On the Wall

Sometime after I left for the gym and before Chris left for work this morning, Heidi found herself a little treat.  Carelessly left in a plastic grocery bag on the kitchen floor from yesterday's trip, our little old lady discovered a bag of semi-sweet chocolate morsels, which I planned to throw into a loaf of banana bread I'm making for my co-workers.

When I got home from work this afternoon I became immediately concerned that Heidi didn't greet me at the door.  When I saw her laying on the rug in the living room, clearly seeing I was home and seemingly unable to stand, a little bit of panic began to fester.  I noticed a yellow piece of chewed plastic bag as I knelt beside her and scanned the kitchen floor as I stroked her head and scruff.  She burped as I gently scratched her, and what would normally knock me back in a gag of terrible death breath floated up to my nose in a cloud of chocolate warmth.  This dog was sick - still is.  I found the partially consumed bag of said morsels on the counter, so there was slight relief in the realization that at least Chris had discovered this mishap and removed the offending chocolate.  I carried her outside whenever she made the effort to wobble toward the door, but besides that, she's pretty much just been sleeping, which is probably best.

Chris got home from work while I was on the phone, venturing up the stairs where I still had yet to go.  When I hung up and he asked me if I'd seen, I hadn't a clue what he was talking about, but assumed I would soon find a royal heap of chocolate mess when I followed.  What I found was worse.  Not only had she littered the upstairs hall with brown paw prints from stepping through her own sloppy pile of mess, she had somehow managed to splatter chocolate sick, most likely from her tail end by the look of it, all over the wall at the landing between floors.  On the wall.  How?  How does an eleven pound dog achieve the height she achieved with some of that organic graffiti?  The angle she must have had to take...I just don't understand.  How?  And will I be able to scrub it off without repainting?  I cannot believe I left this poison in her reach, and won't allow myself to imagine the possibility of it causing the kind of permanent damage that would take her away from me.  So we'll watch her tonight and not fuss when she gets sick further, because really, it's my fault and I feel awful.

As for now, we've got quite a mess to mop up, so that's where I'll be until American Idol starts, at which point I will be sitting still for a whole hour without thinking.