ohmidog!

Reports from citizens about a lion on the loose in Norfolk led police to check in with the Virginia Zoo to make sure both of its lions were in their cages.

And that piqued the interest of Virginia Zoo Director Greg Bockheim (above) enough to track down the alleged cat, who turned out to be a dog.

It wasn’t the first time that Charles the Monarch — a Labradoodle shaved to look like a lion — has been mistaken for being king of the jungle, or the first time police were called about him.

Police received a morning call about a baby lion on the loose, on Colley Avenue near 50th Street. The first thing officers did was make sure both of Norfolk’s real lions, Mramba and Zola, remained in their cages at the zoo, the Virginian-Pilot reported.

Later, they realized the animal on the loose was Charles, whose owner has him shaved to look like the mascot of Old Dominion University.

Owner Daniel Painter said Charles — who has his own page on Facebook – typically hangs out at his business, Daniel’s Lawn and Garden Center, on Colley Avenue.

“I tell people he’s a Lab-a-lion, and half the people believe that,” he said.

Painter said police have told him before they’ve received reports about the dog from callers who thought he was a lion. Painter says he sometimes takes his dog to the zoo, then watches people run to their cars.

“They think it’s a lion out there,” he said.

(Photo: Virginia Zoo)

As some of you know, the main reason for my lengthy layover in Winston-Salem, North Carolina — in addition to it being the place of my birth, and a lovely mid-sized town, and its temperate climate, and its thriving arts scene, and it’s cigaretty legacy — is that my mother lives here.

About twice a week we get together. They are brief and pleasant visits, usually for a meal at the retirement community in which she lives, though sometimes I manage to talk her into an outing.

It has been nice to live so near her, and we get along well, almost drama free. I feel we’ve grown closer, and that she’s grown closer to Ace, too — but not so close that she’s accepting when he drools on her, as he does when she breaks out the dog biscuits.

“It leaves a stain,” she says. “No,” I argue, “drool doesn’t leave a stain. It just disappears.” (I know this from my own pillow.) Usually, any disagreements we have are minor, like that.

There’s really only one recurring major issue we clash over: pants, namely mine.

Well, there is the job issue (as in I should really get one) and the health insurance issue (as in I should really get some). But mainly it’s pants.

She thinks I should have some ”dress pants.”

That’s her term. To me,  it seems a contradiction. “Dress pants” is like “bottle can” or “shoe socks” or “underpants hat,” or like those half skirt/half shorts things women once wore that I think have gone out of style. What were they called? Culottes?

For nearly 40 years, I’ve worn blue jeans every day. There might have been a brief phase where I experimented with corduroy, but mainly my lower half is constantly clad in denim, which I’m pretty sure is the reason all the hair has rubbed off my lower legs.

I knew when I moved here that the official uniform of the southern male was  khaki pants, but I figured I could get by with my one pair. Alas, in my mothers view, they — at least my pair — don’t constitute real dress pants.

This is because all my pants that aren’t jeans — and I think most of them were purchased in the 1980s or early 90s — have extra pockets and, often, a little loop for a hammer.

At some point — and perhaps it still is, I don’t know – it became fashionable for some men’s pants to have a little loop for a hammer, even though they were worn by non-carpenters who didn’t need a little loop for a hammer.

My other non-jean pants are what I think are called “cargo pants” — the ones with extra pockets and pouches with velcro flaps at knee level.

To my mother’s eye, neither carpenter-style pants, nor cargo-style pants, nor  “casual pants” of any ilk qualify as dress pants.

In my defense, I ditched many of my belongings, possibly including some “dress pants,” before Ace and I began our travels. Maybe I figured I would be attending few formal functions on the road, and would be more likely to need pants with a little loop for a hammer.

Besides, I never liked “dress pants.” They are too billowy. I need pants that I know are there, that embrace me. It’s probably the same concept as that Temple Grandin hugging machine, or the Thundershirt.

With Thanksgiving coming up, I’ve been invited to join some friends of hers –  my mother, not Temple Grandin – at the retirement community for dinner, so again last weekend, the subject of “dress pants” arose.

“Do you even have any dress pants?” she asked.

“These are dress pants.”

“Dress pants don’t have little loops for hammers.”

“Well you can do other things with the little loop,” I said.

“Like what?”

“Nothing I can think of right off, but I’m sure there are other, more formal uses.”

The interesting thing about this tension — and what is Thanksgiving without some family tension? — is that it’s a carryover from my teen-aged years, a good 40 years past, when we’d have many an argument, more heated than the ones we have now, about appearance and especially the length of my hair at the time.

Recently, in going through her papers, with her permission of course, I found a letter I had written her one summer during my college years, lecturing her on how it was what is in one’s heart that was important, not the clothes upon one’s back or the length of one’s hair.

Such a sanctimonious little wannabe hippy I was.

Anyway, with Thanksgiving approaching, I have three options. Plan A is to wear a suit (I do have a suit). Plan B (because I do like to sometimes irritate my mother) is to wear my pants with a little loop for a hammer and actually put a hammer in the little loop. Plan C (because I also like to, on rare occasion, make her happy) is to go buy some “nice dress pants.”

Plan C is highly unlikely. (But I did get a haircut yesterday.)

I’m leaning toward the suit, or at least the pants from the suit. Chances are they will be a little tight, but I think maybe with help from the claw end of a hammer, I can squeeze into them.

Now where did I put my hammer?

We’re not taking credit (or blame) for these, just passing them along, as they were passed along to us — the top 10 Pet Peeves of Dogs:

1. Blaming your farts on me … Not funny … Not funny at all.

2. Yelling at me for barking. I’M A DAMN DOG.

3.Taking me for a walk, then not letting me check stuff out. Exactly whose walk is this anyway?

4. Any trick that involves balancing food on my nose. Stop it!

5. Any haircut that involves bows or ribbons. Now you know why we chew your stuff up when you’re not home.

6. The sleight of hand, fake fetch throw. You fooled a dog! Woo hooo! What a proud moment for the top of the food chain.

7. Taking me to the vet for ‘the big snip’, then acting surprised when I freak out every time we go back!

8. Getting upset when I sniff the crotches of your guests. Sorry, but I haven’t quite mastered that handshake thing yet.

9.Dog sweaters. Hello??? Haven’t you noticed the fur?

10.How you act disgusted when I lick myself. Look, we both know the truth. You’re just jealous.