Happy Thanksgiving to our Canadians. Happy Columbus Day to those of us in the U.S. who get the day off to celebrate that (maybe) Columbus was the first European to land in the Americas. (I missed celebrating Leif Erikson Day last week.)

I spent most of yesterday celebrating the Honk Festival - an amazing gathering of amateur bands playing just for the fun of it. Lots of music, dancing in the streets - as close to Mardi Gras as we're likely to get in the staid Boston area.

Yesterday, while DH cleaned our solar panels, I planted a vegetable garden. It looked quite nice. I'm a little fearful about the rabbits getting at it but DH didn't put up the bunny barrier yet. Meanwhile he changed the drip watering system to accommodate the 12 plants (it had three emitters and he added lines so each plant got it's own drip). Well, something went wrong (probably our incredibly high water pressure) and most of the drip heads blew off and some, if not all, of the vegetable plants took a terrible beating (especially the basil which I consider the most fragile). I'll asses them later today and decide which need to be replaced. DH will try and figure out what went wrong with the water system and fix it (but he turned it off in the mean time).

Bill, when I read Honk Festival I imagined a festival devoted to the love of Canada Geese! Guess I was wrong!

This will be a challenging week as I go into Choctoberfest Friday and Saturday! Up until now it's been work like any other: answering emails and calls, sending out press releases, calling chocolatiers, etc. This week, truffles and fudge and the like come pouring into my home as I head out to TV interviews and the like. I have two goals. My survival instinct warns me not to eat so much chocolate I can't think. And I want to look good when I emcee the events! Many of these chocolatiers are wondrously skinny and healthy and I want to continue to be one of THEM! A VERY exciting and challenging week, and hopefully an event that will pull us out of our financial doldrums.

Chris-- I wonder how they stay skinny? I always wonder that about some of the chefs! Good metabolism!!

Good morning! Bill, a friend of mine is in a band that plays at Honk Festival sometimes!

Allison, to follow up on last week's thread, I hate to say it, but your assistant is right to be afraid for her job. And if she's incompetent at it, then IMO you should let her go. It sucks, but you need someone you can count on to do a good job. If you want to help her out personally you could help her find a new job doing something else.

We took Carter in to the vet Friday to check on his issues since we needed a refill of his anxiety medication anyway. The vet was very positive and encouraged by the way he saw Carter interacting with the kids (we had to bring them along), and he said Carter's new separation anxiety issue where he tears up boxes if we go for a walk without him is actually a good sign because it's a much more treatable form of anxiety and it means he's comfortable enough with having everyone in the house to start to get upset about them being gone. At this point his issue is mostly just being really annoying a lot of the time (barking/whining/getting underfoot, that kind of thing).

In any case we got an additional prescription of basically doggie valium to give him as needed while we work on the separation anxiety. We have him one of them this morning when a storm was starting up and he started freaking out (problem because when he gets anxious and very underfoot, he accidentally knocks the kids over) and then once the storm passed DH took the girls outside and Carter was much calmer than usual.

On the other hand, yesterday C decided she wanted to grab his feet while I was occupied with A, and he hates having his feet touched and she wasn't minding me when I told her not to. Sigh. (She just got barked at on her third grab, it was fine.)

Really he's been very good with them lately though. He lets them pet him and grab his tail, and he just walks away when he's had enough -- sometimes they follow him, but that's on us to stop, not his problem. They like to offer him tennis balls and toys and sometimes he takes them from the kids' hands very carefully. I tried having A give Carter a treat the other day but she was afraid to. I kind of think the fact that they walk and act more like humans now helps their relationship with him, so maybe if they also help feed him he will like them even better.

We still keep him behind a gate when the kids are eating, and he's pretty good about it but also sometimes decides to just constantly bark the whole time he's back there. Giving him treats when we put him behind the gate was a bust because he'd only be quiet if he was getting treats constantly -- it actually made him worse about the barking because he started barking for treats.

In any case I think we are going to go ahead and try to travel for the holidays. Our previous pet sitter doesn't do overnights anymore but she will do 3x/day vacation visits, and the vet seemed to think Carter would be okay with that, perhaps with some extra medication the first few days to ease him into it.

