When I moved to Blogville, I never knew how many super fabulous furends I would make or how much fun I would have. And even when there’s been sadness, Blogville reminds me over and over about how many Most Kind and Gentle souls there are in the world.

So everybuddy grab one of those pupcakes (it’s hard to tell but they’re actually made of CHEESE!) and I thinks there’s still some beer left (pretty sure Puddles hasn’t drunk it all yet). And then sit back and relax cuz me and some of my BFFs put together some special entertainments to celebrate this Most Momentous Day!

If you can’t see the movie, click here.

Whew! That was fun! Oodles of thanks to Puddles, Maggie Mae, Madi and Bunny for all their hard work on the gorey-ography. And super sloppy brindle kisses, wiggles and wags to all of YOU for making these last two years so Most Wonderful!

Now let’s PAWTY!

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PeeS. DON’T FORGET! Only 3 more days to enter for a chance to win a date with me, Mayzie. And remember, for every submission I gets, mom will donate 1 green paper to help build Dog Fostermom’s fence.

I finally gave mom this face…

And she said that okay, she would help me do a bloggie post but on one condition.

SHE got to write it! WHAT? Can you believes the nerve? 

But then she told me she wanted to write abouts my angel kitteh-sisfur, Annabelle, and well, how could I say no to that?

So here’s my mom!

Annabelle was my heart-cat and the smartest cat I’ve ever known. She went through at least 9 lives and everyone in our family has an Annabelle story. This is my personal favorite.

Annabelle adopted our family when I was in high school, over the strenuous and frequent protests of my stepfather who, at every opportunity, let the family know he did NOT like “damn cats.” Annabelle was fine with this because, as it turns out, she did NOT like “damn stepfathers.”

In fact, Annabelle had a well-defined hierarchy when it came to the humans in the house. Stepdad at the very bottom. My sister K and I at the very top. 

Because she was an indoor/outdoor cat, the family would leave the patio door open to allow her easy entry and exit during nice weather. One spring night after I was at college and while my sister was at a high school function, Annabelle came in from outside. As usual, she ignored my parents and made a beeline for my sister’s room which was directly off the living room.

A few seconds later, Annabelle suddenly re-emerged and stared intensely at my parents. When neither of them moved, she began to meow.

Now, this was unusual, as Annabelle was a cat of few words. Both my parents thought it a little odd, but ignored her and continued watching their tv show.

Unsatisfied with this response, Annabelle walked over to my mother and meowed even more loudly. Once again, she was ignored.

At this point, Annabelle strode purposefully to my stepfather, positioned herself squarely in front of him, and meowed yet again with unmistakable urgency and irritation. You have to understand how extraordinary this was. Annabelle never chose to be in the same room with my stepfather, and certainly never stooped to address him directly. THIS got their attention. Perplexed, my stepfather looked at my mother and said, “What the HELL has gotten into that damn cat?”

About this time, something caught his eye. Turning, he saw this coming out of my sister’s room…

Note: Not actual possum.

Now, let me just pause the action for a moment. The thing I always find most remarkable about this story is that, upon encountering a wild animal in “her” room, Annabelle didn’t take refuge in another room. She didn’t escape outside. No. Instead, she made the conscious decision to approach my parents, knowing they were the only ones who could do anything about the intruder. She told them, as plainly as she could, “Excuse me. There is a very large, very hairy, very UGLY beast in my room. And I demand you do something about it at once!”

Was it her fault if they didn’t speak fluent cat?

Anyway, from what I have been told, all hell broke loose at this point. My stepfather leaped from his recliner and quickly pulled on his cowboy boots after realizing that his typical tv-watching apparel of tighty-whiteys and an undershirt would be insufficient for confronting such a dangerous beast. Moving just as quickly, my mother grabbed a broom and handed it to him, which he wielded above his head like a hatchet. Confronted by this alarming spectacle, the possum did the only logical thing a possum could do.

It ran upstairs.

My parents – once they recovered from the surprise of finding that the possum did not actually, you know, play possum – followed quickly behind.

About the time they reached the top of the stairs, they saw the possum disappear into my brother’s room. My brother, who was about 9 at the time, was fast asleep. Creeping into the room, my parents watched in horror as the possum clambered onto the bed and tight-roped its way along the headboard, its tail trailing across my brother’s face. They stood frozen, terrified to wake my brother who, in turn, might startle the animal into some sort of frenzied possum-mauling. Once on the other end of the headboard, the possum ran down the length of the bed, jumped to the floor and out the bedroom door. 

The possum rodeo was back on!

Finally, with some effort – and no shortage of cursing – the possum was herded back outside, much to my parents’ and the possum’s relief.

And where was Annabelle during this melee? Stretched out happily on my sister’s bed, satisfied that she had done her part in vanquishing the beast from her kingdom.

