puppy diddle

i cried over dog pee last night.

zack and i had just gotten home, both from wonderful weekends in different places. we had missed each other, but i was moving quickly toward my sunday night freak out, where i realize what i didn't get done that weekend and how much lies ahead on monday morning.

and our adorable, energetic, frenetic five month old puppy (see above) had, quite predictably, lost control of his inordinately large bladder during the four hours we left him at home alone and peed on the kitchen floor.

it's a lovely kitchen floor--spanish tile, raised, so that anytime you spill a glass of water, it forms little rivulets that run like streams down the grout to the back door. no big deal when it's water, but extraordinarily tricky when it's smelly puppy urine.

and i saw it, and zack didn't, and he thought he had already cleaned everything up. he was proud, glad that artie had stuck to his little pee pad. but he hadn't, and i pointed that out with just a little bit of i-can't-believe-you-didn't-see-that-this-is-somehow-your-fault in my voice. and that's when i started to tear up. the hot and stinging tears of frustration, of disappointment in yourself and exhaustion and a five month old puppy and GOOD GOD, how will you ever be able to have a child if a dog drives you to tears?

but, there they were, sliding down my face and collecting underneath my chin, and then after awhile they dripped off and i was there, with my tears and the smell of diluted bleach and the dog trying to lick my toes, and then all of a sudden it was our house, a very very very fine house, and the dog pee was gone but it would come again. you know? it always comes. it's always something. but it's our house, and life is easier with you. someone cleans the dog piddle, and someone cries, and then the next day it's someone elses turn to cry while the other one cleans the piddle.