Is There a Blogging Workman’s Comp?

I am trying to type this with a sixty-five pound bulldog in my lap.  A snoring bulldog.  Who does not make a very good iPad stand.  If it weren’t for my perpetually vigilant autocorrect, these sentences would be gibberish.  In fact, I was going to turn the autocorrect off so you could see what kind of handicap I’m working under, but I can’t find it, and I’m having trouble focusing because of the gas cloud that just wafted up to my nose.

I’m pretty sure if this continues, I am going to either have to stop blogging, get surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome, or succumb to the fumes altogether one night.

Aforementioned bulldog has recently developed an intense sense of entitlement, and I am apparently the chosen Entitler.

After my day is supposedly done, demands of students and family all met, I blog.  It usually happens around 9:00 at night when I finally set my butt into the desk chair hoping to get an extended period of time absent of questions or pleas for attention.

Lately, that time hasn’t been too extended.

Wonderbutt, with the keen perception of pretty much everyone else in my life, knows that I am trying to fit in some alone time.  Naturally, he believes if I am not busy with anyone else, it must be time for me to spend time with him.  So, he waits by the gate to the Forbidden Section of the house, hoping I will cross over any moment.

Sometimes he waits like this.

Sometimes, like this.

This is what I imagine he is thinking:

Any moment.   Any moment…

O.K. I’ve waited long enough (a whole five minutes).  Time to notify the Lady of the House I am expecting her presence.  Now.  

And so, Wonderbutt makes a few, well-spaced plaintive comments about how long I am making him wait.  Afraid he will wake up Dimples or aggravate Cap’n Firepants, landing me back on square one in the Family Needs Met department, I make a mental note of my blog topic, grab my iPad, and hop over the gate.  Sometimes I fall over the gate.  I’m not very nimble any more.  Well, ever.

Wonderbutt cheerfully follows me to the living room, sits expectantly by the couch, and watches me sit.  When my leg placement finally meets his approval, he hops up, curls himself into a semicircle, plops his paw on my knee and his head on my leg, and goes to sleep.

I am well aware that I am coddling him, creating a monster, etc…

But I like it.  I can’t figure out why.  If one more human being needed me today, I would probably scream.  But I find Wonderbutt’s need comforting for some reason I can’t explain.

I am trying to relearn how to type with one finger.   I haven’t done that since I was in elementary school.  Typical of Wonderbutt to make me regress.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, if you have been finding my most recent posts to be somewhat lacking in quality, I would like to blame Wonderbutt for forcing me to work in less than ideal working conditions.

And if you haven’t noticed any difference, well just carry on and pretend you never saw this.

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