I was out and about in Cambridge this afternoon taking photos for my blog.  I ran into a colleague, Danny, walking his dog in the neighborhood.

Turned out this was a dog with a story to tell. It's a story worth sharing.

Danny and his family got Bosco from the pound and brought him home to their Cambridge house a couple of months ago.

Just 12 hours later the new family pet escaped and was on the loose.  They searched the neighborhood, called and called - nothing.  Bosco was gone.

The family put up flyers, talked to Animal Control, and kept searching - to no avail.

The animal control officer told them that since the dog had been in their home for such a short period of time it was unlikely they would ever see him again.

Thirty-five days later - thirty-five days!! the neighbor across the street called, "I think your dog is home".

And lo and behold there was Bosco. Quite a bit the worse for wear - he had injuries that suggested he'd been hit by a car.  But somehow he limped back to his new home.  The home he'd come to know for only half a day. 

It takes my breath away really.  While we struggle with GPS, maps, Mapquest directions, compasses, etc - animals sometimes seem to possess supernatural powers. 

"Bosco's a runner" says Danny. So he's home - but he's not getting off his leash.  They're holding tight to Bosco, the wandering wonder dog.

Why - a real estate agent Christmas ornament of course!!

I've collected Christmas ornaments for years and it's no surprise I guess that some realtor-inspired ornaments would make it into the collection.

These are two of my favorites - Santa Sells A House and Red Hatted Real Estate Agent.

Finding a good agent ornament is no easy task.  I stumbled upon the Bronner's catalog (via a 9 Really Weird Christmas Ornaments blog post) which has an amazing collection of ornaments. Oddly enough, while it has a wide selection of occupational ornaments - including bus drivers, architects, baristas, mailmen, veterinarians - you name it - oddly enough it doesn't have any real estate agent ornaments.

But I did some digging and here are some I've found that you can add to your wish list - an ornament for an agent, a nutcracker agent, a personalized agent ornament, and another.

If you find a source for some great agent ornaments please do share.  

Forgive the blurry picture - I took these photos last year as I was taking down the tree.

I had just discovered ActiveRain but had yet to figure out how to take photographs - granted something I'm still learning but at least I've figured out how to focus and how to reduce the size. 

When I unpack the foot high of ornament boxes this year I'll retake the picture.

This coming weekend is the big one for house tours in Massachusetts. There are at least eight of them that I know of - and four more the following weekend.

I *love* house tours- they've been my hobby for years - and even though I tour houses all week for real estate I still can't resist a good house tour.

For some reason a lot of towns think they have to mix Christmas decorations in with the house tour - so they all pile up this time of year.

While I've certainly picked up some great ideas for holiday decor the decorations aren't what I'm interested in - I want to see houses!

Most of these tours are fundraisers and I firmly believe they'd make a lot more money if they switched things around and held their tour in the spring or fall.  We house tour aficionados are always looking for a tour and we can only fit in two or three at most on these December weekends.

So I've got some thinking to do - which will be best? Will it be Salem? Should we hit Stockbridge this year? Will New Bedford have another stellar year? So many house tours, so little time...

Here's the list of holiday house tours in Massachusetts.

There are now 21 holiday home tours on the list and I'm sure I'll find a few more to add - so start making your weekend plans!

The Boston Globe ran an AP story in today's paper about  why we want a white Christmas.

Bing Crosby, who firmly implanted the wish and the jingle in our heads, came from Spokane where there's a 70% chance of having snow on the ground on December 25th.

Turns out in Boston there's only a 23% chance of a white Christmas.

I like those odds! Sentimentality aside - the longer the snow holds off the shorter the shoveling season.

Here's a website that shows the odds for cities across the country.

This beautiful tree is in my neighbor's yard. 

Unfortunately the last leaf collection is tomorrow morning.  I snapped this in the middle of my marathon raking session this afternoon.

Tomorrow morning I'm going to bandage up my blisters and head out early to see how much more I can get bagged before the truck shows up.

I think I'll make a card with this photo and send a note to the Mayor and the DPW.  Leaf collection needs to last through November. 

I'm still waiting to call the gutter cleaner.  Every year I do this dance - trying to find the sweet spot when the leaves are down before the snow falls.

As I raked I just kept mulling over the idea that very soon I'll be out there shoveling again.  Time flies!

I went to a great CE class this morning on Smart Growth.  The fast paced class, newly offered in our state, went through about twenty ways in which towns and cities in Massachusetts are being encouraged to build in ways that reduces sprawl, encourages walkability, and conserves open land.

They were great ideas and Cambridge has already put a number of them into practice such as traffic calming, transit-oriented development, and greening up the parking lots.

