LINED WITH PEOPLE

I'm very, very close to getting to 10,000 blog views.

In fact, this here blog post will probably put me over 10,000.

Cool, dudes!

To celebrate I have a special topic to talk about. It's insightful and thoughtful, just like its author (ha, ha).

-----

Every year, I look forward to going to my town's parade in July.

This morning, I woke up happy and excited. I got up before 6 a.m., according to my FitBit. I let the dogs out, did laundry, and did some tidying up.

And then around 7, I decided to lay down and rest for just a few minutes.

When I woke up, the clock said 9:15 a.m.

Uh oh! The parade starts at 9:30 a.m. I brushed my hair, let my dogs in, and ran out the door, still wearing what I wore to bed last night.

I went to our usual spot, and looked for my people. Only, I couldn't find my people. I was worried about the parade starting and me missing the first part of it. I like the horses, dammit, and I want to see them!

It turns out, my people moved. When a friend called me and told me to stop and turn around, I was thrown off a little bit.

It didn't help that I had been awake for 15 minutes at that point.

Walking, holding a blanket, talking on the phone, contemplating the concept of changing spots and crossing a street is apparently really hard.

I fell face first into the street.

And guys, not only any street, a street that was LINED WITH PEOPLE because the parade was starting.

Oh Jesus.

Thankfully, the only thing hurt was my ego.

So, the blog post wherein I hit 10,000 views is about how I wiped out in front of a huge crowd of people and made a complete ass of myself.

Aunt Monca is amazing like that.

I got some good candy, thanks to the cute little candy magnets in pink skirts that were sitting on my lap and beside me.

A couple packets of my favorite candy were thrown my way, which helped my ego out in the end.

(Eating candy given to my nieces is considered an Aunt Tax, guys. It's allowed, especially if it's the good kind.)

My choo choo!

Fair time continued this week.

When I was judging last week, I picked up a flyer for a children's day, which happened to be on Monday morning.

Last week, I didn't exactly know what the kid day would entail, but I figured it'd be fun to take the kiddos.

I made arrangements at work, and then met my Mom and three nieces at the fairgrounds that morning.

First off, is there anything better than a child running to you in public, with a big smile on their face? I know I won't always be cool to them. Maybe one day they'll roll their eyes at me. But for now, I'm going to scoop them up in my arms, kiss and hug them, and spin them around, or put them upside down, whatever they want.

Okay, after hugs and kisses were had, we made our way to the kid activities.

My 2-year-old nieces are probably too young for most of this stuff, but I still think it's fun taking them to events like this.

Their differences are striking. One twin loved a T-Rex toy, and wanted to take it home. Sorry, kid, you can't take a dinosaur home. The other twin was terrified of the toy that her sister loved.

Go figure.

The real star of the morning was a choo choo.

The local electric company has a pretty cool train they take to children's events. I rode on the train with my nieces the first time, and it was pretty fun.

The second time, I made my Mom go with them.

The third time, I think my Mom also went with them, and I handed her the baby, who was busy eating my bracelet.

And then there was a fourth time.

On the fourth train ride, we saw a bird. That tickled my little niece. In my mind, she sees birds all the time, but I guess seeing a bird on a train is extra special.

She squealed "Tweet tweet!" when she saw the bird.

It was a special bird.

After the fourth ride, I got her off of the train. But the man running the train then announced that the next ride would be the last ride.

I looked at my little niece. Fine, I said. One more time.

Two big kids joined us. They were talking about how many times they ran rode the train. The boy rode it twice, the girl three times.

I told them that the little curly-haired 2-year-old beat them both, and rode it five times.

They laughed.

The meltdown after the train ride was funny. She did not want to get off the train. She threw herself to the ground, and the mega meltdown ensued.

My choo choo!

Just let her throw her fit, my Mom told me.

I backed off. Then my little niece got up, looked around, and started running away.

She was running after the choo choo, which was driving off.

She was chasing a train, with her hands in front of her, crying, saying: "My choo choo! My choo choo!"

I wish I could describe how funny this was, but I can't.

:)

I ran after her and picked her up. Sorry, kid, but I'm not going to let you chase a train.

The same kid chased Santa Claus last year.

When the train came back and was being disassembled, we told the choo choo bye bye and waved at it. We told the kids that the train was tired and needed to take a nap.

The choo choo was a hit. I took a photo of the train on our way out, and I printed off a couple of copies of it and gave it to my little curly-haired niece.

