Autumnal Winds...

It's starting to have an autumn feel out there. The wind has been gusty for the past couple of days and it's been blowing a lot of the leaves off the trees. Even though it's barely September, the dried leaves crackle beneath your feet as though it's properly autumn. The strong winds feel wonderful as they whip around my face, blowing my hair into manageable tangles and surrounding me with a tornado of fallen leaves.

Unfortunately, the winds aren't so kind in other ways. When I came out of work on Friday, there was the cutest little creature lying on the sidewalk. It sort of looked like a baby alien, in a fetal position with little paws making little begging motions as they curled under its chin.

I didn't know what it was, to be honest. It was bald with a little mouse-like face, a rats tail but bigger than a baby mouse or rat. I ended up having to take a picture and my sister identified it as a baby squirrel.

It was hard seeing it so helpless like that. The wind had clearly blown it out of its nest and it must have fallen twenty feet at the very least. It was going to die, I knew that. But the optimist in me wanted to hope that maybe it was going to be fine so I scooped it up on a little piece of paper and gently laid it on softer ground and covered it partially with leaves, just in case its mother came looking for it.

Sadly, today, it's still there but it's no longer moving. It clearly succumbed to the shock of its fall. I think I might have to give it a proper burial. It was so tiny and helpless. Combined with the bunnies from this weekend, it was a sad sort of weekend for tiny newborn creatures.

It's interesting though that there are baby creatures around. I was always under the delusion that most mammal babies were born in the spring. Obviously not.

Yet even though it's starting to feel like autumn out there, I have to be careful not to get sucked into the delusion. This is the Midwest. In the Midwest, one day it may be a beautiful 70 degree day with a night temperature low of 50 degrees. Then, the next day, temperatures will rocket up to 95 degrees with a high humidity rate. This is why it snows sometimes in May and we have 85 degree days in December. You just can't predict it. In a way, that's fun. In other ways, when you're ready for the oranges and browns of Autumn and the hinted promise of winter snow, it's a bit of a disappointment when it's too hot for a jacket and the Halloween pumpkins turn brown and mushy in the heat.

Still, I'm starting to look forward to the cooler, crisper nights when it feels nice to sit outside, hands wrapped around a cup of pumpkin tea and smell the leaf fires that people are having in their yards.

I'm curious to see how the puppies handle the cooler temperatures. They were born in December so they have known winter but mostly, in their older puppy years, they've known only warm days with hot nights where they get hot in the sun. I have a feeling they're going to be bit babies when it comes to getting cold. Rory has already taken to crawling under the bedcovers on nights where I turn the air conditioning off and let the window fans bring in the cool night air. She's a bit of a bed hog too. She slowly worms her way over so that she's stretched horizontally across the bed. Since she's a dachshund and is quite long, this is quite a lot of space.

I'm trying to debate if I'll need to get the girls little coats for the winter. I tend to be opposed to dog clothes. They might look cute but it's weird to put clothes on a dog. Coats, on the other hand, aren't really clothes as much as necessities when it gets too cold and you have a shivering dog on your hands.

I probably shouldn’t look quite so far ahead. That would mean winter and my mother, who reads my blog, is genetically opposed to winter. It's best not to remind her that it's coming. She knows. She's already muttering about it even though it's several months away. I keep telling her to embrace autumn first in all it's apple-y goodness but she finds it hard to enjoy autumn because it means winter is not far behind.

Still, for me, I can't wait until autumn is officially here and I am able to burn my pumpkin spice candles, drink pumpkin tea and wish I liked pumpkin pie instead of just pumpkin flavoured things.

In the meantime, I'll enjoy the fact that even though it's still summer, autumn is cheating a little and barging its way in, forcing the leaves to fall a little early and the heat to ebb back a little. It's nice to have almost-chilly nights where the cool air makes sleeping a little easier, even if it does mean sharing my bedcovers with a dog with a cold nose.

Now, if her sister decides to sleep under the covers too, we might have a space issue.

Happy Wednesday!

Naughty Puppy Weekends...

It seems that, no matter how long the weekend, the weekend is never long enough.

I had big plans for this weekend. I left work a little early on Friday so I could hit the road with the puppies and The Interloper to head back to my parents before the traffic got too bad.

