Punishment for improper thoughts...

For those who have visited the house this past 18 months or so, you know we have some very nice area "persian" rugs rolled up and stored in the living room. This started when Wolfie (RIP Feb 2009) began losing control of his bladder and perhaps the last remnants of his brain box and began using carpeting as a substitute for grass. Clearly, the indoor/outdoor thing had escaped him. Wolfie had just turned 16 when he died in February and the problem had begun the prior spring/summer. Well, about the time Wolfie began his carpet bombing, we acquired Cujo-ette aka Idjit Dawg. We had been assured that Idjit Dawg never messed in the house. That may have been true but once she saw Wolfie with his precision targeting, she mastered the technique too. Hence, we have three very nice persian carpets professionally cleaned, rolled up and stored in the living room: One for the dining room, one for the library (aka TV room) and one for the master bedroom. As an aside, the living room rug is still properly laid out and in use...thanks to Ingrid's idea of using a dog exercise pen strung across the opening to block the dogs' access to the living room.

Unfortunately, the two surviving dogs, from time to time, also lose track of the indoor/outdoor thing. There a few not-so-expensive rugs on the floor and they have not practiced their carpet bombing on the cheap stuff. For now they create puddles on the ceramic tile when the mood suits them.

Given our upbringing in the midwest we know that "God will punish us" for thinking improper thoughts. I can recall this now because Garrison Keillor has talked about it from time to time in his stories of Lake Woebegone and it fully refreshed my memory.

The improper thoughts? The thought that maybe, just maybe we could unroll and place one of the stored rugs. We had been accident free for several weeks now and today I had thought that maybe we should unroll one or two of the rugs and put them in their proper place for Christmas. Either Mary or I have these improper thoughts from time to time. They usually creep into our consciousness after a few incident-free weeks.

The last time we had the thoughts was just before Thanksgiving and our visitors' arrival. The idea of having the dining room rug in place for the Thanksgiving feast was just so attractive. In fact, we went beyond impure thoughts and actually spoke aloud about placing the dining room rug. As soon as we discussed it, BOOM! Doggie puddles on the ceramic tile! We did not have the dining room rug out for Thanksgiving.

Tonight as I was doing my dogs-to-bed & trash-to-the-street routine, I found another doggie puddle. This, of course, was divine retribution for today's thoughts about putting a good rug out again. To add just a touch of salt to the wound, the Maids did the whole house cleaning today so the freshly scrubbed floor is now properly doggie baptized.

I did the discipline thing with Shawna (hold her head near the puddle and express anger) only to observe that Idjit Dawg ran out to the dog run as soon as I started and stayed there in the cold of the evening. After a few minutes, she came back in but would not come to me when called. I think the wrong dog got the discipline action. (How to you call a deaf dog? With hand signals which she saw and totally ignored.)

As for Mary (the reason you are on this site), today was a bummer of a day. Breakfast did not stay with her and she spent most of the day dosing and sleeping. After the rejected breakfast she only ate saltines until her sister suggested a grilled cheese sandwich. Mary thought that sounded good. The problem being, of course, that Mary's kitchen would never stock Kraft American cheese--sliced--the proper cheese for a grilled cheese sandwich. After a quick trip to Lunardi's to get the cheese, I successfully grilled a pair for the two of us. Today was such a downer of a day for her, she didn't even join me in the kitchen area to supervise the cooking (which I think she does out of self preservation). I flew solo and managed to create an edible sandwich. Amazing!

Mary felt more intense back pain in addition to her unstable stomach today. She is feeling the back pain through a full dose of fentanyl plus Celebrex so that is not necessarily a good thing. Don't ask--No, she has not called the doctor.

We are looking forward to unwrapping presents with our grandkiddies on Christmas eve. At 4PM we'll be on video chat with Danny and Sarah in Denver. And, at 5PM another video chat with Charlize in Tucson. We haven't set a plan yet with Madelyn and Emma in Pasadena. This technology stuff is wonderful! We buy the gifts on line, ship them to the kids directly and then can see the unwrapping as it happens via video chat! Amazing! For those who want to know, we use either iChat (Apple software) or Google Talk (for Mac). Hey, this beats the blizzard that trapped us in Denver in 2006 when Sarah was a newborn. I am amazed Casey still talks to us.