Poopy girl

Poor Adora's been having some digestive issues lately. She's her same ol' spunky self, but her tummy isn't feeling all that great. She ate some steak bones on Friday night, and hasn't been eating the same since then. Hopefully things will stabilize, and she'll be back to her usual food-loving self.

Me and the motley crew

I'm not sure why, but lately the pets seem to be swarming around me, more so than usual. They like to lay all over my expanding belly, or snuggle next to me on the couch. I don't know if they sense that there's another little life present in the house, but I'm not complaining about the increased affection (for the most part, lol).

Last night, three of them—Adora, Spanky, and Dollie—spontaneously gathered around me on the couch and hovered around me for a good five minutes. It was so odd and funny that I quickly snapped a photo with my Mac (I was working on my laptop). They were being goofy and rubbing against me and each other, and even Baby Jack was wiggling in sympathy.

ShakeItPhoto

I just got this cool iPhone camera app called ShakeItPhoto, which makes your pictures look like a Polaroid. It was fun to play around with, and I tested it out on Adora. It's only 99¢, so it's a cheap way to have more fun with your iPhone's camera.



(Images from ShakeItPhoto.com)

A nightly ritual

Me, Dollie, Spanky (by my belly), and Adora


This is how we end up every night, with me snuggling under a blanket and the dogs/cats piled around me, sleeping. The only one who didn't join us last night was Max, who was off prowling around in the basement somewhere, I'm sure. Sometimes we mix it up and they all lay on Pete, or we split them 50/50. It's hard to move with dogs and cats on you, but it's super cozy!

A bad case of the dropsies, or, a benefit of having dogs

I have been incredibly clumsy lately, and, as with everything I don't want to take the blame for, I'm blaming this on my pregnant state. As with the peas the other day, I somehow magically flung a dog bowl full of chicken and broccoli soup onto the floor during a recent lunch. I don't even know what happened, because the bowls weren't that full, and Spanky's food made it to the floor still in its container. But when I went to put Adora's dish down, it instead flew out of my hand and (of course) landed upside down, soup everywhere. I quickly looked around and started grabbing paper towels, but Adora was one step ahead of me. She cleaned that floor up like a good little Hoover (Hoogestraat) should, and Spanky even came in after her to do some light spot cleaning. I was left with a slightly sticky, wet floor, which was easily cleaned with moistened paper towels and dish soap. Everyone benefited from my channeling of Dick Van Dyke (as Pete likes to call me during my clumsier moments), which is how it should be, right?

Surrounded by dogs

Roxie, our old landlord's dog, is staying with us for the next several days, and Adora isn't exactly being the gracious hostess she should be. She has been herding poor Roxie everywhere, nipping at her mouth and using body checks to keep her coralled. Adora has even tried to eat Roxie's food, which Roxie thoughtfully overlooked. Note the literally high-ranking position Adora put herself in outside while Pete was exercising the dogs. Queen of the Roost, indeed!



If you saw Roxie in person, you'd think she'd be the aggressor, since she's a big Rottweiler and looks rather imposing. But no, it's our little circus bear Adora who's being the dominant one, with Spanky a distant third in the temporary pack ranking (of course, we humans are first and second in the pack, with mama-to-be being top dog, hee hee). Spanky doesn't seem to care what Roxie does, as long as he's reassured he's still loved with lots of petting and cuddling.

This is going to be a loooong weekend....

Slow day

Hey, everyone, how are you? I've been feeling really, really tired and sluggish for the last few days, so I've been a bit absent from my posting duties. To remedy my stupor, I've taken the laptop outside to work on my freelance project (and maybe squeeze in a little blogging and surfing). I figured I should enjoy the beautiful weather before the rains come AGAIN tomorrow, and get some usage out of my lonely patio furniture, which hasn't seen many sunny days lately.