Apparently everyone else had the same idea. By the time we arrived, it was only a little sooner than we normally would have if I'd stayed at work all afternoon.

Nevertheless, it was still nice to get there. My parents are still in the UK so I was not only returning the Odious One to his home but also doing a spot of house sitting for the weekend. Since my parents don't get back until Tuesday, my sister is going to take care of Odie until they get back.

I had big plans for house sitting. I planned on having lunch with a friend on Saturday and then my sister and I were going to check out the very first 'fine dining' restaurant in my parent's town. It just opened. Given that my sister is now obsessed with Top Chef and I'm obsessed with food, we had decided to go see how really fine this dining was. It's a new restaurant, owned and operated by someone with whom my sister went to school. He trained in New York and is operating a 'big city restaurant with a small town feel' or something like that. His concept is farm to table which is very popular in big city restaurants. I think that's a fine concept...

...it's just, well, my parents live in Northern Indiana. In January when the ground is a frozen tundra, farm to table might be a wee bit of a hard concept to execute without having access to a big city selection of fresh produce suppliers. I salute the concept but am curious to see how it's executed.

It turned out that our dining plans were in vain, anyway. Even though the restaurant boasts "Walk In's welcome," we were turned away because there was a large party being hosted there and they were "full." Since it's only been open about two weeks and it was a Saturday night before 6 p.m. in a town who isn't used to "fine dining," we were a little perturbed. In addition, unlike most big city restaurants, this one does not politely post a menu on the window or outside so potential diners can, at least, see if it's worth making a reservation for the future or trying to 'walk in' on another night. Also, the website for a restaurant is not up and running. Perhaps I've watched too many Restaurant Wars on Top Chef but so far, this restaurant is not exactly winning me over. Since we weren't the only rejectees, we didn't feel so bad.

My sister and I ended up at a bar and grill type place in town. It was a nice evening in the end. It's rare when my sister and I get to hang out and we had a nice time grousing about being rejected from the other place.

Of course, no day is without stress. This weekend turned out to be quite stressful with the puppies.

Prior to my lunch on Saturday, I had gone to figure out where to put the puppies' crate for when I went out. I happened to glance out the window and saw little Rory running around in the farmer's field next to my parent's house. Given that my parents have a very large, very fenced-in portion of the yard set aside for the dogs and given that the farmer's field was not part of this area, I was a little alarmed. My parents live on a main highway. I think I've mentioned I've seen more than one dog get hit on that road. Needless to say, I flew into overprotective pet-parent mode and managed to coax Rory towards me by running out to her and bringing her inside to inspect for escape routes.

I thought I found it. Turns out, I had found one of them. There was another one I missed. Two more escapes later and I finally succeeded in stopping Rory from going AWOL again. I don't think she wanted to run away. I think she was just tracking the scent of all the wildlife that finds its way onto my parents' rural property.

Even though I got the fence fixed, it was still a bit of a worry for a while as to whether I really had managed to secure the fence.

It turned out I had. By Sunday morning, I stopped worrying.

I spent Sunday outside in the beautiful autumn-like day, writing on my little netbook. It was lovely. I took a break in the afternoon and went for a walk around my parent's large yard. I returned to the dogs' area and I heard the girls playing with a squeaky toy. "Funny," I thought. "I don't remember them bringing a squeaky toy that looked like that."

Turns out, it wasn't a squeaky toy. It was a very newborn baby bunny. They had found a nest. I managed to rescue the poor thing from the mouth of Sookie. I found somewhere out of the puppies' reach and I made a quick makeshift nest while I went to deal with the dogs. I hadn't thought about there being more.

There were more. Six more to be exact. Each time I rescued one, there was another waiting to be hunted by the puppies. I don't think they actually meant to kill them. Only one baby was bleeding and it was clear that it wasn't going to make it. The others were just carried gently in the puppies mouths as they showed each other their prize. I managed to rescue six of the seven.

I made their makeshift burrow cosy but I had a dreaded feeling they weren't going to make it. I made my brother, when he visited, come and look with me a few hours later. Miraculously, they were all alive.

In the end, my sister decided she would try to take them home and feed them with a dropper in hopes that they lived. However, I did some reading on the internet and discovered that while the intentions to save them were good, it was very unlikely, given their really young age, that they'd make it more than a day.

