a sad day

I woke up this morning feeling quite defeated. I was sleeping on the couch… please don’t ask why. Normally, whenever I sleep on the couch I’m awoken by the every subtle presence of Choc my beagle. You see he usually wakes me up with his insistent sniffing… particularly of one’s… how do I put this nicely… umm buttocks region! It doesn’t matter who you are, he will sniff your buttocks. It is just what he does! He is very gifted at it. By the time you are aware of it, he already has a smile on his face and you know he has been doing that for at least 10 minutes. So here comes the confession ‘Doug’ from the book is actually based on Choc.

Anyways, I woke up defeated. Simply because this morning I did not sense his presence. Choc died on the weekend. He reached a grand old age of 16 or there abouts. He had one eye. Had a rather embarrassing desire to do rude things to people legs. Loved to butt sniff, and when he was more active would only pull my pants off the line and then proceed to chew a hole in the buttocks region! Only my pants mind you. Whenever, I would mow the lawn he would run out in front of the mower and do the biggest poo poo he could. I swear that dog would then watch me run it over coming covered in a fine mist of the worse smelling stench in the universe, and then to make it worse I swear he would smile, when he did this I always imagine his giving a evil hehe laugh. Over the years as his eye sight in his one remaining eye worsened he would often do a poo in the yard and then wait for the flies to gather on or around it. He would then spend the rest of his day barking at the flies. I kid you not, he would go back and forth checking on it and barking at the flies. He hated them with a passion.

I am certain there where many other things he used to do that annoyed me. But honestly those things would always be forgiven when he would on the rare occasions when would actually act like a dog who loved his people.

Because his people loved him!

 

Good News Everyone!

Chris Philbrook of “Adrian’s Undead Diary” fame (along with many other amazing stories) is running a ‘roll the dice’ interviews series (details of which can be found on his web site http://www.thechrisphilbrook.com/). The people being interviewed belong in the camp of great authors and narrators. Normally, this fact alone would exclude me from ever being on that list. But for whatever reason… maybe he felt pity for me… maybe he wanted to show the difference between good writers and bad writers… maybe he just wants to have a laugh…I’m on the list! I did find his description of me amusing, “Dean Thomas, Australian, large man, creator of things that can be read”.

I found it amusing because my friends don’t read, and really it has only been my friends who have had any interest in reading my stuff 😉 By the way this is very handy for me as I can tell stories about my friends in my books and never be sued… so shhh don’t tell them!

Anyway, regardless of the reasons why, I am on the list of interviewees. It should be a good laugh. Please go check out his site and follow the interview series. Maybe even shout Chris a coffee or two (but make certain you tell him I sent you!)

That’s Chris on the left. Clearly, he is not as good looking as me! But we can forgive him for that!

His collections of books can be found here http://www.thechrisphillbrook.com/books/

He often has specials going and I think if you hurry there might even be a free box set on kindle right now! Follow him on facebook for the details! https://www.facebook.com/ChristopherPhilbrook