Not So Happy

My mother went out of town for the Thanksgiving holiday, and her dog-sitter was unavailable to take Benjy.  Out of desperation, my mother told me that I would have to take him home with me because she doesn't want him home alone for five days.

This is Benjy, the spoiled brat:

It's not a good picture, but it was the only one I could get where he was standing still - with his feet on my coffee table.

Here's the problem: I have a cat, Miss Kitty, who is 10 years old and doesn't like any living thing, and that includes plants.  There is a baby gate which confines Benjy to the living room and separates him from Miss Kitty.  Benjy sees the cat and he barks, he hears the cat moving around and he barks.  Geez!

Benjy is my mother's dog, and he has made it clear that while he likes me, I am not his mother.   The incessant barking is getting on my nerves.  Do I have to sleep on the sofa to accommodate a dog?  I think not.  When he's not crying about having to stay behind the gate, he's parked in front of the front door whining,  or planning his escape.  His escape would break my poor mother's heart and she'd probably be under arrest for attempting my murder.

I had to chase Benjy off the coffee table.  I had to push him out of the way to sit on the sofa.  I had to hold him back from jumping on me while I was knitting.  He puts his spitty toys on my lap or on my hands.  He sees the cat through the baby gate and growls, he scratches at the gate with his dagger-like nails.  It's so noisy, I can't even think!

And I have four more days to go.  Oy!

That said, it's already been a frustrating week.  My poor Artichoke sock bit the dust.  It was going swimmingly until I got to the foot and the math killed it for me.  The instructions were a bit dodgy and required more brain cells than I was willing to contribute.

I got this far:

I could have skipped the foot detail and just made a plain foot, but darn it, I really wanted that detail!  As a result, I'll have to tackle that pattern with another yarn on another day.

Still, I have to make socks.  My solution was to make different socks with the same yarn.  These are the Paraphernalia socks, which I cast on three days ago:

My apologies for the not so great picture, but you can follow the link to see the socks in 'real life'.  I've already picked up the gusset stitches and it's going swimmingly.  Thank goodness!  I was doubting my sock making ability there for a moment.

So, now I'm going to sit on the sofa and watch the rain fall down, appreciate the warmth inside since it's freezing outside, and try to figure out a way to work around Benjy's barking, scratching, whining and general misery because he misses his mother.

Four more days ...