For me it was when I was 4…

…then again at 7, but first time first. We lived in a huge mobile home in a field owned by my grandparents in pretty much the most isolated part of mainland Ireland. It was…okay I guess. I don’t really remember much apart from the dogs. Everybody had a dog. My grandparents had a border collie named Candy, my grand-aunt a border collie named, I don’t remember that makes me sad, I loved that dog. Anyway I had a border collie mix named Charlie, who I found out this year was put down the day we left; he went mad when I went away, and after nearly killing my uncle as they drove home from the train station my uncle was forced to drown my lovely 2-year-old dog so he wouldn’t end up crashing the car. I get it, but I hate it. It says a lot that that dog is still my 2nd clearest memory of Mayo, and that I still miss him 30 years later.

I say second strongest memory because my strongest memory is the time I told my Mom that I was a girl. I can remember standing in the tiny kitchen with her, watching her make scones, and then blurting it out. I was 4, I was already trying to read, already had had so many nightmares that they’d stopped scaring me, and I already knew something had gone horribly wrong with me. My body felt like a loaner. It felt like a stop gap while my real body was being finished. It didn’t feel like it was mine. Oh and it was already becoming sick, I started to have the bowel problems that have plagued my entire life since in those 2 short years in Mayo. But, time to focus on what’s important here; the gender.

So I’d told my Mom I was a girl. You know who liked dogs, and calves, and guns, and building random things, and hid all the time (like a soldier) with my dog in the tall grass at the edges of the field, you know, a girl…with a penis. And her response was…

…

…

…

…nothing.

No response. None at all. Now the fact that my Mom has absolutely memory of this at all makes me think that she actually didn’t hear me. Mom is a very quiet woman, but she’s a noisy baker, so it’s likely that she didn’t. But tell that to a 4-year-old who’s just told her Mom that penis and boy-play-stuff aside, she’s a girl. Yeah it all got put in a small box, locked up tight, and fucked down the deepest darkest part of my psyche. And there it stayed ’til I was 7.

7 was a big year for me. I started Primary School, I had my First Communion…ugh, got my first watch, discovered Virginia Madsen, and got molested for the first time.

The last part would be the part that’s pertinent here. You see I hadn’t had any sexual awakening at that stage. None, at, all. I was a blank sexual state, on a blank gender slate, all balanced on an already geeky as hell slate. So it probably shouldn’t be surprising to me that having my sexual nature activated in just about the worst way possible, against my will, and far too early for me would have a secondary effect. Yup my boxed up gender hit a trampoline somewhere down that deep dark hole, and then it bounced back up into the light of day, walloping me in the teeth, and adding immeasurably to my misery.

I told my Mom again, and again she doesn’t remember this. I don’t remember her response, I don’t even remember if there was a response. But whatever happened when I told her it was almost 2 decades before I would tell her again, this time making sure it stuck. In the mean time I hid who I was. I hid what was being done to me all the time. Well really I hid everything that makes me me.

This is all by way of sharing my early experience of my own gender. Why?

Because the video below shows how to (mostly, and even where she got it wrong it’s totally understandable) get it right if your child ever comes to you with something similar. But how to get it right is summed up best in these words…

Pay attention to what they say, and don’t dismiss it. They know themselves in a way you never will.

http://vimeo.com/user27600859/howtobeagirl

Five signs that my dogs are trying to kill me.

I realise I’m nuts to own two dogs when I have pretty severe ill-health and live in the middle of a busy town. But I’m more than happy to drag myself on my belly to the local park to exercise them, and there’s also the security of two women living in a house that EVERYONE in the town knows has two dogs in it. That said, I’m starting to wonder if my dogs have it in for me. Things have happened. Worrying things. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if my dogs are in fact, cats, wearing dog costumes…

You see it all started when…

– I was cleaning upstairs last week. You see I had a really stunningly gorgeous gothic visitor calling, and wanted everything…just so. Anyway, I was finished and as I walked down the stairs I tripped over one dog, barely caught myself, only to have the other dog walk out in front of my legs. Face met door in a symphony of pain.

Learn the phrase “symphony of pain.” Situations it applies perfectly to, are going to come up a lot in this article.

