Buncha Thoughts at Evening

1. I’m a jerk.
2. Dogs are awesome, and also jerks.
3. Siri is useless for my life.

It’s creature dinner time, so I’m getting out the dishes and the food and starting to portion out everybody’s share. Some of the creatures are old and sedentary, some are young and boisterous, and not all are of the same species. Thus, portions are specifically assigned. And what am I thinking as I do this? That’s right: “Okay, who’s ready for dinner? Are all of my dogs who are good dogs going to get a dinner? Yes, yes they are!”

Meanwhile, the dogs are doing doughnuts in the kitchen, the old cat is trying to get as close to my ankles without getting in the dogs’ way as possible, and the young cat has already positioned herself at the point where dinner gets put within reach.  The dogs are ecstatic, they’re going to have out-of-body experiences, because DINNER! and it is the most adorable thing I’ve seen all day, and I linger.

And yet, who among them is a Good Dog? Was not Dalziel digging, not half an hour ago, in the planter with the volunteer sunflower? Has not he, nor, indeed, Dagmar, bugged me all freaking day to go out. no, in. no, out. or in. or out. or in. Who, in fact, rather than being a Good Dog, is a Pain in the Butt? “ME! ME! I AM!” they all dance about as if to say. But of course, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Meanwhile, I am a forgetful-yet-well-meaning pet owner. The older cat should be medicated every other day, so she doesn’t barf up all her dinner and prematurely die. But is today an odd-numbered day, or an even-numbered day? On even days, she gets medicine at night. My reading glasses are in the other room; “Hey Siri, is today even numbered or odd?”

“I can help you search the web for that. Continue on your phone?”

“Fuck off, Siri, if I could read my phone, I wouldn’t be asking you. Hell, there are a hundred easy things I could do to remember whether to pill the cat or not, this is just a spur-of-the-moment request for assistance.” Yeah, and anything that anyone mansplains to me about setting reminders or moving magnets back and forth is missing the whole point, which is: all that machine “smarts” is still not good enough to let me do something real, rather than contrived.