Around here, it’s a B.F.D. when certain plants bloom. We actually throw parties for them. I’ll have the current bloomer up as our Mystery Flora later today, so ya’ll be ready for that. Right now, I wanted to share a few of my night photos, and introduce you to the doggie.

Have I posted a photo of Pipa yet? Doesn’t look like I have. Let’s remedy that right now.

She pretty much always looks worried, so don’t mind that. She was extremely anxious for me to stop snapping photos and just walk her already.

Folks, I didn’t think I’d enjoy having a dog around. But I needed a place to live, liked S, and loved the creek, so I was all like, “Okay, whatever.” Pipa didn’t jump all over me and slobber when we met, and didn’t bark much, so that was okay. I like dogs that don’t lick. And having a dog around to take for walks has been pretty spiffy – she forces me out of the house even when I don’t want to go. The problem is, I walked her that one time, and I’m home all the time, and so she quickly figured out all my buttons. She knows exactly what to do to finagle a walk out of me. She’s actually rousted me out of bed to walk her, without barking and without having access to my room. She’s clever. And now, when she returns home from her frequent overnight stays with various of her owner’s family, she always wants me to pick her up and snuggle and kiss her, and then bamboozles me into taking her for a walk even if she’s just been out with her daddy. Damn dog.

I find her useful for listening to my issues of great import, exercise, and kitchen clean-up. I’d forgotten how useful it is to have a dog around when you need a few scraps of food consumed or a plate pre-washed. And she does this thing where she jumps up and down like she’s got a pogo stick in her butt when she’s excited, which is awesome. She also gives high-fives. And she only barks a little bit. So we’re on good terms.

She joined us tonight as we sat out on the deck, consuming the best grilled pork I’ve ever had, and watching the night flower bloom. We had a bonfire going in the grill, and S’s friend C came over with her guitar, and N played banjo. They both sang. They were awesome. Pipa decided that, it being a cold night, she needed to be in my lap. So there we were.

She’s a typical dog in that she needs to always be looking at the action, so she moves too much to get a sharp image of her using handheld twilight mode. But you get the idea.

Lookit dat face! Wot a cute little face! And she’s really well-behaved in laps.

After she vacated to go follow someone into the kitchen, Boo showed up, and I got some quality lap-time with her, too.

I wish I’d remembered to set the camera to anti-motion blur, but I’d also been taking photos of the flowers, which don’t move. Whoops.

By the time we were done, the fire had burned down, and I took a moment to shoot the coals, as they looked neato.

So there we are, a little bit of frivolous fun. This has been an intense news week, so we’ll just make it a Frivolous Friday altogether so we can recover. If you need actual meaty stuff to sink your teeth into, you can follow my Facebook feed, where I’ve actually been posting a lot of stuffage lately. And tomorrow, I shall hopefully delve into the completely unsurprising revelation that Josh Duggar is still a lying asshole.