kabbage

2009-03-10T11:33:00.000-07:00

Graphic that makes me smile

2008-12-17T21:39:00.000-08:00

missing sleek

2008-11-24T21:14:00.000-08:00

i miss sleek tonight. hell, i always miss her, even when i sense she's stopping by. it's hard not to miss such a beautiful physical presence, even when it was a pale reflection of an even more beautiful soul.

tonight, though, it feels like the whole holiday crap flooding in, and i'm just choosing to miss sleek instead of facing that. yes, even though she's gone, she's still trying to take on my crud.

i love you sweet girl. run on and enjoy being free of the bodily limitations of age and ill health.

my beautiful belgian. 4-22-94 to 8-30-08. in my life 12-25-98 to whenever i pass. a gift to my soul always and forever, outside of time or space.

Bits and Pieces

2008-06-24T22:33:00.000-07:00

1. I felt deliciously ironic today when I walked to the Auto Licensing branch in order to get the car's tabs renewed.

2. I feel quite stupid at the moment to have no good idea where the new tabs are. I do know they are not on the car.

3. I love my neighbors who let me borrow their gas-powered mower when my grass is too long for the reel mower.

4. Back to irony. In February, when I thought Sleek was only going to last for another 2-3 months, I wrote down a bunch of stuff about what she has meant to me, brought into my life, etc. I also wrote down a bunch of stuff about what her decline and death might mean to me, and what I would gain and lose by her passing. One of the things I said I would gain was freedom from the tyranny of her reaction to fireworks. As the July 4 fireworks sales approach (June 28 is the first day), Sleek looks better than she did in February. Looks like I get to go through the fireworks with her one more time! We go Wednesday morning to talk to the vet about Xanax and Valium (for her, not for me). Pray for a cool week and especially a cool July 4 so we can shut the windows without suffocating.

What I Finally Sent

2008-06-17T22:14:00.000-07:00

Dear Sister,

I’m a little confused by the message you forwarded. Whoever wrote it seems to object to Barack Obama running for US President for some unusual reasons: that his middle name is Hussein, not a conventional Christian name; that his father was Muslim at one point in his life and had a Muslim burial although he apparently was either agnostic or atheist at the time of his death; that a cousin named a child “Fidel” after Fidel Castro.

Like John McCain and many other sons before and after him, Barack Obama was given his father’s name. If John McCain’s middle name were Adolf, would that be worth mentioning as a factor in his suitability for the Presidency? To me, the President’s middle name has no effect on his performance.

Barack Obama has belonged to and worshipped at Christian churches for more than 20 years, so I don’t see why his father’s religious beliefs or lack of them should be an issue. We ourselves were raised by a Catholic father and a Methodist mother to be Catholics. Although I no longer identify as Catholic, I never felt I was less of a Catholic because my mother worshipped at a different church. I would be surprised if any member of our family felt we were less Catholic because Mom was Methodist.

As for the senior Obama’s funeral, the dead can’t really control the form of the services they receive, even if they express their wishes prior to death. Heck, look at our Dad. He rejected the Catholic Church years before his death, yet he received Last Rites when he was neither physically aware nor capable of telling the priest to go away. It was important to some members of his family, so he received them. It was important to some family members that the elder Obama receive a Muslim burial, so he did.

Then we get to the cousin rumor. First, it is not substantiated that the man claiming to be Obama’s cousin is a genetic relative. Second, if they are genetically connected, what difference does it make given they have had very little contact in their lives? We have cousins in Europe. For all we know, they may have given their children names that would sound odd to us. I hardly see them, even if we met them now, as strong influences on, or reflections of, our behavior or beliefs.

I guess I just don’t understand the email or the reasons why people would send an it. After all, I don’t think my status as a non-Christian would affect anyone in our family if they wanted to run for political office, would it? If you think it would, could you explain why? I really don’t get it.

In the meantime, here are a couple of links that deal with rumors circulating about Barack Obama. One is the product of the Obama campaign, http://www.fightthesmears.com, and the other is a more “neutral” source. Snopes, the rumor clarifying site, has devoted a section to Obama rumors. Some are found to be true, some mixed, and many false. The Snopes site is http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/obama.asp .

