A recent anthology that was particularly fun to work on was Tails of Wonder and Imagination, the cat-themed anthology we did earlier this year with Ellen Datlow. After all, it was an opportunity to work with Ellen, an editor that I’ve admired since the days when I would sneakily smuggle copies of Omni (the infamous Penthouse-owned SF magazine) around my ultra-conservative parochial high school, concealing issues, their provocative covers removed, in backpacks and behind other, more acceptable books and magazines. And there are so many great cat stories out there. As we say in the cover copy, “No other creature has inspired so many authors to take pen to page. Mystery, horror, science fiction, and fantasy stories have all been written about cats.” Tails of Wonder and Imagination is absolutely a textbook genre-definer: any modern SF, fantasy, or horror story about cats that matters is included between its covers.

But I’m not really a cat person. Allergies are a big part of that. Sure, I’ve had a few awesome cats in my life, including Jones, my orange tomcat named for the cat in Ridley Scott’s Alien, and Angus McKitten (later renamed Paris), a little grey fellow who liked to sleep on top of my head when I was living in Pacific Beach in the late 1980s. But at the heart of it, as anybody who’s met Maddie knows, I’m a dog person.

Since Tails of Wonder and Imagination began landing on bookstore shelves last month, I’ve received numerous e-mail messages half-jokingly saying, “the cat anthology’s great, but when are you (and Maddie) putting out a dog anthology?”

So In the interest of fun and fairness, I’ve put together a hypothetical dog anthology, Genre Fiction is Going to the Dogs, a virtual anthology focusing on the last half-century’s best SF, fantasy, and horror stories about dogs. I’ve modeled this collection on The Fireside Book of Dog Stories, Jack Goodman’s 1943 Simon and Schuster anthology, which included stories by Jack London, James Thurber, E. B. White, D. H. Lawrence, O. Henry, Rudyard Kipling, Hugh Walpole, and Lord Dunsany.

Odds are, Genre Fiction is Going to the Dogs will never be anything more than a hypothetical anthology, this is just the product of a few hours of musing and a bit of searching around the web. My intention is merely to share some stories with you. Some will make you laugh, some will make you cry, some will make you mad, but all of them will, I hope, make you think. Please keep in mind that I haven’t secured proper permissions to the stories below*, and that links generally point to online versions of the stories (including podcasts) or to publications where you can find them. And I’m sure I’ve missed some great dog tales, so feel free to make suggestions in comments.

Genre Fiction is Going to the Dogs
Table of Contents
Dick, Philip K. – “Roog”
Simak, Clifford D. – “Desertion” (CITY excerpt)
Bruce Boston – “One Trick Dog”
Bradbury, Ray – “The Emissary”
Cady, Jack – “The Lady With the Blind Dog”
Resnick, Mike – “The Last Dog”
Vinge, Vernor – “The Blabber”
Sullivan, Jonathon – “How I Mounted Goldie, Saved My Partner Lori, and Sniffed Out The People’s Justice”
Carrol, Jonathan – Friend’s Best Man
Denton, Bradley – “Sergeant Chip”
Arnason, Eleanor – “The Dog’s Story”
Frederick, Carl – “Concentration of Dogs”
Warren, Kaaron – “The Gaze Dogs of Nine Waterfall”
Ellison, Harlan – “A Boy and His Dog”
Bacigalupi, Paolo – “The People of Sand and Slag”
Kress, Nancy – “Laws of Survival”
Clark, A. Vincent – “Last & First Dogs”
Kersh, Gerald – “Shaggy Yellow Dog”
Swanwick, Michael – “The Dog Said Bow-Wow”
Pratt, Tim – “The Dog Boys”
Barlow, Gareth – “The Canine Intent”
O’Neall, Kevin – “My Dog”
Goonan, Kathleen Ann – “Memory Dog”
Langan, John – “City of the Dog”
Vonnegut, Kurt – “Tom Edison’s Shaggy Dog”

—
* If you are the author of one of these stories, and it improperly appears online, please let me know, and I’ll sever the link immediately.

