Dog Stalker

This is our dog, Gunny Sergeant. We never call him by his full name because look at that face.

My name is Jill, and I'm a Dog Stalker.

It all started innocently enough. Peanut Head and I were fretting about what to get our spawn for Christmas, when Zoe Bug showed us the following video commercial.

You really have to watch it to get a full appreciation of its awesomeness. My favorite part is 53-56 seconds in when the Dog Mom's coworker is looking at her like she has completely lost her mind.

I can really relate to that part.

Once we watched this video, we knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that our household needed this product. You see, the last couple of years the Bunnery Sergeant has been spoiled rotten and has been allowed to stay inside whilst his family treks off to work and school. We feel sorry for him because it's so c-c-c-o-o-o-old outside. And windy. And the house is cozy and warm.

I should mention that Peanut Head's heart does not soften like ours, and he scolds us for letting the Bunny Man stay inside.

If loving a dog is wrong, then we don't want to be right.

It would be just fine and dandy if Gunny Bun Bun weren't such a Mr. Naughty Pants. You see, he sleeps on the couch when we're not at home.

I know, I know, it's horrifying.

I also know that many of his peers regularly sleep on their couches, but in this house it's 100% unauthorized behavior. Maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal if he were cat sized and didn't lick his goodies. But it is because he isn't and he does.

So, see a need, fill a need is how this story goes. The Furbo is basically a spy cam for dog parents. And it is So. Much. Fun.

As soon as we set it up, we ran into another room and started calling to Gunny Bun Bun through the app to call his attention to the strange, new device.

Honestly, he was not amused, but once we got his attention, we launched a treat at him so as to hook him.

Huh?

Gunny Man turned with a goofy, suspicious look on his face. Actually, he was slightly terrified so he swooped in for the treat and ran away with his shifty eyes darting around.

We've spent a lot of time launching treats at Gunny in order to get him comfortable with his new friend. In fact, we launched, or maybe I should say "tossed" so many treats to him that we ran out and had to start filling it with cat food.

Cat food because he loves cat food, and he would not be impressed if we launched dog food at him because, obviously, he's a dog and that is so yesterday.

The only problem with cat food is that it's too small, so instead of launching a piece of cat food, it instead peppers him with a shrapnel spray of cat food. In every direction.

If he wasn't afraid of the Furbo before, he sure is now. His current MO is to dart in to Hoover the cat food up, and then dart out to the other room in order to escape the incessant coos of his people.

Several times a day we get notifications on our phones that tell us "Your dog is barking. Would you like to see what's going on?" 

Um, yeah. 

So whichever one of us can be discreetly available pulls up the Furbo app, and gets the 411. Typically the cattle ranching operation next door to us has arrived to feed their cows. As you can imagine, Gunny simply cannot allow that to happen without attempting to give himself an embolism via a fit of barking.

Other times the UPS man has delivered a package, thereby throwing Gunny into a hysterical fit of barking. I've tried to explain to the Bunnery Sergeant that no one is ever sad to see the UPS man. It just doesn't happen. He's not the brightest bulb in the box though, so we're still working on that one.

Early this afternoon I pulled up the app just to see what Gunny was up to and I actually caught him  climbing up onto the couch for a long winter's nap. Which then prompted a lot of "Gunny! Get off the couch you B-A-A-A-A-D Dog." At which point he thrust his head under a couch pillow because if he can't see us, we obviously can't see him.

And I'm not too proud to admit that the Furbo is not just for dogs. Peanut Head and I were taunting our girls with it last weekend while they were watching a movie. We were unable to get their attention by calling their names, so we tried barking at them like tiny, hysterical poodles.

That worked. Zoe got up off the couch and came and peered into the camera. And that was the perfect moment to launch a spray of cat food shrapnel. Score!

Then, because it was sweet little Zoe Bug, she went to get a broom to start sweeping the mess up. Once we saw the broom, you guessed it, launch number two.

I seriously love that kid.

Finally Gunny wised up and ran in to assist, exclaiming "My job! My job! Back away, Sister Girl!"

I seriously love that dog.

Biscuit Butt

Well hello there, My Friends. I'm just popping in so I can stick to my rigorous monthly posting schedule. I'll just barely make February today with Gunny Man's help.

Here Gunny Bun Bun is laying atop his dog house, basking in the 30 degree temps of an Idaho Pre-Spring day.