And we're also in the middle of painting the dining room/kitchen floors (robin's egg blue, so very lovely!), so avoiding the fumes has been a big motivator for going outside. The doggies are keeping me company and getting some fresh air too. Hopefully I'll be back to my energetic self tomorrow.



And thanks for all of you who expressed your concern and good wishes regarding Dollie. She did indeed come home, albeit a bit late (a day and half later), which is really unusual for her, hence my freaking out. In true cat fashion, she simply strolled up to Pete in the backyard and acted like nothing had happened (he grabbed her quickly so she couldn't change her mind). I was thrilled to have her back, and she's up to her old antics again, running around like a maniac and climbing on every surface imaginable.

What a watchdog!

Yesterday Pete, the dogs, and I were driving home on 88, and we happened to be driving alongside one of those Invisible Fence–type trucks. There was a giant photo of a chocolate lab on the side that look a lot like the image on the van above, probably a good 6 feet tall.

I suddenly saw Adora intensely staring out the window at the dog picture on the truck as we drove along, and pointed this out to Pete. When he turned around to watch her, she had started growling at the giant dog and would have probably started barking if we hadn't passed the truck.



Pete and I laughed a long time about this, but Adora was all business. Thank God we were all safe from the mean, giant dog on the highway, thanks to her!

Bad Dodo!

This is the scene I came home to the other day. Adora (a.k.a. Dodo) had gotten upset that I was gone for a few hours and decided to chew up one of the living room pillows. Lucky for her it was only a cheap $3 pillow from IKEA...and she is lucky that I'm such a patient and forgiving mama.



Bad Dodo.

A pretty (and hopefully secure) way to hide a few remotes

Hi, my name is Chris, and I have a dog named Adora that eats things that she shouldn't. I admit it. She eats lots of things. Things like remote controls, shoes, cordless phones...things you personally don't think are all that tasty, but that she enjoys destroying when she's home alone (with Spanky, Max, and Dollie, that is).



And it doesn't stop there. Adora is a master at opening bottles and packages and getting at food, especially when I take Spanky and her in the car with me, which is quite often. Not even a bottle of water is safe. She will take the bottle of water, carefully unscrew the cap (even if it hasn't been opened), and drink the water from the bottle without spilling very much, if anything. This happens almost daily when I take Adora with me in the car, so I've had to hide water bottles under the seats, but she still gets to things down there. The only safe place to hide stuff is under a shelf in the back of my CRV, where Adora can't get to things. If I don't hide stuff back there, I pay. I have caught her opening yogurt containers, bananas, chili dog containers, boxes of candy, candy bars, bags of chips.... Adora has even taken an entire cup of iced coffee and drank it, with barely a drop spilled, while I ran into Target.



Anyhow, I digress. I was at Michael's on Monday and found some pretty paper boxes of different shapes and sizes. I loved a particular bird box, but as always, I try to think of what practical use such an item will serve in my house.



I hadn't thought of one until the following day, when I realized the box could easily fit both our cable and DVD remote controls.



The previous cable remote had been killed by Adora in the past, and Pete and I always worry she'll set her sights on the humble replacement remote one of these days. But now I have a pretty box to hide both remotes from her ravenous ways.



Although I'm not so sure that she can't open the box and get at them. She has opened storage bins in my car to get at candy before. Well, I guess we'll give it a try and see what happens.



They always look so innocent, don't they?

Dollie vs. a bowl of cherries

If you are a photographer and have pets like me, you know that you often get "helpers" that "assist" you in your photo shoots. They tend to move stuff around for you or pose in your shot to help you focus. Sometimes the ensuing photograph is better than the intended original, but often you get a blurry mess. Other times you get something interesting or even worthy of saving. In any event, you have a laugh at your furry children's antics.



Such was the case this past weekend. I had bought some cherries at Target and decided, on a whim, to take some photos. And since our dining room floor is still unpainted, I thought the white bowl and red cherries would look pretty with the blue-green-brown floorboards in the background. I set the bowl on the floor and started to take pictures, snapping off a few somewhat blurry but colorful images.



