My Peoples Are (Almost) Hardcore

So we went camping this weekend.  Yes we did!  Even though my peoples knew it was going to be cold and raining and snowing, they insisted on doing this thing.  This is hardcore.  Boss says that if they have to pop up the camper to get it ready for the winter, then they will be doing it in a nice place and staying inside of it.  I suggested Arizona.  Boss merely laughed and then explained that there was the "electricity" word at the park and that there would be a warm furnace and lots of blankets.  So this is almost hardcore, I guess.  But I am a dog with very little hair and a great fondness for heat, so I was not terribly excited to see the "snow" word.  But I was outvoted.  And the snow came anyway.

So it is already not looking good for me.  It is the "snow & rain" words and we are not even to the place where my peoples will park the van and leave me unattended for what seems like the longest half hour ever while they go eat babies the size of burritos.  What?  Oh.  Sorry, that is burritos the size of babies.  Either one sounds delicious to me.  What?  Oh.  Boss says that sort of comment is why dogs such as me are not allowed in Ontario.  For reals.  Go look it up here and scroll down to the "import" section.  This is going to ruin my super awesome vacation next fall because my peoples are going to go without me now.  I am sadness.

Oh but now I am happy again!  Look at how beautiful and handsome and robust and beautiful and handsome and robust I am!  What?  Yes.  I did mean to say that twice.  It is because I met two super awesomeness fantastic DNR officers on this dock and they declared me beautiful and handsome and robust.  Oh, and happy.  Yes, I was great happiness to be meeting very fine DNR officers with such pleasing and discerning taste in dogs such as myself.  You can not find a more beautiful and handsome and robust and happy dog anywhere else.  Especially not in Ontario, but I am not bitterness about that at all.  AT ALL.

This is the water of Mille Lacs Lake splashing on the rocks of Mille Lacs Lake where the Father Hennepin State Park is.  Yes, I understand that "Mille Lacs" means One Thousand Lakes in French, so it is actually One Thousand Lakes Lake, but I am guessing it was probably named by people in Ontario, so I am not surprised by this foolishness.  What?  Oh.  Boss explains to me that friend-the-gazelle lives in Ontario.  And to not be offensive to friend-the-gazelle.  And furthermore it was not every person in Ontario to make that silly rule, it was only a few and they found it easier to ban dogs such as myself than shoot stupid people with dog such as myself.  What?  Oh, yes yes yes.  I understand that shooting people is probably a little bit of an exaggerationism, but I was making a point.  I think.

Oh look I am adorableness again.  Well, I am blending in and hard to see, but it looks like I am finding a delicious snack of something dead washed up on the shore of the One Thousand Lakes Lake.  Like a dead ----  What?  Boss is giving me the frowny forehead face and is making emphatic arm and hand gestures.  Oh.  Boss says I am to drop the whole Ontario + ban of dogs such as me sub-topic on the immediatelyness.  Or there will be NO pepperoni at pizza making time.  Well.  I am perfectly willing to be bribed so I guess I will not be mentioning ----

At this point of our hike Boss got a little girly (please note there is not rain or snow or anything unpleasant OF ANY KIND in this picture).  Boss started saying things like "love being here with you" and "I am so glad we came" and "I do not feel bad the boys did not want to go with us" and I was looking at Boss with love and devotion because of that but she was not making eye contact with me because she was so busy staring and making googly eyes at Big One.  Hello!  I am here.  Right here.  Down heeeeeeerrrrreeeeeee....

And now Boss sits on a rock and calls it a photo opportunity.  I jumped up on the rock but did not like it one bit.  No I did not.  Boss did not understand why but she was trying to make me sit and have you ever put your wiener on a cold cold cold rock?  No?  Well, I do not recommend it.

When we got back to the camper, Player and Talker were in the same place as when we left them.  They both read a lot of books and did not move much.  They were very much happiness about this, especially because they ate many of the "pop-tart" things.  They are poisonous to dogs, they said, and so ate them all up themselves to save me from certain destruction.  Which I am not going to comment on and divert this caption to the forbidden topic.  But it certainly would flow nicely.  I am pretty much awesomeness at stringing many complex and complicated topics together in one smoothly flowing dialog.

Let us just say that when some of the eggs get slightly frozen in the cooler I get to eat them and it turns out I adore chomping them up.  With every inch of my ferociously dangerous teeth.  I should be banned from eating them.  What?  Oh.  Boss is getting very angry.  She is paying very much attention to my typingism.  "NO MORE," says Boss.  Okay.  So here is the foods on this plate:  deviled eggs, apples & dip of apples, crackers, pepper jack cheese, and jalapeno cheddar sausage.  This is what my peoples ate for dinner.  There was much and great happiness with this.

When it gets dark, Boss puts the very sexy headlamp on and makes yarn things.  I thought the "sexy" word meant something a little different than this, but I am merely a simple dog and probably do not understand quite a bit of things, actually.

