Mothers and the devil

For Mother's Day, John's family came over to our house for lunch. I'd already decided the menu 2 months ago, when I found a certain pasta at Whole Foods called Mother-in-Law's Tongue. Not kidding. This is what it looks like:

(Apparently, there is also a plant with the same name. What is this fascination with the tongues of mothers-in-law?)

The meal was good, though it wasn't entirely vegan (who wants to make vegan green bean casserole when it would take 2 hours). And the dessert definitely had to be non-vegan or John's brothers wouldn't have eaten it.

Afterward, I cleaned up the kitchen and finished the dishes by 4 p.m., while the rest of the house looked like this:

(Yes, Darra is actually sleeping like that.)

The day pretty much passed in a fog for me because Darra has been regressing. She had finally accomplished sleeping solidly all night, until this week when the world came to an end:

Thursday night: Darra barks ALL NIGHT in her crate. We flee upstairs to sleep with earplugs in the guest room, reliving the first week we had her.

Friday: Take Darra to John's parents house for the evening to wear her out playing with the big dogs (2 golden retrievers, one of whom weighs 100 pounds). Darra sleeps like the dead all night.

Saturday: Go to several garage sales with Darra all morning. She sleeps in the afternoon to recover from the excitement of meeting so many new people and dogs. We play with her in the evening, but it is not enough. She barks all night again.

Sunday night: Play with Darra in the evening and take a long walk, which includes sniffing at neighbors' dogs being walked. Once home, she winds down and tries to go to sleep around 8 0r 9 p.m., too early for bedtime. Each time, I ruthlessly wake her up and make her play. She sleeps all night.

Basically, during the day, she is so cute and we love her. (This was taken the second day we had her, thus the worried look. But still very cute.)

At night, she becomes possessed, bent on a mission from satan to keep us from sleeping. Note the obvious change in facial attitude.


Other than the serious lack of sleep situation, our current training mission is to get her to ring a bell to go out. She HAS succeeded in sitting by the door to indicate that she wants to go out, which is a big relief, but that's a silent action. I heard about the bell training and want advance to that, since we can't and don't want to have to watch her constantly to see if she is at the door. I bought some miniature cow bells (in "copper") for $1.00 at Michaels and sewed them onto a length of blue ribbon to hang on the doorknob (if you're going to do it, at least it can match the living room). Plus, when she has to stay at John's parents house when we're on vacation, we can just move the bells to their door, so she knows where to go out.

A few months ago when I stumbled upon cuteoverload.com, I had jokingly told readers to Beware the Cuteness. Little did I know how prophetic that warning was!