Dog Training in (e)Motion

Often when I'm sitting at the PC, Scout will come and nudge my arm, or bring toy after toy to deposit in my lap, in an attempt to get my attention so I'll go outside and play. I'm learning from some training books to ignore those demands; giving in reinforces that he can be a pest and get what he wants. Instead, I wait until he's doing something else and then call him to go play. The idea is to get the dog to understand that the household runs on the human's terms, not the dog's.

Today, I was sitting at the computer catching up on email and I could hear Scout and Murphy going at each other in a rousing round of paw karate, when all of the sudden Scout came barreling into my office to stand at my side and bark. His ears were standing completely up, which is unusual, and he was barking and then lunging toward the door as if to say, "Hurry! Follow me!" It was a total Timmy and Lassie moment.

My first thought was that the cat had gotten hurt. When Murphy's in the sink Scout will stand in the kitchen and bark, as if he knows the cat is misbehaving and it's his duty to tattle.

But this was a frenzied bark, a clear call for me to Follow!! Right!! Now!! I jumped up as Scout ran down the stairs to the side door, and when I saw the cat coming from upstairs I knew something else was going on.

Every once in a while Scout gets this burst of energy that causes him to run at warp speed through the downstairs, jumping over the back of the couch, into the foyer, through the kitchen and back to the living room. When that happens, he gets this crazed look on his face - similar to the one he was wearing right now. I figured he must just need to go have a run around the yard. I opened the door, told him to go, and when I got to the back yard found him standing calmly with the glo-ball in his mouth, ready to play catch.

The emergency was that he wanted to play, and because I had ignored all previous requests he felt the need to up the ante. Play glo-ball? He'll get no response from me. Alert me to a big emergency? I'm getting up to see what's wrong.

And I fell for it.

When I saw him I laughed and threw the ball and then wanted to slap myself for being such a sucker. If I reward him even once he'll know that only an emergency alert will get me off my butt and outside, on his terms and timetable, which usually happen to be in very cold and snowy weather. He should have been a sled dog.

In any event, I should have been prepared. I've just finished The Truth About Dogs, by Stephen Budiansky and he warns about just this kind of thing. In the introduction, Budiansky makes two points that made me laugh and then want to cry, because I realized that, like most dog owners, I am at the mercy of my dog.

"Dogs belong to that elite group of con artists at the very pinnacle of their profession, the ones who pick our pockets clean and leave us smiling about it. Dogs take from the rich, they take from the poor, and they keep it all. They lie on top of the air conditioner vent in the summer, they curl up in front of the fireplace in the winter, they commit outrages upon our property too varied and unspeakable to name. They decide when we may go to bed at night and when we must rise in the morning, where we may go on vacation and for how long, whom we may invite over to dinner, and how we should decorate our living rooms. They steal the very bread from our plates ... If we had a roommate who behaved like this, we'd be calling a lawyer, or the police."

He goes on to write:

"Almost as common as the clinical accounts of dogs who have seized operational control of their households are the accounts in veterinary journals of dogs who engage in eccentric and obsessive behaviors that, were they exhibited in humans, would lead to swift institutionalization-or justifiable homicide by anyone forced to share living quarters with the patient."

Scout is actually smarter than I give him credit for. When we came in, I gave him a biscuit for his Emmy winning performance (I can't help it; he's good) and he went to the foyer to lie quietly for a few minutes. He's now barking as if someone's come to visit. He doesn't know, of course, that the mailman came early today so I'm not going to be fooled by that trick. And if someone was really at the door he wouldn't be barking but standing there wagging his tail like an idiot.

I'm learning a few tricks myself.

Purple State of Mind

A few years ago I had the privilege of meeting John Marks, an author and former producer for "60 Minutes." We were at a Christian music festival, me to cover the event and hang out with my musician friends, he to try and capture the whole Christian pop culture scene for a book he was writing.

I was in my element. He was at a loss. I offered to help.

John introduced himself to me as a former evangelical Christian, and the friendship started there. I helped him connect with artists, he listened to me grapple with some faith questions.
His book takes a look at the divide between mainstream America and evangelical Christianity, and mostly explores his own experiences with his loss of faith.