From that day on, I think my stepfather developed a kind of grudging respect for the “damn cat,” although he would never admit it. I can assure you, however, that the feeling was NOT mutual. Annabelle never did care much for “damn stepfathers” (or possums) as long as she lived.

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PeeS. Don’t forgets to check out my “Win a Date with Mayzie” contest, okay?

I thought long and hard which category I should enter. It was a very much tough decision cuz, well, I AM super cute and I do a LOT of work around the house for my mom and dad. Of course, Bad Sport was out for Most Obvious reasons. But in the end, I decided to enter the Adventure Animals category.

Now, for the first coupla years of my life, I never thought much abouts having adventures. That’s cuz I spent all my time living outside in somebody’s backyard. I didn’t even IMAGINE that there might be a world outside of that yard. 

But all that changed when I got rescued and then my mom and dad adopted me. That’s when I found out just how adventurous I really am.

When I first got adopted, just living inside a house was an adventure. There were all sorts of strange and skeery things that I didn’t understand. I couldn’t walk on the slippery wooden floors or go up and down stairs, and the first time I saw the Sea Link Fahn bird, I fell to my tummy and my teethies starting chattering cuz I thought it was gonna swoop down and carry me off!

But little by little, I got more brave and adventuresome and now…

When I first got adopted, I had never been to school and didn’t know cool stuff like “sit” or “down” or “stay” or “high five.” So when mom said she was enrolling us in our first class, I was pretty nervous. She said, “Oh, c’mon, Mayzie. It’ll be a fun adventure!” And you know what? She was right! And it made me lots more confident. I’ve finished up FIVE classes now and I can’t wait to do more!

If you can’t see the movie, click here.

When I first got adopted, I just wanted to hide away in the safety of my house. I didn’t like staying in strange places like hotels or going to other people’s houses but now, going to those places is a Most Exciting adventure!

Click the picture to biggify.

And when I first got adopted, I didn’t even like to go for walkies on our street cuz the big wide world was so skeery and unpredictable-like. But now…

Click the picture to biggify.

Oh, I know these things might not seem as exciting or adventuresome as bungee jumping or sky diving or drag racing. And there’s lots of things that I’m still afraid of. But when I was first adopted, if something skeery came along, I would just go to my condo and hide. Now when I’m skeered, I take a deep breath, gather up all my courage, walk over and bop it with my nose! And you know what? After I do that, I usually find out it’s not so skeery after all. 

If you can’t see the movie, click here.

And I think that makes me
One Adventurous Animal!

Well! As you can imagine, I was pretty excited abouts this. But then I realized…

I DON’T HAVE A DATE! (I yelled so you wouldn’t miss that.)

Now, most of you know that I have a very sweet boyfurend named Booker. Only, well, Booker hasn’t been in Blogville for awhile. The last I heard, he had joined the Paws Corps and was in the wilds of South Carolina working with other Labradogs to helps them conquer their addiction to tennis balls.

Booker Man, My Boyfurend and Paw Corps Volunteer

This is very much noble work and I support him 187% BUTT that means I’m Dateless on Valentine’s. (Like Sleepless in Seattle, only not as sappy.)

So THEN (more yelling) I thought…well, I could just ask one of my furends to go with me. But I have a lotta good furends and I wouldn’t want to hurt anybuddy’s feelings by picking one over the other.

And then I thought…why don’t I let all of YOU (even more yelling for emphasis) pick a date for me?

So here’s the dealio. If you (or somebuddy you know) would like to take me to the Valentine’s Pawty, just paw me an email at mayziegal AT gmail DOT com. Sends me your picture (or the picture of the date you’re nominating) and 3-5 sentences abouts why you (or they) would like to take me to the pawty. (Some ideas: Tell me how brave you are or how you’re very much a terrific dancer or how pretty my Brindle Furs are).

Oh, and you don’t have to be a doggie! I’m okay with interspecies dating so if you’re a kitteh or a goat or a donkey, that’s just super fine with me. And you don’t even have to have a bloggie, either! You just have to want to be my date.

I’ll take emails until January 27th and then I’ll post them on my bloggie and let everybuddy vote. 

And cuz I can’t ever do a contest without offering up some of mom’s green papers, I’ll make sure she donates 1 green paper for every entry I get to Dog Fostermom’s fence. (Oh, my mom’s gonna be SO excited when I tell her!)

Okay, let’s go over this again…

If you or somebuddy you know (of any species!) would like to be my date for the Valentine’s Pawty:

1. Send an email to mayziegal AT gmail DOT com

2. Include a picture of yourself or the furend you’re nominating.

3. Write 3-5 sentences about why you (or they) would like to take me to the dance.

4. Paw it to me by January 27th.

And that’s it! Easy-peasy!

Okay, uh, now I’m kinda nervous.  What if nobuddy wants to be my date? 

