Hey - I get frustrated, too.

But I don't go around tearing my clothes off, do I?  At least, not anymore.


I am officially changing TGIF to OMGIF.  Too many Fridays have taken the helium out of my end-of-week balloon.


Ergo:

What remains of a leash and fleece
jacket

Mr. Butters is feeling better.  This is evidenced by his complete frustration at still being held in captivity.  We have had the talk countless times - "you can resume normal cohabitation when you cut out the bouncing."  But Mr. Full Steam Ahead cannot help himself.  He is still having lower spine issues and, at the present rate of recovery, it's going to take MONTHS before we can come to some level of normalcy.  To relay his frustration in more tangible ways, he managed - somehow - to pull his heavy-duty leash and fleece jacket through a one-inch-square hole in his crate and shred both.


When I blissfully crossed the threshold on Friday after my usual hair-raising hour commute, I went to let Mr. B out but could not find his fleece jacket or his leash.  Both had been on top of his crate.  I immediately gave Lovey the stink-eye, poor girl.  After searching high and low, I gave up and he went out nekkid.  Just as I was going to let him back into his crate, my eye caught a dark fragment of something.  Upon pulling out his fifteen blankies and specially soft padded crate liner, I discovered the remains of the missing objects.  If I wasn't so thoroughly PO'd I would have marveled at the physics of it all - how DID he do it?

Poor muskrat.

I have been trying to keep him out - safely - as much as possible, but he's certifiable.  I have him using a ramp to get to our chair (one quarter of it is mine, he gets the rest), then I swaddle him in his favorite giant fleece blankie.  I turn my back for two minutes, and he launches himself off of the chair ARM.  He may be the death of me.


I dug out the dog Christmas PJs and found Mr. B's is too small.  Lovey can still wear hers, and she does prefer them to her hoodie.  I think it's the lack of the pootie sag in the back.  She looks quite adorable, the little rye loaf.

The wrinkled tube look goes with the
wrinkled brow of anxiety.

Friday did start off well, as my co-worker brought his dog, Gordon, in for the last half of the day.  Gordon and I are pals, and he makes a beeline for my office as soon as he's through the front door.  He's a youngster, so is in constant motion and tried to scale my leg to get into my lap.  It's distracting and lovely. 

Checking to see if I finished my lunch.

Always in motion.

Sweetie boy.

In my faltering effort to get into the holiday spirit, I was out of the house early Saturday to help my sister make our family's traditional gingerbread men.  I managed to luck out and she had all the dough mixed by the time I got there.  With our iceman sidelined due to dementia, and our clove-eye-clipping helper sidelined due to macular degeneration, C and I were left to our own devices.  I had made these for years and years, with my great-aunt Edie.  She of the Germanic will and temperament.  There was no deviation allowed from the original recipe - especially not in the icing design.  So imagine my surprise and delight when my sister, in an outright burst of creative genius, decided to make their bow ties RED.  OMG.  I'm sure Edie is spinning in her grave, but we think they look fabulous!

The Holiday Season
has officially arrived.

Alas, I cannot eat them.  There was no need for a gluten-free recipe 60-odd years ago.  I decided to go home and whip up a batch of King Arthur's GF gingerbread cookies.  Had I been thinking ahead, I would have used the traditional W-Family cutter, but I wasn't, so I had to rely on what cutters were on hand.

I call these "Mood" cookies

I cut out a festive mix of stars, circles, fir trees, flowers and llamas.  Snort.  I will have to create a gingerbread tableau to share with you.  Before I et them all.