CafeChatNoir

I did move the strap out of the way so she doesn’t get caught on it.

Lily has been a bit touched in the head the past few days.  It could be that the snow days have thrown off our late afternoon I’m-home-from-work snuggle sessions on the couch.  It could be that Spot’s unannounced visit is causing her a bit of the emotional agita.  Perhaps she’s mad that the box o’ crickets aren’t for her.  Or she could just be off her little tortie kitty rocker thanks to the snow – or her just being her.

Our kitchen is of a very generous size, but horrid design.  It’s basically a wide galley, but all the working parts are on one side.  (Seriously, the kitchen at the house we rent at the beach is better designed, and if has less than half the square footage.)  There is a counter on the non-working side, and while the kits aren’t technically allowed on *any* kitchen counter, they seem to know it’s slightly less bad to jump up on the “non-working” side – which also has the dog food & various animal treats on it.

I swear, for the past four days, every time I walk into the kitchen, Lily is on the counter on the non-working side.  It goes something like this:

“LILY!  Get down!”
“MIAU!”
“Seriously, GET DOWN”
“MIAU!”
*pick up cat, unceremoniously dump on floor*
“MIAU, MIAU, MIAU!!”
“How tall are you today?”
*stands on back feet, gets many head rubs and compliments on height*
“MIAU, MIAU, MIAU!!”

Seriously, I’d swear she was part Siamese for how mouthy she is.

If it’s not me walking in on her in the kitchen, it’s something like this:

*Cindy watches TV or reads a book*
*CRASH*
“DAMMIT, LILY GET DOWN!!!!!”
“MIAU!”
*Repeat multiple times over the course of the day*

Seriously, she gets tons of food, water, treats and attention.  She’s hardly neglected.  And yet, if you asked her, NO ONE LOVES HER!

What a box of crickets might look like:

Spot will be staying here for the weekend.

I also find it insanely difficult to shoot photos through glass.

I hope to get some action shots this week.

Is Carmen.  Sure, both the cats think he is the bees knees, but Carmen has decided that the dog belongs to her – not us, but her.  (Mind you, I can’t convince either one that the dog did not magically appear the day they arrived for their comfort and entertainment as it is.)

For quite some time, if the dog is around either Donald or myself, Carmen will come flying out of the woodwork and firmly plant herself in the lap of whomever is entertaining the dog.  Once the dog wandered off, she left as well.  For the longest time, I’ve just figured that Carmen was a jealous little git and wanted to make sure the dog wasn’t getting attention she should be getting.  Then I watched her a little more closely this evening.

The dog was in the basement and I was in the kitchen sitting on the floor with Lily & Carmen.  No sooner did she hear the jingle of his tags coming up to the stairs that Carmen raced to the basement door to wait for him.  Well, he blew by her.   (He has an unfortunate tendency to pretend they aren’t there – I assume it is some sort of self-preservation action on his part.)  Well, she *chased* him and then jumped up in my lap as he approached me.  As I watched, I realized she didn’t give a whit about keeping the dog away from me so I could give her more attention, it was all about her being closer to the dog so he didn’t give *me* more attention.

“Mox!  Mox!  Mox!!!  I’m RIGHT HERE!  Ignore the silly humans, I’m RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!!”

Sure, Lily loves nothing more than to dash up upon Moxley and hip-check him into the wall for laughs, but as far as Carmen is concerned, Moxley is most definitely HER dog.  (He might be more amenable to the idea if she could open the fridge and get out the packages of cheese.)

Perhaps that is why she sleeps in his crate so much – she just keeps hoping he’ll come in and they can snuggle.  I’m quite certain that’s why she ends up under the bed with him every night.

I wonder how many cats have decided that they have a dog of their very own?  I’m sure she can’t be the only one.

The monsters were boarded at Olde Towne Pet Resort again this Christmas.

