The ice is almost gone. One glance at my kitchen floor should tell you what was under the ice. I’ve got to find a variety of grass thick enough and hardy enough to withstand Oklahoma drought, shade from the tree in the next-door neighbor’s yard, and the constant trampling of twelve fast-moving little paws. Maybe I can rustle up some of that shade-tolerant zoysia somebody told me about last year. Or maybe I’ll just surrender the fantasy. I’ve always said that the day you adopt a dog is the day you relinquish your right to a clean house. I just tell people that my living-room carpet is covered with little white hair because it’s an interesting new type of shag.
I wonder if they make linoleum in a muddy pawprint pattern?
I forgot to mention this at the time, but before the ice melted Saturday, I threw some sunflower seed out for the birds. We got quite a flock — lots of sparrows, a female cardinal, a mockingbird, and two or three gorgeous little black-eyed juncos. I didn’t get a picture of them because they were too skittish, but they were cute.
I finally got a hand free to hang up the lights I bought on sale at Target at the end of summer. They’re regular Christmas lights with little metal dragonflies attached to them. I hung them from the shelf above my desk. I like the soft, warm light they produce. I need to clear some of the junk off the shelf so it will look better.
That’s all. I should be sketching a mural on my wall, redesigning a Web site, and catching up on some studying I need to do, but what I am probably going to do in a minute is take a nap. This will prove to be a mistake, as I will go into the bedroom with the intention of sleeping for an hour or two, and then I will wake up at 8 a.m. when my cell phone alarm starts going off. But right now, I just want to sleep, and I just can’t seem to muster the energy to do anything constructive.
Emily
Red Fork Hippie 
Rick’s mother-in-law has a little dog of some sort that knows he needs to wipe his feet when he comes in, so he stops just inside the door and raises a paw for her to clean off, then patiently endures the cleaning process on the other three as well.
My three know they need to wipe their feet when they come in, so they run back and forth across the kitchen floor, do some laps around the living-room carpet, and (in Scout’s case) jump on and off the furniture five or six times to get all the mud off so they don’t track up their crates….