It's her choo choo.

If we don't find another Doo Doo, we're in deep doo doo.

On Saturday, my Mom and I took the twins to the fair.

It wasn't really a hit. On the plus side, when one twin was thinking of throwing a fit, we told her that the chickens and pigs were going to get her if she didn't get up from the floor right away.

She listened.

Those chickens and pigs are scary if you're 2, I guess.

After we got to pet a chicken, a horse and a goat, we went shopping at a craft store.

I had a certain curly-haired twin in my cart. My Mom and the other twin were shopping in another part of the store.

My niece spotted some beanie babies in a clearance section. She latched onto an owl, and I told her she could have it.

And then she saw it: A Doo Doo doll. (Doo Doo is toddler speak for Scooby Doo.)

My little niece had a dilemma. I asked her if she wanted an owl, or Doo Doo? She picked the owl. I told her that was fine, but we were going to give sister Doo Doo.

That worked out well for about a couple of seconds. After that, it was clear that the twin that was in my cart wanted the Doo Doo doll.

We had a potential meltdown on our hands, guys.

My Mom and I went back to the toys. My Mom climbed on the shelf trying to find another Doo Doo. I told her I already did that and I promised her there was only one Doo Doo.

Sigh.

If we don't find another Doo Doo, we're in deep doo doo.

The other twin, for some weirdly cute toddler reason, really likes monkeys. We found a gorilla toy, and convinced the monkey-loving twin that the gorilla was a monkey.

Another monkey eats lunch with us.

It worked.

The monkey-loving twin was happy with her pseudo monkey. She sang in the store the rest of the shopping trip: "I love my monkey! I love my monkey!"

The other twin, meanwhile, was kissing and making out with Doo Doo in the store. Whatever floats your boat, kid.

That dog, like a certain mouse, is really, really important.

It all worked out in the end. Their little voices saying "tank you Monca" made the drama all worth it.

So, there you have it. A $4 fake monkey and a $4 Doo Doo made for an interesting shopping trip.

These kids are the coolest people I know.

Bench.

Earlier this week I had the chance to be a judge at my county's fair.

I grew up in 4-H and used to consult with the judges about my projects. So, the fact that I do this as an adult is really, really cool.

Actually it's hot, because the weather is always insanely hot the week of the fair.

Anyway, each judge gets a superintendent. A superintendent is a 4-Her who basically organizes everything for you and tells you what to do.

They run the show and keep the process smooth and efficient.

My superintendent this year was a 12-year-old 4-Her. She was sharp! I had fun talking to her and working with her. She's more intelligent than some adults I know.

I was telling my parents about her at dinner that night, kind of bragging about her. I told them her major project was woodworking, and she made a bench. I think it's cool that a 12-year-old girl is involved in the woodworking project.

Me: She made a bench.

My mom: She's a bitch? I thought you said you liked her?

Me: Noooooooooooooooo. A bench, not a bitch.

And that's my 4-H story for the day.

Dumb.

The dumbest things ever invented are white floors and black dogs.

#cleaningwoes

Part 5 - Love is universal.

I watched my nieces on Sunday afternoon for a few hours.

My Dad was there, I was there, three kids under 2 were there, and my three dogs were there.

I love having a house full of people. My house was kind of a zoo that afternoon.

The doorbell rang while we were watching Scooby Doo. At first, I thought it was on tv. But I went to my door, and there was a nice lady wanting to talk to me.

Only, she didn't speak English very well. I tried to communicate with her, but I wasn't doing a very good job of it. She pointed to her ring finger and pointed to me.

Oh! I figured she probably wanted to talk to a man. As I'm the man in my house, I figured she wanted to talk to my Dad, who was in the kitchen.

He did a much better job of communicating with her than I did. She was my neighbor, and had talked to him about gardening a couple of weeks ago.

She brought me a tool to use in my garden. I think that's funny, because my neighbors have the best garden on the face of the planet. They spent a lot of time in it, and there's not a weed to be seen near it.

Meanwhile, my little garden of nine plants is mostly just weeds.

(I think she's trying to tell me something, haha.)

My neighbor came into my house to tell my nieces hi. My puppy ran away in the process, and my Dad caught her outside.

Like I said, my house was kind of a zoo that afternoon.

My 2-year-old nieces were being shy, but I was trying to get them to tell her hello.

I grabbed my 7-month-old baby niece and brought her to my neighbor.

