Taking Note Of A Few Things: The Bed Bug Edition

My puppy, Bug, has more beds than there are days in a month. In my office, next to my desk, is his regular dog bed. If he is not sleeping in it, then it is where he piles all of his toys. He likes to know where his toys are. In that regard, his regular bed is sort of his garage or man cave.

Six feet awayis a couch. It’s low to the ground and has a small pillow that he enjoys curling up on and snoozing. If I sit down on it, Bug forgets about sleeping and brings me either his mouse or hedgehog to play fetch. If I happen to wear him out before my shoulder gets tired, Bug positions himself under the ceiling fan and naps with the cool breeze blowing on him. If he wants to hide, Bug slithers under a chair and catches a few winks.

Bug keeps an old paint stained sweatshirt on the kitchen floor so he can keep an eye on me while I make my coffee in the morning. It also serves as his warning track when we play fetch. He knows as soon as his front paws come into contact with the sweatshirt, he is about to run into a kitchen cupboard.

There is the step from the kitchen to the living room where he also enjoys curling up. He usually relies on this because he can feign fatigue and convince me it is time for him to be fed.

You would think this would be enough, but not for Bug. There is the couch in the living room where he enjoys sleeping while I work out on my rower. For privacy, he has a flatbed he dragged out of the back bedroom and set up under the couch. He has been known to also use this area to hide his toys. Mostly, he just naps here while I am busting my ass in the backyard.

Speaking of the backyard, A friend gave Bug a raised bed that Bug uses every morning when the sun hits it. He enjoys sunning himself while surveying the backyard. He makes his presence felt which has kept the neighborhood cats from coming into my yard. At seven pounds, cats find Bug more imposing than they find me.

Back inside, Bug makes use of a bath mat between the living room couch and the doggy door. This seems to be where he brings in sticks and bark from the yard to chew into a fine mess for me to sweep up.

Around the corner is my bathroom and another bath mat. Bug is a real fan of memory foam and it is where he curls up while I shave, brush my teeth, shower, and place band aids over all the bloody teeth marks he leaves me when we wrestle.

At the end of the hallway is my workout room. Bug prefers the plush carpet in my doorway over lifting weights or riding my stationary bike. The only time during my workout Bug gets up from there is when I am lying on the floor to stretch my hips. This is when he walks over and gently takes his little warm tongue and inserts it into my ears and cleans away.

This just leaves my bedroom. I should say our bedroom or Bug’s beds room. There is still another memory foam bath mat to enjoy, but he almost always prefers the carpet under my bed. He enjoys it so much that he often gets left there when I leave. A few minutes later, I hear his barking and I have to stop what I am doing to open the door.

There is one bed Bug shares with me and that is my queen sized bed. He’s nice enough to let me even use my pillows and sheets. The weather has been pretty nice for the most part so Bug finds a spot all his own and just stretches out. His bladder is stronger than mine, but when I get up in the middle of the night to pee, he follows me and curls up on the bath mat. Lately, the evenings have cooled off and when I wake in the morning, Bug has curled himself up against my body.

I know I am going to need to set up Bug up with a bed in the workshop I recently built. He uses the Doggy door I installed for it but I can tell by the stink eye he gives me he doesn’t appreciate having to sleep on the wood floor. Either that, or he still holds a grudge against me for making it so he cannot tunnel under the shop and nap in the dirt.

I don’t mind Bug having so many beds because in the short time I have had him, he has also established his own bathroom area as far away from the house as possible. Cleaning beds in the house beats cleaning up dog pee and poop. I learned this from Laverne and Shirley and they only had one bed, a chair that they destroyed.

Pete Rose had the face of a pug. He was gifted at hitting singles and hit a lot of them. Most of the homeruns he hit were after games with the underaged girl he traveled with (sex trafficker). He also had a thing for placing bets, running up debts, and then betting on baseball. Now that he has passed, we can still debate whether he should be in the Hall or not. Either way, I don’t care much mainly because I would never vote for a player who takes an underaged girl with him across state lines while he is married. Maybe if he hit more than singles, I would.

Revelations from Jack Smith’s court filings will have zero impact on the election. That said, if/when Trump loses next month, they will be used by Donny as part of his claim of another fixed election against him.

My father once had a dog that was nothing but a pain in the ass. Consequently, he enrolled the mutt in a dog training course. Toward the end of the first session, the instructor was speaking to the group about how some dogs just can’t be trained because they just do not comprehend who is in charge. He then told my dad to go get his money back because his dog was not able to respond to any sort of commands. My dad went on to say that while the trainer was telling him to get his money refunded, he was digging his thumb nail into the dog’s ear to get it to respond in some form. Instead, the dog just kept ignoring the message and wagged his tail.

Donald Trump is nothing more than a rich, spoiled canine who doesn’t respond to anyone about anything. He does whatever he wants. It’s up to us to get a refund and move on from the bitch.

A few houses down from me, a small political war has been unfolding. Two houses from me is a Trump supporter who has his Trump/Vance 24 sign and flag flying directly toward his next door neighbor who has his Harris/Walz signs aimed back in return. Between them is a small easement, maybe ten feet wide, so the city can access a slough that runs behind the houses on our street. I refer to this easement as The Gulf. Their picket fences border the gulf and are fiercely guarded by little dogs that probably would prefer to just sniff each other’s asses. Instead, they are raised by their owners to hate their neighbor. It seems such a waste.

