Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda...

Dear Mom, Dad, Tara and Sean,

St. Louis is okay and Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Chuck are nice, but I wanna come home.

First they dragged me to this really windy place where I think we were supposed to have lunch, but I think the McDonalds was closed down or broken or something because there was only one arch.

But we sat there anyway and I made everyone laugh. Remember that "Bottoms Up" thing we do all the time? Well, I guess no one in St. Louis has ever seen it before because they would clap whenever I did it here. So I kept doing it. Over. And over. And over. And over. There were lots of people staring at me because I don't think you humans have much to do.

Then they took me to see Daniel Boone but he was dead and there was just this big stone there I wasn't even allowed to pee on, so what's the point of a big stone anyway?

And then Mamma Karen made me run around a big field with a bunch of other Aussies that look like me and I was next to my brother Liam, but we couldn't play or nothing 'cuz we just had to stand there while people looked at us like they got nothing better to do than to stare at a bunch of dogs all day or something and those other dogs weren't doing "Bottoms Up" like me so what was the big deal?

Then Mamma Karen broke her leg and I'm bored so I wanna come home.

Even though Uncle Chuck spoils me sometimes.

Love,
Sam (the Ham)

A brief quiz

What is Zsa Zsa doing in the following picture?

Is she:

A) Standing
B) Walking
C) Lying down just as she is supposed to be doing at station 11 on the Rally course

Next question. Can you see her? Is she:

A) invisible
B) a holographic projection of Zsa Zsa
C) the actual Zsa Zsa lying down just as she is freakin' supposed to be doing at freakin' station 11 on the freakin' Rally course (a little crookedly -- but still. Freakin'. DOWN.)

Did you answer "C" to both questions above? Then, thank you. Apparently I wasn't experiencing some sort of hallucination brought on by panic.

If you answered A and/or B to either of the above, congratulations! You can be a Rally judge!

Live! From Missouri...

...it's Linguinis on the road!

We drove 15 hours straight Saturday to get here, and I still don't know why, but it was Dirtman's idea so we did. We're here for the Aussie Nationals, giving me the opportunity to screw up in Rally, Obedience and Conformation all in the same week.

The Heirs have remained behind with Toppergetdown and the terriers. Not to worry: There is a whole network of people around them who will be checking up on them on a regular basis. They will never know when so they'd better not be planning anything because I'll find out, no matter how clever they think they are at sneaking something past me. I have eyes everywhere, so be very, very AFRAID...

Zsa Zsa is with us and will be holding audience throughout the week.

Zsa Zsa's good bud Sam (you may remember Sam from last summer) is staying in our room and we've taken to calling him "Hammy" for his memorable performance for the crowds at the Gateway Arch when he "Bottoms Up!"ed for anyone passing by.

Aaaand we're back!

I tell myself if I had paid attention to the last decade, corruption of my computer would come under the heading of "glitch" and I'd be up and running within a matter of a few hours. But I've been busy for the past decade working on my Spider Solitaire score.

And so I've lost over a week and a half. A week and a half of trying to find all my old downloads (Spicy McSavant has promised to find my iTunes and until then I'm without The Coffee Song and Chuckie's in Love -- Shut. Up.)

So, at last, just about everything is back to somewhat normal except for the fact that I can't run payroll on Quickbooks, which is a problem only for our one employee (I, myself, being slave labor which is pretty disgusting when you know that our business is septic systems).

So, what have I been doing while the IT people have been attempting to explain what they are doing, why they have to do it and what I can do so they don't have to do it again? You'd think I'd be paying attention but, alas I somehow found more interesting diversions (Spider Solitaire being inaccessible).

For instance, two new types of birds showed up at our bird feeder. I say this reluctantly because I never thought I'd become a bird geek, but there you have it. I spend my early morning staring out at my deck to see who shows up and this week Chipper Sparrows and Brown-headed Cowbirds showed up. According to the Virginia bird book, everything in our yard is a "common feeder bird," a term that annoys me almost like the author is telling me, "What the hell are you getting so excited about. It's just a common, ordinary bird -- nothing exotic like the other birds listed in this book that you'll never see."

It's show season, so Zsa Zsa and I have been attempting one more time to survive the conformation ring. One of us has improved since last year. The other one chickened out and sent Mamma K in her stead.

Also we've been landscaping our yard in dead plants. They were alive once, but given the freezing temperature, I doubt our lame attempts at keeping them warm were successful. But for a few days, there was landscaping potential. There were flowers and Shrubbery!

And gnomes. Protected by our attack 'Pode.