Life in a three-ring circus

There are days (most days, in fact) when our house feels like a three-ring circus. We work from home and we have four animals. Not all of them get along and not all of them behave themselves. Lydia, for example, can't let herself in and out through the kitty door because Edgar will beat the sh*t out of her. So she plucks on a screen in one of the front windows to indicate that she wants in. Edgar, in turn, can't be expected to eat out of his own dish. He wants everyone else's food (even though it's the same damned thing in everyone's dish). So he eats Amos's food, which late in the day makes it look like Amos is a pig and Edgar is starving himself. Luke doesn't have a doggie door (because he's so big that if he could get in and out of it, so could a burglar) and so he's constantly whining to be let in or out. So a lot of my day is spent breaking up fights, letting animals out, pulling Edgar away from Amos's dish and introducing him-- once again-- to his own, then letting the same animals in, and (after a long day) threatening to send all of them away to camp for a week so that I can finish my work.