Westminster Dog Show!

Well, I don’t know about you guys, but Sunshine and I weren’t terribly excited about the winner of this year’s Westminster Dog Show. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there’s no such thing as an un-adorable dog, and Felicity’s Diamond Jim is a very, very pretty Springer spaniel.

But I have to admit Sunshine and I kind of fell for these two instead:

That”s "Hobergays Fineus Fogg," the Dandie Didmont Terrier (plus, his name is Fineus Fogg the Dandie Didmont – I mean, how can anyone who loves words not love that?) Here”s another Dandie Didmont from Westminster”s website — check out this face!:

Awwwww. And here”s the other one we liked:

This is "Celestial CJ’s Jolly Fairchild," a Petits Bassets Griffons Vendeen, the winner of the Hound group. Not only is she cute as a button, but her parents’ names are The Greatest Show on Earth and Razzle Dazzle. Dude, she was SO born to be a star! Plus, apparently a hound hasn’t won Best in Show since 1983!!! You’d think a category with that many bloodhounds in it would have looked into this mystery by now.

Sunshine feels about the Westminster Dog Show much the way I do about America’s Next Top Model, which is somewhere between “what’s WRONG with these creatures? how do they get them to look like that? why would anyone want to look like that?” and “hey, why isn’t anyone giving me awards for prancing around looking ridiculous?”, only I get through it by eating vast quantities of ice cream and making snarky comments about their hair, while Sunshine expresses her disapproval by barking for the entire eight-hour show. Maybe that’s her way of making snarky comments. (“Hey! Poodle! What’s with the butt warmers? Dude, Saluki, eat a sandwich!”)

She gets especially upset whenever the dogs run straight at the camera. I can’t figure out whether this is because (a) she thinks they’re going to leap out of the screen and attack her, (b) all the pretty, well-groomed dogs make her insecure (every time I go “awww” she alertly leaps to her feet and looks at the TV to see what I’ve spotted that might be cuter than she is -– as if such a thing is possible), or (c) she’s mad that she can’t actually play with them. She has been known to run behind the TV looking for them, poor little dog. But if I spend the rest of the night reassuring her that she’s the prettiest, smartest, fluffiest, most adored dog on the planet, she usually settles down eventually.

In other news, I have a new set of favorite readers, whom I got to meet when I went to talk to their Girl Scout troop on Friday. Hi Alyssa, Cassie, Adelle, Gabriela, Alexis, and Olivia!

Look how splendiferous and brilliant they are. I was a Girl Scout for nine years, and also a mad crazy bookworm like these girls, so it was awesome to get to talk to them about what they’re reading and what kinds of books they like and their own writing. Excitingly, for instance, they like Scott Westerfeld, who is one of my favorite authors (go Midnighters! woo!). It makes me SO HAPPY to know there are girls this cool out there who still love reading. See, all you worrywart old people -– turns out TV and the internet haven’t corroded the brains of the youth of America after all.

Ooh, and speaking of TV (and my happily corroded brain), The Amazing Race is back! YIPPEE! All-Stars is ON like Donkey Kong! Man, it’s actually weird to see all these people again, especially since some of them are like five years older than they were last time I saw them on my TV, except for me that was only like a month ago. Yikes! And watching it totally made me wish Colin and Christie were on it, because I think they’d be the strongest competition for Rob and Amber, and that would be seriously fun to watch.

AND! In IMPORTANT TV news! I cannot BELIEVE who died on Veronica Mars last night! OMG! I won’t say who it is because I know some of my friends who read this blog might not have seen it yet, but…O! M! G! It wasn’t at all what I expected, either. RIP, poor character. I will miss you. I can’t wait for next week -– eep! escapades on a boat! and that’s all I’ll say, for the sake of those who may have been silly enough to not watch it immeeeediately in real time.

I did unpack my three million boxes of books, by the way, and ended up having to buy TWO new bookcases to make them all fit. Heavens to Betsy. But I have a bold new categorization strategy, which is this: I’ve divided my books into “Books I’ve Read” and “Books I Haven’t Read”, because it turns out I own a TRUCKLOAD of Books I Have Not Read. I have a tendency not to read the books I’m given as gifts, even if I really wanted them, because I usually have a giant stack of library books to get through, and those come with the ticking time bomb of library fines (yeah, I am so on the NYPL’s Most Wanted list), whereas no one’s going to make me pay money if I don’t finish the books I own.

But now! I am starting with a clean slate! I haven’t started taking books out of the library here yet, so I have no excuses, and there’ll be no more library time for me until I’ve read at least a few of these. Like Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Trilogy (oooh, pretty shiny books!). Or Meg Cabot’s recent stand-alones, like How To Be Popular and Size 12 Is Not Fat. And I’ve got The Pickwick Papers and Death Comes for the Archbishop regarding me sternly from the Classics shelf, or the third in Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching books, Wintersmith, which looks as amazing as the first two. EEEEEK! It’s a bookcase full of possibilities! Hooray!

More soon…

Quote of the Day:
Keith Mars: "Honey? Why is there a pistol in the freezer?"
Veronica: "Because there”s this guy, see, and I wanna put him on ice."
K: [skeptical expression]
V: "Because revenge is a dish best served cold."
K: [eyebrow lift]
V: "Because I want to commit murder in the 28th degree?"
K: "Stop."