Behind the scenes with Team Small Dog on vacation.

I hate coming home from vacation. Aren't you supposed to come home from vacation all refreshed like you just blasted out your brain with a mint and fennel scented colonic? Ready to start a new day? Re-joov-en-ated? I come home glowering and irritated and stomping around all stink eye that vacation is over. Re-juvenile. Delinquent. Want to stomp someone and go back to vacation.


I'm pretty sure they feel the same way. Sun baking them that day into crispy, golden fried crisps. Some days just sat and stared at the sky, waiting for it to burst or bust out with the important information that we've all been waiting for about Michael Jackson's ghost. The meaning of 9-11. Heavy metal in Baghdad. How to cut my hair into a stylish and sporty new do that goes with my slothlike, vacationeer lifestyle.


On vacation, we just go somewhat feral. If by feral you mean you can eat grapes for dinner and ice cream for brunch and who cares what you wear and thus, I wear a skirt over pants ever single day. Viva la skirtpants. Is that very feral? And there is running and photoshoots and drinking and no one around. If you want, you can scream REALLY LOUD and no one will ever hear you up there.

I know. It's a little pathetic. I just miss you, my friend vacation.


For Otterpop, life is good and right on vacation. No UPS trucks. No people that ain't her people. No dogs that ain't her dogs. No leashes ever. No emails. Otterpop is the master of her universe. Our universe. Who the hell cares. It's vacation and at least I remembered to pack the wine and Otterpop is in happyland. And happyland for Otterpop is happyland for all of us. Like it is raining xanax and butterscotch and Kiehls scented shower gel, all in a soft mist and we are all one with the universe.


Waiting for the master chef to appear. On vacation, Top Chef follows us around with a gps video locating truck and serves seared scallops in a bucket of fava beans and roasted this and that. Or not. Or grapes. There are certainly grapes on vacation. Sometimes it depends on who packed the cooler. Laura is a feral packer and at least you can count on grapes and some bagels.


Vacation is a universe of sticks. Everywhere you look, glorious sticks.


I think I get Otterpop's relationship to swimming now. It's all about getting the stick to safety. The middle of the pond, not safe for sticks. Danger dog Otterpop to the rescue. She tried to rescue me out of the overly large bath tub, too.


She started to freak me out, how far she was swimming, all to save that stick. The only other thing that freaked me out on vacation, the cottage phage in warm tones of butter and eggplant. And some of the upholstery uses squiggle Joan Miro meets the '80's patterns. But that's about it. Basically, vacation should not freak anyone out. I'm over the bad upholstery. Really. I really am. Really.


Here is how much health care debate there is on vacation. The debate is sparked by an Event which I will call Otterpop Starts Freaking Out with Severe Pain Regarding her Ear. This event happens on a Saturday night, on a dark mountain that is separated from things like the rest of the world by, well, a mountain that is navigated by a skinny car sick road and at least an hour of car sick dark night driving. Like it takes an hour in the daylight when the road is not populated by sharp fanged animals and drunk mountain dwellers with machine guns. It coule be one long, grim reaper eternity freak out drive on the car sick road to save Otterpop.

The health care debate of vacation goes something like this:

"Oh my god. Poor Otterpop. Do you think we should go to the emergency vet? Shit. That is a helluva drive. But she is freaking OUT of the ear pain." I go pour another large glass of the wine that came free with the cottage.

"Whatever you want to do, hun," Gary says, but he is watching the game because one thing there is on the mountain, besides a giant bathtub and eggplant fabric to accent the butter colored Ikea chairs, is satellite tv and the Dodgers are kicking the Giants asses.

"I think she got too much water down her ear maybe. I dunno. GodDAMN, Otterpop. What is wrong? Do you think something else went down her ear? Stickers? Foxtails? Red hot poker? Something creepy from nature that we don't even know what it is?"

Otterpop is shaking violently and whimpering. Otterpop NEVER whimpers. She is totally freaking out. Which is freaking me out. I may have mentioned this once or twice.

Gary replies, "If you want to go, we'll all go. I'm driving to town to get burritos right now."

His right now actually meant at the end of the game right now as in the taco shop closed because you can close your taco shop whenever you want in a town like where vacation is. And then Gary wanted to throw something through the door but he didn't. Because he thought about it, and hey. Vacation!

And so the health care debate ended with no one driving to the emergency vet and the ear emergency fixed by itself the morning and I think we had grapes and chips for dinner.

I know. You're all, THAT'S the health care debate? I love vacation.


Ruby only wades in the pond up to her chest. And finds acorns and carries them down to the mud and buries them there. Gustavo, he is just running somewhere the whole time of swim stick throwing. Running somewhere where there are miles and miles of sticker bushes.

After vacation, the first walk we take on leashes, walking down the street, a lady in a Jetta runs the stop sign and almost hits us all. Four lives almost splatto due to Jetta Rage of you, curly hair lady. She slams on the brakes and flings her arm across her teenage girl looking passenger to her right, and gives me a look like, FUCKER. All stink eye and road rage. And I'm just standing there, in the middle of the crosswalk and I stink eye back at her, FUCKER. And I try to tell her with my mental telepathy that godDAMN, lady. Don't you know I just got home from VACATION and I live in a vacation bubble and I am supposed to still be up on the mountain and you don't EVEN EXIST??


Because we have all gone feral, the dogs just are loose and running all day long and there are deer and pigs and turkeys up there in the wilds, but nothing is as dangerous and irritating as those sticker bushes. I sticker your ass, Jetta Curly Hair Lady. Pretty much for every hour of dog running there were 3 hours of convincing Gustavo that he was not going to DIE when I brushed out the burrs from his soft little dog hair. Because I am feral I don't brush my hair in solidarity of the sticker bush hair and also because I am just a big lazy slob on vacation.


There's a soft brushed Gustavo, lying on the down comforter. You have gathered that this is not a camp out, our vacation on the mountain. I don't camp. There are stereo speakers in the bathroom of the cottage. My own personal DJ brought a little shopping bag of cd's that sound like Bon Iver bearded guys in their own little studios like this, singing their sad man harmonies, but perhaps their rustic mountain studios use more rustic color schemes than eggplant and butter. And don't have dishwashers. One day when it rained and we just sat there watching the rain hit hard out the giant, floor to ceiling windows and listened to Bon Ivery guys with beards singing about prairies and I read a whole book about youth culture and pirate capitalism.


Vacation has a hammock.


Vacation has a porch. We'd just sit out there then meander around the property, following the sound of monkey screaming down to the stump. Gustavo spent a lot of time scaring off this one stump. Every single day. The same stump.


Now I'm super busted. Team Small Dog goes on vacation and you were ready to hear about dancing on the bar with the one eyed rodeo clown then getting a new tattoo from the shirtless guy that lives under the blue tarp canned ham trailer by the old airstrip. How the dogs single handedly took on the entire wild pig population of the Mendocino mountains and disappeared for days but luckily I found them due to the power of love and a really reliable recall. Not this boring, shuffling, walking to the pond crap. Even my dad is like, uh, sounds like you had a, um, quiet vacation? My own dad said that. His vacation had bears and the bears did things like pee in front of them and the dogs on his vacation had to keep the bears away.


I swear. I swear. If you just send me back there, send me today, I swear I will get my ass up off that sticker bush grass land hammock and set the dogs free near the razor wire compound and make a spectacle of myself at the big Apple Show that starts Saturday afternoon. I swear. Send money and pack the cooler with something other than wine and grapes and cream cheese and I am there. Hell, don't even pack the cooler I love grapes and have no issues with cream cheese, just send me back. Send me back. Please send me back.