“Nope,” I said. This was early this morning, and I sat at my desk, catching up on e-mail while she lay in her bed behind me.

“Over easy?” continued Maddie. “Or an omelet? Runny side up or poached or boiled. With bacon. Or, you know, that fake bacon stuff you guys keep around.”

I shook my head. “Double nope.”

“What about toast? I could really go for some toast. Sourdough, with butter. Or wheat. I like wheat. Or I could have a bagel. Or pancakes. With blueberries. Or French toast. With peanut butter!”

“Still nope. We’ve been over this. You know the rules. As of midnight, no food or water until after you get home from the vet.”

“No food or water?”

“Nope.”

“None at all?”

“Nope.”

“That’s not fair,” Maddie complained. “So what about coffee?” she asked about a minute later. “If I can’t have breakfast, I should at least be able to have coffee.”

“Nope,” I answered, turning around. “No coffee. No tea. No juice. No milk. No soymilk. No water. Trust me, you don’t want to get sick at the vet.”

“Oh, foo!” Maddie harrumphed, flattening herself out in her bed, pouting. After a few moments she spoke up again, saying, “What about espresso?”

So, Maddie’s seeing a new vet.

Long story short, Maddie’s previous doctor, Chuck Galvin, has been dealing for several years with the repercussions of questionable claims made by a disgruntled former employee. In November of 2009, the California Veterinary Board (in, IMHO, a classic “wheels of the justice system run amok, crushing the innocent” decision) decided to revoke his license to practice. Hopefully, when Dr. Galvin becomes eligible to file for reinstatement in November 2010, saner heads will prevail.

But Maddie needed her shots this month, not to mention a couple of other things that we wanted to have checked out (a couple big bumps and an ear that’s been bothering her), so we took a friend’s recommendation and booked her in to see Dr. Kat at The Country Vet in Novato.

Dr. Kat first saw Maddie on Saturday, and upon examining her, determined that we needed to bring her back in to remove one of the two bumps and so that she could clean out Maddie’s yeasty, infected ears (yes, both of ‘em). Minor surgery, but still, surgery. That followup appointment was today. I dropped Maddie off at 9:30, planning to pick her up after five tonight. But Dr. Kat called at about one-thirty, saying that Maddie was all ready to go (and ready to go), so I drove back down to Novato, picked up Jennifer from work, and we headed over to pick up Little Miss, who has to endure a course of antibiotics and wear an Elizabethan collar (also called an “e-collar,” but that sounds like something from a cyberpunk story, so I’m sticking with the more formal “Elizabethan”) for the next ten-to-fourteen days. “How do you feel, Miss Maddie?”

“Like my head’s a lightbulb. But maybe that’s just the pain medicine.”

But let me back things up a couple of weeks. Randy sent me a e-mail on the 14th, asking “if you adopted a dog that shared a name with a former dog, would you keep the name or would you change the name…?”

“Dogs are named what dogs are named,” I said to Randy the next day, after verifying that this wouldn’t be Cooper Two: Electric Boogaloo. “And Charles the Second, when you sound it out, is a regal name.”

Charlie had been Charlie for three years, Randy explained. He belonged to a couple that had since become a trio, then a quartet. Charlie got jealous, acted out, and had been relegated to living in the garage. Recognizing that Charlie would probably be happier elsewhere, the family decided to offer him up for adoption.

That Saturday, Randy drove an hour and a half to Marysville in order to meet the little badger hunter. And the rest is history. Instant bond, reinforced by the long drive home. Charlie fit right in. The sound of tiny Dackel feet has been restored to the church next door.

“How do you do? How do you do?”

“Ooooh, so happy, so happy to meet you,” said Charlie. “And you smell good, too.”

“Oh, that’s just great,” said Maddie…

“He just had to be a butt sniffer.”

