The Persistence of Dog

Our dog Maisy is my dog.

She is supposed to be my son's dog.  He picked her out.  He begged and begged us to get her.   He even picked her name.  We  brought her home thinking that Zane and Maisy would grow up together and be the best of friends. 

Nobody asked Maisy.

Maisy picked me to be her person.  She likely picked me because I'm the one who feeds her, but there is no denying that she is my dog. Where ever I happen to be, there she is.  She gets up with me at the crack of dawn, and falls asleep at my feet every night. She takes great pains to make sure that she is near me; if I step outside the front door to put the trash in the container, she yowls and barks until I come back inside. 

When I come home, Maisy comes to me first.  She parks herself right in front of me and sits rather patiently, waiting for me to acknowledge her existence.  She will wait while I put my things down, and then I pet her and tell her what a good girl she is.  I'm certainly not the only one in the family who does these things, but Maisy only seems to have eyes for me.

Maisy sleeps on my comfy chair, right on the pillow that forms the back of the chair.  She has been doing this since she was a tiny puppy, curled warmly in slumber around my shoulders.   These days, however, that tiny puppy weighs sixty pounds, and produces enough body heat to give me hot flashes. The cushion that she lays on is now mashed hopelessly out of shape, and no longer offers any support to my back. 

I don't care about these little personality quirks. Everyone has them, dogs included. And Maisy is polite about most things...except when she wants to be petted.  Then she is very persistent.  Downright stubborn about it.  She will put her paw on my knee. She will climb into my lap.  She will whine. She will "talk" to me with her growls and barks.  Maisy refuses to take 'no' for an answer, either.

I rarely get in that zone where I don't hear anything or see anything anymore, but now that Zane is older, it happens.  I am occasionally able to hyperfocus on a task, such as reading.  Until Maisy shows up, that is.  She starts off quietly with good intentions.  Maisy will approach, she will sit, sure that her devotion and politeness will be immediately rewarded. She will wait.

And wait.

She gets tired of waiting, of course,  her eyes on me, her attitude respectful.  So she inches closer. And closer.  And closer.  Suddenly whatever I'm doing is blocked by the darkness that is Maisy's head, her large skull obliterating whatever I was focused on completely. 

It's time to pet the dog.

The Mystery Biscuit

"Honey...why is there a biscuit in the middle of the living room floor?"

My journalistic instinct is such that when I heard my husband's question, I had to get up from the breakfast table and immediately go to where the action was. Larry might have been mistaken; it's happened before. On this occasion, however, he was correct--there was indeed a biscuit in the middle of the living room floor.  It was quietly laying there, minding its own business, possibly waiting for butter to fall from the skies.

I kicked at it with my foot, to make sure there were no bugs attached to the biscuit, before picking it up.  It was as hard as a rock. After some discussion, we chalked the incident up to random weirdness, which is a normal occurrence at our house. Opening the back door, I threw the biscuit on the grass for the birds to eat, letting our dog Maisy outside as well. I closed the door, and forgot all about it.

Two hours later, the same biscuit was back, right in the middle of the living room floor. I kicked it with my foot when I was carrying a basket of laundry to the laundry room.  It made some noise as it hit the kitchen floor. I put the basket down, and said my usual "WTF?" (Cursing in initials was okay, I decided, at least until Zane starts figuring out what WTF stands for.)

I squatted down next to the biscuit and checked to make sure that there were no tiny legs underneath.  I picked it up.  I shook it.  I looked for holes that would indicate worms or other tiny critters.  It was a stale biscuit, nothing more.  My legs had fallen asleep from squatting by this point, so I just sat on the floor and pondered the situation.

How did the biscuit get back inside the house? 

We hadn't had biscuits for breakfast in several days.  I had thrown the leftover biscuits out into the back yard at least two days ago.  The biscuit did not just walk back into the house all by itself. There had to be an explanation.

I wasn't usually that inattentive to my housework--I am sure that I would have spotted a random biscuit if I had dropped one.  There was a possibility that my son had been kicking the biscuit around like a tiny soccer ball, except that I had threatened him with a noogie if I caught him kicking soccer balls in the house again. Larry would have eaten the biscuit, not thrown it on the floor.

That left the animals in the house.  The cats were immediately eliminated as suspects. Pounce never leaves the upstairs, and Zena is all about living, squeaking things. Cats aren't big on carbs.

Maisy, however...

