A few news pieces...
SNG has a blog! He probably won't update it more than once or twice a year, but right now he has a picture of the shed he built over the weekend. "Good jorb, Hamstrae!" -- Coach Z

SNG built a shed over the weekend. Actually, he and his dad built the shed together. Friday, SNG and I leveled the area where it would go. Saturday and Sunday, SNG and his did the barn-raising. Monday, I painted it while SNG put on the shingles. He's quite a roofer now! We still have to wait for some rain to know whether he's quite a good roofer.

While SNG and his dad built the shed, it pained me to refrain from helping. Y'all know I am quite the handy-girl. I was wielding hammer-and-nails while still in diapers, I had built several pieces of furniture by the time I left for college, and I even learned to arc weld in college (I learned tig and mig welding techniques, go me. And I wasn't half bad at it.). Set me loose with a roomful of power tools and I can build stuff. But the doctor says that I need to avoid heavy lifting and overheating, so it didn't seem like the best time to be building a shed.

So SNG's mom and I worked on some sewing projects inside. I've learned this about sewing my own clothes:
1. It takes far too long for what I get out of it.
2. I'm not good enough at it to modify patterns for the fact that my bust, middle, and hips are 3 different sizes.
3. When I'm finished, I have something that "looks home-made." And not in a good way.
4. Hunching over my little sewing machine is quite painful to my back.
But I did have a great time chatting with SNG's mom all weekend.

In short, I am still not, nor am I likely ever to be, a Domestic Goddess.

Just a regular old Goddess.

At last, the confinement is over. And, since I had to teach on Sunday (at 8am, mind you!), I will be taking the day off tomorrow. Four-day weekend! Woowoo!

This weekend SNG's 'rents are coming to town to help with the old-fashioned Amish barn-raising going on in our very own yard. Actually, it's an 8x8 foot shed, and the men-types will do the barn-raising. SNG's mom and I will be ripping our hairs out trying to sew maternity clothes all weekend long. Well, actually, she'll probably be just fine as she actually knows how to sew beyond just a pretty-much-straight-line. She's already made a shirt, some pants, a skirt, some shorts in less than 2 weeks. I've had 3 identical shirts in the planned-but-not-made-phase for the past 4 weeks. I am determined to get those shirts one step closer to wearable.

So Domestic! Where's that horse-and-buggy?

In the meantime, I am spending one of the 2.5 remaining business days I have left to learn this goshforsaken new class that I'm supposed to be teaching very very soon. Trouble is that when I run the examples in the course on my computer, I don't get the same results as the ones shown in the book. This is the same software that has taken 1.5 business days to install each time I've had to install it. Which has been three.

But at least it's kind of like Friday today! 75 minutes to go!

Help! I am a hostage in a Crazyland first-class beach resort.

This week I'm at one of the larger of the lesser/regional user group conferences for the software I teach. It's being held at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point resort, a top-notch joint in the heart of the coastal FL everglades just outside Ft Myers. On the site are four mediocre restaurants (typical meal price for salad and an entree only plus tax & tip: $35); four pools, one with a water-park-styley super water slide and one with a waterfall; a ferryboat ride to a private beach; various gift and tchotchky shops; nature walks; and a full-service spa with such offerings as:
Watsu aqua massage
Sundari facial
Neem and Gotu Kola healing wrap
Warm stone massage
Sundari herbal soak
Thai massage
Sundari spa pedicure
and that's just a sampling, not to mention the usual hair and manicure services.

Somehow I'm not feeling your sympathy. But you have no idea how desperately I need to be rescued from this place. We were told by the conference liason and by the travel dept that we were not allowed to rent a car for the conference because everything we'd need would be available on-site. Independently, the expense department laid down a meal rate of $45 a day.

As the resort is in the middle of an everglades natural wetland, we are not in sight-distance of anywhere cheap to eat. Since I was teaching an early Sunday morning class, I brought some breakfast cereal from home. So breakfast was free Sunday and Monday. Lunch was $34, and not very good. After I finished teaching Sunday, I wanted to find a way to pass the time, as none of my colleagues had arrived, and I was bored to pieces. Nature walk! Perfect!

