Friday Five: Seasonal Edition

Over at RevGalBlogPals, Will Smama writes a Friday Five that The Typist will enjoy (I'm sitting this one out):

Please tell us your least favorite/most annoying seasonal....

1) dessert/cookie/family food: I'm tempted to go with Will Smama and say ribbon candy (see her reasoning). But I think for me, it's probably.... no, wait, I'm going with ribbon candy after all. It's pretty, but not really what I'd call edible. Which is so not nice.

2) beverage (seasonal beer, eggnog w/ way too much egg and not enough nog, etc...): Hmm. I actually like most holiday beverages... cider, wassail, Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash (mainly because of the Holiday Hawk)... but I will say egg nog has to be just right for me to enjoy it, which usually involves mixing some of the dairy store version in with the liquor store version.

3) tradition (church, family, other): It used to be that my hometown church insisted upon doing Christmas Eve Communion the slow way -- everybody come kneel, use your Jesus shot glass, wait for a dismissal -- which, thanks to the size of the crowd gathered, kept the service running at nearly two hours. Far too long for an 8-year-old nephew who knows he gets to open presents as soon as this thing is over. Also far too long for the adults to avoid giggling over a gassy stranger seated nearby. Now, though, they have mercifully switched to intinction -- rip it 'n' dip it, y'all! Body/blood combo! Keep it moving, thanks very much!

4) decoration: Santa Claus, Father Christmas, whatever you want to call him. Hairy old men everywhere, even on top of some Christmas trees (yeah, I know, they're from the Druids anyway, so there's no real reason to put a star up there, but still...)

5) gift (received or given): I'm thankful that the Big Mouth Billy Bass appears to have run its course in our family. I still haven't actually touched one myself.

BONUS: SONG/CD that makes you want to tell the elves where to stick it:
"Santa Baby." EWWWWwwww. Ew, eww, ewwwwww.

Candy Cane Monday (Thursday, actually)

We got tagged by Zorra for this meme! She invited both of us to play. I'm going to let The Typist go first.

So, Typist, name five of your favorite all time gifts, either given or gotten:

1. This one's a little bit of both giving and getting: for our 10th anniversary, The Alpha and I gave each other a trip to Alaska. (Far better than one of those bits of jewelry the diamond cartels want you to buy, at least as far as I'm concerned. And definitely more memorable.)

2. The portrait of Cub that my sister painted. She has a truly amazing talent. Nobody else could have done it so well.

3. A thick book of children's stories given to me by a retired school teacher who was one of the saints of my childhood church. The book is now almost 100 years old, and Miss Gertrude used to read out of it to her students. By the time I got it in the 1980s, the back cover and spine were gone. I don't keep it out with other books because of its condition -- I keep it in a fire box. But it's very interesting to read and see how harsh many children's stories used to be!

4. Giving The Alpha an electric chainsaw for Christmas turned out to be loads of fun, even though he figured it out early. Or maybe it was fun because he figured it out early. He was so excited that I just enjoyed watching him react instead of being miffed that he guessed the surprise. It was amazingly cute!

5. Rufus, a stuffed toy dog, the first gift The Alpha ever gave me. Also known as Fake Dog, ever since we adopted Real Dogs.


Okay, now my turn to name five of my favorite all time gifts, either given or gotten:

1. SQUIRRELY! I don't have very much of squirrely left now--just a tail pelt--but I still like it. And I think I may be getting another one for Christmas.

2. I love giving thumb-havers poppy kisses. I've got the fastest tongue in the West (whatever that means).

3. My canvas teddy bear. I'm not allowed to play with it anymore because I tore all the stuffing out, but Aunt Lidna gave it to me after my hip surgery. It was very nice of her to do.

4. My friend Tux gave me his ropey Kong because he didn't play with it much. It's an Outside Toy. I really like it, and I even share it with The Boy. Sometimes we play tug-of-war with it. I usually win.

