Wait a minute!

My mom just sent me an e-mail in which she said, "LOL". I was taken aback.

I know I've taken quite a hiatus from blogging. I've been using the non-blogging time to read. I just started Anna Karenina last night. I'm pretty excited about it. It doesn't get much better than Tolstoy...shame we have to rely on translators in order to read it though.

What else have I done?

I went to a friend of Kevin's wedding. The bride wore crocheted booties in lieu of shoes. I hadn't seen booties since my aunt was alive. She used to make them for people. Never for a bride though.

When that was over, we went over to his buddy's house and watched the Hogs get embarrassed.

Today I took the kids to Petsmart to get their nails clipped. They really didn't do too bad. It's always really hard for me to handle both of them at the same time by myself. Mercy's always scared to death. She hates new surroundings and all of the strange people trying to pet her. Butter is elated to see new surroundings and strange people trying to pet her, so I have to try to keep her reigned in while trying to keep Mercy from running away. Then when I took them back to the grooming room (which, by the way, apparently everyone in there hates their job--they always seem pissed off at the dogs they're working on), Butter promptly squatted down and peed in the floor. We had a serious discussion about bathroom manners at that point.

Meanwhile, one of the ladies who was working on a teacup poodle kept screaming, "No, Mighty Mouse! You've got to be still! Stop biting me!" etc.

Then Mercy refused to go with the grooming lady. Seriously refused. In that way in which dogs slip out of their harness and leash and try to make a run for it. I had to hold her while she got beautified and then reharness her.

Once that was all over, I told them they could go pick out a treat. Butter headed for a bag of Eukanuba (sp?) and tried to eat it. I told her we couldn't afford that kind and found them a rope toy instead. All the while we were browsing in the store, they did pretty well. But there was this little girl who followed us all over the store trying to pet the dogs and talking to me 90 miles an hour. I kept telling her not to pet Mercy because Mercy doesn't like kids. She didn't listen very well. I learned that she has two dogs: A Chocolate lab and a Blue Heeler. She used to have another dog that got "dye-a-lee-a" for 5 days and got dehydrated and died and then they gave him back to her dad's hunting buddy and he got fat, but 'not as fat as Butter'. Yeah, I'm not sure what that was about, but I'm pretty sure if your dog has the runs for 5 days you're supposed to take it to the vet and apparently her dad's friend is some kind of miracle healer.

Everyone with their fat jokes about Butter. I could see it in her eyes, she was tired of it and wanted to eat everyone who made fun of her.

But the highlight of the Petsmart extravaganza was when an old guy said, "That looks like a Blue Tick Beagle!" It's the first time anyone's ever correctly identified her.