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Friday afternoon, I loaded Bonzo and Chaco into the car for a trip to the dump and the hardware store. Halfway down the dirt portion of Ridge, I heard Chaco jump into the trunk with the garbage. (I drive a station wagon, so it’s easy for him to jump from the backseat to the trunk.) I yelled at him and glanced in the rear view mirror, but it appeared that he was hidden by the garbage bags piled up in the back.

Worried that perhaps he was drowning in plastics bags, or that he’d ripped the bags and was strewing trash all over my trunk, I pulled over and went to fish him out — only to discover that HE WAS NOT IN THE CAR. I had not heard him jump into the trunk; I’d heard him jump OUT OF THE WINDOW. WHILE I WAS GOING 30 MPH.

I was absolutely terrified. I was about a half mile from where I’d heard the commotion, so I turned around immediately and backtracked to look for him. I saw no sign of him. I went straight home to recruit Ben to search.

I ran inside and burst into tears. Ben, bless his heart, was able to understand me through my sobs and jumped up to help. He took the keys (a wise idea) and I hopped on my bike and we headed back down the road.

Two minutes later, I saw Ben’s blue Saab coming towards me with a bobbing black-and-white dog in the front seat. Ben found him sauntering home on the side of the road.

Chaco is fine save for a couple scrapes on his nose and belly, but he has been a little more conservative in hanging his nose out of the window. (I’m not giving him much leeway, mind you! “Please keep all snouts in the vehicle until it comes to a full and complete stop!”) I’m the traumatized one. Is he jealous of Bonzo? Am I not giving him enough attention? Is he depressed by the diet I put him on after several people have politely commented that “he’s looking a little chunky”? Ben and I finally came to the conclusion that, mostly likely, he just saw something out the window that he really, really wanted and decided to go after it, and that he’s probably not going to try it again anytime soon. I bought him some fancy treats (Greenies) just to be sure.

Now I can imagine why parents of teenagers get so strung out.

Here’s our happy family, all in one piece, posing for our mortgage broker’s happy customers gallery:

P.S. Bonzo weighed in at 10.6 pounds at Ace.

Ben and I took the pups down to the river today for a swim. Ben, eager to cool off, volunteered to carry Bonzo to the shallows on the other side and let him explore while Chaco chased sticks and I took pictures. Everything was going perfectly — Bonzo exploring and pooping, Chaco swimming after small logs, me snapping away — until, all of a sudden, Bonzo decided that he’d like to swim, too. Off he went (surprisingly comfortable in the water!) until, a split second later, he hit the deep, fast part of the river and got swept away. With lightening fast reflexes, Ben ran through the river to catch up to him; then, just as Bonzo went under, Ben dove for him. !!! Fortunately all is well, and after a little time warming up in the sun Bonzo was good as new.

I posted some pictures of our escapades here.

I finished patching and painting the ceiling today. Glad to have that done with.

Then, I spent the entire afternoon reading about finances. I made a huge spreadsheet of retirement calculations and I used infinite series to derive important formulas. I knew all those math classes would come in handy at some point. Ben says he wants to retire circa 45 and have a huge nest egg with which to buy camera gear and electronic gadgets. My spreadsheets say that he better start buying lottery tickets :)

Save for one poop (but on the wood, not the carpet) and a piddle on the beanbag chair (ugh), the pup was pretty good today. As usual, he and Chaco spent most of the afternoon roughhousing; then, Bonzo got tired and retreated to his crate for a little R&R. We’re encouraged that he’s lying down in the crate of his own volition now.

I migrated a lot of my old galleries over to my new coppermine gallery. Enjoy!

I got all sorts of stuff done today …

Bought and installed more track lighting in the living room.

Fixed (more or less) Ben’s garage door.

Ordered blinds for all the bedrooms.

Ordered lamps for the guest bedrooms.

Drilled a hole for the latch in the porch door. (Admittedly, though, the latch still doesn’t work.)

Picked up more poo off the carpet — and the crate. Bad sign.

Cooked myself some shrimp and broccoli stir fry. It looks very pretty, but boy does it taste bad. I ate all the shrimps out of it and tossed the rest.

Began patching the holes left over from the old track lighting (see picture). Hopefully, the third time will be the charm; I screwed it up several times before getting some advice from Dad.

Ran a bunch of errands, including picking up our masterpieces from Color Me Mine. I sure like Ben’s strawberry mug; I’ve got mixed feelings about my depiction of our house. But happy anniversary, sweetie :)

I had to run back to Ace to get some extra patching materials so I got to weigh Bonzo again. Up to 9.6 pounds!

Our pups must’ve woken up today and thought, “Let’s be bad,” because BOY were they BAD!!!

Bonzo woke up at 6:30 this morning. He went outside, peed, and then refused to go back to sleep. He scratched and whined and loudly rearranged all the “furniture” in his crate until it was time to get up at 8:30. I let him out and noticed that his crate carpet smelled like pee. Then he peed on the carpet.

I came home from church determined to start the day fresh. I let Bonzo out of the crate, walked him downstairs towards the door, and as I was getting the treats ready he started pooping on the carpet. I immediately scolded him and picked him up to whisk him outside — which usually puts an immediate damping on the pooping, since who wants to poop in midair? Apparantly, though, Bonzo does. He dropped little turds all the way to the door. ARRGH.

After lunch Ben convinced me that it’d be nice to take a nap on the bed with the puppies. At this point, Bonzo had pooed about three times and JUST, I mean like 5 minutes ago, peed outside. We got on the bed and were just starting to doze off when he unleased a torrent of urine all over our duvet cover and down comforter. ARRGH AGAIN.

Then this evening I let them outside to go potty and Chaco chased our neighbor’s kitten up a tree next to the driveway. She couldn’t get down and I had to get a ladder out to rescue her. As soon as we got her down, Chaco spooked her again and up she went. :P

Perhaps tomorrow they’ll be better …

Another picture from yesterday’s hike, courtesy of Gustavo …

We met fellow Techer Gustavo and his girlfriend Molly for a hike to Lost Lake this morning. It’s a good thing the hike is relatively short (maybe four miles round trip) because Molly has a broken foot and Bonzo runs out of steam after about twenty minutes :) We had a great time playing in the water and with the cameras!