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Friday, October 7, 2011

Lola and the Snails






This is Lola. 

We love her. 

She's sweet and super good with kids...every time we walk outside, she bounds across the neighbor's yard, tail wagging and nestles up against the fence ready to be attentive...

See, Lola is our neighbor's dog...Well, she's  our neighbor's son's dog but some how they inherited her and by pure luck we sort of inherited her too since we are renting and can't have a dog of our own (yet).

I'll admit though it is nice to simply be able to love her without having to clean up after her or support her eating habits...maybe that's how grandparents feel.

After several "You know why we can't have a dog" conversations with every kid except Meredith (whom I'm sure feels the same way...by the way she walks right by the car when we are heading to the store and straight to the fence and points and giggles with delight and says "Lola" in the sweetest voice), I told them they could have whatever critter they could catch in the yard as a pet...

Luckily for me some stray dog didn't happen to wander into the yard, or a squirrel or racoon. 

But, these poor guys were slow as snails and the kids managed to dig up some on a cold, rainy afternoon...





Poor snails!  Everytime, I think of them I think of the line in "The Princess Bride" when Westley has just been reunited with Buttercup and he is explaining how every night the Dread Pirate Roberts would say,  "Goodnight, Westley.  Good work.  Sleep well.  I'll most likely kill you in the morning."

  I look at those poor helpless mollusks and I can't help but hear ..."Goodnight, snails.  Good work.  Sleep well.  I'll most likely kill you in the morning (not intentionally of course but snails are hardly as sturdy as dogs)." 

No one has mentioned getting a dog recently, perhaps they are content racing their snails or whatever trick it is that you teach a snail, although John mentioned he wanted a cat yesterday.  I told him one day we will get a dog or maybe another fish (more about that later)  but definitely not a cat but I reassured him until then we have Lola and the snails...(sort of sounds like a catchy name for a band).







2 comments:

  1. Love your writing style, your photography,your candidness! You are awesome. Thanks for making me smile...and giving me a great idea to put off having a "real" pet. (we've owned a house for several years but we just can't bring ourselves to invite an eating-pooping-fur shedding-howling-and otherwise mess making machine..., ahem, I mean a cat or dog to live with us yet. But Christmas is coming.

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  2. Hah! Ha! Awww...Meg! I always enjoy your comments and the fact that you actually comment at all! Those snails didn't last long, neither did the 2 gold fish. Today we were in Walmart scouting out Betas...Please send us pictures of any critter you end up with!

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