Who says dogs can't read?

(Biggify this photo if you can't read the pillow!)

Write your own caption to this photo!

There were just too many for Mom to choose from, so let's hear what you think the caption should be!

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???)

The morning after the night before!

Oh! Hello there! Sorry, you caught me and Mica napping. What a wonderful Howloween we had last night (despite noisy drunk people on the street and horns and sirens all night long! We kinda missed our quiet Island last night around 2:00 am!)

But more about the party!

The spookiest ghosts were flying over head! Don't the lights at the Standard hotel look like scary eyes in the dark? There were loads of people and doggies having a great time. (If you biggify, you can see me at the bottom, waiting for someone to please throw the ball!)

I couldn't quite keep my googly frog eyes and crown centered on my head as I ran after balls. And I had to bark to Mom at the fence quite a bit to help me find a good ball. (She was taking photos with Asta's Mommi of the dogs as they arrived for the big costume contest.)

Just look at the great big bags of prizes! I've won one the past two years, so this year, I was fine to share the goodies with other doggies.

Rosie! You never told me you were coming to the party in my dragon costume from last year! Oh wait, it's just a cake! (Can you believe it???) Rosie is MUCH sweeter!

Here's Asta and her "brother by a different mother" Duffy as Little Red Riding Hood and Grandma Wolf. Duffy was so good about wearing those little glasses and we loved his big wolfie ears sticking out of his nightcap!

Pumpkin (who is a Goldendoodle, by the way, not a standard poodle. And she's also a girl Lacie, so not dateable) was Audrey Hepburn and won the prize for best dog over 30 lbs. She was so excited, she had to take a nap to recover in her Mom's lap!

Lexi came as the Cat in the Hat....
...and her baby twin sisters were Thing One and Thing Two! How cute is that?

It started raining right after the prizes were distributed so we headed home, stopping to admire the pumpkin patch, all lit up. Biggify these to see some of the wonderful carvings.

There were probably 100 or more pumpkins, big and small, all lit up.

When we went out for a walk this morning, we ran into my friend Acadia who today was going by the name of Princess Tinkerbell. She very stylishly decide to wear her tiara backwards with the ribbons in the front. She is almost 3 years old - the perfect age for a fairy princess.

"POOF!" Still a little doggie. Wonder what she was hoping I'd turn into?

One of the Marc Jacobs shops was taking down their decorations (it will probably be Christmastime there by this afternoon!).

Got bones?

When we got home, I just knew Mom was hiding my treat bag from the party on top of the cabinet. I could almost reach it. (Our apartment is a disaster because painters are coming tomorrow. And we'll still be living here! Yikes!)

Whatdya mean "no treats until after breakfast?" Ah shucks. I'll just have to turn my laser beams on you!

Hope everyone had a great Howloween too!

It's HOWL-a-ween!!!

BOO!

Don't be scared! It's just me, Petey!

Happy Howl-o-ween, everybloggie. I hope you're having a spooktacular Saturday. At the park across the street from our apartment, they have a Halloween festival every year. The local supermarket donates about 100 pumpkins and neighbors can take one to carve and bring back to the park where they'll be lit up on Halloween night. It's a pumpkin patch!

Here's the one that Mom and I carved. Well, mostly I just offered artistic direction.

Here are some of my favorite neighbor kids, dressed as Spider Girl and Dalmation #101!

We met this cute little bat pup in the park. He was jumping around so much it was hard to get a photo of him.
Here are some of our favorite Jack-O-Lanterns! Like this Frankenpumpkin....
...or this Three-eyed Mustached Orange People Eater!

I think this pumpkin had one too many of Lacie's Witches Brew Smoothies...

Don't be said, Jack-o-lantern , it's time to trick or treat!!!

Elmo was checking out all the pumpkins. If he was the cookie monster, I have a feeling Mom would have gobbled him all up!

Look at this scary window display at the Marc Jacobs store! Looks like our backyard down on the Island! (I mean, with the Spanish moss and alligators - not the zombies!)

I wish we had a better photo of this townhouse that was completely covered in spiderwebs and big old creepy crawlies!

The stores along Bleecker Street go all out for Halloween with wonderful and creative window decorations.

Hee hee, this little Frenchie had a great curly wig. It isn't easy being green!

These six-month old twins live in our building. Aren't they the cutest monkey and flower you've ever seen?

And here's my costume...I'm the FROG PRINCE! A sure-fire way to get lots of kisses from princesses. (Don't worry Rosie, I'm only talking about the 2-legged variety!)

We'll be headed over to the big party at the Dog Run soon, in the meantime, check out Asta's blog to see photos of our party preparations last night. I made some green monster goo by defuzzing a few tennis balls.

Party photos tomorrow~I can promise you, it will be GREAT!

My favorite Philly...

...comes with extra cheese and steak! Hold the onions (they're no good for dogs — just like the Phillies are no good for the Yankees!!!)

GO YANKEES!!!! (Wonder if I can get a seat next to Kate Hudson?)

Fascinating Facts about Cairn Terriers (like ME!)

We just watched a program called Dogs 101 that featured CAIRN TERRIERS!!!!

We are very famous for our STARRING role in The Wizard of Oz. Terry, the black female Cairn whose name was changed to Toto after the movie, was paid $125 a week. The munchkins made less than $100 a week.

Many celebrities have owned Cairn Terriers, including Bill Murray, Liza Minelli and David Hasselhoff!

Our front paws are bigger than our back paws! This makes us excellent diggers (although I've only dug one hole in my life—in the park across the street during spring planting—and Mom quickly dropped in some crocus bulbs and covered it up. I was doing my part!).

I'd never really noticed until we took a closer look at my pawprints in the sand...

And perhaps most interestingly, we're left-pawed. Which could come in mighty handy tomorrow night at Yankee Stadium!!!!