Ass Cheese

I made a kick-ass spaghetti alla carbonara last night. It was a kind of last minute experiment, I've never made it before, and it was GREAT! I made it to cheer Rob up after having his hat handed to him at the board meeting the other night, but he insists that it wasn't necessary because he feels just fine. He loves carbonara, though, so he was pretty psyched.

We took Perry to the dog park this morning where he was mugged. He was happily walking over to me with a gnarly old tennis ball, when a bigger dog named Ollie stole it right out of his mouth. Perry has a pretty small mouth, so most of the ball sticks out, and I suspect that the only real hold he gets on a tennis ball is to thread his teeth through the green fibers. It was pretty pitiful. He was not deterred, though. He chased balls for about an hour, sometimes getting distracted by something smelly and forgetting about the ball altogether. Then he got a bath at the dog washing place and he is now asleep on the couch smelling like mango-tango dog wash. Its a rough life.

Here's something totally else. Leila and I are enjoying her discovery of the phrase, "cut the cheese." Unrelated, I have lamented the fact that I'm a very inelegant cheese cutter, meaning, literally, that whenever I try to cut slices from a block of cheese, they are either too thick or too thin, they're crooked, the knife slips, I drop things, its just ugly. One afternoon last week I made Leila a sandwich with gouda cheese that I cut from a big wedge, and she says, in her patronizing way that is meant to be encouraging, "You did an excellent job cutting this cheese, mommy!" Of course, I can't just let that go, right? So I say "Are you telling me I'm really great at cutting the cheese?" and she's all, "Mommy, please." and I'm all, "Are you telling me I have mad cheese-cutting skills?" and she says, "Mommy, I meant the gouda cheese, not ass cheese." Honestly, I don't know where she gets this language...

I'll see you all next week. I have some big secret spy plans this weekend that I'll tell you about next week. Asta!