It's Over!

the doggie hotel is awesome, they have wi-fi and alpha male is fantastic, he let me bring my laptop! alpha female finished the bar exam and she's wondering what she's going to do with herself now. I had better go now, they're ringing the dinner bell.

Good Omens

Alpha Female had a good omen on her way to take the bar exam yesterday. She was at a gas station just minding her own business and paying over $4 a gallon for gas when a local guy started chatting her up. When he asked her if she was married, she knew that he really was hitting on her. This hasn't happened to her in a long time and she seemed pretty excited about it. I think she's afraid that she's getting too old and she has had too many kids to be hit on. This guy, we'll call him Bubba, asked her why she was going to Tampa and when she told him it was to take the bar exam, Bubba looked very impressed and said, "So, you're going to be a bartender, eh?" He wasn't as interested when he found out she just wanted to be a lawyer, but he still asked her out to lunch. I'm just wondering, why did he ask her if she was married if he was still going to ask her to go to lunch?

After that auspicious beginning to her bar exam adventure, things got less exciting. She's now halfway through the exam and hoping that she won't be back to take the exam again in February. She's also hoping that tonight she'll have fewer dreams about not showing up for the exam on time.

I'm going to the doggy spa tomorrow and I'm going to spend the weekend there hanging out with the other dogs. I'm not sure if they have Wi-Fi there and I'm not sure if Alpha Male will let me bring a laptop with me, so I might be out of touch for a few days.

Happy Birthday to Me!!!

It's my birthday, it's my birthday, it's my birthday! I got the best birthday present ever! A whole bag of rawhide bones. That should keep me busy for awhile.

Alpha Female and the Things were packing up yesterday and it looks like they are leaving the house for awhile. Alpha Female's bar exam starts tomorrow. I can't wait for her to be done with it so that things can get back to normal around here. She has completely stopped cleaning the house and hasn't been spending nearly enough time with us. It'll be nice to have her back, I just hope she passes so we don't have to go through this all over again in February. I heard Alpha Male tell her that if she doesn't pass, she'll have to go live in the garage. If that happens though, he did promise to get her a window A/C unit. I thought that was considerate.

Life After the Bar Exam

If you listen to Alpha Female talk, you might believe that the only important thing going on in the whole world now is her studying for the bar exam. However, if she wasn't so self involved, she might notice that life has been going on all around just the same as usual while she's been studying. Sometimes, I hear her say things like, "What am I going to do with myself when this is all over?" I have a couple of suggestions for her. She could resume some of the activities she did before she started studying. She should start with clearing out some of the science experiments that have been growing in the refrigerator. How long do you think it takes for a piece of corn to be covered in blue, furry mold? Even I wouldn't eat that! I guess I shouldn't be so quick to criticize. Maybe she has a plan...maybe she's going into the pharmaceutical business and is growing her first batch of penicillin.

And in totally unrelated news, here is a picture that I like a lot because, if you look very carefully, you can see me! I'm not sure if the picture was taken during potty time or story time.

Things My Family Learned Today

First, let me give you some background. Alpha Female had the option of taking the essay portion of the bar exam on a laptop. Of course, she went with that option and was required to qualify her laptop for use during the exam. The time to qualify a laptop is over. That means that now she must either use her current laptop for the exam or else write out the essay answers in blue books. Alpha Female is a terrible hand writer. She is convinced that hand writing will probably cost her several points on the exam. It would be impossible to overstate how glad she is that she is able to use a laptop for the bar exam. Also, Thing 1 likes to sit in Alpha Female's chair and play with the laptop.

Now I can get to the point and tell you what I saw today. Thing 1 had been playing in the Alpha's bedroom quietly for several minutes. That alone should have let the Alphas know that trouble was brewing. Alpha Female checked on Thing 1 and saw her sitting at the laptop, so Alpha Female closed all of her applications and opened a text editor so Thing 1 could type her innermost thoughts. Alpha Female then came back into the living room and sat down with Alpha Male to watch the Tour de France. Next, Thing 1 came into the living room and handed Alpha Male the 'enter' key. Alpha Male set it on the side of the sofa and kept watching TV. (That's when I knew this wasn't going to end well.) Thing 1 went back into the bedroom. A couple of minutes later Alpha Male got up to check on Thing 1. Alpha Female could tell something was very wrong and came running. The laptop's keyboard was lying in pieces all over the desk! For the next several minutes all I heard was Alpha Male saying, "It's toast" and "You shouldn't let her play with your laptop" and "It's ruined." Meanwhile, Alpha Female visibly struggled to not have a nervous breakdown.

