Laugh a Little, Laugh a Lot

Fiorella wasn't born with a sense of humor--she doubts if any child is--but she remembers when she started to develop one.  It was in the first grade when the joke about the chicken crossing the road went viral.  Like everyone else, Fio laughed and laughed, although she didn't understand what was funny.  Question and answer jokes must have been in vogue back then because the next one she learned was "What's black and white and read/red all over?"  At least she understood the pun in that one, but she wasn't funny on her own till about junior high, thanks to years of watching comedians on TV.  By the time she started teaching, she had her students rolling in the aisles.

Another thing that separates us from the beasts--deliberate humor.

Snappy Snippets

Fiorella is the toilet paper fairy and the only one in the house who knows how to throw stuff in the waste basket, to close cabinet and pantry doors, or to empty the dishwasher.  If she didn't open the blinds every morning, they'd stay shut all day.  In short, she's female.
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Re: dogs.  We take them in for shots and medical treatments, we feed them, we decide whether they should mate and with whom.  How did they ever get along without us?   
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All Fio's good habits have come back to haunt her.  Coffee, tea, and wine, which she never or rarely drinks, are now good for you while milk, which she guzzles like a newborn calf, is now on the bad list.
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Fio could title a book The Right Thing to Do and no one would buy it.  If she called the book The Wrong Thing to Do, it would be a best seller'
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Matricide--is Fio a serial killer of motherboards?

Up and Runnin'

Now that Son is recovering from duodenitis and erosive esophagitis, which Fiorella thinks was aggravated by the bacon for breakfast of the Atkins diet, he's become a whirlwind of action.  Yesterday he completed another digital painting and talked to an ACC advisor about two computer courses he needs to take.  Today he's planning to sign up for a gym.  Yeah, our boomerang boy is up and runnin'.  Not only does he feel better, but he feels better about himself.

Satisfaction--the product of action.

In Memoriam

Has Fiorella told you her plans to make a booklet out of all her blogs featuring Wendy Dog?  It's been a tedious process, first running out all her posts and putting them in binders by year, then looking through each year's bounty to find the ones pertaining to Wendy, then taking the binders to Kinko's to photocopy the appropriate pages.  She has just one more year to go.

Her next step will be to put the pages in the right order, decide with photo(s) of our darling to use, then assemble everything and take it off somewhere to get printed, probably Kinko's again.

Let me know if you want one.

Secret Ingrediant

Sonya Dog is hard to wake up in the mornings.  She lies in her crate for several minutes after it's been opened and tries to catch a few last minutes of rest until finally, at Fio's urging, she stretches her long body and staggers to her feet.  Fio lures her out of the crate and into the hall with slivers of what she and husband refer to as dog crack, but, at the top of the stairs, Sonya balks.  She's too big a dog to be comfortable with stairs, especially when she has to go down them, and especially when she's just awakened and is so uncoordinated that she's stumbling over her own paws.

Fio often walks her down the stairs by standing in front of her so she can't see the drop to the first floor, but Sonya wasn't buying it this morning so Fio left her sitting on the landing and placed a larger piece of treat at the bottom of the steps.  After a minute or so of contemplation, Sonya carefully navigated her way down and snatched up her reward.

Which makes you wonder--what the heck is in that dog treat?

Cursive and Its Cohorts

Fiorella believes in cursive.  In fact, she believes in every writing form--printing, cursive, backhand, fronthand, Cyrillic, Nagari, Devanagari, the South Indian scripts--just to name the ones she's had experience with.  They're interesting, fun, and artistic.

Maybe it's the artistic aspect that fascinates her.  Maybe it's the grace, the discipline. Whatever, Fiorella has decided to resharpen her own cursive skills--in English, of course.  Then, maybe she'll revisit Cyrillic--and the Telugu script, which she used to used as secret writing on her Christmas list.

Is Fio crazy or what?

Canine Mastication

Please don't chew
On Daddy's shoe
And unteeth Daddy's new belt too
Here, try this big ol'  rawhide bone
But leave the leather goods alone!