There is a 1/4 mile boardwalk through the wetlands to the ferry boats where I could catch a ride to the beach. Taking my time and reading about all the marshland plants and animals, looking at a white ibis hunting for sand crabs, and dodging lots of lizards, I reached the ferry boat in about 6 minutes.

The last boat had left at 3pm. It was 4:15.

Undeterred, I tried finding other routes through nature. While the typical retired Floridian vacationer may consider a 0.25 mile boardwalk (1/2 mile round-trip!) to be quite a workout, I do not. There were no other routes on the resort grounds.

Lucky for me, I have my brand new whale-in-a-minidress maternity swimsuit with me. Actually, I love the thing. It's so BIG! But it's so COMFY! And modest. It covers up all the stuff I want covered. It would look ridiculous on anyone who is NOT pregnant, but there's no hiding that bump, so I can pull it off right now.

So I headed for the pools. First pool-- too cold. It's a "refreshing chilled waterfall pool." Ehhhh, no. The next pool was the super-slide. Oh how I wanted to go on the super-slide! But it isn't the same if you're totally by yourself and wearing a big black muumuu and riding the waterslide among all the 8-12 year olds. I would probably be perceived as some kind of Floridian pree-vert.

The 3rd pool was the lap pool, but no one was swimming laps and it was the right temperature so I floated around in it awhile and then found a shady cot and slept in the breeze for a couple of hours. Dinner put me about $30 over the meal limit for just a salad and a sandwich. Grrrr. I borrowed a DVD from the resort's loaner library and watched it all by myself in my room (no, not one of THOSE movies. It was Spanglish, an Adam Sandler flick. Cute.).

The next day (Monday), I worked the demo room for the conference, answering questions about training and certification and chatting up the few people I knew from work, other conferences, or my Sunday morning seminar. One woman in particular who lives in Austin was a lot of fun and she ended up hanging out with a group of us that evening. So, having found a few friends, things were looking up. The conference provided lunch: a salad and a big hunk of carrot cake. Just what I need to stave off gestational diabetes. And typical of my diet since I've been here. After lunch I needed to get away. AWAY! Escape! I wanted to walk until I found civilization. I tied on some running shoes and struck out in search of a land free of mangroves, hawaiian shirts, and fufu frozen drinks.

I walked for 2 miles until I reached a muddy field with no sidewalk which separated me from a large highway and, on the other side, a strip mall. I had come so far, only to be turned away. There was no way I was going to brave crossing that highway. To add up the obstacles:
1. muddy field (would ruin my shoes and possibly expose me to a giant anaconda)
2. big highway-- I don't run as fast as the cars.
3. I'm in Florida, home to 5 of the 10 least pedestrian-safe cities in America. Seriously, I am not kidding. These people cannot--should not--drive.
4. I'm in Florida where they drive on the medians to avoid a slowdown at a red light. It isn't called Crazyland for nothin', people.
5. After the Cincinnati trip, I am certain that a segment of the population is intent on running over pregnant ladies.

That night, dinner cost over $50. I had a salad, an entree, some asparagus, and a teeny ball of lemon sorbet. Throughout the day (baby's got to snack), I'd purchased a coffee drink ($3.45), a muffin ($2.80), some popcorn ($6) and a small Lunchables ($6). Total food for the day, without having to pay for breakfast or lunch: about $70.

I was, and still am trapped, a 2-mile walk from the nearest non-resort civilization which may as well be a million miles, with a budget of $45 a day and nothing to do for free recreation except beach myself like a large maternity whale by the pool.

Please send a car.

Lots of women blog about their prenatal experience, right? So, my dear reader(s), I apologize if all these funky maternity-styley-observations wear thin, but I just have to share. It's for posteriority, you know. Someday, probably on Inch-high's prom night, I'll pull out the ultrasound picture of her little bottom and some old blog entries and won't she just be delighted? Or horrified, whatever. Any attention is good attention, as my dog has taught me.