The book comes out in February. At the same time, John and his college roomate Craig Detweiler, who plays heavily in the book, are releasing a film they did called "Purple State of Mind." Craig is an author and filmmaker, and co-directs the Reel Spirituality Institute at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. The project takes a "Red state or Blue state? God or god? Can't we be meet in the middle?" discussion. http://purplestateofmind.com/home.cfm

I think you'll be intrigued by the conversation, even if you don't always agree with the opinions. I'm a firm believer that an open dialogue, especially with people who have opposite viewpoints, is important. Christians spend much too much time talking to each other in jargon-filled code and we end up knowing nothing about the rest of the world, unable to not only love them the way Jesus did, but actually afraid of them and even hating them.

So check out Purple State of Mind, and watch for John's book, out in February. (I make a teeny tiny appearance in one chapter.)

Jingle Bells and Red Kettles

Last night I volunteered to ring a bell for the Salvation Army. I was the Christmas Tree Store in Henrietta, and for two hours I stood by the door in the rain, ringing a bell and telling people Merry Christmas. (OK, I lie a little. I was under an overhang, and literally standing in the only place that was completely dry, a small patch of pavement right under my feet. And every time the doors opened I got a blast of hot air. So it wasn't a big sacrifice, trust me.)

Most of the people smiled and went it; maybe a third dropped something in the kettle. But what I loved where the kids who came over and dropped in some loose change their parents had given them.

My mom has always been an extremely generous woman, despite the fact that she's basically had almost nothing to live in for years. But if you need something, she's the one who's first in line to help.

I think I learned from her that you give, especially when you don't think you have anything to give. It's why I volunteered to ring a bell and why I'm going back on Saturday, why I spend a week in the spring in the inner city playing with kids (at the literal risk of life and limb, apparently, according to the cops who tried to tell our group to leave), why I sponsor children through Compassion and drive my neighbor to the doctor and send cookies to Iraq and ...

It's what you're supposed to do.

A lot of people give out of guilt, or because they're looking for a tax write off. But we're supposed to give to our neighbors because that's the way we would want to be treated. No matter what religion you subscribe to, the whole Golden Rule thing comes up somewhere. Do unto others, love your neighbor, good kharma.

And so, when you walk by the red kettles this Christmas season, drop in some change. God probably likes to multiply a few dollars given cheerfully much more than a lot of dollars given begrudgingly.

It's a jungle gym

So today was my first day at the gym. I had an evaluation with my trainer, Phil, on Friday, where he told me that I'm actually only about 15 pounds overweight and that my BMI wasn't out of the average range, although he'd like to knock it down a few points. Phil is in better shape than I'll ever hope to be, and he's 65 years old.

Today I went for my first session with Phil so he could set up the weight routine for my lower body and then we'll do the upper body on Wed, and then I'm off to the races.

I expected to be completely befuddled by the machines, which I was. I expected some of the things to hurt a little - riding the recumbant bike killed my knee. But I did the climber stair thingy quite well.

As I was on the bike (the pain came 3:34 into that experiment), the older woman next to me tried to strike up a conversation. Between avoiding that and having Regis and Kelly blaring over the TV I thought my brain would implode. The social aspect of the gym is more exhausting than the actual work.

Phil showed me how to do all the machines, and gave me tips that are basically the same thing that other therapists have been telling me to do for years, all of which I did for a while and then ignored. I'm learning that it's not so much my diet that's my problem , but lack of follow through, structure and discipline. If I hadn't acted like I was unbreakable, and done the stretches and exercises I'd been told to do years ago I'd be in better shape now.

But thankfully, I'm not that bad off. I did the circuit pretty well and actually left feeling like I didn't work as hard as I expected to. I'm supposed to be sitting on my fit ball and using my weights at home, and doing all of my stretches. I need to see some improvement, some carrot dangled in front of me, and I think I'll be able to keep it up. Knowing Phil is going to be there waiting for me and making me do everything right (I'll be hearing him remind me about my neutral spinal alignment and engaging my core in my sleep!) I just might be OK.

