I’m trying to work, I really am; but my feline child has her own challenges that she demands I take care of immediately.

How do you resist your feline child that lays so blissfully on your desktop helping you work. She rolls back and looks up at you with those pretty little ears, cute face, and reaching paws. No, no, little one - this virtual assistant must get to work. I have clients waiting.

There that paw goes again, reaching for the pen or chasing the cursor on my monitor. Stop that. Leave that alone. Stop being so challenging!

I sigh and return to my work, only to have her grabbing something else on my desk - a paperclip, the phone cord, or reaching into the well where my monitor sits and grabbing the mouse cord.

My challenges today, it seems, are to stop this child from being such a challenge. That’s a challenge in itself.

I evict this challenging feline delinquent to the floor and implore her to go play somewhere else. Oh my gosh, what was that crash. Gotta run! My feline sphinx’s (my pet name for her) challenges have gotten her into more trouble than she can handle.

I pick her up, scolding her the whole time, and place her back on my desk. She sighs and curls up into a peaceful little ball, no doubt dreaming about all the new and exciting challenges that my furry four-legged feline child can get into. What am I to do? I give up and let her continue with her dreams. Maybe now I’ll get some work done.

Voices can be deceiving. You call someone up on the phone and think you know who you’re talking to, right? But, do you really?

For example, I had called my Mom once. You see, she’s in Colorado. I had the number for her memorized (I thought). I dialed the number because I had some very exciting news to tell her. This is how the conversation went:

Hello?

Hi Mom. How are you?

Oh, Pam; I’m just fine. What have you been doing these days?

We must have talked for fifteen minutes, you know, the usual back and forth banter when you haven’t talked to someone in a long time. She finally came out and said are you still in Michigan?

Hmmm, I’ve never been in Michigan. Um, is this Mrs. Smith, Nancy Smith?

Well, no. Who is this?

Oh my gosh! Come to find out after exchanging details, we discovered that we were not mother and daughter at all. After totally and profusely apologizing for taking up her time, we both had a good laugh.

It made me realize that as people get older, their voices can change and become a little more raspy, deeper, more tired somehow, and how easy it is to carry on a complete conversation with someone you might not even know. It also made me realize that one should really take care to make sure they know who they are talking to so that you don’t take a chance on releasing personal information to someone you don’t know, especially in this day and time.

Another thing I learned was to not rely on memory when dialing phone numbers. One slip and look what happens. My partner could not believe that we both carried on a conversation for at least 15 minutes (she says) with a stranger and still laughs to this day.

So Mom! Mom! Is that REALLY, REALLY  you?

I was so excited today. My partner and I have two dogs - both part Australian Shepherds. Cesar Millan had a program on today where he was explaining to an owner how to keep two rambunctious super active and very inclined to do some extreme roughhousing boxers calm and submissive.

Our lesson for the day was how to straighten up, throw our chests out, and become pack leaders. Easy, right? I mean we had one of the best mentors in the world. Cesar Millan just straightens up, throws his chest out, strides toward the delinquents, points his arm, and throws out an occasional pssst! You know what? The dogs become instant obedient, well-trained pooches - I know without a doubt that he really is the “Dog Whisperer.”

All right. It’s time to practice our lesson. We take control of our beloved Aussies and stride out into the back yard. We did great! We really were the pack leaders. They were meek and mild as we went to the “play area.”

As we relax our rather over-endowed rears into our comfortable lounge chairs, we release the pack for play time. They get so rough; however, that we’re really afraid they’re going to hurt each other. We mentally rehearse how I should bring them back into a submissive mode.

Now picture this, if you can. I’m only 4′6″ tall. I straighten up, throw my chest out, purposefully stride towards the dogs, point my arm, and give a firm pssst. Caesar Milan, I swear I saw them rolling on the ground in glee. They take off at a run, knocking each other over, pushing, shoving, and just being very much the bad, bad dogs they can be. You know what else Caesar Milan? My partner and I SWEAR they were laughing at us.