I've done little blogging (at least by my standards) for the past week. Mostly because I've been working some compulsory overtime. For whatever it's worth, here are some notes from the past several days.

Plink! Plink! Plink! Plink!

Last Wednesday, Wendy wakes me up in the morning with a sentence that begins "You're going to think I'm crazy, but..."

I've learned that when she starts out that way, no good can come of it.

"You're going to think I'm crazy," she says, "but I think there's something in the attic and it's trying to get out in the house!"

Scenes from The Exorcist come into my mind.

She elaborates "I hear something in the attic! It's tapping on the attic hatch!" (We have shuttle access to our attic.) "I think it wants out of the attic!"

So I'm half asleep, half confused, and I think for a second and ask her if it's making a steady, rhythmic tapping noise, or a random tapping noise.

"Oh, it's very steady. Very rhythmic."

Then I ask her if it's raining outside. She says that it is. So, I get up and get a kitchen chair and drag it into the hall, right under the shuttle hatch. I stand on the chair, reach up and push the shuttle hatch up and a pint or so of water (extremely cold water) runs out on my face.

Long story short, the roof vent had separated at one of the joints. We spent the rest of that day and part of the next with a kitchen pot sitting on that chair in the hall, catching the rain water. Then, when the rain stopped, I got on top of the roof with a bit of tin and some tools and some roofing tar, yadda yadda yadda... and, fifteen minutes later, problem solved.

The thing is, I HATE heights. I despise them. I don't go on the roof unless I have to for emergency reasons. I decided that since I was going to be up there anyway, I'd take a couple of quick shots with our digital camera. That way, if I ever get to wondering what the view from the roof is, I can just review the pictures with my feet on firm, stable ground.

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Chester Becomes A Man

Our Basset Hound puppy, Chester, turned eleven weeks old yesterday. To us he's still a baby... but he's clearly come to think of himself as a man.

Chester has gotten bigger since we got him just before Halloween, when he was around six weeks old and could sit in the palm of your hand. He's gone from a little brown ball of fur to a small dog that clearly looks like a Basset Hound. These days, he spends most of his time eating Puppy Chow or wrestling with Tilda, our Brittany Spaniel. This is pretty funny to watch most of the time, since Tilda is so much bigger than Chester, and could crush him like a grape. In the picture below, you can see both dogs following Wendy into the kitchen... I snapped this pic about an hour ago, so it's a very current look at their size difference.

Anyway, last night the kids were watching Yu-Gi-PokoTitans (or whatever) and the dogs were wrestling in the floor, and I was watching them, since I find it amusing when they wrestle. At one point, Tilda was laying on her back while they were wrestling, and when she rolled back over with her belly on the floor, Chester just happened to be toward her backside.

I'm going to try to phrase what Chester did next as delicately as I can. Basically, Chester was overcome by the machinations of biology. He was suddenly made subject to a basic, animal urge. One minute, he was a cute puppy, playing with an older dog. The next minute, he was a man in the throes of passion.

Imagine my horror as the scene on the living room floor changed from slapstick comedy to something of an entirely different nature. The Keystone Cops music that plays in the back of my head whenever I watch the dogs wrestle suddenly came to a screeching halt, and was replaced by a Barry White song. What had been family entertainment was transformed into a seedy scene from the doggy version of Cinemax After Dark.

Tilda, for her part, looked more confused than I've ever seen her look. Remember, she's never been around male dogs at all, and she was spayed as soon as she was old enough for the procedure. I'm not sure if she knew what was going on, or why. She just crained her neck around and looked back at Chester as if to say "Excuse me... what is this?"

A few seconds later I think she figured it out and jumped up, barking at Chester. I think she was trying to say "But I don't like you IN THAT WAY."

All of this happened in just a few seconds, leaving me shaken and upset. If I'd seen it coming, I suppose I'd have sent the kids out of the room, but it was all so sudden and it was over so fast.

For whatever it's worth, Tilda and Chester seem to be back to their same old selves today; back to romping and wrestling and playing. I was worried that there'd be an awkward period, with them passing in the hall but not making eye-contact, him unsure what to say, her uncertain of what he might try next. Thankfully, neither of them seem to have been phased in any long-term way. Still, Chester will be at the vets having his life altered as soon as he's old enough.

Not much to report other than that.