Wednesday, August 18, 2010

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Princess and the Bee

HRH (Her Royal Highness) Berkeley had a rough day today. Not only was she paraded around in front of the faculty (albeit to great applause and admiration, I would show you the photo, but she turned her head in disdain of the papparazzi and we have no good photo of the event), but another queen rather ignominously tried to assert her dominance today.

It all happened during the morning pee.

Above is the photo of bush hiding the beehive in the ground at the base of its trunks. Notice the caution tape. Ah, but I get ahead of myself.

HRH and I trotted outside for our morning ablutions. Rather, her ablutions. I was just along to supervise. We usually go out the right door to do this, but for the last two days the sidewalk has been torn up, so we were force to find a new pee area. We went to the left (the sinister route, as some might say). HRH passed up the pine needles in favor of the cool green grass across the sidewalk and I followed along. As she began her business, she suddenly lurched and did a crazy little dance with her left front paw (still peeing, mind you, HRH has a one track mind and is a very determined lady. In this she is rather like Margaret Thatcher (or Hillary Clinton for you who have no idea who Thatcher is, but that ruins my England + Royalty joke. Fred thinks you all won't get it. I found the Thatcher reference amusing.))

Oh. This is most odd. I start to look more closely at the grass and notice all these bees crawling over the grass. "What are bees doing on the ground?" Then I look at the bush (see photo above) and at the very base of the trunk is a BEEHIVE. HRH has stepped on a BEE!

I immediately pick her up and rush her to the front office, which is conveniently filled with all my favorite ladies and announce: "Berkeley has stepped on a bee!"

As you can imagine, everyone came running out to see if she was ok (she was holding up pretty well, I thought). Laura in particular (a big Bingo fan and dog lover), came running out and I told her there was a beehive outside on the ground. Telling Laura something like that is like handing over all your worries because you know she will handle it (Soon the bush was covered in caution tape and orders were sent to deal with the bees). Still holding HRH, I walked back to the library. I checked her paws for swelling, since by now I had forgotten which paw it was. They seemed fine to me.

She did have a limp though. That worked itself out after about 5 minutes. HRH, she's a trooper.

Look at her. Like she hasn't a care in the world. I think she knows that she smashed that bee good when she stepped on him. Take that Queen Bee. One worker bee less for you! But I think that the whole day took its toll on her. When we finally got to the end of the day (5 hours later!)and arrived at my car, she discovered she was just too tired to make it into the car.

And so she laid down. And refused to be cajoled into getting into the car. In spite of my cheery voice and singsong phrases, my patting hands on the seat. It finally took me seating on the seat and bending over and clapping and saying,"Yea Berkeley! Yea Berkeley! Let's go! Car in!" before she got up and got in. Royalty. Humph.

Moral: Look before you pee.

1 comment:

  1. Too funny. HRH lives up to her nick name but she has won me over with those looks. It sounds like you are having a good time with her.

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