February 1
Shoveling snow.
Life-sized plastic deer is wearing pajamas with little red hearts all over them.
February 3
Shoveling snow once again. Deer is now also wearing large pink fluffy slippers.
February 5
Skittled veal chops and salad for supper this evening. However Chessie is not impressed.
Chessies supper plate is flanked all around by a imposing rank of small plastic dogs. Chessie explains that this is a Necessary Secuity Precaution.
February 7
Supper Table
Chicken fried frankfurters and left over Romaine lettuce salad.
Chessie is grasping each leaf of Romaine lettuce with hot dog tongs and is dipping each leaf into chocolate milk before eating each leaf.
Chessie does not trust supper as a rule. Chessie in particular does not trust Romaine lettuce as it is prone to Devils Knuckles. Each leaf of Romaine lettuce must be purified in chocolate milk.
Why we do not switch to escarole I do not know.
February 9
Supper Table
Mother and Father are out so we have made hamburger sandwitches.
Chessie is drowning the Romaine lettuce in a large bowl of Ovaltine.
Snooples on the other hand is telling a long and convoluted story about a beagle who apparently went outside to take a leak and went running off after a rabbit and did not return home for 18 years and hitch hiked all over the United States and became a famous painter of gambling dogs yet died poor.
Meanwhile the family, they moved to an apartment and got a goldfish.
Snooples says this is terrible. Snooples says we must do something to help the homely dogs. Snooples says we should give our hamburger sandwitches to the homely dogs.
Homless, Pia says.
no, this dog, he had rubber ears! That is what Snooples says.
February 12
Art Class
Ms. Van Lips has us slaving away at Valentines.
Every kid must make a Valentine for every other kid. Then all the kids trade Valentines and eat sugar muffins and then all the kids take their Valentines home. Then the Valentines eventually get piddle on them or something, and they throw them away.
It is the same every year.
February 13
Continuing to slave away on Valentines.
Snooples magic marker is squeaking like a tormented mouse across the construction paper.
Oh Snooples what a darling Valentine! That is what Ms. Lips says.
Snooples Valentine appears as such:
February 15
Evening
Life continues to be tedious, as is snowing.
Am nearly finished with jigsaw puzzle however. It is a portrait of Nini riding a Appaloosa wearing the uniform of a Revolutionary War general. Nini that is not the horse.
Snooples and Chessie have their box of 2,466 colored crayons spread all over the supper table. Snooples and Chessie are constructing a sign out of a old dinner tray. That sign it says
SNOOPLES AND CHESSIE I DO BELIEVE YOU MEAN HOMELESS DOGS.
no they have peculiar legs!
February 19
A new operation has sprung up next to the cowboy bar beneath the spirea bushes. This new building, it is made of a voluminous cardboard Gateway Computer box.
It has a nice brick fireplace which the Tooney brothers built.
Cooking smells emanate from this box. Unattractive dogs of various breeds are seen coming and going all hours of the day.
This is Chessie and Snooples work. Chessie and Snooples have established a soup kitchen.
February 20
Apple twig scented smoke is puffing cheerfully from the chimney of the Spotty Cow Gateway Soup Kitchen for Homely Dogs. Unattractive dogs with anything from 1 to 2 ears and 1 to 4 legs are coming and going from the soup kitchen. Each dog is wearing a turtleneck sweater hand knitted from bulky multicolored yarn by Snooples.
Chessie is outside with a tray of no-bake cookies. Chessie hands each dog a no-bake cookie and pats it on the head as it goes out the door. Chessie just patted a dalmation and put a no-bake cookie in its mouth. This dalmations, its dots appear to have been connected with a waterproof magic marker.
come again tomorrow! tomorrow is roast chicken day!
This is what Chessie tells each dog.
Some of the dogs are shambling over next door to the cowboy bar. I can see some of them inside gambling.
February 21
Am preparing display for science fair. This display, it is called The Incredible Insensivity of the Human Ear. However am having difficulty bending sheet metal into shape of Victrola horn. Maybe will borrow horn off Ninis Victrola.