But please, if you see me in the gym, don't talk to me. It's not a tea party.

Reading through 2007

As you know, I've recently joined Shoutlife and finally set up my MySpace page. Then yesterday I got an invite to join a group called Shelfari. It's an online social group for book lovers.

OK, of all of the possible groups to join, that one makes the most sense to me, because I am a total bibliophiole. The problem, of course, is that one can only belong to so many online groups before one becomes socially dysfunctional in real life.

I'm not a super social person to begin with, which will surprise most people that know me. That's because I'm in social situations so infrequently that by then I've built up quite a bit of social energy that I need to expend. I can talk and socialize for an hour or so, like the Energizer bunny, and then I need to go and recharge. Alone.

In any event, the Shelfari thing got me thinking about how many books I've read this year. A few years ago, I set a goal to read 6 books in a year. I read more than 40 that year, and I was totally astounded, because to be honest, I didn't realize how many books I actually do read in a year. Ever since, I've kept a list.

Usually, my list is heavily laden with classics, but this year I made an attempt to read some pop fiction as well. I'm always hesitant to buy a book of the shelf because it might be well written but too erotic, or it might just be a stinker. And then there are the review books I'm glad I didn't spend money on.

So far in 2007, I've read 39 books, many for the second or third (or sixth or seventh time, as is the case with Winter of Our Discontent). There were some really good books that I'd recommend reading, including anything by John Steinbeck, CS Lewis, Bill Bryson, Amy Tan, Donald Miller, or Erik Larson; Experiencing God; The Book of Bright Ideas; The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. I was surprised by Forget About It; the summary made it seem a bit too MTV for me, but it was really funny and a clever plot.

Anyway, here's the list so far in the order I finished them, with the most recent book I finished at the top:

Left to Tell, by Immaculee Ilibagiza
The Summons, by John Grisham
Bleachers, by John Grisham
Iron Thunder, by Avi
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, by Avi
I'm A Stranger Here Myself, by Bill Bryson
Extra Virgin, by Annie Hawes
Me and Mr Darcy, by Alexandra Potter
Forget About It, by Carice Crane
Into The Wild, by Jon Krakauer
Cold Sassy Tree, by Olive Ann Burns
Happiness Sold Separately, by Lottie Winston
Travels with Charley, by John Steinbeck
Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri
Wicked, by Gregory McGuire
Katz on Dogs, by Jon Katz
The Great Divorce, by CS Lewis
Experiencing God, by Henry Blackaby and Claude King
The Winter of Our Discontent, by John Steinbeck
The Little Lady Agency, by Hester Browne
Doesn't She Look Natural, by Angela Hunt
The Book of Bright Ideas, by Sandra Kring
The Memory Keeper's Daughter, by Kim Edwards
Saving Fish From Drowning, by Amy Tan
The Traitor's Gate, by Avi
The Razor's Edge, by Somerset Maugham
Under The Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer
The Remains of The Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro
Under The Overpass, by Mike Yankoski
Tribulation House, by Chris Well
Roaring Lambs, by Bob Briner
Searching for God Knows What, by Donald Miller
Larkspur Dreams, by Anita Higman and Janice Thompson
Me, Myself and Bob, by Phil Vischer
It Happened One Spring, by Gary Chapman and Catherine Palmer
The Dogs of Bedlam Farm, by Jon Katz
A Dog Year, by Jon Katz
Thunderstruck, by Erik Larson
JesusLand, by Julia Schoens
Velvet Elvis, by Rob Bell

No bad dogs, just bad owners

I'm at the vet with Scout this morning so he can get his kennel cough booster shot. Other than a couple with a cat (who clearly isn't interested in dogs) we're the only ones in the waiting room. In order to avoid annoying the already hissing cat, Scout and I take a seat on the far opposite side of the room, and as I sit down a man with two young boys and a small puppy come out of an examining room. Before I realize what's happening, the family's small chocolate lab has come barreling at Scout, dragging his leash behind.

