Happy Howloween y'all. Georgia is playing Florida this week end. Go dawgs!!

Only a few more days until we see if the big money machine has saturated the brains of the masses with 'promise em everything even if we can't deliver' propaganda and bought the election for smooth talkin' Barry O and Joe the doubletalker. I voted early. I can hit the mute button whenever political pablum comes on now. And I do. By the way, I voted for one Republican and the rest Democrats. But the one Republican I voted for will probably not win. Can't compete with big money and Bush fatigue in all probability. I couldn't vote for Barry, sorry. In my book he's just too unproven and all that glitz and smooth talk doesn't sit well with this gal from 'Bible and guns' land Pittsburgh, Pa.

By the way, its too bad we can't shoot or knock out with a Bible the guy or guys who had the brilliant idea of political robocalls. I've gotten to the point now where I just don't bother to answer my land line at all.

Well, anyway, Happy Great Pumpkin night to all. Hope your kids bring in a lot of chocolate to the old homestead.

Ta.

Its almost Howl-o-ween. Watch out for ghost dogs.

I was a good American this afternoon. I went to my local library and took advantage of the opportunity to vote early. I only had to wait about thirty minutes, too. I feel good about my choice even if some of you might not agree with it. But, that's they way our system works. We do have a choice. God bless America.

I got word that my book proofs have been sent to the design department. So far so good.

Its a beautiful autumn day outside, sunny, breezy, and cool. The dogs are happy. They've walked, played chase in the back yard, dug holes, and rolled in the sand. I have lots of chocolate in the pantry. Life is good.

Happy hump day. Ta

I hate book manuscript edits and Excel stinks.

I call this wonderful picture of Danny's very creative little niece "Dali baby" but I guess it could be "Picasso baby" too. I post it tonight because the skewed eyes, mouth, and expression sorta exemplifies how I was feeling since I last posted. Totally surreal and off balance. Looking at life through, well pop eyed paper eyes. By mid week end, Danny could attest to my snappy grumpy behavior too. By Monday I was overwhelmed and depressed and suffering from acid reflux. Even a day of shopping and coming home with an iPhone and a new chair that goes with my new love seat on Sunday had only temporarily lightened my mood. Why you might ask did I get so squirrely?

Well, here's what happened. I "blue lined" my poetry book manuscript and cover art pdf files in preparation for making corrections on the required Excel table forms. All last week. I combed the manuscript four times for errors. Carefully wrote them down four times. Then on Friday I tried to type the errors on the Excel forms downloaded from the publisher. That's when I went nutty. I don't know Excel. I don't use very many office type applications. Microsoft word is about it. So, I typed a bunch of stuff in, then discovered I'd made some errors and needed to delete a line, add a line and...oops...I screwed up and the tables scrambled themselves somehow, all the page numbers columns disappeared and I found myself on top of the horns of a dilemma. That's worse than riding on a rhino folks. Dilemmas are merciless. I got nuthin' done on Friday. The frelling edit job and my failure to communicate with Excel hung over my head all week end 'cause I was grumpy as heck.

I didn't even want to try to deal with the mixed up Excel thingy on Monday...which was okay since I spent most of the day trying to print a manuscript for critique at Monday evening's writers workshop. My printer kept working for a few pages then malfunctioning and stopping. Nothing and I mean nothing else went right all day either. When good days go bad they just keep at it. By six o'clock I had only bits and pieces of the manuscript thing done for a six thirty workshop. I was convinced that I was a printer imbecile as well as an Excel imbecile. Then, Super Danny came home and pronounced my printer broken. Vindication! At least on one front. I didn't get to the workshop though and by that time I was almost in tears. He decided to help me with the Excel thing since I was chanting the I can't mantra. He did help me sort it out and I finished round one on the final edits and emailed them off. Voila! The sun came out, the stickers fell from my eyes and I could smile again.

With a little luck and maybe some more help from Danny the next round won't be so bad. Book probably won't be out by Christmas as I'd hoped since the publisher is a whole lot slower getting stuff back to me than on the other two books. Que sera sera.

