Dean, Dogs, and Honey Baked Ham
It is really quite funny actually...
This weekend past Lisa and I hosted a Christmas Cocktail party with music mixes by City Bikes House DJ BK Deluxe (aka Brian Kemler.) The party was a humorous scene, roughly 60 adults, 20 children, and 2 dogs. Everyone was well behaved even the dogs. Roscoe and Brutus each did the rounds. Roscoe's activity was more social; chasing down "butt rubs" from various willing guests; while Brutus spent more time trying to hang in the secure shadow of Lisa or myself. The party went on virtually incident free. The dogs were getting enough snacks from plates on low tables or the floor while the occasional piece of ham that fell to the floor. At this time has been no reported account of either Roscoe or Brutus being bold enough to hit the buffet table in self service style.

Days have passed since the party and Lisa got pro-active on the remainder of the ham and went freestyle on creating a Navy Bean Soup without recipe or instruction. While her beans and beast simmered in the large pot on the stove we realized that there was still plenty of meat on the bone for at least one more vat of soup, perhaps Split Pea Soup. It was decided, the remainder was to be frozen and stored till a more convenient date. We gathered up Dean, patted the dogs on the head, and headed off to the Bethesda Rescue Squad to purchase a Christmas tree and check out the Engines.

The trip to pick up the tree was made into a more attractive adventure by telling Dean that we were headed to the "fire station." A difference so subtle that we did not think that either tribe (fireman or EMS) would be offended in our clumping various emergency services together into the mind of a 2 year old. Dean was fixated, his mind was set on going to the FIRESTATION. We plotted our route. Dinner would have to be slices of PIZZA from Armand's carry out, we could not risk removing Dean from the car without being within a stone's throw away from the station's garage.

Pizza being his favorite food we were able to calm the beast as we made the short drive to the B-CC rescue squad station. The tree sales were going on as expected and the station garage had sites and sounds that had Dean fully occupied. As I worked my way around the tree selection and decided upon a Frazier Fur (or maybe it was something else, but I know it was not the Colorado Blue Spruce which was too prickly for Lisa's tastes,) I picked out my tree still wrapped in its pine cone shape for its long distance delivery from Indiana Pennsylvania. IT was then I noticed that Lisa and Dean were now inside the garage with the door closed behind them. As I loaded the tree onto of the Passat, car of choice due to the Landcruiser not starting at this point in time, I saw Dean's face glowing as he marveled at all of the dials, equipment, and gear. He was in all his glory his skin color radiated a certain excitement. It made me happy to see him so happy. The enticing notion of the "fire station" had in fact delivered. As I approached the garage one of the burley rescue squad volunteers was placing a white souvenir fireman's hat upon dean's head. The door was opened and I offered thanks and praise for their generosity, they all were happy to accommodate and were quite gracious that we had purchased our tree and our wreaths from their sale thus supporting their volunteer services.

After coaxing failed, I chased Dean down and carried him out of the garage. There was some squirming, but he was able to spend panic by the promise of future visits and the direction of his attention to his new hat.

We arrived home and left the tree and wreaths with the car. There was the hope that Dean would be tired after his adventure and ready for sleep. Our deduction was reversed, he was all wound up and could not sleep. The ideas of Emergency Vehicles raced through his head which made it impossible for him to go down for bed. Lisa went upstairs to try and tend to Dean, pjs, fire, and blanket did not lure him to his Big Boy Bed. While the battle to get Dean to sleep I worked downstairs to collect all of the Christmas decorations and make room for the newly acquired tree. While I worked trouble shooting the lights I noticed the dogs were chewing on some small bone scraps. Lisa came down and gathered the scraps, barely a handful. She walked over and said, "this is what is left of that hambone."
In disbelief I walked to the kitchen, the counter was bare. The carcass that had several pounds of ham/ham fat/and marrow filled bone was gone. The dogs walked about as if nothing had happened.

It was all rather humorous. No real crime. I would have done the same. What was funny though was the dogs had a hard time hydrating after they gorged themselves on the salty ham. The bowl was empty, the toilet bowls were soon closed and off limits, out on their evening pee roscoe ate snow to satisfy his thirst...Then at 2:30 Roscoe was whimpering at the bedroom door....it was clear...he may not have satisfied his thirst, but he did manage to fill his bladder.