Is Priscilla staring at the yellow fire hydrant?

No one can ever tell for sure exactly what she is doing or thinking. I can tell you this though, no one should ever have to endure the sound of a nine and a half pound Yorkie barking as if she is a German Shepherd before 7AM. When I watch her bark this early in the morning I seriously question how I could possibly love her as much as I do. Her bark is gruff and loud and pitchy and loud. Her bark makes my ears ring. I tried the dog whisperer tactic of talking softly, standing over her and making her sit. She responds by trying with all her might to sit as she desperately stifles a whimpering noise, eyes pleading, why? Why? Why are you making this so unbearable? She does actually sit there though and guess what happens after I tell her how good she is when I walk away?
Have I gone over her morning ritual as we wait for Ian's bus? How she runs to each of us looking earnestly with imploring eyes, begging us to think about what is going to happen. Once again, the yellow machine will be taking Ian away she seems to be reasoning and WHY ARE YOU HUMANS ALLOWING THIS TO HAPPEN? Every morning like clockwork she does her laps circling the living room. She jumps on Ian's lap letting him pet and cuddle her. Then she runs past my husband throwing him a glance quickly realizing he's the dog whisperers double so why bother trying to pull one over on him. She jumps up on my lap so she can look out the window hoping to catch a glimpse of the bus. Her head darts side to side, first looking out the window, then over to the door then straight at Ian. She repeats this intense looking at least three or six times. She acts as if her life depends on it or our lives depend on it.
As soon as Ian has one foot out the door it's as if she has completed a mission. She looks back only for a quick moment to make sure she has indeed accomplished her job of aggravating each one of us as she runs towards the kitchen stopping before her biscuit jar hoping for a reward.

Have you ever seen a dog faking sleep?

I know she is faking because it is a rare moment when I make the slightest move and she doesn't spring to attention. This is the dog that jumps up (actually I should say hops, because she really does hop, like a bunny she hops! ) from a seemingly sound sleep a half a second before the alarm goes off. Here she lies directly on top my pillow acting like she is sleeping. She thinks maybe I won't disturb her, like I may not kick her hairy butt off of my pillow, if I think she may be sleeping.
Tired of me taking photos of her in the above position, she gets paranoid thinking maybe she really shouldn't be sleeping RIGHT ON TOP of my pillow, so she moves to the foot of the bed, hoping I will leave her alone.

Still hoping I won't "wake" her...I kneel down in front of her to get a better look. There is no denying it now, she's busted!"OK Mommy, I'm awake...look at me, look how I am so upright," she communicates to me telepathically. Only being like her mother I see her eyes are glassy and she really does need to rest.which is verified by her quickly sinking head...There she goes, eyes glazing over...la la land here comes Priscilla. You can see why I love her.

Look at This!!!

This week is finals week for our son and this is what I found when I walked into our spare room last night. Not that I haven't seen this before. It's just that I can't get over how much information the students in his 8th grade class are expected to digest and retain. It seems like a ton.
As my husband sat in the car, about to leave for the golf range, Ian suddenly yelled out the window, "Mom I know my final is important but so is spending quality time with my Dad, so I think I better go with him." I couldn't find an argument for that. I mean exactly how much time is he supposed to study? I trust him to know for himself or at least give him the space to find out through his own experience.
Please say a prayer for all the children who are under pressure these next few weeks as they prepare for their finals. Please pray for them so that they can deal with whatever the outcome may be. They need our support, especially the ones who don't have any support.

How many times have you seen this movie?

blow this photo up by clicking on it for a better view of Johnny's hairless chest
I've never taken a photo of a movie on my TV set before. At least if I have, I don't remember doing so. Maybe I was driven to experimentation out of the sheer boredom of watching snippets of this movie one hundred times in the last five days. To say the people in this house love this movie is an understatement. I'm exaggerating. It's not like I ever watch that much TV anyway. It's just that when I do it has to be something planned ahead of time.
It's not that I don't like pirates. How could anyone not like this movie when Johnny Depp is playing the lead pirate?

"My formula for living is quite simple. I get up in the morning and I go to bed at night. In between, I occupy myself as best I can."

-Cary Grant
I love this quote. Click on his name & you will be linked to a pretty cool website dedicated to Mr. Grant. I was looking for a quote about beds when I found this. It rings so true to me.