We decided to try to relocate them to a spot close to their old warren but out of the reach of the puppies. The best hope was that their mother would find them and adapt to the new location. The internet said that the scent of humans wouldn't bother them and the best hope to keep them alive was for their mother to keep taking care of them.

As of this afternoon, they were still alive. There were small signs that, perhaps, the mother came back last night. I'm hoping she's found them and will be ok with their new home. They were so tiny.

I was mad at the puppies for a while. It was hard seeing them hunt such tiny creatures. I know that's what they do; it's the dachshund nature. Yet it was still difficult to carry those tiny, pathetic, newborn creatures in the palm of my hand and not know if they would make it.

I'm hoping that they do. My sister is going to check on them. I'm hoping for the best.

Today, fortunately, the only puppy problems I had was Rory discovering the frogs in my parent's pond and trying to jump in the pond after them. She got her tummy wet but, fortunately, refrained from diving all the way in.

All in all, the weekend was not nearly the relaxing retreat I had in mind. Still, I got a lot of writing done, I rescued some baby bunnies (I hope) and I got to have some good company. I'd say, overall, that wasn't a bad way to spend three days.

Although next time, I think I'd rather it remained bunny-free.

Happy Tuesday!

Men and Women: Perceptive differences

I'm so glad tomorrow is Friday. It's been a long week, as I said yesterday. Fortunately, it's also going to be a long weekend which should make up for it.

It's been a quite social week for me. I've had lunches out and a couple of dinners. This is unusual for me. Generally, I tend to go home after work and stay there with the pups but I had a friend come into town this week and he wanted to have dinner as well as a coworker who wanted to get together and chat.

Both dinners were nice albeit different. I suppose that's the difference between dining with a male friend and a female friend. With male friends, most of the conversation tends to resolve around safe topics like pop culture, meaning movies, television and music. With female friends you tend to discuss more...real things. Things like men, work, life and everything in between.

It was interesting to contrast the two evenings. Tonight's was actually short because I had an eye appointment beforehand. It turned out to be one of those marathon appointments where you feel like you're going a little crazy because the doctor makes you wait forever in the exam room. Why is it they never leave you anything to do in there? There's always stacks of magazines in the main waiting room but, for the most part, the minute you pick one up, your name is called or you're handed a clipboard full of forms to fill out. Then they send you back, you do the initial tests and such...and then you wait. And you wait. And you wait. And there's nothing to do, no magazines, nothing. I usually check my facebook account on my phone but that takes two minutes. The rest of the time, I twiddle my thumbs and look around. In tonight's case, they made me take out my contact lenses, naturally so it was rather blurry to look around the room.

By the time the doctor came in, I was climbing the walls and also a little anxious because I was going to be late to meet my coworker. I endured the usual tests of, "which is better...one or two? Three or four? Five or six? Seven or eight?" and so on. I also have to look at my doctor's ear a lot while he looks at my eyeballs. He's a really nice doctor but he repeats everything so he always says, "look at my ear. My ear." Then, "focus on my ear. My ear." He doesn't have bad ears but sometimes I think it'd be fun if eye doctors wore fun ears for you to look at like goblin ears or elephant ears. It'd make it more fun to look at them.

By the time he was done with me, I still had to withstand the whole, "pick out frames for your glasses," thing. Since my contact prescription hadn't changed but my glasses prescription was a couple of years old, I figured it'd be nice to get new frames since my insurance gives us a great deal on them. That took forever because the glasses-picking-out-assistant-lady was very adamant I pick five frames I liked. It was actually nifty because they have this system where they take pictures of you in all the different frames so you can see what you look like in each pair, side-by-side, to see which ones looks best. It was nifty...but slow.

By the time I met my friend, she almost had to leave to meet her husband. It was a quick, but nice, dinner.

Last night's dinner was much different. It was also nice but since it was with a male friend, it was very heavy on the movie/TV talk and less on the, "So, what's going on in your life?" front.

The difference between male and females was also more fun to notice when we went walking around the mall last night after our meal. My male friend likes to walk so since we were eating at a place in the mall, we decided to take a walk. When we got to Bath and Body Works, I noticed they had their Halloween/Autumn scent collection. I got excited. You know I love Autumn. My male friend asked if I wanted to go in. I said no because it wasn't time to actually buy the scented stuff yet since it was still summer.

