Friday night at Bad Dog Central

The kids left today. Mr. Abby took them to the airport, where they had to check in at 0600. Reverse planning lead to a 0420 wake up. Ick. After they left, I went back to bed for a couple of hours. That leaves us now with him knocked out in bed and me puttering around with the dogs.

I'd like to throw out there that because there are no short people in my house anymore, I am shirtless and the TV is off.

Jack recently found a stick in the yard. Actually, it looks like a one-by two stake about 16 inches long. He likes it. It's his new toy. He carries it, rolls with it, chews on it, and just generally thinks it's about the coolest thing on dry land.

(please spare me the horror stories about dogs and splinters - I know. But it's a big mean scary world out there, and much as I do not require children to wear elbow pads to walk on sidewalks, I do not take sticks away from dogs)

Anyway. Because they were alone today for the first time in weeks, I let him bring the stick in the house this morning in the vague hope it would keep him from chewing things up. This failed miserably (one bamboo rug, one megapack of pipe cleaners and two boxes of .223 ammo), but that's not the point of the story.

While I was out having a smoke, Casey apparently decided it was about time she reasserted her Alpha Canine status. I walked back in from the garage to find both big dogs lying in the entryway. She had one front paw on his stick, casually, and he was staring at it like a starving guy eyeballing a pork chop.

She just walked through the house like a queen. Carrying the stick. He was inches behind her. Then she picked a fleece dog bed (yes, there are two in the living room, and there are two in the bedroom), flopped down, and proceeded to gnaw loudly on the stick. While he watched, miserable.

Heh. You go, old dog.

Minneapolis

A bridge in a river reminds you that things can be pretty random.

I drove over that bridge daily for a couple of years, and lived about two miles from it for another. Minneapolis was home, where we lived and worked, from 2001-2004. In a lot of ways, it's still "home." We were living in Minneapolis when we got married, we bought our first house just north of the cities.

We still have friends there, and I hope the ones we haven't heard from were somewhere else yesterday afternoon.

Lazy

Enemy of productivity and fitness, thy name is ceiling fan.

I prefer to run in the mornings before work. It's not as hot, and I don't have a gut full of coffee and a day's worth of smokes clinging to my lungs. However...the new bedroom has a ceiling fan. And when my alarm goes off at 0710... You cannot beat lying around half-asleep and tapping the snooze button with a good ceiling fan going. It's nice.

[sigh]

It's also going to have me out pounding the pavement when I get home from work. Which will suck. But that 40 minutes of lying under the ceiling fan and dozing was worth it.

One more...

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the new, improved, cancer-free, Abby's Mom.



She's the one in back.

The ugliest wallpaper in Texas

is GONE.

Gone gone gone.

Of course, now we've got the endlessly attractive bare drywall look going on. That's popular these days, y'know.



That's Casey, dreaming of a nice, neutral theme for the kitchen. Like, oh, I dunno...off-white paint.

Things that make you say "huh."

You come home from the Harry Potter movie, and find this:



Huh. I think Casey was trying to tie Jack up with the goal of dumping him in the pool. Or there was a home invader and our return interrupted binding-and-gagging.