Pet sounds

Good morning, and I hope you're having a lovely Thursday so far. Wanna hear a random and forced play on words that isn't really funny at all? As I was writing 'Thursday,' the thought occurred to me that maybe when whoever created the calendar registered for both This- and Thurs-days like towels. Alas, s/he only received half of the set.

I apologize for that, gentle readers. It doesn't even make sense to me. However, this morning is one of those mornings in which I'm virtually ignoring the backspace key. So look out, yo.

Did I mention that my lovely wife and I went to Mexico last week? Well we did, and it was fantabulous. We spent a whole bunch of time laying (lying? Who the hell knows?) on the comfy chairs right on the sand outside the condo. We'd talk, stare at the ocean, watch iguanas, drink beer, and most of all, we'd read. There was one slight obstacle to the reading: birds. Obviously they weren't too much of an obstacle since we both finished books we brought and read two more each. (We also managed to complete - and completely screw up - some Sudoku puzzles.)

The birds looked to be your garden variety black ones, sitting on trees and making noises. In truth though, they were more like flying synthesizers. They were laying down the dopest beats imaginable. Yes, they were also sick and off the chizain. One beat in particular I swear could make a hit song with some rapping over it. I kept doing it over and over again, and it wasn't long before Amber was nodding her head to it and adding additional drum beats. She's not prone to that either; the beat was just that good. Ludacris and 50 Cent should be calling me any minute.

At one point, a bird put together a combination of notes that sounded just like the USC fight song. If you know it, then you know it. I believe it's the same tune that accompanied Arthur and his coconut-clapping followers in "The Holy Grail." It was pretty impressive; right up there with the time I passed gas and it sounded just like the opening guitar riff of "Layla."

This was not the first time that birds have attempted to interrupt me in important activities. When I staying with my friends Dave and Twilight, there was one that would do everything in its power to keep me from sleeping past daybreak. It was bad enough at one point that I even tried my friend Jon's method of sleeping with the pillow over my head to drown out the sound. Didn't work.

I know I'm not alone in wishing bad things on a bird. An aunt of mine who will remain nameless used to fire a slingshot at crows outside her house because of the problem. I'm pretty sure it wasn't to get near them and shoo them away, but rather to hit and kill them.

Don't get me wrong, animals are wonderful. In fact, you'll scarcely find a bigger dog lover in the entire world than yours truly. But that love is at its nadir when a dog is barking at 4 in the morning. I talked about Bon Bon before, the little Maltese that our neighbors in Santa Barbara had. If you know what a Maltese's bark sounds like, then you'll know why I wished very bad things upon that dog in the wee hours of weekend mornings.

When my lovely wife and I moved into our house last year, we were very happy about all of it. At 4 in the morning after sleeping there for the first time, our neighbor's dog started barking his head off. And he didn't stop. Remember, I love dogs more than a lot of people probably think I should. However, I found myself wondering how old the dog was so I could estimate the number of years before he died. This didn't happen every night, but it was disruptive enough that I had to suck up my self confidence and ask our neighbor if he could try to stop the dog from doing that. No one likes asking their neighbors things of that nature, but it's especially challenging when he looks like he is/was in ZZ Top and named his dog Harley. Our neighbor was very nice about it and said that he didn't know why Harley was barking so much, but that he'd try to keep him inside the house during that time of day.

It got a lot better. He still barked from time to time, but we at least heard our neighbor calling him to come in, which was a vast improvement. We went to thank him a little while later for his efforts, and he told us that he figured out why Harley had been barking so much. Apparently the pup had been going blind and barking more often at things he perceived that he heard. Poor little fella. Granted, I like him a lot more when he's not barking at nothing in the wee-est hours of the morning (most wee?), but it's still sad to hear that he's just trying to adapt to his new health status. He's a good boy, and I hope he adapts quickly and effectively so I don't have more ill thoughts toward him.

So, that's it for now. I hardly have anything at all to write for tomorrow's Follow Up Friday, so please email me at ptklein@gmail.com with anything you've got. I'll appreciate it greatly. Have a great Thisday, friends, and I'll look for you in my inbox.

*Update* I'm an idiot. What I was thinking of isn't USC's fight song but rather a song that they (and probably a hundred other college bands) play during football games. Their real fight song can be found here: http://fightmusic.com/pac10.html. The one I was talking about it in "The Holy Grail" though, and I'm sticking by that...until I see the movie again and realize it's not there.