81 thoughts on “Happiness is We Rate Dogs”

  1. Happiness was coming to Paris to spend Christmas with my family and celebrate my mum’s birthday (she was born on christmas day 85 years ago).

    Unhappiness is that my brother and his family who were supposed to arrive yesterday from Montréal will not be coming and spend christmas with us for the first time since the pandemic. Their plane was cancelled after a 8 hour wait in the airport.

    2. Happy birthday to your mother. And so much sympathy about your brother and family not being able to make it. My winter solstice celebration was canceled for the third year in a row and it is tough. Did the storm down here in the USA also affect Montreal?

      1. It did logistically. The pilot was stuck somewhere affected. Very few international flights were cancelled, unfortunately my brother’s was one of them. They were at the departure gate until 4 in the morning when the flight was cancelled. Then it took them another 3 hours to go through customs (they were made to fill a declaration!) and get their luggage back.

  2. I hope everybody has a good day! And hope that any Arghs caught up in the bad weather in America and Canada stay safe. Merry Christmas.

  3. I feel ridiculous complaining about the cold in Florida but my space heater died and nothing will be open to buy a new one until tomorrow. Not that I want places to be open. Retail workers deserve a day off.

    On the happy front – we have all the heavy lifting done that can be done in the planned move of my office out of my bedroom. Everything else will have to wait until Tuesday very early AM when I get off work and can unhook my office computer. We are loving it already, though.

    Hope everyone has a safe, warm, dry, happy holiday!!!

  4. My daughter, son in law and grandson left over an hour ago, and the dishwasher is chugging away. It’s very peaceful here in The Patch.

    Despite planning mistakes, Christmas dinner went very well, and we made balloon animals while the pudding heated up – it’s the second year I’ve bought my pudding from Four Pillars, which are the best I’ve ever had (Four Pillars is a gin distillery). Yum!

    I gave my daughter the two Finlay Donovan books, my SIL got architecture books, and my grandson got From The Mixed Up Files Of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler, one of my favourite books when I was a kid, as well as a couple of Terry Jones books.

    Now to start packing Yet Again…

    1. Oh, how I loved From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler! One of my very favourite books as a child. My dad lived near the Met and I used to go there and pretend to be Claudia.

      1. Keepers I thought I was the only person who’d ever read The Mixed Up Files. I can’t go into a museum to this day without scheming to live there secretly.

          1. I was pretending to be a spy long before Harriet was published and I thought she was doing it wrong.

  5. Happiness is having 70 degree weather on Christmas day, riding our horses through the desert and huge cacti. Sad missing the little grandsons open presents but a facetime call will fix that. Happy holidays everyone.

    1. This! Hear! Hear! It’s near the perfect length to be made into a movie, the plot is perfect for a movie treatment, and if I had the skills to render it in 3D, I’d do it and offer it to Jenny for free to distribute streaming from Argh Ink.

  7. Happiness is good food! We’re having lemon pancakes with berries and bacon for breakfast, and then our (blended religion) family has a tradition of making latkes for christmas dinner every year XD It’s worth anticipating because my mom makes the absolute best latkes despite not coming from a Jewish background at all. Ironically, she’s always the most excited to light Chanukah candles every year haha. Happy holidays to everyone! Wishing you all joy, health, good food, and even better company! <3

    1. Happiness IS good food. Last night and tonight I prepared the Rock Cornish Game Parrots in my little toaster oven. Last night, the go-withs were red potatoes, sweet onion, turkey dressing for stuffing, and seasonings. Tonight, the bird was stuffed with pearl onions and sided by green beans. There was buttered bread, a luxury in which I do not oft indulge. Dessert both nights involved Atkins Chocolate Things and lightly salted almonds. The fridge will be empty and off before moving day.

      *burp*

    2. If any creature were capable of cursing one and one’s bloodline, I’d expect cats, not dogs. Good luck with that, and Merry Christmas.

  9. The spouse’s recovery from pneumonia going well. Sharing Christmas Eve brunch with two old friends and one new one. The prospect of the spouse cooking Christmas dinner. (He’s a very good cook.) The cat seeking me out for a morning cuddle. Not having to contend with anything worse than the cold from the Big Storm. All these things made me very happy.
    Wishing everyone a warm, safe, happy holiday season, regardless of the weather.

  10. We had quite the storm on Friday. Things that hadn’t been put away rolled across the deck, an upside down sturdy chair, a planter that was already at floor level turned over and was frozen to the deck when the temperature shifted to freezing. Nothing broken. Although I am going to have to wait a bit so I can clean the windows. Salt spray caused by wave action hit the house and also the car. Gonna have to get the car to the car wash this week. Also lost power, not for long as the town generators kicked after an hour.