Paperclippy, Good luck with your lil' dog!

Paperclippy, I feel you with the anxious dog. Our dog goes crazy with storms and some other noises. Turns out squawking birds are included. Unfortunately, we left our dog with my animal-loving brother's family for a vacation and their parrots triggered my dog into a destructive frenzy. I offered (and put out) $$$ to fix the damage but even so my dog is still not welcome at that house. She has also damaged woodwork at my house during storms. I just live with it.

We went into Cambridge yesterday and realized we had missed the Honk festival this year when we saw a banner. Glad you had a good time, Bill!

We were busy though; we went to a 7 fingers production (Canadian urban circus). We also ate dim sum down town (DD's choice). I ate some fruit before we got there and ate as much dim sum as I wanted and was happily satisfied. We carried some home and I didn't crave any so DH finished it off today.

Weighed in today at 138.4, so I'm happy about that.

Jessica, that is great news on Carter! It sounds like he's going to get better and better as the girls get older.

Book fair for me this week. Always crazy and hectic. I hope my weight will go down some as it is over my redline now and I'm grouchy about it!

Good morning! We were recovering from hosting a small Thanksgiving Sunday - DH and I are very anxious hosts - and still trying to process the news that we got a DOG!

She belonged to DH's brother-in-law who died in August. We didn't realize DH's sister was going to give her away as she sounded like she was going to keep her when we last talked. This was the dog that I really wanted - even has the original dog name I wanted to use for my dog - but I didn't want to be insensitive after BIL died so I kept quiet.

After 3 months of being turned down by rescues, receiving abusive emails, looking at dogs that would kill Nattie, etc. I was quite p*ssed off and discouraged. I went on to Fb and said so. Got a reply post 5 minutes later from DH's sister saying Trixie was still looking for her forever home and did we want her? OMG!!!

DH will be picking her up from Ottawa two weekends from now. I will be dogsitting when she arrives but home the next day. It's going to be crazy confusion for awhile but it'll be fine.

Did I mention that she's in heat right now? One of the first orders of business, after she gets over the stress of being rehomed twice so soon after her owner's death, is getting her spayed after the heat is over. Probably after my November dog sit - SIGH.

I had a whole mental picture of what acquiring "a dog" would be like and a whole plan of how it would go. Real life's kinda getting in the way of that.

Dagmar

What great, great news, Dagmar! I'm so pleased for you.

Dagmar - wow! That's so crazy how you tried to get rescue dogs and were denied and now you got the one you really wanted! What is the dog's background? I know she was your BIL, but was she originally a rescue, how old? That's exciting, but you are right, overwhelming at the same time!

Jessica - that's great on Carter. The twins are at such a great age! Enjoy every minute - those of us with adult kids can attest it absolutely FLIES by! May not feel like it some days but it does.

Still in the low 90s here. By now we are all sick of it! Quarter one is over! 1 down, 3 to go.

Well I am back to normal and my sister is not angry with me and all is good.Dagmar bringing a new dog in your family will be exciting...much like bringing a baby home.Your life will be quite different.Have fun with your babies.I am sure you will enjoy both of them and am waiting for your daily adventures and reports.

So glad about the dog, Dagmar. Things have a way of working out in our favor, don't they?

DH decided our 60" TV was too small. (Yeah, right, really?) So he researched and found one he liked--a 70". So today, FIL is delivering our old (2-3 years old and still perfect) to DD and SIL. The 42" that I gave DD for Christmas 3-4 years ago will then be delivered to DS (who has a roommate that brought a 29" TV to their apartment). The kids are all really excited. I really can't tell much difference (in size) with the new TV but it does have EnergyStar on it and it doesn't emit nearly as much heat as our old set (LED vs LCD or something like that--I'm not too technical).

Congrats, Dagmar!!! Very happy for you and DH and Trixie and Nattie!

The big big screen is a guy thing I think. DH keeps telling me our 42" is too small and I keep asking him "too small for what?" I watch a couple of humungous TV's at clients' houses and I find them weird. I don't really need to see every pore and hair and flaw on the actors' faces, nor view them with two foot long noses.

Dagmar