It is snowing!  Boss is great excitedness about this, but Big One is the "practical" words and says it will not be the most funnest thing ever to put away the camper.  Because Boss is hardcore and Big One is only almost hardcore.

Oh look!  There I am, hiding in the van.  Turns out I am not hardcore at all.  And Player is almost hardcore because he has a cold and was sent to keep me company in the van of warm and dry.  And Talker, Big One, and Boss are the most hardcore and wet and cold and grinning like crazy Minnesota peoples in the snow.  Talker ended up getting so soggy and wetness and cold that he took off all his clothes in the van and changed into something dry.  I mean that Talker put on dry clothes, not that he actually turned into something else.  Like a... a... warm beach in Arizona.  What?  There is no warm beach in Arizona?  Perhaps you are mistaken and we should go look.

Boss says this is a great way to end the pictures of our trip to the One Thousand Lakes Lake.  It is snowing and my peoples are happy and the camper is (almost) ready for winter.  Apparently it has to be opened up again so it can dry out.  But Boss says that can be done in the driveway.  What?  I know.  Apparently this trip was just for fun after all.

Epic Paper Bits Flying Everywhere, or May 2013 Teeny-Pretty-Paper-Picture-Story Pages

So we will doing some math stuffses now.

Boss got the April teeny-pretty-paper-picture-story pages done on the lastest day of June.  And now today Boss has finished the May teeny-pretty-paper-picture-story pages.  That is seven days.  Which is amazingness as that turns out to be 3.14 teeny-pretty-paper-picture-story pages per day which makes me curiously hungry for pie.  (This is a math joke.  Do not be sad if you do not get it.  Math is actually quite hard.)

So now I will be doing more math because I am more than just a simple dog.  I am a simple dog who knows how to count.  And I will claim that counting is math and I will be right because it is and I am.  Plus I am allowed the "benefit of doubt" words because I am just a dog and any attempt at the math stuffses should be met with admiration and love and cupcakes.

I have been counting the number of things that Boss puts in the teeny-pretty-paper-picture-story pages, which makes me think that Boss thinks some things are more important than others (there is a point to be made here... wait for it).

1. Boss:  14 times (I suppose this is acceptable, as Boss is making the teeny-pretty-paper-picture-story pages from the pictures that she took)
2. Food:  7 times (again, acceptable... and in fact, the more times Boss takes pictures of the food, the more times the food is left unwatched for just the right opportunity for me to eat it)
3. Big One:  6 times (at first thought I know you would think Boss would like me better than Big One, but I am marginally less smelly than Big One and as we all know, smelly wins points with Boss!)
4. Talker and flowers:  tied at 5 times each (okay, now I am seriously sadness at the fact that flowers are more better than me, except that now this explains all the yelling and frowny forehead faces when I wander into the flower garden of Boss)
5. Grey and friends-of-Boss:  tied at 4 times each (finally I am on the list and I actually feel pretty good about this because Boss absolutely adores the friends-of-Boss and will not shut up about them which leads me to believe that friends-of-Boss probably are tired of hearing how wonderful I am too)
6. Player:  3 times (oh, do not be sad, Player, because I love you possibly more than Boss does and I would be ashamed if I was her for not featuring you more often in her pages)
7. Mr. Larry:  2 times (I think if he fed me more cookies, he would have been featured more often... just saying)
8. Yarn things:  1 time (thank goodness)
9. The bat crazy cat and this new cat:  no times.  Yes, that is right.  No times.  I am doing the "fist pump" words here now.  HAHAHA!  I am featured a hundred million gabillion zillion infinity more times than the bat crazy cat and this new cat because you can not divide by zero and get a reasonable answer.  No, you can not.

May 2013 Teeny-Pretty-Paper-Picture-Story Pages

All My Peoples Left the Country and Then Came Back

Yes, it is true.  My peoples and their peoples all left the country.  This means they put me and the bat crazy cat and this new cat in the kennel place and then after a little while came back and got us.  It does not seem to matter what they call this sort of behavior, to us it is always the same.  This time they called it the "leaving the country" words.  Sometimes they call it the "going to Florida" words.  Sometimes they call it the "we are leaving and not taking you with us" words.  And they always act so sad to do this.  And so happy to come back.  And to show everyone pictures.  It seems that they could do all the picture things and skip the kennel place entirely.  Now, I do enjoy that kennel place, but I enjoy being with my peoples more.  Even if all they do is talk about their trip to Belize.

Look!  It is mom-of-Boss, brother-of-Boss, Big One, Talker, Boss, and Player!  They are sitting on very comfortable chairs while they drink the world famous Jet Bar rum punch and wait for their little airplane to take them to an even smaller airport.  Boss says there are 6 gates at this airport.  And that the Jet Bar burned down right after they left to come home.  Brother-of-Boss was unsupervised for an hour although he claims he did not do it.  I do not know if brother-of-Boss can be trusted because he does not feed me cookies.  I encourage him to do trust-building exercises with me the next time he sees me.  Oh, and look at how pale and unpeeling all the skin of my peoples is.  This will change.  And that sentence was foreshadowing.

