I'm sitting here working away with the two dogs asleep nearby on the floor.  One dog is our six year old, 80 pound black lab named Arthur, the other is our approximately seven month old, 31 pound mutt named Mia.  As they sleep I hear a "phhht" sound every few minutes and then smell what can best be described as re-heated road kill.  You'd think the sound and odor assault was coming from that fat old codger Arthur, but you'd be wrong; it's emanating from the mini-mutt.  What makes it particularly annoying is that she occasionally wakes herself up, leans over and sniffs her butt as if to say "Hmm, that's a good vintage" and then promptly goes back to sleep and leaves me to suffer through her output.

Rest assured as soon as I'm done typing I'm waking the dogs up and sending them outside before I suffocate.  It's worse than the kids' dirty diapers ever were.

Gag.

Catching up on my newspaper reading after our trip I came across one of those "What are you thankful for?" pieces in The Winston-Salem Journal, the same article that is done every Thanksgiving day by every newspaper in the United States, and wouldn't have read it except that Laura Giovanelli put it together and since I've met her and like everything she writes I decided to give it a glance.  So what do I find, but a quote from my Uncle Steve:

Sure, Steve Motsinger of Winston-Salem is thankful for his family
and his dog, Sadie. But he wanted to single out the little things that
make his life good: hot showers, Advil, whitening toothpaste, paper
towels, automatic coffee makers, newspapers delivered in plastic bags,
comfortable shoes, relaxed-fit jeans and classic rock 'n' roll, and
most of all, his beloved LazyBoy recliner.

"I admit that the springs are shot and the fabric worn and stained.
I'll even concede that there might be a Frito or two from 1987
mellowing away in some dark interior nook. (I strongly suspect that
there are also one or more pacifiers, which mysteriously disappeared
when the kids were toddlers). But for all its faults, the chair fits me
like a glove. The sounds of springs groaning and fabric straining
whenever I sit down are, to me, the Sirens' call, luring me back onto
the shore of the World of a Thousand Naps. This chair is my friend and
I am thankful for it."

I've sat in that chair and can attest that it's very comfortable and upon further consideration I'm jealous of it.  We've never purchased La-Z-Boy for our house, instead opting for multiple couches in our living rooms and dens.  Thus I have a couch with a favorite spot, which anyone can easily identify because it's the spot with a large indentation that never goes away.  It bothers Celeste mightily so I'm thinking I need to get a chair for my large derriere for two reasons:

1. When guests come over they don't see a lopsided couch that embarrasses my wife, but rather a battered and stained monument to the American male that my wife can point to and say "Men!?"
2. I have a place that is all my own, a sanctuary with a male bubble of seclusion that no one will sit in because it grosses them out, and from which I can watch my fill of football and basketball games while gnoshing on various and sundry heart attack inducing snacks, games that I'll never see the end of because I've been lured by the Sirens' call to one of countless naps.