What is that horrible smell.
Oh, Snooples and Chessie are cooking something. I will go investigate.
Snooples and Chessie have a large fresh cow poop displayed upon a platter. Roasted turkey legs are sticking every which way out of that cow poop.
SNOOPLES AND CHESSIE WHAT ON EARTH.
it is turdurkey!
YOU HAVE GONE TOO FAR THIS TIME.
it is earthy as well as organic!
IT IS ABOMINABLE.
it is a sort of tappinade!
OUT IT GOES.
but it is for the homely dogs!
February 22
Watching the cowboy bar and the Spotty Cow Gateway Soup Kitchen for Homely Dogs with L.L. Bean binoculars. Chessie is out in front of the soup kitchen handing out chicken legs from a tray. Each chicken leg has a little card attached with a prayer written on it.
Oh no here come the Tooney brothers out of the cowboy bar. The Tooney brothers are wearing bulky green turtleneck sweaters with pink hearts all over them. The Tooney brothers they are holding one another up and are swaying in unison across the yard. They are swaying in this general direction. They are singing WHO PUT THE CHOWDER IN MR. MURPHY'S OVERALLS.
HEY TOONEY BROTHERS DID SNOOPLES KNIT THOSE SWEATERS.
Might ye tell us the time, Miss. Me eyes are playin' tricks wi' the numbers on me old pocket watch.
Barley Toony is holding up a pocket watch the size of a rhutabaga. The two hands are dangling and swinging back and forth as Barley Tooney gently sways.
SIX THIRTY. NO, FIVE TWENTY-FIVE. NO, TWENTY OF SEVEN.
Just as I had feared. We shall be late for evenin' Mass. Step smart lads!
The Tooney brothers are weaving in the direction of the janitor's Volkswagen parked under the maple tree.
HEY TOONEY BROTHERS THAT IS JUST A VOLKSWAGEN.
They are singing THE STRETCHIN' O' THE CARDIGAN too loudly to hear.
February 23
Shoveling snow. The cowboy bar is closed on account of is Sunday. The soup kitchen is strangely quiet too.
Good gracious what is that awful racket.
It is loud pipe organ music. It is throbbing from the janitor's Volkswagen parked under the maple tree. The Volkswagen's high beams are on and the 4-way flashers are flashing.
I will go investigate.
A skunk is holding High Mass in the janitor's Volkswagen for a group of skunks and rabbits and raccoons. The radio is tuned to an AM station. It is playing the Holy Hit Countdown.
I have not seen this skunk before he has a fluffy white head. He is pretty good at Latin.
February 24
That skunk priest he is another Tooney brother. He is just arrived over from the Old Country.
His name is Father Tooney. I guess that goes without saying.
February 25
One of Dad's mambo cow bells is dangling from a spading fork which is strapped across the top of the Volkswagen with bungee cords. Every day at four o'clock an ancient Chihuahua covered with bandaids bangs that cow bell 20 times with the handle of a large screwdriver.
That Chihuahua, he is stone deaf.
February 26
Shoveling snow. The deer is dressed in a ski outfit with skis strapped to its hoofs.
February 27
Writing in bed whilst wearing new Archie and Mehitabel pajamas.
Chickenloaf has 45 rpm records spread all over her bed and is playing DOESN'T SOMEBODY HAVE THE KEYS TO THE BUS" by the Partridge Family on the Kenner Close-N-Play. That record, it is stuck. It keeps playing "la la la la" over and over and over. Chickenloaf does not notice. Chickenloaf is absorbed in reading a Nancy Drew mystery.
Anyways, Pia says the back yard is going to hell what with the homely dogs and the cowbell and all. However I find it rather interesting.
February 28
The Poopguns are playing this Friday night at the cowboy bar. The Poopguns are Australian. They are terribly famous.
February 29
I will not be able to attend the Poopgun concert as I had anticipated.
This is on account of it is clam stew night at the Spotty Cow Gateway Soup Kitchen for Homely Dogs. I must ladle stew. No substitute stew ladlers are allowed.
It is an insufferable scenario.
