Friends and Flowers

Banks are full of friendly people. We have several, but my most often favorites are two where all the tellers know my name. We went to both today. At my second bank, me and a little girl about my age ...maybe 3 1/2?...were in line and we were making eyes at each other. Little children and puppies have a thing, you know. We can talk to each other with our eyeballs, and that's absolutely true. The little girl had two yellow daisies in her hand. After we "googled" and "goggled" at each other for a bit, she very shyly came up to me and offered me one of her flowers.

Oh my goodness! I was everly so flattered. I said "Thank you!" as best I could without getting cross-eyed, and then Mom tucked it into my collar. Somehow that didn't feel right, though. So when we got back to the car, I asked very nicely if I could wear it in my hair. Mom put the stem through my top-knot (that's what she calls it) and here's what I look like. I just LOVE LOVE LOVE flowers, don't you?



Back at the office we had surprise company. Yup. Shannon came back with her daughter, Marli, and her two pupsters, Cody and Candy. She's the darker tan pup on the right. They both very thoughtfully left their scent for me so I wouldn't forget them. Shannon was a little embarassed, but she knows where the paper towels are and that's what counts. I don't mind a bit. People Graffiti...Pups GraPeePee. It's our way of being memorialized forever.

I hope you all had a "Friends and Flowers" Day, too!

Love, Mary-Margaret

My Eyelashes got Whacked!

I don't know what happened. It's not like there's a mirror at my stylist's place or anything. But I've been working really hard on my eyelashes. They were maybe 3" long and curled up on the ends. It made me look very feminine, which mattered a lot to me since ...well, quite honestly? From the top, us Yorks look the same whether we're boys or girls. Even boys wear bows, did you know that? But it was my eyelashes that set me apart. A flutter here, a flutter there....and the world was mine.

Mom picked me up on Friday and the very first thing she says is "WHERE are your EYELASHES?". Er....you're asking MEEEE (I said)? Oh, yup. After checking myself out I see that my eyelashes are exactly the same length as my eyebrows and blend in perfectly. Egads!! Those took me months to grow, too. Rats! That explains why the guy in the market kept telling me I was a "good little boy" and saying, "He's such a good doggy". Oh, well. They'll grow again, I guess. Next time, I will wear a sticker saying DONT TRIM THE EYELASHES, or something like that.

My mom still can't talk. It's going on four days now. She says she (quote) "Feels like crap!", and I can vouch for that. Starting about 3:30 this morning she couldn't stop coughing. From my observations, when people have laryngitis the following happens:

1) Some people start whispering to them, like maybe they should turn down their volume, too;
2) Some folks, despite knowing that Mom can't talk without pain, say "Would you repeat that? I didn't understand you".
3) Other people say stuff like "I didn't mean to upset you", interpreting Mom's struggle to be understood as barking, yelling, and being mad. The only thing that's upsetting to her is that she CAN'T TALK!
4) Some folks and pups might take advantage at her inability to talk. I did, for one day, but after that it wasn't fun any more. Nope! No challenge there whatsoever.

God made humans special in that they can think, reason, have feelings AND communicate. (Ok...and some pups can do that, too, but not as many are given credit for those abilities as should be, in my opinion. Anyway, back to the subject.. ahem....sorry....I have opinions, you know.) When you drop "communication" ....make that "HONEST communication"... from that equation, the rest is moot. (I like that word "moot"...hee hee hee...MOOT MOOT MOOT!!... Sorta like "SQUAB SQUAB SQUAB" from "Two and a Half Men", but I digress again here.)

She says that she appreciates her friends and her family for understanding and caring, and for being honest with her in their communications with her and about her. And for the record, I appreciate that, too!

Love you guys (smooooooch!)...

Mary-Margaret "The Interpreter" O'Brien

From Parakeet to Pomeranian

Yesterday I was telling you all about how all my mom could do was squeak at me. She sounded like a parakeet chirping, I thought. Today, she is barking like a Pomeranian. Her laryngitis (thank you, Aunt Elaine) seems to be getting better. Didn't matter much to me, though, I spent all day at my spa, relaxing and having a bubble bath, massage, getting my nails done and my hair styled. It was "Yorkie" Day, I think.

My goodness, Miss Marilyn adopted the sweetest little Yorkie girl named Madison. Sadie was there, and Lexie and Beamer and MEEEEE! We had the very best time ever.
This is Madison and Sadie. Sadie was getting blow-dried which is how come she looks so fluffy.