I took the biscuit and walked to the door. Maisy followed me, tail wagging.  I opened the back door, and Maisy ran outside.  I tossed the biscuit out in the middle of the back yard, closed the door and waited.  Maisy ran over to the biscuit, sniffed at it, and then picked it up in her mouth.  She marched proudly back to the door, head held high.   The biscuit in her mouth was practically invisible.  I opened the door, and Maisy happily brought her prize back into the house...dropping it in the middle of the living room.  She gave the biscuit a lick, and then lay down next to it. 

Mystery solved.

Somewhere, in Maisy's doggy brain, the biscuit was a play toy, not food. Not just a play toy; her ALL TIME FAVORITE play toy!  We kept waiting for her to forget the toy, or to move on to another toy. Every time we tried to get rid of the biscuit, either by throwing it outside or dropping it into the trash, Maisy would find it again and bring it back to her spot on the rug. I guess she thought that we were playing an elaborate game of Fetch? 

Dogs are weird.

P.S. We were finally able to replace the biscuit with a new ball. After two days.

The Guardian of Dreams

A quiet leap up

and

an affectionate

cold nose

in my ear offer

a quick hello

in the dark.


The bed trembles

as she gathers

her gangly limbs,

circling,

searching for the

perfect spot

on the mattress

to curl up

and dream big.

Ringing In The New

At one time, I was one of those people.  You know who I mean...the sort of people who seem to never stop partying, always on the look out for a good time.  At least, I was that way in my head, where it was safe.  No one to point and laugh at your dancing if they can't see it, right?  Occasionally I would attend some party with a friend, get completely snockered in an effort to be social, and pass out way before midnight. Yes, I was way cool. 

Since I've married, my New Year's Eves have been pretty consistent.  Sandy the Wonder Dog, our  yellow lab, made sure of that.  Sandy's biggest nemesis, the bane of her existence, were fireworks.  She did not care if they were sparklers or one of those whizz-bang-pop types.  If it was a firework, she hated them.  As in barked her fool head off, no matter where she was or how late it was.  If we let her out in the back yard, Sandy would race around the entire yard, barking out her displeasure as if the world depended upon it.  She barked so much that she would be foaming at the mouth, panting, but she was determined enough in her job to eradicate all fireworks that we couldn't even get her to stop for water. 

Unfortunately for Sandy, our neighborhood goes nuts over fireworks.  In the days before the end of the year, it's not uncommon to see our normally very sedate neighbors hauling crate loads of the loudest, most festive fireworks they can find.   Our street is likely on some Homeland Security list because of the number of explosives purchased by these people.  So our New Year's Eves of the last decade or so were spent in the upstairs bathroom.  One of us would sit in the bathroom, running the whirlpool tub, and keep Sandy in there with us.  It worked--unless one of those MD-80s things went off,  the sound was muffled enough that Sandy didn't lose her mind. This went on every New Year's Eve and Fourth of July until Sandy passed away at the ripe old age of 13.

Now we have Maisy the Destructor, our new black Lab mix.  Maisy isn't afraid of fireworks, we found out. While people on our street were launching enough small missiles into the air that the local airbase scrambled jets, Maisy slept peacefully on the back of an armchair.  In fact, the only thing that bothered her the entire night was her archnemesis, the boxer who lives next door.  We were all grateful for the silence, even as we missed Sandy.  My husband and I watched Supernatural episodes until midnight,  sipping our champagne and smooching like an old married couple. 

Oh yeah, we are an old married couple.





5.) How did you bring in the New Year?

Destructo Dog

I love my cats, living and deceased.  They're tempermental, aloof, and mysterious, but so am I.  We sort of cancel each other out, in the grand scheme of our household routine.  But my son wanted a dog, and so we adopted one from a local animal shelter.

Isn't she adorable?  Of course, that was last year, and precious little Maisy is no longer tiny.  Maisy is sixty pounds of love and still growing. She's happy, she's friendly, and she is the perfect companion to my son.  They will chase each other through the house, laughing and barking, until one or the other falls asleep. 

Maisy does have a few quirks, however.  She can't leave the trash can alone, for example.  One by one, bits and pieces of the trash end up spread out all over the living room, which is quite a spectacle when I walk in the door after a long day.  Maisy also likes to chase cats. She's not sure what to do when she catches them--it's all about the chasing with her.  The cats, understandably, are less than happy about the disruption to their strict sleeping routine.  Those personality quirks can be endured.
But Maisy has an alter ego. 