The good news is that we took this as a learning experience and learned:
1. You should not let a two year old play with a laptop.
2. If you are very patient, it is possible to stick most of the keys back on a keyboard.
3. There are a lot of keys on a keyboard that you never use and don't even really need.
Who knew?

Happy Anniversary to Me

Today is the first anniversary of my blog! Over the last year I have enjoyed sharing with you all of the happy, exciting, strange, and gross things that have been happening in my house. Over the next year, I am looking forward to sharing with you Alpha Male's first hole-in-one, Alpha Female's passage of the bar exam, Thing 1's success in going pee pee in the potty, Thing 2's first steps, and my acquisition of a lifetime supply of doggie cookies. I'm sure lots more will happen, too. I'll be sure to share. Thanks for reading!

Weigh In

Thing 2 had her six month well baby check up today. She is really packing on the pounds! At 15 lbs. 14 oz., she has just about four more pounds to gain until she catches up with me. Maybe when she weighs as much as me Alpha Female won't think it's funny to put her on my back and watch me give baby rides. And she wonders why Thing 1 still tries to ride on me....

Parade = Candy

I know that the Fourth of July was more than a week ago, and some people may think that was so long ago that it is untimely for me to be blogging about it now. However, around here, a week isn't such a long time anymore. It is unbelievable how busy Alpha Female has kept me while she is studying for the bar. She has banished me from helping with the substantive studying because I just couldn't understand why she wasn't getting more questions right. Law is just intuitive to me, but sometimes I forget that I am an exceptionally smart schnauzer. So, since I can't help her study anymore, I am trying to help around the house more. I specialize in cleaning the floors. Tonight I helped by licking spaghetti sauce off of the tile and earlier this weekend I tried to help clean up a box of spaetzle. I'm German, so I love spaetzle. When I noticed that somebody had dropped a box on the floor, I thought that I would be helpful and clean it up. I had just finished shredding one corner of the box into little pieces and was about to eliminate the need for the Alphas to pick up any actual spaetzle when Alpha Female came by and picked up the box herself. I mean, does she want my help or not? If she had just waited a few minutes longer, I would have devoured the spaetzle and all that would have remained of the box would have been tiny little pieces of cardboard, so little that they just would have blended in to the rest of the junk that's laying around this house. I'm just trying to be helpful.

Anyway, back to the Fourth of July. The Things went to their first Fourth of July parade this year. I wasn't invited to come along, the Alphas told me it would be too hot in my fur coat, but it sounds like it was fun. Once Thing 1 realized that people were giving her candy and jewelry, she started waving her flag and batting her eyelashes at everybody. At one point, she was eating three lollipops at once! I'm not sure what her political leanings were before the parade, but I'm pretty sure that after the parade, she'd vote for anybody who gave her a lollipop or a beaded necklace.

Happy Un-Birthday, Thing 2

Thing 2 is six months old today. It's hard to believe that she's been around that long and she's still not feeding me cheerios. She's also not sitting up by herself and she doesn't have any teeth. I don't know what she's been doing the last six months. I think I'm going to put her on a training schedule and make sure that she's more productive in the next six months that she has been for the last six months. Starting tomorrow, she's no longer going to just get by on her good looks.

While Thing 2 has been totally slacking and goofing off, at least Thing 1 has been making some big strides. Today Alpha Female showed up to bring Thing 1 home from school. Thing 1 put her toy away, and as if that wasn't exciting enough news, she walked over to Alpha Female and said, "I'm ready!" This may not be a big deal for most two year olds, but I don't think Thing 1 has ever put two words together before. I can't wait until she says, "Eat this, Gauss."

Later this evening, the Alphas were giving the Things baths and started talking about Thing 2's un-birthday. Thing 1 then started to sing "Happy Birthday." I'm not kidding, I heard her with my own ears (even though I was staying far away from the tub so that I wouldn't be accidentally splashed). She kind of muttered something unintelligibly, but I could tell she was singing. Then I heard her say, "to you" after more unintelligible babbling, I heard her say, "to you" again. It was easy to hear her singing because the Alphas were both shocked into silence. Even Thing 2 stopped her random jabbering in order to listen to her sister sing to her. I can't wait to hear her sing to me on my birthday in just a few weeks.