As far as non-eventful weekends go, this one was particularly delightful. First we had a rather nice Friday, then a wonderful Saturday spent outside. Along came today and I have to say that Sunday was the icing on the cake.

I lazed about for most of the morning but it was okay because – shock of shocks – the kids played pretty well together. They were checking out some games on the computer and playing with paper dolls. After lunch I had a few things to do so they went into their room and played some more; I think they were playing school.

Considering the fact that it was something like 11 celsius I thought it would be a good idea to take them out. Winnie needed to go out as well so I took all three of them over to the big field. The kids played extremely well in a pile of dirt and rocks (ah, simple joys!) while I helped Winnie practice getting used to the Halti which she loathes quite a bit. I, on the other hand, love it because Miss Pully McPullerson can’t rip my arm out anymore. She isn’t dog aggressive AT ALL but she kind of goes bananas when she sees them and once nearly dragged me into an intersection to get to a dog across the street. She’s only 55 pounds, smaller than your average Labrador or Golden Retriever but it’s 95% muscle and it takes all my efforts to control her when she wants to get to a dog for playtime. With the Halti on she physically can’t pull me and so that’s why we were able to calmly approach, meet, and sniff (well, okay, I scratched, I didn’t sniff) a Retriever mix and a lovely smiling American Bulldog without any chaos.

Eventually I want to get her to walk politely on a leash without a Halti but that will be saved for short bursts of training and right now the majority of her walks will be on the Halti to save my arms, back, and to keep me from being pulled down on my back (or ass) on the ice this coming winter.

Anyway. On top of all that both kids listened and called it quits with their playing when I announced it was time to go home for hot chocolate. There was one minor “aww, already?!” but when I pointed out that a) we’d been out for an hour, b) the sun was setting, c) it was getting cold, and d) we had marshmallows for the hot chocolate they were both more than willing to start traipsing home.

They continued with their playing post-hot chocolate and other than the occasional scuffle they basically played very well all day together.

There was one minor hiccup in our day and that happened as I took the rice off the burner to absorb the water and was literally just about to lift a steak onto our indoor grill for supper. All was quiet and then there was a loud and obnoxious blaring from the hallway and I realized the building’s fire alarm was going off. The kids freaked out because it makes them very nervous. I had them put their shoes on and wait with George while I went to each floor to see if there was any smoke or if it was a false alarm.

I didn’t see anything but I asked George to call the janitor to let him know. He arrived as I was out on the balcony to see if I could see fire trucks coming (no) and he waved to me and asked me to bring everyone outside.

It’s an unfortunate truth but my cat is so scared of everything that in the event of a real fire I will never be able to get her out and will have to hope for the best. Luckily the dog is never further than a few feet from me so I leashed her, we all got our coats, and we headed outside for about half an hour. It was good that it wasn’t cold but I had to pee and we were all hungry!

In the end it was indeed a false alarm. We stood around chit chatting with our neighbors (apparently a fire alarm is the best way to get to know the people in your building) until the fire department showed up. Since no one had called them right away they didn’t get there for awhile, but they did go in and check everything out. It seemed that one of the alarms on the third floor had been pulled; it’s possible it was a kid who did it since several live on that floor which is really not cool. As the janitor said, it’s dangerous to do that. If there are enough false alarms people will start ignoring them and in the even of a real fire someone could get hurt or worse.

In any case it was all fine in the end and we were finally able to go back upstairs. I got supper back on and we were able to eat at a still-decent hour. That was an exciting end to the weekend!

I spent the rest of my evening getting the kids herded off to bed so we can start another week tomorrow, and then I worked on some training with Winnie. I’m working on getting her to come when called, which worked quite nicely with leftover bits of steak, and I also practiced getting her to let go of a toy on command (“leave it!”) and to jump when asked.

Now I’m finishing up a glass of wine and debating whether I should go to bed shortly or stay up to watch Horatio Caine solve another crime on CSI Miami. Generally speaking, cop shows tend to win out over sleep for me.

I hope your weekend was as delightful as mine!