I was just getting into it when a furry head popped into view in front of my camera lens. Dollie (the cat in my blog banner, for those of you new to this blog) had somehow caught wind of this impromptu photo session and decided to help herself to one of the cherries. She picked one out of the bowl with her little monkey paw (I swear she has opposable thumbs) and started to play a game of cherry soccer, Dollie-style. I just sat back and watched her for a while, snapping a few pix but mainly enjoying this burst of spontaneous game play. She played with her little "ball" for quite some time, until it was either squishy from being batted about or eaten by one of the dogs (Adora likes cherries, we've discovered).



Later on, the bowl of cherries was sitting on our enamel table in the kitchen, and Dollie decided to play some more. She hopped up on the table, took another cherry out of the bowl, jumped onto the floor with it in her paw, and started playing soccer again. I had to laugh and watch her again, since she obviously was having fun and was oblivious to the world around her as she played. Dollie partially hid inside a plastic bag at one point, using it as a sort of blind, and repeatedly pounced on the hapless cherry. Another tactic was to send the cherry flying under and around the construction equipment in the dining room, whereafter she'd chase the little missile and intercept it in different ways. This game play is not unusual behavior for Dollie, but it always surprises and delights me. Max is a much calmer, more relaxed cat, and very rarely plays at all, but Dollie is full of mischeif.



What a weird, weird cat.

Red Stripe + Gyro = Two Hungry Dogs

Not so much hungry for the Red Stripe, although I'm sure Adora would give it a try. (Note the scrubbed wooden kitchen floor they're standing on. I only have like 20 square feet of intense scrubbing to go. Sigh....)

This is what it's like for me when I eat a meal at home ALL THE TIME. I'm always surrounded by the animals salivating and begging. Even the cats join in.

Adora—future model?

I'm reminded of the painting "The Girl with the Pearl Earring" for some reason...

Missing Pete

It's just not the same without him here, as Adora can attest.

Mama Dodo (a.k.a. Adora)

Sometimes my pets are just so darn cute, without even trying...

Snowy sick day

I'm starting to sound like a broken record, aren't I?

Today I felt horrible, with chills, fever, bad headache, swollen lymph glands, nausea, etc. So I called in and went back to bed for another five hours. That didn't seem to do too much, because right now I feel worse than I did when I got up. I'm hoping I'll feel better tomorrow and Thursday, because I hate being sick on holidays! I also missed Jen and Georgia, and strangely enough, I miss driving to and from work with Pete.

Anyhow, here are some pix from today, taken when I had a few bits of energy here and there (which wasn't often).


Snow, snow, and more snow! Our backyard


Max being goofy in the dining room (under construction)


Max peering outside


Max pleading with me—to go outside?


A view out front


Bored out of my skull watching VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of the 80s


Spanky looking solemn


Adora looking bored, just like me


Hot cider and tea with crackers is all I've managed to keep down so far


Watching exciting daytime television


Dollie frolicking in the dining room


Max thinking his private cat thoughts and looking outside

Max and Dollie were fascinated by the snow that snuck in the front door when Pete left for work this morning. I think they know it's too cold to play outside, but they're still restless and bored and curious about all that white stuff.

Well, it's back to the couch for me. I've got yet another episode of 100 Greatest waiting for me, and then it's on to the news and such. Dare I say I was so bored today I would have preferred to work? But I hear we ran out of work and people were sent home early, so I guess this is the better of the two options, with the 4-8 inches of snow we're getting today too.

Time to eat more saltines...

Busy Bones...

...the pacifiers for dogs. Ah, peace and quiet!

Happy Thoughts—Day 5

My furry children. Life would not be as happy without them, and I know this is true, because Pete and I lived without pets (except the fish) for the first few years we were together. And let me tell you, I was always lonely for the poke of a wet nose, the touch of a furry paw, and the warm and happy lick from a happy dog. They truly make us happy, and remind us of the simple things in life.