I am sitting here watching the No. 1 video tape of "The Century" that was one of my birthday gifts yesterday by my better half.

Luchia is laying on the couch where she has been since Sandra left for work earlier this morning. She stirs and I think, "I better let her out in back for her morning constitution" so I sweetly say to her, since she is such a sweet little booger, "would you like to go out in the yard?"

Of course we all know dogs can't speak, but if you know Siberian Huskies, you will know they are very vocal! They wooo wooo, and say different things like that. So she says to me, "woooo would I? Does the Pope poop in the woods?" I take this to mean she really does.

Since our yard is secluded I have got in the habit of just hanging out in my boxer shorts. I have black ones, gray ones, and maroon ones. Today I have a pair of black ones on and since I am home alone I just wear them till just before Sandra gets home and then I throw on some jeans or shorts depending on how cool it is out. Today is nice, so I am in black boxers and a t shirt to match.

I let Luchia out and continue watching my video tapes of "The Century." Usually when Luchia is out back I can hear her with her squeaky toys, or balls with bells in 'em. After a few minutes I hadn't heard anything so I says to my self, "Self, ya better go check on Luchia" because if anything happens to this pup, Sandy will throw me off Devil's Slide. (Don't ask, as that is another story for another time.)

I goes out back and lo and behold, that damn Tasmanian Devil has replaced Luchia again. This time the whirling Dervish has a rat in his mouth the size of a baby kitten! (An aside here, The neighbors had their house tented and bombed for insects and varmints last weekend and the smell of decaying corpses is wafting in the air!)

Well, when I see Taz, AKA Luchia with this monster rodent in her jaws I think, it is poisoned so I better get it away from Taz, AKA Luchia. Easier said than done! Anyone here ever try to take a feast away from a monster? No way was Taz, AKA Luchia gonna let me have her lunch! I chased, cajoled, begged, offered bounty, toys, and one of my Filet Mignons from the fridge, all to no avail! Finally in frustration, I let out a blood curdling howl. She dropped the rat and went into a high speed version of the Siberian Butt Tuck Boogie!

This time she was using the house, the fences and her outhouse to remain in touch with the earth! Well, I scoops up the rat with some newspaper I have in my hands for this purpose. Triumphantly I throw the wadded up news paper in our trash. After giving that some thought, I realized that was not too bright, so I take the plastic bag with the wadded up newspaper out front to put in our big garbage can.

Now folks, remember, I am in my black boxers, but think hell, no one is around and passing cars will just think I have a pair of black shorts on me so not to worry.

Taz, AKA Luchia is jumping up and down trying to get the bag away from me as I slide out the front door so she won't follow. I want to you to know we have a dead bolt on our front door and you need a key to lock it.

Wrong, Taz, AKA Luchia in her determination to get her feast back from me jumped against that lock and lo and behold, I am locked out of the house in my black drawers!

Hmmmm I think, let's look at this without panicking, while panic is streaming through my body. I need a garage opener to open the garage door, no luck there! The gate on one side of the house is seven feet tall with a padlock on it, no luck there. The front window to our office is closed and locked at my insistence of course. We don't wanna let any boogie men in ya know? So, my last chance is the gate on the other side of the house.

Damn, it has a padlock also, but if I move the cinder block at the bottom of the gate, I can get it opened just enough to slide through. No sweat, got it made! As I look back just before sliding through the gate I notice a group of ladies across he street. One of them must have told a dirty joke cause they were laughing so hard tears were coming from their eyes!

Well, no matter, I am almost through the gate when I catch my drawers on a nail and rip those damn boxers right off my hide. Now I hear screams of laughter coming from my neighbors. I just gotta hear that joke when all this is over!

Anyway, covering my self with what is left of my boxers I start searching for that damn Tasmanian Devil, AKA Luchia. Somehow or other he got away again and our sweet little Luchia was sleeping on her back with her legs spread to high heavens. What a sweet little puppy she is.

Think I will give her a hug!

We decided to get Luchia a child's wading pool to see if that would keep her entertained, because if you are familiar with Siberian Huskies you know besides digging holes, counter surfing, and hunting lil' critters they love water. You gotta stay one step ahead of these beautiful furry animals because they are so intelligent and get bored easy.

You really don't wanna live with a bored Siberian Husky! When they are bored they resort to the prehistoric urge of chewing! They will chew anything in their path. Socks? heck, they swallow them without even chewing! Table legs? no problem, they will chew faster than a buzz saw and then you gotta find the right size books to even out your table. Drawers? If they don't make you catch 'em on nails they will rip 'em to shreds even if you're wearing 'em.

