If border collies ever develop opposable thumbs, the world will be in a lot of trouble.

Maya has always gotten super-excited whenever Patrick comes home from a day at work. She always, always knows when it's him, she always races ahead of me to get to the door first (then comes running back to hurry me up if I take too long). Since we're operating on one functional house key right now (we keep forgetting to get it copied when we're at the mall), I have to unlock the door and let him in every time. Maya always used to bounce with excitement as she waited. But recently I've noticed something different. Now, she jumps up for the door handle, pushing at it with her paws.

Of course, nothing happens, because dogs' paws just don't work that way. But she's definitely got the system figured out. And if she ever finds a substitution for opposable thumbs...well, really, what could stand in a smart and committed border collie's way?

In non-dog news, I wrote 1300 words of Kat by Starlight this morning - hooray! - and I came across two fun links. First, a species of turtle that was thought to be extinct has reappeared in Vietnam - so cool! - and second (via Karen Mahoney), Elizabeth Gilbert has posted a wonderful essay on writing. Here's one of my favorite bits:

The other thing to realize is that all writers think they suck. When I was writing “Eat, Pray, Love”, I had just as a strong a mantra of THIS SUCKS ringing through my head as anyone does when they write anything. But I had a clarion moment of truth during the process of that book. One day, when I was agonizing over how utterly bad my writing felt, I realized: “That’s actually not my problem.” The point I realized was this – I never promised the universe that I would write brilliantly; I only promised the universe that I would write. So I put my head down and sweated through it, as per my vows.

Really, really good advice.