Old Friends, Bookends

I'm not always sure what the dogs are doing when I'm not looking at them, but sleeping is always a fair bet. Roxy and Skippy are buddies. Neither one is young anymore, so a lot of their time is spent companionably sleeping. Skippy always comes over when Aunt Rita visits, but we see him on other occasions, too. When the Hump children come up to visit from Texas they usually bring their big, much younger and livelier dogs. Skippy does not enjoy their company, and often spends the time with us instead. This weekend Inace was here visiting with her siblings and staying with Rita while Nancy and Larry were in Texas. The change proved to be too much for Skippy. The first night she was there he howled all night. Nobody was happy with that, so he came to spend the rest of the weekend with us.

Later in the weekend Aunt Rita came over to make valentine cookies with me - a messy but entertaining activity.

I had hoped to have breakfast with Alex, Jamie, and Vivian this morning. I am lucky enough to have Presidents' Day off, and thought it might be fun to take advantage of the free time. Sadly, although we agreed to have breakfast today, no one answered the phone at their place, even though we had discussed our plans days before and I called 412 times. They don't have an answering machine and I know they turn the ringer off when they don't want to be bothered. Instead of the nice brunch I had planned I had to satisfy myself flaming him with an email about people who are too rude to answer the phone when they know someone is calling to give them a treat (which he will not answer) and a short telephone discussion much later with Alex about what I considered to be minimum standards of how to treat his mother. Much more to be said about this topic, but maybe not today. I'm angry, and unlikely to be reasonable at this point.