-^-for posterity-^-

i would like to thank my aunt and uncle who live down in north carolina with my little cousin who is the most adorable thing ever to enter the world. you can’t look at that little kid and withhold a sigh.

it was hot and dusty and i received a package. merry christmas. last year i received a package in march or april from my parents. that was also a christmas gift. there’s nothing wrong with getting christmas presents in heat that is quite reminiscent of july.

inside the package were cookies and other wonderful things. (a slinky!) they were crumbled and i ate them ravenously.

there were also two gifts for the dog and he is still fearful of them. there was a bag of doggy treats and a large bone-like thing.

we tried to give them the ‘bone’ first. it isn’t really a bone but, in my best estimation, it is some sort of animal skin that is folded into the shape of a cartoonish bone. its appearance is more designed for human consumption than for a dog. our dog, however, has no idea how to eat the thing. in fact, he’s petrified of it.

we show it to him and soak it in water (if it’s animal skin, water should make it more succulent, i assume) and we try to make it look as interesting as possible. we’ve gone so far as to pretending to eat it. he runs under the bed.

she also sent us dog treats. they came in the form of a bone (once again, because any dog food company knows that humans think their dogs know the difference) and were made out of some sort of bread-like material. he had no idea what to do.

he licked it for a little, walked around it for a bit and then began to eat it. the bone is only a few inches long and a half an inch thick, but it took him about twenty minutes to eat it. he took the tiniest bites and spread crumbs all over the ground.

so, our dog is trying to adapt to an american lifestyle but he’s having some difficulties. he never eats bread and has no idea what to do with a gigantic piece of dried skin shaped like a bone. he likes to eat geckos and chase gigantic horse-flies.

once again, thanks for the present. i hope you read this in your gorgeous mountain home overlooking that pristine appalachian lake.