Well, HELLO and GOOD MORNING to you too.

"What the hell?" said Nick.

Something large and furry stepped on my face, danced around on my hair on the pillow, finally coming to a rest with a wiggling, full body cuddle between Nick and I.

Two facts registered through the sleep fog.
It was three AM, and this was NOT Luca.



I opened my eyes and thought fast.


My bed? Check.

My house? Check.

My dog? No.


Somehow the neighbor's dog Kylie (yeah, that Kylie) had gotten in. Perhaps we left the door open, but Kylie is one hell of a smart dog and it wouldn't surprise me if she figured out how to open our kitchen door.
As Nick escorted her out, and Luca hovered nervously, no doubt worried that his friend's bad behavior might reflect on him, I searched for the Dulce and Mau. (Kylie's a sweetheart, and I would have let her stay, but she has a hard time resisting the urge to chase the cats.)

I found Mau in his new favorite perch, sleeping on a stack of purses in the closet. He only bothered to open one eye to view all the chaos. I expected to find Dulce clinging to the ceiling, but luckily she was only mildly ruffled by the tornado of dog that had blown through.



As we all dropped back into bed, Nick said, "sorry," assuming he'd left the door ajar earlier. But as he and Luca and I all melted into a sleepy pile with Dulce on top like a cherry, all I could do was smile.

By popular demand.

Yesterday, it was a lovely spring day, and as I finished arranging all my coffee mugs and shot glasses on the kitchen shelves, I figured I'd go out and take a few pictures, satisfy some the curiosity expressed about exactly how many pets we have.

Here's a view from the house.

If I zoom in a bit, you can see our rhinos Lowell and Lily basking in the sun. I'd go closer, but it's mating season and I'm sure you imagine ...

And in addition to our antelope, you can see Slim and Shorty, our giraffes.

I stopped by our mountain goat habitat to see who wanted an ear scratch. All God's creatures need an ear scratch from time to time.

Luca from behind.

This little okapi, Kane, looks kinda emo in his striped knee socks. I made him take his ipod out of his ears for this picture.

I spotted an intruder, and quickly dispatched my deer to take care of him.

They ate him.

Now let me show you some of our birds. That's not poop you see, they've just been burning a lot of candles up there in their lovenest.

Here's Brad, our vulture. He actually prefers eggs benedict to dead things.

Everybody gets along pretty well at our house.

I told Mattie here that I'd give her a herring for every bag of recyclables she turns in to me. We're eco-friendly like that.

I make sure I get to spend quality time with each bird. Here I am gossiping with Constance.

We have real flamigos, because the plastic ones just seemed tacky.

They share the pond with our ducks and ......

..... our catfish.

And here we are, the wildest animals around.

It would make a great Twilight Zone Episode.

Every morning, as we pull out of our driveway, Nick and I see a group of older men taking their morning walk. It started with just two guys, but they've added a guy every week or two.

Sarah Smile - "They've been at five members for awhile now. Time to add a new guy, I think."

My Nick - "I wonder who they'll add."

Leader of the Grandpa Brigade - *does an odd summoning wave at Nick as we drive away*

Sarah Smile - "Did you just see that?"

My Nick - "I think I'm going wake up at five o'clock tomorrow morning with a strange urge to put on grey sweatpants and white sneakers, and go for a walk."

Sarah Smile - "And find you've grown a big grey beard overnight."

I'm a bit slow on the uptake.

We had a bit of heat wave lately. Not that heat is unusual here, or that it's even really that hot, but it was a bit hotter than it generally is in March. It's been about 95, 96 degrees the past couple days.

On Sunday, I figured it really was time for all the boxes to be unpacked. I mean, we've lived there two and a half months now. And I was only sick for one of those months, so really, I'm out of excuses. So I busted my (cute) little (well, maybe not little but certainly endearing and love able) tush and emptied out the last of the boxes. A large percentage I emptied straight into the trash or donation bins because, lets face it, I can't have missed it that much in the past two months or I would have dug it out.