This is Sadie on top and Madison on the bottom. I just LOVE Yorkie Day. We have so much to catch up on, you know?




After work we went to the bank and Miss Gina, my very good friend there, gave me some duck jerky. She even cut it in little pieces and handed it to Miss Xochitl (pronounced "Soshi"), who let me inhale it all. Oh YUM!! I do LOVE duck jerky. Gina kept watching to make sure I didn't upchuck the whole thing like last time. Well, thinking about it, it wasn't MY fault that she gave me a whole really long piece without cutting it up for me. No harm done, though. The counter top at the bank wipes clean like "spiff!!". Yup. Just like that.

Then we went to the market. I was pretty tuckered out, actually, and just sat quietly in my seat like I was asleep with my eyes open. People talked to me but I don't remember what they said. All I could think about was getting home. I LOVE LOVE LOVE my home. Good things are there like dinner, TV, and sleeping. And especially my feather pillow. Comfy!

Did I mention that my Aunt Elaine sent me a postcard from Washington, D.C.? Wow...I am very impressed. She got to go to The Inaugeration. I hope I spelled that right. Us pups don't "inaugerate" much unless we are visiting a fire hydrant. I would have been happy to help "inaugerate" our new President, too. Here's me reading my postcard.



Love,

Mary-Margaret

Dear GrandPapa and other friends....

Hi. It's me, Mary-Margaret. Mom's got something I can't spell but it means she can't talk. Oh, the possibilities are racing through my head. Thinking...if she can't talk, she can't yell. If she can't yell, I can do pretty much what I want to in peace and quiet.

She squeaks ok, though. She gets my attention by going "Squeak...squeak!", and I look at her and then she mouthes words and uses sign language. If I don't look at her she can't gripe at me, and I'm home free. You know?

Writing is out of the question. Everybody knows I can't read. Have a great day, you guys. Gotta go enjoy the moment while I can.

Love and schlurps...

Mary-Margaret

Happy Valentine's Day to MEEEEEE!!

Wow. Look at whay my Auntie Leslie sent me. It looks just like me except it doesn't have a head, legs, or tail. And it SQUEAKS!!! Mom just makes fun of me and says "Oh Goody! A Toupee!! Just what you need!!", but I know better. It's my Auntie Leslie sending me a furry piece of her heart. I called her back to tell her how much I appreciated it and sent her a furry piece of mine. We are everly such good friends.

Love and belated kisses to my Auntie Leslie and all my friends.

Mary-Margaret

(Hmmmph. Toupee, indeed!!)

Happy Valentine's Eve!!

My very good friend, Gina, at the bank is who I picked to give a Valentine's Day pressie to. Well, good gosh, it's not like I can go shopping by myself or anything, and it's really hard to get the money out of my piggy bank anyway. I saw my mom on the computer with K9Cuisine.com and noticed that she got me a bag of duck jerky, probably for a surprise. Well, HAH! I surprised her by changing the "1" to a "2" and my order arrived today. Hallelujah!

I figure if I go bonkers over a treat, my very good friend Gina will love it, too. So when we went into the bank tonight, I got my mom to hide Gina's present inside her jacket. Oh, I was SOOOO excited. I was beside myself with JOY. Finally, we got to see Gina and I just couldn't wait to give her my present. Gina is the one who first introduced me to the everly so delicious Duck Jerky.

"Oh, Mary-Margaret! How NICE of you!", she said. I skootched across the counter and pointed at the Duck Jerky. I wanted to make sure she knew that I loved it, too. In case she wanted to share, you know. After what seemed to me to be a dog year, she finally opened the baggie and gave me one whole long strip. Oh, boy!, I thought. Usually I just get a teensy little piece and here I have the WHOLE thing. My mom asked Gina if she broke off a tiny piece and ...well, I knew what was coming next.

Mom pries my mouth open and fishes around for the jerky and it's not there. Well, of course not, silly woman (I say), I saw you coming. She lets go of my mouth, and I hack it up and start chewing again. Then she grabs my schnozz and makes me say "Ah!" again. Nope. Mine mine MINE...and I'm NOT sharing (I say), and I make it disappear. Aaaaaaack, I start to gag and hack and ...kablooey! Urp! Blegh! And there it is, all soggy and wet about 2 inches from Gina's keyboard along with a bunch of spit and stuff. I try to grab it back and Gina snatches it away, wraps it neatly in a napkin and tosses it in the trash.

