Puppy Wake-Up Calls...

The rough things about puppies that even on days off, I find myself up and awake by 7:30 a.m. Take this morning, for example. Having a friend in town to visit, I took today off from work to spend time with her. Not getting up on a Monday morning is always a luxury. Except...I am up.

Granted, I did get to sleep in past my normal weekday wake-up-time of 6:03 a.m. But I was awoken by a furious licking on the ear at 6:13 a.m. because Rory needed to go. I got up, took them outside then shepherded them back to bed, hoping to steal a little more sleep. I got about 30 minutes before Rory decided that was enough and started nipping at my toes under the covers.

You might ask why I don't let them out and go back to bed. Well, I've tried this but it results in them disappearing outside for a while and then, when they realize they're 'alone' in the house, they start yipping and trying to find me. Since I have a guest, I try to keep the noise to a minimum. Hence...here I am at 7:45 a.m.

It would help if we'd gone to bed earlier. However, last night was one of those nights where we just hung out watching silliness on TV and got sucked in to something silly.

Last night's something silly was poodle grooming. Yes, you read that right. There was a show on The Learning Channel about a poodle grooming contest. Have you ever seen what people do to their poodles? They basically decide what the poodle is going to look like and then they dye and trim the poodle to match their design. Last night, there was a buffalo, a lion, a roller derby poodle and a camel. The owners dye them every colour imaginable and then on the day of the contest, the poor multi-coloured creatures stand there in front of an audience while they're shaved, cut and groomed to ridiculous proportions.

I admit, the poodles looked pretty interesting after they were groomed. I mean, that's some commitment right there. What I was amazed at is that the poodles didn't seem to mind. They seriously must be the most patient and docile dogs on the planet. They stood there, amiably letting their owners prod and pull them. It was pretty amazing. Given that Rory and Sookie hate being bathed, I can't imagine even thinking about grooming them. Then again, aside from sticking a hot dog bun on them, there's really not much you can do to groom a dachshund...thankfully.

We also watched the Tony Awards last night since Green Day's American Idiot was nominated and I wanted to see if it was as bad as I feared. It turned out it's not...bad, per se. It's just not what I associate with Green Day. I'd rather just watch the band sing than a bunch of mugging 'slackers'. Also, given that the American Idiot character on the album is an apathetic slacker, those kids representing him with their choreography sure do have a lot of energy.

Aside from the 'bad' TV, it's been a fun weekend. We saw "The A-Team" yesterday since we both were fans of the terrible '80's TV show in our youth. I have to say, it was a lot of fun. It wasn't cheesy the way the '80's show was but rather tongue-in-cheek about its own ridiculousness and there's something quite entertaining about that. It's not on a par with, say, Jane Austen but sometimes you need a little mindless escape or, in the case of "The A-Team" a complete mindless escape.

Today, we're planning on just staying local since she flies home tonight. We didn't manage to get the household stuff done for which I'd enlisted her help orginally. We did get the broken ceiling fan off the ceiling but the wiring was far more complex than we felt equipped to handle so I'm waiting for my dad- my household hero- to come down and help since he nicely offered. Also, we decided that the kitchen faucet was not going to be easy to I have to wait on that too.

This means my Thursday hootenanny might be cancelled. With no kitchen light or fan and water that squirts from the sink if a cloth is not wrapped around the joint, I'm not sure entertaining is a good idea. I'll be sad but I'm hoping we can do a happy hour instead or something instead since we should do something to celebrate, uh, I mean recognize the fact that we didn't go to the conference at work.

Which is good because otherwise, it would mean today, I'd be on my way to the conference, the idea of being forced to smile and be social for 3 days, non-stop weighing heavily on my shoulders. Instead, we're going to go to Costco, hang out and play with puppies.

I'd say I got a fair deal in the end, wouldn't you?

Happy Monday!