I actually have a usable closet now, instead of a cat fort of boxes overflowing out into the bedroom. Wooo-hoooo! Woooo-hooooo for me! Not so much woooooo-hoooooooo for Mau, who misses the cardboard cat fort. I found a box of blankets that he had somehow burrowed into, like Saddam, or Bin Ladin.

Anyway, as I was doing all this, I got really hot and sweaty. I tried to figure out why. Had I accidentally turned the heat on? That happened once in my old Postage Stamp apartment, the heat was so rarely used that it had been painted over and I only discovered it in the middle of the night when I woke up in what felt like a sauna, because I had accidentally bumped it on earlier while using it to hang a Christmas decoration.
Was the oven on? Were all the appliances heating the place up? The heat lamp in the bathroom?

Nope.

I didn't get it until I walked outside.

"OooooooooOOOOooooh. It's hot inside because it's a HOT DAY."

The Internet isn't my ONLY friend.

And to prove it, I have pictures. And to prove that they were in fact taken in my living room, Sancho joins the picture.

Behold!

Dillon!


He joined Nick and I last night for SSS Sundays. Sushi and South Park (and sometimes Scotch) Sundays, that is.
Although it became Indian food and South Park and Wine Sunday this time, because he brought wine and doesn't eat seafood. Less alliterative, but oodles of fun!

Who's coming next week?

Within a couple of blocks.

I have this theory that there is far more fascinating things within a few blocks of one's house than one realizes, until you walk around it on foot.

Driving doesn't count.

You're never going to find flowers growing through cracks in the sidewalk while you're driving.

You're not going to talk to the fat old dog who seems so anxious to prove that he's still tough and intimidating that you reassure him that you'd never come in his yard, mostly just to soothe his feelings.

You're not as likely to wander down a sidestreet, following a yard sale sign on a whim, and finding a pair of gold(ish) elf slippers, which fit perfectly, for a mere $0.50.

Or to notice that plastic duck statues in the neighbor's yard are the size of labradors.

Or make the aquintaince of a nonsensical little blue that sprawls over the side of a hill with no rhyme or reason, just like houses in your dreams.

Or that half of the oranges on a neighbor's tree are plastic. What exactly are they trying to do? Show off?

Or that Luca is always happy when he recognizes home, but seems entirely turned around and confused that you're approaching the house from a different direction that whence you left. "How did the house get over HERE?"


What's within a couple blocks of your house?

Don't worry, Luca minds Dulce better than us.

My Nick - *laughing* "Luca, stop trying to hump me. Luca, knock it off. Luca, where's Sarah? Let's go find Sarah!"

Sarah Smile - *laughing* "I hate you so hard right now. Luca, where's Dulce? Where's your kitty? Let's go find your kitty!"

I said that "self-contained" was ad-speak for "small."

To which Jonny replied, "A house is only ever as big as your imagination."

"Don't worry if you see us chasing each other with guns. We don't need anybody calling the police again."

Not that I was going to, of course. I may be a bit of a hippie Californian, but I DO know the difference between a real gun and a paintgun. And besides, why ruin a perfectly good afternoon's entertainment (for me)?





I quit taking pictures when I realized I was giving away their hiding spots by aiming my camera at them, and it was probably taking all their restraint not to fire on me, although I'm certain they would have tipped their hats and said "Ma'am" as they did it.

Let's party, Martha Stewart - style!

Text from My Nick* - Martha Stewart just said that she would be celebrating Sat. night because her probation will be over.

Text from Sarah Smile - Let's get smashed on mint julep martinis and tole paint the dog with silver polish.



*He's at home today, recovering from his long work trip, which basically had him working for a month straight.

Luca and I learn us some culture.

