Sleepy Afternoon

After spending the entire morning from 9:00-12:00 in a meeting with all of the faculty in our English Department, I came home and needed desperately to read, comment, and score the last essays for two classes of students who I will meet on Tuesday mid-morning for their final exam.

I sat here at my little card table perch, (the place that keeps me anchored in the family room rather than in my office upstairs and remote from anything family-like) reading, and yawning and yawning. Then I noticed the 3 pooches and thought, "Well, no wonder I'm so darn tired!" If being sleepy were a disease, these three were certainly contagious, and I was infected. I never gave-in to the temptation to pile on the sofa with them, but I should have.

Today marks the one year anniversary of saying "Goodbye" to our precious Bob Dog. He had been with us for 14 1/2 years and was somewhere between 1 & 2 years old when we rescued him from the local shelter back in January of '96. His presence improved our lives immensely. After he was gone last June, I cried more than I was willing to admit throughout the summer . . . the house was so empty without him.

As this past Christmas was arriving, I just sensed that it was time to have another K9 in this family, and I found little Chloe (white) when a colleague of mine put an announcement in the college paper that they had a dog to give away. She was born last June and we think she was taken to a shelter as a puppy. Then when she was adopted, the family decided they didn't want her any longer, my colleague thought maybe it was financial problems because she found Chloe walking the street and found the owners, but they didn't want her back. So my colleague gave Chloe a temporary home and began looking for someone who wanted her. I can't believe that anyone would ever let her go. She is the most affectionate little pet. She moved into "Fun-ville" with us the day after Christmas. She is 10 pounds of white fun and frolic.

Then about 6 weeks later we were told that two little Shih-tzus needed a home. Mr. Fun thought we should say "yes" and before we had time to think about what we were doing, we were home from Orange County with Mitzi and Max on Friday, February 4. They were 2-years-old this past December and had one litter of pups in spring of 2010. We didn't want more pups so both of them have now been fixed. Mitzi is 12 pounds of soft, cuddly fluff. She looks like a teddy bear. She loves to be held. Max is an 18 pound barrel. He is round from his head to his butt. He is so black; his face looks like a little gorilla. At first we thought we'd find a home for him because three dogs just seemed ridiculous. We're so glad we didn't give him away. He's just a lot of fun and so different from the females. All of these pups have just melted our hearts.

We never knew that it would take 3 to fill the void that Bob Dog left. It's been a tear-filled day remembering Bob and missing him. We'd rather be sad that he is gone than to never have known him at all.

So we've decided that Chloe's June birthday must be the 3rd! and we've tried to turn the sadness into celebration.

That's it from Southern California.
Rosie (& Mr. Fun, and Chloe, Mitzi, and Max), aka Carol