LuLu's Desperate House Dogs is a blog about an eccentric little Beagle named LuLu, who, along with her sister Sadie (a Whippet/Terrier/Beagle blend), writes the lurid Puppies in Lust series, and absorbs local color in an idyllic, off-the-leash, canine-centered village known as Lincoln Park~
posted by LuLu @ 4:08 PM
LuLu's Desperate House Dogs is a blog about an eccentric little Beagle named LuLu, who, along with her sister Sadie (a Whippet/Terrier/Beagle blend), writes the lurid Puppies in Lust series, and absorbs local color in an idyllic, off-the-leash, canine-centered village known as Lincoln Park~
I am a single five-year-old female Beagle, shown here by myself, while my mix-up of a sister sings the praises of mutts on my blog. Well, let her. I have a most intriguing (one might even say lascivious) past, at least according to my autobiography. In a former lifetime I was Queen Elizabeth the Ist of England, and later on (among others) I was Nell Gwynn, Pauline Borghese, Louise Brooks, and eventually just lovable, neurotic, adorable ME. I have a perfectly charming, albeit very annoying, sister named Sadie. She's rarely plagued by conscience, possibly because she's a Sagittarius. To date she has attempted to steal most of my boyfriends, meaning we're quite used to fighting over bones. Sadie and I are the same age, although she's the adopted one. We do have a fair amount of things in common. For example, she was once Mary Queen of Scots, and later on both Barbara Villiers and Marlene Dietrich. Amazingly we get along -- at least when we're before the public~
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Morey felt himself whirling through time and space. Death wasn't so bad, he decided, although he had never expected to feel dizzy and slightly high while crossing over the rainbow bridge.
At last the spinning ceased, and he cautiously opened one eye, hoping to see the promised bright light at the end of the culvert. What he saw instead was Willie Nelson, who grinned at him and said, "Hey, man, welcome to my bus."
Then he heard the unsettling sound of maniacal laughter.
Morey opened both eyes and looked up. He was lying at the paws of the Sade, who had beautifully manicured toenails, and by his side, were the prone forms of Woodrow and Daisy.
"Are they dead?" he asked her.
She shook her narrow, well-sculpted head. "Only unconscious. Some creatures can hold their hootch; others can't. You know, I'd rather be in Philadelphia."
Morey sniffed about, and realized he was once again at the bottom of the lake, but glancing up, he noticed that the fluid above his head was wine instead of water, and the minnows cavorting in it were the merriest little fish he had ever seen.
"These fish in the drink all drink like fish, although they're very well schooled and ought to know better," commented the Sade, giggling. "Oh, I am in a playful mood today. Hey, how'd you like my 'Czar of all the Flushes' line? I've got to figure out a way to use that one on a business card. It just reaches out and grabs ya, no? By the way, you've got your real testicles back, Jack."
"The name's Morey," Morey reminded her, "and I feel too weak to sit up and take a look, but thank you anyway. Uhhh, what about Woodrow's nadgers?"
"I gave him Dr. Calmbark's coconuts," said she with a twitch of a tail shaped like a cutlass. "I had planned to give him Oberon's, but they wouldn't make a good fit. I think I'm gonna wait a while regarding the big cat's crown jewels. Maybe let his sister have them a few years down the line, after he goes completely power mad, or I'll pass them on to some guy with no balls at all -- several prominent statesmen come to mind.
She clapped her paws. "I know! Just for fun, I'll let Pete Rose have an extra set."
"Where am I?" moaned Woodrow. "I feel dreadfully flushed, feverish and flatulent."
The Sade giggled again. "You got flushed all right. Welcome back to the world's biggest toilet bowl, unless you count a couple airport terminals on the east coast. Up and at 'em, Doc."
"Great Dog! Don't call me that," Woodrow pleaded, forcing his eyes open. "Hey! What am I doing at the bottom of a glass of Merlot?"
The Sade looked scandalized. "Pinot Noir, Doc, if you please! In fact, the very best PN la belle France has to offer, thanks to Philip the Bold and his dog Liege."
"I don't follow you," said Woodrow, who was seeing so many spots in front of his eyes, he badly wanted to see a doctor.
"Everybody follows me eventually," the Sade rebuked him. "At least that looks good on my resume. Philip the Bold classified Pinot Noir and made it a court favorite back in the 14th century -- an era when everybody needed a good drink, believe you me. Phil's dog and I were great friends, by the way, and I wish I could recall where I put him after he died. Oh, well. For that matter, I don't remember where I put Phil. New Jersey comes to mind. I think I had him reincarnated in Trenton, but for the life of me, I can't remember why."
