FOUR (MORE) SURPRISES

Since my human is all about the surprises these days, we didn't hike with the cows last Saturday like we almost always usually do. Instead, we went to this place near the cows called Lake Anza. That was the first surprise.

The second surprise was finding a very weird thing on the way to the lake. It kinda looked like a rock, but it didn't smell like a rock. And it walked. This totally freaked me out. My human said the rock-thing was just a turtle and turtles are nothing to get freaked out about, but I mean, wouldn't a walking rock freak you out??

It would. Trust me.

Anyway. Surprise #3 was a dog named Lily and her brother Harry. I'd never met them before, but somehow our humans knew each other. Lily is a semi-puppy and was a ton of fun to play with. Her brother Harry is a lot like Dutch: black, white, older than me and not so much into playing.

Surprise #4 came at the very end of the day. Me and Lily were hanging out in the back of her car waiting for our humans to stop talking when she told me a secret. A secret so, uh, freaky that it me out even more than the turtle. And I'm not sure if I should tell you about it or not, because it might totally freak you out too.

{to be continued}

RETURN TO PLANET BEST BUY

So, my human has needed a new phone for like ages now. No big deal, right? Right. Except my human hates shopping, doesn't like new technology, and can't stand anything that might be a hassle. Somehow, I guess buying a new phone involves all of those things.

Especially when you go to the Verizon store by our house. And some {quote} "Sales Witch" laughs at you and says you're "too old" to buy the phone you think you want. I've never used a phone, so I have no idea how you can be too old for one, but apparently the one my human wanted is made for 15 year olds. And she is waaaay older than that.

Talking to the Sales Witch sent my human running to Google, who totally helped her find a different phone to buy. But no way was she going back to where the witch lives, so I said we should go to the place she got HAL4 (our computer) because when HAL 1, 2, and 3 died right after we got them, the place made everything OK without any kind of hassle.

My human liked that idea, so over the weekend we took a trip to Planet Best Buy. I picked out an even cooler phone than the one my human (and Google) thought she wanted. It has a real keyboard with buttons and stuff that doesn't make her angry like the touchy screen ones do. Some guy called a 'guru' even showed her how to use it so her gimpy brain wouldn't explode. And when there was some problem that made her new $50 phone turn into $170 phone, the Best Buy people totally fixed it. Just like when all the HALs broke.

The coolest thing about our trip to Planet Best Buy is that our new phone lets you twitter and facebook and stuff. Now my human will have no excuse not to help me social network :)

HAPPY JULY 4th MONDAY

So, my human went to a meat-fest yesterday - just like the one on Memorial Day that me and Dutch weren't allowed to attend. And just like on Memorial Day, we weren't allowed to go to this one either.

But unlike the Memorial Day Meat Fest, this time my human brought us home a doggie bag! Actually, it was one of those tupperware things, but when she walked through the door carrying something other than car keys, I knew it must be for us. This never happens, and I was soooooo excited. It almost made up for being left home. Alone. With the scary firework noises.

That is, until she opened the tupperware thing to give us a taste of what she brought home. And what was inside it was not meat. Or anything even remotely meaty. The stuff was kind of the same color as meat, but smelled funny and had little chewy black things stuck in it. The black things were super bitter and I spit them out, which is good because my human said you're not supposed to eat them.

I forget what the stuff my human brought home is called, but it's low in calories and supposedly a "traditional 4th of July food". I've given up trying to keep track of all these weird Special-Days, but I really want to know if there's a day with a "traditional food" that tastes more like, say, Popeye's fried chicken??

FFF: Splash!

My human said I have to make today's post about Dutch because he had such a bad time camping in the wilderness. She's the one who forgot the tent, so I don't know why *I* have to give up my Freeze Frame Friday. But if it makes Dutch forget how much he hates camping, I'll go along with it.

So... here's Dutch with his #2 favorite toy, The Rainbow Ball (Henrietta Rubber Chicken is #1). I'm not entirely sure why he's just standing there like a dork, staring at the ball like that. I guess my human wasn't sure either, which is probably why she took a picture of him doing it.

Ball? Is that my ball? My #2 favorite Rainbow Ball??

And, here is Dutch about 3 seconds later, attacking his #2 favorite toy. If you look reeeeally close, you can see The Rainbow Ball drowning under the water. My human (and her camera) got really wet during the making of this picture, so I hope you think it's cool. Even though I'm not in it.

YES!

PS: Just because Dutch hates camping doesn't mean I can't do a Freeze Frame, right? My splash might not be as cool as his, but at least it didn't get everyone all wet. I mean, my little squeaky tennis ball is like TINY compared to The Rainbow Ball.

Uhm, splash?

MISSING SURPRISES

Thanks for listening to Geraldo's, uh, I mean Dutch's "Camping Exposé" yesterday. I still don't see what's so awful about spending time in the great outdoors, but Dutch has made it very clear that he's never setting paw in the wilderness ever again. Unless there's an RV (??) involved.

Whatever.

I was so excited about our trip to Tahoe that it took me two whole days to notice a shopping bag with my name on it sitting in our livingroom. Can you believe my human forgot to give me half my birthday presents?? Forgetting a tent is one thing, but forgetting to give me a bag full of potentially edible birthday gifts? That's borderline unforgivable.

Especially when the bag of potentially edible treats is from Pugnacious (my new favorite non-wilderness place in the whole entire world) and has a package of dried salmon skins in it. HOLY COWPIES are these things TASTY. You have no idea. Really, you don't.

My human says the skins are the stinkiest thing she's ever smelled in her whole entire life, but that's probably what makes them taste so good. I already have stinky breath, so it's not like adding a little more stink is going to hurt anyone. Right?

There were other, less stinky, things in the bag too: a giant black hoof, some bullypenis, and Himalayan Yak milk chews (thanks BellaT for bringing the tastiness of Yak into my life!). I was hoping the green-lipped mussels from my human's mysterious Seattle trip would be in the bag too, but no such luck.

I wonder if the missing mussels means there are more surprises that Miss Gimpy Brain forgot about. Google says it's bad manners to ask someone to give you a surprise, so I'm not sure how to get my human to remember. Does anyone have experience retrieving missing surprises??