Speaking of leaving Luke out at night, that kid is going to be banned from indoors during sleepy, sleepy time if he pulls what he did last night again. I'll try to set the scene.

A very tired Paul and Melissa (P from giving the ESL placements tests and grading ALL of them and M for going through a week of orientation, still working part-time, and having to teach Spanish in front of her peers) go to bed exhausted Monday night both having to teach the next morning and then both having to finish the placement and exams and then M has to tutor, so a long day ahead. K. with me?
4:29am - All quiet on the valley park front. P and M fast asleep (P because he can naturally, M with eye mask and ear plugs, I'm just that way). K.
4:30 Luke starts barking like some kind of crazy, freak out.
4:31 am P yells at Luke that if he doesn't stop, he's a dead dog.
4:32am (I mean, I'm guessing here) Luke weighs his option, looks over to his big sister who snarls at him *again* (he woke her up too) at which time Luke decides to throw caution to the wind and barks again. and again. and again.
4:34am P yells again, M (get ready) takes out an ear plug (just one), tells Luke to shut the uhhum up, puts ear plug back in and then lays in bed awake until her alarm goes off at 5:45am. Hate that dog. Dammit Lucas.

Anyhow, I taught at 8, made lesson plans for the rest of the week, went to 2 classes, met up with P to finish the placement exams which were done around 5 and then walked home and got ready for tutoring at 7 and now it is 8:40pm and M is going to bed and Luke is sleeping in the living room. His voice box removal surgery is scheduled for August 27th. Goodnight!!

Duh! of course I'm kidding about that!
Sweet dreams. M

Here's a photo of the bunny damage. Not sure why I felt like it needed to be documented. I guess I was feeling like you weren't believing me...

I tried Cayenne Pepper because we had this big jar that is a bit old anyhow. If these rabbits keep eating my caladium we WILL be buying a bb-gun very, very soon. I suppose we could also just leave Luke out at night since he has experience killing rabbits - 2 thus far to be exact. I actually felt BAD for those 2 that died. And then! P and I saved 4 eastern cottontails from certain death from Shiloh, the neighbor's former beagle, and took them to the wildlife center and PAID for them to be REHABILITATED. And these little punks multiply and thank me by eating my prettiest plant. Seriously? You couldn't munch on, oh, I don't know, poison ivy, kudzu, mint? other dog's poop in our yard?

So far (2 days) the pepper is working... I'll keep you informed.

%&#@ the Heck!

Big Dog Shiners

So I woke up Sunday morning all snuggly warm and sleeped-in and I'm all happy and about to make me some tea and Mash jumps on the bed and basically socks me in the eye with her paw. Ok, ok, I might be exagerating a smidge on how it all happened and it might have been a smidge my fault but the point is my dog nearly gave me a black eye! And Paul doesn't believe me when I say she's out to knock me off so she can be queen of the household!

Luckily, as I was just in severe pain for a couple of hours (read: medium pain for a couple of minutes), no blackness resulted, of (?) which P was glad because he rightly pointed out that "no one is going to believe your dog gave you a shiner."

Anyhow, I must have looked quite overcome with shock and it must have been really believable because P in a very serious voice says to me, "Can I make you some tea?" And in this household, if you don't know already, Tea heals all wounds.**

So I hope your Sunday started off better than mine.

Today was my last full day at UNCPress :( Alas, the summer is over and I must return to the humble grumblings of being a grad student. I have moved up in the lowly grad student ranks tho - I'm a big fancy PhD student (I hate the word 'candidate' almost as much as I hate 'fiance'), so LA-TI-DA to you! I'm pretty sure this just means that I am so far removed from the real world that I can never return to it and GASP work summers! ACK!

Oh! I should give props to my homegirl K for inspiring this post. She has a new blog -Yay, more blogs to check when I should be studying!

I guess I'll leave out of here without a pic this time. More to come soon - school starts next week and I'll be procrasting quite a ton!

**Time does NOT heal all wounds in the South. In fact, Time makes someone wronging you fester uncontrollably until you about burst with disgust and growly noises when thinking of said person who wronged you in a cauldron of tongues of fire. In the Mid-West we just tell you you're an asshole and move on, but here - oh no! Bitterness is like a good wine...

MB