Blood Red/Chili Red

I was going to illustrate this with a picture of the color in the new media room, but typing in "chimayo red" only gets you recipes with a particular chili pepper!

This weekend I saw red in so many ways! Most of it was the paint Lee was putting on the walls, which also covered his big toe in such a way that he looked like he'd broken a toe. He did a pretty good job of not getting it on the carpet or wrong walls too much, too.

The other red I saw was not so well behaved. I figured that, with five endless dogs at the house, something would go awry, and sure enough...I'd finally cleared enough of a path in Beccano's room yesterday to get to the couch and take all the money, Lego, pens, and Magic cards out of the slipcover so I could take it down to wash. There was still a lot of food bits and dog hair in it, so I stepped outside to shake the stuff out before washing. I heard a great deal of barking and commotion as I realized all five dogs were trying to get out the dog door at once. When they were finally out, I told Gwynnie she was not a good dog for instigating it (it has been her lately, usually turning on Buddy because he's the slowest-moving quadruped in the bunch).

I went back in and loaded the slipcover and tried to make the washing machine go (it is new to me and has very many buttons and lights). I turned to see Scrunchy and Gwynnie diligently licking away at the carpet, which appeared to be covered by the intensely red paint from the family room. But no, it was blood, which was dripping quite briskly from Gwynnie's ear. I screamed for Lee that, "They hurt my dog!" (I am so dramatic.) Lee came to the rescue and applied pressure to her ear while I wailed and pragmatically cleaned up the mess (yay for Folex, the miracle cleaner). It ended up appearing that some dog, one with teeth smaller than Buddy's but larger than Scrunchy's (hmm, which two shiny black dogs fit that description) totally bit through Gwynnie's ear, but not extremely heinously. Just bad enough. So, all dogs were separated until Tina and Mr. Tina came back from AKON.

Later in the evening, after a big, nasty storm came up, Gwynnie came in the house, all wet and with red all over her face. Oh, poor dear, I thought, and went to clean the blood off of her. Well, it was paint this time! And I got it on my nails where it won't come off! I guess she'd wandered too close to the paint can. She also almost got squished between the sofa and wall. With her newly poor instincts, she seems to run toward trouble rather than away from it.

I think 5 dogs is just too many, and way too hard on the blind dog, who is having enough trouble dealing with the furniture moving constantly in the media room, as it is. I don't know how much longer Gwynnie will be with us, anyway. She now gets lost in her stair count going down, and turns around when she is almost down, going back to the landing to start again. It has to be hard on her.

In other news HEY KIDS READ THIS: Beccano's room is startlingly clean and clutter free, other than the action figure collection. I spent give endless hours collecting the following out of his room, which had no visible floor surface when I started:

• 8 hot pocket containers
• 6 paper plates
• 1 china bowl
• 1 plastic glass
• 4 (that's right) good spoons
• 2 good forks
• 1 large and 1 small nail clipper
• 5 dice
• approximately 2,000 Magic cards, with LOTR, Pokemon and Digimon ones from the olden days thrown in to spice things up. Now most are either in a box or a bin. Oh yeah, I am sure they missed THOSE particular cards...
• 12 cases for video games and/or DVSs, a large percentage of which were empty or had the wrong disk in them (Tina gets to match them all, plus the family room collection later this week, if she has any time between her NEW job and her old job)
• approximately 2,000 Lego pieces. Most got put in the Lego bins, which will be in the attic soon
• 4 beanie babies
• uncountable wrappers to small candy products
• uncountable dog/cat hairs (note that we have not had a cat for a few months now)
• Many books, some squished (all on shelves now)
• 6 costumes (Halloween, ninja, etc.)
• 2 masks
• 8 unmatched socks
• much clothing (clean is in drawers or HANGING in the closet, which I can now access)

He will have a nice new room with a bed and a comfy chair when he gets home. Maybe he could not destroy it for...a while.

In other news, J (AKA Mr. Tina) was very helpful in moving the heavy couch into the media room. He and Lee took it apart and put it back together, in quite manly fashion. So handy to have the house guests!