This post mainly involves dogs. There's probably a joke in here somewhere about the word dogpile, and how the Spanish word for pile is a little like the Spanish word for mountain, and a mountain is a larger type of hill, and I live on the Hill.

Just a quick note to get down a couple of thoughts I had while taking a walk this evening to reorganize my brain after several hours of paper writing today...

The smell of the fir trees on display outside Eastern Market almost made me forget about my complete inability to get into the Christmas spirit before finals are done. Almost. I really wish it had happened, even just for a moment. I bought some Christmas colored M&Ms to put in a bowl on the coffee table, maybe that counts?

Saw a woman walking three very dissimilar dogs- a Newfoundland, a lab, and some ridiculous little Cairn terrier type guy. Two things about this struck me as odd....

1. I don't think I've ever seen somebody that owns three different kinds of dog. I've only ever known dog owners with:

• one dog; 
• two dogs of the same breed (like the two adorable elderly gay guys in my old neighborhood walking a pair of identical mini Schnauzers or "old man dogs;") 
• two dogs of a different breed (like a beagle and a Golden, maybe, or a yellow lab/black lab type combo,) or; 
• three or more of the SAME dog (like the guy walking 3 airedales one morning who, when I asked him to remind me what those dogs were called, simply replied "I just call them 'bad dogs!'"

And 2. People who are obviously professional dog walkers seem to be active mainly during the daytime (since folks are mostly at work then and can't walk their own dogs) and usually have, like, a multitude of canines. This woman had only three, and didn't have the requisite high-tech leashes, baggies hanging out of every pocket, or resolute but wild stare of someone who wrangles rambunctious, shaggy beasts for a living. Which led me to believe she was a private owner.

Yeah. Never seen that huge/manageable/tiny combination under one roof before, which got me thinking: I wonder if Capitol Hill is the kind of place where you, as a dog owner, use the listserv to coordinate with the dog owner in the rowhouse to your left and the dog owner in the rowhouse to your right in order to make a schedule of who takes all the dogs out on weeknights. That way, each highly successful couple only has to walk the dogs a couple of nights a week, leaving the others open for dinner at Acqua al 2, alumni networking happy hours, professional conferences with networking reception to follow, and time spent watching the Fox network. Dog owners, how about it?

In case you can't tell...I really want a dog.

-AWG