Luca was fascinated by the didgeridoo, until he got too close. I think since he can hear tones we can't, that it was starting to hurt his ears. When we got too close he started to shake his head as if he was trying to shake something out.
So we moved on, walking through San-Diego-in-February's version of snow, cherry blossoms.
We sat on a bench and ate a fruit bowl. I liked the pineapple, Luca liked the honeydew melon. Then we went to look at the fish, and Luca was so excited I think he was about to jump in to play with them. I don't think he would hurt them, but I figured it would be generally frowned upon if he were to chase them. I caught him before he got more than one paw in. He's heavy.
We went over to the organ pavillion to wait for the concert to start. We split a banana and a roast beef sandwich. Luca played gargoyle.
He fell off the pedestal and I caught him. He's very heavy.

Luca loves children. And everybody loves Luca. Every book I read about Great Danes told us to expect a lot of attention when walking a Great Dane, but I had no idea how right it was. I spent most of the day explaining what breed he was, how old, what his color pattern is called, his wonderful temperament, how much he eats, a detailed history of the breed, and a quick lesson in genetics. My inner tour guide was on cloud nine.
During all that, Luca would bond with the little faces right at his level. Parents would marvel at how gentle and soft he is. No, literally soft. His ears are like velvet.
It was like walking a celebrity on a leash.
The concerts in the Balboa Park organ pavillion are one of my favorite things to do in San Diego. (You might remember this time that Nick and I went.)
Luca couldn't figure out quite where the music was coming from at first, since the pipe organ is SOOOOOO big and sounds like it's coming from everywhere at once.
He seemed to enjoy it.
But after awhile he started shaking his head again like his ears hurt, so we went to Old Town and greeted more people. And then we went home, fell on the couch and snuggled Rudolf.

Happy Valentines Day to my True Love, The Internet.

Tonight, I will go home, pour myself a glass of wine, kiss the most wonderful man in the world, have a candlelit carpet picnic, watch the season finale of Beauty and the Geek and reflect on my unbelievable good luck.

May you all feel so lucky in your life as I do in mine.

Just Inside The Gate ..

.... at our new house.
What a delicious name.
I can't help but suspect Winoy Pennberton would approve of us living in their house.

My First Nudie Picture At The End Of This Post

But first, pictures of the new kitchen. Because I'm absurdly obsessed with my dishes, and therefore am very happy that the lack of cabinet space requires me to keep them all on open shelves. So now it's easier to gloat over them.

In that last photo, of the view from the kitchen window of the yard we share with the neighbors, you might be able to spot the following things. The neighbor's two dogs, who Luca just adores playing with, the fire pit, the hot tub (not to be confused with the Wonder Tub), one of 8 trucks that seem to belong to the neighbors (a household of only three people), part of the tree (upper left) which will soon have a rope swing for me, and a slice of our beautiful, warm, January sky.

And as promised (you thought I was kidding, didn't you?), and because I forgot to take a picture of the Wonder Tub itself because I was too busy unpacking all my bath toys (Poor Nick. "THAT? THAT is what I had to haul in that heavy box? MY LITTLE PONIES? How many rubber duckies do you HAVE?"), here is a picture of myself IN the Wonder Tub, and my smile shows just how gleefully happy it makes me.

"Done Moving"

Is there a more beautiful combination of words ever in the history of the English language?

I Love My New Neighbors.

Like, a lot. I wanna make that clear before I refer to them as 'rednecks,' which I often will because a.) they are, and b.) I don't mean it in an insulting way.
We're just very different, that's all.

Like, they drink cheap beer and I drink cheap wine. They always wear cowboy hats and speak in inexplicable southern accents and I don't, except for on rare occasion. They are amused for hours by riding a dirtbike back and forth across a ten foot yard, and I am amused for hours by watching them ride back and forth across a ten foot yard. They have two pickup trucks on average per person, which came in handy to haul all my boxes of books.

Yeah, they helped me move. And in my book, there is no higher class of human being than those who help me schlep my shit.