“You lookin’ at me?”

* SMOOCH! *

“What? It was a manly sort of kiss. You’re just jealous.”

Maddie, sprawled across her bed, cracked open an eye.

“What do you want to do today,” I asked.

“That’s right,” Maddie yawned, stretching. “It’s my birthday. That makes me…” she calculated. “Twelve. Ish.”

“Yep. I’m afraid that makes you a tween.”

“Wazzat?”

“Marketing demographic. Nevermind. Just don’t start obsessing over sparkling vampires.” I sat down at my desk, checked e-mail. Finding nothing too pressing, I turned back to Maddie. “So, what do you want to do with the day?”

“I dunno, What were you planning?”

“I figured I’d take a nice, long walk, since we’ve got a break in the rain. Then drive down to work.”

Maddie stretched, stepping out of bed. “Can I come with?”

“To work? Sure.”

“I meant for the walk.” Maddie scratched an ear. “Can we go to Walnut Park?”

“Sounds good.”

“Can I go on the slide?” She followed me out to the living room, where I gathered up her harness, lead, and sweater.

“It’s your day, Maddie,” I said. “Let’s go have some fun.”

We walked to the park, enjoying the crisp and rainless day. And sure enough, Maddie went on the slide.

“Six years, Maddie,” I asked. “What do you want to do next?”

Maddie scratched an ear, considering the question. “I think I wanna go on the swings next.”

Five Years… 2009

Four Years… 2008

Three Years… 2007

Two Years… 2006

One Year… 2005

First pics… 2004

“Thanks for sticking around, folks!” says Maddie.

“Hello there, sleepyhead,” I said, as she climbed up her steps and settled onto the couch nearby. “About time you woke up.”

Maddie yawned. “I’ve been awake for a while. Thinking.”

I scratched her head. “What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing. Like I said, just thinking about stuff. It was warm, and I was listening to the quiet; listening to you moving around, mopping the kitchen. It smells like oranges, by the way. Listening to you play music. And thinking. Just thinking. What are you up to?”

“Reading. Work stuff.” I picked up a piece of jerky from the tabletop, broke it in half, and offered it to Maddie. She ate both halves, one after the other. “You want me to read to you?”

“Okay,” said Maddie, closing her eyes. “A story sounds good right now.”

So I read her a story. Then another. As we sat there by the fireplace, me reading, Maddie resting, I’d stroke her head, smoothing back her hair, her ears, listening to her breathing. I finished the second story, took a final, gritty sip of my now-tepid coffee. I coughed, cleared my throat. “I think I need to rest my voice,” I said.

“That’s okay,” said Maddie. I read the next story to myself. Then another. Maddie napped. Then woke. Then watched the fireplace flicker. “It’s quiet,” she said. “No barking.”

“Yeah, I know,” I replied. “I was just thinking that myself. You want to go for a walk?”

“Yeah,” said Maddie. “It’s too quiet around here.”

We wandered up to Wickersham Park, taking the scenic route, stopping frequently so Maddie could sniff at telephone poles, at trees. At the park, I took a few pictures, then sat on a bench, picking Maddie up so she could sit next to me. We sat awhile, listening to the cars driving past, the crows dropping walnuts from the power lines into the street, the distant hum of civilization. Maddie sighed, looked up at me, sighed again. I scratched her head. “So,” I asked. “What’s really on your mind.”

We watched in silence as the wind dispersed a pile of leaves. Maddie looked up at me, then back out at the park.

“Is it Cooper?”

“Yeah,” she answered. “How’d you know?”

“It’s the elephant in the room.”

Maddie cocked her head sideways at this. “We’re not in a room. We’re in the park. And Cooper isn’t an elephant, she’s a Dachshund.” Maddie paused, thinking. “Er… was a Dachshund. Past tense.” Maddie paused again, sighed again, and we watched as the wind moved its pile of leaves a little further down the path.