My male friend was perplexed. You see, he couldn't understand how I could get excited about the autumn stuff but not want to buy it.

For the most part, my female friends would totally understand that. It's not about the fact that I want to buy the scented things. It's that they're there which means the promise of Autumn is not far behind and when summer fades and Autumn begins, the scents and reminders of the season will be there.

It sounds like I'm stereotyping, I suppose but it's just something I've noticed over the years. Women tend to shop as though it's exciting, it's something meaningful. To buy new clothes is to make a change, to do something new, to make a statement. To men, buying new clothes is often an obligation- "I need shirts therefore I have to shop for them."

I used to have a friend who, on Tuesdays, when the new DVD's were released, would go to Best Buy or Costco and buy them all. He'd spend at least $100 because he wanted them. In contrast, it would take me days or even weeks to decide if I really needed a movie that I really loved. To him, building up his movie collection en masse was just something he did. To me, buying a single movie was a commitment. It was not only about spending the money but about needing to know if I loved the movie enough to own it.

I suppose that sort of mentality can be applied to all areas of life. I know there are a lot of exceptions to my generalizing but, in my opinion, with two brothers, a father and a lot of male friends, there are similiarities that do lead to stereotypes, just as I can say the same about myself and the other females I know.

One thing I do know is that life is more interesting with such different perspectives on things. I don't think life would be the same without them. It's something to ponder, anyway.

Happy Friday and have a wonderful long weekend!

Missing Pieces...

This week is going rather slowly. I don't know if it's because a three-day weekend is on the horizon or that time has actually slowed down. I just know that time is going by slowly at work and that the days seem rather long.

I think it might also be because I've hit one of those times in life where it just feels like you're just not going anywhere; the world around you continues to move and you feel a little left behind.

I'm sure, eventually, I'll catch up with the world again. Yet, at the moment, my analogy is that I'm standing on a beach watching the waves crash, never touching me and mostly ebbing away from me. It's one of those times in life where people have their own lives going on and get busy with them and I'm the only one without much going on. It's not a complaint or a criticism but there are times in life that are rich with friends. Then there are others where you tend to feel as though you're standing on that beach alone, wondering why you're not moving and swirling like the waves.

I know, that's hopelessly pretentious and writer-y but, well, I'm a writer. Let me be melodramatic in my analogies.

I wonder. Am I the only one who feels like that? Am I the only ones who sometimes feel that you're watching friends and family live their lives and you don't feel like you're really living yours to the fullest? That there's something missing?

Ironically, I'm not terribly unhappy with my life. Aside from being bored out of my mind by my job, it's not completely miserable at work. I don’t yet get that crushing feeling of dread when I get up in the mornings to go to work like I've had with other jobs, like I had when I had to go to school sometimes.

I have a rather nice little house that suits me quite well. I have two puppies that keep me busy, entertained and well-loved. I have my writing which, even when that feels like it's not going as well as it should…it's still going. I have hobbies. I have a great family. I have my health.

So, what's missing? I feel as though there's a portion of something that I need to feel fulfilled and, for the life of me, I can't place what it is.

These times in life are perplexing. It's probably why I took the personality tests last week. I was hoping to learn something about what I was missing.

Some people might say it's because I'm still single. That could be it, I don't know. It would be nice to come home and have someone to complain to about my day but I do actually complain to the puppies who cock their head and look at me like I'm nuts. It's probably not that different from having a husband or even a boyfriend.

But I don't know if that's it. It doesn't feel like I'm missing a person in my life or I'm just going through a time in life where I need to figure out what's next on the cards. I'm contemplating publishing my precious and most beloved series of novels that got me writing in the first place. They're the nearest and dearest creations I have and deep down, I was hoping that I'd be able to get them published by someone else rather than to self-publish them.

That's actually an interesting dilemma. I've been spouting off about starting a self-publishing revolution but do I believe in it enough to put my 'babies' out there?

I think I do believe in it enough. Those books are the ones that have had the most response from my readers. They're books with three strong characters whose voices I still occasionally hear in my head. As much as I love The Reluctant Demon, I never heard the voice of Malkos in my head. I probably heard Emmy Sands', my female protagonist, but that's mostly because Emmy is, uh, sort of me only more fictionalized.