Destructo Dog.

This dog will chew up or eat just about anything.  Paper, plastic, rocks, stuffed animals, books--you name it, and Maisy has destroyed it.  She chewed a hole in our couch.  She chewed up an ice tray, and ate half of one of those freezer paks.  Empty water bottles?  Chewed to shreds.  She's eaten crayons, and markers, and chewed up toys.  Remember that Rainbow Sock Monkey from the Pier 1 commercials?  He can no longer feel his legs, because they are gone.  Poor Rainbow Sock Monkey!  Maisy chews off the eyes and then pulls out the stuffing, spreading it all around.   We've scolded Zane for leaving his toys on the floor, but Maisy is very capable of getting what she wants off of the bed, the table, and the couch.  This week we came home to find that Maisy had destroyed...a shin guard.  A Lionel Messi("The greatest soccer player on planet Earth", they tell me) shin guard.  This was a calamity, because Zane wears shin guards to soccer practice, and now he only had one.  

We yell.  We know yelling doesn't work, but it's more of a venting thing, anyway.  Maisy doesn't even look upset.  To her it's all fun and games, and she sees our yelling and gesticulating as part of the play.  We could crate her, but she'd be in the crate for 8 or more hours a day, and then in the crate all night.  That's no life for a dog.  We could make her an outside dog while we are gone, but there are bad people around who a)steal dogs from yards to be fodder for fighting dogs; b)steal dogs to sell to labs for medical research; c)steal dogs so they can collect a reward for their return. I would hate to have to tell my son that Maisy was stolen from our yard. 

I am hoping that this is a phase, and that Maisy will outgrow this destructive habit.  We all like her much better when she is not destroying everything in sight.   That's my son's job. 


4.) Your pet's least likable character trait.

Backyard Dilemma

This is an artist's rendition of our dog, Maisy, in the back yard.  Okay, it's me, playing with a new app on my Kindle.  Fortunately for my artistic endeavor here, Maisy was very easy to draw.  That black worm-like thing?  Maisy's tail.  Maisy is a Lab mix(with German Shepherd, I'm starting to think),  but the grass has almost overtaken her.  It looks like it is growing at a rate about a half-inch a day.  I could be wrong about that figure, so don't quote me. 

It's not our fault.  We have good intentions of mowing the lawn on a weekly basis. Well, my husband does.  He's the one who actually knows how to turn the lawn mower on.  Very important.  He is usually very good with thinking about mowing the lawn.

"I think that I am going to mow the lawn," he tells me. 

"Okay."

I try to be supportive. 

Every single time my husband has made that statement this summer, it has rained at our house. 

Every. Single. Time.  One Sunday the sun was shining, and it was still raining.  (Aside: there's that old wives' tale about how when the sun is shining while it is raining, the Devil is beating his wife.  Where the heck did that come from?  And who the heck would marry the Devil?  Those old wives must have drank quite a bit. End of aside.)

You can't mow the grass when it is wet, because it does something wonky to the mower.  Oh, and interrupts the Space-Time Continuum.  Very bad.  So we have to wait until the grass dries out, and it is not raining.  Our neighbor is OCD, and he can't stand our grass to be taller than his, so he has been mowing our front yard for us when he mows his.  We are very grateful for this, but we still have the backyard. The huge backyard that we had to have when we moved in, because our dog needed to have a place to run about. 

We just can't have tall grass in our back yard.  Mice, snakes, and other critters love tall grass, and they will move right in and the snakes will invite the mice over for a luncheon.  Ick.  Also, Zane likes to play out in the back yard, and by the end of this week, the grass will be as tall as he is.  We will never find him in that mess.

Maybe we need to get one of those old fashioned mowers, the kind with the wheels and the blades, nothing else.  We would have to push it a little harder, but we also wouldn't have to wait.  Do they even make those anymore?  Or should I just go buy a scythe and get back to my farmer roots?

A Dog's Life

Three things in a Dog's life reign above all others. 

The first is food.

The second is food.

And the third is...food.




We got a pup last year, and she is a fast growing Lab mix who will eat anything vaguely resembling food, no matter how much we feed her.  While wrestling the remains of a chicken from her(which she dragged from the trash), I felt inspired. 
Prompt: Three things in life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind. --Henry James     Use the quote as a model.