Although I've felt her kicking around in there for a few weeks now, today I FELT her kicking. Like, I had my hand on my stomach (scratching-- stretching skin gets itchy) and Jab! Jab! Poke! she triple-punched my hand like a Bruce Lee extra. It feels very odd, too: sort of like eating a bad curry from outer space, only without the nausea. For Red Dwarf fans out there, remember the revenge of the Chicken Vindaloo? Apparently, I am cooking an alien chicken vindaloo. Like a biological Julia Child.

This story ties back to the subject, honest:
In Eagle Pass, TX-- the town where my mother grew up and where all the cousins and I spent our summer and Christmas vacations together on the family ranch-- there is an old legend of the Abuelita (little old lady in spanish) Who Walks on the old loop highway at night. According to lore, she was a victim of a hit-and-run accident, or perhaps picked up and killed, or perhaps just died of starvation after hitchhiking for many moons (depending on whom you ask). If you drive the old highway alone at night, sometimes you can still see her walking, walking, walking: a ghost! If you pass her, she disappears. And then REAPPEARS IN YOUR BACKSEAT (whoooooooooo!).

Fast-forward to now. I've been walking. A lot. To work, from work, after lunch, after dinner, all hours. SNG walks with me whenever he can. I am not riding much and running usually feels too joggly ("Never, never, never shake a baby chicken vindaloo!") so I walk. Walk, walk, walk. On a good day I alternate jog-walk in 1/4 mile intervals.

On Sunday, one of our neighbors, whose boys sell scout popcorn every year, came up to us and said "Well, you are just the walking queen, aren't you? I don't go anywhere that I don't see you walking around! When I was pregnant I just wanted to sit around eating bonbons, blah blah blah..." I gave her my half-true excuse that I was trying to keep my blood sugar under control (only half of the story-- I am also trying to keep my SANITY when I can't go get a super-intense workout and walking feels better than eating bonbons on the couch). Then SNG and I walked a little more.

It only occured to me later that I am becoming the legend of the Walking Pregnant Lady of Windy Woods. Pass me by, and I'll end up in your backseat! (Whooooooooooo!)

Addendum to today's post.
I looked at the website for the Umstead Coalition today. That's the nonprofit group that raises money and awareness for our beloved state park next door.

Look at what's on the main page:
http://umsteadcoalition.org/

Hint: Scroll waaaaaaaay down.

I emailed SNG to let him know we were part of the public record and he said:

Not fair! The other 85 people didn’t walk there and walk home and show up late and stop to talk to everybody… We know we’re not that slow. I wish they’d left us off the list. Last place, or best at being slow?

To which I say:

We're best at taking time to stop and smell the flowers. And to tee-tee on them.

We had a great time on the walk, but we certainly didn't realize we were being timed. Awesome.

Follow-up from previous post: In spite of the weather I was only rained on a bit. No lightning. I bet you were on the edge of your seat wondering about that. Oh, and I didn't see any bears, either. All in all, a good day.

We did lots of hiking but only a little bit of riding this weekend because of some bad weather on Sunday. In my "delicate state," my road bike fits about as well as my favorite miniskirt, so we're only riding mountain bikes and the tandem now. SNG found a riser for my stem and was able to raise my bars about 1.5 inches, just enough that I can breathe while pedaling. It'll have to come up more in a month or so, but for now it works. I hear stories about women doing serious training rides all through pregnancy, and I honestly don't know how it is possible. Physically, I mean. I'm only at 21 weeks, and on my road bike, my thighs squish into my belly half-way up the pedal stroke, making me have to put my knees-akimbo to the sides like a Shriner on a teeny bike. Do these women just have super-long torsoes? Are they riding hands-free the whole time, sitting upright? Should I switch to unicycle?

Sunday morning we got in a relaxing 5 mile hike in the park before a terrible storm blew through. SNG is in the process of re-varnishing our kayaks, and was sanding them in the garage, but when I saw the storm coming and heard the tornado warnings, I insisted that we put them back under the deck so I could put my sweet red convertible back in its rightful place, safely in the garage alongside the bikes.

It turns out we dodged the hail. Dianaverse's house was not so lucky. However, she needs a new roof, so maybe she was pretty lucky after all.