But I couldn't help but think as I listened that perhaps all of this was too little, too late.  While some of the ideas dealt with traffic either directly or peripherally, in the end we were talking about continuing to build.  There was not nearly enough mention of the missing link - public transportation.  We cannot grow without dramatically increasing our public transit infrastructure.

Unfettered growth has made much of our country a much less enjoyable place to live than it was twenty, forty or one hundred years ago.  Automobile traffic is choking our towns and cities.  There's too many of us and more importantly we have too many cars.  Public transportation is far, far more limited than it was a century ago. 

I've lived in a twenty of thirty mile radius for most of my life.  I know what traffic used to be like.  I see the long backups that never occurred before. I watch as the rush hour spreads to hours, as heavy traffic on the highway, once limited to special events like a Red Sox or Celtics game, becomes the norm at almost any hour of the day. I revisit the town I once lived in - where I was introduced to stop lights when the town's first traffic light was installed when I was six - and now the traffic down Main Street, where I once biked and walked unaccompanied as a seven or eight year old, is fast and unending.

I really do think that we're a bunch of frogs in a big pot of boiling water who didn't notice that the water was heating up.  Incrementally we've built and built, developing farm land, filling all the empty places, choked our roads, fouled our air, built endless swaths of ugliness - and we just didn't notice what we were losing.

It was a beautiful country. And certainly there are many pockets of beauty remaining (do your darndest to preserve all that you know of!) but too often many of my favorite places, while still beautiful, have to be endured with endless amounts of traffic whizzing by.

Smart Growth principles can help ensure that development is done better than it might have been.  But we can't be satisfied with small, incremental steps. 

We're already more than maxed out in terms of automobile traffic - any growth, no matter how smart, is going to make things worse unless we make a huge push for top notch public transit.

We've got to address better ways to get from Point A to Point B. One by one behind the wheel of our huge hulking automobiles cannot be the answer.

I've been obsessed with search engine optimization for months. This rap song is music to my ears. It's actually full of excellent advice - and very catchy to boot.  It's "Page Rank" by SEO Rapper m0serious. 

If you click over to youtube and click on "more info" under his name you can read all the lyrics.  He's got more SEO rap videos too - you can't watch just one!

After months of mulling and limping along with my old phone I've finally made a decision.  As much as the name gives me the willies, I'm going with the Droid.

Verizon started selling the phone today and this morning was the first time you had the opportunity to buy a phone - there weren't any advance reservations.

Turns out that my every-two-year discount kicks in next Tuesday.

Should I? Shouldn't I?

I thought the discount was $50 but it's probably $100.  Hmmmm.....

My coworker and I have been planning to switch together and have been counting the days until the launch. We both have the same phone now and figure it will be better to have somebody to learn with as we get up to speed. When I called him it turned out that his anniversary date is Monday.

So we're both going to wait. 

All I could think of was that famous experiment where children were promised more of their favorite candy if they waited rather than ate what was in front of them.  Supposedly the ability to delay gratification played a large part in future life successes.  I had always told myself that I would have been able to wait if given that choice.

But I was really tempted by that phone - my adult candy.

So I'm not sure if this is a shining example of our maturity and ability to delay gratification - or simply a chance to "stick it to the man" and keep our $100 from the grasp of Big Business.  Not to mention a big helping of peer pressure.

I'm getting a Droid.... next week.

Today was Election Day.  Around here it was a low key election - just city council and school committee positions being filled. The big story was Boston Mayor Menino's reelection to an unprecedented fifth term.

My polling place holds a bake sale to raise money for the kids in the school that hosts the polls. It was a great twofer - I got to vote and buy a super lunch (and dessert!).

My coworker went to vote in her town this morning.  When she got to the polls she noticed a long line.  Surprising, since during work hours there typically aren't lines even in a presidential election.

Turns out it was the line to get a flu shot.  There wasn't a line at the polls.

I'm really pretty sad about it - don't you think if the flu shots and the voting booths were at the same place that people could have made it over to vote?

There's a bumper crop of acorns around here this fall.  Really it's a banner year for acorns - the ground is thick with them.  A veritable carpet of acorns covers the ground anywhere close to an oak tree.

Turns out the squirrels can't keep up.  I'm sure they're taking their share but vast quantities are being left behind.

There aren't any oak trees in my yard or the neighboring yards so my squirrels don't have access to the bounty.

I've decided to become an acorn redistributor.  When I come across "excess acorns" I collect them.  Come winter I'll put them out for the squirrels in my yard.

I can hear my father now, "Don't get too close to those squirrels".  Translation: You're a nut and you'll look mighty tasty to a hungry squirrel.