Ordered a Bowtie

I ordered a bowtie on the online. No returns. Looked like a good tie and the price was right, so there I was shopping for haberdashery on the internet.

It arrived as inconspicuously as possible, but the crime was blatant and it wasn't a pretty sight. It was a pre-tied, clip-in-the-back abomination.

There oughtta be a law against that kind of false advertising.

from ali : kickstart to the new year?

(shamelessly cutting/pasting recent writing from the personal blog)

I am pecking this out with painfully slow consideration on my aging iPhone, a stuttering thumb war for remembrance on a doll sized keyboard. Each word, too, is jarred by the interruption of a nose thrust into my elbow with clockwork regularity - a wet nose, alternately snuffling inquiry or suggesting with various degrees of forcefulness an alternative activity in the form of a much-loved and consequently tooth-pocked rubber ball.

The damp nose and equally damp ball belong to Chester. They are essential parts of his evening routine, a routine consisting primarily of loose-limbed ambling from one room to the next, broken by sudden spasms of gymnastic, clawing energy aimed nose and teeth first at the unsuspecting ball or an unsupervised pair of rolled up socks or that most treasured of fleeting toys, the stray leaf snatched discreetly mid-toilet breaks or tandem walks. Acorns, too, and fraying bits of stick are smuggled in - and once, nearly, a dried out mud dauber nest - cherished contrabands, deliciously forbidden diminutive playmates to be tucked away innocently between paws and carpet when he raises a self-conscious gaze to meet my silently laughing one.

It is this almost human gaze that surprises me the most, seeing comprehension and strangely familiar emotions now flickering in mute eyes that were once just bright little brown buttons of generic puppy cuteness, as broadly adorable as those on a grocery aisle Hallmark card.  They have become pointed with personality, at times conveying unmistakeable boredom as he throws head down on paws and sidles out a heavy sigh and sideways shrugging glance towards and then immediately away from my deeply uninteresting human busyness; at others, taut with accompanying full-body alertness, following every sway of a toy dangling in mid-air before its inevitable fling across the room or field; illumined with utter unspoiled happiness too in these moments, and always roaming the hope of them at me later, offering the argument with a nudge and peaked eyebrows that surely there is nothing more joyful in life than playing. (About which he may be right).  To be fair, too, they can infuriate me, crackling with unmalicious but exultant defiance as he dances just beyond the reach of a confining leash or reprimanding hand - but when, or rather if, the hand has finally made its point, they are quickly downcast, only tentatively tossing upward the apologetic and heart-melting hope for restored favor... which is of course never slow to follow.

And lastly, the all important look - the one I am getting now, unwavering and urgent and often accompanied with vocal reinforcement if ineffective - the look that says it is time to visit the giant doggie toilet we humans laughingly refer to as a front yard.