Color me blue! (Well, a light bluish green)..oh, and some math!

After living here close to twelve years -- and having paint chips on the walls for the past four—we're finally getting our apartment painted. Everything but the kitchen and bathroom, which have indeed been painted in this millenium.

Mica and I, of course, are happy to join in the fun.

Now keep this in mind. We live in a nice sized one-bedroom apartment in NYC. Some might even say that it's roomy for a one-bedroom in NYC! However, over the past 30 years, Mom has moved from bigger places to smaller places, without really downsizing her belongings too much. In fact, she's acquired MORE.

She describes our home as "a gift shop with a bed in it." No spare Swedish modern clean surfaces here. No siree. In fact, we call our home The Knickknack Paddyshack."

Also keep this in mind - whilst our living room, foyer and bedroom are being painted, we three will be inhabiting those same spaces. Actually, we're camped out in the bedroom now while the living room is getting painted first.

So this is what our living room looked like first thing Monday morning...

By early afternoon, the cracks had been filled and smoothed over. The painter had to shoo Mom away from doing the same thing to her face. Ahhh, the first coat is up!

By evening, the second coat was up and the color was looking more greenish and less blue. It's a Ralph Lauren color called Hazel Woods and the ceiling and trim are Benjamin Moore Monterey White. It's chilly in here because we've opened a window to let out the paint fumes and let in the bus fumes....

Mica has decided to sleep through the whole ordeal in the nest he constructed out of the 250 pillows on Mom's bed.

I am doing likewise, hoping a box full of knickknackery doesn't fall on my head in my sleep! I'm wearing my hoodie so I don't freeze with my new hairdo.

And where is the painter today, you may ask? Apparently, Election Day is a union holiday for residential doormen and workers so no outside workers are allowed in. The painter may or may not have told us this yesterday as we couldn't understand much of what he said. Mom asked him if he'd like a sandwich for lunch and he said, "yes, two." When she repeated what would he like in his sandwich, he replied "30 minutes."

Perhaps it was Mom's English that was the problem...

In other bloggie news, Jake (of Fergi and Jake, not Just Harry's Jake) dreamed he had a Halloween date with Lacie. (Typically I'd insert a comment about dream versus nightmare and Halloween and the hounds of Hell but it's just TOO EASY!)

More news!!! Our buddy Clive and his Not-so-Little-Man are BACK!!! YIPEE!!!!

Hurry over there and read their latest post. If you read the comments from Clive's farewell post, then you know that many of us mentioned the impact that our Irish Dynamic Duo have had on our lives, as well as making us so much more aware of the importance of service dogs and how they can make life so much better for kids like NSLM with autism.

HOWEVER...

Clive also mentioned how the Irish Guide Dogs for the Blind (Clive's home office, so to speak) is having a tough time with fundraising this year. Approximately 85% of its income comes from fund raising and voluntary donations. Be sure to visit Clive's blog and send an email to their Government Ministers. IT'S FAST AND EASY!

So here's my BIG IDEA that involves MATH!

The holidays will be here soon and I know many of you send cards and presents to other dog blog pals. Well, here in the US, it costs 44¢ to mail a card domestically and at least 75¢ to mail a card internationally. And that doesn't even include the cost of the cards themselves!

So let's say you're sending 30 cards domestically and another 20 internationally - that's $28.20 just for postage. (Or 17.19 British pounds) We can sponsor a guide dog puppy for 250 pounds a year! So what we'd spend on postage could care for a pup -- like baby Clive -- for over three weeks!!! You won't even have the Christmas cards around that long but the puppy will be around for a whole lifetime.

That's what I'm going to do. I'll post a lively Christmas/Holiday greeting on my blog and send the money I'd spend instead to Irish Guide Dogs. Who doesn't want to find a puppy in Santa's bag?

Anybloggie care to join me??? (wouldn't it be great if the DWB doggies could sponsor a whole litter of pups for a year???)