The first breakfast on the island.  Boss had the priority of taking pictures of food and not the island, so you must wait for that.  This is the "suspense" word.  (I am auditing a writing class so I am learning all of the important parts of story parts.  You will be learning right along with me.  You are much excitedness about that, I think!)

My favorite cookie sharing person is Mr. Larry.  He is going with mom-of-Boss and Willy to find cookies to bring back to me.  It will be a great adventure on the high seas!  Or in the high seas.  Or the low seas.  I am not sure, actually.   However, I am certain that Mr. Larry and mom-of-Boss are going to go under the water to find me cookies.  They are called "sea biscuits".  And that is a factual statement.

Boss caught a fish!  Boss said she was sorry but she ate it and did not bring it back to me to roll on. 

Talker and Player learn how to poke their fingers into fishes.  Talker is not so sure.  Player is totally cool with it.  Or, that is what it looks like anyway.  I think you have to poke your fingers into the fish so you can wave them around and make screaming noises while people try to take your picture.

Player.  Adorableness. 

Brother-of-Boss and Reggie catch little tiny fish to put on big hooks to catch monsterous sized fish.  Like the very scary killer ninja sergeant major fish or the incredibly vicious starfish.  Boss and Big One are still giggling over the funny things that Mr. Larry and mom-of-Boss said while they were sitting around drinking rum punch on the island.  Apparently mom-of-Boss said "I tell you what.  They.  Are.  Vicious."  And she was talking about starfish.  I know, right?  You are impressed with my ability to quote and cite sources.

Mr. Larry.  He is also called the "air sucking dog" words and the "odd-shaped bottom dweller" words.  I do not quite understand if this is good or bad.  But he does look delightfully chewy.

And this is mom-of-Boss.  Also delightfully chewy and probably running in fear from vicious starfish.

This is Big One.  He likes rum.  And rum punch.  And drinking it.

Big One and Player snorkel around the island.  They see lots of fish and Player very loudly hums the "Empire Strikes Back" theme song through his snorkel.  Boss says you can hear it when you get in the water and it is the "ominous" and "foreboding" words.  Boss is very good with her describing words.

This is a baby barracuda.  Apparently very tasty grilled with barbeque sauce. 

Boss does not like to snorkel in deep water with big fish but likes shallow water and little fish that sometimes end up in her swim shirt.  There is no explaining Boss sometimes.  But this is where she liked to hang out and take pictures of things that did not move very much.

Talker.  He told Boss he would not burn and got crabby about not listening.  And then Talker learned his lesson.  His skin peeled right off!  (And it still is, and it tastes delicious.  Do not tell anyone he is feeding it to me.  I could get into a lot of trouble.  Dogs are not supposed to eat peoples.)

Apparently brother-of-Boss sat here and waiting for the show to start every day.  I do not understand this, but I will quote some more for you as an illustrative method:  "Waiting for the show?"  "Yup."  Hm.  This was not really that helpful after all.  But it is another way to tell the story and people seem to like dialog.

The scary deep water that Boss did not enjoy.

And squid!  Boss was moderately happy about that.  But still not a fan of the deeper water snorkeling.  (Big One wishes to point out that it was maybe 6 - 8 feet deep.  But that is plenty deep enough for Boss and she did not like it, not one bit.)

This is Player doing the very delightful dog paddle over a very large brain coral.  (By the way, very is a very overused word and should be avoided lest you sound very not smart and very unable to come up with very descriptive words.  But I am a very independent dog and also very simple and I will use very a very lot if I want.)

Brother-of-Boss draws pictures of what he sees.  Boss says brother-of-Boss has a camera but this is how he rolls. 

Mom-of-Boss and Mr. Larry get their chewy delicious skins on and go back into the sea to find my cookies.

These are lobster and not cookies.  But I think they must be delicious based on the look on the face of Boss when she talks about the fantastic dinner they had that day.

And tortillas are made in a blue bucket by magic.  They were very much wonderfulness and Talker and Player would fight when there was only one left to eat.  Boss would smack them on the head and make them share.  Or give it to Big One.  This is a very good way to teach manners, says Boss.  Or at least a different way to teach manners.

Brother-of-Boss sleeps.  Because 11 hours a night is not enough.

Big One and Boss are on a little tiny island in the middle of the ocean...

... with everyone else.  And they seem to have all the important things like chairs and rum punch.  And a boat.  And they all laughed about something called a "three hour tour" but they were only on the little island for 45 minutes.  (This is the "cultural reference" words.  You would do well to Google that reference if you are confused.  The extra knowledge provided by the "cultural reference" words are supposed to give extra depth and meaning to the story.)

Player on the tiny island with what looks like MY COOKIE!!!!!!!

Awwww....  Big One and Boss.  And yes, that is Boss in a dress.  Maybe the world is going to end after all!  That statement may or may not be foreshadowing.  If it is not, then it is humor.  We will not know which one it is until the world actually ends.  Or does not.