"An interesting tale," said Woodrow, not sounding too convincing, "but -- why, is that Dr. Daisy I smell?"
"Dr. Woodrow?" Daisy raised her elegant snout, opened her eyes and beheld the Sade.
"Oh, my Dog!" she whimpered. "Can it truly be you -- the Mother Doctor of our country, my role model, the veritable goddess of mismanagement? Oh! I must have read Kitty Kelley's unauthorized biography of you at least twelve times," she gushed. "Why even the hybrids, our priests and priestesses, sing your praises."
"There are no hybrids," the Sade informed her bluntly. "They're a mismanagement legend. One I created myself, naturally. And it's never a good idea to put faith in the words of a news hound named 'Kitty.'"
Daisy blinked her big brown eyes. "No hybrids? But that doesn't make any sense. I mean, they make our rules and laws. At least I think they do." She suddenly began to pant. "Oh, no! You don't mean to say that the right-wing religious fanatics are on the money -- and it's all up to Lassie?"
The Sade looked disgusted. "Stop hyperventilating, you silly bitch. Basically it's all up to ME -- well, to be fair, it's all up to me along with one or two forces of nature and a couple of middlemen."
Morey rolled over and wrapped a forearm about Daisy's quivering shoulders. "Take it easy, babe," he told her.
Instead she jumped up and yiped. "OMIDOG! It's a ghost!"
The Sade heaved a great sigh. "And this is one of the mammals with a higher education," she mused aloud. "I think it's past time for another recall."
Oh, quite enough. My old friend the Sade is chewing the scenery and going completely over the top. More next week. Right now I'm in the mood to catch a fat mouse. Luv, drearies, from I, Clawdia~
Morey's a blue nose. I didn't know that.
You want to make somethin' out of it, Hooey?
That picture of the little beagle is adorable! She can't be a bad girl!
Oh, sure she can! Both dogs, or pups, are super cute.
(LuLu can get her own blog!!!)
"A ghost! A ghost!" Dr. Daisy kept yelping, and Morey tried to shush her when he saw the Sade's pinwheel eyes kick into motion, but to no avail.
"This is a trained, scientific mind?" The Sade merely shook her long, svelte head as the pinwheels began reflecting psychedelic colors.
"Ooops. Too Sixties, right?"
Her eyes turned a deep shade of healing green before switching to a more malevolent Martha Stewart opaque lime, and she fired off a blast of lightning at the terrified Golden retriever.
The Sade grunted contentedly. "Much, much better."
"Daisy?" Morey unsteadily rose to his paws and rubbed his head against...marble?
"I thought about going for a pillar of salt, but that's been so overdone already. Now there she is, all set to sit forever in front of a library or a tasteless mini-mansion."
Woodrow got to his paws and trudged over to the statue. Surprised, Morey stepped aside when he saw a large crystal tear slide down his onetime bud's flat, homely face.
"Daisy was the dearest, most beautiful bitch ever born," Woodrow mourned, and turned on the Sade with a growl. "How could you do this to her?"
"Watch it, nouveau balls," she warned. "Frankly, I happen to think Dr. Daisy looks quite fetching as a marble statue, and very realistic -- certainly a lot more so than a recent silly interview between Chris Wallace and President Clinton."
"This trick of yours isn't all that original," snarled Woodrow, barely able to keep his long dormant feral side under control. "Remember Pygmalion?"
The Sade yawned. "The Greek version or the George Bernard Shaw version?" she asked. "Or all the versions in between? In the accepted Greek version, a horny artist falls in love with a statue he has created and asks Aphrodite to give her life so he can marry her. In other words, the sire plans to nail his daughter. In your case, a horn dog falls in love with a hot retriever who gets turned into a statue and wants her back again. But here's a question for you, Dr. Woodrow -- does the lovely Daisy love you? Pygmalion's statue had no choice; Daisy does. And once she's living and breathing again, will she ever let you get as close in the flesh as you are to her marble statue?"
Woodrow looked confused, then angry, and Morey stared hard at him. His former friend was in love with Daisy? If so, that certainly helped to explain a few matters, like betrayal and the willingness to forfeit the life of a pal. But Woodrow barely knew Daisy. How could he be in love with her?
Then again, how could he not? Wait a minute! What was he thinking?
"The Greek gods were always such a pain," the Sade continued. "I mean, deities turning into bulls, virgins turning into trees. The action on Mt. Olympus was like a compilation of articles from PEOPLE. As for George Bernard Shaw, frankly I liked the Rex Harrison version. A fine actor there, and he looked a little like Goofy."
