Every time I sing, Vinnie gets really anxious and runs over to kiss me. Presumably to stop me from singing. This kid is so rude.

Some days I feel like a faltering balloon in a world full of knives. And then I come home & Vinnie gives me a kiss, & everything is suddenly all right. Dogs.

It's cold. Haven't yet reached the heater tipping point, but I'm definitely employing the fuzzy socks and neck wrap. And the dog.

No brakes!

Every time I get all fired up about politics, I have to distract myself by posting about Vinnie (stick with me; only 2 weeks left). So... In our home, we use the phrase, "No brakes! No brakes!" whenever Vinnie gets running so fast that he can't stop. Now that we have wood floors, he frequently crashes into doors and walls. And sometimes he gets running so quickly that he'll forget to put a paw down, and falls right on his shoulder. He doesn't even notice; just gets up and keeps going.

I took 166 pictures of Vinnie today on my phone. Bringing the grand total of Vinnie pictures to about 25 million. I have a problem.

Vinnie and Marisa

Love watching Vinnie and Marisa together. He freaks out when he sees her, runs laps around the coffee table, whines... "I'm kind of a big deal," she says, understandingly. I think it dates back to the day I adopted him, 3 years ago. Marisa was his first friend, going with me to pick Vin up from the doggie shelter. He thanked her by getting sick in her lap on the ride home. True friends.

Vinnie's women

Tonight on my walk with Vinnie, 4 young women approached us, all oohing and aahing over him. He was loving it. Reminded me of the time Marisa and I took him to a dog-friendly bar on Capitol Hill and a woman asked if she could "borrow" him for a bit to show her friends. He was 12 weeks old and already a handful, so I said "Of course!" He came back 20 minutes later, looking happy and content. For the rest of the evening, he chilled under the table while we fed him ice cubes. Love this guy.

Besides Vinnie peeing approximately 74 times on the way to the post office, we still made it there before it closed. Yay.