Redecorating

Clean is for losers

I have had a very exciting weekend! Parts have been really fun and parts have been very stressful. There is just too much to cover in one blog post. Or two. Hopefully I can fit it all in three but it may stretch out to four. We’ll see. This is the first installment and it is all about mud.

Me and my mud

In the two photos above you can see how much I love mud. But I don’t only get muddy when I have my harness on.

Post-walk cleansing

The annoying thing about mud and my harness is that Melly makes me take a bath in my little green pool before I can go in the house or into the big pool. Melly won’t take my harness off until I get in there and rinse off. Sometimes that little pool isn’t even very clean, as you can see in the photo above, and yet it still manages to get all of the mud off me.

The capybara from the black lagoon

However, there are occasions when I get muddy when I don’t have the harness on. Typically this is by rolling in my pond. My pond isn’t always muddy, as it apparently wasn’t in the above photo, but when it is! Oh! When it is, how wonderful the mud is! How black and gooey! The very best mud in the world! And this can provide an opportunity. If no one is watching, I can come in the house and do a little redecorating.

Normally I am not a sneaky capybara, but when I heard Stacy Winnick was coming to visit me, I just had to fix up the house for her. She was scheduled to arrive on Thursday evening, so Wednesday, I did some serious mud rolling, waited for the opportune time and voilâ! (Hint: One should always speak a little French when talking about artistic endeavors such as interior decorating.)

I call this "Modern Mud"

One of my favorite touches was coating my bed in mud. This is like an artist’s signature saying, “this is my work, your admiration and envy are accepted.”

My pawprints lead the way

The hallway is the most under-appreciated room in the house. I took care of that by putting my special pawprint design all over it. And then a little coda when you get into the master bedroom, the more private part of the house. (Not that Melly didn’t let everyone see us in her bed on national television!) I was especially proud of my artistry in this area. Just the right amount of mud in just the right places.

My bathroom, with mud

It is important not to forget the small things. You cannot stop with muddy carpets and tile floors. How odd would that look if all of the walls and doors were clean? Here is an example of how to extend the theme upward. To do this kind of work, you have to make sure you have a very muddy nose. I forgot to get a photo of it but I also shook myself in various places around the house, next to the stone fireplace and in the hallway for example. A good shake of a muddy body sends an impressively expressive mud splatter that adheres well to vertical surfaces.

By this time I can imagine that all of my readers are in awe of my talent. But, like most great artists, I am unappreciated. When Melly got home from work on Wednesday, she was not at all proud of me! Instead she seemed a little angry. (Oddly, her anger was directed at Rick and not at me. This may be because Rick’s artistic sensibilities run more in line with mine than with Melly’s.) Then she took Thursday off and spent the whole day erasing my work! She cleaned the walls, she vacuumed and she shampooed the carpets! She has absolutely no respect for art! By the time Stacy arrived, you could hardly even tell that I had done anything at all.