While Scout may have his quirks, he's still very polite in public, and while the puppy begins nipping at his snout, Scout restrains himself from putting the misbehaving lab in his place. Scout backs up, with one paw in the air, while the lab goes for his back leg.

"Isn't that cute?" the father laughs. "He's going after that big dog!" The kids start laughing at Scout.

I keep a tight hold on Scout's leash and tell him to sit, not because he's afraid of the puppy. He's very gentle with small animals, but after the initial meet and greet he'll be ready for some play. I've seen him put his entire mouth around the cat's head, so I know that, if encouraged, Scout could quickly pin the pup and have him in a head lock, all in the name of fun.

"Your puppy is very cute," I say, reaching down to pet the lab and shove it back to its owners.

For the next few minutes, I try and keep a hold on Scout while the family lets their dog run at Scout untethered, and I shove him back, which is annoying not only for Scout but for me. When the father picks up the puppy, the boys try to pet Scout by standing over him with hands held high and palm down, jerking back when he lifts his nose to sniff them.

I explain to the boys that the proper way to approach a dog is to put their hand down low, palm up, and let the dog sniff. Once he's comfortable, you can pet him. Otherwise it looks like you're teasing or threatening, which can spook the dog. It's a good way to get bit.

Understand that Scout is about the most submissive dog you'll ever meet. He's never had the chance to defend me from a threat, and I have no doubt that he'd rise to the challenge given the chance, but let's face it. He's a cream puff. The only danger those boys are in is getting their faces licked clean.

But that's not the point. This family doesn't know my dog, so they don't know if he'll bite. They have no idea why Scout is at the vet, so they don't know what risk they might introducing to their puppy. (I almost tell them he's there for a highly contagious infection.)

I feel badly for that poor puppy. I say "poor puppy" because a family that thinks it's funny to let a puppy run loose in the vet's waiting room will probably not see a need to teach the dog how to be a good citizen. Without training, a cute rambunctious puppy will grow up to become a menace to everyone it encounters. A dog that becomes a menace gets yelled at chewing and jumping and barking, and becomes a frustration to live with.

And it won't be his fault, entirely. Dogs need guidance from their masters to learn how to behave so that they don't drive people nuts, but also don't get into something harmful.

It's kind of how God directs our lives. Not to be a control freak, but to keep us from harming ourselves, to help us become people who are a benefit, not a frustration, to society.

Just something to think about.

Shoutlife

So, I have succombed to the hype and created a page on Shoutlife.com, the Christian social networking site. I'm not a big fan of anything that helps Christians interact with themselves more and the outside world less, but it's been a good experience so far and seems like a great way to promote your writing.

What's odd, though, is that for all of the hype about how MySpace isn't safe, and you're bombarded with inappropriate stuff Shoutlife isn't all the different. In fact, I find that MySpace has much stronger filters for me to control the content, friends, and comments. And while surfing around sites I've seen Google adds for Sex in the City and other products that I don't think are typically considered "appropriate" for Christians.

There's no way on Shoutlife for me to change the settings so that I have to approve comments, or that only friends can comment, so before I'd even finished setting up my profile I was innundated with comments from total strangers, most very nice welcomes but a few blatant promos ("Welcome, visit my site where I'm the greatest writer in the world and you can buy all of my books" - you know what I mean). And I got a really creepy comment from some guy dressed up like Bin Laden talking about camel poop.

And I know that MySpace has loads of crap you don't want your kids to see, but do you really want them joining a Shoutlife "I hate Paris Hilton" group? I mean, doesn't that kind of go against the whole love your neighbor thing?

In any event, I have to eat my words and confess that it was a good move to join Shoutlife. For all of it's quirks, I've met some really nice people and it's a fantastic networking tool.

But I'm not giving up my MySpace page. It looks cooler, I have more control over the friends settings, and I really think there's a place for Christians in the world.

My MySpace

I know it's hard to believe, but I have FINALLY got my MySpace page set up so that it looks decent. In fact, I must admit it looks quite lovely.

I have no idea what I'll do with it, mind you. But at least it's done.

Visit me at www.myspace.com/joannebrokaw. Real friends only.