Thanks for any clarification you can add where I said I’m confused. Otherwise, happy reading!

Love,
kabbage

Family Politics

2008-06-13T22:21:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit to the left of most of my family, apparently, when it comes to politics. A couple of them tend to send a lot of rightwing crap around in presidential election years, and they've started up now with Obama-bashing. One sister sent some stuff today with pictures of Obama with various members of his father's side of the family and nasty comments about them, including nastiness on whether or not his father was Muslim. I'm thinking of sending the following letter to her, and to everyone who received her post.

Your comments welcome.

Dear Sister,

You were raised by a Catholic father and a Methodist mother as a Catholic. Do you feel you were (at the time: I realize you no longer identify as Catholic) contaminated or less of a Catholic because your mother was Methodist? Do you feel you are less of a Christian now for being raised by a Catholic father and a Methodist mother? Barack Obama has belonged to and worshipped at Christian churches for more than 20 years. Why would anyone suspect he is a Muslim? Just because he was given the same name as his father, as so many other sons before and after him have been? Whew.

Your father repudiated the Catholic Church years before his death; yet, he received the Holy Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick (aka Last Rites) shortly before his death when he was not physically aware nor capable of telling the priest to go away. I see this as parallel to Barack Obama’s father being buried in a religious ceremony. It’s a little difficult for the dead to dictate the type of service if the living choose to disregard their wishes.

You have a sister who is not Christian and has not been for at least 15 years. Would that disqualify you, or any member of your/her family, for elected office? The same sister has attended Passover and Sukkot rites with Jewish families. Would that affect your suitability for elected office? She has never voted for a Republican presidential candidate, although she has voted in every presidential election since 1980. Would that affect your suitability for elected office?

You may want to look at some other material about Barack Obama. Snopes has numerous clarifications addressing rumors circulated about Barack Obama. You will find them at http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/obama.asp
The Obama campaign has addressed a number of rumors at the website http://www.fightthesmears.com

Love,
kabbage

What Tarot Card Are You?

2008-05-15T21:46:00.000-07:00

You are The Wheel of Fortune

Good fortune and happiness but sometimes a species of
intoxication with success

The Wheel of Fortune is all about big things, luck, change, fortune. Almost always good fortune. You are lucky in all things that you do and happy with the things that come to you. Be careful that success does not go to your head however. Sometimes luck can change.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Spring Musings

2008-04-12T22:27:00.000-07:00

I opted to chop back my five forsythias now that they're done blooming. I remember my dad cutting them back drastically when I was a kid. They always seemed to survive and even thrive on this treatment every several years. I want to chop now so they'll have lots of new growth for blooming next spring. Assuming this was not such a bad idea that they'll die -- I don't remember when in the year my dad chopped ours back.

Only three received the radical cut. Sleek has spent the last couple of summers digging a little nest between a couple of them, so I left those slightly taller for shading her nest. I will rue this next year because the two are in the middle and will be more difficult to cut back with the others' new growth, but I won't regret leaving Sleek her nest.

While cutting up the forsythia branches, I noticed a fair amount of noise 2 doors down. Two years ago that house was pretty noisy (for our neighborhood) in the summer, with a lot of late evening outdoor parties. Last year it was markedly quiet. This year noisier again? Same occupants, so perhaps they hoped to lull the neighbors into a false sense that the party year was an aberration.

==================

Pet sitting this morning, I noticed that two of my clients have the same bedspread! What are the odds of that, I wonder. Made me laugh.

==================

St. John's Wort may be nearly as expensive as pharmaceutical antidepressants when taken in the massive doses my ND/MD prescribed -- NINE droppersful per day. He still advocates taking either Lexapro or Welbutrin with that dose of St. John's Wort. Usually they say you should not take St. John's Wort with another anti-depressant, but he feels it can be done as long as you account for the SJW when deciding how much of the pharmaceutical to give. He will start me at 5mg of Lexapro if I go that route, or 75mg of Welbutrin.

=================

Some evil little dog puked on my sweatshirt while in the car this evening. What is that about?

