Hi Chongo. To address all that in chron order:

Not gray saliva, gray salvia. Salvia is a flower with blue spikes. I had some which dropped seeds, and the new generation had flowers of grayish white.

Dogs - I agree. On my corner is a small yard which once had two large dogs in it. In the evenings, the yuppies would walk their pure-bred dogs down my street (wouldn't want to get dogshit on their own block). They'd walk their own dog right past the fenced-in dogs, who would erupt into furious barking. These were creatures that would have had 3 or 4 square miles of territory, and now they were confined to a small yard. Naturally they wanted to defend it to the utmost. The yuppie's own dog, terrified and unable to run away, would cringe miserably. On a warm evening, this would happen about every 15 minutes.

The yuppies never seems to notice. Apparently they thought of dogs as accessories, not animals. Fortunately, the people with the two big dogs moved out, and our evenings are peaceful now.

Of course, that is not the problem with you, Chongo. Dogs bark at you because they are jealous of how good-looking and intelligent you are. "I'll NEVER walk on two legs." That's what they're saying.

DH: some days it's Dear Husband, other days it's Damn Husband. The term comes from websites on home sewing.