Today I bought a new bed for Priscilla-thankfully. Her old bed was fairly disgusting. Our old humidifier would mysteriously leak water and with her bed acting like a giant sponge...well you get the picture!
This new bed is so cozy looking, more like a giant pillow with paisley bright colored quilting. It's big & puffy too.
So acting like a pack mule entering the living room I inadvertently frighten Priscilla as I balance a large mirror, some new linens & Priscilla's bed. She wanted to come and greet me so badly but she trusted her instincts knowing that something about three times the size of her was making a lot of noise inside that plastic bag I was trying to negotiate.
Getting rid of the noisy plastic I figured she would go check out her new digs when I set it down where her old bed used to be. No such luck.
Actually, it's not the first time I have had to return a rejected pet bed. Though I have to say it was always our cat Sylvia who did the rejecting. And they were some plushy warm comfy looking cushiony beds too. Sylvia can be a bit of a control freak though, but that's another story.
Two hours later & Priscilla is still making a giant detour around her new bed every time she either enters or exits the living room. You can almost see her thinking... imagining to herself that if she got too close to that strange kind of psychedelic puffy cloud thing some weird portal may open up & suck her into the bed zone.
Then Ian comes home from school. Immediately seeing the new bed he shouts with glee,"I love this bed!" while promptly lying across it- perhaps reliving the days he used to pretend he was a dog. Right behind him was Priscilla running over quickly curling up into a ball as close to him as she could possibly get.

Closet Space

Yesterday I finally cleaned out my half of the closet. I would say it took me 2 hours to complete the task. I usually clean my side of the closet in the Spring & the Fall. I don't even look at my husbands side. As long as his stuff isn't infringing on my space I have no need to worry about what's happening over yonder.
Let me just state for the record that our closet is fairly pathetic. Mostly I am talking about it's structure & dis-functionality like a few holes, lack of proper shelving, & the air conditioning duct running down its back wall. It also doesn't have any insulation or heat & being that I usually dress in there, I've learned to dress quickly on a cold winter morning.
I would have taken a picture of my closet to show before and after shots documenting my cleaning but I decided I would wait until I actually renovate it- lest I fully acknowledge just how bad it is in print! Ideally we will be building a new closet this year at some point. Until then I thought cleaning it would be the first step in gaining some sense of peace & tranquility since I use it on a daily basis.
Besides, anyone who owns a house knows the list of home improvements are endless & our closet unfortunately, isn't high on the list of priorities.
A girl can dream though, can't she?
With all the press on the importance of de-cluttering one's life & Oprah's recent show on clutter & big butts and everything -http://www.oprah.com/xm/pwalsh/200802/pwalsh_20080201.jhtml-I thought what I discovered while I cleaned must have some important significance or special meaning-something along the lines of a dream interpretation for the closet challenged soul such as myself.

In the cleaning out I took the standard advice of sorting into piles what I would throw out- three long ago expired prescriptions, a pair of mangy slippers, five bras & other assorted under garments along with a pair of prescription eyeglasses I can't imagine ever having worn.
My "save" pile included good batteries, leather gloves, a brand new razor still in its packaging, & 2 fairly new brassieres-pretty cool huh? It was like going shopping without having to leave the house.
The really good news is I wound up with a substantial give away pile that I could donate to The Society of Saint Vincent De Paul.
Oh I almost forgot to mention something very important-I threw out four pairs of 15 year old socks. Up until yesterday I felt like since they didn't have any holes in them, I should keep them. But you know, they were so uncomfortable!
Ahhh...sweet freedom.
"Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own."-Bruce Lee

Feeling like Einstein

Have you ever found something that was right in front of you but you had absolutely no idea it was even there until right after you discovered it? I just had this wondrous experience. I was looking out my window thinking I'd take some pictures of the snow at night-just to see how they'd come out. When I looked at them I was amazed to see the flash had illuminated the sleet as it was falling. What you see in these photographs were not seen by the naked eye. If I had not thought of doing this I would have missed out on everything you see here. The extra funny thing is I actually had a thought that something mystical would happen. You can't see Padre Pia from this photo below, but the little golden arch that you can see is actually a small shrine my neighbor has of the Saint Padre Pia. It is a statue of the saint standing inside of a glass house that is lit up with a string of Christmas lights. When I realized Padre would be in the photo I thought maybe he would send me a sign. If you click on this photo it will get larger & you can see what my son thinks are faces inside the sleet, quite possibly snow fairies sent by Padre himself.

Animal House

This weekend we had the pleasure of a lovely house guest. She's a pretty gal that goes by the name of Nipper. She has the sweetest face & a very friendly disposition.

Not that Sylvia appreciated Nippers good nature-No, not in the slightest...

When Nipper wasn't sitting on her perch by the warm radiator,

we could often find her hanging out under the kitchen table.

Or perhaps doing a nice sun salutation...

Or mostly just looking around trying to find out what everybody else was doing.

Priscilla spent the first day climbing up the length of my body trying to get to a safe spot on top of my head. I think at one point for like a split second, she did.

By the second day all of this made her very sleepy.

In fact, she was so sleepy she seemed to get to a point where she was like, "OK, whatever... I'm going to just go & lay down over here by my masters elbow where I should be safe & catch me a little shut- eye."