My neighbor's eyes lit up!

She grabbed the baby from my hands, and starting talking to her, cooing at her, and kissed her chubby little cheeks a few times.

We laughed a lot. In broken English, she asked what the baby's name was, and my Dad explained to her that the girls were his grandkids, I was his daughter, and the kids were my brother's kids.

We found out that she has four grandkids herself.

When I answered the door, I had no idea how to communicate with her. It turns out, you just need a pretty cute, squishy baby to bond over.

The baby was happy she was getting attention. She made a new friend  and didn't seem to mind at all.

It doesn't matter what language you speak. Love is universal.

Part 4 - Horsing around.

I spent Friday night at my Mom and Dad's house, because I really thought my house had a pretty good chance of burning down.

On Saturday morning, my house, along with every other house in the neighborhood, was still standing.

Sweet!

I spent Saturday lounging around and sleeping, and being thankful I still had a bed to lay in.

On Saturday night, the Pugs and I went to bed. My brother sent me a text message, saying he wanted to go take photos out in the country.

Take me, I said.

So around midnight, we went out looking for the Milky Way out by a lake.

It was too cloudy and the moon was too bright.

I was kind of being a little shit. I don't do spontaneous things in the middle of the night, I have an anxiety problem, and I really don't like water. The thing I don't like most in life is doing spontaneous things at night near water.

This is my nightmare.

I asked my brother to please not drive into a lake and kill me several times. He listened, and we drove back to town. I was trying to prolong the trip, because I had my phone open to Pokemon Go and was catching a shit-ton of them.

We were driving along Wyatt Earp, and my brother started slowing down. I'm pretty sure my face was in my phone. I wasn't paying attention to why he was slowing down. And then I looked to my right, and a freaking horse was RIGHT THERE.

A beautiful horse, either black and white or gray, with a saddle, almost ran into our car (on my side, nonetheless). I screamed like a little girl. It's not something you expect seeing, you know?

The horse crossed Wyatt Earp, and went along his horsey way, all at 1 a.m.

Oh my God. It was almost a drive by horsing!

My brother and I had a conversation. Do we need to call this in? I always call in cattle when I see them out, so people don't hit them on the highway.

We ended up calling it in. I handed my brother on my phone after I dialed the number, mostly because I was giggling like a little girl and couldn't have a serious conversation about a horse crossing the street at 1 a.m. in town.

Who keeps a horse saddled in the middle of the night? And, in town? Where else does this happen besides Dodge City, Kansas?

My best guess is that it got out of a trailer at a nearby hotel, maybe.

It provided some terrific fodder, pictured below.

Part 3 - Fire!

This is the part of the story that gets a little weird.

I had just finished eating my steak at my kitchen table. My plate was still on the table, in fact, when my electricity went off.

I might add that on Thursday, I checked the weather forecast. There was a 10 percent chance of rain. On Friday, it poured. I put my car in the garage just in case, but otherwise I ignored the storms, because there didn't seem to be a chance of tornadoes.

When my electricity came back on a few seconds later, my dogs were acting crazy. Like, really, really crazy. Somebody is trying to murder us crazy!

I walked outside on my front porch, to try and figure out what was going on. My dogs like barking at air sometimes, so I wasn't expecting to find anything alarming.

I noticed a large tree branch in the street, but it wasn't my tree, so I decided it wasn't my problem to deal with it.

And then I looked directly across the street, and I noticed an orange flickering light.

Oh, shit. I had a feeling I knew what it was. I grabbed my phone, and walked a little closer, maybe half a block up on the other side of the street.

What I saw was flames. Not only flames, but flames that were shooting and sparking everywhere.

OH MY GOD.

I called 911, standing my neighbor's yard. The operator wanted to know if I was close enough to see what was on fire. I told her that no, I was not close enough. I only saw flames. And then I told her that she was welcome to get closer if she wanted to, but I didn't feel comfortable doing that.

Also, my voice was shaking so much, it's kind of amazing she understood anything I said.

I totally chickened out. I called my Mom and told her that there was a fire across the street from my house, and I told her that she was going to have a few roommates that night (the Pugs and I).

My dinner plate was still sitting on my table.

I might add that everything ended up being okay. I drove past the church the next morning, and you can't even tell anything happened. The vehicles in the parking lot were fine and the grass was green and not burnt.

My best guess is that the storm caused some sort of electrical fire in the parking lot/alley behind the church.