This weekend we are asking you to play around with the following quote:

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.
--Henry James

We want you to follow the same general structure of the above quote.  Feel free to change the subject--tell us what's important about coffee or houseplants or whatever you'd like.  Or else change up the modifier--instead of telling us what's important, tell us what's sexy or overrated or pernicious.  Your last three lines should closely echo James's, giving us the same answer three times.

For instance, a post might look like this:

Three things about Trifecta Writing Challenge are amazing.  The first is the community.  The second is the community.  And the third is the community.

(But we kind of expect your submissions to be far, far better than that one.)

Your word limit this weekend depends on your word choices, but because we want you to closely follow James's structure, all posts should be somewhere around the same number of words as the above quote.  For the sake of clarity (and brevity), we'll impose a thirty-three word upper limit. - See more at: http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/2013/06/trifextra-week-seventy-four.html?showComment=1372450074647#c2515206423028309781

This weekend we are asking you to play around with the following quote:

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.
--Henry James

We want you to follow the same general structure of the above quote.  Feel free to change the subject--tell us what's important about coffee or houseplants or whatever you'd like.  Or else change up the modifier--instead of telling us what's important, tell us what's sexy or overrated or pernicious.  Your last three lines should closely echo James's, giving us the same answer three times.

For instance, a post might look like this:

Three things about Trifecta Writing Challenge are amazing.  The first is the community.  The second is the community.  And the third is the community.

(But we kind of expect your submissions to be far, far better than that one.)

Your word limit this weekend depends on your word choices, but because we want you to closely follow James's structure, all posts should be somewhere around the same number of words as the above quote.  For the sake of clarity (and brevity), we'll impose a thirty-three word upper limit. - See more at: http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/2013/06/trifextra-week-seventy-four.html?showComment=1372450074647#c2515206423028309781

This weekend we are asking you to play around with the following quote:

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.
--Henry James

We want you to follow the same general structure of the above quote.  Feel free to change the subject--tell us what's important about coffee or houseplants or whatever you'd like.  Or else change up the modifier--instead of telling us what's important, tell us what's sexy or overrated or pernicious.  Your last three lines should closely echo James's, giving us the same answer three times.

For instance, a post might look like this:

Three things about Trifecta Writing Challenge are amazing.  The first is the community.  The second is the community.  And the third is the community.

(But we kind of expect your submissions to be far, far better than that one.)

Your word limit this weekend depends on your word choices, but because we want you to closely follow James's structure, all posts should be somewhere around the same number of words as the above quote.  For the sake of clarity (and brevity), we'll impose a thirty-three word upper limit. - See more at: http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/2013/06/trifextra-week-seventy-four.html?showComment=1372450074647#c2515206423028309781

This weekend we are asking you to play around with the following quote:

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.
--Henry James

We want you to follow the same general structure of the above quote.  Feel free to change the subject--tell us what's important about coffee or houseplants or whatever you'd like.  Or else change up the modifier--instead of telling us what's important, tell us what's sexy or overrated or pernicious.  Your last three lines should closely echo James's, giving us the same answer three times.

For instance, a post might look like this:

Three things about Trifecta Writing Challenge are amazing.  The first is the community.  The second is the community.  And the third is the community.

(But we kind of expect your submissions to be far, far better than that one.)

Your word limit this weekend depends on your word choices, but because we want you to closely follow James's structure, all posts should be somewhere around the same number of words as the above quote.  For the sake of clarity (and brevity), we'll impose a thirty-three word upper limit. - See more at: http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/2013/06/trifextra-week-seventy-four.html?showComment=1372450074647#c2515206423028309781

This weekend we are asking you to play around with the following quote:

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.
--Henry James

We want you to follow the same general structure of the above quote.  Feel free to change the subject--tell us what's important about coffee or houseplants or whatever you'd like.  Or else change up the modifier--instead of telling us what's important, tell us what's sexy or overrated or pernicious.  Your last three lines should closely echo James's, giving us the same answer three times.

For instance, a post might look like this:

Three things about Trifecta Writing Challenge are amazing.  The first is the community.  The second is the community.  And the third is the community.

(But we kind of expect your submissions to be far, far better than that one.)

Your word limit this weekend depends on your word choices, but because we want you to closely follow James's structure, all posts should be somewhere around the same number of words as the above quote.  For the sake of clarity (and brevity), we'll impose a thirty-three word upper limit. - See more at: http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/2013/06/trifextra-week-seventy-four.html?showComment=1372450074647#c2515206423028309781

This weekend we are asking you to play around with the following quote:

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.
--Henry James

We want you to follow the same general structure of the above quote.  Feel free to change the subject--tell us what's important about coffee or houseplants or whatever you'd like.  Or else change up the modifier--instead of telling us what's important, tell us what's sexy or overrated or pernicious.  Your last three lines should closely echo James's, giving us the same answer three times.

