It is night time in California. I sit in bed, computer on my lap, thinking of my boys. This week has been a little tough at times.

Keeping busy has helped me while Y is visiting his cousins in New York. On the phone, when his voice is happy, he seems so close. But tonight, when he let his guard down, I heard a little homesickness on the line. Being on the other coast from each other puts us so far away. Unable to hold him and give him a kiss, I felt so helpless.

Later, I know that Y is asleep. I, however, am not. I am online, logging on to the iChat to look for B. Although his island is hours behind us, he is not online.

I am home sick because I miss my boys.

I had an observation that I have noticed on my blog (among others). It would seem that the first commenter sets the stage for all the other comments that follow. This seems to be true even when the first comment is off topic.

So….
I wanted to suggest that you post your comment first and then read the other comments. If you feel compelled, you can add another comment afterwards.

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As you may know, Ronin did well in his level one dog training class. He worked hard to please me and made me proud to be on the other end of his leash. Because of my plans to Buddy Run with him, I invested in the level two training class, which started last night.

Ronin was full of enthusiasm when he arrived at class. Unfortunately, he was not as eager to please me as he was to meet and greet his new classmates. The new instructor introduced himself before we had even made it over to the group.

Taking Ronin’s leash from me, he began asking a serious of questions:
How old is he?
How did he do in Level One?
Does he know not to pull on the leash?
Does he know not to stick his nose in people’s zipper areas?
Does he know not to jump?

With each question came a correction as Ronin was reminded of all the things that he *had* known and had conveniently left in the van with his doggie manners. *sigh*

Back in control of Ronin’s leash, and armed with a stronger technique for correcting Ronin’s rediscovered errant ways, the class began. I’d been warned that he is the strictest of all the instructors. I had no idea that we, the trainers/owners, would be robotted into answering in unison each question that was asked.

The first of many Q & A series went something like this:
Instructor: On a Walk On Okay, are your dogs allowed to walk ahead of you?
Class: Yes.
Instructor: Are they allowed to pull?
Class: No.
Instructor: If the metal clasp is not hanging straight down, are they pulling?
Class: Yes.
Instructor: Do you need to correct for that?
Class: Yes.
Instructor: How quickly?
Class: Immediately.
Instructor: Okay, let’s go.

Class proceeded and both Ronin and I were better behaved by the end of it. I went home and had the last of my merlot.

The problem with cooking dinner in the crock-pot is that it frees you up from having to cook at the end of the day – which is only a problem if you are trying to avoid doing something else.

I can hear YaYa screaming with delight from the neighbor’s pool. Although he is two doors down, I can hear him as if he was right beside me. If there was ever any fear of him drowning, while out of my sight, those fears have been disappeared. To think that his teacher actually wondered if he had a problem with voice projection.

YaYa’s return home promised dinner followed by a trip to the gym for me. It’s cross training day, and I am far from enthusiastic about anything that involves getting up from the couch. The SATC episodes are collecting up again, so I begin clearing out the queue hoping for a little motivation (or at least a laugh).

The thing that I find most intriguing about SATC is the word play created by the main character writing her column for the week. I think that it’s really clever. So, while the show may offer little motivation in the area of getting off the couch for a cross training session, it may at least motivate me to write.

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