I should know better

The three neutered ladies have positively ballooned. Their idea of post-operative regimen is solid eating, and this has turned them into very solid citizens quite rapidly. Kallista is beginning to look like the Hindenburg with fur.

I`ve started to call them the "heroines of the Soviet Union." You know what I mean. You`ve seen the pictures of these stalwart women from the period of Soviet Realist art, building dams with one brawny arm and raising families with the other, built like the tanks they used to drive.

I tell them this and they just stare at me. We`ve done it all, the stare says. Showing, winning, puppies - the whole nine yards. We`ve been. and we`ve done, and now we`re eating.

You can pin the medals on us any day now.