"Please change Daisy back," Woodrow begged. "You can turn me into a marble statue instead."
It was love, Morey concluded. Love or self-abnegating obsession.
"Tell you what I'll do, fellas," said She of the pinwheel eyes, "I'll scratch your fleas if you'll scratch mine. Remember that scruffy old squirrel -- Socrates?"
The two dogs nodded.
"Well," went on the Sade, "I kept him around for as long as I could stand it. The damn tree rat was a four-footed encyclopedia. Interesting at times, but ultimately boring as hell. One can never have too much knowledge, but one can be overly schooled, if you get my drift."
The two dogs nodded again.
"Anyhow, when he got more boring than Sean Penn on a rant, I granted him immortality and sent him back to Lincoln Park."
Morey blinked. "You made a squirrel immortal?"
Woodrow looked nonplused.
The Sade grinned and made her teeth flip up and down like the ivories on a baby grand. "I figured it would annoy my friend Clawdia," said she, "and I was also upholding a certain tradition. Brilliant, witty people usually die young, but bores live forever."
"What do you want us to do?" asked Woodrow, pressing his snout as close as possible to Daisy's marble heart.
"Here's the deal, bucko, immortality wasn't enough for Socrates. He swiped something important from me, and I want it back." At which point the Sade twitched her ears and trumpets started blaring.
"I love special effects," she confided.
Morey took a breath and tried to think. Could it be that he and Woodrow would finally get sent home? And if they could track down Socrates, would the Sade keep her part of the bargain? Would they really get Dr. Daisy back?
Daisy. Oh, Dog! He hated the feeling rising from the pit of his stomach. Was he in love with her too? Or did he just have gas?
"What did Socrates take?" he heard Woodrow ask the Sade.
"My magic golden foot," she replied. "I've had it for years and years, and he had the temerity, not to mention the balls, to run off with it."
Morey's jaw dropped. The Sade smiled.
"You had it all along," he said. "The magic golden foot -- the one thing I need to free Leander from his curse!"
Oh, this babe was one evil Jack Russell terrier!
A terrier whose pinwheel eyes were starting to turn. Morey closed his own eyes and braced himself. He wasn't sure what was about to happen, but something told him it wasn't going to be pretty...
OK, OK, enough for tonight. And thank you, Sade, for the little joke about Socrates. How's about I catch him and eat him? Will that give me immortal hiccups? Don't push me too far, sweetie. Remember what happened the last time you decided to tease me.....
All right, boys and girls, it is time for I, Clawdia, to make my considerable presence known -- and if you think I'm using rotten grammar, tough. My personality is, to put it bluntly, not for the domesticated and/or the declawed.
So Socrates is back. That wretched rodent, close relative of the chipmunk, flying phalanger, woodchuck, et al, has been a leaf caught in my whiskers for years, and I so hoped he'd come to a deliciously bad end when I knocked him out of his tree months ago, and sent him to the bottom of the lake to meet my old friend the Sade.
But no, she in her eternally perverse fashion enjoyed his company, at least for a time Eventually, of course, those pinwheel eyes of hers glazed over when he started to repeat his endless tales about voles and meadow mice, and how rodents once ruled. So she sent him, in boomerang fashion, back to me.
Meanwhile, the clever old devil managed to put one over on her. He stole her gift of magic -- the magical golden foot which she took from me eons ago. Oh, she can still perform routine acts of magic, the old dear. But without the magical golden foot, she's just a common wizard and nothing more.
As for Socrates, he doesn't have a clue what it is that he now possesses. He is like an infant who has managed to pick up a priceless gemstone instead of a rattle. It's pretty and may be of use to him, but he has no idea of the power he might command.
I must, of course, get hold of the foot, and in order to do so, I have to find the old wood rat, and something tells me he's managed to hide himself well. He would be insane not to.
Enough for tonight. It is time I began the hunt. Morey and his pals can rest at the bottom of the lake until I, Clawdia, achieve my goal.
Afternoon...
I've been slinking through the grass bordering the lake for hours. I, Clawdia, love to slink. I love to feel each and every sinuous muscle. I love it when my body feels liquid. I love to ooze under the bushes and around trees, appearing suddenly and startling mother ducks and rabbits, who hastily shoo away their young. I love the power that comes with my felinity.
Roberta the rat lives under a grate in the woods in back of a condo complex on the east side of the lake. She's an old rat with broken teeth and the breath of a stopped-up garbage disposal unit. I could kill her easily and she knows it, but I keep her around for information; she knows that too.
