Puppy Love...Yeah, That's It!

Ben is having a friend over tonight for a sleep-over, and so I managed to steal away while they're watching a movie.

We got new phone books the other day. Is it just me, of does this seems to happen about every 3 months now? I really don't know. I don't remember getting phone books this frequently as a kid. Of course, back then we had 2 books, yellow and white. Now we have "Waukesha Yellow", "Waukesha White", "Milwaukee and Surrounding Yellow", "Milwaukee and Surrounding White", "Business to Business Yellow", "Upper Midwest Yellow", "Planet Earth White". It's sheer madness.

So, I'm left wondering why we seem to be getting so many books. Is it that I'm getting old an unaware of how fast time is passing? (This is the one I'm hoping to answer No to.)

Or perhaps it's that the phone companies are making too much on advertising and can afford to spend it on publishing books before the last ones make it out of the plastic bag. I mean really, I look in the phone book maybe 3 times a year. Divide that by the 6+ books I get a year, and I figure I owe a few carbon credits to Mother Earth. Or maybe the stupid phone company does.

It could be that enough people out there actually request that books be published at an insane rate and the phone companies are listening.

Whatever the case is, I wish they would deliver me a Yellow and a White once every 3 years or so. That's all I need. Most of my phone information comes from the www anyway.

Enough ranting.

I passed a tree today that was shedding leaves at an absurd rate. It was really something to see actually. It was snowing leaves. Very strange for some reason. When I passed it later in the day, it was still losing them, but at a believable rate. What is that about?

We're making headway with Toby using some new-found tactics.

1. The "Shaky-Can". This is a soda can with a few coins in it covered with duct tape. When he bites or is naughty, shake the shaky can. He hates it.

2. The spray bottle. This is a big squirt gun basically. No one I know of human or animal, likes getting hit with a squirt gun. They're maddening, but in this case highly effective. And no, you cannot put bleach in instead of water. I know, I checked. (I'm kidding! Don't sic PETA on me!)

3. We got him a cone-thing that you put a treat in and he tries to get the treat out. He spends hours trying to get the treat. Can you say down time?

4. The Bacon-Flavored Nyla bone. He devoured one within 3 days of when we got it. Now his cholesterol's out of site, but hey, he's occupied.

None of these tricks prevented him from furthering the damage to an existing hole in the carpet tonight while I wasn't looking. He got a nice seam and was working his way toward lifting the entire seam across the living room. I'm running out of furniture to cover this stuff with. Oh the love of a puppy...

Well, I've shirked my parental duty for 30 min. now, I must go feed and water and de-louse.

Until tomorrow. Blogging off.

Jim