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Mr. Abby successfully retrieved the Bad Dogs from Uncle Buddy's. Apparently, Jack was so overjoyed to see him that he pissed on Mr. Abby's foot. That's love. Or something.

Then the kids arrived, so there's a tiny and very full house in Tampa.

This is the part where I should go on about how much I miss my Pack and wish I was there, but honestly - five people and three dogs in a house the size of your average garage? Umm...really, I'm entirely cool with being the one-woman Advance Party.

I do look forward to their arrival once we've got the house thing under control - the move-in should qualify as an Adventure, and in the end there's room enough for everyone to escape each other when it's required. Which it occasionally is.

I feel for the kids. We bought a nice house in Minnesota on a dead-end road with a platoon of neighbor kids in their age group. Being a good area, all the neighborhood adults were entirely OK with all the children running wild together all summer, as long as someone over five feet tall saw them every few hours. Which is as it should be. They got one summer there.

Then we moved to Tampa, and the Crackhouse, and in addition to the dramatic reduction in space, there were also no apparent children (that is, who weren't dealing crack) and the area was just creepy enough that more than 30 minutes without laying eyes on them was cause for concern.

I think we've improved on that this time. It's still not acreage with a barn and pond, but it'll do, I think.