I hope you will forgive him the indelicate pose. Thankfully we have Modesty Butterflies to make up for his lack of class.

The snow has mostly melted here in Idaho, and the sun makes occasional appearances. Not that Biscuit Butt here would know, because he has spent his entire winter indoors.

You read that right. The Bunnery Sergeant has successfully Sad Faced his way through a winter spent sleeping cozily on his dog bed, while his masters toiled away at school and work.

Each morning he would retire to his bed, sometimes with the cat, after a breakfast at his girls' feet, eating discarded toast crusts and lunch packing detritus.

Each day we asked him if he would like to spend the day outside, and each day he would answer with his silent, stealthy, no eye contact walk to his bed. The eyes don't lie.

Mr. Man here is what we call an Opportunist.

And he's such a Naughty Pants that we had to push the coffee table up against the couch every morning and litter the surface with pointy, uncomfortable objects so as to dissuade him from climbing atop for a long winter's nap.

And as a result of the long winter of lounging around, Mr. Bun Bun is greeting the promise of Spring with a super-sized Biscuit Butt. Never mind that I have no room to talk, let's just focus on Mr. Leisure Time here.

We've been warning him that this day would come.

We've scolded his Sad-Eyes-Watching-Us-Eat with admonishments that he is now a Gluten Free Vegan, so therefore he cannot possibly partake in our supper.

And he looks on longingly, as if to say "I have no idea what you are saying, but I think you want to give me that taco."

Today was the Day of Reckoning.

Today was the day that Peanut Head pulled the bikes out of the shed and the girls hooked up their Gunny Bar Leash Thingie to start his Spring Training.

He can scarcely believe it himself. He is looking toward a spring and summer of dragging his gnarly round carcass countless times around the block.

And to that we simply reply "Mwah-ha-ha-ha."

Crazy Wonderful Year

Hello Friends! I'm on Christmas break right now and I absolutely can't let it pass without popping in for an update.

What a crazy, wonderful year this has been, with lots of turmoil and so, so much to be thankful for.

When I left the classroom in June, I had every intention of stepping up my blogging, and as you can see, that hasn't happened. I don't have a good excuse. I've certainly had the time. I just haven't had the blogging mojo. I think about it all the time. I just can't seem to dig up the motivation to sit down and write.

Often I'll have something small I want to share and I can do that much easier and quicker on Instagram or Facebook, so I'll go there. I'm not ready to give the blog up though. I'm just not that into it right now. I hope that will change.

I think a lot of it has to do with the changes I've had this year. Leaving the classroom has given me some wonderful opportunities and I have been thoroughly enjoying myself, but there is a part of me that misses it terribly.

In my new position I'm at the high schools frequently and I've seen a lot of my former students, and it makes me long to be back with them. 

As sure as I was about leaving education earlier this year, I'm looking at teaching in a whole new light. If, or maybe I should say when I go back, it has to be different. I knew when I left that I was part of the problem. A big part of the problem. I put too much of myself into my job and there was nothing left for me.

My new job has been such a gift. I feel like it has thrown me a life raft and said "Hang on. It's not over yet. Take some time to recover and then get back in the pool." Truly the best part about what I'm doing right now is helping teachers. I want to do whatever I can to ease their burdens.

Enough of the heavy stuff. I don't want Zoe Bug all up in my business about always whining about my job.

Did I mention that I'm on Christmas break? Wa-HOO! It's a beautiful thing.

I'm dedicating part of my break to working on Stinkerbell's stocking. I'm only a third of the way finished, so there's no way it will be ready this week, but next year it really should be. If it isn't, well then I'll just suck that much more.

And Stinkerbell reminds me about the stocking often. She's all "MOM! I'm 12 now. Do you think you could finish my stocking before I go to college?"

Well, I'll certainly try, Sweetie.

For years we've had three of our stockings finished, and Stinky's stocking is still on the cross stitch frame. It's so sad. It's like she's the orphan child.

In order to motivate myself to work on it, I listen to audiobooks or stream Netflix while I'm working. If you've never done cross stitch before, it's tedious. When this project is finished, I will never cross stitch another thing, as long as I shall live.

I have another tedious project I'd like to work on over break, but I'm not making any promises because it's one of those projects that I find depressing to look at.

It's this table. Take a moment to drink it in.

Actually, now that I'm staring at it, it doesn't look that bad. It just looks like I don't want to do it. And I really, truly don't. I'm such a whiner.