“What’s an elephant got do do with it, anyway?” asked Maddie after a long pause.

“It’s an idiom. It means something obvious, something you can’t ignore, but something you can’t find a way to talk about. Something uncomfortable.”

“Like death.”

“Yes, Maddie. Like death.”

“I can’t believe she’s gone,” Maddie said. “I mean, she’s always lived next door. Always.”

I nodded.

“I mean, I know she was sick,” continued Maddie. “Really, really, sick. She smelled sick. She’s been sick since Charlie… since Charlie. I just didn’t realize…” Maddie broke off, sat there. I stroked her head. “I didn’t realize…” she said again, stopping again.

“Didn’t realize that you’d come home from work one day and she’d be gone?”

“Yeah. I thought she was going to the doctor. I thought the doctor would fix everything. That’s what doctors do, right?”

“Most of the time. But they’re only human. Sometimes all a doctor can do is try and make the pain go away. Try and relieve suffering.”

“I feel guilty,” said Maddie. “For avoiding her, I mean. Because she smelled sick. She was my friend, and I saw her while everybody was here for Christmas, but I avoided her because she smelled sick, and because I didn’t want to get sick.”

“I know. I understand.” I stroked Maddie’s ears. “I’ve been there.”

“I just wish I’d said something to her. I just wish I’d known. I wish I had another day, so I could say something, anything. This sucks,” insisted Maddie. “Death sucks. Stupid elephant.”

I nodded. “I agree with you there.”

“Why do all my friends have to… have to go away? Why do they have to… to die? Charlie, and Meow, and Jones. And now, Cooper. It makes me feel empty inside. Why?”

I shrugged. “I wish I had an answer for you, Maddie. I really do. That’s just the way life is, just one of the rules. One day, the ride’s got to end.”

“That sucks. Those rules suck.”

“Yeah. But that’s just the way it is.”

“Are you going to die? Is Jennifer? Is Grandma?”

“Everybody dies, Maddie.”

“Am I?”

“Everybody.”

“But what happens? I mean, after we die?”

“Nobody really knows. Maybe something. Maybe nothing.”

“That really, really sucks. I hate those rules. I hate it when my friends go away. I hate how empty it makes me feel.” Maddie looked at me, accusingly. “You can’t go away. You can’t die. You’re not allowed. New rules.” She tapped my leg with a paw.

“I’m not planning to, Maddie. At least, not any time soon. I plan to be around, to take care of you and Jennifer, for a long, long time.”

Maddie moved closer, set her head in my lap. “You better,” she said. And so we sat there, in the middle of the park, me petting Maddie’s head, holding onto the moment, the two of us watching as the wind blew the leaves a little further down the path.

For Cooper. 1/5/2010. Rest in peace.

It was tough, but I’ve narrowed the selection down to the sixty-four best, including the one below. Click on through to check out the full selection at Photobucket.

Jennifer hit her goal of a hundred books read in 2009. Sneaking the last one under the wire on the 31st of December.

I made it to forty-five books. Look me up on Goodreads if you want the full list. I didn’t count every single thing I read, particularly short stories (I think I’ll be tracking those separately this year). But I did end up with a sizable fistful of nickels, since I’d managed to drop one of those into the jar nearly every time I read a manuscript submitted to NSB.

Sometimes, a book that left enough of an impression on me that I’d write the title on the corresponding dollar bill, a practice I’m considering applying to every book this year. Glen Cook’s Shadowline, Sam Lundwall’s 2018 AD or the King Kong Blues, W. H. Pugmire’s Sesqua Valley and Other Haunts, and Carlton Mellick III’s Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland all ended up with their titles scrawled across George Washington’s face.

Occasionally, I’d get more creative. One dollar bill bears a striking Sharpie-rendered tree, after Caitlín R. Kiernan’s The Red Tree. Another is origami-folded into a ring, commemorating my May re-read of Tolkien’s The Hobbit. I’m not certain which book inspired me to fold one dollar bill into a shirt. The City and the City, perhaps? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t Shatnerquake (that would be the failed attempt at an origami Enterprise, crumpled at the last minute into an asteroid and lobbed into the jar).