The cards were obviously written before I had to go up to the cattery because Lily & Carmen refused to get out of their kennels and in their crates. Lily was easy – I just told her, “Lily! Get in the crate!” Done. Carmen decided this would be a good time to have a shitfit and it took 3 people, two pairs of falconers gloves, and a towel to get her in the crate. (I hit her with a bunch of rescue remedy, but it takes a few minutes to kick in, and a lot of it missed her. Next year I will call ahead so they can just dump the bottle on her head before I get there.) They claim she wasn’t like that the rest of the time – I hope they weren’t lying. Of course, once we were in the car, she was fine and didn’t even need any quiet time once we got home and has been purring up a storm since we got back. Lily has been merrily stomping about the house yelling her head off.

Moxley once again earned his status as the AwesomeDog:

“Moxley definitely enjoyed his stay here at OTPR. He was able to relax and look out the window in his huge room he had to himself! He loved his personal playtimes and walks that he had with our staff. Everyone enjoyed having him and he loved the attention. Moxley always behaved and was well mannered, making him that much better to have, We can’t wait for Moxley to return to us soon here at OTPR!”

He did get bored one afternoon and chew a hole in his bed. My fault for forgetting to take one of his toys to chew up. The cats on the other hand…

“Carmen and Lily are definitely a bonded pair. They are gorgeous felines who enjoy basking in the sun. Both Carmen and Lily were reluctant to play with any other felines but each other, though they did enjoy human companionship at times. Overall both girls did well during their stay. We do enjoy each visit with them and look forward to the next.”

In other words, my cats are little snots with a superiority complex who walk around saying, “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful” and “please move human, you’re blocking my sun.”

Granted, all that know the Awesome Dog, aka Moxley, would likely agree.  Via a friend, I found this blog post, about someone concerned that her dog might be…well…special.

I’ll admit, I laughed until I near cried reading this – and the graphics contributed to no end to my amusement.

Upon finishing this essay, I decided, “I must find the Dog IQ test!”

And Moxley scored 18 out of a possible 30 points*.

On the “hide the treat under a cup” test, he technically failed, with 1 point.  I showed him the treat and the cup, as well as my putting the treat UNDER the cup.  When I said, “OK!” he trotted up to the cup and sat down and waited for me to move the cup.  I consider it a success because he knows that he is not allowed to break into containers when I am watching.  But technically, a fail.

“Towel over head” test.  Maybe I put the towel too far over his body, I’m not sure.  But he gave two shakes of the head, couldn’t shake it, and then laid down for a nap.  1 point.

The “smile” test.  You’re supposed to stare at the dog and then give a big-assed smile (I assume this has something to do w/showing of teeth) and you see how long it takes for the dog to come to you in a happy manner.  I gave him 3 points on this one, because I wasn’t far enough away – he just looked at me and the tail went wild.  He just didn’t feel the need to actually move towards me because I was close enough anyway.  3 points.

“Treat under tea towel” – Sit the dog, show him the treat, and put it under a tea towel and see how long it takes to get the treat.  Mox happily ran up to the tea towel and then sat down next to it – again, waiting for me to give the OK for releasing the treat from it’s “container” – once I said, “Get it!”  he quickly pawed about to get under the towel and to the treat.  Once given the OK, he got 3 points.

“Getting food w/a paw!”  I automatically gave him the 5 points on this one, since I’ve seen him grab bits of food that the cats have knocked under their feeding table. 5 points

“Oh, banana!”  Use your normal sing-song-dog-voice and call him by “refrigerator” and “movies” and then his name and see what he really responds to.  I got a raised eyebrow and a tilted head from the voice, but he didn’t come to me until I said Moxley.  5 points.

So, perhaps my furball isn’t Harvard bound, but he’s smart enough to have trained me exceptionally well.

*Scoring
0-4 = Your dog must be an Afghan (I disagree – Buck from Married w/Children was an Afghan and he couldn’t have been TOO stupid!)
5-15 = Your dog is not too bright, but is most likely very cute
16-25 = Your dog is smart, but won’t go to Harvard
Over 25 = Your dog is a genius

And I will be eventually, but for the moment, I have a sleeping Carmen in my lap.

Sure, I could move her. But she looks so sweet and comfy and she’s purring up a storm and I just can’t bring myself to relocate her to the sofa.

She’ll decide soon enough that she has important business elsewhere in the house and I can go on my merry way, but for now, the bank can wait.

Despite any indicators to the contrary, he’s very handy to have around. I cannot easily clip the cats’ nails myself – they’re pretty good about it, but I get through one or two nails and they decide they have something more important to do and leave. After Lily caught a nail in her tail the other day, it was obvious it was trimming time again. Donald agreed saying that Carmen had been slicing him up lately. He also later admitted it might have had something to do with boxing matches they were having. (And I suspect he was instigating.)

So, today was, “Donald, grab a cat!” day. Fortunately they like him quite a bit, and they sat right in his lap and he kept them from other appointments, and the feline manicures were done in no time, and we didn’t even have to break out the towels.

In other news, picking out a new cell phone is a lot more involved than it used to be. Granted, the last time I actually picked out a new model of a phone was at least 5 years ago. They have some new features! Everything is enabled for GPS navigation, which is really cool cause I think I would use that a lot. It would be nice to go new places without having to factor in an extra 30 minutes for getting lost. So, it looks like I’ll have a data plan regardless. I could still get the current iteration of my old phone, but if I’m going to have a data plan anyway, I figure I might as well go ahead and get something a little more shiny. It’s down to the Samsung Reclaim (free) the LG Lotus Elite ($30) or the HTC Hero (Android, $100).

I think the Android phone, cool as it may be, may be way more than I’d ever need – tons of apps, but I really can’t think of any phone app I desperately need. So for the moment, I think the Lotus Elite is in the lead, touchscreen and a better memory card than the Reclaim. So, we’ll see.

There’s more to talk about from the Williamsburg trip to come, but it’s all happily rattling about in my head and it will go to paper (or electrons) soon enough.

It was a really lovely little break from routine and I loved every minute of it, but coming home was just as lovely. I pulled up in front of the house and as I got the cooler of little bro’s petsitting payment of BBQ out I looked up and saw a barking and bouncing dog in the window. How great is that? Hell, when I was married I didn’t get that kind of reception when I had to go out of town.

Inside, once I got past the bouncing and kissyness of the MoxleyDog, Carmen was next in line. She seemed slightly befuddled, as if she wasn’t quite sure how long I’d been gone. But I got an, “Hey! You weren’t here, but you’re here now! Let me show you the MOST AWESOME THING!” And then she went and lounged on the super awesome cat table that appeared as soon as I’d left on Wednesday night. (This is also known as the laptop table.)

It took a little bit of calling about the house to locate the LilyMonster. I found her in the center hall, and she was angry. It went something like this… “You LEFT me! You went away, and had fun and—-MOOOOOOOMMMMMMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” and she came running down the hall meowing at the top of her lungs and headbutted me with her Evinrude outboard motor purr.

Sometimes the best part of checking out for a few days is finding out you were missed when you return. Narcissistic? Quite possibly so. Heartwarming? Most definitely so.

I can’t think of any other reason for her ability to suddenly become an octopus and hide from me in near plain sight.

The dog was in the entry hall barking at “something important!!!” and I looked around, even under a very low shelf that he was eyeing and saw nothing. Coaxed the dog back to the living room, which lasted about 3 minutes.

Then, “BARK, BARK, BARK!!!” Back to the entry hall. Looked under the low shelf again, saw nothing. Stood up and suddenly Lily comes sliding out from under the damn shelf. She does impress me.

My only other concern this evening is whether or not I will come downstairs to a destroyed kitchen and a collection of glass beer steins in a pile of shards on the floor. There was a small flying insect bopping about earlier tonight, and Carmen was hell bent to get it. (I said when I adopted her, “Big ears, good mouser!” We have no mice, so insects it is.) Donald whacked said bug out of business, but being the time of year when windows are open, I am sure there will be other little flying critters about, and I have to wonder what destruction will come about from her zealousness.

ETA: And there was a moth on the ceiling. I wouldn’t have noticed had Carmen not jumped on the back of a chair and stared quite intently at it. Apparently I am way too tolerant of small flying things.

I am incredibly grateful that the kittens first reaction to meeting Moxley was to scramble over my human barrier and look him in the eye as if to say, “Oh hi! What’s your name?” Despite the fact that he barks at them and has made it his personal mission to keep them away from doors, they think he is the bees knees. They also really think that he was provided as part of the forever home package of food bowls, litter boxes and comfy furniture – I doubt they’ll ever really get the fact that he was here first and that he is patiently putting up with their antics.

I got home tonight, gave Mox his good boy biscuit and went about my business. I looked over a few minutes later and Moxley was snuffling about on the rug for any crumbs and Lily was right next to him, looking for whatever he was looking for. (She is the chowhound of the two kitties.) As I watched, she then just did a kitty bodyslam on him and rolled over right under his nose. Not many other ways a cat can say, “I love and trust you!!” However, the look on Moxley’s face was, “Holy shit, pointy bits up!! Move away!!!!” But it was still very sweet.

Of the two cats, Carmen is the strong-but-silent one. She’s just not the talker that Lily is. (Lily loves to hear the sound of her own voice.) Of all the other creatures in the house that she can get mouthy with, she talks to the dog more than anyone else. And it’s not “Back up dog, or I will cut you!” – it’s more of a “Hey, Moxleyyyyyyyy, whatcha doing?” as she creeps up to headbutt him. (Which also has Mox at loose ends, especially given that Snoopy & Target weren’t really into physical contact with the pup.)

Hopefully with just a little more time he’ll realize that the cats aren’t really out to get him and the pointy bits only come out when he steps on them.

I feel so bad when I read status updates on Facebook about people still shoveling snow. This spring is very, VERY welcomed. It’s so nice to have the back door open and the dog can come and go as he pleases during the day. (Though he is having a bit of trouble remembering that he doesn’t have to ask every time he wants to go out.) So far the cats have shown no interest in the dog door other than sniffing at it, and don’t seem to understand that the dog can’t actually walk through walls. Lily has figured out that if she sits in front of the dog door, Moxley will just stand on the other side and not try to come in until I intervene and move her. (Yes, she is a bit of a brat.)

HR 4872 may or may not happen today, aka health care. This should be interesting. I just hope that perhaps this can stop some of the nastiness going about. (Last I heard, Gerry Connolly was on board, deem and pass had gone out the window, and the fence-sitters were finding themselves in quite the spotlight.)

In other news, I am an Avon rep!! (Been dying to try the Anew line, didn’t know a rep and decided I would just be my own rep.) Thank you Melissa for being my awesome first customer! To that end, I have a meeting with my District Sales Manager tomorrow, a “Division Rally” next week and a sales meeting the week after that. Basically, more meetings in the next 3 weeks than I’ve been to in the last 4 years. At the risk of sounding like a sales pitch, I will say the online ordering and direct delivery they have now is pretty spiffy.

Now I am going to figure out what I am going to do with the rest of this absolutely gorgeous day. Well, after lunch.

Cause I’m not feeling it just yet. Could just be the sucky weather reports for the next couple days, but it’s just not been a whole lot better than 2009.

The back window in my car has decided that it doesn’t want to work anymore, which would normally be something that I’d simply leave alone for another time, but unfortunately, the window is open about an inch and a half, and as such, actually needs to be tended to. So, I’m looking at being carless for a couple days and that annoys me, too.

There was a 6.1 magnitude aftershock in Haiti today. WTF, Mother Nature, didn’t have enough fun with the first one?

It’s sounding more and more like the health care legislation may be dead, so yay, I can look forward to my premiums continuing to rise unabated, despite my decent health and fabulous looks, and then being cancelled if I ever have to actually use it.

I have taken to turning off the ringer on the phone in my bedroom and leaving my cell phone downstairs at night because I’m done with answering tax question calls from my grandmother at 3AM. (She has a little problem with boundaries and bothering to look at clocks.) I’m pretty sure this makes me a bad person, but I need sleep to effectively be the CEO of “Keep Grandma out of a Nursing Home, Inc.” and she certainly has no problems picking up the phone during the day.

On the upside, the animals are all quite well. Carmen decided to have herself a good old fashioned feline crazy this morning and was chasing me, the dog, invisible bugs, and anything else that caught her eye. However, the Christmas tree is a little worse for the wear for her fun this morning. She is happily sleeping on my lap as I type this, which thrills Moxley to no end, because it means she is not in his crate. He was not having a super awesome time this afternoon as he couldn’t sleep in his crate because Carmen was in it (why he won’t just walk in and sit on her is beyond me) and Lily kept trying to sleep on his tail and feet. (She LOVES him and is also just a little obsessed with his feet.)

So yeah 2010 – I’m just not impressed so far. We’re stuck with each other for 11+ more months, so let’s get it together, shall we?

Yeah, I know, it’s technically Tuesday, but the muse is still on PHX time.

– Carmen is about 91% back to normal. She still looks at the ceiling fans with a suspicious eye, but is back to hanging out in the living room, and decided food was the winner in the fear of ceiling fan vs. eating in the bedroom. It may seem silly that it worried me as much as it did, but it’s just a tiny bit heartbreaking to not be able to explain that the ceiling fan is not a predator. Lily still looks at the ceiling fans and then looks at me with an expression of, “Seriously, I don’t get the issue here.” Or it’s, “WTF, why is the fan off?” I’m not quite sure which it is.

– Is it wrong that when I come in and want to know where the kittens are I say, “Where are my single ladies?!” and then sing a few bars from Beyonce’s Single Ladies song? They do show up when I sing it. (And I use the term “singing” loosely.)

– Sharyn* called today, and I’ll admit my first thought when seeing her number on the Caller ID was, “WTF has my grandmother done???” Yes, I know I’m going to hell for that. But, it was just an update. First being that the hot water heater is ON – and to expect some calls about that. (I couldn’t even get her to voluntarily leave it on when we stayed with her. So I just turned it on and didn’t tell her.) But, she’s not been super great about showering of late, for several understandable reasons that I am completely speculating upon because she won’t actually tell anyone:

a) Afraid she’ll fall & hurt herself
b) Not like she’s out running a marathon
c) Doesn’t give a rat’s ass, cause she’s 87 years old
d) Hot water costs money

But Sharyn is getting her a shower seat (the shower has a built in bench, but she could quite easily slide right off it it – hell, *I* could slide off it were I not paying attention) and will be there so my grandmother knows if she has any issues, help is immediately there. (And as Sharyn said, “Hell, if she wants me to get naked too, I’ll do it.” God bless this woman.)

Additionally, we’d previously talked about Meals on Wheels for more hot food options**, but they’re kind of insistent on “coming in & helping” and my grandmother just is NOT comfortable having strangers about (which I think is a good thing) and Sharyn did a little more poking around and one of the local hospitals does a pretty kick ass meal plan that can be picked up, which is better for all helping out. Given my grandmother’s good financial situation***, it will cost……$4 a meal. Christ, our Chinese takeout tonight cost way more than that. And she was reading one of the menus to me – Swiss steak, mashed potatoes, green beans, salad & milk. Hell, where do *I* sign up for that?

I’m very glad she found this, cause she has been cooking up things to take over to my grandmother, which is awesome, but I’m really glad to have this off her plate (so to speak) because I do worry that she’s doing too much already, despite her protestations to the contrary.

* The angel sent from heaven to Sun City to prevent me from tossing my grandmother into the middle of traffic on Bell Road.
** My grandmother would live on sandwiches & ice cream if left to her own devices. I am at the point of “Whatever the hell she wants” but I am outvoted, LOL. She will eat *anything* you put in front of her, but will never admit that she’d like anything beyond sandwiches & ice cream. As I have said before, she’s taken self deprivation to an art form.
*** I have told my grandmother on more than a few occasions that if I had her resources at her age, I’d be ordering Lobster Thermador & a Cabana Boy every night. I will be getting the contact info for this hospital meal plan and a nice donation will be made so they can help a few more people who *can’t* afford it, because frankly, she’s being ridiculously undercharged for this service.

And it would seem that it’s Carmen. Yesterday morning I heard her go skittering off the little food table in the bedroom and under the bed. Didn’t really think anything of it, as she’s not always graceful and she splits her time about 50/50 between under the bed and on the bed.

What I did not realize until later was that apparently she looked at the ceiling fan and went “OMG, spinning blades of death from above!” I figured this out when she wouldn’t come into the living room, and when she got near the entry to the room, she wouldn’t take her eyes off the ceiling fan…

She will come into the living room briefly and look up and then decide, “Um, no, this isn’t working for me” and back to the dining room she goes. Other than that, she’s acting completely normally. With the bedroom, she’s now splitting her time between the walk-in closet and under the bed with the dog.

I really, REALLY hope she can get over this soon, because
a) I will need to have the fans on when summer comes around,
b) I miss having my lapcats, cause Lily is enjoying the dining room with Carmen, and
c) I don’t want her to be scared for the rest of her life – she’s too sweet to be scared.

First, I have to thank my dog for always making me feel better about myself.  This morning as I made my coffee, I looked at the dog & kittens and said, “OK, what shall we all work on this year?”

Kittens: “What is this ‘work on’ thing you speak of?  We are perfectly cute, there is nothing to ‘work on’.”
Me: “Good point.”

I looked at Moxley.
“Well Mox, you’re the awesomedog and really, there isn’t a thing you need to work on either.  Guess it’s just me that needs to improve.”
Mox: *UUURRRRRPPPP* as he barfs.  (Fortunately in the kitchen, easy cleanup.)
Me: “Aww, OK, that’s nice of you.  You can work on not drinking your water too fast and then running around like a banshee and barfing.”

Beyond the dog not barfing up his water and the cats continuing their quest for world domination via cuteness, there are some other things I’d love to see in 2010.

– Lord Stanley’s Cup coming home with the Washington Caps.  (Who should be playing in the Winter Classic today, but NBC and the NHL are full of morons.)

– Civility in the political arena.  There is this really nifty concept where people “agree to disagree” on various subjects that works quite nicely in lieu of ridiculous name calling.  (Note to all parties: The minute you play the Nazi card, you automatically lose the argument.)

– For the economic recovery to actually make it down to regular people and not just Wall Street.  It’s great that the markets have come back, but until people can go to bed at night without worrying that they will lose their house/job/everything, the recovery isn’t complete.

– More reading.  I need to find my library card again.  (Or just suck it up and pay the $2 for a replacement, which will guarantee I find the old one.)

– More patience with my grandmother.  Things are only going to deteriorate, and she’s never going to get that prescription for Valium that the rest of us so very much need her to have.  On the flip side, I also need to remember she has never, ever called with an actual emergency, and she hasn’t died as a result of getting my voice mail instead of me, so the guilt needs to go out the window.  (Probably all easier said than done.)

– For the awesomedog & superkittens to continue to get along so incredibly well.  And for Moxley to not be quite so nervous when Lily is in “Oh Moxley, I LOOOOOOOOVE you!!” mode.   (Right now she is cuddled up next to him, on her back, fast asleep.  Shame she doesn’t feel secure around him.)

– To learn how to clip the cats’ nails.  I chickened out and had the kennel do it while we were in PHX.  (Which also reminds me, the kitty clippers were the item I forgot to get at PetCo yesterday.)  I suspect this may be the easiest of my 2010 endeavours.

– Improve my housekeeping skills.  OK, the skills are there, just getting off my lazy ass and doing it.  I just have a knack for finding a million things that are more interesting than cleaning.

– Finally, to find a bit of direction in my life beyond just keeping my grandmother from calling 911 to ask what day of the week it is.  I think this will be the most challenging task of this year, as my grandmother’s situation has become a bit all-consuming to me as I have been having a very hard time convincing myself that I do not have to make myself available 24/7, and this has put a real dent in my doing anything new or different.

My Moxley The AwesomeDog has had a rough couple of days.

To begin with, he has to deal with two tween girl cats.  (Seriously, if they were human, they’d be in the “OMG, TWILIGHT!!!!!!!!!”  stage of life and having serious arguments over being Team Edward vs. Team Jacob.)

That in and of itself is rough for any happy, laid-back canine.  Then the other insults came along.

The other night I discovered a mat behind his ear.  For being a dog made of fun-fur, the fact that he only gets mats behind his ears or on his front elbows still surprises me to no end.  (And I do try very hard to keep those areas brushed and mat-free to begin with.)  But a mat behind his ear has to be at least somewhat uncomfy when he goes to scratch behind his ears.  So, I got out the blunt-end kindergarten scissors to tend to it.  That right there was 10 rounds, because he kept deciding to leave the area, and I pick my battles.  But, we finally got the mat clipped out.

Then tonight Donald discovered a tick on his head.  Great.  Being the coward that I am, I gave my brother the tweezers and said, “Knock yourself out – I’ll help hold him still if you need it.”  (The last time he had a tick when it was just me, I *tried* to get it out, and ended up taking him to the vet to get it out because I was sure I’d rip out half his little scalp in the process.  God bless my vet who only laughed a little bit at me – he would have been justified in laughing so hard he needed to change his undies.)  But little bro removed it and all was good.

And then I came home this evening and discovered that Mox had eye-goobers.  I don’t really know any other way to describe it, but if you have had pets, then you know what eye-goobers are.  They’re not gross, they just are what they are.  But, I had to remove said eye-gunk.  And Oh My God, the dog was so NOT PLEASED.  Not angry, not aggressive, not pissy.  Simply NOT PLEASED.

On top of all of these indignities, last night we let the kittens out to have the run of the upstairs and main level during sleeping hours.  It went something like this, “Run, Run, Run, Bark, Bark, Bark, Run, Run, Run.”  Donald came upstairs at a rather late hour and was greeted by an exhausted dog wondering WHY AREN’T THE KITTENS IN THEIR ROOM??”  He finally got to sleep when they woke me up at 4AM after knocking a plastic bowl of change off the counter in the bathroom that sounded way too much like shattering glass, so I brought them back into my room for the remainder of the night.  Tonight, they stay in – we ALL need to sleep and I’d prefer not to burn the turkey tomorrow due to sleep deprivation.

And despite all these indignities, all I have to do is look to the muppet dog to my right on the loveseat and say, “Howya doin’ Moxley?” and I get a tail wagging so fast it’s a blur and a pup who wants nothing more than to give kisses and get his tummy rubbed.

And that my friends, is why he’s not just a good dog, or a great dog, but the AwesomeDog.

So, the kittens are big enough they can be out and about in the house for a while each day.  Moxley feels the need to supervise their activities.  This results in a fair amount of barking.  Not barking *at* the cats, but *about* the cats.

In short, Moxley is a big tattletale.

It goes something like this…

“MOOOOOOOOOOOOM!”

“The kittens are fighting!”

“They’re running in the house!”

“They’re standing near the bicycle!”

“Lily’s in my spot on the couch!”  (Though he did attempt to take care of this himself by jumping on the couch and sitting on her.  Lily was unfazed.)

“Carmen is laying by the front door!”

“Lily is on my chair!”  (Followed by his jumping on the chair and Lily headbutting him.)

“Lily’s touching me!”

“Carmen went under the shelf by the door and I can’t see her now!”

The kittens have gone back upstairs for lunch and a nap.  The dog is utterly exhausted.