Conversations with Krispy: Story Version

Tuesday evening, Alz went over to Krispy's house to play.  It was a warm-ish day but cooling down some to the point where Krispy needed to fetch a jacket preparatory to puppy playtime.  Alz, however, was adequately clad in her Doctor Whoodie, proof against everything from the bitterest cold of outerspace to the burning of a super nova.

Once properly clad against the elements, Krispy and Alz frolicked outside to play with Loki, whose ears had by this time of his life (approximately nine and a half weeks) developed a slight but noticeable perk.  He took no notice of the darkening night or the encroaching chill; all that mattered was that there were now people and chewtoys.  They were both the same thing to him.

"Still in the nippy stage, I see," said Alz, as Loki attacked her pants, her shoes, and her.  She crouched down and little Loki leapt up, all curly tail and panting exuberance and distressingly long claws.  "Off.  OFF.  NO, LOKI, NO."

"He was attacking my pants earlier," said Krispy, who had donned puppy playtime pants along with her jacket.  They bore no evidence of Loki's earlier attention but Alz believed Krispy because she always believed everything Krispy told her, especially when Krispy said things metaphorically because it was always more interesting to take her words literally.  Not that this was an instance of said metaphor, but it's worth mentioning nonetheless.

"Good boy," said Alz, when Loki chose that moment to plop down, hind legs askew and ears aperk, to cock his head.

Having received praise for good behavior, he then naturally leapt up to resume behavior that warranted scolding.  While Alz offered herself up as willing sacrifice to the namesake of the Norse God of Mischief, Krispy went about necessary tasks: cleaning up and setting puppy things in order.

"He's getting so big," said Alz, chasing Loki around the driveway and watching him tear through bushes and around trees and trip over his own feet to faceplant on the concrete.  Loki had the resilience and boundless energy of puppyhood and was none the worse for wear.  He bounded into the garage, skidded under the car, and scrabbled around.  "He's going to be huge.  Soon, buddy, you won't fit under that car anymore."

WHANG.

"Dude," said Alz.  "He just whanged his head on the bumper."

"He does that," Krispy called from poop-cleanup-duty off the in the darkness.  "All the time."

"He'll eventually learn not to.  Maybe.  You were training him today to respond to his name and learn how to sit, right?  He seems pretty smart, learning how to do things and stuff."

"I dunno, Alz," said Krispy, appearing with Loki's waterdish in hand.  "Everyday I come out here, and everyday he goes for my knees."

Alz looked at Loki.  He did not look all that smart when eating leaves and rolling around in the dirt.  He snapped up a palm frond and began chewing on it with such joie de vivre it almost made her want to try it.  No doubt he was extremely intelligent, a prodigy of a puppy, and all this palm-frond dirt-rolling business was a deliberate ploy to lower expectations and disguise his deviousness.

"I'm on to you," Alz said in a low voice.

Loki paid her no attention.  The palm frond was his everything.

"Can you bring me that cinderblock?" Krispy called from the garage.  "It's over by the fence."

Alz shot Loki a parting I-know-what-you're-up-to look and went to fetch the cinderblock.  But the fence was cinderblockless.  All Alz found was a brick on the ground, albeit a gray concrete-y cinderblockish-looking one.  The brick was one of a pair Alz had brought Krispy and her sister the other day for the express purpose of weighing down Loki's nighttime pee-pad.

This Alz brought to Krispy and, handing it to her, said, "Is this really a cinderblock?  Isn't it a brick?"

"It looks like a cinderblock," said Krispy, clonking it down into Loki's crate.  Loki darted over to begin pawing at the crate's slats, whining and scratching and scrabbling about because Krispy was in his bed and what was she doing there and hey that's my space and I want to know what you're doing and let me in let me in let me in!  (Though, of course, once put in the crate, he would immediately begin to whine let me out let me out let me out.)

These are cinderblocks. What Alz gave to Krispy did not look like these.

"It's a brick," said Alz, patting Loki's sides and petting his head.

"When you say brick I think of the red ones," said Krispy.  "You puppy-puncher.  Look at him, see, he knows you're a puppy-puncher."

"He loves it," said Alz.  "And this is just petting, not punching.  I haven't punched him at all yet today.  And it's not punching, it's a gentle loving massage like kneading bread dough.  And anyway, aren't cinderblocks bigger and used in like walls and buildings?  Whereas bricks are smaller.  Or is a cinderblock merely a type of brick?"

Krispy tossed her head and looked down her nose at Alz, or would have if they hadn't been the same height.

Declared the Krispy: "I don't care about the difference between a cinderblock and a brick."



"What, you don't care about the etymology and classification of bricks versus cinderblocks?" said Alz, backing out of the garage and enticing Loki to follow by shuffling her feet loudly.  "Well, you should.  What are we blogging tonight, Krispy?"

"I don't know.  I was thinking of finishing my Seraphina review but I haven't gotten very far on it."

"How about we blog about, uh, boba?  And different types of tea.  And how you think that mango is a less common flavor than peach at Asian tea places, whereas I and your sister think they're pretty much equally common.  And our question for people could be: Do you think mango flavor is less common than peach?"

Krispy gave Alz a Look and Alz made a :D face in return.  Krispy went into the house to bring out Loki's absolute and without question (currently at the moment for the time being) favorite toy: stuffed sausages on a rope.  Loki tore into them with Herculean strength and ferocity and while Krispy was thusly engaged in tug-of-war with the pint-sized pup, Alz picked up the thread of conversation again.

"You finished Kill Me Softly recently and just saw Snow White and the Huntsman," said Alz.  "You could write a post on fairytale adaptations."

"That sounds great!" said Krispy.  "Except schneizeleffort, Alz.  Also, that sort of thing takes me forever and we need to blog tonight."

Krispy handed the sausages to Alz and, while Alz wrestled with them and Loki with much more snarling and growling upon her part than the pup's, went to finish preparing his bed.

"How about a post where I just quote stuff you say?" Alz suggested, snarling and growling some more while Loki attempted a death-shake on his half of the sausage rope.

"I don't know," Krispy replied as she hooked up the iPod to play Loki's bedtime lullaby, Jason Mraz's Lucky.  "I'm not that entertaining."
"You lie," Alz accused, dragging Loki along by the sausages and then letting him drag her in turn.  "You are hilarious and always entertaining."

 ~*~*~*~

What do you think? Krispy sure is unamusing, eh?  Totally boring.  Also, peach or mango?