Crawling into the sack with a glass of wine and a handful of chocolate chips instead of a muscle-decramping pill, which is probably more indicated than the potable. But last night's pill made today more or less livable, and after the day's frolics, I deserve a something tastier than a pink tablet.

Let's start, though, by saying we've had to clean up only one puppy puddle today, a decided improvement over six or eight. Goooood pup!

So that's good. One excellent thing.

As dawn cracked, Ruby woke up on the wrong side of the crate. What a tear that dog was on this morning! It was as if she'd hit adolescence head-on at a dead run.

It's a little early to turn into a puppy teenager, isn't it, dawg?

She decided she was NOT going to eat kibble as long as Cassie eats real food. No, indeed. She would not settle for fake food. It was real food or nothing.

This even though I've been spiking her kibble with a few bites of Cassie's meat, which just now is boiled chicken. Cassie's breakfast was chicken, quinoa, and some minced mixed veggies. Pup's breakfast was spectacularly expensive holistic, grain-free, made-in-America (NOT grown in America, shipped to China, manufactured in China, and shipped back to the US) very fancy kibble. Which of course is still the rough equivalent of dry breakfast cereal. But the best of all possible dry breakfast cereals.

So we did without our puppy breakfast this morning.

Was she sick? No.

I believe our bodies -- whether we are dogs or whether we are humans -- speak to us and tell us what is best. When a body says "I want meat, veggies, and a digestible starch," it's trying to tell you something. Whether you're a dog or a human. But...moving on.

We remained in high dudgeon as the morning proceeded. Whichever bull dong we were given, the one that Cassie had was better.

Cassie decided to draw the line and hold it. Pup was NOT getting the bull dong of choice, no matter how many times she tried to steal it. Eventually this devolved into an angry fight, one that went beyond the usual mock carryings-on to something that began to look alarming.

Human removed Pup from the fray; locked Pup into crate. Cassie, appeased, abandoned the beloved dong.

This series of events occurred while the human was trying to fix its own breakfast, setting the tone for the Entire Day: every 30 seconds, another interruption.

Pretty quick, workman shows up. Eight-five dollah to tell me what I already knew: pool pump is operating OK but will need to be replaced within a year or so; dare to de-algify the pool and you will get to spend yet ANOTHER $150 having the filter disassembled, cleaned out, and reassembled. Goody.

Workman dotes on pup. His work is interrupted every 30 seconds by Pup and by his interminably jangling cell phone. Pup goes back in nest.

Workdude leaves. We wave goodbye to him from the front courtyard, where (the human imagines) pup is safely confined in a place where she can pee on the ground and not get into any trouble.

Maria, neighbor catty-corner across the street, is out in front. She comes over to view Pup and to gossip, trailing her own new pound puppy, which is (what else?????) off the leash. This is a German shorthair mix (looks like it could be shorthair + lab or even shorthair + some other kind of pointer, but it doesn't go on point so presumably whatever "other" is ain't a pointer). (But it's a little young to go on point, about six or eight months.) (But I've known pointers that pointed from puppyhood.)

Whilst Maria is describing her adventures with last night's would-be prowlers (she chased them down Feeder Street to Main Drag in her car...honestly!), Pup and Pointer are getting real interested in each other through the courtyard gate, which I've lashed up with a barrier so pup can't get out.

Well. So I thought. All of a sudden Pup is OUT and Pup and Pointer, beside themselves with joy, race into the street.

Fortunately no cars are coming, and fortunately Pointer will come to call (most of the time) (well...some of the time). Maria manages to lure Pointer back to her and I grab Pup.

About now, Other Neighbor, who happens to be my accountant and new hanging-around friend, wanders over to chat. I tell her that a mutual acquaintance has asked me on a date. We are all shocked and amused. A discussion of the general characteristics of men ensues.

Pup and Cassie frolic. Maria's brother-in-law shows up and drops his dog off at Maria's house for dog-sitting, causing the irrepressibly happy Pointer to go home and allow himself to be locked in the yard with the relatives' dog.

A mountain of work awaited, and I needed to go to Costco. Finally I shovel the two women off the driveway and stumble into the house to start working.

The interruption every 30 seconds routine continued.

I made a conscious decision to accelerate (in the extreme!) the planned shift from kibble to real food for Pup. The plan: give her about 3/4 real food and 1/4 fake food, with doggie vitamins to make up any nutritional difference. Pray for the best. So at Costco I drop some more cash on dog meat and dog veggies.

