how the dj got a dog:

a three part overature with silent accompaniment...or just skip to the last line.

 

 

tap, tap, tap.....grendel is a strange beast. he was a christmas present, of sorts.

in 1999, i lived in san marcos with my friend brenda. i was engrossed in school and things of that ilk. i made the trek that year, as i do every year, to see the ye old family for christmas. after the family's christmas eve festivities, my sister and i returned to her house and chatted away till the wee hours of the morning. around about's 4 am or so, i stepped out into the cold, rain saturated, morning for some tainted air and as i stood there watching the rain drops fall through the porch light, this flash off white came zinging around the corner, stopping only when it bounced off my legs, and settled into a nervous squat at my feet.

a dog. a totally random dog. a totally random entrance. i think we were both very surprised to see each other. i just stared at it, and it just stared at me, wagging it's wet tail.

enter stage right: my sister

Amy: what's that?
Me: a dog
Amy: where did it come from?
Me: over there
Amy: what are you going to do with it?
Me: uuhh....not sure
Amy: well, you'd best bring it inside then.

 

ringing wet, cold and shaking, muddy and dingy, we took him in the house. we cleaned him up a little and put him to bed. what else can you do at 4 am christmas morning?

the next day, we gave him a proper bath and inspected him a bit further. he had a collar with a rabies tag, though badly outdated. as we looked at the tag, my sister made a discovery. the tag ID # was 1018A. my address in san marcos was 1018A Mead St. huh....neato.

he was fed and played with all day. he was not like any other dog i had ever encountered. he didn't fetch. he really wasn't that interested in food. he didn't really listen when you talked to him. he refused to allow you to be more than three feet from him at any moment, and really preferred to be on top of you at all times. we got along alright though.

next day: the vet that issued the tag agreed to meet us to check him out, and check her records. she had never seen him before. neither had anyone else in the world. on the upside, he was between a year and a year and a half old, had been neutered already, and was perfectly healthy.

and then spake zara-sistra, and she said: this beast is a yule gift directly from god, thou shalt get on with naming him....and thou shalt call thine room mate and make known the decree.

huh...ok.

naming was easy. it went like this in my head:

he's kind of a monstrosity->
his under bite looks like the monsters in where the wild things are->
the monsters in where the wild things are look like the drawing of grendel on the cover of the john gardner novel of the same name=
therefore, his name is grendel.

i called my room mate, who was violently ill at the time, and therefore put up little resistance. done deal.

adjustment: i would come home and all my shoes would be buried in the couch, or all of my pillows would be in a pile on the living room floor. he followed me everywhere. all of the time. he is severely storm phobic. he screams like a little girl when you try to cut his nails (though, so do i). and a bunch of other weird behaviors.

about a month of adjustment later, i still wasn't sure about this thing. then he slipped out the front door one night, and got out of my site. it occurred to me then that i might not ever see my dog again....which scared the hell out of me.

i found him. i've been his ever since.