=================

Pollen season is here. The car needs new wiper blades, but will the pollen mess up the blades too quickly? Will I care if I can't see through either the pollen on the windshield or the streaky arcs left by trying to wash the windshield with wiper fluid? And how much water do I have to drink to dilute the goopy feel of my eyes? Thank heavens for the digestive enzymes that help my body have enough energy left to deal with pollen!

=================

Have you ever thought about the oxymoronic quality of calling an area of the US mainland the "Pacific Northwest?" This area is on the eastern side of the Pacific Ocean, and there is a lot of Canadian coastline that is further north....

Love is Everywhere*

2008-04-08T13:44:00.000-07:00

*Allman Brothers Band "Revival" (http://www.last.fm/music/The+Allman+Brothers+Band/_/Revival to listen)

Okay, I'm starting to put one foot in front of the other to get myself out of this mental hole. I saw a psycologist last week, but I think he's more than I want to pay at this point since finances are one of my stressors, and told several friends that I think I need anti-depressants. This week I've admitted here that I'm in bad shape (THANK YOU, Mrs. G. for your comments over the months. I am grateful!), and made appointments with both my MD/ND and my previous counselor, whom I've not seen for about 3 months. I've also thought about what I didn't accomplish in counseling and my role in the process.

Sleek has been interesting in this. Over the past few days, she has shown some odd physical symptoms like poor digestion and a low amplitude, high frequency vibration in her body. She's looked rather stressed, which worries me because of her cancer. I also noticed the way her hair was lying down her spine was different, which usually means she needs a chiropractic adjustment. Those often help her digestion, too. Today I called the chiropractor's office and was able to get her in on short notice (always stay on good terms with the office staff!). The doc started to check in with her, then he turned to me and asked how I am doing. Because we're friends, I replied that I wasn't doing all that well, brain malfunction, etc. He asked if I would take a bottle of a particular supplement if he gave it to me. Turns out my beloved Sleek has been trying to give me energy to get my brain boosted enough to be functional, and that's why she's feeling a bit drained and lacking enough energy to properly digest her own food. She will get 2 per day of these tablets (and I will give Fluff the same amount because she's been a bit down lately, too) while I need 11 per day!

And I need to avoid all occasions of sin such as white flour, sugar, and starches. Yoiks!

We'll see what happens.

Reel Mower Power

2008-04-06T21:41:00.000-07:00

Or, Kabbage is Losing It

I love reel mowers.

When you own one, you can get a bee in your bonnet to whack at some of the grass at 9:30 at night on a work/school night without irking the neighbors. I can't wait to see what my backyard looks like in the morning. My grass is really long, and we had rain most of the weekend. I decided to see if the grass was still short enough to mow by randomly mowing a strip. It is, and I did. Then I started zooming around the yard from taller patch to taller patch in interesting ways. I think I got about half of it mowed. Mowing in something other than straight lines was curiously freeing. Sort of like rolling down hills.

I haven't rolled down hills much lately, although I found doing so very helpful in 2006. I was telling a friend about how bad my depression has been lately, and she asked if I had rolled lately. Huh? I asked. You know, down hills. That really seemed to help you a lot, came the reply.

I hadn't thought about it, but she's right in the sense that I felt like I was making progress back then, and I don't now. I already think I need to try anti-depressants again (yeah, that interesting observation: I have no problem with other people using anti-depressants, but I get extremely pissed off when I think I'd better use them before I become totally non-functional). Getting them into my system and tweaked for the chronic depression would be a good thing before I add acute, situational depression on top by losing Sleek. I don't think there are enough hills to roll down to compensate for losing my Best Blonde (and I'm not talking about Mrs. G., although losing her voice would be depressing, too).