But I hear the voices of my 'boys' in my head and I feel like they're telling me to go for it, to put them out into the world. They're a lot darker than my current novel. These books deal with demons of a human nature rather than demons in the attic.

Maybe if I put them out there, I'll feel more complete. I just don't know. I'm hoping this phase of my life ends soon and I can join those people who are the 'waves on the beach', moving along without me, busy with their lives while I stand there watching and wondering why I'm standing there watching.

I just don't know what it is that I'm missing…

That's probably why it's missing in the first place.

Happy Thursday!

Unpredictable Days...

Today was a very unpredictable sort of day. It was the type of day where I have the intention to get projects done and nothing can quite be finished. For example, I had to fill out a PDF form for one of our software products. It was actually my bosses' job to fill it out but he's learned I'm efficient at projects like that so he tosses them my way. I don't mind; it's something to do.

The only problem was is that the PDF form was in a format that couldn't be saved once it had been filled out. It could only be saved as a blank form.

Which mean that I had to keep it open on my computer until my boss approved it.

He never approved it. This means, tomorrow, I have to fill the form out all over again. Exciting stuff. I don't mind projects the first time but I tend to get impatient when I have to start over. It's kind of like when you leave your house on a trip and you get that excited feeling that you're going somewhere and you realize you forgot something at home so you have to go all the way back. You feel almost like you're treading water for a time instead of going somewhere.

Aside from that, there were a ton of other little projects I had to do that never quite got done because of something out of my control. Thus, I got very little accomplished but I was busy all day.

I also ended going out for lunch which was also spontaneous. One of favourite coworkers/friends is leaving our company on Thursday so we took her out to lunch as a farewell. We went to Skyline Chili which is a Cincinnati institution. I've lived in the Cincinnati area for almost 2 years and have never tried it. I've tried their competitor's chili- Gold Star- but that was nasty. It tasted like someone dropped a pot of cinnamon in the chili by accident. Skyline, on the other hand, was rather tasty. Cincinnati chili is different to other chilis. It's very smooth. It's ground beans and spices with no big chunks. It's not something I'd want everyday but for something new, it was definitely worth tasting. It actually reminded me of my grandmother's 'mincemeat'- a dish she'd make us as a child. She used tomato puree and curry to season ground beef (or "mince" as we say in England). While I don't think Skyline has any curry in it, the hominess of the dish was familiar.

After lunch, I had to make my usual stop to let the puppies out for a bit. Poor Sookie is having tummy troubles again and I came home to find a very soiled crate and two unhappy puppies. Sookie was feeling very sorry for herself. I had just enough time to clean up the crate, clean up the pups, cuddle Sookie Sue and go back to work. I spent the afternoon stressing about whether she's ok. I'm sure she just ate something. She seems to have a very sensitive tummy whereas Rory, eater of everything, is a bit like a goat. She'll try everything once with no ill effects whatsoever.

The afternoon also turned out to be a washout at work. I continued to make no progress on several projects, had a bit of a useless meeting and then spent the afternoon being distracted by my coworker who didn't feel like working. Sometimes that's nice. Sometimes it's a pain. She can be very chatty.

By the time I got home, I was feeling a bit muddled as one is wont to do after a day of not getting much done. Fortunately, Sookie seemed to be better. She's still a little clingy but she's no longer moping around. That's always good. I didn't take her for her usual walk though; it was hot outside and it seemed like a bad idea. By the end of the evening, she's back to chasing Odie, The Interloper around the living room so she must be feeling better.

That was pretty much it for the unpredictable nature of my day but, I suppose, when you're a creature of habit like I am, unpredictability tends to show up in unexpected places and in small doses. I didn't really do anything unpredictable this evening unless you count giving the rather stinky puppies a bath but I'd planned that so it didn't really count. I did, however, bath Odie, The Interloper and I hadn't planned on that so...maybe that counts?

Tomorrow, I'm hoping for less tummy troubles with the puppies, and more accomplishment at work. So far, my day, at least in my head, is going to be pretty predictable.

But that's what I said about today.

Ah well, as Scarlett O'Hara says, " After all, tomorrow is another day."

Happy Wednesday!

