Facebooking

Have you joined the Facebook craze? I gave in a few months ago, and while I have found it at times interesting and at times fun, sometimes it’s just plain weird.

I’ve wound up being “friends” with people I never liked in the first place, mostly from high school. I’m pretty sure they never liked me, either, which is why I found it odd that they want me to know what’s going on with their lives these days.

People on Facebook let you know what they’re up to through something called “status updates”, in which they post things like, “I just went to the grocery store.” or “I think my goiter has gotten infected.” There may be a handful people in whom I have that level of interest, but not the annoying kid who I used to throw spitballs at in biology class.

One status update I came across the other day was a guy I (barely) knew in high school thanking everyone for their recent prayers, and saying “We miss our little boy so very much. When he left us he took our happiness with him. He was a part of me, and that part of me is gone, and it hurts so much.” This was a truly horrible thing to read, so I went into his profile to see if I could find out more information.

Well, it turns out he was talking about his dog. Don’t get me wrong – I know the loss of a pet can be a terribly sad thing. I’m sure I’ll be quite upset when Lucky moves on to the big backyard in the sky, which may be sooner than later if she doesn’t stop barking in the mornings.

But I can’t help but feel a little misled by this guy, who was VERY distraught over that dog. So I got over my misgivings and did the decent thing – I de-friended him.

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Speaking of Lucky, she is limping around the backyard now. I think she twisted her leg when she stepped in one of the holes she’s dug all over the place. I would say that serves her right, but I don’t like to see her in pain.

I don’t think it’s too bad. She can put some weight on it, and she doesn’t have that look that dogs get on their faces when they’re hurting. She pretty much has the same happy-go-lucky, vacant, “do-you-have-food?” look as always. It seemed better yesterday, which is good news, because I didn’t want to be faced with a choice of spending thousands of dollars at the vet, or having to post a very sad status update on my Facebook page.

She doesn’t do a lot of running these days, anyway. She’s part retriever, but the retrieving part of her personality has gone dormant. When I throw the tennis ball now, she looks at it like it’s a hand grenade. She has no interest in chasing anything. She might chase a cat, if it had a pork chop tied to its back.

People seem to think it’s OK when they see her to say, “Oh my god, she’s so fat.” I don’t think that’s very nice. I don’t go to their house and tell them that their kids are ugly.

I try to tell people that her behavior has improved, but I may just be fooling myself. A while back a terrible storm came up, with lots of lightning and thunder and wind, and I let her in the house until it ended. Later I thought I heard hail, so I opened up the front door to see, and next thing I know this white furry blur goes rushing past me and into the front yard, and down the sidewalk. In a hailstorm.

A close-by lightning strike apparently convinced her that she had not made the best decision, so within a few minutes she trundled back to the house, soaking wet, and expecting to just stroll back in the house as if nothing had happened. I intercepted her with a towel and some unkind words.

Well, here’s hoping she’ll be back up to speed in no time, so she can continue to drive me crazy. I can live with a few more holes in the backyard if she can.