I glare. How RUDE!! This is not what friends do. Apparently, they both had second thoughts about the injustice of it all, too. Gina got out another piece and cut me a really small bite. I'll take what I can get, I told her, and I swallowed it whole. Same thing with another piece. I'll bet if they hadn't gotten me to hack up the first strip, I'd still be enjoying it. Just because I started choking and couldn't breathe or anything, I don't suppose they thought it might be their fault in the first place?

I think next year I'll just pass on the holiday.

Happy Valentines Day to EVERYBODY!!

Love, Mary-Margaret

Me and Dr. "V"

This is my most favorite Doctor in the whole world that I've known ever since I was a baby. Her name is Melanie Verreault and I call her "Dr. V".

Yesterday, I had a runny nose and I coughed maybe three times. Mom said I sounded like I was yucking up a hairball. I didn't barf or anything but you know Mom. Off we went to the vet's in Temecula (NOT Dr. V, though). No x-rays, didn't even ask me to take a deep breath. And $73.00 plus some later for antibiotics, I'm outta there.

My mom, the investigator, just wasn't comfy with the diagnosis so she started checking stuff out on the internet. Pills she was charged $1.00 for could be bought for $0.33; pills she paid over $3.00 each for were $1.32. Even that she could have handled, but when she asked if one of the girls could cut a pill into 4 pieces for me, they wanted to charge us a "pill cutting" fee. That pushed her over the edge. So she tracked down my very good friend, Dr. V, and made an appointment for me.

Dr. V answers questions and gives my mom options, and she doesn't have a "pill cutting fee". And she gives me loves and kisses and I know I'm going to be very safe with her no matter what. I'm fine, healthy, maybe a little overweight (but aren't we all?), my teeth need cleaning but that's no biggie. Maybe that'll get rid of my morning breath?

We took back some of the pills to the first vet and said thank you, but we couldn't afford them, and Mom's ordering some from 800petmeds.com, with Dr. V's prescription. We all have to watch our wallets and our piggy banks these days. And it's not just about the money, it's about common sense health care. Veterinarians and doctors are in the health care business, not the retail pharmaceutical business. If a patient's mother says they can't afford something, they should be given options to make decisions according to their own ability and conscience.

(Hi..this is MEEEE.....Mom got on her soap box toward the end there. Let's just call that a "technical difficulty beyond my control". Mostly I just wanted to share my beautiful, wonderful Dr. V with you all. I just LOVE LOVE LOVE her sooooooooooo much!)

Kisses and schlurpies...

Mary-Margaret

Baby, It's COLD Outside

You all probably already know that me and my mom share a bed. She gets the left side; I get the right. I have a down feather pillow that, once properly fluffed and rearranged by MEEEEE, is very comfortable. That's where I fall asleep.

Sometimes, maybe about 4 or 5 AM (we have a digital clock, so I KNOW what time it is) I get a little chilly and skootch under the covers to nestle against something warm. Yup. That would be my mom. She radiates heat and doesn't wiggle much at that time in the morning. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh! Warm and cozy. Mmmmmmmm! Zzzzzznnnooooorrrrkk!

She wakes up about 7:30AM and lays there for a bit thinking about her day. Then she starts talking to me. Like "Hello? I'm still sleeping?", I say, but that never stops her. I stay still, hoping maybe she'll fall back to sleep, but no.

Pretty soon I hear "Good MORNING, Mary-Margaret!", and she nuzzles me. I kiss her nose and flip on my back. She gives me raspberries on my tummy (she says it's on my belly button, but honestly, I have NO idea what or where that might be!), and then she puts on her bathrobe. I get scooped up and stuffed inside her bathrobe and we walk downstairs. She says she doesn't want me to get chilled right away, and I should warm up gradually.

"Gradually", to her, is until we get downstairs and she opens the slider for me to go out. EGADS! There's ICE on the lawn. OHMYGAWSHALLMIGHTY! I dash outside, looking for either a spot in the sun where the ice has started to melt, OR a spot really close to the patio, and I take care of my morning business. Then I absolutely race back to my little doggie door and hop back inside.

BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!! I don't mind the cold much, but when our thermostat inside says 51• after we've put the heat on, I question my mother's sanity. This morning, I just ran up the stairs and hopped back into bed. The newsman on the TV said it was 35•, and that was about 8:00AM (according to the digital). Mom just takes a deep breath and smiles. I think she was a polar bear in a former life.

