Pearl's Narrow Escape

This is our Pearl, the trouble-maker mentioned in a previous post. We banished her from our bedroom, which turned out to be a mixed blessing: Little Grace was very happy to be alone again, but Pearl was lonely and began roaming through the rest of the house -- occasionally during the day, but mostly at night. Since I've been putting Buffy in the laundry room, safely behind a locked gate, I wasn't worried about Pearl at night. Until last week. The day after we returned from Chicago. I was lying in bed, playing with Little Grace and Mama, when I heard Buffy yipping (like she does when she's excited) along with some crashing and bashing. Little Grace headed for the closet; the dogs and I headed for the door, to see Buffy hell-bent for election, tearing into the bathroom. We ALL ran into the bathroom to see Buffy, Pearl in her mouth, shaking her head furiously back and forth, slamming Pearl into the toilet with every right-hand swing. Horrifying. After much yelling and smacking, I was able to get Pearl out of Buffy's mouth, and Buffy out of the house -- along with the other dogs. A quick once-over showed no outward damage to Pearl's body, other than a lot of misplaced hair. There was poop everywhere -- Buffy had literally shaken the shit out of her -- but after a quick cleanup, I still couldn't see any damage. After closing Pearl in the bathroom for the time being, I checked the gate on the laundry room: still securely locked, but standing wide open. That dog is Houdini reincarnated, I swear. Our neighbor, the vet tech, confirmed little outward damage to Pearl, but cautioned that the one puncture wound on her hip could become infected, and that internal damage was a possibility. She also told us about Buffy attacking our Gracie, the 85# German Shepherd dog, the day before we returned home. That was it for me. Buffy confirmed for me that she was the killer of our sweet Blossom, she attacked Gracie and tried to kill Pearl. She's out. She's been living outside for the past week while DH tried to find a home for her with no other animals, but so far, no luck. So it looks like she'll be going to either a shelter or Animal Control. I won't risk any more of the pets we love to her aberrant behavior. It's odd how good a hunter Mama is, but she's able to tell pet from prey. She didn't teach her daughter to do that.
Pearl seems to be fine now, although she's very wary of all of the dogs. Mama has been very solicitous of her -- maybe she's trying to make up for Buffy's awful behavior. Mama sticks her head in the sewing room each night at bedtime to say goodnight to Pearl. Very civilized of her.

Lost Dog!

Has anyone lost a darling young unneutered black Chow? We have one who's looking for his parents. He's wearing a collar, but that's the only distinction. He's very friendly & has obviously been cared for. He's been wandering our neighborhood for several days & my DH brought him home Friday night. And then DH left town for a week this afternoon! Remember what happened the last time he left town? One of the old dogs got sick. Yeah, I'm seeing a pattern here, & I'm not liking it! He smells recently-bathed (the dog, not DH, although DH does bathe pretty regularly).
I should mention that we're in SoCal, so if you live somewhere else & find this describes your lost dog, I'm afraid this one isn't yours. Sorry. I should also mention that if we didn't already have FOUR dogs, we might just keep this one. But really, does anyone need five dogs? No, I didn't think so, either.

On a completely unrelated note, is anyone else out there a member of Facebook? I'm finding it a combination of fun & stupidity, but it's fascinating. And so time-consuming! I'm frantically trying to keep up with tending to my Pokey! dog, Grimace; the Growing Patch, my SeaPatch and Flower Gifts, and then there's the Flair board & those crazy bumper stickers. OY! So much to juggle & so little point to it all! On the other hand, my group of friends continues to grow, & that part's fun. I'm sure my great-nephews think it's hysterical that I'm among their friends. That's OK. They can think I'm keeping an eye on them for their parents if they want. In reality, I am, but I probably won't tell my siblings anything unless something really out of line appears on someone's page. Let me know what your experience has been with Facebook or My Space or any of the other social networking sites. I'm just curious.

The sum total of my creativity today? A masterpiece of a salad. To the beautiful greens our neighbor gave us the other day, I added some romaine from the fridge, then sliced up some strawberries & added dried cranberries & some sliced almonds. 15 sprays of Ken's honey mustard, & it was fabulous.
Yeah, it was blistering hot again today -- I'm willing to pass on the 100+ temps for the rest of my life, but I'm guessing this is only the beginning. My DB & SIL arrive tomorrow from Ohio. She wanted to know if the 105 yesterday was a comfortable 105. Um.....no. Not so much.
So tomorrow I'll start a new cycle of beginners' quilting & see what the previous group has accomplished while I was away. Should be exciting, I'm thinking.
DH filled a kiddie pool for the dogs this morning, but the heat just made bathwater of it. The dogs drank out of it after dark, though. I just want to see Mama lying down in it. She splashes in their water bowl; why not in the pretty blue pool?
I gave myself a pedicure tonight -- couldn't stand the godawful mess my naked toes were. Now I have what my sister refers to as a "crack-whore pedicure". feh. If I leave my glasses off, they don't look too bad, I guess.
Oof. Time for sleep. I wonder if I can get Mama to come in & go to bed. Wish me luck.

Monday

Saturday's Quilt Show committee sew-in was a lot of fun. Six of us spent several hours together, sewing & laughing & eating. Now what could be better than that? Well, I would've preferred a little more warmth from the sun, & a little less noise from the dogs, but otherwise, it was a great day. At one point, the dogs did settle down, but as I was taking some of the food back to the kitchen, I saw that had been occupying them: they had removed a little quilt I'd been working on from its hoop & shredded one end. They managed this without damaging the hoop, mind you. Notice in the last picture that they very kindly left the needle I was using in the quilt, & chewed on the other end! I've decided I must just smell yummy to these guys, since they never attack my husband's things -- only mine. Not making me feel special, though. I'll be taking this to guild tomorrow as an example of hand quilting for my demonstration. This will be the cautionary tale about leaving one's handwork lying around. sigh.