    On the good side the grandchildren were over for two days. Not a sleepover just visiting. Also for dinner, yesterday my husband prepared a prime rib for an early Christmas dinner. I wish they were more interested in vegetables. What’s so terrible about asparagus? And carrots?

    They took the grandog home with them when they left last night. She’ll be back. I love that picture above of the reaction of a bath. We have to spell words around Miss Smartypants, cause you can tell by her reaction that she understands what is being said. “Walk” runs to the door, “bath” tail between legs and quietly skulks upstairs.

    And no one said anything about not having a tree. I just feel relief.

  11. I am in a hotel room this year instead of being in my mom’s hoarder house. That alone is enough to celebrate, y’all.

  12. Oh, the weather outside ain’t frightful
    Inside it ain’t delightful
    Another four days to go
    I’d frankly rather have snow (it’s warmer)

    When we finally leave this place
    How I’ll hate moving all of my crap.
    But the new place I will embrace
    Even though it’s a money trap.

    I could carry on in this theme, and the song is now an earworm, but it’s nearly 36°F(2°C) outside, the high for the day, and the heaters have brought it up to 69.5°F(21°C) in the mancave. It (and therefore I) will stay cold until Wednesday, naturally. I’ll be buying a suitable heater for the Owner’s Suite. I do not like the cold indoors, much.

    Judy / Clever Cherry, you have all my sympathies.

  13. Yesterday had ocean, dancing and a kind man that did not charge us or several other people for a ride on his train. The train we needed to make our ferry connection was cancelled (10 minutes out), the next train left only 5 minutes later. No problem, if you don’t notice the two trains were run by different companies. 65 pounds a person it would have been. I really hope he doesn’t get into trouble. He shouldn’t, because that company is now my favourite for all further trips.

    Today is harder but we are getting where we need to be. The last stages of life need planning for, just as much as all that gets done for the first stages. My love’s parents still live in a three story house with an inaccessible ground floor toilet. This is impossible housing for a ninety year old person with a broken hip. We held Christmas for all here and finally even the most stubborn(So stubborn) members are admitting that it isn’t going to work. I am grateful because now they can turn their attention towards solutions that might work. The couple is better together, just not here.

    Our new house is similar, I notice. We need plans against such difficulties in our own future. Working…

    1. Um lady down the street had the same problem, she took down the garage and had them put up a little prefab, shower & toilet unit off one of the windows on the ground floor, so they only needed to widen the window to a door for her. Cause it’s not a permanent structure, I don’t think she needed planning permission.

      1. Ohh, that’s better than my give up the coat area for more bath space. Dutch houses need a coat area.
        Thanks

  15. Tomorrow I can emerge masked from tbt basement but meals and sleeping will have to be here another 5 days. We have delayed presents until we can get approval from foster daughter’s doctor for her to join us masked —apparently those with immune systems issues need more time in quarantine to protect them not those around them .

    The upside is that everything is wrapped and no pressure. Also as a potentially contagious person I am off the cooking crew.

    And I am finally feeling better.

  16. I love We Rate Dogs. They are a blessing upon the internet.

    Happy Day, Argh people. I hope everyone is warm and well.

  17. I felt better this week than in previous weeks in December. Naming depression doesn’t automatically make it disappear but it’s a good first step for me.

    I helped a friend who is housebound with her 2nd ankle surgery of the year with her holiday prep. We put up her tree, cleaned up her condo, etc. and I ran some errands for her. The big storm was more of a cranky toddler in my region but driving on Friday was horrible. DS and I spent the afternoon making stained glass cookies (Jolly Ranchers are our secret weapon). I delivered bags of cookies to my neighbours. I made some nowhere between 80 -95 dozen and most of them are given away.

    DH, DS and I had a quiet Christmas Day together. We scaled down on gifts as we all have so much. I got a cozy blanket with pompoms – lots of reading on the sofa in
    my future.

    Happy holidays everyone and all the best for 2023.

  18. Happiness is my husband’s Christmas presents to me: a pair of boots that I’ve lusted after for years and an AeroGrow that Arghers led by Gary talked about a while and inspired me to share about it with my husband. Who cleverly bought it for me. Thank you all!

          6. She is adorable with a will of iron.

            Those boots may not be as rococo as you’d like but believe me, I have wanted them forever and they are never on sale so I am very pleased .

  19. I’m off for 10 days camping with 100 people, many of them good friends. Right now this isn’t making me happy because it’s dinner time and we wanted to leave at lunchtime. But once I’m there, it’ll be great!

    There’s very little cell coverage there, so Happy New Year everyone!! See you in 2023.

