For the last installment of the 365 days of photos I thought about doing something momentous or deeply meaningful or ironic. But then I saw a girl at school today drawing a weiner dog wearing a detective hat and I knew that its cuteness it would trump all those ideals.
Zip and I have been working on a lot of Girl Scout slide shows lately. I make the slide shows and she keeps my lap warm.
Linus: Wow! These clothes sure are clean and fluffy! A perfect place for a kitty to snuggle quietly and contemplate. Purr.
Zipper: I sense that someone other than me is enjoying some prime real estate. I must seize it! Wah ha! (jumps in, attempting a hostile take-over of the Isle of Laundry Basket)
Linus: Golly, Zipper – I’m pretty sure I was here first – I’m tryin’ to have my devotional time. Well, maybe we could share the basket – you know, like teamwork!
Zipper: (thinking to herself that this will not do – she needs a plan – yes! she will drive him out with excessive annoyance! she knows just the ticket. she sticks her tongue into his ear canal in a futile attempt to lick his brain – she can’t find it)
Linus: Thanks for the ear cleaning, Zipper, but it kinda tickles and I’d really like to get back to prayin’. I’ll just sit here quietly – you won’t even know I’m here.
Zipper: (sighs and settles in unobtrusively, next to Linus. if she can’t be the only one enjoying herself, at least she can prevent Linus from usurping that privilege. you win some, you lose some – and sometimes you have to peacefully coexist with your brother.)
Zip modeling the new hoodie her Grandma and Grandpa Marksberry gave her for Christmas.
She doesn’t yet realize that she is on her way to the kennel – not over the river and through the woods to Grandma’s house with us…
I’m still very bloated and crampy so the heating pad has become my best friend. Zipper has discovered the joys of it herself…
Hi. Zipper here. The stupid humans in this house “have no time to blog”. But apparently they do have time to dress me up like an elf and do a photo shoot. Oh yeah…and they have time to take me to the vet and yell at me for defending this household (they call it barking). Hopefully they’ll get their priorities in line soon and stop making me do all their work. Until then, I’m ghostwriting the blog. Hooray for all you readers – its your lucky day!
I bought dog food today. I think I may have gone a little overboard.
Dog Food: 40 lbs
Dog: 12 lbs
So this should last us for a while. I normally buy the smallest bag on the shelf but was seduced today by the per pound price. You know, the one they put up in the corner of the shelf tag at the grocery store to help us math challenged individuals compare items of different sizes. The per pound price of the size I normally get is $1.67. The per pound price of this sucker was $0.93. This logic finally won me over from my previous position on the matter, which was: Are you kidding me? One bag is worth over half of our weekly food budget!
Since it pained me to spend that much on dog food, even though I know I’m saving in the long run, I flirted with the other, cheaper brands for a while. This caused me to spend upwards of 10 entire minutes in the dog food aisle. I compared ingredient lists. I poured over nutrient charts. I even considered buying Rachael Ray’s dog food brand because it looked comparable in nutrition but slightly less expensive than the Iams – even though I’m not quite sure how I feel about Rachael Ray selling her own dog food (do they want me to believe she schemed up the kibble recipe in her 30 Minute Meals Kitchen? The whole thing confuses me). In the end I guilted myself back into the fold of Iams – the food my vet recommends. Actually I think my vet would prefer Eukenuba, but I am certain that Iams is fancy (read expensive) enough for Zipper.
Perplexingly, I don’t feel the same guilt to buy expensive food for the kittehs. They make due with your everyday Purina and I’ve considered getting them the Kroger brand, but that’s where I finally cross the guilt threshold. (Which is funny since Kroger brand people food is all over my pantry – apparently store brands are not good enough for the cats, who’s only caloric needs are for about 1 hour of actual activity per day, but they’re okay for the people who work and subsequently pay for the feast.) I think the difference between the cats and the dog and my feelings about their nutrition is that the dog needs constant care and discipline so I end up seeing her as more of a child, whom I must provide for. The cats, while friendly, do their own thing and seem like a couple of lazy roommates who sponge off us. Though I think I prefer lazy but quiet roommates to a loud and mischievous pseudo-child (as I write she is at the back door beginning what must be her 12th straight minute of barking).
When I told Randy about the mondo-bag of dog food his response was “wow – it will take her a long time to poop all that out”. So we’ll be here, watching impatiently by the back door as Zipper gradually squeezes out her $0.93/pound poop.
Since spring has finally returned there are so many things to do in the yard, which is how we’ve been spending every free, sunny minute. I feel like showing more than telling. So with limited written interruption, here is a snapshot of our life during the past couple weeks here at the Marksberry gardens.
Hanging basket I arranged – just outside our front door.
Shasta daisies I planted last week. I love them because I think they look fake….but they’re not!
I found this fuzzy guy crawling on my bag of potting soil. I followed him around for a bit. He seemed like a perfect ambassador for spring.
Zipper is gearing up to help with the landscaping.
We’ve been working on the fence and it will finally be completed soon. The other day when we were out working this is what the sky looked like. Perfect.
And what were the kitties doing while the rest of us were hard at work?
The Spotted Elephant 
