Stairway to Christmas

Sailor here.

Whew! What a Christmas! First of all, we have a tree. It is a tall tree with lights and shiny, dangly things and something Mom calls a tree skirt. I am not, and I repeat not, to pee on it. Righto. I know that.

There were a lot of packages under the tree. Some smelledl like fruit and some like plastic and some like books, and one smelled like Sailor cookies! I was not to pee on them either. Righto.

The living room furniture was moved around to make room for the tree and I was not to pee on it either. Okay, okay. I am a good dog. I only peed on the potted plants once or twice last summer because they were moved to the hearth and needed watering. Sheesh.

We opened presents and I got a hedgehog. I love my hedgehog. I was so busy carrying him in my mouth, I didn't pay much attention to what everyone else was doing. Mom said she and Chris were opening their gifts. Then Katy arrived to open her gifts. After much rustling and ripping and exclaiming, Mom put my blankie in the back seat and we all got into Katy's new car and drove to her house in San Francisco for Christmas dinner. It was the middle of the afternoon.

"Oboy!" I thought, "An early dinner." But this was not to be.

The humans were in the kitchen cooking a goose. Zoe was showing me her house and her deck, her rug and her water bowl. Mom started to turn pale and smell sick; she gets these icky migraines. She went to find her medicine only to find that she had left it at home. She said she thought she'd be OK, give her some Tylenol and aspirin and caffeine and she'd see. But she went down the tubes rather quickly. It was ugly.

Katy told Mom to sit tight; she'd go back to Mom's house and pick up her medicine and come right back, round trip should take about an hour tops, hang in there. Well, the round trip took about 3 hours and MY DINNER WAS LATE because Katy ran out of gas and sat by the side of the road for a very long time, guarded by a highway patrolman, until gas was delivered. Thank goodness for cell phones.

Meanwhile, Mom was really feeling awful and didn't want to take me or Zoe out for a walk. Hmmmph. Katy finally got back and as soon as Mom injected her medicine, she felt lots better. I always run away from this because I can never tell when she will be giving herself a shot or cleaning my ears. It all smells the same.

We had a late dinner of goose for the humans and a goose neck for me and kibble for Zoe. Poor Zoe. Then it was time for a pee break and a stroll which was OK with me until it was time to come back up into the house. Then I got into trouble.

Katy's house has stairs that lead from the sidewalk to the front door. Many stairs. Slippery stairs. I may have run up them once, but I wasn’t about to do it again. They looked different in the dark. Who knew what they were going to do to me? I wouldn’t budge. Besides, the stairs smelled like cats and there might be cats lurking for me, thorns out, teeth hissing.

“He’s balking,” Katy said to Mom. “Now what?”

“Cookies?” I asked with my eyes.

“Brute force,” Mom answered.

Instead of cookies, Katy got behind me and wheelbarrowed me up the steps. Zoe laughed at me. Mom shook her head. I wasn't too thrilled. I have to work on this. I balked twice more during the time I was at Zoe's but it wasn't much fun and having my butt Ahherged up the stairs was a bit embarrassing.

But except for the steps, Christmas was grand, I got to spend the night with Zoe. Mom slept downstairs and wanted me with her. I wanted to be with Zoe. So I refused to go down the inside stairs to her room.

"Just as well," Mom said. "We'd never get him back up the stairs!"

I started off sleeping on my bed on the landing, but Zoe lay down on my blankie and crowded me off. So Zoe slept on my bed and I slept on Zoe's rug. Neat, huh?

And the next morning after Erik went off to somewhere, we took a long walk in the city and I got to smell a LOT of new dogs. I even got to go into several stores with Mom and Katy and Zoe, and the store owners gave me cookies. I like Noe Valley -- there are lots of hills there, but NO STAIRS!