shootout at the o.k. corral, and an italian lunch

not last night, but the night before, pluto and i had it out. for awhile now, he's been waking in the middle of the night, and rattling the electric baseboard heater. greg usually gets up and gives him something to eat. i don't know why greg began doing this, but he did. i suppose he found it easier than trying to get pluto to stop rattling things. lately, however, greg hasn't been waking when pluto begins his rattling shenanigans, which has been consistently at 1:30 am, and then again around 4. since i'm concerned about greg getting enough sleep (i don't want him to get sick), i've started telling pluto, "no!" of course, pluto does not listen to "no!" one has to follow "no" with an action suitable for changing his behavior.

enter my weapon of choice: the squirt bottle. it's, actually, quite a large squirt bottle, and it's squirt travels a good, long distance. now, the shootout that occurred tuesday night/early wednesday morning was not planned on my part. it just naturally evolved, and since i was half asleep (it's amazing how much energy i can have when half asleep), the details are a bit fuzzy, but this is how i remember it . . i woke to hear pluto jumping off the bed and sauntering to the heater below the window, which is on the far side of the bed from me, putting greg's sleepy form in my way and serving as a good bunker. i hold my breath and then i hear . . rattle rattle rattle . . i reach up for the spray bottle which is on the headboard and i bring it down in front of me as i throw my body over the sleeping bunker and yell no! (squirt! --straight ahead) no! (squirt! --a little more to the left) no! (squirt--and now to the right which is when i hear a body part hit the heater and know my aim was true). i replace the bottle on the headboard and lay back down. several minutes go by. i hear . . rattle rattle rattle . . and the whole darn thing is repeated . . at least five more times. no exaggeration. finally, there's a longer pause . . and then i hear him by the shoe bin. he's pulled out one of greg's shoes and has started chewing on the lace. this time i have to get up out of bed in order to hit my target, and because i'm up, i'm also a lot closer and i know i've been successful when i hear him scamper away. i go back to bed . . and this situation is now repeated at least three more times. i figure he must be pretty wet by now! i also just have to put the shoes higher up in the bin. when i crawl back into bed for the fourth time, i hear him trying to reach up and pull a shoe out of the top pocket where i had stuffed it. i jump out of bed again, yell no, and give another squirt. wow, he's being persistent. i go back to bed again, cradling the squirt bottle in my arms, and start to drift off to sleep  . . somewhere in a sleepy haze i hear him clambering back up onto the bed and settling down between greg and i to go back to sleep himself. i replace the bottle on the headboard, and that's the end of tuesday night's/wednesday morning's shootout at the o.k. corral . . 

i found out today that he had gone into chanda's room after attempting to pull the shoe out of the top pocket of the shoe bin, and was playing with objects there for quite awhile.

last night was rather interesting, as he slept most of the night and didn't try to wake us by rattling the heater. 

what will tonight bring?

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chanda went shopping at faicco's today. we were out of pepperoncini, so she picked up three new jars, and also salami, muenster cheese, marinated mushrooms, green cracked olives, gus's lemon spritzer, and a tin of lavazza coffee. it was a feast. (i had called them earlier in the day to see if they were open. they had a detailed message on their machine, giving their hours and their social distancing protocol. i was very impressed. )