Squig determines when my day begins.  Once he decides it's time to get up, sleep is over.  I might as well get out of bed.  If I don't, he hops to the floor, comes around to the side I'm sleeping on, stands up on the side of the bed and licks my fingers.

If that doesn't work, he begins to talk to me.  Loudly.  Explaining that I have to get up because he wants to go outside and he can't open the door by himself.

I let him out; And when I let him back in, he hops up on his blanket in the family room and goes back to sleep for an hour or two.  While I am wide awake with no hope of going back to sleep.  Such is the life of being owned by a dog.  You are at their mercy.  I'm thinking I need a doggie door.

I am also at the mercy of my publisher.  She has cancelled a meeting around twenty to thirty times.  My friends are offering suggestions as to what her next excuse will be.  It has gotten ridiculous.  She calls, we do nine or ten pages, she says she will call me the next day and a week later, she may call back.

We have waded through 140 pages.  Sixty to go.  I have never been at the mercy of another person like this.  I've never been involved in anything I couldn't walk away from.  I told my friends Jeanette and Carolyn that I feel like I have one leg caught in a bear trap and can't get loose.

My grandson Stephen told me that the next time I am getting ready to sign a contract, let him go over it with me.  He works in the world of contracts.

I'll have due dates all through it.  And if the publisher doesn't reach the due date, the contract will be broken and I can escape.  Self publishing is all the rage, but a publisher advertises and promotes the book.  I've googled the company, they actually do that.  I hope I'm alive when it happens.