This is something else I want to spend some time on. I am now six years behind on my digital scrapbooking. It wouldn't be so bad except 2009 was a very long winded year on the blog.

Geez, I'm bored with myself already. Thankfully I also went back to work that year and I didn't have as much time for all the yapping, so things should be picking up here soon.

I've started using Digital Project Life with PhotoShop Elements, and it has changed my life. It's so much easier and faster to get my photos into books now. No mess either.

I'm hoping that future books have more than a year in them. I work on pages until I have enough to fill the maximum number of pages that Shutterfly will print (over a 100), and then I let them sit in my cart until Shutterfly runs a 50% off sale.

I started taking piano lessons in September. It's something I've always wanted to do and I'm so happy to be doing it right now.

Things were going great until a couple weeks ago when I realized I wasn't really learning which piano keys played which notes, or even what notes they were, but instead I looked at a note and by its position knew which finger played it. Well, playing the piano isn't like typing, apparently.

Dang it.

I feel like I need to start all over again. I'm a little frustrated, but not frustrated enough to give it up. I just need to start fresh.

Peanut Head and I did our usual holiday baking this year, but while attempting to apprentice Kimikaze and Angelina Ballerina, the crazy science teachers.

Man what an organizational juggling act that was. The flip side was that it was a blast. An exhausting blast, but it took the chore out of the process and put a whole lot of joy in its place.

This is Angelina Ballerina. She was all business showing up with her apron and everything. We had a hard time trying to get her to focus on Bon Bon and Buckeye nights though. The middle school boy in her was fixated on the spherical aspect of the treats. We're not going there, just setting the record straight.

And then there's Kimikaze. This girl is a handful and she puts the snap in Gingersnap. 

We had a little chocolate fight, and I'm not afraid to say that I won. She was a chocolate mess. There were pictures, but they were all too blurry on account of we are lightning fast like ninjas.

Check out our ornaments for this year from Liane and Alison. Do you recognize them?

If not, go refresh your memory with my Crazy Town post. Alison, you nailed it.

Gunny Man!

Zoe took this awesome picture of him with her phone. She's taking a photography class at school and has been taking some crazy good pictures with just her phone. Most of the pictures on our Christmas card were taken by Zoe.

Zoe has also been taking hours of video footage of Gunny jumping and we set up a You Tube channel just for him called Gunny Bun Bun. Click on the link if you want to check out the one video we were able to upload successfully. 

We're having some serious technical difficulties uploading videos because Zoe made the movies in iMovie and they are in .mov format when they need to be in .mp4 format. Does anyone have any experience with converting those files that can give us some advice for converting those videos? We are pulling our hair out trying to figure it out.

Lastly, I leave you with our Christmas card and "This is How it Really Is" letter, should you care to read it.

I hope you all have an amazing, restful, peaceful, and healthy holiday season.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!                              

I know you’re probably wondering why there are three pictures of the dog on our holiday card, and only one each of our two children. Well, it’s partly because we have more pictures of Gunny than anyone else in the house, but mostly because he’s such a lovable guy. He’s never grouchy or unpleasant to be around (except when he has flatulence), and he will let us dress him up in practically anything we’d like. In fact, as I type this letter, my friend Betsy Wetsy is making him a reindeer hat. He is very excited about it. And since our kids no longer let me dress them, the Bunnery Sergeant is now my favorite child.

Now that that’s out in the open, here’s an update on the human kids.

Zoe is 14 and a Freshman in high school. She’s always doing homework and doesn’t have time to get into trouble (as it should be). She thinks she needs to start Drivers Ed in January. I don’t know what’s wrong with Idaho, but kids can get their driver’s permit at age 14-1/2. She’s barely out of diapers, for crying out loud! One thing is certain, and that is that we are not teaching her how to drive when there’s snow on the ground. So let’s have some snow, Weatherman, shall we? On the other hand, we still have the mini van and I am itching for a new car.

Zoe has started setting up obstacle courses for Gunny to master, and I am astonished at how high the dog can jump. He will do anything for Zoe Bug. She has taken to making videos of his jumping and we have more video footage of Gunny than any new parent has for miles around. She has gotten pretty good at trimming and editing video as well. Now we just need to set up a You Tube Channel for Gunny and we’ll be set.

