History of Animals, Part Two

After Kris, my mom bought David another Cocker Spaniel, a beautiful little black puppy and gave him to Dave for Christmas. Dave named him Marlon. Or Marlin. Can’t remember which spelling is correct. Anyway, Marlin was so pretty and spunky, but very dumb and peed in the house all the time. When Dave and Dawn got married, Marlin became an outside dog and I think he was very lonely. At the same time, I “inherited” Lily as a dog-niece from Dawn. Lily was a charcoal grey teacup poodle who weighed about four pounds. She was hilarious. Whenever she was left alone, her first couple of years, she’d pull all of Dawn’s panties out of the laundry and drag them all over the house. She also loved chocolate and you absolutely could NOT drink chocolate milk without her attacking you. She once ate two bourbon cakes while Dave and Dawn were gone and when they returned they found her in an almost comatose state. She was always doing something funny. Marlin lived until about three years ago, and Lily lived to the ripe old age of fifteen (or sixteen) until she simply gave up. I miss them both.

While all of this was happening, I, living alone before I was married, got a Calico kitten and named her Lucy, after my favorite woman in the world, Lucille Ball. Lucy was a fun cat who loved to kill mice and was fortunate enough to kill a few in her life. One night I came home and she was waiting for me at the door with a mouse who was lying on its side with a tiny trickle of blood coming from its mouth. Lucy was sitting taller that I’d ever seen her before and she was as proud as an Olympic Gold Medalist with her conquest. She was also an attack-cat and would run across the bed and leap up in the air at me when I walked by. Sometimes I would speed up and she’s hover in midair with all four legs stretched out and then she’s fall to the floor. Fun times. One night I walked into the living room and found that my then-boyfriend had put her inside my new, empty china cabinet. I acted furious, but it was really funny. After that, Lucy didn’t like the BF and I never liked him much anyway, so we sent him on his way. Lucy also HATED my brother, David. Whenever he came over she would hide in the back bathroom and wouldn’t come out until he was gone. One night we decided to trick her, and Dave pretended to leave, saying goodbye very loudly and slamming the front door. He then sat down on the sofa and in just a few seconds Lucy came out of hiding and walked into the living room very relieved that he was gone. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw him and hissed and ran back into the bathroom. Dave and I laughed for years about that one. When I became engaged to the idiot I married, I gave Lucy away, because the idiot’s dog hated cats and I was an even BIGGER idiot and allowed that to happen. Oh, how much better off I would have been if I’d kept the cat and dumped the idiot! Live and learn, however, and I’ll never do anything that stupid again.

Part Three tomorrow!

Note: This is MY history with animals. I'm making fun of Tom Cruise's statement about knowing the history of psychiatry by entitling my posts "History of..."