It’s been a busy day. Morning into early afternoon was given to this little project, and Missy.

This is the 6th year Mr. Big Food has organized this conference which takes place at Pensacola Beach–hence the sunglasses on the brain. I think we started six years ago with maybe a dozen people. This year there are 60+ people coming.

This is the program cover. Art work by Daughter C.

Mr. Big Food puts the schedule of talks/presentations together. He sends it to me as a Word Doc. And I get to work getting it into shape. We go through five or six iterations of it over about a month or so. Good friends send in abstracts late, people change what they want to talk about, someone’s personal schedule will be such that they can’t be there on the last day when they’re scheduled to talk. Revise.

Today was the day it was finally finalized (pending last minute changes), and along with the 25 pages of abstracts, and front matter, posted to the web site.

In the end, Mr. Big Food noticed that I’d misspelled beachwear.

Due to our beachfront locale and extended lunch, morning and afternoon breaks, the recommended conference attire is causal (American) beach-ware.

How embarrassing.

Last evening I decided that since Missy was scheduled to have her stitches removed this morning, she could go sans cone overnight.

My mistake.

Missy is not a stupid dog but she just cannot get it through her head that she’s not supposed to lick and pick at the incision site. So here we go again with the open wound.

Stitches came out. Cone went back on. And for the next week or more she gets sprayed twice a day with an antibiotic/steroid spray. And remains confined to the Den.

This confinement, by the way, is putting a real damper on Rocky’s routine. It is his habit to saunter into the living room mid-day and enjoy his British detective stories (i.e., take a nap) on the couch. With the kiddie gate in the doorway, he can’t do that. And since I have closed off both of their boxes (you do not want to see an 85 pound lab and her 40″ cone trying to turn around in a box) he can’t even retreat to the solitude of his box.

Vet says another week or so. 🙂

The afternoon was devoted to the dining room. We are having company–an old friend is stopping by on his way from Alabama to the west coast. And a couple of others will join us for supper. What do you think?

I know placemats on a tablecloth pushes Emily to her limits, but real life has a way of exerting itself. There will be four guys and me. Chicken wings, gumbo, … not stains I have time to deal with on that cloth.

Supper’s ready!