Pets a'Plenty

After church today I talked with Cheyenne in Austin. Cheyenne lost her dog to cancer last year and now she has a new Bichon Frise puppy. She called the fuzzy white critter Hero. She said she is glad that he's male. If she had gotten a female puppy, she would have named the dog Heroine. And she did not think that it would sound too good if the pup ran off, and Cheyenne had to walk all around the neighborhood yelling for Heroine.

Fur, Fleas, and Funny Relief

Dogs have fleas and Luis brought me his as a gift. There's nothing like feeling nips at the ankles and looking down to see black dots. I do not like using chemical pesticides but I compromised by spraying my closet and bedroom with insect repellent. It may not kill the fleas, but I hope it makes them mildly nauseous.

I cheered myself up after spraying the fleas by calling Mike again in Central City. He is entertaining an old college friend this week from South Africa named Steve Krueger. It is Steve's first trip to North America. Steve likes to gamble and was very interested in the Texas state lottery. Mike brought Steve home after they stopped at a Valero gas station and ice house, where Steve bought several lottery tickets. He also picked up every flyer they had describing how the different lottery games worked. Mike saw Steve poring over the flyers and asked him if something was bothering him. Steve answered, "I'm just trying to figure out which game that woman was playing when she came into the store. I was paying for my lottery tickets and she said, 'I've got thirty dollars on Number Six.' Mike cracked up. "She wasn't playing the lottery, Steve. She was buying gasoline!"

Of Dogs and Women...

...instead of Mice and Men. My dog Luis is growing up. Myra MacDonald noted that he would grow into his huge ears which still dwarf his head. She said she had the same problem with big ears when she was younger. She told me, "It's amazing how much smaller my ears look now that I'm grown up."

Luis has a lot to learn. When I feel devilish, I throw two tennis balls down the hall instead of one. He has the worst time deciding which ball to pick up. He picks one up, notices the other one, drops the first one, chases the second one, spies the first one rolling away, and drops the second one to go after the first one. He hasn't figured out he doesn't have two mouths.