Grocery Fairyland

As most of you probably already know, I'm an advocate for Compassion International, and my husband and I sponsor three children through the organization. One is in India, one in Columbia, and one in Uganda. Child sponsorship is an amazing way to expand your worldview and put your own American life into a global perspective.

That really hit home for me this week when we got a letter from our child in Uganda. Opio is six-years-old and lives with his grandfather. His mother is dead, we think from AIDS although no one has said, and his father is a soldier who left to fight in Sudan and was never heard from again. Every few months we get a letter, focusing mostly on how he's doing in school and how their crops of Irish potatoes and maize are doing, including the status of the annual rainfall.

We sent Opio an extra monetary gift when we first started sponsoring him; Compassion bought him clothing and a hen. With his birthday gift, he got a goat. We chuckled over the pictures we got of Opio with his livestock, but we know a hen that lays eggs and a goat that gives milk are life-giving gifts for this boy and his family.

I got a letter this week, and in it Opio once again gives us the crop report, but ends with the question, "What have you grown this season?"

How do you tell a six-year-old whose very existence depends on a fickle rainy season, who eats Irish potatoes and maize and is happy for it, that I can go in to any grocery store in town and purchase more food than his imagination can conjur up? That any fruit or vegetable, in or out of season, is available year round? That not only can I purchase the staple ingredients, that I can purchase hundreds of pre-prepared foods?

That I eat a million times better than he ever will, and I don't lift a finger to do it?

Have you considered lately how good we actually have it in America, food-wise? I just made a tomato and cheese sandwich and grilled it on my Forman grill. I didn't grow the grain or make the bread. I didn't grow the tomato. I didn't milk a cow or make the cheese or churn the butter. I didn't build a fire to grill the sandwich.

I also made cup of tea. I didn't carry the water from a well or build a fire to boil it. I didn't harvest or process the tea, or grow the sugar cane, or milk the cow. (Just as an aside, think today about how much of what goes into your body has to do with a cow, fire or water.)

I'm still trying to find a way to answer Opio's question. Even if I told him the truth I don't know if he would believe it. There's a place where you can go and get any food imaginable, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year? To a child eating Irish potatoes for every meal, that's a fairytale.

If you'd like to learn more about child sponsorship, visit Compassion or drop me an email. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

These are a few of my favorite things

I have been in a particularly cantakerous mood this week, probably from lack of sleep. (It's gotten so that I'm automatically waking up at 3 am, just as Murphy is giving himself a bath in preparation for his late night maneuvers.)

So I decided right now - just this minute - to name as many things that I have to be thankful for that I can list in 5 minutes or so, in no particular order. Ready? Set? Go!

• God
• David (I'm married to the greatest guy in the world)
• Cassie (and I have the greatest daughter in the world)
• Mom
• Dad
• my sister
• my niece
• inlaws and outlaws
• the smell of a fire burning on a cold fall night, when the leaves on the ground are crackling from the cold
• Scout
• Murphy
• Natasha
• Penny
• aunts, uncles, cousins
• specifically my cousin Earl
• Charles Dickens, and that I read Great Expectations and learned from it
• classic literature
• playing Glo-ball with Scout
• Jane Austen
• life after death
• libraries
• stuffed animals
• 8 years of camping at Kingdom Bound, and the memories of late night campfires, music, and watching the teens grow up
• forgiveness
• a dog to pre-warm the bed on a cold night
• bookstores
• Kit kat bars
• The Office
• China Yunnan tea
• music
• the ocean
• watching the cat watch the birds in the feeder
• hamsters
• CHW support group
• email
• backstage
• friends
• cell phone technology
• pens and paper
• the USPS
• Hawaiian leis
• rainbows
• butterflies
• that I don't live in a place with hurricanes, forest wildfires, earthquakes, tornados, or tidal waves
• family trees
• toys
• that picture of me and David at Julie and Joe's wedding
• limes
• my Compassion kids
• parakeets
• coffee ice cream
• wild roses
• the wild blackberries in my yard
• airplanes, not because I like to fly but because they allow me to go places I might not otherwise get to see
• road trips
• red toenail polish
• memories, like late nights rooming with Kathleen in Nashville, especially that night at 12th and Porter; for some reason, that was a fun night
• Mike and Paula
• Conesus Lake
• driving in Key West with the top down and the stars out
• that I'm not in high school any more
• that I got to go to Hawaii, and that it was a great memory of my stepmother before she died
• a college education
• that I'm not in college any more
• life experiences
• that my family is hilarious
• Phillipians 2:3,4
• pretzel rods
• laughter
• CS Lewis
• woodpeckers
• no woodpeckers
• dog kisses
• indoor plumbing
• that feeling after I've written something really good
• that feeling when I have something good to write and need to get to a pen & paper asap
• friends who keep me motivated when I'm throwing myself a pity party
• ice cubes
• an occasional Coca Cola
• that my mother taught me how to forgive, even when you're bitter
• love when I don't deserve it
• love to give away in abundance
• lunch with Robbi (this "love ya" is for you)
• grace
• mercy
• chickens
• seashells and beachcombing
• not getting eaten by a shark on my honeymoon
• medical technology
• health
• sanity
• my black boots with the cool buckles
• my zebra print coat, even though Cassie hates it
• that Jeremy and the guys let me hang out with them when I crashed a show in PA, and then let me write about them in what turned out to be the article that started my music writing career, and who always act like they're happy to see me
• my editor Lori, whom I adore
• seeing my name in print