Annika is 12 and in seventh grade. She has been wearing a very short haircut this year (lately sporting blue bangs as well) and is regularly mistaken for a boy. She doesn’t help matters when she wears boy clothes and walks like a truck driver, but she doesn’t seem to be bothered in the least by people’s gender identification mistakes. On the contrary, I think it amuses her. We went out to dinner one night and a little boy followed her into the women’s restroom. When he realized where he was he looked at her, alarmed, and exclaimed “We’re not supposed to be in here!” She just stared at him with her stone face, compliments of her father. I’m pretty sure it bothers me more than it bothers her. Before school started, I ordered her a couple t-shirts with #notaboy printed on the front to help people out. Middle school is awkward enough. Why make it harder, right?

I had a job change this year and I left the classroom at the end of the school year. I am now working in the same school district as a Math Specialist for the middle and high schools. It’s a curriculum position where I get to nerd out on data and help teachers. I’m on a teacher schedule (same days off and vacations) without the stress and bringing work home. It has been such a wonderful opportunity for me, and I have learned so much. The only negative is that it’s only a one-year gig. It has the potential to be extended, but there are no guarantees. It’s okay, though. I am so thankful for the time I’ve had to put the focus back where it belongs. I do miss the kids and a lot of things about teaching, but right now I’m just enjoying my free time. I’m finally taking piano lessons, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a very long time.

Clark hasn’t had any changes in his job this year. Last spring we decided to start getting our house ready to sell. We’d like to have some land and eventually Zoe would like a horse. We’ve both been pretty busy working around the house, replacing things and sprucing it up. We were going to try to put our house on the market by fall (just passed) but we’re not sure now when we will. Maybe this summer? There’s no rush now since the bond for our school district finally passed (after four tries), so we are no longer in a rush to get out of this house.

We still have five chickens, two gerbils, one cat, and one dog. Lucy (the cat) has taken over sleeping in Gunny’s bed when he’s not in it. We recently bought him a second bed to keep in the living room because he’s such an old man when it comes to his bedtime. As soon as the sun goes down he starts rolling his eyes and trying to get us to go to bed. Now that he has a bed in the living room, he’s in it all the time. Last night Zoe was yelling at him because he wouldn’t get his gnarly carcass out of his living room bed to go to his bed in her room. His living room bed is much more plush, you see.

As you can see, all is well in Idaho. We are happy and healthy and so thankful for what we have. We wish you all a Merry Christmas and a very happy and healthy New Year.

Love,

Clark, Jill, Zoe, and Annika

With a Little Help from My Friends

Although I can scarcely believe it myself, I am now on summer vacation. Pinch me because it just doesn't seem real to me. A week down already and I haven't even gotten through the acceptance phase. At this rate we'll be back in school by the time I realize I'm free. What a buzz kill that will be.

The picture above is my classroom packed up and shoved into and on top of the shelving in my classroom. This will be the true test of whether or not my contact papered filing cabinet survives the move out into the hall and back when my carpets are cleaned. Honestly, I don't know why they bother because it looks to me like the carpeting in my room is from the 60s. For those of you who weren't around then, we call the 60s "The Olden Days."

I am hereby declaring this summer to remain free of school work. I will not, I repeat, will not go into school in July to start organizing and setting things up. It wouldn't be a problem, I suppose, if I were able to attend to my housewifely and motherly duties in my house simultaneously, but alas, that is not part of my skill set. My house is in a serious state of neglect, and I am determined to make it better. It will not be perfectly clean and decrapified, because I am a realist and other people live with me, but it will be better by the time I trot back into my classroom in August. That's right, August.

I shared this on Instagram a couple weeks ago, and I got some requests to share them on the blog, so I decided to do a quick post on how I thank my awesome Teacher Aides. When I moved to the middle school I lost out on the opportunity to benefit from the abundance of Student Teachers we had at my school. I really missed that, but then sometime last year I learned that I could have eighth graders as Teacher Aides. Immediately, I started trolling for potential victims. I started with one aide at the end of last year, then I had two for the first semester of this year.

And then this last semester I had seven. That's right, seven!  I'm such a Teacher Aide hog. But do you know what? Seven is my lucky number. It's the sweet spot for this math teacher. I didn't have any problems keeping those sweet kids busy and let me tell you, they worked their fannies off. True that.

I was worried that they might start feeling like Cinderella, what with the mountains of stuff I had for them to do, so I started bribing rewarding them for all their hard work.

