My new puppy

Happiness is having a little puppy that follows you around adoringly, jumping all over the chairs with puppyish glee and not letting you get any work done all day long. Oh, did I mention that the puppy is actually my new11 yr old friend A? I've figured out who she is: she's the female version of K, otherwise known as the boy with the long hair who will do his best to get into anything he's not supposed to and seek "look at me!" attention until you acknowledge him ... unless you decide to ignore him, and then he gets bored of you and leaves. The only problem is that A doesn't seem to get bored, so that trick may not work on her. She has literally been by my side from 9:30-5:30 Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, and what started off as a little endearing has become more than a little annoying. She is perfectly happy to sit, stare, and chatter at me for 8 hours unless I give her something to do, so as a result I have had her clean tables, computers and door handles, and today she started the daunting task of washing my bookshelves. I feel a little guilty about the whole slave labour issue, but she did volunteer to do it, so it's not like I'm totally evil. She very much has a "what's this?" mentality of asking about everything from computers to my choice of sandals, why I like tomatoes or what movies are the bestest ever. To add to the passion for pink books, she also seems to like Mary Kate and Ashley, then (Full House) and now (sluts/ addicts/ billionaires) and being excessively klutzy (bragging about all of her accidents). Finding things to occupy her time (that do not involve sitting and staring at me) can be difficult due to her limited attention span, and while she is reportedly going to a couple day camps during August, it looks like I will be blessed with her company nearly every day until she goes back to school. Lucky me. When asked yesterday "how do you get any work done when these kids sit and chatter at you all day long?" I replied, "Uh, I don't - that's sort of the problem".