Help, I'm in trouble with my dog

It's official. Molly is sure I have a spare mistress hidden in my office and is upset about it.

This afternoon, I'm attempting to listen to the podcast of "Herding Vegetable Sheep" by Ekaterina Sedia as read by Kate Baker from the Clarkesworld site. Molly keeps running into the office barking and looking about. Ms Baker has one of those husky voices that sounds sexy even when emanating boredom while reading the phonebook and that triggered Molly's jealous streak. Every time I turned up the audio, Molly came sprinting into my office, barking and searching.

When Molly couldn't find the lady so obviously speaking, she turned to me and gave me the look. You know, the one that says "this voice isn't L and yet it sounds like a young lady, so where is she? Huh? HUH? What are you hiding from me? Come on, I know you've hidden her somewhere." How do you respond to a look like this?

I have to admit it was an effective look. I immediately felt guilty for listening to the reading. But then it hit me that I had nothing to feel guilty about, so why was I letting the dog make me feel that way. (It might be those big brown eyes. I don't know.) In the end, I outfoxed Molly by reading the printed version of the story. (So there!) After all, what Molly can't hear won't hurt her.

It's now an hour or more later and Molly is still sitting here in my office looking at me very intently as if to say, "I know you hid that lady somewhere and I'm not leaving until she comes out." Wonder if she'll give it up when I go to make supper? It's a real shame when your dog thinks you're holding out on her.

Anyway, for those of you that enjoy Sci-Fi and non-fiction about the field of science fiction, I highly recommend the Clarkesworld site. The ezine they publish has some very good short stories and audio readings. Given the collapsing market in short stories as the more traditional mags fold up shop, this is becoming one of the premiere places to see new authors cut their teeth. The addition to the mix of an occasional story by masters like Mike Resnick and Robert Reed adds just the right spice.

Since I seem to be a bit book and author tracked at the moment, I'd also like to recommend the Robert Burton Robinson site. He has four of his Greg Tenorly series novels available for download and they are a very pleasant read; a combination of mystery, detective, and romance. He also has a couple of his other novels and a chapter serialization of his newest novel available on-line.

Back to work. I still have to figure out how to convince Molly that there is no new mistress so we can return to normal.