LaughAtlantis

I have taken on the personal challenge of reading 50 books this year. For those of you who know me, you are probably thinking, "Duh. Obviously you can do that, no problem." I would tend to agree, but I have never attempted to keep track before. Right now, I am done with six books and reading numbers 7 and 8. I don't normally read two at once but I had to put one aside so that I could read a book quickly to loan it to a friend. Now I am still in the middle of the one I put aside, but I have also moved on.

So far, the toughest thing is just keeping track of them.

At 5:00 this morning, our phone rang. I woke up and answered it. There was nobody there.

At 5:05 this morning, our phone rang. I answered it. Still nobody there.

I got up. Went to the bathroom. Brushed my teeth because it felt like I'd dumped the contents of a lint trap in there while I slept. Heard the phone ring again. Answered it. Nobody there... but a long low beeping sound.

By that time, Rod had woken up - and he never gets up in the middle of the night. We were both bleary-eyed. I handed the phone to him and he determined that someone was attempting to send a fax. To our phone. Which is not a fax machine.

We took the phone out of its little phone stand thingy in the hopes that it would magically stop ringing. That didn't work. Ultimately, we just unplugged the whole phone/answering machine mechanism and crashed back into bed.

So I fell back asleep and began to dream about my office. I dreamed that they had given offices to two of the carnies at my office rather than to actual "management" people. So I was sitting in my cube wondering why the hell I didn't have an office. THe guy at the next desk popped over and we had a lengthy conversation about how much work sucked. In Italian.

I haven't spoken Italian in fifteen years. But I woke up miserable and tired and the first thing I thought was, "Ho bisogno dormire. Sono stanco."

Yep. I'm tired.

Rod and I went to Rhode Island today to help celebrate my niece Julia's birthday. There was good food, good conversation, and a just-barely-three-year-old girl squealing "PLAY-DOH!" in a voice so high that it was just a hair away from being only audible to dogs. It was a good day.

When Rod and I got home, however, we had a mess on our hands. Yesterday we went to Target. Today, just before we left for Rhode Island, Rod took all the bags out of the car and put them in the living room, not really considering their contents. For the most part, there was not a whole lot in there to intrigue a little dog - toilet paper, a new pair of gloves, dishwasher detergent.

And a bag of Ghirardelli Chocolate Squares.

In the past, Bacon has been known to get into a bag of Hershey's Kisses and eat them. And, since dogs don't have opposable thumbs to open the Kiss foil wrap, he just eats them whole. I don't know how his intestinal tract has dealt with this - and frankly, I don't want to - but I'm just saying, this is not the first time that our dog had gone a little mental about chocolate.

So we came in the front door to find a ripped open bag of chocolate on the floor. Rod proceeded to shout at the dog - "BAD BACON!!" - until the poor thing was quivering. I picked up the remains of the bag and ushered the dog into the kitchen to let him out so he could pee.

And then we noticed the chocolates.

The thing about Bacon is that, as much as he likes to eat things, he also likes to hide things. And the Ghirardelli Squares are in individual packets and not easy for a little dog to open. So, looking around the kitchen, we saw two little foil packets of chocolates, one "hidden" in a corner and another just by a wall. (I said Bacon liked to hide things; I didn't say he was any good at it.)

So Rod and I began to search the house. Three more chocolate squares turned up in the living room. One in the hallway. And upstairs in the green room, where Bacon sleeps, there were several more. Rod and I have still not even remotely finished unpacking (we've lived here for 9 months, but we are astoundingly lazy people) and so the dog hid chocolate squares in cardboard boxes, which he proceeded to try to eat his way through. He hid them in the corners of the room, he hid them underneath a pillow on the futon, he hid them under a bookshelf.

Rod and I laughed the entire time that we looked for chocolates, but nothing was quite so funny as letting the dog back inside and watching him run from hiding place to hiding space, not finding any chocolates. Poor thing looked so confused.

Of course, that didn't stop us from giggling extensively.