For instance, a post might look like this:

Three things about Trifecta Writing Challenge are amazing.  The first is the community.  The second is the community.  And the third is the community.

(But we kind of expect your submissions to be far, far better than that one.)

Your word limit this weekend depends on your word choices, but because we want you to closely follow James's structure, all posts should be somewhere around the same number of words as the above quote.  For the sake of clarity (and brevity), we'll impose a thirty-three word upper limit. - See more at: http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/2013/06/trifextra-week-seventy-four.html?showComment=1372450074647#c2515206423028309781

This weekend we are asking you to play around with the following quote:

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.
--Henry James

We want you to follow the same general structure of the above quote.  Feel free to change the subject--tell us what's important about coffee or houseplants or whatever you'd like.  Or else change up the modifier--instead of telling us what's important, tell us what's sexy or overrated or pernicious.  Your last three lines should closely echo James's, giving us the same answer three times.

For instance, a post might look like this:

Three things about Trifecta Writing Challenge are amazing.  The first is the community.  The second is the community.  And the third is the community.

(But we kind of expect your submissions to be far, far better than that one.)

Your word limit this weekend depends on your word choices, but because we want you to closely follow James's structure, all posts should be somewhere around the same number of words as the above quote.  For the sake of clarity (and brevity), we'll impose a thirty-three word upper limit. - See more at: http://www.trifectawritingchallenge.com/2013/06/trifextra-week-seventy-four.html?showComment=1372450074647#c2515206423028309781

Punting A MouseRat for Yardage

After receiving Mother's Day gifts from Zane(homemade pictures are the best!), and a promissory note for a mani/pedi from Larry(he wasn't sure where I would want to go, so he left that part blank), I walked outside to find cat Zena and dog Maisy with their present for me. For those not keeping score, Zena the cat adopted Maisy the dog when Maisy was a puppy, and Zena does her very best to raise Maisy to be a good cat. Maisy was flinging said present about the yard and trying to catch it while Zena looked on approvingly, as any doting mother would do. 

And I sighed heavily and went back into the house. 

Not to hide under the kitchen table, but to get my shoes(because mouse guts on bare feet=projectile vomiting) and an oven mitt.  We've thrown many carcasses over the fence these past couple of years; Zena is an excellent mouser, and the fields behind our house are full of the critters.

I marched back out to locate the poor dead thing.  Zena was licking a paw, and pretending that she had no idea where the dead creature was, but I wasn't fooled by her feigned nonchalance.  Maisy offered to help me locate the remains, tail wagging, and escorted me right to what may have been a small rat or a large mouse.  I can never tell, so...MouseRat it is.  I leaned over to pick up the carcass just as Maisy nudged the critter with her nose...and the MouseRat ran right onto my foot. 

There's an obscure law that states that all women must scream loudly when in contact with any rodent, and I am pleased to say that I followed that law to the letter.  I also jumped and sort of punted the poor MouseRat about fifteen yards.  Puppy-brained Maisy thought that we were playing, and immediately grabbed the MouseRat and flung it downfield for twenty yards and raced after it.  She picked up the MouseRat and spiked it.  I winced as the MouseRat bounced a couple of times. 

When I finally was able to catch up to Maisy,  I just bent over the MouseRat and watched it.  There were two reasons for this: I had to catch my breath, and I wanted to make sure the MouseRat was dead.   I looked closely, and saw movement of the ribcage.  Alive, then, but likely shook up.  I slipped the oven mitt on and grabbed for the tail.  It took me a couple of tries, because I'm a girl and all girls are genetically squeamish about rodents.  I finally got the MouseRat by the tail.  It squirmed and wiggled in that completely icky way that made me want to just drop it and run.  Yet I was determined to get it out of my yard.  I  lifted MouseRat above the head of Maisy, who began jumping up and down.  She wanted me to throw the MouseRat, of course, which I would not do. At that point, Zena decided that the MouseRat was interesting again, since it was still moving about, so she made her way over to Maisy and I.

