Sleepless in Atlanta

In order to post here I need to launch a browser. My homepage for Firefox is CNN.com. Some days I wonder what I am doing writing little bits about a little life in the midst of uranium enrichment by Iran, the playing of the tape of the last moments of flight 93, the loss of the glaciers in Glacier National Park and the virtual extinction of the polar bear in my lifetime. Of course these headlines share space with reports that Madonna and Guy Ritchie's marriage is on the mend so I can console myself that I am not the only one to write inanities. At least we appear to be done with Jessica Simpson and Nick Whatsits--and Brittany and (is it?) Kevin.

After the second night in a row of almost no sleep I am in a definitely pensive mood this morning. Last night Seraph (deerhound #2) decided she had to go out at 2:30 am. I had already let her out at 10:30 so I was a bit cranky at being woken up. The neighbor's dogs also had a sleepless night and barked on and off for several hours. I couldn't let Seraph out into the yard for the night as the contractors were due at 6:30 this morning and I did not want to have to get up again to let her in. So I ignored her as long as I could and then I put her on the back deck. That worked for about an hour and then she decided she just had to go down into the yard. So I got up, got decent, went out into the front yard and wrangled the gates closed so I could put her out there.

Then Jessie woke up from a nightmare about dinosaurs eating other animals eggs and I spent some time listening first to her nightmare and then to her preferences of dinosaurs. At first she liked the tyrannosaurus rex best--large meat-eater, but when I told her about the speed and cunning of the little meat-eater--the veloceraptor--she decided those were her favorites. She went back to sleep to dream of hunting prey in the verdant jungle.

Other parents look down their noses at us for letting her watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But The March the Penguins caused a week of nightmares from the leopard seal eating the mother penguin. XXX, Blade, Buffy, Alien vs. Predator, Sean of the Dead (her current favorite movie--it's about zombies in London) elicit no such response; she sleeps like a baby after them. "Kid appropriate" movies. Huh.

I just got back from PetCo where I bought a doggie door for the new shed. The builders are going to put it in for free for me as they had to give me a 3" smaller door than was specified due to the window placement. I am thrilled. Seraph had better watch it or she may find herself relocated to the back yard permanently.