Beauty stinks.  There is no two ways about it.  She is hairy and smelly and gross, and she makes my house reek like dog.  Of course, no one else in the household sees it that way but me.  Addie adores her, and doesn’t mind sleeping in a doggy-smelling bed.  Scott knows she stinks but chooses to ignore it.  Ender doesn’t even notice (but little boys tend to have dogs beat when it comes to the noxious fume department anyway).  Addie’s friend who comes to play notices, though, and feels the need to tell me about it each time she is here.  In an astounding display of the lack of tact that I spoke of in the last post, she will say “Miss Stacy, your dog stinks!  Your whole house stinks!  How can you stand it?  How can you stand having a dog when it makes your house stink so bad??”  Indeed.

So, on a bright sunny Saturday morning, the dog-washing commenced.  It began innocently enough, with a bottle of baby soap, a hose, a dog, a daddy and 2 dry kids.  It rapidly devolved into a game of hose warfare that left the kids dripping wet, the dog cowering in the corner, and Scott laughing maniacally (because, of course, he was the one holding the hose).  I quickly retreated to the safety of the house and grabbed the camera, because everyone knows that the one holding a camera is off-limits when it comes to water wars.  I waited until the battle ended and snapped this picture of Beauty getting clean.  If only it would last for more than a day or two….

Then I decided to head up to the roof with the camera (one of my favorite spots to hide because the kids never think to look for me up there), and snapped this pretty picture of our street.  Up on the right, before the house with the red roof, you can see the entrance to the park where the dangerous water tower is.  A huge electric line runs through the middle of the community creating a little round-a-bout in the middle of the entrance road.  Large apartment buildings, in various states of construction, surround the community, but walking out on the street you never really notice them due to the trees and the wall surrounding the complex.

Tonight brings some dinner guests to my house.  I already informed them that I am a cruddy cook, and they know that Pizza Hut is the order of the evening. Being fairly recent arrivals to India themselves, they are more than pleased with my proposed menu!