I gathered what was important to me that night: My Pugs, some financial documents, and my favorite pieces of jewelry. And then I went to my Mom and Dad's house, sat on their couch for a couple hours, tried to not throw up everywhere, and went to bed.

Like I said, everything was fine in the end. Maybe I didn't have to leave, but I wouldn't have slept at all with a freaking fire across the street.

Pickles, the little black dog, tortures Jasper.

Also, I kept wondering what people who live in wildfire prone areas feel like during the summer. That sinking feeling in my stomach lasted several hours.

Phew.

I also refilled my prescription for anxiety medicine. I now have a three-month supply. So, I challenge life to keep throwing unexpected things at me.

Just wait until part four of this series!

Part 2 - Food.

There comes a time in your life when you have to stop eating pizza rolls and hot pockets on a regular basis.

I'm kind of embarrassed to say how much of those foods I eat on a monthly basis. 

When I went shopping on Friday after work, I wanted to make a grown up meal. And what's more grown up than steak and potatoes?

I found a recipe on Pinterest for potatoes, and I kind of followed it. I diced the potatoes up, put them in a pan with two tablespoons of butter and olive oil, then threw all kinds of spices in there as well.

I put them in the oven for about an hour, and stirred them every 15 minutes.

Those potatoes were delicious, guys. Patience is not my strong point, so the fact that I spent an hour putting love into them was kind of amazing. 

While the potatoes were cooking, I cooked my steak. The first one I cooked on Friday night was perfect. It was seared perfectly on the outside, and still nice and pink on the inside.

A masterpiece!

After the steak was done cooking, I let it rest. I threw the potatoes in the pan the steak had cooked in for a few minutes.

Guys, did I mention how delicious those potatoes were?

I'm proud of myself for this one.

Part 1 - Steak and poop.

This week, I'll have a five-part series on my weekend events.

My weekend involved calling 911 to report a fire, frantically running away like a little girl, and a few other weirdly memorable events.

The first story I'm going to tell you involves a conversation I had about steak and poop.

Yesterday afternoon, I watched my 2-year-old nieces for a couple of hours. I made a big supper, which they basically ignored.

Along with their meal, I cooked myself one last steak that I had in the fridge. I made some potatoes, and I sat down to eat my delicious meal.

One of my nieces came up to me, and looked at my plate. She pointed to my steak, which was brown.

"Poop."

Okay, little girl, do you honestly think I'm eating poop?

I told her it was steak. I asked her to say the word 'steak.'

"Poop."

No, goober. Steak.

"Poop."

After a conversation about poop, I put the rest of my steak in a container and put it back in the fridge.

Somehow, my appetite disappeared in the middle of that conversation. I'll finish my steak tonight, when I don't have to talk about poop to a toddler.

:)

It's pretty cute.

Lately, I've noticed a lot of people randomly driving down my street, and stopping in front of a church.

That church is right across the street from my house. The church is a good neighbor. Several members of the congregation knocked on my door the weekend I moved to tell me that they had been praying for me, a new homeowner.

Anyway, I've been wondering what was going on with all of those vehicles stopping.

We had a lively conversation at work about Pokemon-Go.

Apparently churches are training centers (I don't actually know what that means). When people drive around, they're apparently pulling over by the church in front of my house to train their Pokemon.

Yesterday, I downloaded the app. I have to admit, it's pretty cute. I caught one Pokemon yesterday, but haven't opened the app since.

I guess if it gets you out and about, it might be worth it. After yesterday's skunk debacle, I need to find a new walking route in town. While finding a new route, I might also be hunting monsters through the app (I guess they're called monsters? I have no idea).

It's disheartening to see national monuments asking that people not play the app. I hope people have common sense and play it in appropriate places.

But, I admire the businesses and organizations who are embracing it.

Ahem, Denver Broncos.

The breaking of the bread.

I needed some little girl time this week.

I went and saw my nieces for a little bit last night. Apparently they made zucchini bread during the day, so my Mom was trying to get them to tell me about it.

She gave one twin a piece of bread. The piece was fairly large. To make it easier for a toddler to eat, my Mom broke the bread into two pieces.

My 2-year-old niece shot her an evil, evil look, and said: "You broke it."

Again, she said: "You broke it." 

When my niece was given a whole piece of bread, unbroken, she was happy again.

I love toddler logic.

:)

My comment to the situation: Didn't Jesus break bread, too?

Not a cat.

