THE CORNER IS THE DOG'S

You can't even turn your back on a nine year-old Australian Shepherd.  I did for about five minutes as I stepped back to my office to perform an awesomely important ritual in my little world - makeup application.  The barn needed painting. 

First layer of pencils

I've wracked my English Major education to come up with the origin of that quote, thinking my twin green Norton Anthology books would hold the answer.  But alas, this was before sticky notes and barely into highlighting markers.  My good Christian upbringing will hardly allow me to highlight a Bible verse let alone make a bright mark in a textbook.  Nothing but a good pencil for this girl's notes.  So who knows where the quote is hidden, maybe perhaps with Alexander Pope or Samuel
Johnson.  If anyone can give me the correct answer and end this agony I will send you a package of my favorite item to hoard, the best mechanical pencil known to me.  As you can see by the picture, I have a few to choose from.  Send me a gmail.

I had just sat down at my vanity (makeup place for vain women and when more extensive caulking is necessary) and jumped back up, running into the kitchen.  "Don't you touch that turkey," expecting to round the counter and find Oreo with half a roasted turkey breast down his throat.  This same sweet dog once availed himself of a newly replenished bowl of peppermints, gingerly procured from Aunt Eleanor's beautiful crystal candy dish on the coffee table.  The study carpet was littered with dozens of little wrappings but not a whiff of peppermint in the air by the time I returned home.

Paw marks in the right corner

 

He stood looking sheepishly at me but the turkey breast was untouched and the cookie sheet full of recently dressed nuts appeared unblemished.  I took a second look.  Oreo is not a big nut eater unless it is buttered and on bread with jelly or the tip of a cracker.  But on the corner of this well-used sheet there were scratch marks that only a curious dog paw could make.  Needless to say, this batch of nuts will not leave the house.

When I was growing up, we had a cat named Toogie.  One night my mother fixed a delicious pot roast, just one item in her arsenal of culinary taste treats.  If you cook, you know that on occasion a pot roast will exceed beyond what is expected and you could sit down and eat the whole thing, it is that good.  Such was the case with this exquisite meal.  My sister and I were in charge of the dishes and decided to lollygag in front of our new colored television.  We began to hear this very delicate sound like a drip but more like a fine licking. In the next instant, a little black cat head peered around the door facing, at countertop level.  Toogie's whiskers were completely coated in the pot roast gravy my mother had made just before supper.  We had left it sitting out on the counter for just a minute.

To my mother's credit, all she said was "Don't tell your Daddy."  Don't worry.  We didn't.  At dinner the next night, he poured the well-boiled gravy across his meat and veggie plate and declared, "This taste even better than last night."  Sister and I just about sputtered the potatoes right out of our mouths.

So if you do get some tasty nuts from the Taylors this season, don't doubt our quality control section.  Oreo is in charge of the corners.

                                           Nut dressing still in tweaking phase, ADG 12-4-13