21 August 2005

It's Sunday, so I'm not doing any revisions to Sampo today, and the two books I'm reading right now are not novels. Never has this journal title been so inapt. (The two books are Bernd Henrich's most excellent Mind of the Raven, which is nonfiction and has me wanting to read more about birdbrains, and Lord Dunsany's The Collected Jorkens: Volume One, which I've just started and can't say anything much about yet.) But in lieu of novels to gaze at, there are puppy pictures, right? Of course right. Some of these are fairly "old" (from last month!), but I've gotten around to them just now. (And no, I'm not ready with London pictures yet, but yes, I'm making progress. Stay tuned.)

This looks uncomfortable by monkey standards, but she does it a lot.

(Timprov donated a baseball and a tennis ball to the cause of puppy cuteness. The puppy's Mormor and Morfar are extremely happy to see a wee dog chewing a tennis ball or a baseball.)

She will also sometimes play ball with people, like Mike and Robin. She knows two games, fetch and keep-away.

Savaging froggy is one of her great joys.

She was a little shy, but Scott and Michelle eventually got her to play, mostly with Scott's hands, and she really, really wanted Michelle's coffee. She has learned that good things come in cups: water of a much higher quality than the water in her dish.

We are still impressing upon Ista that paper is not for her to chew and tear, so my birthday present unwrapping took place where she couldn't reach it to help.

She was kind of worn out by then anyway.

She had her first haircut this week. We think she's cuter all fuzzy and shaggy, but regular grooming is necessary to keep her coat from becoming too unmanageable, especially with the wooded bit of our backyard.

To continue with the picture theme for the day, the David who is also known as DDB has recovered from his computer problems enough to have Ista pictures from her second day with us and also some snapshots from my birthday party.

That's several thousand words' worth right there, and I'm going to go do something thrilling like sorting the laundry. Probably more book notes later this week. It seems the likeliest thing.