– Of course there’s also the many, many burns on my arms. No. My dogs aren’t putting out cigarettes on my skin, though I suspect that if they could, they would. But Lulu, the tiny half papillion, half who-the-fuck-knows, has over the past few months found herself a hobby. That hobby involves nudging my arm with her head, WHEN MY HAND IS INSIDE THE LIT LOG BURNER! Insert sizzling noise, Amanda swearing, and a dog sidling off.  This leads over the coming days to repeated symphonies of pain anytime the burn is near anything hot, cold, hard, soft, or canine.

– Then there’s the decking. We have a large, walled in, decked area outside of our backdoor for the dogs. It’s easy to wash down with a garden hose, and keeps them from taking it into their minds to go playing in the nearby traffic (most of the time at least.). Sounds great doesn’t it? It would be but for one thing, well two things really. Winters poop, and Lulu deciding that she’s going to tear Winters poop apart, and spread it liberally across the decking, thus making a disgusting, and in the wet weather that dominates Ireland, slippery death-trap. I know, I’ve landed flat  on my back three times in the past few months. And as I lie there, surrounded by my own personal symphony of pain, I swear I can hear evil sniggering in the background.

– Don’t you love squeaky toys? The way those rubber chickens, and pigs give your beloved pets hours of joy, and happiness as they walk around holding them in their mouths, squeaking them constantly. Until your brains feel like they’ve started to run out of your nose, ears, eyes. But that’s not how they’ve decided to kill me with those rubber menaces. Oh no, a stroke just isn’t evil enough for my pair. No, I believe that they carefully place those toys, right where I’ll step on them, while I carry a cup of scalding hot lesbian tea to the living room.

Imagine the scene, Amanda, humming happily to herself carrying in one hand a piping hot cup of fruit tea, in the other four delicious biscuits. She steps through the door into the living room. The two dogs watch on with bated breath as the enemies foot lands right on the over-sized rubber, squeaky chicken. The chicken squashes, and slides on itself, letting out one sharp, ear-shattering squeak as Amanda’s leg flies out from underneath her, sending her plunging to the floor. Amanda finds herself on the floor, a goose-egg sized lump on the back of her head from the door-frame, scalds on her arms, and a symphony orchestra tuning up for a gutsy performance of something by Wagner in the key of ouch in her back.

– Finally we come to last Sunday, visitors had arrived, and the dogs were duly put out the back so that they would be unable to drown our guests in dog spit. Unfortunately the back gate was open. Lulu escaped, and made a mad dash in to traffic. Several mad dashes actually, and being a good puppy-mommy guess who was right behind her…the little bitch tried to get me to follow her under a truck.

It was when I got her back home, put her in her cage and sat down that I first came to the realisation that my dogs want me dead. After all why else would all of this keep happening to me?

You at the back, put your hand down, my clumsiness is not up for discussion today.

“What the hell did I just step in?!” A dog owners tale.

Well my holiday from writing is over, so it’s nose back to the grindstone. I went to bed last night full of enthusiasm for getting back to work. After all my webcomic goes live Friday week (January 25th). I finally have a really good laptop, capable of running all my various creative programs, on a pretty 17″ screen. I’ve, at long last, settled on my next novel to finish first drafting (that only took a full year to decide while I wrote the first ten chapters on three different ones.) I have some pretty interesting plans for my video blog, ideas which I think will make a lot of people very happy, and a lot more wish for my slow death over a hot fire. Yup, I have every possible reason for being excited about this year, this is gonna be a BIG year for me.

So it was with a serious hop in my step that I got out of bed this morning. I honestly have been looking forward to getting back to work in a way that’s hard to describe, it’s that intense. So get up, get dressed, wash teeth, dress the bed, and wander downstairs. My buoyant mood lasted right up until I walked in to my living room.

My two puppies sleep in the living room, Lulu in her cage, Winter on the couch. It’s only fair when the alternative is my bathroom, which frankly is so cold that I’m surprised when my pee doesn’t make the same sound as hail hitting a tin roof. At least in the living room there also lives my log burner, which is pretty much always toasty warm. Yeah, I’m just a big softy. Sometimes I forget to put on my slippers coming downstairs, I did this morning. So after walking in, I was almost instantly left wondering the most horrible though which most dog owners will probably have pass through their minds several times a year.

“What feels cold and wet on my foot?”

The second worst thought closely followed.

“Why is Winter hiding behind the couch?”

Then the third.

“Why does she have that guilty expression on her face?”

