Uma In four shirts

Laundry day is always a good time. I like to dump all of my dirty clothes on the floor, sit in the middle of them and conduct an hourly NBA draft of sorts---deciding which clothes get washed in what order and grouping.

Uma likes to help; though she mostly just lays on top of all the clothes and shoves her head into the pile making goofy bark/growl noises in an attempt to get me to play.

When this doesn't work she starts taking socks & underwear & towels and banishing them into my sister's bedroom in retaliation. At top speed as if it were an Olympic event.

I am not a photographer.

I got to thinking yesterday about those holiday photo "cards" you get in the mail of people's kids; and for some reason decided it would be fun to make something like those but with my pets (since I have no kids). When I got home from work, I constructed a "studio" in my kitchen consisting of a red fuzzy blanket & some Christmas-y colored embellishments. It was pretty much a total failure. My sister, who promised to be my pet-wrangler, mostly just laid on the floor (inexplicably). Pancakes refused to go anywhere near the "set"...Lil had to be bribed with catnip, and Rufus refused to come out of his dressing room. So here's some results for early holiday enjoyment:

Pathetic.

The only way to get Lil anywhere near the set was to spray concentrated catnip all over it.

Pancakes wouldn't sit nice on the blanket, but he would lounge everywhere AROUND it.

She actually looks like she's smiling here, huh? That's my layabout sister under the smiley face.

I like this picture of Lil.

This would have been a really nice picture of Pancakes; but again, I am not a photographer.

The only halfway decent picture of the whole session.

Lord of the Puppies

Things are kind of quiet at work today; I presume most non-essential personnel have already started their holiday. I decided to check out Puppy Cam this morning to break the monotony. To my horror, as Hench described before in a text message, the puppies had gone all LA riots on the Pee Pad. I took a series of screenshots to document this dark day in puppy history. Also; someone was pooping in picture #3.

Sniffles & Stuff

I meant to write something about the whole Ellen dog adoption ridiculousness, and my thoughts on the subject as animal adoption has been quite prevalent in my life lately. But, as usual, I never got around to it until it was too late and/or I didn't care about it anymore. Plus, I heard somewhere that Ellen may have adopted & discarded up to 9 dogs or something in recent years, which is just batshit crazy.

I got a flu shot the other day, and am feeling the effects now. I hate the sniffles, but at least it gave me something to pass the time earlier tonight as I watched the movie "We Own the Night"---my sister is big on Joaquin. This movie was terrible. A terrible movie with good actors in it and Eva Mendes, who is not a good actor. This movie was like "The Departed" (in that Mark Wahlberg was in both), but for people with head injuries. It was just baffling, really. It was set in 1988, probably the least interesting time in American history. And the music was all wrong. Lots of Blondie & Clash which was totally inappropriate for 1988. I did see a preview for "No Country for Old Men", which looks kinda badass, so that's something.

Scothy & the Gardlers

This is my brother's dog, Scotchy:



In this picture, you can also see the the leg and arm of Leslie, who was drawing a picture of her new best friend on my laptop with one hand (the one not occupied by a non-ironic Smirnoff Twisted Drinkamabob). And here is her masterpiece:




My brother really, really likes this picture. He said he's never met anyone who could "do that" before. Which I thought was weird, but regahdless, Leslie is quickly becoming the official artist of the Gardler clan.

On a totally unrelated note...While hanging out in the 'peake this weekend I was playing some Mario Party 7 with my nephew, and in creating a new game, I named it 'CAG', and he asked what that stood for. It totally blew his 7-year old mind that I had the same last name as him. I'm not sure if I should be worried. Are family ties not something covered in elementary school?

Another fab discovery on my trip to the 757 was a new children's show to enjoy, "Charlie and Lola", which my 2-year old niece is quite obsessed with. This is an import from our friends at the BBC, and it's adorable. I went to the website, and I moused-over some part and Lola said, "I'm too busy playing to do computers!". Am totally having my TiVo pick this up for my grumpy days.

Also a cure for grumpy days? This picture of my aforementioned niece, Emily, who couldn't resist hopping in my newly-made-up couch-bed and pretending to be immediately asleep (though she sadly didn't do the fake snoring noises).




It should also be noted that this is pretty much the only useable picture I took of Emily all weekend. She has an annoyingly adorable habit of fluttering her eyes when a camera flashes, so she looks like she's actually asleep in every damn one.

Back away from the Puppy.

Just a little friendly Christmas PSA for the folks….

Do NOT get a puppy for Christmas.

Yes, it is totally adorable and it's adoreableness would grow exponentially as it ambled through the wrapping paper shrapnel on Christmas morning.

Yes, that cage is rather small; and would it kill them to throw the measliest of squeaky toys in there to pass the time?

Yes, your friends would be impressed by your choice of clever, ironic, or non-sensical name (The Fonz, Rumsfeld, Bagel).

I found myself reassuring myself of these same facts just yesterday at the old mall pet store, as my sister and were entranced by an English Bulldog pup.

How soon I'd forgotten, how just one year ago I made a similar decision that almost ruined me.

I dunno. I don’t' have any really intelligent things to say about how dog ownership is at least a 10-year commitment and you should do your research or blah blah blah.

I'm just saying it's a bad idea to get a puppy for Christmas. Get a Cinnabon instead. Cinnabon won't eat your deodorant.