-saver activity can be viewed by the dog - no computer, no TV, NO SCREENSAVERS!

If these niceties are not performed, Otto will bark, pace, back-up like he is being chased by a frothing pit bull and become generally increasingly agitated because, "THERE IS SOMETHING TERRIBLE GOING ON AND IT MUST BE RIGHTED IMMEDIATELY". (yes, the end of the world as we know it thanks to a fluttering un-reusable plastic target bag. Umhmmm).

As you can imagine, moving causes great stress. Nearly all of the above mentioned niceties must be forfeited. This results in much growling, the inability to walk in to rooms where things-are-not-right. some generalized whimpering and copious shedding. Camp is the best option.

From a personal standpoint - I miss Otto right now. I do not miss the barking, I do not miss the growling, I do not miss the need to vacuum up abundant dog hair on practically an hourly basis (and then ensuring that the vacuum in put away properly), I do not miss having to constantly reassure him as in "shut the hell up Otto! It's just a friggin pile of books for heaven's sake!!!". What I do miss is the ability to talk to myself and fool myself in to believing that I am "just talking to Otto".

Just a few moments ago, I recited my to-do-count-down list of particulars to insure that I am ready to greet the movers tomorrow morning with a sense of calm and organization. I did this aloud. I did this "talking to Otto". I did this before I realized that Otto is not here and I am just a tad bit bonkers. It won't surprise me that I will likely do this for the next three days. I'm just going to have to embrace my lunacy until my "excuse" returns on Friday or whenever I deem that the level of paper-crinkling in his near vicinity will not cause any long term mental impacts.