So yeah. If you ask me, it pays to read.

Maddie: “Money? Tppbht! Bring on the treats.”

The Killer Fruitcake
that Ate Petaluma

by Ross E. Lockhart

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled programming to bring you this News at Nine Special Report. We now take you to Martin Burr, Man on the Scene.

This is Petaluma, a sleepy city of fifty-six thousand, the one time “Egg Capital of the World,” poised at the intersection of small-town charm and the high-tech modern age. This time of year, the streets of Petaluma should resound with festive cheer and Christmas carols, but not this year. This year, there will be no noel, for those very streets are gripped with fear. Petaluma is under siege, by a horror of the most terrifying kind. I’m Martin Burr, your News at Nine Man on the Scene.

We are perched atop one of the tallest buildings in this scenic Northern California borough, the Theatre Square parking garage. From this vantage point, you can see practically all of Petaluma, from its historic downtown to its steepled suburbs to its rolling river and the mountains beyond. Directly below us, three stories down is what was once an innocent-seeming import shop, its windows filled with colorful puppets and decorated with holiday décor. Tonight, the painted glass from those windows is smashed, scattered into the streets, the shop an empty shell. In the aftermath of a terrifying ordeal, a path of destruction leads down the street and through the side door of the city’s recently-opened cinemas.

Eyewitness reports are sketchy, but some common threads have emerged. Bystanders describe an immense, amorphous creature, about ten feet wide, golden brown in color, pocked with hundreds of red and green eyes. It produced a wheezing, whistling sound as it burst from the storefront and moved down the street, devouring passers-by, leaving stripped human skeletons in its wake. The creature shambles, in the words of one observer, “like a storybook shoggoth,” whatever that means.

The News at Nine traffic copter dropped us off atop the parking garage just as the creature was squeezing its mass into the theatre building. Jasper, our cameraman, managed to capture those few fleeting seconds of footage that you’ve, by now, no doubt, seen, from the air. What the footage doesn’t convey is the smell that permeates the area, a sort of fruity, doughy aroma, with a hint of rum. It saturates the city. In different circumstances, the smell is one that might actually be described as appetizing, festive, even.

As you at home can see, Petaluma’s police and fire departments have now surrounded the theatre, cordoning off the nearby streets in order to evacuate the area. The theatre itself is dark, too dark. People should be coming and going, pressing their way through the front doors in search of an evening’s entertainment. Instead, the only thing escaping through the caution-taped doors is the monster’s sound, a trilling, tuneless, terrifying whistle, punctuated by the occasional scream as it gulps down yet another victim.

On the street directly below us, a HazMat crew from the nearby Coast Guard training center is inspecting the wreckage left in the creature’s wake. By analyzing the strange substance left on the walls and floor of the ruined shop, they hope to find a way of stopping its deadly onslaught. Just as soon as we hear anything, anything at all, News at Nine will bring it to you first.

While we wait, the studio is feeding us some background information on Petaluma. Petaluma itself is named for a Coast Miwok phrase, péta lúuma, meaning “the hill’s backside,” a reference to the town’s proximity to Sonoma Mountain. Movie buffs among our viewers may recognize the town as the shooting location for many films, including American Graffiti, Peggy Sue Got Married, and Howard the Duck. From 1952 to 2003, Petaluma played host to the world arm-wrestling cham—

Hold on. This just in: Experts now speculate that the creature is actually a fruitcake—wait, what?—No, you heard that right, a fruitcake, possibly imported from China. It grew to enormous size after an employee of the import shop opened its package in order to set out samples. The experts have detected an unusually-excessive amount of high-fructose corn syrup in the slick of traditional marzipan icing coating the monster’s path, whether this is the secret to the creature’s locomotion and appetite remains unanswered at this time. Apparently, there is a plan in effect to deal with the creature, and we should see some results shortly.

