The Christmas lights are lit.

Once again, we are contributing to National Grid's bottom line by stringing a bunch of lights on the front of our house. I'm not entirely sure why we do this but my wife seems happy with it.

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I am trying something new with the Small Emergency Backup Dog. She has developed a habit of creating dog doors for herself by poking her way through the screens on the porch. I found a gadget that creates a door in the screen and we're trying to teach her to go through it instead pushing the screen in.

So far, it's a failure because she walks up to it, looks at it and then steps to the right and pokes her way through the screen.

All I can do is sigh, fix the screen and point out the door to her, again.

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You might like these links:

• On Canada.



• Key entry in our favorite police log: "10:00 a.m. A Columbia Falls woman complained that her neighbor shoots squirrels and his dog eats them. She was advised that this was not an illegal activity."



• In case you had forgotten, the Japanese are insane.