"Odd to see you out in broad daylight," I remarked, watching as she dragged part of a maggoty cheeseburger back toward her lair.
"There aren't many hawks around these days," she said, "and the coyotes are away. I sleep nights now. I'm old, so it's a good feeling."
"Have you seen anything of Socrates?" I asked her, turning my face downwind, so I wouldn't get the full effect of both her and the burger.
She munched contentedly. "The squirrel? Hell, no. I thought he was dead. I thought you...?"
"I did," I told her. "But it turns out he's not dead. Not yet, and I would like to rectify the oversight."
She nodded, quivered slightly. "I'll keep an eye out, Clawdia."
"Keep two out," I told her, "and don't even dream of messing with me, Roberta. That would be very unwise."
The quivering intensified. "Hey, you know you can count on me," she whined. "I never crossed you. You know I haven't."
I swatted at a butterfly with my paw. "Keep things that way," I told her, and let the butterfly flutter off, a bit wobbly from our sudden encounter....
Night...
Have been talking to owls, chatting up geese, peering into hollow trees. Wherever Socrates is hiding, he's hiding out good. It's almost midnight, my favorite time of the day, when who should bump against my silken haunch but my unwanted roommate, Golden Warrior, old Tabby Ass himself -- with his butt shaking, his eyes glowing, and a wicked strut to his walk.
"What are you doing out here away from the back of your favorite easy chair and loud jazz pouring out of the racket box?" I ask him.
He has the unmitigated audacity to rub up against me. "Baby," says he, "the whole world is jazz. Listen to the grass -- that sweet swooshin' sound, the creaky tree limbs, the moan of the wind. That's music with soul, baby. That's jazz."
"You hitting the catnip hard again?" I ask him, but he just smiles like that feline created by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, also known as Lewis Carroll.
"Baby, I'm on Coltrane. Pure, sweet, melodic." He pauses, purrs. "I hear you're lookin' for a certain old rodent of Academe."
"Don't tell me YOU know where he is?"
More of the smile. "Sure do, baby. Sure do. He's hanging out on the north side of the lake -- back in an alley in the warehouse district. A sordid cafe called 'Sam Skunk's Sewer of Slime.'"
"The name has a nice ring to it."
His teeth gleam in the moonlight. "A bad crowd, my fallen angel. Bunnies with piercings, skinhead mice, gecko grifters, unrepentant 'Deadwood' fans. And Sam." A beat. "Ever been skunk sprayed, baby?"
I overlook the question. "What's a doddering old Ph.D. doing in a joint like that?" I want to know.
"Why, baby, baby, ain't you heard?" asks GW. "Socrates has somehow revitalized those dried-out old bones of his and become an aggressive squirrel."
"Time to visit the Sewer and all that jazz," say I, unsheathing my claws.
I, Clawdia, stood beside the lake. The water was high and the moon was full. It was the midnight hour. There came a groan from a declivitous area at the end of the beach -- a small rocky wasteland overgrown with weeds. The night creatures fell silent.
And the three-headed beast made its presence known.
"Hello, Cerberus," I said. "It's been a while."
"We're calling ourselves 'George' these days," the middle head informed me, while the other two heads snarled in protest.
"I'm Toby," said the right head; "and I'm Chelsea," informed the left.
"It's GEORGE," the middle head insisted. "A good, simple, pleasant-sounding, dignified name. Why can't we just agree on 'George'?"
"It's so last decade," protested Chelsea.
"It sure ain't state of the art," agreed Toby.
"Look," I said, "I woke you up to do some work for me. I don't care if you want to call yourselves Curly, Moe, and Larry or the Dixie Chicks. Do we have a deal, or do you want to go back to the Darkness?"
"Deal! Deal!" cried Chelsea. "At least give me time to visit one modern dog boutique. I'm dying to get a cute new Poochie Luv sweater and some Pretty-in-Pink nail polish."
"OK, we deal," concurred Toby, pouting like a petulant six year old, "but I'm not going to any girly poodle-palace boutique! I want to get my paws on a new PC and pimp my game collection. I want ClawBoy's 'The Ultimate Evil,' for players twelve and older. And I want the package with the extra raw obscenities thrown in for free."
"Of course we deal," said George, silencing the others with a brief show of rage that momentarily knocked out all the surrounding street lights. What do you want us to do, Clawdia?"
"For starters," I said, "I want you to accompany me to a sordid cafe where a bunch of scawny-assed suburban squealers hang out. They think they know what downtown trouble is. I aim to prove them wrong."
