It’s friggin’ freezing out there!!  I generally don’t mind cold weather, but I guess I wasn’t quite ready for it yet.  It’s only December!!  EARLY December!!  Ridiculous.

Not a whole lot to report on from the weekend.  Friday was irreparably marred by work… Pretty much just sat at home and waited for pages.  Saw some movies, did a little “homework” with the dog, that kind of stuff.  Donette was out kicking it up with some group of yahoos, who knows what they were up to.  No good I’m sure, most likely something in the “shenanigans” category.  She got home quite ridiculously late, that’s all I know.

Saturday I got up early and went and helped a guy cut down a tree.  Nice “outdoorsy” kind of activity.  A friend had an apple tree that had split in half so we went over and cut it up.  We got as far as we could; The “standing” half of it was placed rather perilously between a power line and the cable TV line.  We circled it for quite a while, cipherin’ on the likelihood of a service interruption, and eventually decided the odds were pretty good.  So, we just cut up what was down and called it good.  I’ve got a nice little stack of smokin’ wood in the back yard to show for the mornings work.  Saturday night was the first in an upcoming rash of “Christmas Parties.”  Shudder.  I think I’d rather spend the evening poop-scooping the yard.  Of course, once I got there I had a good time, which is usually the case.  I spend the week before these parties dreading them like a flu shot, but then I always end up going and having fun.  Plus, I scored a cool little present, the XM receiver that I’d been wanting.  Pretty cool little unit.  Of course now I have to actually install it and sign up for the service… I’ll do that tomorrow.  Donette, meanwhile, was the only spousal unit not present at the party.  Once again, she was out running around with some rogue gang, and once again got home quite a bit later than I.  Seeing a pattern here?

Sunday was generally uneventful.  We went to Jalapenos for lunch with Christie, then hunkered down in front of the TV for the football games.  Donette finished decorating the TV room last weekend, so it’s really quite the cozy little hangout now.  I did venture out to the Brooksider with Todd to watch the second half of the Chiefs game, but then scurried right back home.  My Fantasy Football team was doing uncharacteristically well, so I wanted to watch the scoreboard.  I thought I had it all wrapped up, but then the other team came storming back and we ended up all tied up.  Both of us have players in the game this evening, giving me a rare reason to actually watch MNF.

Well, tonight is Gabe’s big “test”.  The culmination of 8 weeks of training is at hand.  The current line on him passing is 3 to 1.  (Whatever that means… Sounds good.  I’ll say 75%.)  He might be just a bit too young for such a class, but then he is something of a puppy prodigy so he may have a chance.  He is by far the youngest in the class, that’s for sure.  His biggest problem is with the “brushing”.  They’re supposed to sit still while some stranger comes up and brushes them, checks their teeth and paws, blah blah.  I tried to get a waiver on that part, since Gabe has about as much use for a hair brush as I do.  But, apparently it’s just part of the rigorous curriculum and can’t be left out.  The problem seems to be that Gabe’s little pea brain can only interpret an inanimate object in the hand two ways: 1) food, or 2) a toy.  And, the only way to differentiate between these two possibilities is to grasp said object firmly in the jaws and throw it around a bit.  This behavior can only lead to a “fail” mark, not to mention the poor tester going into cardiac arrest.  We’ll just have to see if he’s “on” tonight.  Worst case, we’ll just take the class again in the Spring.  I haven’t exactly been keeping up on his homework so he won’t be totally at fault if we get tossed out of the program.  Wish us luck…