in all my excitement about not fucking up Thanksgiving dinner, I totally forgot to tell you about Wednesday night. Smang and I dedicated Wednesday night to prep work. So, I was making the cornbread for my stuffing. Smang was hard at work on what would turn out to be the most delicious cranberry sauce in the world. We were cooking, and Lu was laying on the floor in the kitchen, desperately willing some food, any food, to fall. Brownie was outside, becuase there are always things that interest her outside. There are bugs to eat, frogs to bark at, and other assorted flora and fauna. So, we were all doing our thing, when suddenly Lucy jumped up! Now, since she's a grouchy old lady, she rarely moves super fast. But she was up and at 'em like I had said, "beef tenderloin at the backdoor."

"Bark bark bark barkbark BARK BARK!", she cried. " "Hush up!" I retorted. More urgently, "BARKBARKBARK BARK BARK BARKBARK!" Smang looked out into our yard. "I think there's a dog in the yard." She grabbed the flashlight. "No, it's a wolf!" she proclaimed. "Don't be silly, there are no wolves in Dallas.", I insist. "Then, it is a coyote!" Holy crap, man! A coyote. In the backyard. Not ten feet away from Brownie. They were staring at each other. Lucy was still frantically barking, but Brownie did not make a sound. We quickly determined that we had to somehow call Brownie into the house, but scare the coyote away. Smang was hesitant to shake a box of cookies, fearing that Wile E. might like cookies, too. We cracked the door, called out "Brownie! Come get cookies!" She opted to skip the usual round of "I'm Coming In the House...PSYCH! I'm Totally Not Coming In the House", and just made a beeline for the cookie box. I gave her the cookie, as Smang slammed the door. The coyote took off, headed for the creek, but ran into a fence post on his way. The dogs stayed inside the rest of the night.