Dynamite Birthday

I just got such an incredible birthday present, it necessitated a blog post. But first, a little background:

Mrs. Dynamite went on vacation with her mom and her sister this week, to the jungles of Ecuador! They went on a 4 day jungle camping trip, sandwiched between nights in Quito.

That left me and the O-dog alone to fend for ourselves. I managed to run the dishwasher on my own, but was forced to buy more socks and boxers in lieu of doing laundry. I'm kidding - come on, I'm totally domesticated. Kinda.

My biggest worry was leaving Oscar home alone all day - with only a dog walker coming mid-day for company. He hasn't been alone for several months since Mrs. Dynamite began working from home, and is spoiled by human company. The other problem was that Oscar has been sleeping until 9am lately - whereas I'd have to drag his lazy ass out of bed at 5:15am and take him for a walk before I went to work. I was not looking forward to the system shock it might induce in him.

So, Monday morning, as my alarm went off and I tried to lift him out of bed, Oscar gave me the startled look of a pledge at the beginning of initiation: non-comprehension, fear, panic. The look said "Yo, dad, I don't get it - what the fuck is going on? " (yeah, he's my baby, and I'm his dad...I know it's weird... unless you have a dog - then you understand)

Monday afternoon, I nervously returned home after work, and found Oscar acting relatively sedate and slightly insulted, as if to say "Man, I can't believe you deserted me!"

On Tuesday, the wake up look was one of "Are you fucking kidding me? AGAIN?" Coming home, I expected the worst, but was psyched to find Oscar stumbling out of his bed, waking up from a nap - I haven't been able to sneak in on him since he was about 3 months old - so I took it as a good sign that he was napping. I figured he was doing ok on his own.

Wednesday, however, after a wake-up scowl, Oscar rebelled - tearing up his pee pad, and pulling my jeans and sweatshirts off the chair onto the floor. He was clearly saying, "Pops - you better cut this shit out." I made a shocked sounds when I saw the torn pad, and Oscar immediately flopped over onto his back, surrendering and apologizing.

Today, when we got up, Oscar gave me a quizzical look that asked "How much longer is this going to go on?" He then tried to hide under the comforter in an effort to avoid being taken for his morning walk - and he didn't even KNOW it was raining out.

When I got home today, he was happy to see me, having abandoned his rebellious behavior - and helped me on the treasure hunt Mrs. Dynamite had set up for me.

She had scattered 12 clues around the apartment, which I ran around to find, culminating in a large, wrapped gift, which was clearly a framed print of some sort. I cannot do it justice with words, and will post a picture of it as soon as I have one, but it's a takeoff of the classic Dogs Playing Cards, only it's an original painting done by my insanely talented step sister. The dogs in the picture are Oscar and his friends: Paco, Clancy, Buddy and Gilly. It is absolutely incredible. Mrs. Dynamite had arranged the whole thing, and even driven to Boston to pick up the finished piece!

Mrs. Dynamite, in the birthday card she had left, also pointed me toward these pictures of Oscar helping her wrap the present.

thanks, baby, for the best present ever.



-KD