Privilege Meme from Peripatetic Polar Bear

2008-03-29T21:22:00.000-07:00

From this link, http://theiceflue.typepad.com/the_ice_flue/2008/03/gettin-all-priv.html#more ,here's a meme about privilege. You're supposed to bold those that are true for you

Father went to college. (GI Bill after WWII)
Father finished college.
Mother went to college. (GI Bill after WWII -- mom was an Army nurse)
Mother finished college.
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor. (one uncle by marriage was an attorney in a small town in southern Indiana)
Were the same or higher social class than your high school teachers.
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home.
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home.(considering all 8 of us maxed out our library cards every week, we probably had more than 500 books in the house at least until kids started moving out. Heck, I'm the only bookreader in my house, and I am pretty sure I have at least a couple hundred books right now.)
Were read children’s books by a parent.
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18 . (5th of 6 kids means money was going toward college expenses before I could grab it for lessons)
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18.
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively.
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18. (parental dead bodies before this would've happened. I think I only touched one of my mom's credit cards once or twice by 18)
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs. (parents paid for tuition/room/board at a college we agreed upon considering costs as well as academic programs. Undergraduate degree only, and they were quite annoyed when I paid $150/semester for tuition/fees in grad school at the same university. I pointed out that they usually want you to have taken the course before you TA'ed it; therefore, not an option in undergrad days)
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs.
Went to a private high school.
Went to summer camp. (Does Girl Scout camp for 1 week after 4th grade count?)
Had a private tutor before you turned 18.
Family vacations involved staying at hotels. (Most vacations were to my grandparents' homes, but some were to destinations that meant motels. We also did a few trips where we rented a condo at the beach to cut meal expenses.)
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18. (Three older sisters and a girl down the street who was my age but much taller were sources of hand-me-downs. My mom sewed a lot for us, including my prom dress.)
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them. (HA! not a chance for even a hand-me-down)
There was original art in your house when you were a child. (Sort of, if you include a [bad] painting I did in middle school and a paint-by-number that my parents did together before they decided to have children)
You and your family lived in a single-family house.
Your parents owned their own house or apartment before you left home. (I think the mortgage was paid off (13 years early, IIRC) in my senior year in high school. They moved to a different state -- but I found them! -- while I was in college and probably picked up a mortgage again at that point.)
You had your own room as a child. (after enough siblings grew up and left home. At 11 I had a room to myself when college was in session. At 13 I had a room of my own year-round, but I was only allowed to paint one wall because the room had been painted 2 years earlier when my oldest sister went to college and my youngest sister moved into it.)
You had a phone in your room before you turned 18. (we had one phone, 2 jacks. One jack in the dining room, the other in my parents' bedroom. Privacy on the phone was unlikely and fragile when achieved)
Participated in a SAT/ACT prep course. (We did some vocabulary work in my advanced English class and had filled out a bazillion multiple choice tests with number 2 pencils over the years, but no specific SAT prep class. Got 1400 anyway -- see books, above.)
Had your own TV in your room in high school. (we could have clock-radios or stand-alone radios)
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in high school or college.
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16. (I was 16, about a week and a half from turning 17)
Went on a cruise with your family.
Went on more than one cruise with your family.
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up. (mostly museums. Loved the Natural History Museum in Pittsburgh, esp. the dinosaur bones and the stupid diorama of a lion attacking a camel driver.)
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family. (didn't know dollar amounts, but certainly knew we were trying to conserve energy & money during the major energy crisis years ('77 and '78?) as my mom kept the house freakin' cold. I still do -- winter thermostat setting is usually between 60 and 65 degrees F)

What gets interesting is thinking about this and seeing what items mean privileged to me, and which seem ordinary. To me, the idea of having books around is unremarkable. I think it's really odd when I go to someone's house and see only a few, if any, books. Our schools did field trips to the museums and such in Pittsburgh, but we only lived in the suburbs so it wasn't too far. Looking at my childhood now, the most striking thing is color, or lack thereof. I never, ever had a black student in any of my classes all through public schools. I did have one black teacher for one year in high school when the regular teacher for that class took a sabbatical. My high school class had nearly 500 students, and not one of them was African-American. We had 3 or 4 Asian-American kids, but otherwise, European-American all the way.

Sleek Update

2008-03-24T21:58:00.000-07:00

Sleek, fat and happy.