This morning I had to drive back to the doctor's office up in just-south-of-Canada again to have my ultrasound re-done. The technician forgot to get a picture of the 4-chamber-heart angle. So, back I went. To make up for the inconvenience (and for making me late to work), she gave me some more 4D pictures for free. She also did another gender-check, and again, girlie was mooning the camera cooperatively and we're really quite certain it's a girl. A couple of people have said they can't tell anything from the doppler radar ultrasound image, so I was glad she looked again. And the technician (who has been doing this for 20 years) was quite sure, again. Poor kid, people keep taking pictures of her privates.

If this turns out to be a boy, we'll sure be caught with our pants down, so to speak!

Inch-high has been extra wiggly over the past week or so: ever since the first round of pictures. She might just be getting bigger and thus the wiggles are easier to feel. Lately she has taken an interest in reaching a foot out to my bladder and stepping down hard. Or grabbing hold of my appendix, an intestine, or whatever is nearby and squeezing it. I can't really complain: it's not exactly first-class accomodation in there. It's more like a fancy Manhattan hotel room: expensive, noisy, cramped, but impeccably climate-controlled. And the food is outstanding. Perhaps she, too, will run into Jesse Jackson in the fitness center?

Run, Jesse, Run!!

Oh, if only I'd thought to say that instead of staring like a half-wit and tripping over my treadmill belt.

I'm stupidly killing time at my office before heading out for my 4.5 mile walk home to write a blog entry. Why? I don't have anything interesting to say. But there is are scattered thunderstorms heading this way, and I'm just increasing the chances I'll get caught in the weather. Thunderstorms are up there in my top 2 natural fears:
1. Lightning
2. Bears

I'd come up with 3, but the other natural things that frighten me don't come anywhere close to the intensity of the fear of those 2 things. Thank goodness there are very few bear sightings in my part of North Carolina. I'm more likely to be killed my bloodthirsty deer or cattle running loose near the farm down the road than by bears. However, to our east and to our west, there are bears. Stephen Colbert may have put them on alert, but he lives in New York. Who will protect North Carolinians from the bears?

SO... I finished all the books I mentioned last week except for John Adams' biography. Still working on it, but as it's an audiobook, I only listen while I'm walking or jogging. Also reading The Five People You Meet In Heaven. If I could sit still for one evening, it'd be finished. It's an easy read, but so far kind of touchy-feely-feel-goody. Good for an evening of brainwandering. The Adams biography is interesting in part because I always hated history classes in school, but I enjoy historical documentaries and biographies. What I'm really saying is that I had many, many terrible history teachers and memorized many dates which I promptly forgot, and heard very few "stories" in school. So I've been making up for it in adulthood.

Well, there was that term paper on the period of King George III (the third? The second? I forget)and its influence on American architecture I wrote which made for some fun research. And by research, I mean walking around taking pictures of the buildings on SMU campus with my super-cute architecturally knowledgable boyfriend, who you all know as SNG.


I don't remember much about Georgian architecture. I was more interested in the tour guide. ;-)
OK, enough wasting time. I'd better git before the storms get here. If you don't see another entry for a few weeks, assume I've been struck by lightning.

Wanna see a picture of a pretty girl?

"Get these photographers out of my face! I got no clothes on!"

She pedaled thoughout the whole ultrasound like a little cyclist. I am concerned that SNG is planning to paint her nursery walls:
Yellow
Green
White with red polka dots
(Tour de France reference, for those of you not biker fans)

He has already picked out her first bike trailer, her first bike and her second bike.

Cincincincinatinatinatinati
Or whatever.

It seems that most people in Cincinnati are stuck, psychologically, at age 16. And surly. Yesterday I was almost run over in a grocery store parking lot, and the guy in the car honked at me (on foot!) and flipped me the bird. Because I had chosen to go into a grocery store at the crosswalk. He did, by the way, have to SPEED UP to get that close to hitting me. I don't get it. It is illustrative of the experiences I've had with Cincinnatiites so far.

But I still have 4 DVDs to watch.

