Now We're Dog Sitters?

      I’m pretty excited today. Tonight, we’re going to see Primus, Puscifer, and A Perfect Circle. I’ve seen Primus several times, but I’ve never seen the other two. I like Tool a great deal, but I’ve never really gotten into Maynard’s other projects. I did buy the first A Perfect Circle album, but I only listened a hand full of times. I had heard of Puscifer but never really heard any of it. Last night while I was finishing off the night I decided to give them a listen. It was pretty good. I had a moment when I was so enthralled, I forgot what I was listening to, and when I looked it up, and realized I was going to see them today, I was stoked. That stoked-ness has carried on to today. We weren’t even going to go to see the show. As I mentioned, I’ve seen Primus, and wasn’t really into the other two, but our friend had already bought tickets, and wanted us to go with him. We decided to oblige, especially since it’s at a new venue called the Rady Children’s Shell. We’ve never been there, and we hear it’s pretty cool, so what the heck: New Experience! Now it’s turning into this whole thing where we’re having dinner and what not. I guess it’ll be cool. But we just hung out with him last weekend, and now tonight!? This’ll be the most time I’ve ever hung out with him in a single week. Plus, he’s bringing a lady he’s no longer dating, so I’m not sure how weird it could get. They’re “friends” still, so it shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve met her a couple of times, and she seems cool enough. Quieter than me, so that shouldn’t be a problem. It’s also cool because my wife has tomorrow off. So, this is the start of our 3-day weekend!  A weekend that we’ll be spending with my parents. We’ve been trying to make sure we see them at least once a month, and this was the only weekend we had free this month, so it’s on!

     Last weekend was a bit odd. We were house/dog sitting for some friends. They have two dogs, one of which is getting old. They say he’s 13. Apparently, he does not do well at the kennel. We’ve met the dogs several times, but have never really spent any “quality” time with them. I thought it was a little weird that they asked, we’ve never “talked dog” with them before. I was glad to be asked. It’s nice to be trusted, especially when it comes to things that people care a lot about. The older dog’s name is Junior, and the other one’s name is Willy, in case it matters. They are not the same breed. Junior is a Collie type mutt, and Willy is a Basset Hound type mutt. Sorry if that seemed “out of nowhere,” but I often feel like I might not be giving you enough detail, so I’m trying to get better at that. Now perhaps you can picture them in your head. They wanted us to stay at their house while they were gone. They went to Mexico for a music festival. Junior usually needs to go out around 3:30 am, so it was important that someone be there. It was odd living in someone else’s house. We’d been there for several parties, but had never really spent any extended amount of time there. They have a pool. I wish the weather had been better. The dogs are very sweet. We did not have a bit of trouble with them. But they are used to sleeping with people, and we are not used to sleeping with dogs. They really wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. When we were getting the run-down from our friends, they said that my wife and I may need to sleep in separate rooms, if it got too uncomfortable. I thought they were joking. They were not. I found it very difficult to sleep with the extra bodies on the bed. Luckily, they had another room. Apparently, the dogs prefer to sleep on the largest bed. Figures!

     It was also weird because we cook a lot of our own food. So, it was strange to try and decide how many groceries to take. Getting used to someone else’s kitchen was odd. But we made the most of it. It was kind of fun. It made us hyper aware that we don’t really want dogs. We talk about dogs a lot. We are animal lovers. But after having that trial run, it kind of cemented the idea that we just like to talk about it, we are not getting any. Although, I will say, after we got home Tuesday, I kind of missed them. Especially Willy! That guy was pretty funny. It was also strange because the Calvins had a huge show on Sunday. Man, it was one of the coolest gigs I’ve ever played! It was a skate contest at the OB pier parking lot. Our backs were to the surf, so everyone watching us got to see the waves crashing behind us, while we got to see a bunch of people watching us while a skateboard competition was going on behind them. It was so cool! There were so many people, it was out of control. It was a little hard to hear ourselves on stage, but it was the best show ever. I heard some video recordings, and we sounded fine to the audience, we just didn’t take enough time to get ourselves situated. By the time we were about to hit the stage, the event was already over an hour behind. And, what’s worse, just as we were setting up, the rain clouds came. It started raining! They were about to pull the plug, and we thought we weren’t going to get to play. But it looked like just one big rain cloud, so we kept setting up, hoping it would stop. And it did! Seriously, there was like 7 minutes of rain and then it was a beautiful day again. But, all day, I felt guilty about abandoning the dogs.