Sleek looks great and seems to feel great, too. I was letting her eat a bit more to give her some reserves for later in the game. Sleek took to increased meals with great gusto and a disturbingly greedy glint in her eyes. She put on reserves. She put reserves on her reserves and looked for more. I looked at my dog and saw, instead of a dog suffering from cancer, a beautiful blonde bloated tick on long skinny legs. I told Sleek she did not need reserves adequate for surviving a nuclear winter.

Now Sleek is on a diet. Sleek does not like being on a diet. Sleek polishes her bowl. She polishes Fluff's bowl. Despite being mostly deaf, Sleek hears any movement I make toward the refrigerator or a kitchen cabinet and comes at a dead run. She practices looking like a show dog to see if I'll toss some food to her. If that doesn't work, Sleek tries staring and drooling. Eventually she gives up and wanders off, muttering sotto voce comments on which one of us would look better in a bathing suit anyway and who really should cut back on her food. Gotta love living with a teenager!

All of these pictures were taken Saturday, when Sleek turned 13 years and 11 months old. I don't know why she is squinting.

Gratuitous Fluff shot (I pay my models in liver, and Fluff wanted payment badly)

Canine Sense of Humor

2008-03-06T15:15:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Sleek came up to me while I was sitting and bumped my hand for attention. I absently petted her then looked at my hand. There was a blood spot on it. I didn't remember cutting myself, and certainly she didn't nip at me. I touched her nose again, and found a new blood spot on my hand. Oooooookaaaaaaay, then. We've established Who is bleeding, now let's look at How much and Why. I'd only come home a few minutes earlier, and there was no blood involved in the greeting.

How much was a seemingly steady drip. Where was the inside of one nostril. I'm quietly flipping out. Were all the vets who said, oh, her cancer isn't going to metastasize wrong? Has she got some honking bleeding tumor in her nasal cavities that is going to kill her any moment? Nothing when I got home, a drip now, perhaps a gushing torrent in 5 minutes? I call the vet, get an appointment for 2 hours from now, cancel an afternoon appointment for a potential job and watch.

Gradually the drip ceases. But I'm paranoid because this is my girl with cancer so we still go off to the vet's. Sleek has just nicked the inside of her nose. It's scabbed over and fine. Whew.

I think Sleek was messing with me. I don't know how she nicked her nose just lying around the house and backyard when she never nicked it chasing rabbits through blackberry bushes. Today Sleek keeps on looking at me and smirking.

Trust me. Dog faces can completely form smirks. At least long skinny Belgian noses can smirk.

Teaching Moments -- How to Use Them?

2008-03-02T14:25:00.000-08:00

My 2 senior citizens and I were walking along the river today. We were joined Slim and his young cattle dog, Blue. Slim and his wife found Blue in a shelter about 6 months ago. Blue is one of the smallest and cutest cattle dogs I've ever seen. Very lively, smart, charming. Slim wants a better recall on Blue because Blue is apt to go chasing after bikes, horses, other dogs, and people. Slim asked my opinion on electronic collars, and I told him I was leery of them because timing is so crucial in using them successfully. I don't think I have the timing necessary to use them properly, given that I accidentally clicker-trained poor Fluff to pick up a dumbbell and spit it out as fast as she could instead of picking it up and holding it*. I told Slim about one possible problem with the collar -- if the shock is timed incorrectly, the dog may associate the bikes or whatever as causing the shocks and feel like he really needs to get them under control or away from him. If that happens, he's going to be more assertive and/or aggressive going after them.

Slim was definitely in "yes, but" mode today. Honestly, I'm pretty sure he's made up his mind to try an e-collar. Equally honestly, I think his consistency and timing are going to suck enough that there is a good chance he'll ruin his dog. As we walked, I talked about positive reinforcement and the need to practice the recall when it's not needed. Blue was unable to get my dogs to play with him, so he'd mostly lost interest in them. I suggested Slim practice calling Blue away from Fluff when Fluff was chasing sticks and make it a party when Blue came to him. Slim throws some pretty boring parties. Blue would come, Slim would quietly say, "good dog," ask him to sit, and then give a cookie. My dogs, who normally glom on to anyone with cookies, didn't even notice Slim was handing out cookies, that's how understated he was.

