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And despite how mean I am to him*, I love him too.

* Have I mentioned before on-blog how my favorite activity at home is to say really mean things to Cooper, in a really nice tone of voice? “Hello, you terrible dog! You are a maker of trouble! You do nothing but create problems for me and other people! Look at you wag your tail like you think that’s okay! You think you can get by on being cute, but your looks won’t last forever! You’ll see!” Like that.

Other times I tell him about how he’s a mediocre dog, perfectly acceptable, but nothing special like he seems to think he is. (Which, obviously, is false. Look at him! So special!) Now that I’m writing this out, I’ve become positive that I picked it up from Peter Cameron.

Continuing my Anastasia Krupnik-esque style of late (and Bud E. Caldwell, and all the millions of other children’s book characters writing in lists), not to mention my theme of talking a lot about myself/dog and little about books (sorry!):

By popular demand... Cooper! Now I only need to manage to upload some video of him chasing his tail.

• Monkey in the Middle, which evolved into Cooper (my step-dog) in the Middle, which evolved to Keep Cooper Out of the Middle of the Food.
• Testes toss. No, that’s not what it’s really called.

Things I cooked for my housewarming party:

• Deviled chicken thighs. Twenty two of them, to be precise. Increasing the mustard, shallots and parsley was a good move.
• A very large pot of curried squash and eggplant, with pineapple. Yummy, but I should have made it spicier.
• Mango lassi… with homemade yogurt. Yeah, slow cooker.

I was going to also make a salad and chocolate pudding, but let’s be real, I’m not that organized.

Disasters that occurred during the cooking for my housewarming party:

• Suddenly deciding to procure drinks while curry curries —> curry bubbles over —> curry onto floor
• Forgetting to depit one mango before putting it in blender —> pit chunks into lassi —> trying to strain lassi —> lassi onto floor

The cooking, folks, is a work in progress. Luckily, Cooper is an excellent helper when it comes to foodstuffs on the floor. And speaking of Cooper…

Most horrifying/hilarious thing that happened at my housewarming party:

When a friend arrived with his very charming six-year-old, we discovered that Cooper loves little kids. More precisely, Cooper loves that little kids are exactly the right size for him to hump.

Unfortunately, this child happened to also love that he was exactly the right size for Cooper to hump (or, in his understanding, exactly the right size for “giving Cooper a ride”). Which meant that he kept bending over for Cooper and yelling, “Oh yeah! Oh yeah!”

His dad was not very pleased. I, unfortunately, was in hysterics, which only encouraged the kid to keep doing it… over and over and over again.

UPDATED to add: WordPress wouldn’t let me upload this, but do yourself a favor and go find Big Mama Thornton’s original “Hound Dog,” the ideal soundtrack to this post. Elvis took this brilliant song and made it… about a dog.