Well it turns out that the bigger of my furry children had been violently sick just inside the door. And on the power block for my 2 days old laptop. And on the kitchen door.

Still buoyant though. Yup. The alternative was to drown in dog vomit. So yeah…

So yeah, Happy New Year folks.

(And yes folks you read it first time right here, my long, LOOOOOOONG delayed comic goes live Friday the 25th. I can not wait.)

Ten things I’ve learned this month about… Dogs.

Well you see I had a really awful migraine yesterday, so I got precisely nothing written. And that’s why today you’re all being hit with another list post. Though in truth this is the first in a series of lists I’ve been thinking about writing for a while. So before I end up with another migraine, or one of my dogs decides to murder me, let’s get this monster moving.

 1: Dogs will chew anything that’s left lying around for more than 30 seconds, whether it’s edible or not. And it doesn’t even have to taste good.

 2: Dogs will eat/lick/roll in each others shit with apparent glee while their owners will look  on in horror, before finding somewhere discreet to vomit…true story.

 3: Dogs believe that any humans couch, bed, sleeping bag, or item of clothing is communal property, because…

 4: Dogs believe that your body heat is communal property. Just ask anyone who’s been woken at 7am by a cold dog nose in their bed.

5: While dogs will chew literally anything, including but not limited to coal, firelighters, brush handles, really good chocolate, table legs, chair legs, each others legs, they will only eat certain dog foods, and will randomly decide they don’t like the one they’ve just been given.

 6: Dogs can not be trusted with any human food of any kind, which is in anyway within reach. “Within reach” here being defined as within 1 body length of any surface the dog can stand on. (Where there are two dogs  in a household take the body length of the bigger dog as the base measurement, they’re not above coöperation.)

 7: If it’s bad for them dogs only want it more. Kind of like that girlfriend you once had, the one who smoked, drank, did drugs, and could suck a rugby ball through a drinking straw. You knew she was bad for you, but damn if you didn’t have to have her. This also describes the average dog, and cheese.

 8: Dogs love watching flames the same way I love watching Kari Byron. Though I don’t imagine for even vaguely the same reasons. (Especially when she was rockin’ the kindergoth look, yummy!)

Oh Kari….

 9: Some dogs are posers, and some hide from camera’s. I have one of each.

Poser! But a good guard.

10: Yesterday I discovered that my dogs will look after me when I’m sick. When I could barely lie still without wishing I was dead Winter (the Beagle) wrapped herself around me and kept me warm, while Lulu the furball stood on guard the whole time I was lying down. Amanda’s heart melted….right up until she bit me on the ear. Even so dogs are some of the best people you’ll ever meet.

The poser, and my shy retiring one.

Little Ruminations – 5 Random Things.

Since last Tuesday my stomach problems have been excruciatingly bad. This means that I’ve done little or no writing in a week. It also means that  I’ve run out of the spare articles which I write to stay ahead of myself. That being the case, and my concentration being roughly the same as the average 6 week old puppy, I’m going to be inflicting a series of “Little Ruminations” on you until this period of bad health finally eases off.

Starting today with five random things which I haven’t been able to fit into other posts in the past, and kind of doubt I’ll fit into posts in the future.

• Do you remember Technical Lego? The stuff from the 90’s for making machines with? You know, back before Lego became dumbed down to a ridiculous degree?Well anyway, as it turns out, that stuff is great for making prototypes. You know for when you need something easy, and quick to assemble, just so you can test a concept. So ya, if you have a big bucket of it somewhere, and you’re the kind of person who builds their own tools, you just might want to hold on to it.
• It’s surprisingly difficult to learn how to walk in platforms again, when you’ve had a break of two years. This came as a potentially very painful shock to me in the last week. The key seems to be reminding yourself constantly that if you don’t keep your feet facing dead straight ahead, you’ll end up flat on your ass in the street.
• Apparently a lot of puppies eat other dogs poop. No-one really knows why they do this, but thankfully they see to outgrow it in time. Weird, disgusting, but weird.
• Crazy Color, the semi-permanent hair dye which I’m addicted to, seem to have changed their recipe. It used to remind me of really weirdly coloured custard. Now it reminds me more of really weirdly coloured semen. Oh, and the colours seem to have been tweaked as well, they’re not quite what they used to be, the Violette for example is a much darker shade.Either that or last time I got a bad batch. Not complaining though my hair looks Funky, the capital “F” is definitely a good thing.
  