Haha! Just kidding! That would be KERAZY!

Right?

This Frenchie SURE does love her some cabbage! And I bet she is Most Fragrant for the rest of the day, too.

If you can’t see the movie, click here.

Now, I can relate cuz I LUVS brussels sprouts! Is there anything YOU luv that others might think is kinda kooky?

Today we wanna show you something kinda special.

Do you like that blankie? It’s the first blankie that my mom bought for me after I figured out that blankies were for sleepin’, not for chewin’.

I LUVS it cuz it’s SO soft and comfy. It stays in my condo and I sleep with it every single night. And whenever we go on a trip, it goes with me. It makes me feel safe and secure and no matter where we are, I feel like I’m home.

And that’s why we decided that this would be the PAWFECT blankie to cut out a square for the Pittie Pack Memory Quilt.

It has lotsa different doggie patterns on it, like bones and a dog house and a ball. But we chose this one…

Cuz the Pittie Pack have left their pawprints on our hearts forever and ever.

If you’d like to pawticipate, there’s still time! The deadline WAS January 16th but it got extended by a couple of weeks. Click here to read all the details on how you can be part of it.

And thank you, thank you to Miss Agnes from Dachsies with Moxie and Cindy from Bird Brains and Dog Tails for doing this Most Wonderfully Beautiful thing for our dear furends.

Okay, first things first…

Brudder Ranger is going in to have his teethies cleaned today. So of COURSE, my mom is all crazy freaked out mildly concerned and it would prolly help her a lot to know everybuddy is sending him good wishes. Thank you, thank you!

Now, the next thing I wanna talk to you abouts today is the pre-rinse cycle.

The pre-rinse cycle is when you help out your humans by cleaning up their dishes after they get done eating something. If you don’t know abouts pre-rinse in your house, it’s prolly cuz your humans are holding out on you don’t understand what a very much valuable service this is.

Now…it’s true that SOME humans might think that we want to do the pre-rinse cuz we luvs to slurp up all that tasty left-over goodness. But that’s not it at all. Nope.

We’re just very Most Helpful.

This is how it goes during every breakfast time around our house:

After mom does her jumping-around-and-getting-sweaty-thing, she makes her oatmeal and dad makes his cereal.

I sit close by to make sure mom eats all her breakfast.

Eat up, mom! Breakfast is the Most Impawtant meal of the day, you know!

Now, Brudder Ranger prefers to snoopervise from afar.

You're doing a bang-up job there, Mayzie. You just let me know when they're all...zzzzzzz....

Mom’s a little messy so sometimes I have to do a little pre-pre-rinse clean-up.

Oopsie! Don't worry...I'll gets that for you.

Then once they’re all done, I alert Brudder Ranger.

Brudder Ranger! Battle stations!

And our big moment arrives!

For the love of God, woman, just put the bowl down!

You have to make sure you do a VERY thorough job so that the dishwashing machine doesn’t have to work too hard. It also helps to switch bowls and check each other’s work afterwards.

Rinse. Rinse. Rinse.

So there you have it! The Impawtance of Pre-Rinse!

Any questions?

Okay, I know the year has already started but there’s still 425 306 87 a LOT of days left. So that means you need some way of keeping track of all those many days that are still coming up.

And I wanna tell you abouts two Most AH-mazing calendars that’ll help you do that!

Two great calendars you can order! (Sorry. Brindle dog not included.)

The first one is the Dogs with Blogs calendar. It’s got LOTS of my good furends in it like Mango and Dexter, Khyra, Asta, and our sweet Angel Shelby. It’s $18.99 and all of the green papers from this calendar go to Assistance Dogs Australia.

Oh! And did I mention that I’M in it, too? Yep, I’m Miss August, along with my good furends Izzy and Sugar!

If you wanna buy one of your very own, go check it out by clicking on this linkie.

Okay, the next one is super special, too! It’s called Pit Bull Frogs and it’s got lotsa bendy pitties doin’ the Most Impressive Bull Frog Doga Pose.

Now, I’m not in this one (I’m just not that bendy) but I have furends in this one, too. Like Roo and Corbin!

Only Corbin could make wearing a froggie costume looks manly.

This calendar is $19.99 and most of those green papers will go to some very much deserving pro-pittie organizations. So if you wanna buy one of these, just clickie on this link here.

But wait! There’s more! If you order either one of these calendars RIGHT NOW (or, you know, whenever you can gets around to it), you’ll get extra brindle sugars from me pawsonally. And I know that’s an offer you just can’t refuse!

SMOOCH!

PeeS. I didn’t get anything free or get paid any green papers or anything. I just think these calendars are super, duper cool and your life will just be happier if you buy ‘em!

PeePeeS. We’re sorry we haven’t been around to visit more often lately. Just kind of a lot goin’ on around here but we’ll try to get by to see you real, real soon. I promise.