On The Bench

Ben and I have been pretty much on the bench this weekend. My hip infection reared it's ugly head again on Friday and the Ben's vet thinks he tweaked his knee so we were both told to cool our jets and sit this weekend out. Kinda sucked since it was such a gorgeous weekend and we had plans to go to a farm, but we threw open the sliding glass door, made our own mischief and enjoyed it as best we could.

Ben's entertainment was easy. Take a few of these treats (Sorry for the shaky pic... but it's dried liver and you can get it at The Sow's Ear. He's WILD about them!)


And put it in this ball.


And put it on the floor. It's that easy. The object is that the dog will roll it all around the floor and the treats will fall out the end. But as we all know, our Ben is a thinker (I know, just go with it). He's frantic because he wants the treat so much, but the ball is egg shaped and doesn't roll so that the treats come out easily, so he lays down with it firmly grasped in his front paws. First he lines his eyeball up with the hole and eyes the prize for a while. Then he sticks his nose in the hold and snorts mightily hoping to blow the treats out the other end. This doesn't work but he does an excellent impression of an orca surfacing Then he pokes it a little with his nose or paw. This goes on for a while until he gets frustrated and gives it a good swat. More often than not, a treat will fly out accidentally. It's immediately gobbled and the whole process starts from the eyeballing it stage on because he has no idea WHY the treat came out, just that he did ALL THAT STUFF before and it worked so he'd better do it ALL again. Doggie Rain Man. I don't know who's more entertained, him or me.

As for me, I got this much done on a Selbuvotter mitten and decided I didn't like the order of the colors. (Sorry these pics are so bad, I was dodging flying liver.)



So I tore the whole thing out (three days work, but, hey, I got nothin' but time) and reversed the colors so that the darker is the main color and the lighter is the contrast. I'm much happier.

I did sneak over the wall for a bit this morning (Shhhhh!) and went to breakfast with friends, Scott and Michael. They had recently returned from a trip to Spain. I LOVED seeing their beautiful photos, and they brought me a lovely fan as a gift.

( (No I'm not trying out for the lead in 'Annie'. I discovered that if I don't blow dry my hair out this (see below)happens. ))

At any rate, I hobbled there and back again and spent the rest of the day trying to be a good girl and stay down. It's not easy but Jodi Picoult's new book "House Rules" is certainly helping. Hope you all had a great weekend too!