5 February—Should any readers give a damn, they needn’t worry. Because the catastrophe that struck the Monitor’s edifice Tuesday wasn’t really catastrophic. Even though it was a tornado. A double-barrel Scottie tornado. Self-inflicted, to be sure, and cataclysmic only in the micturitional sense.

We’ve welcomed many little animals—mostly rescued dogs and cats—into our modest hovel through the years. But never before have we welcomed a brace—a pair—of three-month-old puppies. Talk about synergy and crying havoc. But Caesar’s dogs of war are in this case sister bitches and not at all bellicose. Just obstreperous. Only because they don’t know better. Yet. One hopes. With a little (?) training.

Little Hope and Glory couldn’t even be prevailed upon for a simple thing like posing for a picture. When one or the other wasn’t jumping off the chair, she was running around the seat and looking everywhere but at the camera . . .