Sophie the Wonder Dog

The people next door moved out and are trying to find a place for their dog, Jasmine. When I think of a dog called Jasmine, I always think of April's lab that ate (and later passed) my purple Scooby socks. So I call her Sophie instead. She doesn't seem to mind as long as I keep giving her dog biscuits. Since the people next door have moved out, I've been keeping an eye on her, playing with her, putting her back on her lead when she manages to get off, refilling her water dish 5 times a day because she likes to dump it out. Maybe she wants to wear the bowl on her head or something when no one is looking. I haven't quite figured that out yet. But she is digging trenches, so maybe there's a WWI reenactment in the works.

In any case, she's pretty big. She comes up to my knees at least, but she's still a puppy. She is also somewhat bewildering. I've known a lot of cats. They pretty much keep to themselves, they are self cleaning. They sometimes eat things I don't think they'll eat (cleo likes my sunflower peanut butter substitute with a passion.) She also likes anything sweet even though cats don't like sweet food. But at least she eats food. Sophie the wonder dog demolishes everything. Today she took out two bags of very innocent dirt. When she found the half full bags where I had stashed them under the porch, I decided to nip this in the bud and take the dirt and dump it in my flower bed across the yard. As I was dragging the bag, I noticed it started getting a lot heavier. Sophie had her mouth clamped down and was being dragged along with the bag. All I can say is that half the dirt ended up in the bed. The rest ended up on Sophie and in the yard. I just let her have the bag, which was apparently her original goal. She tried to eat some of the dirt, but found that distasteful.

Dogs are apparently not self cleaning. This is a big difference with cats. I kept expecting her to do something to get the pile of dirt off her, but nope, she seemed to like it. She also demolished a pool net, her toy rope frisbee, a pile of leaves, and she started in on a rake before I confiscated it. And my hair. Apparently, it's a doggie delicacy.

So here I am after an afternoon of playing with Sophie. I can't hear well out of my left ear because it is full of dog slobber. I'm dirty. And tired. And a little sore from throwing the ball. The cats are looking at me weird. Sammy keeps trying to clean the dog smell off of me with this grimace on her face. I can tell that they are wondering if I've gone to the other side and become a dog person. I don't know quite what to tell her. Maybe it's possible to be a cat and a dog person at the same time.

Cool Blog

This is a blog I like to read that some of you might be interested in called Chickens in the Road. This is a how-to for homemade vanilla. The recipe for snickerdoodles looks good too!

Click Here
http://suzannemcminn.com/blog/2008/11/07/homemade-vanilla-the-big-bottle-method/

Is there a Doc in the house?

The Doc says hello to a tasty sunflower seed!

Cleo knows she can figure the door handle out if she tries hard enough!

Mary's hamster Doctor Who visited during fall break. We got a couple of photos. He's a cute little guy and very well behaved. We kept him in the room with the door closed, with several interested felines watching and waiting for an opportunity to sneak in. When they did manage to sneak in, they mostly just looked at him with longing and somewhat hungry looks. And then they would look at us as if to say "we want to make friends with the rodent, bring him out!"
Boo was the lone exception. The hamster scared her half to death.

We upgraded his wheel to something a little larger (and quieter) and got him a cute little house that he very much likes to sleep in and climb on, so he's a pretty happy little hamster, even though he has delusions of someday being a chipmunk.

Halloween Totals

The information you've all been waiting for . . . no it's not election returns, but Robin and Richard's Halloween Totals!

Number of Trick or Treaters: 153.
We were down significantly from last year, but we still had a good turn out. Because I was expecting 250 kids, the ones that did show up got A LOT of candy.

Best Costume: Forrest Gump (the little kid even talked like Forrest and his trick or treat bag had a box of chocolates on top.) Richard's vote goes to the Pink Flamingo, which was not supposed to be scary, but for some reason it scared the crap out of me. Chalk up another phobia. He also liked the firefighters in reflective gear (for the obvious safety reasons).

Kids talking on Cell Phones: 1 (although he paused his conversation long enough to trick or treat, and was very polite while trick or treating.)

Obnoxious Teenagers: 0 (what's the world coming to? They were all way polite. Maybe The Host by Stephanie Meyers is a true story).

Pieces of Candy Bought: 1600

Decorations the kids liked: I was worried about the placement of my giant spider because he was pretty spooky where he ended up and I was afraid he would scare the little kids walking past him as he is about the size of a small child. I got a lot of delighted "Look mommy, it's a spider!" responses instead. The string of eyeballs hanging from a tree was also popular. One little princess was absolutely captivated by the severed arm hanging in the spider web.

The biggest attraction of our house I think is that although we have a lot of scary decorations, we don't go out of our way to scare people or jump out at them. I prefer subtle terror to overt scare tactics any day. Halloween, at its core is about facing our fears and reaping the rewards after all. It's a lot easier to face those fears in a place where you feel trepidation but comfort at the same time. I think the pint-sized lady bugs, spidermen and firefighters would tend to agree.