Time's up. If I kept thinking I could probably go on. But there, now I don't have any reason to be cranky. Who can be cranky with things like that to be thankful for?

How not to approach a writing colleague

I got a call at home this week from a woman who had signed up for a class I was supposed to teach. The class was cancelled (likely due to the fact that my bio was left out of the catalog; no one knew who I was or why I was qualified to teach, but that's a whole other subject).

This woman called me at home to ask if I was going to teach the class again and then asked if I would do a consultation with her. I offered her two options: I could meet her for lunch and she could ask whatever she wanted and I'd try to help her, or she could come to the writing group I host monthly and network with other writers there.

She opted for an unoffered third choice: to ask me questions right then over the phone. I had been getting ready to go out for an appointment, but stopped to spend about 20 minutes giving her some writing advice because I didn't want to be rude.

She spent half of that time asking me how she could find an editor to publish what she wanted to write, as opposed to what they wanted her to write.

At the end of the conversation, I asked if she'd gotten my home phone number from the place where the class had been scheduled, and she said no, that she'd looked my phone number up in the phone book.

Now, I suppose she gets a gold star for chutzpah, but - and I know this sounds snarky - she gets a big fat red "x" for being insensitive to my personal privacy, and two red "x"s for being too lazy to find a way to more properly approach me. Two seconds on Google and she would have had my website, with my email and business phone number.

Also this week I got one of those mass emails with a long "blog post" that came from a name I didn't recognize, with my email listed for all the world to see along with about a hundred other emails. I asked the writer to unsubscribe me, and told her that, not meaning to offend, these kinds of mass mailings aren't a great way to endear yourself to industry people. She told me that she'd gotten the email addresses from a writing group I used to belong to a long time ago, and that she wasn't trying to endear herself to editors but sharing what God had told her to say.

Now I'm all for hearing God speak, but the last thing I need are more unbidden email posts from strangers that share my private email to a hundred other strangers.

Am I the only one who thinks this kind of stuff is an invasion of privacy? That both are inappropriate ways to get what you want? That this in unnetworking rather than networking? Or am I just in a particularly snarky mood?

The Parallel Universe of Christianity

I was sitting at the mechanic's yesterday waiting for my car to be finished, reading old copies of Reader's Digest, and came across this in a story about trends in faith, specifically Christian products:

"It's reached a point where Christians have come close to creating an entire parallel universe in which, from the first sip of morning coffee from a 'Go God' mug to an evening soak in Dead Sea Salts, it is possible to choose an explicitly religious alternative to almost every imaginable product, service, and form of entertainment."

This was from an August 2005 issue of the magazine, and it made me think:

Was I surprised by the comment? (No.)