This week, I'm trying to meet my step goal every single day.

So far, I'm killing it. I think I need to change my goal to meet my steps every single day for the rest of the summer.

It would be nice to lose a good 5-10 pounds before the end of August. I've been lazy recently in exercising, and I need to get better.

Tonight, apparently my nap was more important than exercise. By the time I woke up, it was getting dark outside. I still needed a good 2,500 steps, maybe a little more.

I rolled out of bed and thought about just walking around my house to get the steps. But no, I thought, I need to make an effort and leave my house to exercise.

Meh, leaving the house.

By the time I got to the walking track, it was around the time I usually finish my walk.

I parked my car, popped my headphones in, and turned on my workout playlist on Spotify. While I don't particularly enjoy exercise (who does?), it's nice to listen to music and forget about my worries for a little while.

Plus, no one was walking because it was dark out, which meant I didn't have to awkwardly wonder if I should smile at people walking the opposite direction.

It started out as a peaceful walk with no other human interaction for this introvert.

About halfway through the walking track, I noticed something move in front of me, maybe 25 feet away.

It was black. At first I thought it was a cat, so I kept walking.

It was hanging out on the cement, right in the way of where I was going to walk. When it started moving, I noticed that the black cat was long, skinny, and had a white stripe down its back.

My exact thought at that point: OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD.

Not a cat.

I turned around and walked back to my car. I'm happy to report that I'm capable of moving really, really fast, especially if the consequences of not moving fast involve getting skunked.

I kept looking back, wondering if it was chasing me. Do skunks chase people? I have no idea. I can't say that I've ever been in a position to think about that before now.

As I was walking really, really fast, trying to outrun a skunk, a thought ran through my mind.

Well, at least this will make a good blog post.

Next time, I'll exercise in the daylight. Also, as I was running away from a skunk, my FitBit started to buzz.

I met my step goal.

I met my step goal today running away from a skunk.

Life

Boom

On trees and life.

Sometimes, days just start out on the wrong foot.

This morning, as I got in my car to go to work, I turned the corner. And then I was greeted with this sight:



In case you can't see the photo very well, that's a giant tree limb that is kind of, sort of, half-way broken and hanging onto dear life in the middle of my street.

In the words of my 2-year-old niece: "It boke."



This would have been a problem for any driver, as the limb was basically hanging so low it was blocking the street.

Only, the problem tree is on my property, which means it's my responsibility to fix it.

Arg!

I have no idea what happened to it. The Pugs woke me up to tell me about the storm at around 2 a.m. I'm guessing it's either wind damage or a lightning strike.

Lightning sounds way cooler, so that's the answer I'm going to go with.

The thing is, I don't really need a tree on my property to fall on someone's head.

So, who do you call at 8 a.m. to help fix a tree so the problem branch doesn't fall off and kill someone?

Dad. You call Dad.





I won't mention how, exactly, he chopped some of the branches off. For the record, I told him it wasn't the safest thing in the world to do.

In my defense, he only bled a little bit.

So, that was my morning. And by my morning, I mean my Dad's morning, because I certainly didn't do 99.9 percent of the work.

Manual labor, sweating, and blood, all before 8:40 a.m.

The actual branch that broke is about 20 feet up in the air, and it's too high for a DIY job. I have some calls out to tree trimming businesses today.

This tree sums up my life kind of perfectly.

Shit happens. You fix it the best you can, and then you go back to work.

Toes

Me: How many toes do I have?

2-year-old niece: One, two, three, four, seven, yellow.

Me: Yes. Good job.

Toddler conversations

Me: How old are you?

2-year-old niece: Nine.

Me: You're NINE, and you still wear diapers?

2-year-old niece: I know!

These kids are the coolest.

Memories

I couldn't tell you what year it was. It was more than 10 years ago, I know that. Maybe I was just finishing high school, or just starting college?

Anyway, I laugh at this memory every year on the Fourth of July.

When I was living at my Mom and Dad's house, a dog came into our garage because she was scared of the fireworks.

I remember her being a medium sized dog, maybe a Sheltie. She was cute, and we could tell that her owner was a woman.

She clinged to me that night, and I let her.

The dog had vet tags, but no other identification on who she belonged to. The vet's office was closed, as it was a holiday, so my Mom and I decided to keep her overnight and try to find her owners the next day.

The dog slept in bed with me that night.

We did find her owners the next day. The owner, a woman, said she spent the whole night looking for her dog.