Then we saw some people down the shoreline a ways. Blue noticed, and I tried to get Slim to call Blue before he took off running, when he still had a chance of the dog listening. No, Slim argues with me about how Blue knows these dogs, so it's okay. Ah, Slim, that is precisely the time to play this game! There are no disastrous consequences for failing! If Blue sees dogs he knows across a busy road, it's going to be nice to be able to call him back from going to see them, now isn't it? Better to practice on the beach with no one else around before stepping up the criteria several notches. Unfortunately I didn't think of this argument until after we had parted ways.

Since I am interested in teaching people as well as dogs, I wonder how I could best get through to someone like Slim. When I have a young dog again, after Sleek transitions, I'll be more able to show by example, but how to do it with words????

*If you are interested, I clicked late, after she had already begun to let go of the dumbbell, so she thought the trick was to let go of the dumbbell. As she got faster at spitting out, I had less and less time when I wouldn't be too late for the hold. Her ability to learn via clicker was faster than my ability to improve my click timing. It was ugly. Fluff never went on to get her CDX because of that and her dislike for out-of-sight stays.

Swimming Mantras for Today

2008-03-02T14:21:00.000-08:00

I am 140 fit, flexible, strong and healthy pounds.*
I effortlessly earn $XXXX dollars every month doing things I enjoy.
I enjoy stretching to find my capabilities.

* please. it's a goal. stop laughing.

Peeve of the Day

2008-02-29T19:40:00.000-08:00

The word is "REIN", people, not "reign" when you are talking about your spending or other excesses. I realize we're all a bit removed from the good ole days of using horses as a major form of transportation, but the phrase "reining in ____" comes from those horsey days. You rein in your horse when you want it to slow down or stop. Why do we say you "rein in" your horse? Because you pull on the reins. You know, those leather straps that run from the bridle to your hands? The reins.

Reign, on the other hand, goes with royalty, and not because we associate the British royal family as riding to the hunt on their horses using their reins to tell the horses where to go and when to slow down. No, we simply have a tradition of royalty reigning over the land they rule. (we might note that the Latin Regina would translate to Queen today) Queen Elizabeth is the reigning monarch. Prince Charles would like to reign over the British Empire before he's 100 years old, but that may not happen given family longevity. The reign of King George III was marred (from his POV) by the American War for Independence (aka Revolutionary War).

Had someone been able to rein in King George III's tendency to reign over the colonists by taxing them dearly, we might not celebrate July 4 as Independence Day.

Got it? Thank you for trying.

Growth

2008-02-25T21:16:00.000-08:00

I'm coming to terms with the idea of Sleek leaving. Of course, when I knew she would probably leave before I did, and probably before Fluff did, too.

I spend some time thinking about what this experience of loving and losing Sleek brings to me. First I've been thinking about what knowing Sleek herself has brought to me. She has taught me a lot about self-possession. She is who she is, she knows who she is, and she's very comfortable with that. Fluff and I can learn a lot from Sleek on that front!

Her self-possession is a big part of Sleek's beauty, and she is a beautiful dog. OMG, when she was younger and hunting in an open field! Watching her move across that field brought shivers to my spine. She would glide across, much like a coyote or wolf would. Her back would barely move up and down she was so smooth. Sleek was so in to her hunting. It was a huge part of who she was. She still hunts some, but the body can no longer deliver that effortless movement.

Sleek has taught me a lot about graceful aging. She doesn't seem to miss the sustained hunting much. She'll poke around holes in the ground, maybe dig a little, and she will increase her pace if she sees a rabbit or squirrel, but I never see her doing anything that looks like she's cursing her body for no longer being able to catch rabbits or squirrels. The dog who once dislocated her sister's ribs simply because Fluff was standing between Sleek and where the ball was thrown, now barely trots after the ball. I think I miss Sleek's former physical prowess more than she does. I definitely miss the selective deafness as opposed to the current involuntary deafness. Before I had a chance that she would choose to hear me eventually, but that's not so much of an option for her anymore.

