Derailed…..

I had a completely different topic (a work related topic) in mind for today, but I have been derailed. And here is how it happened.

Once a month, sometimes every other week, the dogs go to camp for the day. Doggie daycare. Camp Bow Wow. We love them. It is a great place, run and staffed by great people. So off the dogs go today to camp. Peace and quiet around here. In typical “co-parenting” style, I drop them off and Michael picks them up.

Michael comes home with the dogs and I ask, “how did they do?”. And I get a report that seems entirely backwards. Solo did great. And then the staff tells Michael that Annabelle was “snippy” with the other dogs. A sense of failure and shame as a parent sweeps over me. And then I remember, it was something close to 97 degrees today. And maybe even dogs are cranky when they are hot. And anyone, even a dog, can have a bad day.

When have you been shamed by your pets?
Today

How does the heat affect you?
I melt, like that piece of chocolate you snuck into the movies and then forgot it was in your bag.

Snippy Girl….

Weekend Update (and excuse for cute pictures).

The weekend was full of food, friends and good times. Friday night, after another heat warning and humid kind of day, we corralled the dogs in the car and headed out to pick up a pizza. When we got home, Annabelle went to the front door and Solo took a walking tour of the flowerbeds in the neighborhood.

Saturday brought the end to our Harry Potter journey. And I am not ashamed to admit that I cried like a baby. Then (and I am NOT ashamed to admit this either) it was NKOTB and BSB!!! It was incredible fun.

Sunday was more fun at the gym, a trip to Borders (a waste of time since their idea of liquidation is still more expensive than Amazon) and then more good food with great friends.

It was back to work on Monday (and the gym) with a laptop that amuses itself by corrupting my files. Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

img 20110722 00034

img 20110722 00033

The week ahead

Will Solo eat? Will either of us hear about new job opportunities? Will the heat break? And what will happen in court? All this and more, this week.

A tail of two Solo’s

I will have to get to Solo’s adoption story soon. It is a tear-jerker. But in the meantime, here is a tail (get it) of two Solo’s. Solo is either awake and engaged in some sort of barking or whining, or he is what we call Sleepy Solo. We like (very much) Sleepy Solo. He will pop up awake, lift his head, and then visibly forget what he was going to do. Our comments usually include “there is nothing going on in there” or “not a thought in that head”. And then he will finally put his head back down and go back to sleep. It is absolutely adorable.

Strange form of math

I have mentioned I work from home. I have no “office” to go to. No desk in a building somewhere. Well, I take that back. I have access to a building. But it is 90 miles away and cost $16 a day to park. No thank you. I spend more than 50% of my time on conference calls. I play a very odd, and mostly unsuccessful, game. At the beginning of each call I evaluate the amount of time I will spend speaking and the amount of time I will be on mute. And then I look at Solo (bark) and try to estimate the minutes within the same time-frame that he will spend sleeping or barking. Usually the game score goes like this: 45 minutes of mute = 45 minutes of sleeping. 10 minutes of talking = 50 minutes of awake and BARKING. It must some very exotic form of calculus that I never learned. My mother warned me that I would need more math.