Got Hope?

Where is Mommy going?

She is walking toward the closet where she keeps my leash. I am so curious that I stand there behind her with my right paw raised in a gesture of expectation. Dare I hope? I am wearing my as-soon-as-Mommy-says-the-word-"ready"-I-will-express-the-sweetest-joy-with-shrill-and-unsupressable-yelping face. This face is much like my your-actions-have-caught-me-by-surprise-and-they-would-fascinate-me-if-only-my-mind-were-not-such-a-complete-blank face, only I tilt my chin just slightly higher for the former.

Mommy reaches into the closet. The suspense lasts for maybe a second but it seems to me like a lifetime.

Disappointment. Mommy keeps my leash in the same closet as the vacuum.

The closet gives and the closet takes away.

Sympathy

On the Internet there are pictures of birds getting baths. They have been covered with oil from the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. If I understood what was going on I would be very sad for the birds and other animals who have been and will be injured by the oil. I, Poppy, am a sensitive pug.

Notwithstanding my sensitivity, I do not understand oil spills. I do, however, understand baths. The birds in the pictures look about as excited as I do when I get a bath. Today, when I take my bath, it will be a solidarity bath. I will express my solidarity with the injured animals by looking like the most oppressed pug ever born. I will frown and hang my tail down behind me.

DSD

Picture yourself in a garden with compost.
Moldy vegetables make neurotoxins.
Duncan in the sky with diamonds!
Duncan in the sky with diamonds!
Duncan in the sky with diamonds!
Ahhhh....