I'm at that point in an intense rewrite where print-outs are scattered across every surface of every room (not to mention the floor, if I've been working there - and I've been working in almost every room of the house over the last few days!), my hair is in desperate need of a wash, and my brain is buzzing at high speed, puzzle-solving plot changes in the background of my mind late into the night. So, it's all going well, and productivity reigns...but I'll be a lot more human once the rewrites are over!

This afternoon Patrick and I went out to Borders for a break. (Well, a break for me - Patrick nicely spent most of his time there reading my manuscript.) When we got back, we noticed that Maya's food bowl was nearly empty, so Patrick went out to the shelf in the foyer where we keep her bags of dog food...and the shelf was empty! We couldn't believe it. We'd been so certain that she had another bag. We've never run out of food for her before!

We both searched the foyer and the kitchen multiple times before we finally gave up. We couldn't get her more food till tomorrow morning, so we started working on replacements. And of course we know what she really likes best: eggs! "Just this once," we agreed.

I took the eggs out of the fridge and asked, "Which would you prefer, Maya? Fried or hard-boiled? I guess hard-boiled might be healthier..."

"Oh, c'mon," Patrick said. "You know she'd prefer a fried egg."

Maya sat up in official good-dog pose and looked between us with bright eyes. She didn't know exactly what was happening, but she could tell it was something good!

"Well," I said, "since it is just this once..." I opened the egg carton, reached for the frying pan--

--And saw for the first time, after all of our searching, her unopened, full-to-the-brim bag of dog food! Somehow it had gotten stored where we usually put fruit. (I mentioned I'm in the middle of revision madness, right?) And neither of us had so much as glimpsed it in all of our searches.

"Aha!" I said. "There it is!" Patrick said. Maya looked between us hopefully, tail wagging.

I closed the egg carton, put it back in the fridge, and Patrick opened the dog food bag. "There!" he said to Maya as he filled up her bowl. "You have plenty of food!"

We were hugely relieved at the evidence that we weren't, after all, completely inattentive dog owners who would let their dog run out of her healthy kibbles.

But I don't think Maya was relieved at all.