At least I have not encountered any examples of poor grammar in printed materials at the hotel. Which reminds me!! The funniest SPAM comment came into the dogblog recently (the dogblog is still in stasis, by the way. Goofch has lots to say but Modean had all the computer know-how). Here it is:

Get your High School Diploma, Or any Desired College Degree, In less then 2 weeks.

Call this number now 24 hours a day 7 days a week (xxx) xxx-xxxx

Get these Degrees NOW!!!

High School Diploma "BA", "BSc", "MA", "MSc", "MBA", "PHD",
Get everything within 2 weeks.

100% verifiable, this is a real deal

Act now you owe it to your future.

(xxx) xxx-xxxx call now 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

I swear to you, I did not make this up (although I did mask the phone #). How many misused words and punctuation errors can you find? I could have obtained a "PHD" in less then 2 weeks, instead of the 4 years to get my Ph.D. So silly of me!!! My favorite is the use of quotes for "BA" and other "degrees." Because they're not really, you know, degrees. They're "degrees."

Act now you owe it to your future. All one big honking sentence, with no punctuation.

*sigh*

We had a terrific weekend, although I think it was especially good for Goofch. He got to bark at a great blue heron, some cattle, ponies, and even a few toads in the yard. We took 5 walks over the weekend, effectively turning G into a real pest every time sneakers or socks are visible.

We also took a tandem ride on Sunday with my new-and-improved upright seating position. I've still got a bit of the knees-akimbo going, but at least I don't have abdominal sqush so I can breathe easier. While we were out, we passed by the little goat fields near the house and took a bunch of pictures. I posted them on a webpage if anyone is interested, although I think the only person who cares is Katrin. So K, these goats are for you!

Today I'm headed for Cincinnati to be bored for 3 days and 3 nights. Luckily, I have 5 DVDs to keep me company.

As you know, I'm in Atlanta this week, and there isn't much to do but shop. Except that shopping isn't really the same right now, as I'm as big as a house around the middle and normal otherwise (although I DO have these ta-tas that would make Pamela Anderson call her plastic surgeon for a touch-up out of jealousy...). So, I'm licking the windows instead (for those of you not familiar with the expression, it's just that: an expression. I'm not really licking the windows. Just browsing. An equally funny expression, that means almost the same thing when you think about it. Oh jeez, I've done another one of those super-long parentheticals again. Stopping. Now.).

But, I am getting some fun reading done. Thus it occurred to me yesterday that I've missed one of the great Blog Topics all this time!

What Cat is:
Reading: Pregnancy Sucks (forgot the author's name); Eats, Shoots and Leaves: A Zero-Tolerance Approach to Punctuation (also forgot the author's name)

Listening to: John Adams (biography-- forgot the author's name. Sensing a pattern yet?)-- walking and jogging are easier with an audiobook

Watching: Absolutely nothing, unless you count the 20 minutes of The Mighty Ducks I saw on HBO in the hotel fitness center this morning. I've never seen a more Canadian cast set supposedly in southern California. They're just so cuuuuuute.

Last week I finished reading Heloise and Abelard, a biography of the famous medieval couple that brings to light some recently discovered letters presumed to be from the early part of their relationship. It was very interesting because in college, I studied some of their philosophical writings, which were all conducted in the form of letters sent between his monastery and her convent. The primary focus of that college course was the role of women in the church and in society during the Middle Ages. This biography, in contrast, was much more about the people and their interactions with one another throughout the relationship, which spanned over 30 years (the last 25+ being in monasteries and convents, as poor old Abelard had "lost his jewels," so to speak). I'd tell you the name of the author but I forgot it. You already guessed that, right? Anyway, for anyone who likes that kind of thing, it's a good read.

Eats, Shoots and Leaves, which I'm now about 2/3 through, is a grammar book and it is a page-turner. I'm not joking. Well, it's a page-turner for someone like me, who gets violent and experiences missing time after seeing "it's" and "its" used incorrectly. When I see a chalkboard outside a restaurant advertising "Burger's" as the daily special, I erase the apostrophe. I prefer to use the forehead of the shopkeeper as an eraser. So far, Eats, Shoots and Leaves is fantastic. The author encourages geurilla tactics to combat poor grammar and punctuation, including (but not limited to) vandalism, confrontation and letter-writing (full of thinly veiled threats). I predict that she will suggest kidnapping pets before the book is finished. She makes a good point: punctuation is part of what makes written communication flow smoothly. Without proper punctuation or grammar, we may as well use grunts and gestures to convey our thoughts and intentions.