Doors, Screens, Trash baskets? hell more things have been removed from a Siberian Husky's stomach than was removed from that shark in Jaws. Veterinarians have found that plastic VCR tapes do not digest in a Siberian Husky's digestive track and has to be removed surgically. Well, to date I have successfully kept my Video Tapes away form our beautiful little pup Luchia.

Back to the wading pool, it's been a few days since that wild and woolly Tasmanian Devil has showed up around my house and he has just about faded from my mind. Our sweet lil' Luchia caught my attention as I was puttering around the house. She was playing by herself with her balls of all different sizes and colors out on the patio. I thought, how sweet and pretty she was and decided I wanted to share in her play 'cause I love her so much ya know?

It has been a couple weeks since we had her spayed and she had her stitches removed last Sunday, so I thought today is a beautiful day and she should be ready to have her pool filled with water cause she loves that pool. And besides, Sandra told me before she left for work to clean the pool and put water in it for Luchia!

I hose the dust out of the pool, dump the dirty water out of it and proceed to fill it. We have a nice cool breeze blowing in from the Pacific and I can smell the salt in the air as the pool is filling. Luchia, sweet lil' pup she is, is picking up her balls and placing them in the pool because she loves to push the balls around in the water. When the water gets about four inches high in the pool, Luchia decides she wants to chase the bubbles that the water stream from the hose is creating. I think she is so funny chasing the bubbles and biting at them with her nose under the water that I decide to turn the pressure higher to make more bubbles for her.

Bad mistake, as I accidentally hit Luchia in the rump with the higher pressure and, yep, you guessed it! She goes into high gear in her Siberian Tail Tuck Boogie! I lost sight of her as she bounced off the fences and walls of the house. I figured she was hiding around the side of the house from the hose. Wrong, as I turned back to the pool to continue filling it, I felt this incredible force striking the backs of both knees. As I was falling toward the now almost full pool, I caught a glimpse of the blur of that damn Tasmanian Devil AKA Luchia!

I ended up flat on my back in the pool choking and sputtering. Now the cool breeze from the ocean has turned into a blowing blizzard on my body and I am flailing around trying to get turned over to get on my hands and knees to get the hell out of that frozen water. Lo and behold I feel a stream of water hitting my butt and back. I turn to see Taz, AKA Luchia with the hose in her mouth shaking it as if she were trying to kill it. The stream of water was hitting me, and then going strait into our open patio door.

I finally managed to get the hose away from Taz, AKA Luchia, turn the water off and grab a handy beach towel we have handy to dry her off when she gets out of the pool. When I finish drying off I start looking for that damn Taz, AKA Luchia, but as always he has disappeared. I find our sweet lil' Luchia licking her self dry. She is so sweet and pretty, I goes and gets her a clean towel and helps her dry off. What a sweet lil' pup our Luchia is.

The time comes. A Siberian Husky lifts

up its head. There is an untested

adventure beyond. Time to go.

Across the Rainbow Bridge is a place

for all dogs. A river runs wide and

shallow with tennis balls that fly with

their own wings; that is the place for

a Labrador or Golden to await its

master's arrival.

The Siberian is not content here.

Northward is its trail....

 

There are soft pastures for Aussies

and Border Collies, with sheep and

geese to pen. Agility equipment grows

like trees amid Frisbees and flyball.

But the North continues its sure

wild call, and the Siberian's

journey continues....

 

Now the air is colder. Now the

moon is always full. Now the light

is silver and it breaks and

shimmers on fields of bright snow.

Now there are no roads, no walls,

no pens, just endless space to run.

This is where Siberians gather,

North of the Rainbow Bridge.

They wait in this beautiful place,

happy, but not complete. Suddenly,

a howl begins, as one dog senses

someone coming, someone very special.

All the Siberians raise their heads

and join in the ancient chorus. They

dance like moonbeams and sing like

winter winds.

There are red ones like dawn

streaks, black ones splattered

with many colors and silver ones

like the first strange hour before

light. They line up as if in harness

and run together, in a scintillating,

many-colored streak. The leader of

the team guides the others past the

fields and river, with racing feet

and racing heart. They rush to greet

the new arrival at the Rainbow Bridge,

where the leader is rejoined with its

beloved person, never to be parted

again.

The glory of the reunion is

celebrated by all the Siberians

dwelling beyond the Bridge, a

glimmering, multicolored team

leaping and whirling with joy.