Here is some background information on fruitcake. Recipes for fruitcake date back to antiquity. The ancient Romans used to mix pomegranate seeds, raisins, and pine nuts into a barley mash. By the Middle Ages, other preserved fruits, honey, and spices were added, and the name fruitcake was first applied to the confection. In the Eighteenth Century, laws were passed in Europe restricting the eating of fruitcake to the Christmas season, because they were thought to be sinfully delicious. The phrase “nutty as a fruitcake” dates from 1935, when—

It looks as if we’ve got some activity down below. A white van, bearing Coast Guard markings, has just pulled up in front of the theatre. The driver is getting out, he’s walking around to the back, he’s opening the back doors. Are you getting this, Jasper? Two, no, three people are getting out, two rather large men and a boy, no, wait, that’s a woman. They’re in civilian clothes, so they’re not—

I’ve just received word that these three people are representatives of the IAOCE, the International Association of Competitive Eaters; the Coast Guard have brought them down from a contest in Santa Rosa. The man on the left is Rufus “Deep Dish” Berlusconi. On the right, “Cookie” Chestnut. The woman is five-time champion Sonya “The Praying Mantis” McGee.

The police are briefing the competitive eaters, and are now escorting them through the line to the doors of the theatre. Now they’ve passed under the caution tape and into the theatre.

While we wait for something to happen, here are a few statistics. “Deep Dish” Berlusconi made his name by eating twenty-three slices of Old Chicago pizza in ten minutes. He has been known to go through a dozen corned beef sandwiches in eight minutes. “Cookie” Chestnut’s record is thirty-two cannoli in seven minutes. Last year, at the Tokyo International Eating Championship, he ate fifty-three cow brains in fifteen minutes then delighted judges by asking for more. “The Praying Mantis,” is perhaps best known for eating thirteen pounds of cheesecake in eight minutes, then shortly thereafter posing for a swimsuit calendar. Where does she put it all?

Wait, something’s happening inside the theatre. Jasper, are you getting this? It looks as if the Competitive Eaters are—Holy Mackerel!—it’s eaten them! The creature is humongous now, gorged on the Competitive Eaters and the audiences of Fred Claus and The Nightmare Before Christmas 3-D. This is horrible! It’s pressing towards the doors, pressing against them, red- and green-dyed fruit pressed flat against the glass like eyes staring hungrily out into a delicious world.

The doors are straining, the police stepping back into defensive positions, their weapons drawn, using their cruisers for cover. Can anything stop the killer fruitcake?

Crash! There go the doors. The fruitcake is spilling out across the sidewalk and into the street. It’s covering the police cars, and growing, growing! This thing’s got to be thirty, forty feet across, ten feet high, and it’s getting bigger. Jasper, are you getting this?

Folks, it’s coming this way. We’re going to need to move back, find better cover, so that we can keep broadcasting this footage to you. We’re going to go back to the studio for station identification, but we’ll be right back.

* * *

We’re back, folks. We’re about a block away from the parking garage, holed up in the hay barn of a local feed store. It was a dangerous retreat, as the fruitcake expanded into the parking garage, swallowing everything and everyone in its path. We barely made it out with the camera rolling.

From here, the carnage is scarcely evident, the scene practically placid, save for the screams and the creature’s whistling, piping call. The thing is still growing, expanding. We know this hiding place won’t last for long, that the monster will eventually overtake this rudimentary sanctuary. Still, we’re here along with scattered members of the Coast Guard, police and fire departments. These brave public servants are racking their brains, searching for a solution, a way of stopping the killer fruitcake.

But that solution can’t possibly come in time. The fruitcake has been spotted, coming this way, down both First and Second streets. Has it split into two, or is it just so massive now the division of a city block means nothing? From here it appears to have enveloped the entirety of D Street, from the veterinary hospital to the bridge. And it’s moving closer, closer—

Wait, what’s that? Do you hear that?