Nipper looked forlorn, like she was wondering why the grey cat was hissing at her & the little dog was running in the opposite direction. She noticed the humans were nice enough, but what was with these animals in this house?

Meanwhile, what could Sylvia possibly be thinking?

If only I could watch more TV than it might seem worth it.

My Christmas tree is only half decorated. This is because I have a string of lights I need to put on the bottom before we can finish putting the rest of the ornaments up. Only I keep getting interrupted by all these other things I have to fix first-things I can't put off fixing- like my car, my bank account, my body, & our TV debacle that has been going on since 2 weeks before Thanksgiving.
What is even more strange is that like clockwork, our TV service always goes on the blink just as we sit down to watch our favorite comedy series. So after about 2 hours of troubleshooting on the phone with the technician (as I simultaneously tried my hardest not to act like an asshole & simply surrender to the fact that we do not have TV) we fixed it.

The funny part was right before it was fixed, my husband had to follow my instructions according to what the guy was telling me over the phone. It was something like me saying, "Look on the back of the TV, find the wire coming out of it & follow the wire, then take that wire & plug it into the box." after which my husband replied quite happily, " Oh really, no shit- thanks for the tip, because I didn't know that's how I would find it-making my son laugh heartily. I thought I was just being real clear about my instructions. Apparently the technician found it funny too-because he heard all this & I heard him trying real hard not to laugh. The thing is, I didn't let on that I knew he was trying not to laugh because I don't know if you have ever been in a situation where you are really tired & you know if you start laughing you just won't be able to stop & I just couldn't risk that- because I needed my TV fixed. Have you ever had a plant outside in your garden & it looks small in the garden & then you bring it inside the house & it looks gigantic, barely fitting on the bench you sat it on last winter? This is what happened with our rosemary plant this Fall. It's so big I wound up putting it on the floor instead. The same thing that happened with the rosemary plant happened with the Christmas tree we just purchased last weekend. It's not just hitting the ceiling either. You actually have to go all the way around it to get around it. This makes it almost impossible not to bump into it as you are walking by causing hundreds of needles to fall off it. So we are all trying our best not to disturb the tree for this very reason.

Priscilla & Sylvia don't seem to mind the needles all over the floor at all though.

Priscilla seemingly unaware of the Christmas tree, the TV debacle or the giant Rosemary plant.

Sylvia waiting patiently for me to finish my Christmas cards hoping I will soon be having some pretzels with sour cream. If she acts like a statue, I may not notice her-so when I leave the room she can lick every last bit of sour cream from the bowl.

sick at home & stir crazy

If the TV service breaks, it will happen when you have a sick child at home.
So yesterday when the FIOS guy came to fix our TV service, Priscilla acted like she normally does by ferociously barking, running in circles, jumping as high as she can, feverishly sniffing the person & wagging her stubby tail. & everytime this happens I think, this is the last straw-I am definitely going to train her. This behaviour is unacceptable! I have to start reading Cesar again. Then the person leaves & I promptly forget about it only to be embarrassed again at a later date. Another viscious circle thingy in my life with the dog.

But you know, the FIOS guy was pretty cool bending down to pet her, trying to calm her. God knows what happened when I went upstairs while he worked. I did hear our cat Sylvia start her extremely loud mewing from the porch. Usually we leave her in there, but ever since her surgery to repair a large gash in her neck, she has taken full advantage of our sympathies allowing her more freedom in other parts of the house. Her mewing must have started to grate on FG's nerves because he relented & let her out of the porch. Can you imagine what he was thinking trying to work with Priscilla sniffing at his every body part & the cat's nagging mewing in his ear?

I guess it wasn't too bad because not only did he fix our service, he hooked up our TV in the basement,(even though I discouraged him from doing so) gave us a new remote & went through a fairly long tutorial about the remote to both my son & myself. Not that any of it will stick to my technically challenged brain- which is why I asked my son to be present while he instructed.

So the FIOS guy says to me, "Have you ever read Cesar's way?" as Priscilla is trying to have her way with the poor mans arm. Thankfully he caught on right away & put an immediate stop to it saving me from further embarrasment. I told him I did read some of it, but left out the part that I actually bought it for my husband as a gift from Priscilla herself last Christmas. By the way, my husband is a smart man who read the book, followed Cesar's instructions & now has a dog that actually listens to him-mostly, at least more so than she does to me.

So later on I find my cell phone has a message from Verizon informing me that the repair man cannot make the appointment for the day & I should call back to reschedule. When I tell my son about the message I ask him, "So who do you think that was that came over here then?" Of course he was like, "Mom you're creeping me out" Then I say, "maybe it didn't even happen-maybe we imagined the whole thing, maybe it was someone else & that's why he stayed so long." To which he replies, shaking the new remote at me, "Is this real Mom, does this new remote look real to you?"