Long Time No See

I'm so sorry it's been soooo long since I've posted! I really have no excuses, except that it's summer time and I live in Tucson and it's HOT. Truly, these are the dog days of summer.Mama took me to the groomers today, and that place makes me a nervous wreck. I spent the rest of the day trying to recover.

Mama spent part of her day at the Y in the pool. Then she put her old grill outside with a sign on it "Free for the Taking", since the connectors that go from the gas tank to the grill leak and it was old and not really something she wanted to fix. So a couple of weeks ago she bought this:

Last weekend she had a friend come over to help her assemble it (mama hates that kind of thing). They spent three hours assembling it. About two hours into it, mama's friend noticed a sticker on the lid: Free Assembly Available. Mama's friend laughed, but mama was kind of mad. The people at the store heard her on the cell phone when she was at the store pondering how she was going to get it assembled, and the clerks didn't say a word! But they got it assembled. You should have seen her the first time she lit it! She was so funny! She turned on the gas, then turned on the burners (there's THREE!). Then she put her hand on the ignition button and leaned back as far as she could before she pushed the button! She was laughing so hard, too, cuz she was afraid it would blow up in her face!

Mama moved it today to this side of the patio where there's some shade, but it's not level enough there so she's probably going to move it back to the other side (she can't put it along the fence like the other one cuz it's bigger and the ground slopes too much for this one to fit). Either that or she'll get some dirt and plywood to even out this section. It'll be cheaper to move it back.

Now mama says she needs to get a good grilling cookbook. Mama says she welcomes any grilling tips you want to give her; grilling isn't something she'd done much of other than hot dogs and hamburgers (and s'mores!).

New Toy!!

Mama came home with a lot of stuff today. Some of it was even for me! First, she bought me a new collar!Mama really liked the old one, the brown one with black bones carved into it, but she said it's been two years with that one and it was time for something different!

Then she bought me this:

There are actually two more pictures of this thing, but mama says enough is enough, you all are smart and get the idea of the longest leash I have ever seen! She says, though, that it's not a leash, it's a training lead. Though she also said she's not going to use it for training, but for using it at the park so I can chase this:

See, mama isn't fond of dogs running loose in public places not meant for dogs running loose, and I'm not fond public places meant for dogs running loose. So mama thought she could buy me a long lead and then use this wand thingie to throw that ball while I'm attached to the long lead that will allow me to run after it without mama losing control of me!I wanted to play with the ball right away, but mama made me play with this instead:

All is not lost, though. If Blogger is working properly (and I never know when it is), you can click on this picture (or any of the others) to see an enlarged version. On this one, you would then see on the bottom of this toy a little brown "dot". Well, that "dot" is actually a kibble of food mama stuffed into the end of the toy for me to work at to get out. Any toy that has food inside is okay by me!