Kirby Flurby

Just for fun, here's a picture I took of Kevin when he was walking our neighbor's dog, Kirby, on New Year's Day. We like Kirby, he's a good dog except when he's pulling too hard on his leash (can you remember the Marmaduke cartoons, when he was being walked?...that's what it's like with Kirby).

I call him Kirby Flurby. I guess because I must always create baby names for pets.

At least I'm not as bad as the kids of the woman my father dated for a while when I was kid. They had a cute little black dog, some kind of terrier I guess it was, and his name was "Alvin Baby Puppy Wuppy Locomotive Choo-Choo Train".

The Shocking Story of Two Brains Revealed!

The hubby and I don't always get along. Well, what couple doesn't fight? But he and I are really opposite in a lot of ways, and sometimes, well, it causes friction between us. More than I'd like, and sometimes I'm needlessly ferocious with him. Sometimes the things he does and says just drive. me. INSANE.

Well, the other day the source of it all was brought home for me (so to speak).

A bunch of months ago we bought some wood frames at Michael's, the craft store next to Trader Joe's--it was pre-Nora, for sure, because one of the frames is a collage with six spaces, clearly meant to display pictures of six cats--the kind you're meant to decorate yourself. I had painted one shortly after purchase, but the other two languished in the plastic bag we toted them home in, often treated roughly by the cats who enjoyed anything from sitting on them to scratching at the contents.

So over the new year's weekend, I picked them up one afternoon when we didn't have anything else planned, and suggested we paint one each. So we spent a few hours with little paint brushes in hand, glass of water turning ever darker gray, politely sharing the little tubs of water-based paint that children use, decorating the frames. I restrained myself from irritatedly telling him multiple times that he was leaving blobs of paint on the frame, he was wasting paint that way, and they would run before they dried and so probably would be altered from what he intended to paint...aka "he was doing it wrong." (Just another example of potential friction.)

When we were both done to our satisfaction, we prepared and ate dinner, and afterwards the frames had dried enough to put the glass back in and prop them up. I placed them side by side, and suddenly in front of me was clear proof our brains are COMPLETELY different. I knew beforehand that there were some basic differences between us, but it didn't ever sink in the way it did then. I felt like the heavens had opened up and sunlight had poured into an area that had previously been darkly shadowed. See for yourself. I bet you won't have any trouble picking out which one is mine, and which is his. 'Nuff said.