Happy Halloween

from the barfing pumpkin in the dark

One country divided by a common language

Yesterday I talked to a very friendly and helpful lady on the phone about a dried sweet potato product for dogs. She had one of those Midwestern accents in which, in my experience, people are always just so nice to other people.

What do you suppose these people do when they need to swear? Do they suddenly sound like they were born in the Bronx?

My linguistics education tells me no, but my gut instinct has a hard time believing it.

The Eskimos have one hundred words for 'hyperlink'

Last night I looked over the Technical Staff's shoulder at his computer and asked him why he was Googling 'Taunton river.' He swore he didn't remember. He knew he hadn't started with that, but didn't know what he had started with.

There needs to be a word for that thing, where you end up lost somewhere on the internet after clicking too many links and searching too many terms and don't know how you got there, like you're waking up from sleepwalking. Googlewalking, maybe.

Yearning

Bamu with a lovely Japanese sweet potato. Why don't my pug pictures look this good, or those sweet potatoes when I cook them?

General Announcement to Other Humans in the Bed

If a pug is snoring, please feel free to poke it by yourself. It is not necessary to wake me up and tell me to poke the pug because it is snoring. I have no special skills or qualifications in this area that exceed your own abilities. Thank you.

Highly recommended

I submitted a story a week ago to Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine (yeah, I know, I write mysteries... it was sort of a fluke).

Yesterday - after one week - I got a rejection letter. With actual original sentences in it, written and signed by a human being.

This is totally astonishing service. I wish I was a science fiction writer, it was such a pleasure doing business with them.

Another Halloween pug picture

Rose has a better attitude. But that is always the case.

Halloween season

Lilly seems less than thrilled about it.

Topsy-turvey world!

It was warm enough to eat breakfast outdoors in a t-shirt... but there were red and yellow fallen leaves all over the table. Despite the temperature flirting with eighty today, I am not fooled. It was almost dark by seven last night. It's winter.

I wanted to write a haiku about this - it seemed like the perfect seasonal topic - but I couldn't get the syllable count right:

Breakfast in short sleeves
Fallen leaves on the table
Wasn't born yesterday

And... Lilly went for a morning walk! Lilly never takes a walk in the morning. I think she wanted to go to the fancy dog store. I tried to explain that they are not open at 8:30 but I think she is very cross with me.

Pugs in the sun

on an unseasonably warm beautiful weekend

Self-evaluation

I have always prided myself on being a rather original thinker. But recently I got a press release from the AKC about the current most popular names for dogs, and what do I find in the top twenty? Both Rose and Lily/Lilly.

The next day, a man driving past pulled over and got out of his car to meet Rose, and told me that one of his pugs had recently passed away. Her name? Cocoa Pig.

I felt bad enough about that. And now today on Pug-a-day? King Snorkie von Squigglesworth.

I have to conclude that at least, I did not put an adequate amount of effort into this important subject.

Belated plug

I realized today that while I announced a while ago that I got a gig at a website that reviews snacks, I stupidly never linked to it. Here it is, and over there on the right hand side.

Belly!

I got nothin' half as good as this.

General Announcement to Pug Dogs

I know it's cold, but it is simply not possible for me to work on the laptop computer with a pug on my lap. Please stop looking at me that way and go curl up under a blanket like you would if I left the house and worked in an office. Thank you.

Pug on pug

Poor Lilly, how she suffers.