Just Another Ray Day

Yesterday was an all Ray day, both directly and indirectly. We went to the dog park then came home and I cleaned my car. How does that relate to Ray? Well, every nanometer of my car was covered in dog park dust and dog slobber. It took me four hours to just clean the inside. It occurred to me last weekend when someone actually had to sit in the back seat, that my car was disgusting and I hadn't cleaned it since I adopted Ray last June. My car never really got dirty before. I mean, how much dirt does one person generate driving to-and-fro to work on an irregular basis.

So I left Ray in the house with the back door open and spent a large part of my day in the driveway. Occasionally, I would pop back in the house to throw in a load of laundry. I was washing dog bedding and dog blankets (the ones I use to throw over furniture and the back seat of my car), and dog towels. And I would check on Ray who was sleeping in Gregg's chair.

At the end of four hours, Ray was up. I walked into the house to see muddy footprints on the carpet in the front hall and clods of mud scattered around. Ray was standing in the living room with a giant pig ear in his mouth, a grin on his face, and his tail wagging like mad. It was freshly dug up and after being a good boy for so long, he was ready for a game of keepaway. It was obvious that the mud clods scattered in the front hall were from him trying to kill his pig ear (by madly slapping his face with it) after unearthing it. I chased him outside, "trying" to grab his pig ear (you couldn't pay me to actually touch the thing. Even when we were at the store, Ray shoplifted it and I bought it for him because I didn't want to touch it to take it away. We drove home from the pet store with Ray's head hanging out the window, the pig ear dangling out of his mouth and me hoping that he'd drop it on the road somewhere.) After a quick game of keepaway, I returned to the front hall to clean the muddy footprints and pick up clods of dirt before vacuuming.

By the time all that was done it was time for Ray's afternoon walk. We were half way 'round the block when we met up with Ray's youngest girlfriend, Roxie. Last summer, she had been a 4 pound puppy with a thing for older, blind dogs. Now she was a whopping 12 pounds and as tall as Ray's ankle, still carrying a torch for the coonhound. She jumped up, trying to give him kisses but Ray just turned his head away in embarrassment. He likes some age on his women.

When we got home, I fed Ray and the cats then started getting stuff ready for dinner. Ray finished eating then ran to the front door and started yelling. I looked out to see his friend, Ike, tearing down the street. I slipped on my flipflops and headed for the back gate, calling, "IKE! IKE!" Ike turned and dashed into the backyard. He and Ray were ripping around, Ike bodyslamming Ray and rolling him over, then both frantically wrestling. Mayhem ensued while I went to the gate to see if anyone was looking for Ike. I saw Ike's mom slowly cruising down the street, concernedly peering this way and that out the window. I called and waved to her. She pulled into the driveway and got out of the car carrying Ike's leash. We rounded up Ray's friend and he left with longing looks back at his boyfriend. Ray walked into the kitchen and collapsed on the floor, panting.