The Irresistable Lure of Self-Knowledge

So I don't think it's anything new to mention that I don't find my job...terribly fulfilling. I try hard to make it so but, for the most part, I find myself going in, getting my work done but lacking that little burst of excitement I get when I'm enjoying doing something.

I do my work and I think I do it pretty well. I'm just a little bored. So, I find ways to make it more interesting. I mentioned some of these methods last week. I also have been on a quest to figure out what job I should have.

There are all kinds of methods for figuring this out. Just google "free career personality test". I've taken a few of them. They don’t take very long. They're a bit of a waste of time when you've been working for a while. For example, mine tells me I have a very strong creative drive and that I should be either an artist or writer.

I don't find this helpful. I already knew that. I think what I'm secretly looking for is a test that not only tells me that I should be a writer but also has a secret password that makes it suddenly possible for me to make a living as a writer. Really, they're a bit of a waste of time when I know, by now, what my skills are and how I can best apply them. The problem is we're in a sucky economy so knowing what you want to do or what you'd rather be doing isn't helpful when there simply aren't that many jobs out there.

As you can imagine, I got bored with these personality tests. So I decided to take another more personality…personality test. It turns out that I'm an INFJ. This means I'm apparently Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling and Judging.

Actually, I can't argue with that. I probably didn't need a test to tell me that but it's always nice to learn about yourself, isn't it? It's a human thing. At heart, I think we all want to know more about ourselves and who we are. It's the reason that personality tests exist in the first place.

I like what they say about us INFJ personality types:

"INFJs have a rich, vivid inner life, which they may be reluctant to share with those around them"

I definitely cannot argue with that. As you've probably figured out from my thought processes during meetings, I have a very vivid inner life. I tell you readers more about it than I do the people around me. This is mostly through fear that people will think I'm seriously insane as opposed to the cultivated air of British eccentricity I'm going for.

They also say:

"INFJs have vivid imaginations exercised both as memory and intuition, and this can amount to genius, resulting at times in an INFJ being seen as mystical. This unfettered imagination often will enable this person to compose complex and often aesthetic works of art such as music, mathematical systems, poems, plays, and novels"

I rather like that my imagination can amount to genius. I'm not sure how you find out if you're a genius but it's rather nice that I'm staying true to my personality type with the creation of novels and plays and things.

All in all, if you're bored or you want to know more about yourself, I highly recommend taking any of the free Meyers-Briggs type personality tests that you can find online. Just google it. Even if you think you know yourself, there's something nice about having what or who you are be affirmed by a clinical test.

Or, you know, maybe not if it tells you that you're a raving lunatic or something.

I don't think I'm a raving lunatic, fortunately. At least, none of the personality tests have told me so. Then again, I haven't found one that is called, "Are you a raving lunatic? Take this test and find out!" I'm sure there's one out there. If not, maybe I should create one. This would, however, lead to a philosophical dilemma. Are the factors that I feel contribute to a case of raving lunacy the same as everyone elses? What if what I consider to be lunacy isn't really…lunacy. I mean, in my opinion, anyone who thought Breaking Dawn, the final Twilight novel was actually good is a bit of a raving lunatic.

(side note, speaking of Breaking Dawn, here is a video that sums up exactly how I feel about it. It's short. It's funny. Go ahead, watch it!)

Seriously, though…I think that personality tests are a lot of fun although many of them are relative. Also, so many of them are so obvious that if you want a certain outcome, you can guide your answers that way. The thing I like about the Meyers-Briggs types of tests is they're really long. After a while, you realize you're being asked the same questions over and over but you get so braindead in answering them, you sometimes don't answer them the same way. This is actually good, I think. It helps you be more honest.

Anyway, for the record, I had no idea this is what I was going to blog about today. I had intended to sit down and write about the miracle of garlic. I was looking at a bulb today at lunch when I went home and realizing how amazing it is we have things like garlic. First off, who was the brave soul to think "Hey, let's try eating that?" How did garlic get to be garlic? I mean, it's such a nifty little plant thing. It's tasty, nutritious and..it's useful. It's just a tiny little miracle in a little white bulb.

I bet you're glad I didn't spend the whole blog just rambling about garlic, aren't you? I probably could. Maybe I'll save that until tomorrow. Unless I find a personality test that's called, "How Do You Feel About Garlic?"

