Cinderelly

MB works late at a part-time teaching thing on Fridays, so the pooch and I hang out. Since the house had fallen into a sad, sad disarray over the last month or so of work and general life craziness, I decided to surprise MB by using my Friday night at home to clean. I swept up a disturbing pile of pet hair and Swiffered the whole main floor of the house (incidentally, the Swiffer is just about my favorite housecleaning item of all time), washed all the dishes, sorted two weeks' buildup of mail, and de-cluttered the dining room. Yay!


(The buffet is actually cleaner than it looks, I promise.)
Kitters enjoying the newly-swept floor.

I don't have too much to say about the dog right at this moment, since he just chewed my Beware of Cat doormat -- which was a housewarming gift from my officemates -- into five pieces. But I will be mature and go ahead and say what I planned to, which is that I'm proud to report that he has mastered our version of the doorbell.

Shortly after Indy moved in, I hung a big bell on the doorknob of the back door. Every time we let him out we'd ring the bell, with the hope that he'd eventually catch on and start ringing the bell himself when he wanted to go out. He definitely caught on, and now any time he wants to go outside, he rings his bell and waits patiently for one of us to appear. It's really freaking cute, even though sometimes he gets bored and tries to go in and out and in and out. Now if we could only rig up a bell for the outside, so that he'd stop scratching the screen on the storm door to bits when he wants to come back inside...