  20. My happy is that we are headed off tomorrow to Antarctica via Buenos Aires. That will cross the final two continents off my bucket list. Plus, I’ve been promised cute penguins!

    (Fingers crossed that the weather doesn’t interfere with our flights.)

  22. Happiness is being warm inside with plenty of good books and good company while the storms go on outside. Good grief this winter is something else.

  23. I’m happy that We Rate Dogs is on Insta because not even for them would I join Twitter.

    Other happiness: a highly productive, mutually-supportive, long conversation with my husband yesterday in between opening our Christmas stockings and having brunch;

    a yard that is respectable-looking from front to back, just in time for some more rain, apparently;

    an emotionally-rewarding year as a writer. I put together a year-in-review post on my blog and revisiting the reviews was really good for my ego;

    a plan for Vacation 2023 – a week at Big Bear Lake. We’ve only been up there once together, for a long weekend, a long time ago. Our last vacation was an 8-hour drive each way, this is less than 3 – more time to relax.

    Happy year-end and new horizons to all!

  24. I’ve been a lurker here for a while (too nervous to chime in and comment, but thanks for introducing me to the glorious Mrs Pollifax), but de-lurking to say that happy places on the Internet are making me happy. My mum died unexpectedly last weekend, so this festive period has been… un-festive, to say the least.

    Family members are keeping me afloat, reading the comments on here and binge-watching The Traitors on BBC iPlayer is soothing my soul. So, even though you didn’t know it, thanks everyone.

    1. Welcome out of lurk, Hannah. I’m so sorry about your mom, but very glad the Argh people have helped.
      Also: No reason to feel nervous. We’re a pretty relaxed group so the bar is low (g).

      1. Thank you! I’m just a wuss generally when it comes to interacting online, and usually prefer to read rather than to contribute. However, my new year’s resolution as a result of the past ten days will be to push myself to be more of a part of the world, so I’m starting early.

      1. She was a difficult woman at times, but yes, I have some excellent memories to keep close to my heart. The last thing I said to her was that I loved her, and I’m so very grateful for that.

        1. All I can say is, I think we are all very lucky that you decided to de-lurk. You sound like a super-nice person, and I hope you will stay unlurked with us here. When my (difficult) mother died, I suddenly realized how many things only she would have known about that I never thought to ask her. That started me trying to piece together the genealogy story of my family and to clean out the attic and see what windows into the past might be found there. It sounds like you did a good job during those last minutes you had with her.

          1. Thank you! I’m already kicking myself at not asking enough about events that happened before I was born. She spent a year in Italy as a nanny, and worked for British Airways, and I don’t know much about either period. We’ve started clearing out her wardrobes and have already found pictures I hadn’t seen before… it’s going to be a rocky ride but the rest of the family and my friends are keeping me upright.

          2. That sounds like a good start. Pictures are so valuable, but you should start making a list of all the questions you have, or periods of time you don’t know about, and grill relatives & friends of hers to find out what they might know about your questions. Someone may have a postcard from her in Italy that gives you more information, or may steer you toward others who know more than they do. My sister has taken up the genealogy role, and she likes a site called “www.familysearch.org” that might help you with that end of things. And best of luck with it all!!

  25. Christmas markets, cousins, castles, chocolate, and the causeway. We are well into our six week trip and it’s all making me happy. You can see at allanah.nz on Instagram.

  26. Lovely Christmas, everyone seemed more relaxed and quietly happy than I can remember in years.

    Had to go in and do payroll on Monday, but despite weird glitches (apparently caused by the keyboard tray getting nudged which caused multiple keys to be pressed and my part-way-through-paychecks screens to disappear), as far as I can tell, everyone got paid the right amount in the end and the reports and taxes can wait until next week.

    Today is just reading and eating nice things, now that I have caught up with all things internet.

  27. Happiness is getting home last night over dry roads until the icy half mile to my house, which is the reason I spent five days/four nights at work. I was asked by my boss to bring my dog Thursday and stay overnight during the storm so _someone_ would surely be there for the animals, but the roads out in the country stayed pretty bad, so I stayed there until yesterday. Being home after five days of Not Vacation is bliss.

    Allanah, I sympathize with your glitch. Our phones (and internet) went down on Friday morning, which for a vet clinic/boarding kennel was more than inconvenient. When I left yesterday they were not yet fixed. It took twenty-four hours just to get the “closed, emergency on-call” message changed.

  28. Happiness is news of a new stand alone drivers of London novella due in June 2023. This one will feature FBI Agent Reynolds and is called Winter’s Gifts.

  31. Late getting to it but thank you for this link. What a fabulous start to the day. Laughed till I cried so many times!

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