  See? I did say Funky!

• To my utter shock, airsofters don’t seem to build their own guns, ever. By this I don’t mean that they don’t buy specific internals and casings and put them together to form reasonably unique setups. I mean they don’t seem to build their own externals.As a long time model maker, and someone who has a great love of making props for my own use, this sort of addles me. Anyway, guess whatone of my first projects will be next year? Yup, you guessed it, dieselpunk airsoft rifle!

The best cure for low blood pressure. Two badly behaved dogs!

I’ve always had low blood pressure. In my childhood I would often just pass out when I stood up too quickly. I’m always cold, just ask my Mistress. All I have to do to fill her with terror is move my feet towards her. I am a low blood pressured, cold-blooded creature. What ever the reverse of the Human Torch is (no not Iceman, although that would mean I get to have Rogue…) that’s what I am.

Well, the past 10 days or so I have had one horrific dose of something or other. To say that I have leaked from every orifice would not only be disgustingly gloopy, but also exceedingly accurate. Needless to say that dizziness which accompanied that afore-mentioned gloopyness has not been helped by my inherent low blood pressure.

Today I woke up to the sound of ripping coming, I thought, from the bus stop outside of my bedroom window. I stood up, and realised “Hey I don’t feel quite as much like I’m about to die! Huzzah! Partial recovery!”

Then I moved a few feet, the world spun, I sat down, and remembered the “partial” part. So I decided one more day of lazing wouldn’t hurt. One more day of The Big Bang Theory. One more day of drinking fake Red Bull, and eating pasta. Downstairs I go, and wander into the kitchen.

Our kitchen has a patio door, which goes out on to a decking area. This is where the two pups spend a lot of their days. Lazing in the sun. Barking at the world. And as it turns out, causing immeasurable chaos.

So I’m standing there popping my hernia medication in to my mouth, when I realise that Winter is whimpering. I turn my head. My eyes are greeted by the sight of a previously white Beagle, and a previously white Bichon Frikkin’ Frisé staring in at me visibly shaking. The reason for that shaking?

Imagine that yesterday your two dogs had torn apart two bags of plasterers sand, and scattered it from here to…where ever plasterers holiday. Imagine that they had done the same to a bag of cement. Now imagine your heroine, in a dalmatian print onesy, having to clean that mess up in 5 minute bursts interspersed with 15 minutes of wanting to die. Imagine your dogs remember this…

Imagine that Beagle now has pitch black paws, that Bichon Frikkin’ Frisé (I’m going to start a campaign to make the “Frikkin'” an official part of the breed name.) is now black from the top of his head, to the gas coming from his arsehole. Black, because they decided that today was the right day to cover the deck with coal dust from the bag of slack that has sat unmolested in the corner for the past THREE MONTHS!

Well my low blood pressure has been cured.

What’s it like to be a dog owner?

As all my regular readers probably know, I am the proud owner/mammy of an 18 month of Beagle named Winter. As anyone who has been the owner/mammy of a beagle can tell you, they are as a breed little more than a mass of barely controlled enthusiasm and hyper-activity. Actually that is a major part of their appeal. You’re never, ever bored with a young Beagle in the house. But this post isn’t about Beagles. No it’s about being a dog owner.

So what’s that like?

Imagine having a baby who will never learn to speak. Neither will they ever become very independant. And you can forget about them moving out and getting their own place. No they’ll continue to be food eating, crap producing, four-legged engines of occassional destruction ’til the day they die. And then they’ll leave you bereft, heart-broken and in mourning for months or even years. Sounds kind of horrible doesn’t it?

Well that’s just for starters. There’s going out walking with them, even when the rain is more like a vertical river than a soft summer shower. There’s cleaning the puddles of vomit up when they get sick in the car. Or if you’re me there’s that, and sitting in the passenger seat, with your legs drenched by puppy pee for two hours, because your beloved pooch got scared.

There’s the puppy deciding that at 5am she’s had enough sleep, and that so have you. So she decides to head butt the door of the bathroom she sleeps in, until you’re awake. I kid you not, Winter genuinely head butts the door. I’ve seen her do it.

There’s the puppy deciding that her two mommies will never again get to enjoy a sex life. Yes Winter Godzilla Condron Harper has a new middle name, Passion-Killer. She won this name in the still ongoing Grand Battle for the Center of the Bed.

