"I hope she's right."

Friday, December 28, 1990 (Part 2)

     I need to tell about our xmas now.  I got Guy new work shoes - his old ones had holes in the bottom of one - a new trash bag for his truck, some socks, the screwdriver set and electric ice scraper he asked for, & a key chain that has buttons you can push for different sound effects so he can 'zap' other drivers when he gets upset in traffic.  All that sounds puny next to what he got me: a mixer, a can opener with knife sharpener, a stethoscope, & a couple of paperbacks.  I was so excited about everything.  But then I was reading about my mixer & it said not to use it for heavy mixing such as bread dough.  That puzzled me til I realized that it said it had pastry hooks, not dough hooks.  Then I also realized it was 6 speeds & not 12 & that it only had one bowl.  I pointed out to Guy what it said about heavy mixing & he pointed out that it said it could cause the motor to overheat or burnout, not that it would.  He said he thought it would do fine.  We went back & forth on it off & on for a couple of days.  He was disappointed because he thought he was doing good getting me what I wanted.  I told him I didn't realize there were 2 different kinds of hooks or I would have noted the difference on my wish list.  He said we could exchange it for a different one but that we'd have to charge the difference.  He said this only cost about $36 and the next one up was $100 more.  So that made me feel worse & wish I didn't ever say anything about it.  I know we shouldn't charge stuff for the baby.  But he started looking for the receipt for the mixer & couldn't find it so I may have to keep it after all.  I told him maybe I could just tell them it was a gift & I didn't have the receipt.  I also said I'd just look at the other mixers before deciding what to do.  I think we're going out to the malls tomorrow.  I wish he hadn't had to go back to work today.
     We went over to Steve & Jill Lowell's for xmas dinner.  We left about 1:00 and came home about 10:00.  Butch Plummer, their single, was there too.  We ate around 3:00 then visited.  We tried playing Rook but we were all so rusty & couldn't figure the rules out so we gave up on that and played UNO.  Then we played Trivial Pursuit and Butch & Steve beat me & Guy!  It seemed like we couldn't get anything right most of the time, especially in geography which is usually Guy's strong point.  It was fun anyway but it was a tiring day.  We had waited to feed Chief til about an hour before we left so he could go potty & be ok til we got back.  He was a desperate puppy when we got back though.  Guy found a small puddle in front of the stove but didn't spank him.
     We had to put a fence around the xmas tree to keep Chief away from it.  He got one of the reindeer ornaments off & chewed it up.  He apparently ate the eyes & the tiny wooden bell as well as the yarn parts and one of the yarn bows off the tree skirt.  A couple of times in the past few weeks Guy caught Chief sleeping on the couch.  We started putting stuff on the couch so he couldn't get up there. Oh, we got him a doggie bed and put away his cage a few weeks ago.  He took to it without too much trouble.  But he got into mischief just while ago.  I had counted out 10 kisses to eat & had had 6 already.  I stopped writing to go to the bathroom & came back & started writing again.  Chief reached up to try & get a kiss & I realized that there was only 1 kiss there!  I recounted all the empty wrappers to be sure & looked all over the couch and around & couldn't find the missing ones.  So I called the vets office & talked to a lady there.  She said just that few shouldn't hurt - it's when they eat a large amount of chocolate, like a whole bag of kisses, that it can be toxic to them.  She said that he might vomit or have diarrhea but most likely it would all pass through, wrappers too, without hurting him anywhere from 12-24 hours.  I hope she's right.