Here I thought I was going to have to stay in my spacious, palatial kennel all day today. By the way, Mom has been promising to renew the pea gravel out there, but so far the 15 bags remain in the truck. I, the optimist, think that as soon as it rains and I slap her clean jeans with my muddy paws to greet her returning home from whatever "work" is that she will get that gravel moving faaaaaaassssstttt. It's supposed to rain the rest of the week . . . an added incentive.

Now that Mom has her TAXes together perhaps she will give me a celebratory cookie . . . or two? I don't know why she is spending so much time and bother worrying over a bunch of nails. Go figure.

Mom is rather down this week because her beloved Washington State Cougars got killed in the NIT by St. Marys. I'm wondering why Mom cheers for a bunch of katz??? Isn't having three actual rather than virtual katz in our home enough of an insult to me, the show dog? Is she trying subtly to make me more humble? I am not sure. But, as evidence of Mom's subterfuge, I note that she finds the University of Washington HUSKIES loathsome . . . she says it's because they are the biiiig Washington university whereas Wazzoo--or Moo U as Mom refers to it--is the poor cousin existing as it does out there amongst the sheep, wheat fields and coyotes of southeastern Washington.

I've never been to Washington at ALL, although I beg and beg and beg to go on a road trip like my great grampy Hurricane Hugo once did. He got to ride all the way from NC to Spokane and back . . . and he got to sit in the front seat (Mom calls it riding shotgun) . . . but best of all he got to pee on all sorts of trees and things along the way.

But worst of all, he actually saw COWs. I wish I could see COWs . . . I know we used to herds them in Wales . . . I'm not exactly sure what 'herds' means, but it could be hearing the moooos perhaps. Mom won't say as she was traumatized in her youth by an angry heifer with an intestinal disturbance.

So it was a GOOD DAY because Momma came home early, let me out, and we played stick and did our jumping-you're-home ritual dance all over the yard. And I didn't even run down one single daffodil.

Well, it's late, and I need to rest up for another day of guarding the home place while Momma is off teaching her students--do they learn 'sit' 'stay' and 'drop it' I wonder? Seems to me they're old enough to be housebroken and to know when to drop something unspeakable . . . but Mom says they're only undergraduates, so, as with me when I was a mere pup, she has to be patient and forgiving. And Momma certainly was forgiving all the times I ate the ends off her sneaker shoestrings. She says that seeing the frizzled ends reminds her of me when she's away from home.

Perhaps my cat, Snicker the Nasty Kat, will come upstairs to disrupt Mom's reading--although I'm not sure what reading is all about. I sampled a couple of what she calls 'pages' when I was still a puppy, and I didn't get a thing out of it except a sore tummy. I think I ate something called the 'startling conclusion' which evidently is the best part of reading . . . the only startling conclusion I had was that all of Momma's books AND magazines suddenly disappeared to very high shelves, so I have so far been unable to get a taste for words again. Maybe later . . . . for now I plan to wrestle Snicker in hopes that Mom will give me a cookie if I behave.

We'll see.

Skeezix . . . my friends just call me Skeez