5/25/17
i'm thankful that we are one day closer to being done with dog sitting. i'm thankful that yesterday was a real challenge with the dog but we at least had a few nice moments among the shitty ones. i'm thankful that it's not supposed to rain today like it did all yesterday, since keeping this dog dry is impossible. i'm thankful that i found it cute yesterday when he romped through a puddle in the gutter after being cooped up inside for most of the day, even though that was gross and a pain to clean up. i'm thankful that he generally pees quickly when you let him out. i'm thankful that the furniture barrier we erected blocking off the living room and kitchen from the rest of the house allowed us to give him freer reign for part of the day, even if he eventually behaved poorly enough that we had to revoke this privilege. i'm thankful for his happiness at eating our shoes, even though i don't want him to eat our shoes. i'm thankful for the nice older lady walking her dog in a raincoat in the rain yesterday who asked after him by name. i'm thankful that her wearing the raincoat made me realize that i could have taken a raincoat from the closet downstairs, which i did the next time i walked him.
i'm thankful for one of the weird things about house-sitting, which is realizing how differently demographically similar people can live from you and how crazy the way they live can seem to you, even though for them it's normal. i'm thankful for how strange i find it that people keep loudly ticking clocks in their houses—i'm thankful to have temporarily removed the one in our bedroom because it was driving me edgar allan poe mad and, when i placed it in the office upstairs, to have found yet another ticking clock there, which the one from the bedroom was ticking against in an irritating reichian polyrhythm. i'm thankful for the relative peace of our home. i'm thankful to find it strange that both of the people we've dog-sat for have such small water glasses, which means i am constantly refilling my glass and/or using multiple glasses to maintain a basic standard of hydration. i'm thankful for how bizarre i find it that these people have neither paper towels or cloth dish towels handy—i'm thankful to understand if you are a better person than me and don't use paper towels, but to have nothing is maddening. i'm thankful that at home, we have our kitchen trash can in the kitchen, whereas they keep theirs outside the kitchen, which i find ridiculous and frustrating.
i'm thankful that d and i got upset with each other because of dog-related matters yesterday evening, even thought that was not fun, because we had a good and constructive talk afterward that i think made both of us feel better together. i'm thankful to be on the same team as her and i'm thankful we don't have children and don't have to have a puppy or children if we don't choose to. i'm thankful for this beautiful and terrifying letter, which we both read and have discussed multiple times. i'm thankful that d and i are on the same page about the big important things, if not always about whether or not the dog has to get a treat before getting put in his crate or not. i'm thankful that we sat on the couch side by side after dinner yesterday playing video games and looking at the internet on our phones and eating too much chocolate. i'm thankful that i beat my first divine beast in zelda (i'm thankful that i did end up asking my brother for a tip the other day and that he was happy about that and told me what i needed to know (which was that i could tilt the trunk of a giant elephant to spray water onto a wheel to turn it)). i'm thankful to have bought mario kart 8 because my brain was tired and i wanted something less intellectually demanding than zelda. i'm thankful for the joy of drifting.
Don't miss what's next. Subscribe to thank you notes: