Fat Guy on a Little Bed

I thought the bite sized bed would discourage Earl from poaching.  Obviously not.

Mellow

First, Clark and Sarah's adventures to the vet today went off without a hitch.  Sarah continues to lie about her age and everybody got their shots and Randi and Earl were still in the yard when we got back.  Everyone loved Sarah at the vet because she has lots of personality when it's not just me around.

Kelly, the massage therapist, came today and everyone was in the house and then everyone jumped.  She said, "Oh Earl, he's so lovey."  Which is true.  Early is quite lovey.  Later she said, "Earl, he seems pretty mellow." 

"Yeah," I replied, "He smokes a lot of pot."

Mute

I believe that the ducks have no voice box.  Voici la preuve:  This morning they spent a few moments making a strange neck craning movement which included opening and closing their beaks and all I heard was a weezing sound when there should have been quacking!  It sounded like they were hoarse.  They never make noise. 

Being a Domestic Goddess

Today I got my domestic Goddess cookbook and went to make my first dish as a domestic goddess, which involved melted butter.  I left it on the counter long enough to go into the sewing room to turn off the iron, during which time, Earl's finely honed butter senor went off and he knocked the melted butter onto the kitchen floor and kitchen rug, where it soaked in quite nicely.  Randi and Clark quickly came to Earl's aid in cleaning up said butter renversement and all three of them were happy campers when I walked back into the kitchen.  Unable to ascertain through any reliable method the amount of butter that was procured by Earl, I was forced to melt another 1/2 cup, which I then guarded closely until I used it to cook.

Earl must be the third son of Paula Deen.  What else could possibly explain his fascination with butter?

Tomorrow Clark and Sarah have to go and get shots.  Not gonna lie, I'm nervous about what kind of mischief the puppies will get in while we're out.  Maybe they won't even notice, but I can't imagine that.

Graduating

Earl graduated from butter to cream cheese today.  I guess he's just trying to make sure I don't leave anything on the counter.  What a guy.

Merry Christmas

The butter is calling "Earl, Earl, Earlie"

Earl only looks like he's relaxing, but really, he's just scoping out things to eat off of the counter.

PDub and EDub explore their yard while Randi watches.

Clarified

Earl likes butter.  Yesterday I came in the kitchen and found a plate on the floor.  Just one in a series of Earl eating things off of the kitchen counter.  At first I thought Earl had eaten a candle.  But the candle was still there.  Then I went to get the butter I had set out and realized that Earl had eaten the half a stick of butter that was on the plate.  Today I found the butter wrapper on the floor.  Earl had eaten what was left of the butter after I made my bread.  I'm not sure what this might do to his insides, but then I remembered that this is the same dog that ate a half of a chocolate cake and was a trooper.  Maybe he'll just get high cholesterol.   

Aliments

Since birth Sarah has a chronic disease called fake limping.  It manifests itself every so often and suddenly Sarah starts limping.  This makes you think that there is something wrong; sticker in the paw, broken leg, rusty nails, so you walk over and check her out.  You rub her foot, check her leg and she does a little skip and stops limping.  Sometimes she'll start again right after, sometimes the next day and in this case, quite a few months.  I've been onto her game for several years now and so and I just tell her to stop fake limping and she does.  This week however, the fake limping was contagious and shortly after Sarah's bout with fake limping, Randi and Earl, independent of one another started fake limping.  Their fake limping was cured once they start their WWF evening wrestling extravaganza.

Aquisition

I got a new vacuum.  Pretty much the reason I chose it amongst the other similarly priced ones is because this one has an attachment that you can use to "groom" your animals.  I'm going to set up the video camera before the first time I try to "groom" one of the pack using the attachment.  I might start with Sarah.  She needs it.

In other big news, I got booed off the stage four times in Guitar Hero tonight and EDub flew completely across the yard.  I've got to get a net before he flies over to visit with Randi and Earl who will take it as lunch that is a little squiggley.

Naughty

Randi and Earl tore up one of their new pet beds.  I walked outside to the living room and found a sea of brown stuffing.

Assholes.

Personalitities

Ok, so first of all I no longer have a problem with sciatica.  I have arthritis in my spine, so now when I hurt I am going to complain about my arthritis.  "Oh my arthritis."  I think this might also help when I am pissed of at the world, such as today.  There was no real good reason for me to be pissed off at the world, but children could have been hurt.  Luckily they were taking a final and not talking to me because I was so dang grumpy.  I was like Sarah-pissed off at the world.  I don't know if Sarah has arthritis though.  And I am NOT paying for full body XRays to find out.

On Friday I watched the Secret Life of Bees.  I read the book.  I shoulda known I might cry, only I seem to forget what happens in books soon after I read them.  I would do horrible if I had to take an AR test on a book I read because I would fail miserably.  Last year for one of my book clubs we read The Great Gatsby.  I wrote a 10 page paper on the role of women in that book in college.  I was absolutely dumbfounded when the lady died.  Who saw that coming? In any case, despite reading about the bees, it was like a whole new experience and I cried.  A lot.  For about an hour and a half.  It was aweseome.

I haven't cried hysterically in quite a while.  This used to be a daily occurrence and Clark got quite good at comforting me while I cried hysterically.  But Friday he was outside when the flood started and the only one in the house was Earl.  Earl has many fine qualities.  He's quiet.  He enjoys watching Bridezillas, Tabitha's Salon Takeover and the Real Housewives with me.  He helps me find my shoes in the morning.  He can be cuddly, but he is definitely lacking in the comforting people who are crying hysterically category.  I tried for a few minutes by holding Earl on my lap (one of his problems is he doesn't really fit in your lap.)  He wasn't much help- in fact he seemed quite bewildered by my behavior.  As soon as I let Clark in and he saw my state his whole demeanor changed.  Normally he lets Randi and Earl push him around, but he took one look at me and said "Step aside, Earl.  I've got this one covered."  With a confidence he rarely shows, he climbed on my lap and we watched the rest of the movie.

Randi is not good at comforting because she is too hyper.  She likes to watch soccer.  So much so that I have to be careful putting the football on the TV because sometimes she looks like she wants to jump up and start playing football with the Premiership league.  Randi is going to be getting pool together for the World Cup.  I think she just likes looking at their legs.  Oh wait, maybe that's me.

Sarah likes to sit outside and bark at nothing until I open the door and yell "What the hell are you barking at?"  Then she looks at me, turns around and starts barking again.  I'm worried about her still because this morning she was sick.

And someone keeps peeing on the floor.  All I know for certain is it is not me.  I think it's Sarah.

Alerte a la Saratoga Animal Shelter

The vacuum's broke.  I tried to pretend like it wasn't and did my best to vacuum with it's non-existent suction and then the engine just fried and it won't suck at all now.  Randi and Earl are working on their letters to Santa wishing for a new vacuum, only I'm pretty sure that they're on Santa's bad list.  Or Santa smokes crack cocaine.

When I was in France, the vacuum broke also.  This resulted in quite possibly one of the most interesting days in my French life because I had arranged to borrow Jack's vacuum cleaner.  (Based on the state of Jack's apartment, I was pretty certain he wasn't going to miss it.)  To get Jack's vaccum, I had to take the tram to the city center and then walk about 1/2 mile.  When I got off I saw some mentally retarded people smoking cigarettes in a group outside the movie theatre.  I thought, hmmm, you sure don't see that every day, even in France.  As I was walking down the Grand'Rue towards Jack's apartment there was a lady sitting at the counter in a boutique that was still under construction.  I figured the construction was behind schedule, but she was scheduled to start working the counter so per some crazy French labor law she was required to sit at a counter in a store with no merchandise in an unfinished store.  I thought, you sure don't see that every day.  I did ponder what I was doing in this crazy country with these crazy people.  Then I had to pound on Jack's door and wake his hungover ass up, sludge through the crap he had on his floor of his apartment, gather up the vaccum in the dark (hangover), make sure he didn't have alcohol poisoning (I think I said, you stink, you need anything?) and then walk the vacuum cleaner back down the Grand'Rue past the lady in the boutique and get on the tram next to the  mentally retarded people smoking.  It was then I noticed the stares of the people on the tram who were surely thinking, what the hell is she doing with a vacuum cleaner on the tram?  That day, I fit in perfectly in the patchwork of Strasbourg, France.

Of course, Jack is not around to borrow his vacuum cleaner.  The brilliant part about me borrowing his is I'm pretty sure he never used it.  Unlike my friends now, who use their vacuum cleaner and so now I am left sans vacuum with four dogs and two ducks.  No, I don't vacuum outside and no, the ducks are not allowed inside.  That would be crazy.

Christmas

I purchased two little stockings and hung them from the tree for the ducks, but they blew away in the storm last week.

New Beds

I purchased new two pet beds on Thursday which brings the total number of dedicated pet beds to three.  Earl had taken to laying on Sarah's bed.  (A bed I originally bought for Earl, but Sarah took it over.)  Sarah has not been happy with Earl on her bed, so I decided we needed some more.  Sarah's new bed is small, so that it will hopefully prevent everyone else from poaching.  Now there are two beds in the bedroom and one in the living room in case anyone wants to watch TV with me.

Yesterday morning, Earl went on an adventure down the street.  Somehow the gate got open and when I let him and Clark out, he decided to take a tour.  Luckily, it didn't take me that much time to convince him to come back home because I had a doctor's appointment.  As soon as Earl saw me pull the truck out he ran right toward me, thinking we were going for a walk.

Opposable Thumbs

I'm sick again and in addition to all that goodness I had a cocktail self pity hour.  It's times like today, when I'm tired and sick and feeling awful that I really want for someone.  Like, how great, if I had come home today and instead of jumping, Randi and Earl would have brought in the wood, helped Sarah start the fire (because who would trust those two with matches), then brought in more wood, made dinner, brought it to me and then got up and changed the DVD when I was ready.  That would have been ideal.  That would have been comforting, but in addition to all of the above I had to play musical dog while they figured out who was going to sit most closest to me or on top of me, then throw them off of me when it was time to get more wood or change the DVD, then play musical chairs again.  If only they had opposable thumbs. Or could weed.  This would solve so many problems.

In other news, I thought that Sarah was ready to go on to the big dog park in the sky yesterday.  First, it was freaking cold and crazy windy.  The type of windy where the carts were doing their marching band impression across the WinCo parking lot.  The type of windy where I woke up hoping the pool and the roof were still around.  Also, it snowed a bit- and if it wasn't snowing it was raining.  Cold and miserable.  Enter me, sick, home at 7 pm after 12 hours.  I thought for sure everyone would be dying to get in the house.  Everyone but Sarah that is.  She didn't even come out of the garage.  So I braved the cold, walked out and drug her into the house.  She was having none of it and walked right back out when I opened the door for Randi.  She wouldn't even come in when we went to bed.  I got to thinking that maybe she knew she wanted to move on and didn't want to be in the house, so then I got worried and drug her into the house again about 10PM.  As it turns out,  I think that she was just being Sarah, because today's she's fine and back to snoring on her bed.

Trauma at the Saratoga Animal Shelter

When I got home last night Clark was shaking uncontrollably.  Then he cowered in the corner, shaking uncontrollably.  Then he wouldn't leave my side and shook uncontrollably when he sat on my lap whilst we watched soccer.  I'm thinking something must have gone down yesterday at the Saratoga Animal Shelter between Earl and Clark and Clark was the looser.