Manny Sandwich

While making a Man-Man Sandwich earlier this week -- when Andrew and I pick up Mr. Manny and squeeze from either side and yell, "Manny Sandwich!" -- we noticed a terrible, greenish, gooey film covering his right eye, which was sort of droopy and forlorn.

Man-Dog's been pretty healthy for majority of his life, three and a half long years, twenty two months of which have been with me. It wasn't long into that time together, that I discovered that Manny was a *gasp* Latchkey Kid. Since Andy travels most of the week, Manny was left in a popular daycare, where his supervision consisted of a chain smoker who wandered among a dozen or so dogs in a large, fenced area. Dogs who inevitably ended up scratching and bruising Manny. This was known as Play Time.

It provided a great lesson in my new relationship with Andrew, who didn't see a problem leaving Manny among a group of dogs who looked like they were cared for about as well as a tribe of sewer rats. So I let the doggie daycare go for several months.

Because we were getting more serious, though, and because one night while watching a DVD a single tick was discovered on Manny's back that I declared "absolutely, unequivocally came from one of those reckless animals he plays with at daycare -- probably the one with the eyebrow ring and anarchy tattoo who cuts himself in the paws and was caught with the fake I.D. last month," Andrew decided to pull Man-Man from his puppy Kindercare program.

I'm not sure if it's because his eye is still bothering him from our obscenely expensive visit to the vet on Monday, or if it's because after a year of spending his days with me, including three moves, three new brothers and sisters, and a diet that cuts his cookie intake to less than forty two peanut butter flavored Milkbones a day, but he's looking at me in this picture like, "Daycare wasn't that bad, Mom. Can I go back, please?"