And you can forget going out for the night, and staying out. House dogs don’t like being left out in the back yard overnight. And a young dog especially will often become destructive out of anxiety, if separated from her owners for too long. Add in the now constant worry of your puppy being stolen by some utterly, contemptible bastard for her monetary value. Especially if she’s a pure-breed, and not the monstrous offspring of a tryst between an Old English Sheep Dog and a Bichon Frise. So if you want to go out for more than a couple of hours a doggy-sitter needs to be found. Well that’s considerably easier said than done. Especially if your bundle of hyper activity has gone past the adorable puppy phase.

But worst of all is the horror of what we here in the sprawling, towering one story edifice of Rumination Towers call, Poop-Patrol. A Beagle is not a particularly large dog, but apparently nature forgot to tell their bowels that. So instead of small, easily dealt with piles of poop, in keeping with their breeds modest size, Winter drops the sort of loads a Great Dane would be distinctly, even smugly proud of. So it often falls to your heroic blogger, Amanda Harper, to go forth, armed with little more than a short rake, a short shovel and a hazardous materials suit, to do battle with the immense mounds of dog crap which litter our back garden, after her average ten craps a day.

So by now, if you’re not a fellow dog owner/mammy, you’re wondering why anyone in possession of any sort of sanity would choose to have one. Well put simply, because there’s nothing better in life than to be the owner of a loving dog. Yes there are sacrifices attached to owning a dog. They are demanding animals, who by their nature need their pack; their owner and her/his family, around them to feel secure and happy. But in return they give absolutely unconditional love and adoration. After all the difference between dogs and cats can often be summed up by the fact that an abused dog will usually stay with their owner come hell and high water. While a cat will often simply wander off and find somewhere more to in keeping with its own tastes.

We got Winter because I am often housebound for days, even weeks on end and I needed some company when that happened. Also because we both missed having a dog around us, after all once a dog owner, always a dog owner. Frankly despite the poop, the vomit, the pee soaking into and destroying my only pair of jeans, getting her was the best decision we ever made together. You see you’re never lonely with a dog, you’re never bored, you’re never unloved, you’re always needed, you will always be the center of someone’s universe. When you have a dog you’ll never go without affection, and because they give so much to you, you’ll always push yourself that little bit harder to do what’s needed for them. And that for a young woman with a chronic illness means a healthier, happier and more enjoyable life.

Put simply for all the difficulties, and the problems.  For all that they live considerably shorter lives than us.  Being a dog owner is simply wonderful.

So should you get a dog? That depends on whether you have the space, the time, the energy and most of all the dedication to do what it takes to keep them safe, well fed and healthy, both emotionally and physically. If the answer is, yes, you almost certainly won’t regret it. If the answer is, no, then don’t be selfish. Let someone who can be the owner that dog deserves have their chance instead.

Ever get the feeling someone, or something is watching you?

You’re lying in bed.  It’s so warm and snuggly.  Well in fairness you’ve been lying there asleep for the last two hours so it should be.  But now suddenly, with night still wrapped around you, a most unwelcome feeling has crept in, disturbing your well deserved rest.  That’s right, you have to get up and pee.

It’s probably just an unavoidable part of getting older. But where-as a couple of years ago I could sleep for twelve hours without having to use the bathroom, now I can just about get three or maybe four hours of blissful dreams.  Usually that’s fine.  I mean I’m not exactly happy to traipse bare-foot across this apartments cold, wooden floors (often to a muttered litany of inventively used expletives) at Oh My Goddess O’clock.  But hey, whatever, I get up, use the en-suite bathroom and a few minutes later a slightly chillier Amanda is climbing back into her still nice and warm bed.

Unfortunately though sometimes I don’t get to sleep in the bedroom with the en-suite.  It might be because the Force of Nature has come to stay and has to sleep with her nanny.  It may be because my own health has hit such a low ebb that it physically hurts when someone moves even the smallest amount in the bed next to me.  Or then again, it could simply be because I’m in the middle of a truly epic case of insomnia.

So I’m lying asleep in my own room, surrounded by my books, tools, random computer components, and of course my drawing table.  And suddenly I’m awake with that feeling of urgent pressure I’ve come to know and dread.  Right then guess I better get up and go to the bathroom.  So off I wander to the main bathroom, somehow avoiding stepping on the sometimes numerous, random often painful things scattered liberally on my bedroom floor.  Out into the pitch black hallway and finally safely through the door into the equally dark bathroom.  Weirdly I usually forget to turn on lights when I wake up at Oh My Goddess O’clock, no idea why, it’s just one of those things that make me, me.