I started by shopping for little treats. That was fun, let me tell you. At Easter I was all "I have to get chocolate Easter bunnies for my Teacher Aides!" Every time I turned around I was finding new treats for my Sweet Peeps.

Next I premade a bunch of little thank you notes to tape or staple to the treats. I decided that they would always have a treat waiting for them on Mondays when they came in. Monday is such a hard day, this was going to be the bright spot in their day, and in turn, mine as well.

Last, I tucked the treats in this little drawer each Monday so they wouldn't be out in the open, tempting my students. The whole system worked out pretty well, so I plan to repeat it next year.

This is what I did for an end of the year gift and it was super easy to put together. I bought a microwave popcorn bucket and filled it with movie theater sized candy. Then I wrapped the whole shebang in a cellophane bag, tied a ribbon on it, and attached the card with a movie theater gift card glued onto the back.

These small basket gift bags from Michael's are the perfect size for this gift.

I used Kate Hadfield's Movie Night digi kit to put the cards together. It's one of my favorite digi kits and I really, really like her stuff.

This last picture has nothing to do with my awesome Teacher Aides, but it doesn't really warrant a post of its own. The Bunnery Sergeant has been an unwilling participant in the sharing of his doggie bed with Jo Jo.

As you can see, Jo Jo is not the least bit intimidated by His Doggityness, and she is quite comfortable oozing her ample girth all over his bed. I'd like to be able to tell you that she only looks large on account of perspective, but I don't want to lie, she's a pretty healthy girl. More to love and all that.

Poor Gunny Bun Bun, on top of this embarrassing mistreatment, had his little biscuit butt handed to him on a platter by a couple of Boxers a few days ago. He got a wild hair and decided to run for it when I carelessly left the garage door open. I would have chased him myself, but it would be like the Bionic Man in slow motion chasing the Road Runner. Futile.

Instead, Zoe Bug got the honors. She was tee-icked off when she got back.

"Why was I the only one chasing him?! I looked back and Dad turned around and started walking back home. He turned around. What's up with that?!!!" She was all blowing snot and indignant, she was a sight to behold.

It's times like this that remind me how much I love her sweet little heart.

Anyway, when Zoe Bug caught up to Barnacle Brains, he was getting his biscuit butt kicked by a couple of Boxers and yelping and whining. Thankfully the Boxers' owners pulled them off, and Zoe was able to walk him back home with his tail between his legs. For the last couple of days he's been limping around the house like a decrepit old man.

We're all "And did you learn your lesson, Mr. Poochy Pants? Chasing out of here like you know where you're going. Just remember, it's a great big world out there Mr. Naughty Pants."

He totally knows what we're talking about too because he has the good sense to look ashamed of himself.

However, don't ever let anyone tell you that Labs are intelligent. In his world, every day is a new day, if you know what I mean.

Snow Day

Last week we had our second snow day in two weeks, and most years we're lucky to even get one. For this last snow day I was secretly praying for a blizzard to concentrate over the top of our Superintendent's house in order to motivate him to call off school. I don't know what his deal is, but he doesn't give out the snow days for just any ol' storm.

Lucky for us, it worked.

Peanut Head decided that since we had a snow day, then by dang it, he was going to have a snow day too. So we all laid around in bed until the crack of 9:30. It was awesome.

When we got up, we learned we had a low battery in our fire alarm. We have one of those annoying talking alarms that repeats every 30 seconds, "BEE-EEE-P! Danger! Fire. Evacuate outside."

I believe the purpose is not to gently remind you to change the batteries, but instead to drive you to Do It Right Now lest you fling yourself off a bridge from the monotony of the alarmist drilling her cacophony into your brain.

Our sweet little Gunny Bunny did not like the fire alarm one little bit. He cowered in the corner with his tail between his legs, and he wouldn't even walk down the hall because then he would have to walk by the jabbering alarm.

Peanut Head said that if we ever have a real fire, one of us is going to have to carry the dog out, because he won't move when he hears the fire alarm.

It's ironic that we named him Gunnery Sergeant. One gun shot and he'd be reduced to a quivering ball of mush, drowning in his own drool. He's quite the Delicate Flower.

Mr. Bun Bun has many fears. For example, heater vents. He will not get anywhere near a heater vent, blowing or not.  To illustrate, Peanut Head, the love of the Bunnery Sergeant's life, has a heater vent on the floor of his side of the bed. Gunny will army crawl under the bed to get to his man, and back, to avoid walking by the vent. And he's not as little as he once was.