I walked as quickly as I could, holding a MouseRat by the tail above my head, with a jumping dog and a curious cat in tow.  I made it to our back fence, and found a broken slat.  I put my hand through the slat and let go of the MouseRat in a spot where it could rest a bit before heading back out into the field.  I turned, happy that I had had a successful "rescue".  Even if the MouseRat died, it would die on the other side of the fence, and not in my yard.

Sort of. 

Zena was sitting on the fence, tail twitching, her gaze zeroed in on MouseRat.  Maisy was watching Zena, ready to move.  I again sighed heavily, rolled my eyes, and grabbed Zena off the fence.  It was a chancy thing, as she did not want to go and dug her claws into the fence, but finally I was able to extricate her.  Maisy followed Zena, and into the house we went.  

This was before I'd even finished my cup of coffee!

Every Dog Deserves A Day

Ever since we got our current pup, I've been falling in love with dogs again.  Not that I have ever disliked dogs, it's just that I embarked upon a love affair with cats.  Cats and I share many qualities, after all.  We both like to sleep a lot, we tend to pounce on things for no obvious reason, and we are quick to bring out the claws when we get annoyed.  Also, cats are most comfortable around a select few individuals that they trust, which is the very definition of an introvert.  Which would also be me. I was chosen by my first cat in the late 90s; Isobel(RIP) was sitting on my balcony one morning.  Then came Morris the Irascible(RIP), then Tiger(RIP), then Pip(RIP), then Pounce, and finally Zena.  Along the way we also acquired Lalo and Smoky Bear, who live in the bushes in the backyard.  I never get tired of watching the cats. 

When I was a small child I remember a couple of dogs being around.  We had a basset hound at one point when I was four-ish.  When next we had a dog, it was a daschund named TJ.  (My mother found the minor skirmishes fought by my brother and I over the slightest issue abhorent, and instead of letting us fight over the names of our pets, she issued a decree that we would take the first initial from each of us and that was that.  Over the years, a succession of horses, dogs, and guinea pigs were all named TJ.  Even a turtle or two, and possibly a crayfish.)  When I met my husband, I had Isobel and Morris, and he had Sandy the Wonder Dog, a feisty yellow Lab.  Sandy was used to ruling the roost; I remember several nights when Sandy would literally push me out of the bed.  I had taken "her" spot.  The entire household mourned Sandy's passing; even the cats. 

And now we have this little critter.  She's not so little anymore, although she is still officially a puppy.  She is pretty smart, and except for a few issues, she's been fun.  Dogs are more obvious about their responses to you. and I love watching them, too.  Maisy scans our faces constantly for the slightest micro expression, eager to please.  At least, eager to please if you have food or are willing to scratch her behind the ears.  Cats are willing to take the food and the scratching, but they aren't watching you constantly for signs of approval.  So which is better?  That's an age old question, but really, it's apples and oranges.  I like apples and oranges, and I don't have to choose between my fruit, right?  Same with my pets; I love my cats and my dog, and hope that they are all around for a long time.

All your treats are belong to us

How about you?  Are you a cat person or a dog person?  Or do you swing both ways, at least as far as owning pets?

Random Whatnots

I've been battling some sort of microscopic creature. It's either pollen from the evil mountain cedar trees, or it's a random virus.  I can safely say that what I have is not the Superbug "Sydney" Norovirus that has everyone in a tizzy, but other than that, I'm clueless.  I feel generally icky, I sound like Bea Arthur, but I don't have a fever.  It could be something else, but I've banned myself from doing any sort of internet searches on it, because when I do that I tend to find out that I have Ebola.  I think WebMd should have a "Roulette Wheel of Symptoms".  You click on it, it spins, and your diagnosis is whatever the clicker stops on.  That would likely be as accurate as self-diagnosis, plus you'd get to learn about all sorts of icky maladies.

Have you ever been caught in the Vortex of Chatty?  I just made that term up, but the experience was horrible. The Vortex of Chatty occurs when you are surrounded by people who are wordy, loquacious, long-winded, verbose, chatty, etc.  You can't leave because it would be impolite to leave without saying something,  but you can't get a word in edge-wise to excuse yourself from the conversation.    Before I knew what was happening, half of my day was gone!   I understand that sometimes people need to talk, and I am okay with being a listener, except when I am completely overwhelmed with work-related tasks or I have to be somewhere.  Then not only am I a terrible listener, I also am likely to yell.  This is so embarrassing that I need to look at cat pictures to get over myself.

