Quivering Pug

Yesterday, I spent the day in Portland with my sister.  We had a ridiculously girl-ish day.  Lots of cups of coffee, window-shopping, actual shopping, pinot gris in a bistro.  It was an anti-dote to testosterone poisoning.

We had to pet this pug.  It was quivering in a simultaneously compelling and revolting manner. 

We took senor cupcake out to dinner.  He doesn't care for beets.  Neither did I, as a child.  "Learn from my mistake!"  I told him,  " I avoided beets until I was nearly forty.  Only then did I discover that they can be delicious!  With orange zest!  and chevre!  Think of all the beets I missed!   It didn't have to be that way."

"Truck!"  He replied, bouncing in his high chair and pointing out the window.  "Eh-plane!  Hel-cop! TRAIN."  Testosterone--in a really cute package.  I can't escape it.  I don't think he was listening.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Hooligans were giving their saintly father a hard time.  They were bickering and squabbling, and lobbying for more computer time, which is effective until it's over, when they become surly.  It kept pissing down rain, just when they needed to be sent outside. Today, however, is a different story.  So far, I am hearing what sounds like a stampede of happy rhinoceri thundering through the house, along with roars of laughter.  Right now they look like this:

Perhaps I am a good influence.