I'm sick. That's not fun. I was hoping that I wouldn't catch Wayne's latest illness because he was almost better and I was doing fine. Unfortunately, I think lack of sleep and some stress weakened my resistance and so I finally got sick. It's not as bad as Wayne's was though. I'm not congested or anything, just little slimy.

My mom's new dog, Josie, has been keeping me awake. Well, not so much keeping me awake, as waking me up really early. I have trouble falling asleep after waking up. Every morning at 5 am that dog starts barking. She doesn't respond to quiet or hush or shhh or even shut up. Sometimes she'll stop barking for a second but then will start again. Wayne's really pissed off because he keeps having to get up to tell that dog to be quiet. After I realized she's not responding, I just decided to ignore her. Her barking does wake me up though. Their kennel is right by our bedroom windows so it's kind of hard not to hear her. I'm just waiting for someone to call the police so they'll come give my mom a fine. Then maybe she'll take some real action. She was talking about making the dog a house dog. The problem is that the dog is old (7 years) and has had puppies and doesn't have the greatest bladder control. Also she kind of goes all over her kennel which can be an indication of how they'll take to housebreaking. Mom says she'll try it after my grandma leaves (she's coming next month for graduation). I told mom that she better start working on it now because I don't know how much longer I can take living on 4 hours (or less) of sleep a night. Also I told her Wayne was about ready to choke her dog. She thinks I'm joking but I'm not. He's really pissed off. This morning she was barking so much that Wayne got up and went outside to try to make her be quiet. He was out there feeding our dog, Murphy, when my mom came down for a ride to school. I was sort of sleeping so Wayne took her. He was pretty mad when he got home. Muttering something about the nerve of some people, asking for a ride after her barking dog has kept him up all night.

He's right though, that dog is ridiculous. She claims that they can't hear her barking from their bedroom, which is in the back of the house upstairs. Personally I think she's lying. She probably can't hear it as well, but if I can hear dogs down the street barking, I think she can hear her own dog barking. That dog barks loud too! That's why I told her to take the dog in the house already. I want the dog to be her problem not ours. She's already made me responsible for taking her to the vet and dispensing her meds. Not really a big deal because I've been taking Murphy at the same time and all. She also makes me feed her and stuff like that. It's not so much that I mind doing these things, but that she assumes that I'm going to do them. Kind of like the driving her to school thing. In her defense, Ed does feed and walk Murphy sometimes. But that's Ed, not her. I really don't like taking care of her dog, because I don't like her dog. It's too noisy and needy. Also Murphy gets jealous if he sees me in her kennel. Josie (mom's dog) makes me feel guilty because it never has enough attention. I can sit in there with her for a long time and she'll still make sad eyes when I leave. I hate that. Murphy doesn't make sad eyes at me. He always looks happy. Most the time when I leave his kennel, he takes a nap. Murphy is a good dog. He doesn't bark all the time. Even whe Josie is barking like an idiot, Murphy just sits there looking around. Wayne says that Murphy is thinking, "What the fuck is she barking at? Why can't she just shut up?" I think Wayne's right, I'll bet Josie disturbs him.

We also got a new cat. Mom got a new cat too. Her cat is Pumpkin, an orange tabby cat. She's also very noisy, constantly meowing. Fortunately, we can't hear her down here. That's a good thing about cats, they're not so loud. I've decided my mom's family is going to be the Noisy Family. We are the Naughty Family because we have the Naughty Cat and Naughty Boy and Naughty Girl. That's Santy, Wayne, and I. Now we have the Naughty Cats and the Naughty Dog. It's great. My mom's family is just noisy. Noisy Cat, Noisy Dog, Noisy Rabbits, Noisy other cats, Noisy People. Oh and Noisy Birds.

Anyway, back to my new cat. She's a calico persian, named Marika. I just needed a name that went with Santeria. We call her Mari. She's fluffy and big and calico colored. Her nose is white but black. Dr. Scott says it looks like she dipped her nose in ink. She's really cute and friendly. Well, friendly towards us, not towards Santy. Right now the house is divided by two baby gates, stacked on top of each other, making a four foot high baby gate wall. They can jump over it but hopefully they won't try to do that too often. Santy's already done it a few times, I think just to prove that he could. I don't think Mari will because she doesn't really want to see Santy I think. Santy seems to be curious about her but she growls at him and then Santy gets defensive and rips out her fur. Hopefully after a few weeks of baby gating, they'll want to be together.