Dickery, dishwashing, dogs

If I specifically ask someone "Do not do X thing until after Thursday afternoon because I have Y commitment," and they read my email and then decide to do X on Wednesday even though it will prevent me from honoring Y, am I right that it's a total dick move? This happened to me today and I was SO CRANKY for like two hours. While in the throes of my crankiness I kept thinking, "It's ridiculous to be this cranky," but then kept going back to, "No, it's ridiculous to blatantly disregard my request and then attempt to blow me off when I issue a polite cease and desist before I have become irreparably screwed. THAT is ridiculous.


MB has been working crazy overtime for a few weeks and we are thinking about using some of the extra money to replace our crappy useless dishwasher. The problem is, the one we have is a portable and is tacked on to the end of our counter / cabinets with a piece of butcher block on top of it. If we buy another one, we don't want to get another piece of junk portable and would much prefer to get a "real" dishwasher. The problem is, we don't have a cabinet to put it into, and don't have the money right now to redo all our cabinetry. So I'm wondering, could we get a regular dishwasher installed where our portable is now and then just build a wood surround for it to hide all the workings and support the butcher block? And then someday when we can afford to renovate our entire kitchen, we could tear out the surround and have it reinstalled in an actual cabinet. Does anyone have any idea if this would work?


Nico is going through this phase right now wherein he seems concerned that Indy is going to eat all his stuff. If Indy comes near him, Nico announces gravely that Indy is not to eat whatever toy he (Nico) is holding at the time. "Indy no eat blue tow truck! Indy no eat red fire truck! Indy no eat orange pickup truck!" My favorite is "Indy no eat tock shoe," uttered when Indy approaches while Nico is wearing his off-brand Crocs. I keep reassuring him, "Indy won't eat your tow truck / fire truck / pickup truck / Croc shoe. Indy is a good dog." I finally remembered to ask my mom tonight if there were any dog-eating-a-toy incidents that might've sparked this whole thing, and it seems that one of her dogs ate the letter G from Nico's alphabet puzzle last week. Species reputation, ruined.

Speaking of Nico and Indy, I took Nico with me to the fancy boutique pet store the other day and told him we were picking out some cookies for Indy. He immediately began reciting all the things we remind him about behaving with Indy. "No hit Indy!" ("That's right, we don't hit Indy.") "No pull tail." ("That's right, we don't pull his tail.") "No kick Indy!" ("No kick Indy.") I started to wonder if the pet store ladies were wondering just what kind of crappy pet owners we are, but it was kind of funny at the same time.


I gave Nico the thrift store fire station toy last night and oh, man. He loved it. I showed him how to put his two little fire trucks onto the ramp and lift it to make them roll out. For a few moments he didn't seem to want anything to do with it, but then he spent at least fifteen minutes rolling his little wooden fire truck up and down the ramp and driving it in and out of the garage. At one point he parked the fire truck inside and shut the garage door, then peered around to the back of the toy and grinned when he saw the back of the truck peeking out. He walked to the other side of the toy, peered around the back, saw the truck, grinned, and then repeated this three or four more times. I'm kind of reconsidering that fancy fire station as a Christmas / birthday gift now.