Just kidding.

Happy Tuesday!

Spontaneous Weekends...

This has been a nice weekend. It was one of those weekends where I didn't have anything planned but I managed to fill my time with a mix of relaxation and productivity.

I spent Friday night out with a friend from work. We had a nice time talking and just talking about things other than work. Normally when I go out with coworkers for a social occasion, we end up discussing the office and everything to do with the office. This time, we didn't let ourselves and it was nice to talk to my coworker as a friend rather than just as a coworker. That's always a nice surprise. Of course, when I got home, even though it wasn't late, I had two rather unhappy puppies and a cranky old chihuahua to deal with.

My puppies are a little spoiled. When I go out in the evenings after work, I usually come home, let them run around after being in their crate all afternoon and then I give them a rather nice chew treat to chomp on while I'm gone. Since I don't want to put them back in their crate, I trust them in the living room without being properly confined. They do well with it. At the moment, since The Odious One is staying, he has the family room to roam in and I gate it off so he's not chomped on by the pups.

You'd think this wouldn't be bad of an arrangement. After all, I was only gone two hours. Nevertheless, the puppies greet me as though I've been gone for months. Then they proceed to give me the cold shoulder until I've fussed over them enough that they forgive me for leaving them.

It's actually quite entertaining to see their initial reaction as excitement to see me, to realize that I am coming home and that they haven't been abandoned. Then after their 'kisses' and puppy hugs have stopped being so enthusiastic, they subcutaneously give me a hurt look as if to say, "How COULD you leave us like that," and they they run off outside and won't come near me until I've petted them to their satisfaction.

With the Odious One, he just seems pleased to have someone around. He tends to be pleased when I come home but he's not terribly enthusiastic, that one. On the plus side, he seems to be doing well. I have to confess, he's a very old chihuahua, The Odious One. When my parents left him with me, I had a disclaimer that if he, you know, keeled over or anything while they were gone, it was NOT my fault, I did not kill him.

I think Odie has some life in him yet. He gets around pretty well considering he only seems to have use of three legs. He's a bit lopsided. He also walks around panting at me all the time. Still, he seems quite able to take care of himself. He acts helpless when the puppies try to greet him with their usual enthusiasm but if I'm handing out treats, he's right there, shoulder to shoulder with them as if he's always been their very best friend.

The rest of the weekend was rather nice although I spontaneously decided to go see that new movie, "The Last Exorcism." I decided that since I'm writing a book about demons, even if it is a comedy, it never hurts to see what's going on in the fictional world of Hollywood demons. After all, I did get the idea for The Reluctant Demon from watching that "Paranormal Activity" film.

Well, let me tell you, "The Last Exorcism," was rather daft. It couldn't decide if it wanted to be a 'documentary,' like the "Blair Witch Project" or it wanted to be a horror movie like, say, "The Exorcist." As a result, we got a documentary/movie. Except it didn't make much sense. Also, it was not scary which was a disappointment. In the end, I was left wondering exactly what happened which I think was the point but it wasn't even slightly thought-provoking. Instead, I was left wondering why I paid $7 to see such a silly film. I think I'll stick with "The Exorcist," thank you.

After the movie, I did my usual Saturday errands (grocery shopping and the like) and then I came home to spend the rest of the day with the dogs.

On Sunday, I got up after having let the puppies play outside while I attempted to get a little extra sleep. I discovered that now the tool shed is off limits as far as burrowing goes, they've decided to burrow under the large propane tank I have in the back yard. This meant an impromptu trip to Lowes for some paving stones. I'm now familiar with the paving stones at Lowes. They make an excellent barricade against digging.

Of course, once I'd blocked up the burrow that the puppies have made, they were, naturally, not happy with me. I ignored them. They forgave me. It's pretty simple psychology, really.

All in all, we had a pretty nice weekend. There's just something nice about weekends where you don't plan on doing anything but you end up doing something anyway. Next weekend is a three day one. The puppies and I are escorting "Uncle Odie" home and we'll stay at my parents for the weekend. I'm planning on having a mini writing retreat so I can do some work on my novel. It should be nice. Hopefully it won't rain.

And, if it does, we'll deal with that as it comes.

Happy Monday!