I’m in New Jersey, and I’m dog-sitting again. Chance and Meaghan are off to Ireland to drink Guinness and fuck leprechauns and attend a wedding I wasn’t invited to and they pulled a Jedi mind trick on me. The conversation went something like this:

Meaghan: “How’d you like to house-sit, dog-sit, and cat-sit for us for 11 days?”
Joe: “You had me at ‘house’.’

I’m kidding. I am in fact pleased as punch to be here now; as much as I enjoy traveling the country, being in a house and having access to things like hot running water and a kitchen and a toilet that you don’t have to worry about what happens after you flush it – it’s actually pretty great. Not to mention, CASE (the trailer) has a couple issues and is in the shop getting those things fixed, so the timing could not be better.

I arrived Friday after maybe seven hours behind the wheel and several close calls, and encountered the dogs, who I haven’t seen for about ten months:

JOE: “Hello!”
RUKIA: “I FUCKING LOVE YOU!”
KIBA: “Who is this fucking asshole?”

It took most of the day, but Kiba finally remembered who I was and has been coming up to me with his Kong, dropping it at my feet, and looking at me passive-aggressively as if to say “Peanut butter me, bitch.”

About an hour or so ago I dropped Chance and Meaghan off at the airport and now I’m back here and the mood has shifted. Kiba and Rukia almost immediately sensed that something was off, and spent some time at the top of the stairs looking at the door. They’ve searched the house twice, and have now moved on to “something is deeply wrong”.

They deal with it differently. Rukia follows me around and then lays down directly behind me with an exasperated sigh. Kiba is very standoffish, and gives a disapproving “woof” at me about every five minutes. Kiba is currently sulking upstairs on Chance and Meaghan’s bed.

There are also two cats, Jarvis and Moxie, who watched me intently for about five minutes before retreating to their cat-tree to hang out. Neither is looking at me.

You might be asking, “Joe, why isn’t this called the “Dog and Cat-sitting Blog” instead of just the Dog-Sitting Blog?” First of all, continuity, and second of all, cats really don’t need much. They’d survive without us and I know that if I have a heart attack tomorrow they will eat my corpse.

Further updates as events warrant.