(Consider this a warning – things are about to get nasty up in here!)

Yesterday morning Sid tipped his giant face-wart Carl up towards me, looked me in the eye, and yelled, “Enough is enough!”

 Lucky for Sid, I whole-heartedly agreed.  After two months of rapid growth, we decided that Carl was anglin’ to take over Sid’s face and HE NEEDED TO BE STOPPED. I mean, seriously, it was getting to the point where Sid was accidentally chomping on Carl whenever he’d yawn.  Also, we’ve been on a bit of an X-Files binge here at the Pug Slope Headquarters, and I was starting to have nightmares in which Carl sprouted legs and became a sentient being of extra-terrestrial origins intent on wreaking havoc in our lives.

THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE

The amazing Dr. Quim at Prospect Park Animal Clinic was able to fit us in for a wart excision later that afternoon.  Now, as you know, Sid is a frequent visitor to the vet.  Unfortunately, that means that Sid now knows that the vet’s office is not a fun place to be.

He stared at that door for our entire time in the waiting room, as though if he were to look away, for even a second, he’d miss his one opportunity to escape.

Once we got into the exam room, Sid literally pulled out all the punches – pushing, pulling, jerking, and flailing about while the vet and his assistant tried to get a good look at Carl.  Sid was so wound up that we decided that the only way to proceed was to give him a mild sedative to calm him down.

So Sid was given the sedative, and we were left alone in the exam room while we waited for it to kick in.

Sid spent the next 15 minutes pacing rapidly in a tight figure-eight formation around my chair.

The assistant eventually came back in to check on us, and upon seeing Sid’s continued hyperactivity, she turned the lights down in the room and pressed a button on a small stereo in the corner.

The opening notes of Brahm’s Lullaby began playing.  Then, without warning, the voice of Celine Dion wafted about the room.

Sid continued to pace frantically, while I pondered the life decisions that led to me to be in a dark room with a wart-faced, hyperactive pug, listening to Celine Dione sing lullabies.  Whatever decisions they were, they were obviously the right ones.

By the end of the song, I found myself pacing around the room, but Sid was in my arms, being bounced like a baby, his eyes set in an unfocused gaze, his tongue hanging from his mouth, Timothy-Buttons-style.

It was time.

Dr. Quim was masterful with his surgical tweezers and scissors.  With a quick pop, Carl was off of Sid’s face, severed from his life-source before he could wreak havoc on humanity.

 Why, yes, I did ask if I could take a photo of Carl while the vet was busy cauterizing Sid’s wound.  YOU DON’T PASS UP AN OPPORTUNITY LIKE THIS.  Ask Brian about my wisdom teeth sometime…

With his wound cauterized, Sid was ready to head home!  Dr. Quim said the sedative would take a while to wear off, but Sid did a great job walking home.  He seemed a little out of it, but he walked the whole six blocks like it was no big deal.

Until we got to the stoop.  I think that’s when the sedatives really kicked in.

I carried him up all of the stairs and put him down as soon as we got inside our apartment. Rather than jumping into his normal post-walk routine of spinning in circles while yelping for treats and pawing frantically at the food bin that we keep near the door, he just stood there, swaying, until he ended up leaning pathetically against the bin.  He began snoring.

I carried the poor guy to the couch.  I was hoping he’d just go to bed, but he seemed pretty determined to stay awake.  Thank the blog gods that my cell phone was right in my back pocket, because as soon as I set him on the couch, this happened:

OMG SID YOU’RE BREAKIN’ MY HEART!!!!!

That position that he flopped into?  He stayed that way for a good two hours.

Eventually I moved him to his bed.  At one point, he stood up like he had a plan, took one step, and then immediately gave up:

That became his 8pm-9pm napping position.

From there, he again stood up like he had a plan, walked to the middle of the room, and…

I’ve got four more minutes of that, if you want to see it sometime.