At least we have some sort of regular rounding up of the dust bunnies with him crawling hither and tither under our bed.

Once we made it outside we had a lot of digging out to do. We got 8+ inches last weekend. We spent some time on the chicken coop too, digging out. The girls have to be able to get to it to feed and water the chickens.

The girls came out to see what all the commotion was about. They've pretty much stayed inside the coop for the last several weeks because it's been so cold. They're looking skinny and taxed, just trying to keep themselves warm.

They went on strike for about three weeks, not that I can complain, and didn't lay one egg for us. They just started laying again, but we're still only getting one every couple of days instead of three to five eggs every day.

Peanut Head put a light bulb in their coop to try to take some of the chill off during the weeks of negative temps.

It's difficult to focus on the task at hand when some people are easily distracted.

Poor Gunny. He's not the brightest bulb in the box.

I'm not sure what he thought was under there.

But I don't think he found it.

These two spent a lot of time rolling around in the snow, not being very productive. Thankfully our nice neighbor sent some of his work crew over to help us dig out of our driveway.

Now we're ready for more snow.

Bring it.

Pimp My Crib

Gunny recently moved into his newly pimped out crib. Peanut Head started making this souped up chalet towards the end of winter when Mr. Naughty Pants ate that door jamb. I took one look at the door jamb, and right away it was no longer too cold for His Hairiness to be outside during the day. Suddenly he found himself out of doors in Idaho temps. Brrrrr.

Peanut Head, being the nice guy that he is, set to work on the new doggie digs right away. Gunny was very helpful, lending lots of moral support out in the cold garage.

Check this out, Peanut Head gave His Doggitiness insulation. Geesh. I think that stuff is better than the stuff in my house. My house with the missing door jamb.

Just in case you thought I was anal, Peanut Head didn't cut any corners for Gunny Man.

Yep, that's siding you see there. What happened to the plywood Snoopy house? I thought dog houses were just slapped together with wood scraps in an afternoon, not planned out and cost adjusted in excruciating detail.

Peanut Head even had a little brainstorming session with Gunny, wherein they discussed in great detail how much growing was going to ensue in later months. Inseams were measured, then multiplied by percentage speculations based on age in months vs. average growing season for canine persons.

I don't really know what I'm saying. I witnessed some things and made some guesses about the actual math of it all. But there was measuring and too many nauseating growth projections. I was consulted and, always happy to help, I did some vigorous eye rolling. I mean enthusiastic.

Gunny even had to hang for a bit, just to make sure it was right-sized. And I think Peanut Head was crossing his fingers that Gunny didn't end up turning into that freakishly big red dog, Clifford.

And this? This is the ultimate insult in my world. Gunny Man has a foyer. And yes, I'll admit, I was a little tempted to hang wallpaper and shop for an entry table and lamp, but dang it, I don't even have a foyer in my door-jamb-missing-house. I have a rug for people to step on. 

You step into my house and immediately you are in my living room. It's that cozy.

There is no foyer.

Peanut Head tried to pacify me by explaining that this is really some sort of submarine-like compartment to seal off the frigid cold and wind. Gunny steps into his foyer, shakes off his delicate little doggie legs, then proceeds into the next compartment, the formal living room.

After explaining why Gunny gets a foyer and I'm still waiting for the door jamb replacement, Peanut Head had the nerve to hand me a paint brush.

Can you believe that?

Of course, only the best for my little Doggie-Dita. I snatched Peanut Head's faded camo beret-hat-thing, the one he wore when he was a Grunt, and headed off to Home Depot for a little color-matching session.

I love camo. I'm thinking I'm going to try to turn this into a piece of digi paper since I haven't been able to find any digi camo supplies anywhere.

Peanut Head made me do the Gunnery Sargeant insignia. He printed a picture for me and everything.

And then he held a chipotle chile pepper to my head again.

And Gunny laughed at me. The nerve.

Just so you know, and because maybe I'm a little bitter, Gunny is a chicken butt. He's such a chicken butt that he was barking so ferociously at a plastic grocery bag in our backyard this afternoon, that I thought he was going to give himself an aneurysm.

And because you know I'm naughty, I ran out and coaxed him to investigate a little closer with me, then when we got right up on it, I shook it at him and chased him with it.

And I think he wet himself.

Oopsie.