The light from that scene is what

we see on magical evenings in the

northernmost parts of this Earth:

The Aurora Borealis, the Northern

Lights beyond the Rainbow Bridge.

 

I had just finished with my income tax for this year and have to make a trip to the bank to transfer funds around to cover the checks I just finished writing, and to the Post Office to mail all my money to the IRS. I am feeling pretty low after all the paperwork and the parting of ways with my hard earned money, and think if I take Lucia with me on my errands I might get cheered up a little.

Bad move on my part.

I look over at the couch where our sweet li'l pooch is sleeping on her back with her paws up in the air and think that it's been a while since I've taken her anywhere and she might want to go with me.

The minute she hears me coming toward her with the leash she goes into her butt tuck boogie because she is so excited about getting out and riding shotgun in my truck.

I finally snag her and get the leash on and out the door we go. My intention is to go straight to my truck and let her climb in on my side. Foolish me, as it was her intention to go inspect every smell along the hedge in front of our house and the fence by the neighbor's yard. She hunkered down and started to pull me down the sidewalk and along the hedge.

How a 70 pound dog can pull a grown man by a leash beats the heck out of me, but it felt as if my arm was being
pulled out of the socket and hurt like all get out.

We thought we could break her from pulling so hard if we put one of those choke chains on her, but that was as effective as thinking a stick of butter would not melt on a banquette in New Orleans during a hot summer day.

She just pulls, coughs, pulls and ignores the choke chain as if it didn't exist. When Lucia wants to go somewhere you'd best be ready, because she is gonna go, come hell or hot water., and she is gonna drag you with her.

After her inspection of the sidewalk and fence, I finally got her aimed toward the truck and with the leash around one wrist I got the door unlocked and she jumped right in.

Climbing over the console and half settling down in her shotgun position she starts wooing for me to lower her window so she can stick her snoot out and check the smells as we head to the bank.

I try to keep my Batmobile clean and sparkling, but her drool and snout marks are always with me on the window and windshield of the ol' truck. But I love this ol' dawg and she is spoiled rotten so I ignore all her markings until it's time to get the ol' truck washed again.

My plan is to let her stay in the truck as I use the ATM machine to transfer funds, but she was not agreeable to that.

With my hands busy holding the envelope for the deposits and the leash I could not slide out my side and keep her in the truck. She wanted out and I could hardly stop her. Wrapping the loop of the leash around my wrist, we started off across the parking lot.

She hunkered down in double ought Grandma Gear and started pulling my butt across that lot. I am fighting for dear life trying to not drop my envelope with cash in it and holding on to her leash.

Well, I can now well understand why they use Siberian Huskies to pull those sleds in those sled races in Alaska.

The Tasmanian Devil has appeared as I was busy trying to lock my truck and dragged me across that parking lot! Just about to the curb I trip over my shoelace at the same time"Taz" reaches the garden area in front of the Bank. I land on my right side, arm with the leash hooked to the wrist is now three inches longer than the arm holding the bank envelopes.

The Bank did a fine job of making a little garden area with plants and bark chips with a bench for folks to rest on.

Lucia, aka"Taz" pulled my big butt through, over, and around that little garden, ripping up plants with the leash and my body, and using me as a bulldozer to scrape up all the chipped bark in that little garden. I could not let go of her because I could never go home again if she got loose.

My Guardian Angel would not take kindly to that, and my other hand was busy hanging onto the bank envelopes.

I finally was saved when she tried to go under the bench. She could make it, but my big butt could not, so we were at a Mexican standoff here.

A crowd was gathering from all the shops and bank in the area and I was embarrassed as could be while spitting out chips and trying to get my sweat shirt back on straight. The folks just stood and laughed because as they said later, they did not want to fool with that Wolf pulling me through the garden. I told them, The joke was on them, that this animal is a Tasmanian Devil, not a Wolf!

The Bank Manager was real kind to us and said don't worry about the plants, some of them were dead and were gonna be removed any way. We had saved the bank some landscaping dollars by yanking them out by the roots anyway.

I finished my business at the ATM and decided to go home rather than go to the Post Office. The Post Office has a garden too, but the garden they have is all cactus and I wasn't in the mood to go sliding through that one.

I get this Tasmanian Devil in my truck and head back to the safety of home. When we get in the house that old Tasmanian Devil went back to wherever it is he goes to and our sweet lil' pooch Lucia was back where she belongs.

I still have a couple days to get my taxes in the mail, but that is one place neither Lucia, nor the Tasmanian Devil will ever go in my presence, the US Post Office with its Cactus Garden.

Now, to go get these bark chips out of my boxers!