Happy Howlidays! My Monthly Blog for November

First off, some folks were asking to see my very un-PC Halloween costume, so here it is:




Now, let's see. This month I went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Thanksgiving. Grandpa's college roommate and his wife were coming so I made sure I wore my best tie.

Grandpa's college roommate is in the early stages of Alzheimer's and he sometimes loses track of what he was saying or he can't find the right word, then he becomes frustrated. I noticed when he would get frustrated and would go up to him and lean on him when it happened. He would pet me and we would both be happier. I was a very good boy and only tried a couple times to steal the hors d'ouvres. After Grandpa cut a second serving of turkey I stayed in the kitchen to make sure everything was okay in there. Grandpa had left a whole turkey leg RIGHT BY THE EDGE OF THE COUNTER and I was just about to help him move it some place safer when Mommy came in and said, "Merrrrrliiiiin". She seemed to think I was planning to eat it or something. After dinner when Mommy and Grandma and the roommate's wife were putting away the leftovers I decided to help by taking care of the leftover gravy. Grandma had put it into a big butter tub and left it on the kitchen table so I carefully picked it up by the edge and was sneaking, um carefully carrying it out to the family room when Grandma spotted me and yelled, "Drop that!" I was so startled I dropped it, but it landed on its bottom and only splashed a little bit of gravy and Mommy ran over and picked up the container before I could pick it back up. All in all I thing Grandma and Grandpa were very impressed by what a good dog I was.

This month it got very cold very early. Mommy got one of her old sweatshirts for me to wear on our morning walks. On one walk we noticed that there was an odd smell in town. Then Mommy noticed that there were stripes on the street and she realized they were spraying some kind of deicer on the road. We stopped in to City Hall to ask them what it was made of to see if it was safe for my bare feet (I hate booties), but they didn't know, so they asked a public works guy to call Mommy and tell her. He did and it ends up it was made of sugar beet juice with the sugar removed, salt brine and liquid calcium chloride, so it is safe as things like that are.

Finally this month Mommy had a very scary evening. She was running an errand on her work dinner break and when she went to turn left at a T intersection a young woman in an SUV ran the red light and hit Mommy's car without trying to brake or swerve. She told the police officer that she had dropped something on the floor of her SUV and had bent over to pick it up (while driving about 45 mph in a 30 mph zone) and when she sat up she was hitting Mommy's car. Luckily Mommy has strong survival reflexes and had spotted that the car in the other left turn lane to her left had hit his brakes suddenly so without even wondering why he had done it she hit hers and swerved to the right. That meant that the SUV took out her Prius right in front of the front tires instead of t-boning her. If she had been t-boned I don't think she'd have come home to me and I'd probably be moving to Mommy's youngest brother's house to live. I would have been very very sad. Mommy's leg, shoulder, chest, back and neck were hurt, but not bad enough that she had to go to the hospital, and she is feeling almost normal now, a bit achy and tired, but she thinks we should be able to do our New Year's Day hike. Here is what Mommy's car looked like when she went to get her stuff out of it the next day:


Anyway, we have a lot to celebrate this Christmas and New Year if you ask me. Happy Howlidays everyone!