So panties down, bum on toilet seat and get on with the job at hand.  Then out of nowhere this freezing cold, damp, squidgy thing touches my leg.  It’s at this particular moment that being already enthroned on porcelain is a very good thing, because otherwise, I would definitely end up standing in the center of a slowly spreading pool of warm, yellow liquid.  So yeah the cold, damp, squidgy thing, it is of course Winters nose, the main bathroom usually doubles as her bedroom, (except for when the Force of Nature is staying, then she sleeps at the Forces feet).  Or thanks to Terry Pratchett’s turn of phrase, what I think of as “The Cold Nose Of Dog!”

I don’t know how many of my readers have had the experience of warm flesh meeting doggy nose, while being mostly still asleep.  Well suffice to say there really are very few, more effective, or more horrifying ways to be brought fully awake. And that experience is so much worse when you experience it while sitting on the porcelain throne at Oh My God O’clock.

But as bad as it is being brought to full consciousness by cold liquid puppy mucus, if you’re me something worse now happens.  You remember that the average dog has night vision four times more acute than a humans.  You realise that if even in the dark of night you can see well-defined shadows, well then your dog is staring right at you in glorious sepia-tone, while you sit there trying to pee…now that’s the moment that tests the purge setting of your bladder control.

I just felt I should share that little thought, so you can carry it with you into sleep.  You’re welcome.

A puppy in heat.

Generally I love being a dog-owner.  The vast amounts of completely unconditional love make for a much happier life.  I always have someone to play with.  And she is without a doubt, the best hot water bottle ever created, I mean come on, she’s never goes cold and never requires a chilly walk through the dark of night, to be refilled.  I like to think she gets a lot in return.  Love, shelter, food, a collection of toys, poop patrol and just lately a cleaner of what we will be calling, blood.

Yes that’s right Winter is in heat and dripping sticky red stuff, everywhere.  And I really do mean everywhere.  It’s bad enough that her puppy-bed could easily be wrung out each morning.  It’s even worse still, that her two loving owners often find themselves stepping on something gooey and a little gory.  I rarely walk around barefoot at the best of times, but these days I avoid it like the plague. But that’s not the worst, oh no.

Winter is one of the laziest dogs I’ve ever known.  As someone who suffers from some pretty severe insomnia, I wish with all my heart that I could fall asleep as easily and as frequently as she does.  To put it plainly, Winter is the living embodiment of an old survival saying,  “If there is nothing to do, do nothing.”  Well she frequently does nothing what-so-ever, beyond the bare necessities.  She breathes, she drinks, she eats, she poops, she sleeps, and when she feels like it she plays with us both, whether I or my partner want to or not.  All of this is important to bear in mind because, somehow this lazy, lazy dog, has managed to spray the walls of the bathroom she calls her bedroom with large dollops of blood.

A lazy puppy, lazing about.

Yes that’s right, the worst part of Winter being in heat, is sitting on the toilet.  Because that’s the moment, when you look down and see what could easily be mistaken for a scene from one of those terrible Saw movies.

I can only imagine how she manages to get large gloopey drops of blood on the wall, higher than her own head height.  Perhaps she’s doing a hand-stand on her front paws, while she shimmy’s her rear half up the wall.  Then she rubs herself clean on the walls, then a job well done, she goes back to sleep.

Maybe she lifts her blood drenched bed, and does her considerable best to rub it clean on the bathroom wall.

Maybe she magically manifests opposable thumbs during the night, and does the canine equivalent of flicking snots at the wall.

Or maybe, it all just flies off her body, when she has a good shake in the morning.

Who knows?  But what I do know is that nothing, absolutely nothing, beats a blood smeared wall for putting a girl right off her game, when she’s sitting on the toilet.

Apologies late post.

Due to feeling distinctly hammered under I won’t be posting my usual Saturday post.  Sorry but I think resting for a day and feeling human again tomorrow is a better bet.  I will post something up tomorrow though.  In the mean time enjoy the eternal picture of my puppy. This time in the continuing adventures of Winter, Winter has a nap with her teddy bear.

Joy is a soft couch and slightly chewed teddy-bear.