Love and fuzzies...

Mary-Margaret "Ice Princess" O'Brien

My "Ghetto Leash"

Last month, Mom lost her eyeglasses the day after her eye surgery. She probably couldn't have seen with them anyway, but she says it's the principle of the thing. This month, we are SOOOO busy that yesterday, my mom couldn't find the top of her desk. She also has lost my leash, and now she says she thinks she's lost her mind. If you find it, best you leave it where it is or risk the consequences, I tell you.

I can live with most of that, but the leash thing has to get resolved. I mean, I had to go O-U-T yesterday afternoon. Mom and Shannon (my new assistant) looked everywhere for my leash and couldn't find it. Personally, I think maybe someone filed it under "L" for "lost", but ...you know....when you have to "go", you have to "GO", right?

The ladies finally found a spool of bright orange curly ribbon. "Noooooooooo.... please.... not that", I said. But that was all they had. So here's me on the end of a RIBBON. I took care of business pretty quick and raced back to the office. Shannon knew right away how embarrassed I was. First thing when we skidded back in the door was finding the scissors and cutting off what Shannon calls my "Ghetto Leash".

We are going to work all this weekend to get caught up. I'm betting we find my leash just as soon as we find Mom's desk top. Ohhhhhh, the humiliation of it all.

Love,

Mary-Margaret

How was my day, you ask?

Oh, let's see. Mostly fine. I saw a lot of clients today and got tons of belly rubs. I sat in oodles of laps, and one lady and I got into a kissing contest. I won. Hee hee. I got my tongue all the way in her mouth.
"Ohhhhhhhhhh! Ick!", she said.
"What happened?", asked my mom.
"She TONGUED me!", exclaimed our client, laughing, but I think she was pretty impressed that I was fast enough to do it. Game over. I hopped into her hubby's lap and snuggled in for a nap.

Things went pretty well. We got home when it was still daylight and I went into the back yard to check for intruders. It was still light when Mom called me in for dinner. You know how I love this game. I ignore her, she yells! I squiggle down into the grass so only my eyeballs show (like an alligator in a swamp, sort of!), and she yells.

She yells louder and I really flatten myself. She comes outside in her bare feet and approaches my hiding place. Uh oh...I've been spotted. I make a mad dash for the hillside and she shouts, "STOP!!". Yeah, yeah. The magic word. I freeze in mid-air and next thing you know, I'm being carried into the house.

After supper (which included some of her New York steak but not as much as I wanted, which I made a point of telling her, too!), I dove through my doggy door and "SPLAT", found out that MY MOTHER PUT THE HARD DOOR IN SO I REALLY SQUISHED MY NOSE and made a really loud "BONK" when I hit it. OW OW OW!!
"Poor Mary-Margaret!", she says, and she removes the door.
Uh uh, I say in my head. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. So I did NOT go out. I probably should have, but my nose hurt and I had a headache. I have to be more cautious and really watch that woman carefully. She's sneaky like that.

Tomorrow is probably going to be a very busy day, a lot like today. It's good when we have a lot of people, but we're just not used to having a line out the door. Maybe we should buy some more chairs or something. We feel badly to see them huddled on the stairs outside our window while they fill out the Request for Service. On the other hand, it's always nice when people start talking to each other and exchanging business cards. Every cloud has a silver lining, they say.

Love and kisses...

Mary-Margaret

PS: Have I mentioned that we serve process in Temecula and Murrieta and we can usually find your skips, too?. Yup. That's what we're doing a lot of. We serve other areas, too. Actually, any place you can think of we can serve papers.....almost!

Goog-goog-googly eyed!

Rats. I told Mom to hurry up and get the camera out, but she said "Shush...I'm trying to drive!". There was one of those sign guys on the corner in a PINK body suit and WHITE diapers waving a pizza sign. Finally, she finds the camera just about the same time the guy spots ME staring at him. He covers his bare little pink body suit and baggy white diapers with the sign. I'll bet he was embarrassed. Imagine standing in public like that and having a Yorkette staring and laughing at you.

Hee hee hee...it made my day.

(I apologize for the lousy quality of the picture but, like she says, she WAS driving, trying not to rear end the person in front of us AND find the camera AND take the picture all at the same time. Not MY fault, though!)

Love,

Mary-Margaret "Googly-eyes" O'Brien