Doofus and dog

Our favorite story in today's paper was about a man who drove his truck into a river after he was attacked by a bug.
And here's the best part: His dog, who was riding with him, got out of the truck and swam back to shore. The man got stuck out in river and had to be rescued. Maybe the man should let the dog drive next time.

New poll: What's more annoying ...?

From Bandit: In the spirit of basketball season and the UNC-UK match-up on Saturday, we have a new poll.
And hey! Did you notice we've had more than 1100 visitors to our page? What were they thinking?

Heels and Buckeyes

From Bandit: Tonight's basketball game is really starting slowly for the Heels. Staffer Dad says the Heels are "cold as a wedge" and I don't want to know what that means. I still don't know what a Buckeye is, and I can't figure out why they've got my fave player Hansbrough "The Animal" befuddled under the basket. He's bigger than everyone and he's fierce. (As careful readers know, Fierce is our highest compliment.) He needs to just chill and take on the triple team. Kick it out!
As for the endless Jimmy V Week early in every basketball season: Ok he was Fierce in the end, but he's gone and it's time to play ball. And he coached for the Wolfpack. (At least it wasn't Duke.) Insult to injury. Move on. Go Heels.

Deer tales

Last night Staffer Dad was taking the trash out and he saw a bunch of deer. Big wow.
We see them all the time. They hang out in the side yard, eat mom's flowers and gossip. We hear them. They talk a lot about the neighbors -- they know everything about everyone in the area. We think it's pretty rude for them to look in windows, munch on rose bushes and push over trash cans, but they seem to enjoy it.
With the drought, they don't have a lot to eat right now, so they need some entertainment. We hope it rains soon; they're getting a little petty.

Another good cat?

While we sometimes joke about getting Ernie locked in George the Neighbor's garage, we do like him. And today we got a picture of another cat we think we'd like: Bisquick. He's the orange tabby in the photo.
He stays at Aunt Allison's house and apparently gets to eat a lot. Reminds us of our old friend Ozzie. He died some time back, and he was Huge. He weighed as much as Bandit. We liked him because we could put our noses under his belly and make it jiggle. He's the black and white cat in the other picture. And No, that's not how he died. (Be nice.) He liked to sleep like that.
Anyway, Bisquick is nowhere close to being as big as the late, great Ozzie. But then again, neither is the Goodyear blimp.

Who's on what?

We just found this and mom thinks it's really funny. We don't know what's wrong with her.

Wags and kudos

Careful readers of our blog will recognize comments by our friend Bebe. She wrote an essay for Newsweek and it's really good. Aunt Allison sent us the the link.

She's worked hard over the years, and we love just about anything that's fierce. So she's made our annual Fierce List! (That's a good thing.)
Congrats Bebe!

Feast or fooey?

So what is this Thanksgiving feast day anyway? The staff was home most of the day, and that was good. When they were in the kitchen, they let us hang around. They scurried around last night making something called "dressing" and today they made "casserole." Staffer Dad kept munching off of it because he said he likes green beans. Whatever. We still got our regular food in our regular bowls.
If they are going to cook a lot, have a lot of food in the house and let us hang around, they should at least drop some on the floor now and then. Overall, it's been pretty disappointing.

Happy Birthday Aunt Allison!

Today we remind everyone to celebrate Aunt Allison's 39th birthday. She's really wiser than her years might tell and that's a good thing. (It's sort of like she grew up in dog years like we did.)
Staffer Mom says the road to 40 really isn't so bad as long as you're not really paying attention to detail and keep good wine in the house.
We're depending on her weird cat Bisquick and Uncle Mike to take good care of her and throw a good party in her honor.
You go, girl!

2 old men and a hound

From Bandit: Ok, we got stuck at the vet all weekend. We got decent food and Maggie eventually got thrown into a cage away from me. So it worked out.
Mom and Dad brought us back pictures of dead animals in a window in downtown Columbus. Wow. One was a spitting beaver and the other was a fox. Both were cool. We never see dead animals in store windows in Savannah, but they probably don't sell a lot of them here. That's more of an Alabama border-town kind of thing.
Mom also brought me a picture of dad and Uncle Brad and Sidda. It's like one of those old photos with old men rocking on a porch with their coon dog. We did notice that Uncle Brad and Aunt Jenn let Sidda and Seamus sit on the couch. We need to get mom and dad to allow that. Any ideas?

A trip without us

From Maggie: We've been at the stupid vet all weekend. Sorry we haven't been blogging, but it's really hard to do when you can't get out of the cage except to pee. We were surrounded by yapping idiot dogs for like 3 days and none of them had sense enough to shut up even at food time. And then we found out the staff dumped us there in order to go see our friends Seamus and Sidda, left. This was not fair.

Basketball's back!!

