Tomorrow podcast Episode 8 of False Alarm will be up. Kate has plenty to distract her at the office and on the domestic front. I think it’s really hard to straddle those two worlds. You know how it is when you feel like you can’t do a good job at anything. Responsibilities with the kids are overwhelming, but the dogs are over the top. Right now in the Silicon Valley Outback those nasty coyotes are really being aggressive. You should hear them shrieking at night behind our house. It’s not just the fluffy tote-bag dogs they’re after, either. I guess a pack will encircle even a big dog—so Zar and Daisy have to be escorted around the yard in the evening! My friend told me that a big coyote blocked him from continuing his jog on a mountain road—a standoff. Can you believe this wilderness? More distractions: Zar has Swimmer’s ear, even though German Shepherds aren’t supposed to like swimming—I guess with those huge ears it’s a problem anatomically. Now I have to do this elaborate flushing of the ears—you pour the medicine down his ear if you can catch him, then jump back before he shakes all over you. His afflictions also require several pills at different times during the day—you need a spreadsheet to administer them. He’ll promptly spit out the pills so I trick him by hiding them in pieces of cheddar cheese. I learned that sometimes you also have to trick the professional athletes—if you want to accomplish anything—as Kate in False Alarm is finding out. Which one of them would willingly get his urine tested? Those tasty morsels sometimes do the trick.