At that point, I officially cancelled all of my evening plans so I could keep an eye on him.  I was worried he’d decide he was thirsty, walk over to his water bowl, and then zonk out again, and I’d come home after a fun night out to find him face down in an inch and a half of water.  The irrational fears concocted by my imagination stop me from doing a lot of things.

That didn’t even come close to happening, of course, and the sedative finally began to wear off around midnight, just when it was time for the rest of the world to go to sleep.  I left a light on so Sid could finally admire his Carl-free face.

Ta-da!!!!

Well, it was a wet, rainy, blah sort of weekend here in Park Slope.  Let’s brighten things up a bit with this photo-flashback of a pre-Carl, pre-salt-and-pepper-muzzle, post-confidence-shirts, fun-fun-fun-in-the-California-sun-lovin’ Siddhartha Lamont.

Sigh.  Not really helping.  Let’s try to find a Sid photo-flashback that’s a little less “dripping with ennui.”

Ooph.  No.

Oy!  No!

Okay, maybe a video-flashback is what we need.

Wow, Sid.  I never knew Kool and the Gang could be such a downer.*

Er, maybe today we should just turn things over to you guys.  Did any of you pugs play any good April Fool’s pranks on your ‘rents?  Share ’em in the comments!  And let’s keep it cheery!!

*I know, I know, that’s like the fourth time I’ve used that video in a post – It’s my favorite Sid vid EVER and I need only the flimsiest excuse to toss it up on the blog.  

Sid and Payton in Chicago, December 2011

What a sad day.  Payton, you little ball of inspiration and determination and perseverance and love, we’re honored to have gotten to know you through your amazing blog and to have had the opportunity to spend time with you in Chicago, and our thoughts today are with your wonderful, loving and supportive family.  You were a tough cookie, a spunky little sweetheart, Sid’s feisty older lady, and the embodiment of the pug motto “multum in parvo.” You are already missed.

*****

Please visit Payton’s blog, Pugnacious P, to read more about her experiences with PDE and to share your support with Payton’s family.

In the last few months, someone in our family has put on a few extra pounds. The family member in question has a flat face, likes treats, and still has a wart on his muzzle (named “Carl”). Did you guess who?

So yeah, it looks like it’s time for the infamous “Green Bean Diet”. I think the fur on the back of Sid’s neck stands on end any time the “D Word” is uttered. Sid is a smart cookie, though, and I’m certain he tried to bamboozle me when I brought him to the vet last week to pick up some prescriptions and to do a weigh in.

Vet Receptionist: “He’s 17.1 pounds”.

Me: “What the?! No way. He was almost 22 pounds the last time we were here. The scale must not have been zero-ed out or something. Could we try again please?”

Vet Receptionist: “Sure. OK – well, still looks like 17.1 pounds”.

Back Home:

Me: “Alright, Sid, who did you bribe at the vet to rig that scale? And 17 pounds?! C’mon! I don’t think you’ve weighed close to 17 pounds since you were a puppy!”

It’s true. I think the lightest Sid’s ever been under our watch was 18 pounds and he looked extremely slim at that weight. He looks like a fawn bratwurst now so there must have been some problem with that scale. I weighed myself on our home scale and then picked up Sid, and it looks like Sid is more like 24 pounds than 17. Who does he think he can fool?

So for breakfast and dinner now, Sid’s getting 2/3 of his regular food and 1/3 unsalted green beans. Yum!

Much to our surprise, Sid was actually super excited about the green beans. I guess we should have expected it. He has a thing for canned goods. He immediately got up to his usual shenanigans just as I was trying to take a photo of the green bean can.

I think he’ll have no trouble with the green beans as long as we don’t mention the “D Word”.

Yesterday some of you wondered how a “macho” pug like Sid would feel about his love for a pink horse named Derpy going public.  Well, somebody must’ve caught on to the fact that his private musings were being shared with the world.  Apparently Sid’s Journal is now VERY well hidden.  I can’t find it anywhere, but I’m not giving up.