I am only crossing my legs to fool you into dropping your guard.

Zane and I took Maisy for our big walk to the lake, and there were cranes.  Beautiful, white, graceful, cranes.  I wanted to take a picture, so I asked Zane to hold Maisy's leash.  I'm still kicking myself for being such an idiot.  Maisy and Zane haven't established that clear owner-animal relationship yet.  I think Maisy sees Zane as a puppy, which translates in her language to "NOT. IN. CHARGE."  As soon as Zane touched the leash, Maisy took off. Zane immediately lost his mind, thinking that Maisy was going to run away.  While he was busy being hysterical, Maisy fell into the lake.  I tried to take a picture of the cranes, then figured out how to get Maisy back on track

We had to buy a bigger crate for her, since the soft sided crate essentially disintegrated. She probably weighs about thirty pounds by now, and is all legs.  We ended up buying a crate that is for a 100lbs dog.  It is big enough for Zane, Maisy, and Zena to be inside of it.  It might even be big enough for me to fit in there, although with my claustrophobia there is no way I'd let that happen.   However, Zane has taken to playing in there several days a week. 

We've had balmy weather lately--into the 80s.  Just enough to get your body adjusted to the warmer temps before the next cold front whallops you on the head!  So tomorrow, when it's freezing outside, I'll worry about my parents, who are in Illinois for my grandpa's funeral.  They will be driving back to our part of the world, soon, but they will miss the brief shot of summer.  Then I'll try to burrow underneath my pillows.

 

I am over visiting Stacy's crowd at Stacy Uncorked, so go check them out.  I feel a little guilty that I never asked my grandfather for his secret wine recipe, just so I could share it with her!

Post Turkey Random

I finally finished off the pumpkin pie last night.  Pumpkin is healthy, right?  

In our last episode, I announced the new addition to our family: Maisy, the Lab-mix that we got from the local animal shelter.  She is still with us, since we passed our second interview with the shelter people.  The puppy has been pretty well-behaved so far.  She's almost housebroken, in that she's still piddling every now and then, but she does go to the door and whine to go outside.  We crate her at night, and she sleeps until about four or five in the morning.  I'm hoping to get her closer to six, which is when we get up most days.  The cats are still a little freaked out by this new creature, but I did catch Zena playing with Maisy in the back yard a couple of times yesterday.  Also, Pounce has actually come out from underneath the bed a few times to sniff at Maisy disdainfully.  I consider that a good sign.

My husband and I were fortunate enough to get to see Skyfall this past weekend.  It was fantastic, and highly enjoyable.  My husband did not look at his watch once, which means that he liked it as well.  The story was fast moving and well written, with very little of the campiness that Bond movies have been known for.  Daniel Craig is perfect as Bond, because he has been able to capture perfectly that essence of the book Bond. It doesn't hurt that he's nice to look at, either!

I had to corral all the trees for their own protection.

My son is all about the Christmas.  It's not just Christmas, he says, it is THE Christmas.  As soon as he realized that the precious moment was approaching, the trees had to come out.  What's that, you say?  You're only supposed to have ONE tree up and decorated for the holidays?  Not in our house.  We put up and decorated four today.  They have to be lit up, too.  As soon as we come in the door, the lights have to be plugged in, so the trees look pretty.  Never mind that we have a tree climbing kitty and a teething puppy, Zane was insistent. In this, we can afford to indulge him. I also have two advent calendars coming in the mail, one of chocolate and one of Lego, so he can count down the days.  Okay, so I'm hoping that he doesn't want the chocolate and I get to eat it, but I may have to wrassle my husband for the piece.

I was so excited to be able to sit and read for twenty minutes yesterday.  I read a couple of chapters in the new Janet Evanovich novel.  Those books crack me up, every time.  Being able to stick your nose in a book and laugh yourself silly is a great stress reliever.  I should allow for fifteen to twenty minutes a day for reading something humorous. Considering how stressful the holidays can be, being able to laugh as often as possible is a must.

The Hobbit opens in New Zealand tomorrow, and my husband is perseverating.  Each day I have heard tales of the various aspects of Tolkien's Middle Earth that I haven't heard before.  Larry has read most of Tolkien's works many times.  He can quote whole passages from memory.  I can't do that, and it annoys me greatly.  We are planning to go and see The Hobbit opening night, and it should be lots of fun. 

Need more random to round out your day?  Head on over to see Stacy and Princess Nagger at Stacy Uncorked.