Chet Baker, Attention-Seeker

As I watch Mether garden I think about how to divert her. She is very focused when she is gardening.

All she seems to think about is where to bury this plant, and where to bury that plant. To a certain extent I understand that; it is like when I have a bikkit I need to bury and I trot around the house  and yard looking for just the right place to put it. Mether does that, too.

 Phoebe tries to help. She points out bunnehs I can chase. There are a lot of them and my work is never done.

But usually I hang around watching Mether work. Suddenly it comes to me! One way to get a gardener's attention is to mess with their stuff! Sometimes I drag her buckets around.

But other times I get right up in her face. So when Mether comes up the sidewalk dragging a heavy bag of potting soil I spring into action!

I grab the bag and shake it! Potting soil flies everywhere!

That works. She laughs and dares me to do it again.  So I do! I shake the bag and growl and tear it! I spill the soil! She cannot pot plants if she has no soil! Ha ha ha ha ha!

She says I am a Very Naughty Terrier and I need a Big Spanking! Those are just the words I was hoping to hear!

They send me into a Full Google Run!

and when I am done running and she is done laughing she goes right back to gardening. Obsessed.

 I am underwhelmed, but I stay close by for the next opportunity to distract her. Which leads me to my second ploy: telling her I need to be checked for ticks. Then she will run her hands over me, which I adore.

When I have been checked for ticks, I deploy my third tactic:  looking disgruntled, but at the same time sweetly kissable. I stand between her and what she is trying to do.

That one always works, because I always look sweetly kissable, no matter how disgruntled I am. 

But notice she is still carrying a plant.

All photos in this post by my sister Phoebe Linnea Thompson. 

Chet Baker's Lament

A Boston terrier needs someone to play with. Boys like my brother Liam are good for this. They understand. They usually have balls with them.

The play should be active and raucous and rough. Liam bounces my tennis ball hard on the concrete and I leap after it!

and I snatch it away from him if I can. I catch a lot of sweet air when I leap. 

Boston terriers need to play a lot. I have just interrupted the writing of this post to bring my ropus to Mether. She tugs and we growl at each other ferociously and she kisses me on the nose when she pulls me in, which breaks the mood a little bit. I like it when she tries to grab my front paws. I growl very loud then! I sound like a wookie from Star Wars!

Mether has this greenhouse out back she calls the Garden Pod. And this is where the problem starts. She gets all antsy and has to empty it out when the sun gets warm enough to bake in. I like to bake on the sidewalk or the deck in the sun. I believe that is why they call me Chet Baker.

So she gets obsessed with gardening in early May and it goes right through the whole month.

Everywhere she goes she carries a plant.

The back of her car is lined with plastic seed sacks, the kind I love to shake! and it is usually full of plants. Just when I think she is winding down she goes and gets some more plants.

Plants, plants, plants...margeurite

and peach verbena

and cuphea in hanging baskets for the hummingbirds (another thing she is obsessed with)

and fancy geraniums like Frank Headley (ditto, obsessed)

which she grows herself all winter in the Pod which has a nice heater I can stand by while she dithers and clips and repots plants

plants, plants, plants, plants, all of them she grows all winter long

and then she must decide where they all will go--in baskets and planters, because these are the kind of plants that are candy to bunnehs, bunnehs I chase! Bunnehs I think about all the time!

but I am not obsessed about bunnehs the way she is about her plants.

What I am obsessed about is getting enough attention from Mether. I have sat waiting for attention for so long I have worn the hair off the tip of my little screw-tail. Phoebe says it looks like a tick now and is gross. She says I need a tail hair extension. Mether thinks the naked tip of my tail is cute, which is why I love Mether so much.

In the next post I will share my secrets for getting attention.

Most photos in this post by Phoebe Linnea Thompson. Thank you, Sister, for helping me tell my story.