Is the parallel universe a good thing? (Uh ... no.)

Is it better or worse in 2007 than in 2005? (I'm not sure.)

While I still believe most Christians live in a parallel universe, and are happy to be there, I'm also seeing Christians taking their faith and living in the world. I think the biggest shift has been in the arts, with film, music and books becoming more accepted by the mainstream. There are probably some Christians who would say that's a bad thing, to not be distinguishable from the norm or to look like the world. But I'd say that living in a parallel universe doesn't help anyone, either.

The cat's evil plot

(Caption: Murphy asleep in his bed. How can a cat this cute cause so much trouble?)

I think the cat is systematically trying to drive me insane, primarily using sleep deprevation.

For the past two weeks, Murphy has been waking up every morning between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. He chirps in my ear, licks his sandpaper tongue across my lips, and digs his claws into my forehead. Once I have my eyes open, he pounces on the sleeping dog, and then jumps off the bed to begin clawing the bedposts.

I think he wants to get my attention, but at that hour the only thing I can do is grab him and lock him in the kitchen, because once the dog is up the two of them begin an hours long wrestling match and I am not ready to be up for the day at 3 a.m.

In the kitchen, Murphy does his circus cat act by balancing on top of the cat food tin, but I ignore him and close the door behind me. The last thing I need to do is reinforce a 3 a.m. feeding.

I can hear him chirping and mewing through the heating ducts, and then he goes to my office to shred paper and empty my pencil holder.

It would be easy to feed him; we've already dealt with his incessent mewing whenever we went into the kitchen by giving him a few food pellets and then quickly realizing that we were only reinforcing the noise. I've had to be tough on that one, but I've broke him of the habit of expecting food any time someone goes near the stove or sink.

But I have no idea what's waking him up every morning. I've wondered if it's some strange kitten disease (I blogged about it on the Christian Humor site) or if I've done something one time at 3 a.m. that gave him reason to believe I liked being up at that hour.

This morning, I finally called the vet. I need help. If it's behavioral, I need to know how to break it. If it's physical - are the worms back? - then let's take care of it.

For now, I'm going to take a nap. Although when I tried that yesterday, Murphy burrowed under the blanket and chewed on my toes until I got up. I'm one step closer to crazy.

How bad is your life ... really?

My daughter was frustrated the other day with her job, her bills, and some other minor stuff that we all experience from time to time, stuff that usually comes all at one time and makes for a really crummy day.

"I hate my life," she whined.

"I hate when you say that," I told her. "Compared to most people, you have a great life. Go talk to someone with real problems."

It was one of those normal mother-daughter moments that neither of us thought anything about. We smiled, I kissed her goodbye, she left to meet friends, it was over.

I thought about that exchange this morning, though, when I read a story at Foxnews.com about a solider injured in Iraq, who is recovering in the hospital in Dallas, Texas. In October, his wife and three children were on their way to visit him when his wife encounted a huge gust of wind, overcorrected her steering, and crashed the SUV.

Two of the children died immediately; the other died Saturday.

Here's a solider who's returned from God only knows what war horror only to lose his children in one fell swoop. Here's a mother who's children are dead, and regardless of how the accident happened she'll blame herself forever. How does a marriage go on from there?

A story like that really puts your own life's problems into perspective, doesn't it?

Dog Writers of America

I'm thinking about joining Dog Writers Association of America. I'm working on my dog memoir, All I Need to Know about Faith I Learned From My Dog, and I think it would be good idea to run with the pack, so to speak.

The application says I need to find two DWAA sponsors. What does a dog writing sponsor do? Do I need to call them every time I get a craving for a Milk Bone? Or better yet, do they help me in my literary pursuits?

I'm wondering when it's time to look for an agent. Just when I feel like I'm confident with my idea, I do or say something so stupid to someone that I'm reminded that I'm prone to embarrassing myself at every turn. I don't want to approach an agent too soon, and look like a fool. On the other paw, I could sit here until dogs run the White House and be no further along than I am right now.

I need to find a sponsor. I have questions, and those Snausages are starting to smell mighty tasty, too.