Posted by Tricia at 4:29 pm
Miss Dixie has joined us just for the weekend.
She is a seven month old yellow lab with a lot of puppy energy. Despite her level of activity she doesn’t knock the children over in her exuberance, merely leaps in the air beside them, reminding me of a playful dolphin, only with fur. And on land. Without fins. Okay, so maybe not so much like a dolphin after all, but hopefully you get the idea.
Such exuberance means it is very hard to snap a good photo of her, especially given my camera’s inability to grab a focus in fewer than 6 seconds, but I did my best. No worries that we will be tempted to fall in love and want to adopt her: she is already spoken for by a family with four children ranging in age from 9 years on down to 2 years. Go figure.
I must add that Abigail is simply beside herself with excitement about a puppy in the house - upon arriving home from school and seeing Dixie her face lit up with happiness. Despite my initial desire to adopt only a dog who was an adult, I am finding myself open to the idea of a puppy again someday. Maybe.
Posted by Jay at 2:52 pm
I’m going to write a post. It needs a witty title, and I’ve come up empty. So I’m having a contest. Suggest a title in the comments, and the best one (well, the one I like best) gets used. I’m guessing I’ll be biased toward something that sounds like it came from the pen of Dr. Seuss, but we shall see. I’ll change the post slug and everything (that’s wordpress-speak for the permanent URL). Okay, here’s the post.
When I opened the door to the garage, I noticed a smell. An evil smell, but I was thinking about other things and hustled the kids into the car so I could get them to school on time. Next I was off to the outplacement office for several hours of solitude and job searching. Then back to the car to drive home for a very late lunch. And when the AC kicked on, there was that evil smell again. “It’s soaked into my car!” I thought to myself, dismayed.
I chatted with Tricia while driving home, and she thought she had smelled something in the laundry room. I figured the smell had come in from the garage, which meant I had probably caught a stray mouse in one of the many traps hidden around the garage (leftover from the war that took place a couple months ago). When I got home, I checked it all out. Nothing. And the smell wasn’t very strong in the garage. Strange.
I ate lunch and then headed to my car, intending to drive to the library to work for a few more hours before dinner. The moment I opened the door to the garage, I was overcome by THE smell. The garage was thick with it. Hmmm… that meant whatever had died had to be… IN MY CAR! I drove to the library, parked in the parking lot, popped the hood, and started looking.
It took a few minutes, but I found it. I could only see the middle part of the body buried deep within the interworkings of a packed in import engine compartment, but I’m thinking rat. Either that, or squirrel, but my money is on rat.
It’s still out there, stinking up my car. I’m in here, trying to work, and thinking that this is one expense we will just have to bear. See, once I use our grill tongs to remove the critter this evening, those tongs are going straight into the garbage. And since we will be grilling for company this weekend, I’ll have to replace them. Some things are not meant to be washed and then used again for food prep.
Posted by Tricia at 6:24 pm
“I’m sorry Mom, but I just cannot ABIDE refried beans!”
~courtesy of Jonathan