Holy Moley! It’s a motorcycle, speeding this way, right up First Street towards us. Can’t see his face, he’s got a helmet on. He’s coming fast, circling, building up speed. He seems to be eyeing the ramp to the feed store’s loading dock. My goodness! It looks as if he’s going to try to jump the monster! Who does this mysterious motorcyclist think he is, Steve McQueen? Hold on, it looks like he’s got a pitchfork tucked under one arm, like a medieval jouster.

Wait, word is coming through right now. Jasper, are you getting this? Apparently, that’s the mayor of Petaluma on that motorcycle. Her office has just released the following statement: “If you want something done right, sometimes you have to do it yourself.” She’s going to—

Don’t do it, Madame Mayor, it’s suicide!

And she’s just hit the ramp. The motorcycle is airborne, sailing through the sky, heading straight towards the creature. Great Hera! I can’t bear to watch! Make sure you’re getting this, Jasper. And she’s hit the creature with a horrible slurping sound. The bike has disappeared, right along with the mayor. Oh, no!

It’s still coming. It’s got us penned in, flowing around the sides of the warehouse, closer, closer. The piping, trilling, whistle is getting louder, louder, loud—

It’s stopped.

Wait, the creature is rumbling, shaking like a bowl full of jelly. Rumbling, quaking. Faster and faster. What’s going on? Get back! I think it’s—

Kaboom! The Killer Fruitcake has just exploded! What an amazing sight, bits of dough, dried pineapple, cherries, walnuts, and citron are raining from the sky. We’re saved! Look, there, in the middle distance. It’s the mayor. She’s pulled off her motorcycle helmet, and her hair is blowing in the wind. You’re getting this, right, Jasper? It looks like she’s got something skewered on the end of her pitchfork. What is that, a giant green cherry? It must have been the heart of the beast.

A cheer has gone up from the crowd. Men are throwing their hats into the air, celebrating the mayor’s quick thinking and bold act in saving us all! Hurrah for the mayor!

Say, this stuff’s not half bad.

And so, a terrifying ordeal has been brought to a delicious conclusion. I’m Martin Burr, returning you to your regularly-scheduled programming. Be sure to tune in to News at Nine for a complete recap. Good night, good luck, and a Merry Christmas to all.

What’s that, Jasper? You say some of these pieces are still moving?

end.

“Christmas cards have been showing up daily, and Jennifer’s been displaying them in the dining room, along with our statues of Ganesha and all his friends. And we mailed our cards out, too. Guess whose picture’s on ‘em.”

“I had to go get a bath yesterday, so I know Grandma’s coming for Christmas. They put cute little bows in my hair at the groomer. I told ‘em I wanted a Mohawk this time. Instead, I ended up with cute little bows again. I think somebody must have paid ‘em off.”

“While I was at the groomer, Jennifer and Ross took a bunch of food and toys and stuff over to Christmas Cheer. Some of those toys looked pretty cool. I even wanted to play with them.”

“We just got a new door, too. Randy put it in yesterday. I sat on the couch and supervised. The door’s bright red, like a candy apple. It doesn’t taste like an apple though. Don’t ask how I know that.”

“But the window’s higher up now, so now I have to sit further back on the couch to see who’s visiting.”

“Like this guy, who came over from next door to say hello while Randy had the old door off the hinges.”

“He said to say ‘Mrow, mrow’ to everybody, which I understand translates to ‘Happy HanuCat.’”

After the door was all done, Randy and I took a break on the back steps. He tried to give me bunny ears, but I’m not a bunny!”

“So yeah, there’s a lot going on around here these days. And those cookies smell really, really good. Especially the thumbprint cookies. They’ve got raspberry jam in them. I’m going to try to save one for Grandma. I hope she lets me have a bite of it.”