Three dog night...

...and day...and night...and day...

To begin with, everything in my neck of the woods is fine. We've got power. We've got heat. No trees or powerlines have fallen on houses or cars or anything like that. As I told my parents, there is a blanket of snow over everything, but it's a very thin blanket. Just enough to make things pretty, but we're not exactly buried. It's nice. Winter has arrived.

Ok, I promise not to talk about the weather anymore. In other news, Kia and I have been house sitting for someone in my program and her husband, who are in India for three weeks. In addition to the house, they also have a dog - a chocolate lab, 6 years old but acts like he's a puppy. He's about halfway in size between Moose (our big one) and Teak (our little one). With any luck, I'll get a picture of the three of them lined up. It'll be classic. And this guy is a tank. Walking him is an adventure. He also has a thing for food that's on counters. Specifically, he likes it. He eats it. He seeks it out. It requires constant vigilance. One of the first nights we were there, he stole a chicken wing off of a tray about to be put in the oven. To make matters worse, chicken wings tend to be bad news for dogs, since they can splinter and make the dog choke. Luckily, nothing bad came of it. That was one near-miss. Another one came when Kia was walking him by herself. Apparently, he pulled on the leash one too many times, broke out of the leash, and casually trotted across a busy street. Fortunately, he again cheated death. Kia, on the other hand, nearly had a heart attack. Can you imagine? It's not even like I could call the owners and tell them about it. They're in India! I'd have to email. "Hi Jenn, how's India? Listen, we killed your dog." We also could have pursued the sitcom option, requiring us to buy a dog that looks in all outward appearances to be the old dog, but somehow has something that gives him away as being an imposter, with hilarious consequences, and forcing us to fess up to our deed and have a heart-to-heart chat with the owners. None of this is necessary yet, although there's still a week to go.

So anyway, the third dog has been the biggest adjustment. At first, it was looking like it would just be chaos the whole time. There was growling, snarling, fighting, and general nastiness. But I guess that's to be expecting, seeing as how his territory has just been taken over by two strange people and two even stranger dogs. At this point, things are pretty calm, and I think they all enjoy having each other around.

Having the house is nice too. It's kind of like having a summer home in addition to your regular home, like a mini-vacation away from your regular life. The neighborhood is interesting too. Let me tell you, those people are gung-ho about their decorations. No sooner had Thansgiving finished than lights were being put up with reckless abandon. Santas were mounted. Deer were arranged. I passed one house that had lights going on and off to a soundtrack. I thought for a second that I was experiencing some sort of auditory hallucinations. And at the next house, a deer lit up with blue lights was drinking from a blue-light pool of water. It was literally dipping its head down to the water, pausing a second, then raising its head back up. This, of course, made me question whether I was experiencing some sort of visual hallucination. All in all, it was a rather psychiatrically-ambiguous walk that I was on that night.

I'll be 28 next week. Not much to say about that.

And IM basketball started again last night. Our psych department team, sporting yet another in a series of lame psychology-related team name puns (The Mental Blocks) managed a victory thanks to a last-second shot. As it does every year, the first game of the season reminded me: how out of shape I am; how much better the games could be if they players just reffed themselves; and how often players on other teams confuse IM basketball with varsity lacrosse, football, or ultimate fighting.

Oh, and Tal wants everyone to know that HE took those Halloween pictures of us as the cheerleaders from my previous post. No one else. Him. Tal. Tal Yarkoni. He took them. I didn't take them. Did anyone else take those pictures? Oh, nope. No they didn't. Tal did. Tal Yarkoni. He's from Canada.