Animal Insting

I am very happy to tell you that Mom came and rescued us from Pooches' Paradise yesterday afternoon, just in time for Supper of Dogs.  We were SO glad to see her, even though we had an okay time at the kennel.  It's just not the same as being home with Mom, though.  And as soon as we got to our house, we all ran outside to the back yard because there's just no place like home to potty!  Then all evening we mostly slept because we were so worn out from all the excitement and stress and worrying about whether Mom was really going to come home like she said she would.

Anyway, now I will tell you about Mom's trip because she took a bunch of photos and she told us what all she did.  Mom stayed at the house of her two friends, Uncle Joe and Uncle Tom.  They used to be professors, but now they are retired.  Uncle Joe taught literature classes, and Mom was his student.  Uncle Tom taught piano, but Mom was not his student because she did not take any piano classes in college.  Here's a photo of Uncle Tom and Uncle Joe in their kitchen:

On Friday after she got to Fayette, Mom went with her two professor friends and did a bunch of stuff that did not involve dogs, so I can't imagine how she could have found it interesting.  And at night, she had to sleep in a room all by herself, with NO DOGS in it.  Mom said it was very strange to just leave stuff all over the floor and the bed and not worry about any dogs chewing on it.  I wish I could have been there so I could have chewed on something!  And also I would like to run around in Uncle Joe and Uncle Tom's house because I have heard that it is a very big and interesting house.  Gabe told me that because he has been there.  And Trixie went there, too, but I never got to go there, which doesn't seem fair at all.

Anyway, on Saturday, there was a Big Parade, and Mom took a bunch of pictures.  There were two marching bands.  One was from the college, which is called CMU, and that stands for Central Methodist University.  Here's a picture of that band:

The other band was from Fayette High School, and here's a picture of them:

Mom said there was only one dog in the whole parade, which seems very sad to me.  The one dog was a black lab, and he was wearing a red bandana, but Mom didn't take a picture of him.  Instead, she took a picture of a dog who was watching the parade with his people.  But you can see that this dog is scared of the parade, because he has tucked his tail, and he has given a calming signal by turning away from the parade.

I think if I had been there, I would have been scared, too, and I might have had to flatten myself against the ground so that I wouldn't be killed by the drums or the big, scary fire truck!

But here's the most exciting thing that happened to Mom:  she got STUNG BY A BEE!  This has not happened to Mom for a long, long time, like maybe 30 years or something.  And the way it happened yesterday was that Mom was just standing around talking to some of the other old people she went to school with, and she was wearing her jacket because it was kind of cold out.  And this jacket is bright yellow with black trim, so Mom calls it her "goldfinch jacket." (A goldfinch is a bird which is reportedly very yummy to eat, although I have never eaten one personally.)  So anyway, Mom was just innocently standing there, and this bee kept buzzing around, and it landed on her jacket sleeve, but she made it go away.  But it kept coming around, maybe because it thought Mom was a big, giant yellow flower.  And then a little later, the bee landed on her right ear, and when she tried to get it off, it stung her on the ear!

Mom said it hurt a whole bunch, and Mom was all kind of grumpy about how much it hurt and how long it kept hurting, because it still hurt after she got home and rescued us from the kennel.  And it still hurt when she went to bed, although it's mostly better this morning.  Luckily, Mom is not allergic to bee stings, so she didn't die from it or anything.  She just got annoyed and grumpy.  One time Mom got stung on the butt by a bumble bee because she sat down on it!  Ha!  I think this is a funny story, but Mom says it was not funny at the time.