It's A Dog's Life

Which is convenient, provided you're covered in fur, you bark, and you like kibble.

There are a lot of dogs at this gathering.

Bob and Betty brought two of their dogs, Fang (a beagle) and Dinah (a black lab). Lil and Dan brought Brandy (a cockapoo). Mark and Tracie brought their new puppy, Quincy.

Quincy is a cocker spaniel. A tiny, bouncy, excitable cocker spaniel. I'll hear this yipping noise and look down and there's this blond fluff with four legs determined to hunt down and kill my shoelaces and bring them back as a trophy to Tracie. A couple of times Quincy's either gotten overexcited or felt ignored and made a mess of himself and the floor. Mark and Tracie move right in and clean up after him.

Lauren says that getting a puppy is the first sign that you're going to have kids soon, because all of her friends who got puppies had babies within two years. Mark hopes this isn't inevitable.

Darin and I slept until noon on Thursday and didn't get out of bed until two or so. Hotel housekeeping called and asked if we wanted the room made up; we said naaah. We moseyed over to Commotion Central mid-afternoon and were like lumps on a log. One of the great things about getting together with the Extended Clan is that log-lump imitation is encouraged. Cousin Shelly and her husband and two girls showed up and joined in the merry-making.

Some time in the evening came the massive (Adlerian) dinner: turkey with two kinds of stuffing and potatoes and brussel sprouts and squash and rolls and cranberries and... My stomach's hurting just thinking about it. The chef in charge is Darin's uncle Bob, who runs a restaurant in East Lansing, MI. It's called Beggar's Banquet and the food is goooooood and it's right next to the university so you should check out if you're ever there.

We went over to see Ilse in the evening after dinner. I was glad to see her doing okay. Darin pointed out that the last time we'd been in a hospital was to see Greg after his attack. Hospitals -- they're so much fun!

Today we really went out on a limb and slept in. Then we went over to the house and did nothing. It was pretty exciting and I'm glad we had the change of pace.

I discovered that AOL 3.0 is an ISP now, so I can upload entries from anywhere. Which will be nice, because in three days I had over three hundred mail messages -- and this is a holiday week, remember.

Bryon Buck and Kymm Zuckert wrote in to answer my question about the bipolar journal, which is at http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/1244/journal.htm. If this is the one I was looking for the other day, it's not there any more. But it might not be, in which case it probably is. If you know what I mean.