George smiled, Chelsea's hideous bulging eyes lit up, and Toby merrily crushed a metal park bench with his eight-foot tongue.
"Seems like old times," said George, who has a sentimental side. Fortunately, it has yet to get in the way of his thoroughly vicious general character.
"But why do you need us?" he asked. "The task sounds like one you could take care of with one paw strapped behind your back while undergoing oral torture."
"There is a ratty old squirrel amongst the group," I told them, "and he has managed to get his gnarly paws on the Magical Golden Foot."
All three heads snapped to attention.
"Does he have any idea?" asked George, "Of the power it commands?"
Story to be continued...
Story continued...
"I don't think so," I replied. "Not yet."
The three-headed canine considered the matter. "Now I understand why you might need us for this job," said George after a beat, while Chelsea and Toby somberly nodded. "Lead on."
I padded, and Cerberus lurched, north. Dead autumn leaves crunched like brittle bones beneath our paws. Finally we came to a neighborhood that was five-cat-litter-box ugly. The smell of the chemicals used to "purify" the lake were particularly overpowering, and the pond dye that was used to make the water look a startling shade of blue in the daytime now made it look like what it really was -- oozing sludge.
A few dazed ducks waddled past, flapping and quacking. They seemed almost oblivious to Cerberus' presence. Almost. But nobody could be that oblivious. Not unless they were dead.
Finally we came to a filthy alleyway and found the cafe we were looking for. The 'doorway' was nothing more than a wide separation between two cement blocks; the place was located directly above a sewer. The smell was bad, but Sam Skunk, the proprietor, planned to make it worse.
"Youse can't come in here," he said, and raised his bushy tail with the white stripe running straight down the middle. Then he saw Cerberus, and the bushy tail deflated like a bad collagen job.
Sam Skunk skittered inside his sleazy cafe, and Cerberus brought one heavy paw down hard on the entranceway. Dozens of terrified bunnies, chipmunks, mice, and assorted others creatures ran for their lives.
"I think I'll have a Daiquiri," said Chelsea to a sewer rat of a bartender, who went limp with terror after she crushed the blender and dangled him by his skinny tail directly above the jaws to hell.
She breathed on him and he opened his eyes, gasping for air.
"Where's Socrates?" I asked him.
And being a noble brother rat, he sold him out at once.
From the Chronicles of the Sade:
Life is good.
My old friend Clawdia is in the process of driving herself into a feline frenzy while attempting to find the Magical Golden Foot. She has even awakened the Cerberus to help her shake down Socrates the squirrel. Much good may the effort do her!
Meanwhile, here I am at the bottom of my delightfully feculent lake with my merry little canine trio; Dr. Daisy is a marble statue, and Morey and Woodrow are in states of suspended animation.
I like company, you see, but I like it on my own terms. Woodrow, like Socrates the squirrel, has a way of becoming tiresome -- trying to mentally dogtrot, attempting to be too much like an over-schooled human.
As for Dr. Daisy, she is woefully overdone and uselessly proud of herself. At least she can't get into too much trouble as long as she remains a marble statue instead of a psychiatrist, but since she has a warm heart and is as pretty as a sunbeam, I suppose it would be most unfair to keep her spirit locked away in stone forever.
Ah, me! Too many centuries have passed, and I must be growing soft and sentimental.
NOT!
Morey now -- there is a dog who intrigues me. It's his blind canine loyalty, his absolute devotion to a master who is not worth stuffing into a dumpster bag: a failed politician with a voyeuristic streak who was feckless enough to get bitten by a werewolf during a bus tour of Transylvania. (Even Lassie had it better, and little Timmy was certainly no prize.)
Yet Morey remains loyal. He is willing to go to the ends of the universe, through dimension after dimension, or so I believe, in order to find and attempt to rescue his worthless master from nothing less than himself.
A mild infusion of jackal blood bred that sort of dogged devotion out of human beings years ago. And many dogs -- bred down, bred up, and bred out during the last century, and finally stripped of their dogliness and turned into human toddlers, also suffer from a similar lack of character.
But not so Morey.
It is my opinion that King Arthur never had a more devoted knight at the Round Table; Damon was no more loyal to Pythias, Penelope to Ulysses, Paul Newman to Joanne Woodward, or Goofy to Clarabell Cow.
Yes, Morey intrigues me.
Which is a good thing for him and his two playmates.
As for my dear friend Clawdia -- ah, what pretty paws I have.
And what a lovely, lovely foot!
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