And the information age almost makes the problem worse. Who is a worse judge of proper spelling and grammar than MS Word? Auto-correct does more damage in my writing than it fixes typos. So I turn it off. If I have a few genuine typos (where I hit "r" instead of "e" because they're next to each other) I think it looks less stupid than if I have the wrong form of "whose" or "who's" in my writing, for which the only excuse is ignorance of the English language.

Dirty confession: I once sent an email, cc'ed to the Big Cheese of my company (hint: you'll find his name in Fortune magazine once a year) where I had TYPO'ED (honestly!! Not ignorance, just a TYPO!!) the wrong form of their/they're/there. I can't recall which was the offending version, but it was one of those half-asleep mistakes that I saw just as the email blinked off the screen to "Sent" land. That was 5 years ago and I'm still embarassed about it. Hopefully, the fact that Big Cheese is a statistician and not a grammarian means that he didn't notice. He's definitely forgotten it by now, but I haven't. I've tried to come up with an excuse to CC him on another message using "there," "they're" and "their" all in their correct forms. OK I TOLD YOU IT WAS A DIRTY CONFESSION, STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT.

And just as a point of interest, I dislike the Oxford comma. It's superfluous.

Perhaps I've said too much....

Yeah, I got nothing to talk about. Nothing. So I'll ramble for awhile so as to not get in the habit of leaving my blog un-updated for weeks on end.

Last week I was in Chicago and stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel, which was kind of cool. It uses the same logo as Hard Rock Cafe, so I guess they're related somehow, but I can't say for sure. The room was outfitted with a fake lizard-skin chair and ottoman of the kind you'd expect Steven Tyler to use for one-night-stands with groupies, and the paint, carpets, and linens were all appropriately blase shades of grey and pewter. Chrome fixtures, furry pillows. Ace Frehley on the wall by the window, beckoning me to sinfulness with one hand, the other hand on his guitar. The Who in the bathroom, Roger Daultry doing the white-man's-overbite.

I'd stay there again. Comfy bed, very quiet, DVD and surround sound in the room.

This week I'll be in Atlanta, but only for a short trip. Arriving late tomorrow and leaving after class Friday. Barely even time to shop at the mall attached to my hotel! Not like I can buy much anyway, though. I'm mostly wearing Tony's shirts these days. He could definitely use some more feminine shirts. Maybe I'll buy him some nice blouses.

Next week is Cincinnatti. Some people call it Cincy for short, but I think that's because it's hard to spell. There's a lot of traffic between the airport and the Cincy office. And that is all that there is to say about Cincinnatti.

In other news, Goofch got to spend the weekend with his girlfriend DOTi, who, for all her tiny-ness, seems to have no problem smacking The Goofch into shape when he misebehaves. He wasn't able to get within a foot of her food dish without a serious talking to. It was hi-larious because DOTi is about 1/5 the size of Goofch. Saturday we took the dogs to the state park for an Earth Day celebration and 4 mile walk/run. We walked to and from the walk/run, making it 6 miles for us, but the dogs held up nicely. On the way home, a giant electrical storm popped up and scared the pants off of me, and so I ran very very fast with SNG behind me saying, "If you can hear the lightning, you haven't been struck by it! It's OK! Don't panic!!"

Oh, well, nothing else going on.

Today we're heading out to Kerrville, Texas for the annual Rhodes Family Camping, Biking, Eating, and Polishing Firearms Easter Reunion. We had to miss last year's, so I'm really excited to be going this year. And for the first time since Twinkie #2's wedding, all 4 of the Twinkies (girl cousins on mom's side of the family) will be together. Yay! Maybe we can get thrown out of a pizza joint for being disorderly, just like old times.