The more ways we have to communicate, the easier it is to screw things up. Case in point, my pain clinic. Recently I was talking to my doctor’s assistant who oversees the communication between patients and the doctor. She called to tell me I was scheduled for another ablation procedure and that she also had a note excusing me from jury duty. She then noticed I was supposed to come in the day before the procedure but said she would talk to the doctor and see if that was necessary. She also said she would call me back if the appointment was canceled.

It’s impossible to miss an appointment with this practice because they send an email reminder a week before the appointment, a text four days before, and one more the day before. If that is not enough, I get another text four hours before the appointment. All of this unfolds even though I electronically check in for my appointment as asked in the initial email. So yesterday, the first words out of my doctor’s mouth when he saw me was, “What are you doing here and why am I seeing you?”

With all of these communication methods, it turns out there are just as many opportunities to screw up or forget. In my doctor’s assistant’s case, she forgot to notify the front desk that my appointment was canceled.

Unfortunately, the poor communication did not end there. I arrived on time for my ablation and was taken back to the surgical area. I was then asked when I last ate and informed them it was about two hours earlier. The nurse was in disbelief and asked why I ate so close to surgery. When I pointed out that I asked the person who called the day before from the surgery center at five in the afternoon, she said I could eat breakfast and lunch as usual, so I did. As a result, instead of having spinal ablation under general anesthetic, I had it with local.

We all know that the more we can simplify things, the easier life is. However, the more we blend technological advancements, the more we complicate matters. Keep this in mind when government leaders try calming us by saying they use a system of multiple checks and balances to make sure the shit doesn’t hit the fan. It seems to me that the shit hits the fan more often than ever, but then I am sure there is some whiz kid who is working on a solution that will make him wealthy and more crap to keep hitting us.

Last week, Bug and I got three new roommates, a human, a feline, and a canine. Bug now has a bro his size to play with and wear himself out. Rocco and Bug grapple, chase, nip, sniff, and roll about throughout the day. Now, instead of wanting to be fed first thing in the morning, Bug continues to rest up from the action from the day before knowing Rocco will be rolling out soon.

This morning, Bug had to get another vaccine. When we arrived, I learned no one has yet to adopt his mother. I may have to solve that problem.

The home I originally wanted to buy in Chico came with six level acres and sat in the foothills outside of town. One reason I wanted it was because I knew I could turn it into a dog rescue/shelter. Six acres is plenty of space for sleeping quarters and dog runs. Unfortunately, as soon as the price dropped to my liking, it was snapped up.

One of rock’s more clever album titles was Heart’s Dog & Butterfly. Side one was Dog and came with louder more rocking songs while side two was Butterfly and consisted of ballads.

As I write this,  we are one month away from the election and I am wondering when does early voting begin for 2028? Here is the sad thing about our nation. The last time I remember us uniting for a common cause was after the 9/11 attacks. The time before that was The Gulf War. Our downfall as a nation is we seem to only put aside our differences when we agree there is an enemy to kill. In between, the enemy is us and we spend too much time trying to destroy the other side. I am shocked we have lasted this long.

If you want to know what is wrong with the media, just look at the coverage of the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina. So, the largest home in the nation was hit hard by Hurricane Helene. BFD. I am sure it will be at the top of the receiving order of federal relief funds while millions of struggling Americans have to wait their turn. Maybe I am a cynic, but I just think that those with the money to grease palms seem to get served before the rest of us.

When natural disasters strike, the safety and wellbeing of everyone comes first. Then get to fixing the infrastructure and services required to help the average citizen. From there, see to it that the average person has their insurance needs met so they can get on with their lives. Places like the Biltmore home can wait and if there are residents living there, I am pretty sure they have three or four other homes to move to. They can wait their turn.

We are five weeks into the NFL season, and already The Raiders’ Davante Adams is wanting to be traded. This is the same guy who insisted on being traded from Green Bay a few years ago and got his wishes by being sent to Las Vegas. Now he has two teams on his wish list; the New York Jets and New Orleans Saints. Why? This is where the only two quarterbacks he can accept playing for play. If I am the Raiders, I send his whiney ass to the Panthers and be done with him.*

Just because the squeaky wheel demands to be greased doesn’t mean he has to get what he wants. Make the POS eat his words and send a message to others who are making millions playing a kid’s game that their petulance will not be tolerated. If you have ever taught, you know what happens when you encounter a brat who controls mom and dad.

As I write this, it is 4pm and 98°f outside with a heat index of 104°f. If the ten-day forecast holds true, it will hit 89 degrees in four days. If so, it will mark four weeks of over 90-degree weather. When I do yard work in the morning, the mosquitoes feast on my skinny legs. If I wait until after twelve noon, the heat sucks the life out of me. However, I remind myself I do not live in Florida and deal with hurricane season. No matter how bad you think you have it, someone has it worse.

In two days, I will make a big change in my life. Today was my last dose of the anti-depressant I have been on since the beginning of 2014 and come Monday, I begin micro dosing with psilocybin. I decided since my Cymbalta was no longer doing much for me, I would have to taper off it before trying a new antidepressant. Instead, I figure since I have weaned myself from Cymbalta, now was a good time to see if psilocybin works as well or better for me.

If you read about me going on a killing spree, you will know I made a mistake with the psilocybin.

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*On October 15 Davante Adams was traded to the New York Jets for a conditional third round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.