Grumpy

His Holiness said we were going to take a few days to relax and regroup. I've been putting in long days working and evenings have been filled with making holidays plans. We're military - as a senior ranked Naval officer, the giant squid gets to do a bit of holiday hosting and even if we cater a meal, there's still a lot of planning.

I threw a few things in a duffel bag - sweats, shorts, running shoes and packed stuff for the pups. They get all excited when they see their leads and sweaters go in a bag. BullyBoy, the mastiff, can open the fridge by himself... dropped a 6-pack of Budweiser into the duffel. That dog is a lush and desperately needs Canine AA. SweetPea, a ferocious attack-trained rottweiler, slipped his "sleepy ragdoll" into the bag. I crammed it with chocolate bars and let the squid pack his own gear.

I was all prepared to leave early on a Saturday morning. I was not prepared to be awakened at 2 AM! Well, that didn't last long. As soon as we got in the car, I went back to dreamland. The squid knows the way to the ferry docks. We have a small cabin on one of the smaller islands in the San Juans and the ferry traffic that time of night is restricted to Lopez, Orcas and the larger San Juan Island. We ferry to one of those and take a charter the rest of the way. We arrived in time for breakfast and the pups and I stuffed ourselves and went back to bed so the squid could take a nap.

I really wanted to run on the beach but His Holiness said no in such an ominous tone... tsk. We waited till he was sleeping deeply and crept out of the cabin as quietly as 2 legs and 8 paws could go.

Unfortunately... the former Seal... still has good hearing and we got about 20 feet away from the cabin before I heard "SAR!"

Jeez! It's not like we were running away.

The pups whined.

I grumbled.

His Holiness muttered something unintelligible. Honestly... for a commanding officer, you'd think he could be more articulate.

A woman has to stand up for herself so when he arched a brow and pointed a finger in the direction of the cabin, I crossed my arms over my chest and arched my own brow. Ummm... I also positioned the mastiff and rottweiler in front of me...

Oy! That didn't work.

To make a long story short, the view of the surf from over his shoulder wasn't the scene I had in mind and one very well placed smack convinced me that I needed to rethink my plans. He sure gets grumpy when he's tired. I made a simple comment: "Do you smack your subordinates when you're grumpy?"

~Sigh~

Another smack and I decided not to ask any more questions. Did I say grumpy? *Really* grumpy.

The pups and I weren't interested in napping so while the squid caught up on his zzzzzz's, we polished off a few boxes of Cracker Jacks, a few Twinkies and I made up some menus for the holidays. When 'ol Grumpy finally got his act together, we took that run on the beach. We usually jog 5 miles and walk 5 miles back but the squid felt like running and since he won't let me do more than 5 miles, he carried me piggy back on the return route. I like to yell "Ride 'em Cowboy!" when he does this but apparently I'm the only one who finds this amusing. Tsk. He stayed grumpy a little while longer.

I told him if he didn't do something about his attitude I was gonna smack him good. I mean, it wasn't my idea to get up at 2 AM...

"Oh yeah?" he muttered and came after me.

Tsk.

I set the dogs on him and took off running down the beach like a bat out of hell. When he got the dogs off of him, he gave chase and tackled me on the sand and a serious tickling session and "good stuff" later, he wasn't grumpy any more.

He made pancakes and chicory coffee for lunch. I think I'll keep him.

~Sar~