Haunted by a Dowl

A quote from Mark this morning: "Sometimes if you listen quietly, you can hear the sounds - the sounds of the dowl."

Yes, we dear friends and family, have a dowl at our house. Not familiar with the dowl are you? Pull up a chair and acquaint yourself....

The dowl is half dove and half owl. It came into existence many moons ago, but was only recently discovered by us. We originally thought we had an owl at our house. It said "hoo hoo" every morning and frequently in the evening also. We thought it was cool, but we never saw him. Then one day, while at work, MeLissa heard the familiar call, looked up and saw a dove in a tree...no owls in sight. She relayed this to Mark who wouldn't hear of it. He insisted we have an owl. Not really much fun to squabble about a bird (though in the days of Robin, we have done so) and so we just let it be...until one day, MeLissa heard the faint call of the "owl" outside the house, looked up and saw a dove...just like the one she saw at work. Mark still wouldn't hear of it and so we compromised as any happily married couple would and began referring to our little friend as the dowl. Perhaps if you visit us, you too will have the calming experience (or the frustration if our friend decides to coo or hoo at a much too early hour!).

In other news, today is MeLissa's last day at work and Mark's last day of finals! He's retaking his clinic entrance. They snipered him with a bunch of radiology questions he wasn't expecting and didn't study for. No worries, we're sure he'll ace it this time around! In preparation for his test, we did a bit of studying this morning and, in the process, made Pixie a little confused and a bit silly. MeLissa's watch happened to catch the sun and create a reflection on the ceiling that caught the eye of the dear Pixie cat. She was quite frustrated that she couldn't reach it. Throughout our short study session, as the light moved in response to MeLissa turning a page or whatever, Pixie chased and cavorted as best as she could. We think we need to find her laser light pen again...

This evening, rather than celebrating like we probably should (we will eventually, but there's bills to pay and less income to pay them with right at the moment!), we're going to visit the pet store. Pixie needs a new litter box (this is exciting isn't it - not everything can be as intriguing as the dowl, you know!) to prevent her from pottying outside of it. For some reason, she is having an issue understanding that she needs to get her little booty fully into the box, lately. We're very glad we have a plastic mat up next to her box to prevent her from ruining the carpet. At least she actually tries to use the box...

We hope you all have a great weekend if we don't make it back to post again. We're heading to Colorado this coming Tuesday so it will probably be a bit calm around here for a while... :)