And this year is also super because T&E and BigAl will be there. They're making noises about probably not doing much bike riding, but I think they're just buttering us up so they can dust us on the roads when we get there. I don't think they realize just how much slower I am on a bike than I was last year.

Which is kind of a funny thing. If I walk, I'm not much slower than before I was in my "delicate condition." Jogging is slower because I don't jog uphill (My heart rate spikes when I jog uphill. Weird), but on the flats I'm not any slower. But on the bike, I'm just SLOW. That bent-forward position combined with the crowded abdomen (and boy, howdy is it ever crowded in there) makes it uncomfortable to breathe heavy.

Pregnancy must be easier on taller girls because you have more abdomen space to fill up.

In isn't-that-neat news, last night I laid down to read a book in bed-- I always read on my stomach-- and pissed off the inch-high-private-eye. (S)he kicked up a riot in there. It was the first time I've felt the baby move that I was completely sure it wasn't gas. I think (s)he was mad that I was squishing him/her so badly. Oh, well, kiddo-- as long as you're living under my roof (um, uterus) you'll live by my rules!

Everybody have a terrific Easter!

The Spoils of Goofch's War

Friday evening Goofch brought a "present" to the back door.

Modean was an effective hunter, but Goofch never really got the hang of it. Once he found a dead squirrel and was so proud. And then there was the time a live chipmunk fell out of a tall tree and BOUNCED OFF HIS HEAD and ran away. Meanwhile Goofch stood looking stunned at his amazing fortune. By the time he snapped back to reality and started the chase, chippy was 30 feet up in a pine tree hyperventelating and rocking back-and-forth chanting "I do believe in fairies." In Austin Modean would catch oppossums (we did live on Possum Trot street after all) and let Goofch play with them until SNG or I saw the turmoil and rescued the poor things, who inevitably played dead so effectively that we were never quite sure whether they'd get up and stagger away afterwards (they always did).

But from time to time, Goofch does surprise us, and just as even a blind squirrel gets a nut some of the time, even Goofch manages to catch a real, live critter once in awhile.

I had called him to come in for the night Friday around 11:00 and he ignored me. I could hear him rusting around somewhere, so I whistled for him (it's like the "One... Two... Three" you use with little kids-- he knows he's in big trouble if he doesn't respond to the whistle). He comes to the back step and drops a limp, half-struggling little tiny baby bunny. It was about 6 inches long from nose to tail all stretched out and it was still alive. I've saved baby creatures before, and my vet is open on Saturdays, so I put the dog inside and wrapped up the little guy in a dish towel to try to keep him safe for the night and get him some care in the morning.

Poor little thing never had a chance. I'm pretty sure his spine was snapped, because although he was breathing and moving his head and front paws, his whole lower half was dead still. Maybe I made it worse by picking him up, but I thought he was certainly a goner if I'd left him in the yard, with all the giant owls prowling at night. And, I'm sure Goofch had already shaken him up pretty good. Literally.

OH he was so cute! He passed away within 5 minutes. SNG and I were so sad, and a little bit in denial. We decided to leave him wrapped in the warm towel in a nook where owls wouldn't spot him from overhead and if he was still dead in the morning, SNG would dispose of him.

That night I dreampt about the bunny. I dreamed that he did recover and hop away on the night, and a few months later we found him again. He had healed and gone "on the road" and was making the county and state fair circuit as a highly successful show rabbit. He had lots of blue ribbons. Maybe the weirdest thing was that he had turned completely white after he recovered. We congratulated him on his great success.

When I woke up, the bunny was still an ex-bunny, so SNG disposed of the body and we said a few kind words before closing the lid, wishing him well in bunny heaven. Perhaps he is there going from cloud-to-cloud as a successful show bunny, doing a Vaudeville act that includes a wild dog chase.

Squirrels, lizards, possums, mice and other things the dogs have caught over the years gross me out a bit but they don't make me particularly sad. This one got to me, though, because I've had lots of pet rabbits.

Then, this morning, SNG finds THIS on the web. I swear, it looks exactly like our bunny. Exactly. As it turns out, Goofch may have actually been saving us from a terrible fate.

Like I said, sometimes that dog surprises us.