5. The Typist is kind of embarrassed that she knitted me a scarf, but I really do like it. She says that her knitting homework just happened to fit me, not that she did it on purpose. But I like it no matter what she says.

Does anybody else want to play this game?
Tell us if you do!

Too busy!

I got tagged by Zorra, but The Typist was out late, so we can't play tonight. She came home way too late, smelling like church and the band (I know what the band smells like, because they were all over here a couple of weeks ago). It gets busy that way for her before Christmas.

Maybe tomorrow night I can really blog!

Dog Hero Profiles: Thunder and Haven

This dog may look very familiar, but it's not me.

This, dear readers, is Thunder, Dog Hero, with his thumb-haver Carlos. Thunder is a working dog who does all Carlos's looking for him. He gets to wear an official Guide Dog harness and everything.


Our good friend Lily knows Carlos and Thunder from her work (stuff she does when she's not here petting us). Lily says Thunder is really great, and we know she's got to be right about that.

What happened to Thunder and Carlos is really scary. They were with Carlos's girlfriend Diane and her guide dog Haven when a car came right at them. The car hit Carlos and Thunder, but Haven, being very smart and doing a Good Job, pulled Diane out of the way. So Haven is a hero for that.

Thunder's hero bit came when he was already hurt. He got himself back to the library they all had just left. In special emergency dog language, he told the people who work there that there had been an accident. They called 911 for him to get Carlos some help.

Carlos and Thunder are injured, but they're slowly getting better. Thunder may have to retire from his job, but he will live with Carlos no matter what (and for that, Carlos is a hero, too).

And guess what? Carlos and Diane got married this weekend! Hooray!

I hope they let Thunder and Haven have just a teeny bit of cake...

What the vet thinks

Hey everybody! Guess what? The vet thinks I have another big word. I don't know what it means, but it doesn't matter 'cause I really don't have time to be bothered with that kind of thing. There are things to sniff, people to lick, The Boy to chase. I'm a busy dog.

What it really means for me is that I get lots more peanut butter every day now! (So what if it's wrapped around pills? It's still a nice treat.)

Here are the pills I take when we get up in the morning:


And here are the pills I take when it's time for breakfast:


And here are the pills I take when I have my supper:


The Alpha and The Typist have been saying, "Most people make car payments. We make dog payments." I don't know what that means, either, but I'm not very curious. Curiosity is for cats.

So, thanks to all of you who are saying doggy prayers! The Typist says to keep it up, and we'll know something in a month.

A prize from Mindy

The Typist here, reporting that I got a lovely prize in the mail when we came back home from our weekend adventure with the dogs! Thank you, Mindy!

Here it is:


And guess what? It's reversible, too!


How great is that? Oh, and it smells nice, too.

I'm going to have to wear purple to work as much as possible this week so I can show off my nifty-cool headband that my fellow RevGal made. Thanks again, Mindy!

We went places!

Friday we knew something was up because we got dressed in our bandannas and harnesses. And the thumb-havers started putting stuff in our car.

The Boy decided to see what was in there. Usually he tries not to touch our car when he stands up to look in, but here he is, caught with his paw on the shiny paint. I don't think he's supposed to do that.

So, sure enough, they put our beds in the back seat and we got all buckled up and went for a big, long ride!

We rode and rode and rode and rode, and The Typist played with her sticks and yarn and The Alpha drove, and right about time to eat, we got to Mamaw's house!

The Boy had never met Mamaw before. He liked her, but he wasn't sure we were supposed to stay at her house for very long. He kept whining in his soft little shouldn't-
we-be-doing-
something whine.

But we just settled in and spent the night there and everything. And in the morning Mamaw even let us have some eggs for breakfast. (She wanted to give us some gravy, too, but The Alpha and The Typist said that probably wasn't a good idea. But Grendel says gravy is love, and I think that may be the case. Even though The Typist says it wasn't the same kind of gravy that Grendel has.)

