Bayley is five years old today (or it’s the day we celebrate anyway) and I found this piece I wrote after she was with me after a few months. She retired from terrorism as her day job, but occasionally reverts back when she’s bored or cranky. I am ok with that.
May, 2017
I’m pretty sure Bayley is being trained by the Taliban at night to be a terrorist. It’s really the only possibility because during the day, she is constantly with me, so there is no other access to her. They have taught her well.
She never strikes in the same place twice, so when you have protected the vulnerable location where she previously struck, she moves on to other locations along the perimeter. It’s really quite smart, and since the house is large enough, she is never lacking for new options. Take, for example, the other morning when she ate her bed. Actually, if she’d actually consumed the bed, it would have been easier for me than having to go through the entire house and clean up each and every piece of the bed she deposited with remarkable accuracy of position in awkward places. Not just down the hallway, but also under the tables and beds, so I really had to get down and dirty to pick it all up. Her apparent goal: Do the most damage you can, quietly, as quickly as possible, and requiring the most effort to clean up. I’m pretty sure that the whole bed thing was completed in fifteen minutes. Planned. Executed. Total annihilation. Training. Takes training, right?
Then, when she is caught, right in the act, and you draw your guns and confront her, she is smooth. She looks at you quizzically, with earnest confusion regarding what it is you are upset about. Training. It really takes training to execute that response without a hint of her true glee, knowing she pretty much got through the safety procedures to stage her attack with impunity.
Then there’s her posse whom she has snowed, and who stand up for her no matter what. “Come on, Christine, how bad could it have been?” “Look at that face; are you sure someone else’s dog didn’t do that?” Or, my favorite from favorite daughter Sarah, about whom I’m not allowed to write, “Mom, you really are responsible for her behavior. She needs more time outdoors.” While it’s true, I wish I spent more time with her outside, I’m not sure she gets a pass because I only threw the GD ball to her for one hour yesterday instead of the five they seem to think is appropriate. And in her training with the bad guys at night, I am sure they spend real time on “Fitting In So No One Really Believes You Are as Bad as You Are.”
Yep, she’s a trained terrorist; I’m sure of it. And, the thing is, she, like all evil things that breathe, is more than just that. She is sweet, smart, funny. When she runs, it’s poetry in motion. Her long, lean body can smooth it out like a thoroughbred running in the Kentucky Derby. When it’s snowing, she can bounce up and down in the snow to get to wherever she wants to go. And, when you take her to the beach, she will run a bit ahead but then turn back and stay right with you, because, in the end, she has no desire to go to Guantanamo when she could instead live happily ever after with me at our cottage.
Very cute
Bay has a great home and yard. She gets out a lot. Her lifestyle is healthy