Eleven Notes on Melfi by Melissa

1. Melfi’s name has morphed into Miss Mellie a.k.a Smelly. She’s nine weeks old, ten pounds, and pure mutt.

2. Like a Jenny From the Block, she’s not only beautiful, but she doesn’t take an ounce of shit from Bentley or Floyd. If she was human, she’d wear large hoop earrings and Timberland boots.

3. Her manners are atrocious. She doesn’t sit and wait while I feed the elder members of the pack first, but lunges like a little bull at every bowl I set down. Then she gulps her food like she hasn’t eaten in weeks.

4. She’s always in a hurry. Even if it’s three feet, she bolts from one space to another. In the middle of a longer sprint, she often halts to itch at her collar, like it’s an annoying bother to have this civilized thing hanging off her neck. Sometimes, when she runs, her rump twists all cockeyed in the back, like she’s between running and itching, but she can’t decide what to do first.

5. It’s so fucking hard to tell that face no.

6. She’s a lap dog. When I won’t let her in my lap, she whines at my feet, rakes her needle-like claws down my shins. Pick me up. Pick me up. Please, pick me up, she pleads.

7. I stick my face in her gums and inhale her puppy breath like it’s milk chocolate.

8. Mellie is going to sleep in your bed and cuddle inside the crook of your neck. Whether you like it or not.

9. Miss Annie Daisy Banana Fanny, our other little diva, publicly ignores Mellie, but when no one is looking she rests next to her for warmth.

10. A roundworm, at least a foot long, came out of Mellie’s cute little ass this morning. Ladies, it’s a real testament to the “power of the pussy” that Mason pulled out the last inch so I didn’t have to.

11. Miss Mellie + the Farnival = joy.