Around 4:45am, the dog starts barking. No idea why. It's dark, his eyesight isn't great and I kind of thought he was barking at his bed, thinking there was a cat in it (his bed is next to my side of the bed). Brian finally got up and showed Jingles that the bed was, indeed, empty.
Dog stops barking. For about ten minutes, then starts up again. Damn it. We keep telling him to stop. He doesn't. (Is this actually a Lassie moment and he's telling us that little Timmy fell down the well?) I drag myself out of bed, throw on a teeshirt, and follow him out of the bedroom. I follow him to the back of the yard (for those few, if any, of you ever check out the weather cam, hope you enjoyed the show). He walks over by one of the avocado trees and lifts his leg (mind you, he's still wearing the diaper that he's been wearing since last night, the one I put on him before we go to bed). I just shake my head and go back to bed. He's back in the bedroom shortly after. And starts to bark again.
I reach over, grab the dog bed, lift it up and let him see that there is no cat in it. Oh, well, that's cool. He climbs into it and goes back to sleep. It's about a quarter after five at this point.
We both get out of bed before 5:30. Get dressed, I take the dog's (heavy, wet) diaper off (some mornings it's bone dry), walk outside to toss it in the trash (bins are out front) and I see Fluffy, an old feral guy who's been around for years. I've started feeding him if he's around in the morning.
Back inside, I turn on the computer, give the cats their morning Temptations (it's how I take a headcount each morning). Walk outside with Carol and Fury, where they get their own little piles of treats. Toss a few out onto the grass so the vultures who have already inhaled their treats will let these two eat their's in peace.
I walk back into the office, grab a handful of treats, put them in my pocket, head out to the garage, take two cans of Fancy Feast from the cupboard and dish those up for Fluffy. Go out front, he's ready, he's closer than he's ever been to me, but he still growls and hisses. I set down the food, empty my pocket of Temptations next to the soft food and head back inside.
Once in the office to start the online day, I see that this weblog isn't up. An error message. "Site Error: Unable to Load Site Preferences; No Preferences Found". Just a blank page. I did a small amount of research and ended up contacting my host. Turns out they're having a coding problem with the SQL database on the server. Obviously, it's fixed now.
So, let's get this day started!