Hilariously, at Costco I encounter this couple. Well, you need to know that my Costco is in a ghetto shopping center, and the cultural issues are...well, cultural issues. This store's customer base is largely Asian and Latino immirgrants plus African Americans.

Some ethnicities have different customs from what the ordinary white or black middle-class stooge is used to -- different feelings about what's "my space" and "your space," different habits about navigating public space. One accommodates these.

One accommodates them better when one has had a decent night's sleep and has not been interfered with every 30 seconds for the past four or five hours. Otherwise...not so much.

In amongst the many folk who did not care whether you had to cllimb on top of them personally to get your shopping cart past the blockade they'd put up in the aisle was this elderly couple. They were retired and had nothing else to do but amble, sloooooowwwwwwllleeee, around the Costco. And they assumed everyone else had nothing else to do, too.

There being two of them, they were able to work together to block as much aisle space as possible. If they got in front of you, it was IMPOSSIBLE to get around them. And of course, they make it a point to get in front of me. No matter which department I roll my cart into, there they are. I try to escape, but there IS no escape. I dodge into the shortest check-out line, get through in record time, and by golly! There they are, right in front of me, rolling toward the security lady.

There's only one security lady at this Costco (most have two, but what we get in the ghetto is cost-cutting and "poor folks don't know any better anyway" attitude). There's a guy between me and them. You can see him considering. He wants to roll around them and cut in front, but because there's only one security guard to check the check-out clerk's work, he figures it would really be rude to cut them off. He's probably right. Resigned, we both plod along behind this pair.

So that was actually very funny. But time-consuming.

I fly home, unload the groceries. Hand brand-new bull dongs to each dog. Now neither one of them wants one. Augh.

Now I fix lunch (which at my house is the big dinner-like meal), throwing a piece of fish on the grill and concocting an amazing salad. Pup continues to unearth cat sh!t and try to break her teeth on stones. Pup to X-pen.

An afternoon of work ensues, with repeated interruption. When Pup craps out, she goes into her crate and I go down for my own siesta. Having started this late, we get up rather late. More work ensues.

Pup, when offered a dinner that is mostly the same stuff Cassie eats plus a fistful of expensive kibble, stands down from trying to steal Cassie's food. She does not have to be locked in her X-pen with a bowl of fake food, and the dog food competition comes to a dead stop. Thank you, God, for those small favors!

Now we're working on the computer on the back porch. It's getting late. Really late, as in around 10 p.m. I've finished billing a client, a project that requires me to spend darned near as much time documenting my work as I spent on the project. I write off an hour and a half of editorial time that I can't easily prove (and that wasn't very hard anyway). Clients love it when you write off your expensive time, so I make it a point to list these write-offs on the bill as though they were "gratis" favors. They'll be back.

Around 10 p.m., a weird noise emanates from the alley. Both dogs go as much on point as a corgi can go. So do I.

It sounds like something LARGE scratching at something.

We have raccoons. We have coyotes. We have a homeless mentally ill guy who uses the alley behind my gate as his latrine. And of course we have those guys that Maria spotted as they were casing people's homes.

I tell Cassie to get in the house and add, loud enough to be heard, "...and I'll get the gun." Actually what I get is a butcher knife. Cassie does in fact go into the house, but now I have to rescue Pup from her outdoor X-pen. Cassie does not want me to go back out and starts trying to herd me back into the house. Once I'm out, she won't go back in.

Gunshots ring out in the distance -- down about on Glendale west of 19th, I estimate. Interesting...usually they come from the meth district to the north of us.

Finally I carry Pup (who by now of course needs to pee again) into the house, put down the knife and grab the phone, and call Cassie back inside.

Pack Pup into her crate. Load the dishwasher. Pour a glass of wine, and climb into the sack.

So ultimately I did get the billing done. Finished one (freaking hilarious, I think) scene in the current novel; blocked out the next scene. Spent half my life answering e-mails. Didn't get any paying work done.

Someone or something is still out in the alley. They're thumping around the communal garbage bin. Or at least making a noise that sounds like that. Cassie is growling and barking. She refuses to stay on the bed, which is a first. It's quarter after midnight.

A typical day here at the Funny Farm.

grrrrrr ARF!