The Natural Way of Getting Clean

Our dog cannot hold her licker. No, I don’t mean liquor; I mean licker, as in tongue.

For some reason, Kiki, our Shibu Inu, thinks it’s a sin not to pay back every pat she gets with a lick. One or two licks are fine, but sometimes I want to breathe in her nice furry smell, and instead, I get my face plastered with dog breath.

Is she just giving me a kiss or are am I really that dirty?

Dressing in the morning can be really complicated when I decide to wear lotion on my legs. While I’m struggling to get a leg into my slacks, Kiki is licking off the burnt vanilla scented lotion. That can’t be good for her. I end up hopping around the rug, trying to get away from her, while trying hard not to fall on our cat, Lilly, who has decided that she, too, needs attention and has stationed herself in the middle of the action.

The up side of all this licking is that Kiki and Lilly have the cleanest ears around. Kiki will thoroughly clean Lilly’s ears until it’s obvious Lilly is concerned her brains are about to be sucked out of her tiny skull and she quickly scoots away. She will eventually reciprocate and Kiki seems to appreciate the attention. I’ve never seen animals with such clean ears.

The rest of the family will stay with the old fashioned method of using cotton swabs for cleaning ears.

There are certain types of cleanliness we can live without.

We Can See Clearly Now, But What Do You See?

As new contact wearers, my son, Eric, and I are now getting mailings to buy contact-related products. Our favorite solicitation was for contacts designed to complement a Halloween outfit.

Dead X eyes, zebra eyes, spiral eyes, Manga eyes…no Halloween outfit would be complete without them.

Eric really wants to buy the red contact lenses to wear to school. I would never allow that, but if I did, I’m sure the school would have something to say about the disruption Eric would cause wearing those lenses. That would mean he only would be able to wear them at home, and I’d have to spend each evening trying to have a sane conversation with my son while he looks back at me with red demon eyes. I no more want to see Eric run around the house looking like the spawn of Satan than he wants to see me wearing dead X eyes.

If I had money to burn and could be assured of the safety of patterned lenses, I’d go for cat eyes. I always loved the way Madam Hooch looked in the Harry Potter movies, and I think I could almost get by with that one in social situations.

But why stop there? Imagine the fun of having contacts that matched each outfit. I adore gemstones, so diamond eyes would be just right for a night on the town. A nice paisley would look good with my fall clothes. Holly and red berries would work for Christmas. Perhaps some nice dragon eyes for a night on the town.

It’s just possible that some day we’ll be able to run off designs for contact lenses right off our own computer printers. Just imagine. I could have a photo of Eric on one eyeball and a photo of my husband, Chuck, on the other. Or, for my more playful days, one of our dog, Kiki, and one of our cat, Lilli. For earth day, I could have pictures of our green Chinese water dragon, Norbert, on my eyes.

I can see the possibilities.