Then the thumb-havers who call us their Granddogs came to Mamaw's house, and we followed their car in our car and we rode and rode some more, and got to this place where we got to stay in a motel! Once again, we were Very Good Dogs. We were so Very Good that we even stayed in the room alone for a little while, with our very own TV to watch (there was a wolf pack documentary on PBS).

And we also got to go on a big, big walk downtown, where we met lots of people who loved us and said how beautiful we are. Some of them even let us come in their shops. In one shop that smelled a lot like rawhide chews, I saw this other dog that looked just like me inside this little window near the floor. The Typist laughed when I tried to go behind that shiny little window that she called a "shoe mirror" to get closer to that other dog like me. Funny, I sniffed and sniffed and never could smell that other dog.

Here we are waiting with The Alpha outside a shop we couldn't go inside. This is how well we watched the door where The Typist went -- as soon as she came back out the door she took this picture. You can't really see in the picture, but there was a bubble machine blowing on that street, and I wasn't even scared. (I didn't like bubbles when I was littler.)

We also saw a Real Wolf! On a leash! while we were downtown. The Alpha and The Typist seemed pleased to see him, but they wouldn't let us get very close. I think maybe it was because the Real Wolf! was growling. And I think they probably made the right decision for us. They take very good care of us.

Near the end of our walk, The Typist saw a yarn store and wanted to go in there. We were ready to wait outside with The Alpha, but the shop owner saw us and said, "Oh, we're dog friendly! Please come in!" and gave The Alpha a place to sit and learned our names and everything. The Typist got some more yarn to put around her sticks.

Then we walked up the big hill and we were Very Tired Dogs. But we'd had a Very Good Day and our beds were in the motel room all ready for us. So we had a Very Good Nap. Then today we came back home. We had fun, but we like being back here, too.

BellyDog

So, I got another ride to the vet today. I stayed all day.

And after a while they started messing with me, but it wasn't that bad. No needles this time, and they didn't make me take a nap, either, but they played with my belly.

And see? I got a special belly haircut!


The Typist got another picture of it, too, but she cropped it because she said it was indecent. And also because one of my eyes looked like it had turned into a flashlight.


I'm not sure what the deal is, but I'd like all my RevGalDogPals (and CatPals, too) to pray. The Alpha and The Typist seem worried.

They should really just have a good roll in the grass. I know that makes me feel better.

DogBlogs galore!

I hadn't even gotten around to having The Typist add Tanner and Grendel and Rowan to my sidebar when Josie and Boudreaux got a blog, too!

The Boy and I met Josie and Boudreaux back in June. They didn't really know what to do with us, but we had a good time in their nice shady yard. Plus, they're fluffy, so that was interesting.

I love this picture of Josie.

Or Boudreaux.

I can't tell them apart very well.

Vet words

Dang it. The Alpha's been talking to the vet again. And of course then he talks to The Typist, who gets all down in the dumps. They're using big words like "ultrasound" and "biopsy" and "antibiotics."

Seriously, I feel fine.
Really, I do.

I don't know what the big deal's all about.

Backyard Bulletin

Hi, Internet! Sorry it's been so long since I blogged. The Typist has had busy evenings. Here's what's been going on lately:

• The Alpha dug up a big long patch of grass in our backyard a few weeks ago, and he won't let The Boy and me dig in it. It's supposed to turn into something called a "garden." I have a feeling we're not supposed to dig in it when that happens, either.
• I think I get to go for a ride tomorrow! ...but it may be the kind with a needle at the other end of it.
• I have some new blogging DogPals: Grendel and Tanner. Go say hi!
• The Typist had a birfday. She did not give dogs any cake. I think that is a shame.
  
• For some reason, The Alpha and The Typist have gotten the crate out again. I think it's okay, but The Boy is really scared of it, and he's not telling anybody why. He won't even go in there for treats very often. When they say "crate," I go get in the crate, but The Boy gets under the bed or the coffee table.
• We got new toys this week: a big bouncy jack with a rope through the middle, and a regular rope. We like 'em!

So, what have you been doing?