Crazy Dog

Last week at work, there was some sort of fancy event that required the presence of several 9-ft palm trees. After the event was over, the trees were up for grabs so I took one home.

My husband was a little surprised when I got home and asked him if he'd get the tree out of my car.

Anyway, I'm not really sure what to do with a palm tree. It won't get enough light in the house and I don't think I can plant it outside because it won't survive the winter here in Philly. For the time being, I decided to just take it outside, but then wind kept blowing it over and I'd pick it back up, and the wind would blow it over again and then...

So that got old. I finally moved it to the corner of the yard with the intention of anchoring it to the fence even though I still haven't done that yet. But with a few bricks to prop it up, it managed to stand up pretty well without it. So that was good.

But then...

Hurricane Autumn hit. You know about Autumn, right? Autumn is such a sweet dog and is very enthusiastic about just about everything. Just a happy little girl. But there are some things we don't want her to do and not only does she do them, she does them enthusiastically. Like eat poop. Like eat my plants, including azaleas, which are poisonous to dogs. Like drag my new 9-ft palm tree around the back yard.

I went outside to survey the damage and she decided it was time to play "crazy dog." She just ran every direction all at once at fast as she could go. There was lots of jumping over the fallen tree and slamming herself against the back door and then running to the gate and then slamming herself against the door again and then jumping over the tree and just going crazy. As I moved the tree back to the corner of the yard, she kept trying to bite at this one branch and every time I yelled, "No!" she just turned crazy dog up a notch. Once the tree was out of the game, she was down to running to the gate and then slamming against the door and running to the gate and slamming against the door and running to the gate and...

Autumn turns a year old this week. I think it's pretty safe to say that I have very high expectations of how calm "Adult Autumn" will be.

Please say a prayer for us all.