A Series of Unfortunate Events

We cleared the strep--actually Dash and I never got it, thanks be--just in time for a round of flu. This time I'm pretty sure Dash did get it, though he stoutly denied it. Still, when a 9 year old boy heads straight for the couch after school without even a sideways glance at Roblox, something is definitely up.

Deux had a really bad time of it and I didn't feel so well myself, especially since I had a contested hearing and a bar dinner the second day of it. (I did win, though. The flu seems to be lucky for me.) Then we had a much-needed weekend to be sick in, and the internet went out all weekend (for reasons entirely unrelated to the reason the internet had been going out at the office every day all month) and the washing machine broke and the dogs dug a new hole under the fence.

I never actually missed a day of work, but I was dragging pretty badly by the end of the week. So Friday morning DOB offered to get the kids to school--he had morning court--and let me sleep in a few hours. Sound in theory, but Duchess in a moment of exuberance knocked Dash's glasses and a lens fell out and then DOB, in an attempt to superglue it back in the frame, had superglued himself to the glasses. So I got up and got DOB unstuck so he could get to court. At this point the lens was in but so covered with superglue that it was useless for its intended purpose, so we took it out and I tried to put in the lens from his old, even more broken frames. I managed it without supergluing myself, but still got the lens hopelessly covered in glue.

After about an hour of applied nail polish remover, we finally had a functional if not very beautiful pair of glasses for Dash and I took him to school and gave up on the resting and went in to work.

We are mostly better now, although Dash is napping again. And a friend who came over to give an opinion on the dog fence issue has suggested an approach that will allow us to avoid buying more fencing and take advantage of something we do very well--grow eight-foot tall Himalayan blackberries with thorns like razors. If a few of these are relocated to the fence, it should be ample deterrent for digging and if a few of them take root (and they always take root) the solution should be self-perpetuating.

Sara Jones maintains that February is the evil month, but I am sincerely hoping that February can have a bit of mercy on us.

Hounded

We had a picture-perfect Christmas, complete with an inch of snow on Christmas Eve *and* the Christmas tree falling over in the middle of the candlight service, and I don't think you can get much better than that.

My main obsession, however, remains keeping the puppy in.

Somebody suggested buried chicken wire. I tried that with what I had on hand, and although it didn't work, it seemed to require him to go around the edges, which suggested that it might work if done sufficiently. So I bought three big rolls and we spent all day one Saturday with me digging and spreading and DOB tying the edges to the fence and the kids chipping in with shovels and stomping things down.

This held for two days. And on the third day, he escaped again.

The weak points this time appeared to be at the points where the fence joins to the house--one one side he had actually chewed an enormous hole in the shed in order to get through and play with the cat, and on the other side he had scraped enough away from the foundation to make the addition on that end look in similar peril. Even with our best efforts, he managed to pull things apart at both ends to get through. So he had a few more days of running free until the following Saturday.

DOB suggested we try cement next, so Deux and I filled in the holes, stretched the wire back out, and poured cement on top. It wasn't pretty, but it might hold. The real challenge was keeping the dogs away until it dried (i.e., inside, and they are not used to being inside and get very restless and certain nameless offspring find it exceedingly stressful). This, on the day that was also supposed to be the one day I had to clean and prep for Christmas. (We had a very big case that hit a critical point the middle of the week before Christmas, and at some point I hope to be able to tell more about it.)

That held on one side, but on the place next to the enticing kitty-filled shed he managed to rip the cemented chickenwire and the fence apart one more time and Christmas Eve he was running loose again. So I went out and wired the chicken wire and the fence together in a bond of peace and goodwill that should last for the ages.

At least, it's lasted so far.