Some Thanksgiving pictures

Before going into Blondie's trip to Indiana for Thanksgiving, I just have to recommend this turkey-cooking method for those who eat turkey.

Cook on a charcoal grill for about 15 minutes per pound. Add about twenty new coals every hour. It gets a delicious smoky flavor in the skin, and the meat stays nice and juicy. I imagine it would be even better if it were brined first.

I also made a pie. Thanks to Andrea's inspiration, Igot a little bit more ambitious with my decorative flourishes:



Blondie got to spend a lot of time with his Uncle Mozart.

As this photo suggests, they are often at odds. Mozart likes to spend the first several hours of any visit barking at Blondie when he comes too close, while Blondie takes that time to remind himself that Mozart doesn't like to wrestle. But eventually they get some good games of chase going (Blondie eventually lapping Mozart when they run in circles through the rooms of the house).

They also share a mission when it comes to monitoring feast preparation:


And greeting people at the door:

Blondie also discovered that the upstairs of the house provides an even better vantage for observing the details of kitchen activity:

Blondiesaurus

Normally I get up to feed and walk Blondie at 7am. I feed him, go back to sleep for 20 minutes, then walk him. But on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Chris has to get up at 6am for work. He usually feeds Blondie just before he leaves. And then....

Blondie has a variety of strategies for requesting his morning walk. They include sitting on my head, stepping on my head, biting my hands, chasing his tail on the bed, and trilling like the dilophosaurus in the Jurassic Park movie.

Obviously this last one is the main subject of this post. How does my dog make these amazing noises? One website classifies dog vocal behavior thus: barking, whimpering, muttering, and growling. I think the trilling, like the sound the dilophosaurus makes (a combination, acc. Wikipedia, of a swan, a hawk, a howler monkey, and a rattlesnake), is some combination of less glamorous animal noises, perhaps dog, cat, squirrel, pigeon, and green pigeon.

I tried to find a good video of another dog doing this on YouTube, but I got distracted by these golden retriever puppies rocking out to the Beatles.

First Day of School

Blondie's first day of school was so action-packed that I didn't manage to get any pictures. Here we are on the way, though:


Though we are starting behind (like a kid who was home-schooled until the third grade), we are catching up quickly. This week we're working on "push-ups" (sitting and lying down), "leave it," a.k.a., resistance to great temptation, and this trick called "around," where he walks around behind us and sits to our side. The last one is the most likely to cause total toddler melt-down mode: Blondie will jump up on the sofa and flop down to signal that the training session is over.