I did notice something odd, though, when I woke up this morning.  A new video was being uploaded to the PugSlope YouTube account with the title “Sid the Pug and Derpy Pony.”  Unfortunately I couldn’t view it while it was uploading, so while Brian took Sid out for his morning walk, I shuffled through the papers on my desk to see if I could find any clues as to its content.  I found the following note:

I finally find my one true toy-mate and all they post on my blog is a stupid photo of me with my tongue hanging out? I let them record twenty-two minutes of footage the other night while I was playing with Derpy.  It was great stuff!  Golden!  Why has nobody edited that footage down into a short video that captures the essence of Derpy’s awesome awesomeness and my awesome manliness? Mom went to film school, for Pete’s sake!  Do I have to do everything around here?  Geesh!

“Okay, Focus, Sid.” Thanks, Derpy. (Hahaha, like Derpy can talk!)

First things first: Find appropriate song. Catchy but not too obvious.  Also not too stupid. Nothing stupid.  Like, when I told Timothy about Derpy she started singing that Ginuwine song “Come on and let’s do it, ride it, my pony,” which is apparently one of those songs that pugs her age dance to in the clubs and I don’t want to be associated with such frivolity because it’s dumb and Derpy deserves better, like something timeless and classic that speaks to the long road ahead of us and I know there’s that song about Wild Horses by those Rolling Stones guys who Mom plays all the time and I know everybody says I’ve only just met Derpy but sometimes I truly feel in my heart about Derpy the way that song makes me feel in my heart when I hear it.  But, that feeling I feel when I hear that song is a bittersweet longing for a future in which Derpy and I never part, a future that is impossible to attain because all things in this world must someday end, and thus the knowledge of that inevitable end must cloud the happiness of the now like the thin layer of gritty smog between my hometown of Los Angeles and the bring, blue sky, and that’s not how I want people to feel when they see the video of me and Derpy because I want them to only feel the joy and the excitement of our love as it exists today, not the unavoidable heartbreak that resides in the future.  Ah!  Here we go: an obscure Chubby Checker track called “Pony Time” that sounds exactly like “The Twist.”  Done and done. 

Step two: Edit the video so it goes really well with the music.  DUH.

Step three:  Step three should be “eat treats” but those bozos are still sleeping.  WHY IS NOBODY FEEDING ME??????  

Intriguing, right?!  And, guess what?!  The video’s finally online:

So, some local genius set up a pet boutique called Paws in Paradise next to a Mexican restaurant that serves $4 margaritas. We basically bought a million toys for Sid that night, including this lovely lass:

The pink pony was a risky, possibly-tequila-induced choice, but apparently our judgement was rock solid.  Derpy, as we’ve named her, instantly moved to the top of the toy hierarchy. Move over, potato, Sid’s a pink pony man now.

Sid had his lady-friend, Miss Timothy Buttons, over to the Pug Slope Headquarters for a play date yesterday afternoon.  The weather was so nice outside, they both wanted to go swimming at the Prospect Park dog beach.  Unfortunately, I was taught that you don’t go swimming before Memorial Day (I have no idea where my mom came up with that one), so Sid and T-Buttz had to settle for the “beach” in our bathroom.

This deception compromise was a win-win for everybody, because these pugs were kinda ripe.  And, really, is the bath all that different than the beach?

Sid loves baths so he was on board right away, exclaiming over and over that he finds the beach to be sooooo relaxing, but by the time the suds were applied, I could tell that Timothy Buttons was getting suspicious.

Luckily, by the time she brought up the fact that her parents don’t normally slather her fur with conditioner at the beach, the official “bath time” was over and “post-bath-beach CRAZY time” had begun:

Phew!

Once we got the post-bath ya-yas out of everybody’s system, Sid and T-Buttz were ready for some strollin’ in the park.  Gotta show off those squeaky-clean coats!