Me: 0 Poodle: 1

Getting a good night of uninterrupted sleep at the G-O casa has been a little scarce lately. Why, you ask? The culprit is a darling little 12 year old black miniature poodle named Louis. Louis has always slept with me, then us when we bought our house together. Until recently, this has not been a big problem. He's small, we're big. He's the dog, we're the people. This is how it should be.
Not anymore. Lately, it seems that instead of us allowing Louis to sleep in our bed, Louis seems to think that he is allowing us to sleep in his bed and with his rules. So, what has been happening is that when we roll over and pull the blankets, he is disturbed and growls. Or, worse yet, if we push him away with our legs when he is being a little bed hog, he really growls and gets ugly. Bad, bad, bad.
So, on Sunday night, I moved and pushed Louis and he went all growly ugly face on me. I had had enough. I sat up, and pushed him off the end of the bed on to the bench and told him "Off the bed!" (He knows what this means.) He immediately hopped back up and went to Curt's side of the bed. I reached over and picked him up. All hell broke loose- snarling, growling, squirming. So, I did my dominance thing and put him on his back, held him down until he calmed down, then told him "off the bed" and moved him to the bench. Silence and humility ensued. He apparently snuck back on to the bed on Curt's side later in the night, but without so much as a peep when Curt turned over.
Last night when we went to bed, I thought "Ah, the sweet silence of victory over poodle awaits me." Wrong. The growls were smaller, but still there. My next move is to trick him off the bed with a heated dog bed on the bench. He loves anything heated. We'll see how this goes.

Could You Say No To These Faces??

Look who is fresh from the groomer and looking cute and smelling delicious. It's Louis (right) and Claire (left)!

The New Arrivals

At our Fall Fiesta we asked our guests to vote on which variety of discus Curt should stock in the new 95 gallon aquarium, using pictures as guides. He took your input seriously and here is the proof. On Friday, Curt got a package of six gorgeous juvenile discus that are now happily swimming and eating in the aquarium. They are only about 2.5 - 3" long, but can get up to 7-8" long. As they mature, their patterns and colors will get more intense, which will be pretty amazing since they are already so beautiful.

Let me introduce you:

From left: Leopard Snakeskin, Red Turk Tiger Skin, Blue Diamond, Checker Board Pigeon (face forward), Golden Crown

From left: Checker Board Pigeon, Leopard Snakeskin, Golden Sunrise

Our Big Storm

Thursday evening we had a serious thunderstorm. Normally, when the storm sirens go off, we sort of think "Feh. Not so bad" and keep doing what we are doing. Typically, I love thunderstorms and enjoy watching them go by. The same was true Thursday night until we saw the trees along our fence line double over. As we were running, one of our two big maple trees on the side of the house snapped in half. Eeek! One of our dogs, Louis, didn't follow us in to the safe spot. Instead he sat on the couch with a chew. Of course, I had to go retrieve him and pictured myself being sucked out a window and skewered by flying debris. Although, at my current weight I think we'd need a solid F-5 twister to even slide me across the floor, which gives me some comfort, but does nothing for my self esteem.
Once the worst of the storm had passed, it was still pouring rain and producing grape size hail. During all this, we discovered that the downspouts on our eaves troughs were blocked on the back of the house. Rain water is POURING in to one of our window wells and filling it up fast. Too late. The water reaches the bottom of the window quickly and starts coming in. Aaarrrrgggghhh!!! So what do we do? I go out on the deck with a long metal spoon, then clear away the debris that I can reach. Curt, meanwhile, goes out in the elements with a bucket and starts bailing out the window well. On the other end of the house, we need a tall metal ladder to reach the eaves. And, yes, we go out with a tall metal ladder to clean the eaves troughs. Looking back it was really, really stupid and we knew it while we were doing it, but we would not have any more water in our lower level. Not having it.
By the time we were done clearing the eaves troughs, the worst had passed, the hail had let up and we were ready to head back in. Now, I forgot to mention that in storms like this we almost always end up losing power- once for five days, a day or so on other occasions. So, at the point that we went outside with the ladder, we were thrilled that the power was on. When we got back in with the ladder, the frickin' power was gone. AAARRRRGGGHHH! Curt and I are kind of big whiny babies when the power goes off, as if we have no other means of entertaining ourselves. We're sad.
Typically, losing power for a day or so is not a giant deal. However, the next day, Curt was staying home to take delivery of 6 juvenile discus fish that he had ordered from San Francisco. These are expensive fish and pretty sensitive to water conditions that are slightly off. So, Friday morning, I run to Home Depot and buy a generator big enough to power to whole house if we needed it. A little overkill maybe, but considering how often we go without power, it was about time. We got everything up and running by about 8:30. Curt's fish arrived at about 9:30 and I was off to work by 10:30.
Today, the power is back and we're going to spend the day chopping up the part of the tree that is down, hauling it to the curb, then figuring out how to take the rest of the tree down. Considering the size of the tree and the mighty mite size of my chain saw, this could take a while.

Happy Birthday, Louis!

Claire, left; Birthday Boy Louis, right

Today is our dog Louis's 11th birthday! Not only did Curt bring home some special gravy, which they got after work today , he brought home some toys- a rubber hot dog and a big rubber donut with pink frosting and sprinkles. Louis got the donut; Claire got the hot dog.

There are bunch of things that make Louis a great dog, all of which I'm going tell you about right now. Okay, I'll pick just a few:

1. He's terribly cute. He can't help it.
2. He's fluffy and soft.
3. He's knows his obedience commands.
4. He's still really speedy after all these years.
5. He always lets us know what he wants. Playing hockey with his dish is a little annoying sometimes, but it sends a clear message.
6. He's a champ at the beauty parlor.
7. He lets us call him all kinds of silly names and responds to baby talk.
8. He is a blue ribbon kisser.
9. He doesn't hog the bed- at least my side of the bed.
10. He adores us in a way that makes me feel completely humbled.

I hope we have many more happy birthdays together.