guest author: Tiger

Oh, my. It's that time of year again. Everybody is calling my name a hell lot since the morning. If I had taken shower last night, it would've mean we're going to Pattaya. (my family's ritual around year end) But nobody seemed to have packed. Everybody's smiling. And tummy rub rub at 9 in the morning seemed too good to be true. It was quite confusing until Chris broke it by calling me 'grandpa'. Today's my birthday/!

I protested that I am at most an uncle, a big brother even, and certainly not a grandpa. Chris seemed to have heard the 1-dog-year-equals-7-human year thing and is doing 9 × 7 with his hands. I lost interest about when he asked Jess for some extra fingers. If it’s really the day, then I have a far more important task. Where’re my presents? more

Well.. turns out the colourful bag wasn’t it. But I was treated to some juicy stewed beef from last night. Today’s looking a little brighter already. This is when I stopped Chris in his misery. “To get my age in your time scale”, I said. “You need more than a simple multiplication.” And even for that, you could have go online and look up tables like this one. By simple interpolation, my age comes out to be 52.

But to get a more accurate idea, one needs to consider my breed, diet, exercise, living conditions, and past medical history. With a few clicks, I shown him to DogAge and ask him to do the test for me. (It’s hard to work the mouse with my pinky paws.) A good 10 minutes and more than 15 questions had passed, before we have the result.

I guess I am old afterall. And I pointed out to Papa that his smoking in the house doesn't help my age rating. It could have been 48, for all I know. At least, the whole family is with me today, which makes it more special than the last few times. I have been in good shape (round, that is) of late, and for that I am grateful. I will try to be more reasonable and less grumpy this year. Hmm… all this writing makes my paws sore. A little nap will be right on the spot. I'll ask Mama if she will put me on her lap, it's my birthday afterall..