There's no moral to this story. The only piece of advice I can give is that M and Ms help no matter what the frustration. Pretty cool that they come in the little snack bags this close to Halloween and that the bags were two for one, too. I made good use of them during my squirrely weekend. So what if I had to buy some more for Halloween today? While I was at it I got some Reeses Peanut Butter Cups too.

Ta.

Holy Cow, the Great Pumpkin is coming

Its almost Halloween already. Where has October gone? I guess I've been busy with one thing or another while the month was slipping by. I don't even have my Halloween candies yet fer Chrissakes. Well, I do have the two bags of M and Ms I bought...but those are for me!

I realized today while walking the poochies that Fall is now my favorite time of year. It used to be summer when my kids were little and we lived at the beach in SC from June to mid -August but now summer is just hot hot hot and pretty unexciting. I still love the month of Christmas but I seem to be more energized when October brings that first cool, crisp weather. While I don't follow football (sorry all you Gators, Seminoles, Golden Knights, etc.), I love the round yellow harvest moon and the falling acorns and all the funny scary Halloween decorations that spring up in the neighbors yards like mushrooms after the 'I'm glad they're over' summer monsoons. I love to play scary music on Halloween night and welcome the hordes of small Jedi Knights and Spidermen and Harry Potters and other 'trick or treaters' at the door. Heck, I enjoy any holiday that features chocolate candy. Its great having all the leftover candy to snack on until Christmas, too. Funny how I always seem to buy too much.

So, here's to October and Fall, a frightfully good time of year.

Right now I'm reading a terrific new book by one of my favorite writers, Neil Gaiman, called The Graveyard Book. It is sold as a YA genre book, but can be enjoyed by any one of any age with imagination. Kinda appropriate title and subject matter for October, too. Another scary, well written book is Dragonfly by Frederic Durbin.

Ta.

Ginny at Agility Class

These are some photos taken of Ginny and Danny at last week's Level two Agility class. They were shot in the dark which is why the colors are a little muted. Obviously, she was having fun!

I am busy 'blue lining' my book manuscript which I hope to finish by Friday. I'll blog more when I'm further along with the edits. Ta for now.

my book cover is done!

The picture above is not my book cover. You'll have to wait for that.

Ginny likes snoozing on my new loveseat in the home office/library though.The new Ikea 'Billy' shelves look good, don't they? Thanks be to Danny for assembling them. We also assembled the sofa. It took less than five minutes. Ikea makes it super easy. Clever Swedes. I'm becoming an Ikea junkie. Hooked on the meatballs, too.

Finally finally, my new book cover design is done. It has to be tweaked for a couple errors but all in all, I like it a whole lot. I'm in process of checking the manuscript for formatting and line errors and then have to determine if the mistakes are mine or the publishers. Then do corrections and send it all back for final edits and publication. It seems like forever and a half since I sent it all off in July. Two and a half months isn't so bad I guess. I just get impatient when I have to wait for anything. Anticipation is hard for me.

I'll put the cover up after I get the revised version. I bet you'll like it, too.

We had a really busy week with meetings, classes, and the like. Tonight, Friday, was the first night we've been home since last Sunday. We opted out of our usual Friday night supper out to stay home, walk dogs, do yogs, and watch SciFI shows.

Last night Chili really misbehaved in dog agility. She hadn't been to class or practiced for two weeks and she was totally distracted by...everything. Wouldn't hold a sit/stay or a down/stay and tried to ambush every single dog at the place. It was friggin embarassing. I got glares from all the owners. I don't know if it was the full moon, or the allergy shots she just started, or her eplilepsy, but she was really off her game. She did the jumps, A-frame, and table fine though, and heeled off leash as long as no other dogs were within striking distance. Ginny did better. I took Abby to watch and she was unnerved. She tucked her tail and shook most of the time. Oh, well, we knew she has her shelter post traumatic isssues to deal with in all new situations. At least she was friendly to all the other dogs!!

