An extra day!

Ken and Jen are hanging out today, it's a "holiday!"  Which means Ken isn't spending time in that room upstairs, where I go to visit him several times a day.  He's always happy to see me, but sometimes he's just talking and talking, to absolutely nobody that I can see. If he's talking to me, I don't get it.  I know "get the ball" and "jump in the lake" and a whole lot else, but when he says "get a price quote" or "jump on that" -? No clue. I look around the room but ususally I just go over to the window and look out, or lie under his desk to keep his feet warm. But I'll keep trying and let you know if I figure out where the pricequote is.  He doesn't seem to mind when I just bring him my babies instead.

My babies?  I never told you about my babies? Hold on a second.

Here's Buzz and me coming in from outdoors, after Jen sent me out to get my baby. I had buried it in some pine straw. This baby here is my absolute favorite. It's a little white dog.  Oh, and that's a bone up there in the corner of my mouth. How I got this baby is actually a pretty good story.  I can tell it if you want. Ok, ok. (I love to tell stories).

Well, it was a day back in late December of last year. KJ decided that Buzz and I would get to go along with them to a town called Savannah, Georgia.  We were going to meet up with Lindsay, Chris, Deb, and Mark.  Deb and Mark are Chris's parents and KJ are Lindsay's.  Deb and Mark had apparently come a long, long way to see Linds and Chris. Wherever "Australia" is. All I know is, I was soooo excited to go in the car!! And so was Buzz.  Jen spiffed us up a bit and then we got put in the back. Buzz just lays down and relaxes, but I can't stand it, I have to look out the windows and because I just know something is going to happen, I can't sit still. At least, not at first. On this day, I spent most of my time hanging my head over the seat so that I could see out that front window and listen to KJ talk. 

Well, naturally I got a little restless around about somewhere in South Carolina. It's about a four hour trip, and a guy needs a bathroom break. So Ken pulled over at some small town and we drove past the restaurants and Starbucks and grocery stores to a big empty lot with just some dumpsters scattered around. Buzz and I of course were just dancing with excitement - "we get to get out!!"  We leaped out as soon as Ken opened the back, and Buzz of course runs right over to the nearest bunch of grass and does his business.  (Buzz is the one who taught me how to lift my leg. Before that I just squatted. He's better at it than I am, but I lift mine WAY higher, I don't get why KJ always laugh at me, but they do).  I was looking for the perfect spot and saw a kind of boxy thing, with clothes spilling out of a slot and  two cardboard boxes full of treasures in front of it.  On the very top of one box was a little stuffed white dog. I couldn't believe someone had left it there for me! I raced over and grabbed it, and since that day, it's been my favorite baby.

Well, there's more to this story. So Buzz came over and asked where his toy was. Jen dug around in the box and found one more stuffed thing.  "What the heck?" she said to Ken. "This is a stuffed scabies mange?" Ken took it and read the label. "Hmm, stuffed microbes. I can't believe they wanted to give this to charity."  And so Buzz got scabies mange.  He hated it, from the second he got it.  He wouldn't touch it or play with it.  KJ just laughed and laughed.  Later on at home, Jen took a picture of Buzz with scabies mange.  

 You can tell by the look in Buzz's eye that he is repulsed by scabies mange. But I found my baby first, he wasn't even looking in the box, so I got to keep it.

Yeah, there's Chris, Lindsay, Mark, Deb, Ken, Jen and me and Buzz. That was such a fun day. We walked all over Savannah's waterfront. I loved those Australian people. KJ bought us these big old dried ham bones to chew on while they ate lunch.  It wasn't hot out, so they put us in the car.  The bones were great, but we were so thirsty by the time they got back to the car that we drank water until we couldn't drink anymore.

Later that day we said goodbye to everyone, and drove back.  Well, of course all that water....!  So once again in South Carolina, Ken pulled over, this time at a fireworks place.  Jen put Buzz and me on leashes and let us walk around while Ken went into the store.  I looked up and saw two HUGE animals. I mean, huge.  I barked and barked, but they didn't move. I tell you, I had no interest in getting any closer, but Jen felt like we should meet.  So she pulled me over (Buzz just trotted along) and told me I needed to check them out. She said, "Maxie,  they're just like a building. Not real animals."  So?!  I still didn't want to go but I hated to disappoint her. And Buzz didn't seem worried at all.  I cautiously approached and man, once I got there, I realized by sniffing that many, many other dogs had also visited these gigantic animals.  It was actually pretty interesting.  Sometimes JK just make me do things I don't want to do so I won't be afraid (left over from my puppy days, but that's another story). Jen said, "They're elephants."  Whatever. Smelled like dog pee to me.

And that's the story of the day I found my favorite baby. I have a feeling today's gonna be a really good day. Catch you later.