I think it's funny, in a way. The dog ran away from home, and got to sleep in a comfy bed next to a warm body.

If you're a dog and you're going to run away, you better run away to a Springer house.

I think about that dog around this time every year. If one of my dogs ever runs away (Pickles does this very, very often, but she always comes back) I hope they run away to a house as compassionate about animals as the house I grew up in.

We ended up okay.

I apologize in advance to anyone reading this. This post is not for the faint of heart.

There, you've been warned.

-----

There's a certain amount of happiness when you surround yourself with people you've known your entire life.

A couple friends and I only get to see each other a few times a year. When we do get together, it's not usually PG and we come up with some amazing quotes by the end of the night.

The night started off by reminiscing. I reminded them of the time they wrote the word of a certain part of the male anatomy on my car with window paint on my 16th birthday. I reminded them that hey, thanks guys, I got grounded for that one.

And I didn't even do it!

And then I reminded them of the time they made fun of me so much that I stopped wearing my favorite pair of jeans. I had this awesome 90s pair of jeans that were bleached. They were the shit.

I loved them.

I wore those jeans to go bowling with the same group of friends one night. Under the black light of the bowling alley, they told me my jeans looked like they had sperm all over them.

In their defense, they were totally right. 

Those pants were known as the sperm jeans from then on. I had to stop wearing them, mainly because I was 16 and I didn't want a sperm jeans reputation.

Thanks, guys, for your unconditional love and support over the years. 

:)

Anyway, we played a pretty amazing game of Cards Against Humanity. (I was not wearing my sperm jeans, and the word 'Penis' was not written on my car. We've grown up! Not really...)

-----

At dinner, we were talking about how glitter is the herpes of the craft world. 

I was on Reddit the other night, and I read a quote that made me laugh. It was something like, "MDF is the herpes of woodworking."

I told my friends that, which prompted the quote: "Every hobby has a herpes."

-----

I left my phone at my house that night, or else you would have been blessed with some amazing pictures of our Cards Against Humanity game.

I don't remember what black card was played, but the white card I had was about a 55-gallon drum of lube. 

I thought, for sure, that I had that round won. But no, my lube card was beat out by a card about ice cream.

Which prompted the quote: "I can't believe ice cream beat lube."

I love these people. 

I hope our kids, the ones that exist and the ones that don't exist yet, find friendships as great and as fun as ours. 

-----

We ended up okay. 

I think.

We did not take a new picture last night, so here's an old picture. 

Not perfect.

A couple weeks ago, I spoke to a group of 4-H kids at a camp here in town.

The topic of the camp was photography. Some of the kids told me they tried taking photos, but they were frustrated because they mess up all the time.

I told them that I mess up all the time, too. I told them to keep trying and practicing, just like you practice at sports.

So, there's the back story for you.

The fireworks in my neighborhood started a couple of nights ago. Friday night was not a good night. My FitBit basically screamed at me the next morning.

Anyway, I kind of screwed up that night.

I kept hearing a whining noise. One of my dogs, Penny, sleeps with me at night. Specifically, she likes doing covers and snuggling as close to me as humanly possible.

I thought Penny was whining about something, so my solution to the problem at 3 a.m.(ish, exact time not known) was to knee her.

Now, it's not like I knocked her across the room. Every time I heard whining, I swung my leg across the bed and tried to wake her up from the nightmare she was having.

Only, the whining didn't stop.

I don't know how much time passed before I actually woke up fully and turned the light on.

Raven, Pickles and Penny.

When I did, I found that my dog Raven, who had surgery and is wearing a cone, was stuck underneath my nightstand. She was whining because she's basically blind, and she had no idea where she was or what she was doing in life.

(Me too, dog. Me too.)

So, I left my poor blind dog trapped underneath of a table while I was kneeing the snoring dog who wasn't causing the problem to begin with.

Oops. Sorry, Penny.

We got three inches of rain that night. Raven doesn't like things that make noise, including storms. I'm guessing she came over to me during the night to tell me about the storm, but got lost along the way and ended up under a table instead.

Oops.

If you care, I took Penny bye bye the next day to make up for my crappy Pug parenting. She got to go see Grandma, and she was pretty happy about that.

Sorry, Penny. I'm not perfect.

Also, I went to the store late last night and bought Raven a nightlight. Last night we slept well. No one got needlessly kicked or stuck under a table.

So, that's a win.

Conehead, also known as Raven.