Sanctuary is almost on. Gotta go. Live long and prosper.

Adorable

Little Miss Adorable

She's adorable. She was born that way, I guess, even though I wasn't there. All cottony white and fluffy eiderdown, with round cocoa cola eyes and pearly white choppers. She, looking around at the world with the interest of a born opportunist, just waiting until her little body could catch up with her devious desires. A few moons after and she, a whirling dervish of deviltry was pulling at the slumbering Pit bully boy's eyelid and challenging Dyna, who nobody or nothing in their right senses would dare to distress, challenging Dyna to a dominance showdown. Hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Jeane didn't daunt her. How can a hurricane dominant a dervish?

“She doesn't really sleep as far as we can tell,” Laura complained. “She just seems to micro-nap occasionally. She drives me crazy, getting into everything and nothing I do or say has any effect. She just looks at me as if to say, Well I am not sorry and eventually you'll stop yelling. Then you can throw the ball for me five hundred times.”

Why, I wondered, did you bring her into your life? But, I knew. She's adorable.

That's why I brought her into my life a year later. After she'd broken her hip playing too rough with Cody. After Dyna'd finally had enough and promised to have her for supper. After Laura finally was tearfully at her wit's end and planned to honor her sales agreement and give her back to the breeder who would certainly have put the now physically defective puppy down. She's adorable. That's what. And, the little beast, bouncy busy and bad to the bone plays it to the max at warp four.

Little miss adorable ACD was a obedience school drop out after chewing one too many times on the hapless boxer puppy. I've seen her flawless technique every time we walk and at every agility class since. Here's the scenerio: Wag the plumy silver tail, mouth open in doggy smile, black ears up, eyes bright, dancing a dingo prima ballerina dance. Strange dog approaches. She sniffs. Dog turns away to sniff. her adorable ACD butt and.wham... she nails it with a quick dart and scizzor snip. Dog screams. Owners frown. I know what they're thinking. Why can't you control that nasty little dog? Little miss adorable laughs inwardly. It's Chili -- whose AKC registered name tag is Big Trouble in Little China-- it's Chili 4, world zero. Again. It works on humans running past or bicycling too near, too. Lure em in. Attack from behind. Put em in their place according to the Cattle Dog's Life's Little Instruction Book.

“Oh she's soo cute,” people gush. “I want one of these dogs.”

“No, you don't.” I say. “Not unless you have a cattle ranch. Not unless you are willing to do agility and flyball, and spend hours at dog parks and the lake and pool or take endless walks and unless you have the patience of Mother Teresa.”

People fall for Chili's adorable persona all the time. People that haven't been dived bombed by the silver streak, that is. People who haven't spent all nighters at the emergency vet clinic once or twice a quarter after one of her spontaneous adventures gone horribly wrong, or had to give up their carpets to chewing and peeing games, had to put locks on their pantry and repaint the pantry doors when she circumvents the locks and baracades in search of doggy booty that will send her back to the emergency clinic. Shes so adorable. By crikey, she is! But beware, her ancestors were scratching fleas under the dingo tree just a short time ago in eviloutionary time. She's a wild canine child in every way. No rules just right. If the opportunity is there, so is Chili. Don't sweat the small stuff mate, eighteen Combat Quick Kill Roach Baits won't kill her. Anyway, it was fun finding them and breaking into the cabinet and chewing them into black plastic pulp. The butcher knives she knocked down didn't kill her either. The pottery didn't break on her head this time. And she looked so adorable greeting me when I came in the door before I rushed off to call the vet one more time.Yes, adorable with her black ears pricked forward, doggy smile and gleaming pearly choppers shining, pink tongue lolling out above her fluffy chest. Dancing her distinctive doggy dance.

Who knew adorable would be so deadly or could be so addictive? Or so effective. Well, I suspect, Chili did. Does.

Addendum: The snake she caught this morning wasn't venomous after all.