The phone rang and the kids woke up.
This is now two hours after they started their nap following lunch.
This is what goes on underneath my desk chair almost every day. It is actually the exception to the rule when I am able to get a photo of them not wrapped around the base of the chair.
Two bad combinations, lack of energy and uncomfortably hot and humid weather, have effectively caused all of us to turn into a trio of hermits. What is supposed to be the beginning of the Fall Season has turned into a drawn out mid-Summer hibernation. I had high hopes for Autumn a few weeks ago when I found two beautiful maple leafs in their glorious winter-red colors laying on the front lawn. I picked them up and brought them inside and scanned them and posted the picture on my Facebook page. And then things went downhill from there.
So what do we do when we have nothing to do? As I sit here at the computer writing this all I can hear are the soft sounds of snoring as my two sleeping beauties take an afternoon nap. It is likely to remain this way for a few more hours until its time to go out to the kitchen and prepare dinner.
Just prior to their mid-afternoon slumber my two best friends had followed me out to their favorite hangout and we all enjoyed some lunch. I cooked a 5-minute quickie of homemade pizza with an idea I came up with a few months ago trying to decide what to do with all the leftover hamburger buns I had after grilling a single burger for dinner.
You can't buy a package of buns that has less than 8 of them and unless you like hamburgers a lot the unused bag of buns often goes to waste. It was a moment of inspiration combined with the fact that I conveniently had a pot of spaghetti sauce in the refrigerator and a package of Provolone cheese.
The trick was to turn the squishy-soft hamburger bun into a crispy thin pizza crust so I took the two halves of the buns and pressed them flat and put them on the stove in a pan and heated them up until they were brown. Then I topped them with a tablespoon of sauce and a slice of the cheese I had and nuked them in the microwave for a minute.
That crude invention has undergone a few changes. I found a nice small toaster oven in Kroger one day for $39 and some small jars of real pizza sauce and some bags of pizza cheese. Now all I do is put the flattened bun halves in the toaster, after its been toasted I put a tablespoon of the pizza sauce and a small handful of cheese on top and finish it off in the toaster oven.
Meanwhile I need to pay tribute to my two rotten kids. Their snoring is so soothing it actually makes me want to lean back in my chair and doze off with them.
But I have to post this first.
OK, first of all, every day in my house is Ruffin's Day. Even more so then it used to be before he lost his eyesight. But I have a story to tell here about a special treat that Ruff got. One that he has always enjoyed.
I picked up a flyer a few days ago from our local Pet Supplies Plus that said one of the local school cheerleader teams was going to give dog baths in their grooming section to raise money. I asked Ruff if he would like to have some girls give him a bath and he gave me the look that said he likes anything that girls do to him.
So today I took Ruff for a much needed shampoo. Only after we got there I was surprised to find out it was the cheerleaders from the grade school, not the high school but Ruff didn't seem to mind at all. He just likes girls. All ages and sizes.
BTW, the last time Ruff got a bath by a bunch of girls it was an outdoor event at another charity fundraiser and everyone was smiling, too.
Bess and Ruff have been following me around the house every day and both of them take naps right behind my chair in my den while I am on the computer. They are such wonderful companions. I have always been amazed at their keen sense of hearing. They can be sound asleep on the floor in the den but when I sneak out to the kitchen to have lunch, as soon as I open the refrigerator door they wake up and come out to join me for a snack.
Bess sleeps on my bed every night and Ruff sleeps on his doggie bed on the floor between the bed and the closet. I usually go to bed between midnight and 1AM and whatever time it is the last thing I do is take them both out for a last minute pee. Then off to bed we go and they sleep all night long and they never complain when I don't wake up early. I used to have a lot of trouble sleeping until my doctor decided after having me do an overnight Pulse Oximeter test that I needed oxygen to sleep with. Since then I now get at least a 6-7 hour uninterrupted sleep and the two Rottweilers sleep right along with me.
Here are some new photos that I've taken in the past few days.
Another morning on the computer, another day hanging out with my two best friends. Bess and Ruff just got into an amorous mood and were taking turns giving me kisses. Another day watching them preen and kiss and lick each others faces and ears. You'd think they were in love.
Being a contortionist with a camera. These photos were shot at arm's length without a viewfinder while I was still sitting in my chair. If you think it hard to take a photo at arms length without using the viewfinder, try taking one with yourself in the picture. Not the same as a selfie with a cell phone, these are taken with a full size Nikon and were not cropped or fixed in any way.
And two from last night when I was having some peanut butter pretzels. Of course you can't have any kind of snack without sharing it with your best friends.