From Maggie: Oh wow! The staffers came home late again and I missed the first half. Davidson was up when the TV came on and we had to go stand near the couch to check the score (If we're right under it, we're too short to read the score.) The Heels were coming back, but they really needed some intensity on D. But, Dang it!
We got pushed out of the way so they could eat their glorious frozen pizza in front of the TV.
Then, Bandit licked the pizza and then we got sent to the porch. Apparently the Heels won, but it was really close and we missed the finish.
But we couldn't see it. We're stuck out here on the porch, thanks to Bandit.
Crap. (I think I will.)

Staffer Dad misses his fave TV

While we're talking TV and the staffers, let's look at Staffer Dad's TV issue: "24" and St. Louis Cardinals games. The writers' strike just put "24" on hold for a bit. Dad's not real happy about that. He says it was the only thing that kept him from climbing the walls until baseball season returns.
Staffer Mom had to remind him that college basketball is here and the Heels return this week.
From Bandit: In full disclosure: We proudly wear UNC Tarheels collars, because, well, there's not another team. Really. Bring it.

Sport cooking is stupid

With all our recent kerfluffles over food, you'd think we'd understand Staffer Mom's preoccupation with cooking competition shows like "Next Iron Chef" and "Top Chef." We absolutely do not.
While other people apparently watch movies and talk about the plots and characters and symbolism, she tries to figure out which chef is getting psyched out by the judges and which ones are sabotaging the others. She says she learns from watching their creativity. We think it's because she just likes food and chaos.
And, we're pretty sure those shows are why she goes shopping and brings home really sharp knives now instead of sweaters. And we're certain that the gingerbread house competition she watched the other night was the reason she bought a piece of metal that she calls "The Coolest Cookie Sheet Ever!" Apparently cookies will slide right off of it. Whoopee. We'd be more impressed if she'd let one slide off on the floor now and then.
Staffer Dad says for us not to worry until she starts trying to find recipes for Stuffed Wieners or Grilled Purple Toy.

Ernie runs naked -- again

We're laughing tonight because Ernie's in trouble. A few days ago, he got his third new collar in a year. Staffer Mom put his new tags on it and told him to quit losing it. Well, today he came home without it. Now he's running around with no collar and no tags. And, he's in trouble with the staff.
We wonder where he's losing them. George's garage? The hole in the fence? The big culvert under the road? Somewhere around here there's a place with a bunch of reflective collars with bells and tags on them.
Ernie doesn't care, but he will if animal control gets a call and shows up again before the staffers get a chance to buy him yet another collar. Anyone got a phone book?

Food fight!

From Maggie: Tonight Staffer Mom came home late. We went outside to "do our business." When we got back to the porch, she'd put out our dinner. But, she switched our bowls (Staffer Dad never does that) and gave me the one with a non-skid bottom. Bandit got the cold metal one. When he finished, he kept pushing the bowl around the porch to make a lot of noise and bug me. I told him to quit.
I didn't want all my food right away, so I just sat there for a bit next to my stuffed duck. (I can't just wolf it down like he does.)
Anyway, he kept looking at my food. I barked at him and he just kept looking at me. I kept telling him to leave me alone, but he came toward my bowl. Well, I got mad and things happened. Staffer Mom came charging out, but it was too late. There was food all over the floor. It was bad. She took the bowls and the stuffed duck away.
From Bandit: I can't believe she wastes food like that. Gotta go clean the porch floor. Yum!

Time change and Mondays

From Maggie: I'm not sure what has to be done, but I really think that Mondays are a bad deal. And this one has been especially rotten since we've just had something the staffers keep referring to as as "time change."
First of all, my staffers are around all day for 2 days and then every Monday, they leave for a bunch of other days. So for a few days, the staff is only here at night. I'm not sure what I should do about that.
And then this morning, they let us out a whole hour late. That means breakfast was late, too. Then tonight, Staffer Mom showed up about an hour late to let us out. That meant dinner was late, too. Is it going to be like this all winter? I'm not sure how we're going to get used to this. Staffer Mom says we've done it every year, but it doesn't seem likely. I don't like eating late, and I would remember that.

From Bandit: Maggie gets a little impatient. Mom and Dad haven't ever let us go hungry. They aren't going to start now. Hey, what are you eating? Is that a snackie treat? Can I have it?

Play in the park

We had a great day in the park today.
On the first Sunday each month, all Savannah dachshunds are invited to gather at Forsyth Park. What usually happens is our staffers hang out and talk while we all sniff and play. It's the best thing in the world.
Bandit wore his green harness, and Maggie wore her new pink T-shirt that says "Rock'n'Roll Princess" on it. We arrived in the limo.
Our dog friends hadn't seen us since before the races last month. Longfellow (in the picture) was there, along with some other cool dogs. He won the races a few weeks ago, and he's only got 3 legs. He works part-time as a therapy dog, but he's a full-time cool pup. We met 2 puppies who were really tiny -- one was blue and tan and one was a long-hair tan, and we met a wiener bigger than Bandit. We were really tired when we got home, and Staffer Dad took advantage of it to make us take a bath.
Not fair!