I've also learned about acceptance. Even as Sleek accepts aging and her impending transition, so I had to learn to accept that Sleek was a) not like Fluff when it came time to do some training; and b) not like a typical Malinois. Fluff loves training. She loves the bonding of it and the chance to see how quickly she can figure out what I want. Sleek is a lot more wary of training. I say that Fluff is a child of suburbia with a love for rules and predictability. Sleek is a child of the country. She'd rather run loose and make her own rules. Sleek hates, though, having people she loves upset with her. Unfortunately for training regimes, she thinks being asked to do things more than 2 or 3 times means she is doing them wrong; therefore, I must be getting upset or close to getting upset. Sleek shuts down into her default mode: "When in doubt, sit. No one yells at a sitting dog." Eventually I learned and accepted that Sleek was not going to be a competition dog with me.

Sleek and I came to some agreements on a few things that are important to me. She may have thought some or all of them were bad ideas at times, but she has acceded. First, she and Fluff must get along. I will not deal with bitch fights where the combatants must be kept separated at all times lest they, for real, try to kill one another. I told Sleek very soon after she joined us that should the two of them begin to fight that way, Sleek would be the one looking for a new home, no matter what. Second, she may not jump the fence and go cat hunting/killing. She did that once. I chased her (after I put clothes I could jump the fence in on), caught up with her, and read her the riot act the whole way home (around the block, not back over the fence). She was devastated for 3 days (would not look at me, tried to avoid being noticed) but never went over the fence after a cat again. Third, Sleek is supposed to stay off the furniture unless invited. We came to an agreement where she stays off when I'm home and gets on when I'm not.

Sleek's passing also brings up a lot of stuff for me, but I'll cover that another day.

Why I Haven't Been Posting

2008-02-20T11:00:00.000-08:00

Letter sent to RL friends on February 19, 2008.

Thank you to all who asked how Sleek and Fluff and I are doing.

The last evaluations of Sleek’s cancer are still a bit indeterminate (“we can tell what it is if you cut it off and send it in….”), but the cells appear to epithelial neoplasia at the skin level, with a small chance that it could be mammary gland too/instead. Sleek’s vet thinks they are unlikely to metastasize. Chest X-rays taken at the same time the needle aspirations were done show no signs of metastases. Sleek still looks generally okay and continues to eat well and be interested in walks and sniffing every freakin’ blade of grass on the walks. She still asks for cuddling and lets me know at night when she is ready to go to bed. I go to bed then, too, because she’s very hard to move once she’s settled across the middle of the bed. A queen-sized bed is not big enough for two when Sleek takes my spot in the middle.

Spiritually, Sleek gives the impression of a soul ready to move on to the next adventure. Given that, her age, and her general condition, I have decided not to pursue anything radical in terms of “fighting” her cancer. I’ll adjust her diet as needed to support her and continue chiropractic. I’ll look into acupuncture for her, too, to help with any pain or energy blocks that may come up.

Fluff seems to not understand why Sleek is leaving and to prefer that Sleek stay so Fluff doesn’t have to worry (it is all about Fluff, thank you very much!). I’m calmer now (most of the time) and am focusing on looking at what Sleek has brought into my life, what her death will mean to me, and what my fears and concerns are about her transition period and eventual death. Because Fluff and I are (too) deeply connected, this work will help me figure out how to support all of us as Sleek travels on without Fluff and me. We may have another 2-3 months of physical togetherness.

We very much enjoyed the beautiful weekend weather. I took the girls down to Cottonwood Beach both Saturday and Sunday. Fluff got to retrieve sticks from the water, and Sleek got to sniff and hunt. Although there were no carrion-rolling incidents, Fluff did bring a good bit of “river essence” home in her skirts. Let’s just say “minty-fresh” and "Fluff" are not synonymous. Saturday we walked with several other people and dogs whom we met there, and Sunday was more of a family day.

Thank you again for your love and concern. I feel it, and it helps.

Love,
kabbage, Sleek, and Fluff

Healing and Faith

2008-02-01T07:14:00.000-08:00

A few days ago the Peripatetic Polar Bear asked a question about whether faith healers truly believe they heal or if they're all a bunch of charlatans (http://theiceflue.typepad.com/the_ice_flue/2008/01/healings-and-mi.html ). I kind of liked my reply, although I didn't read the blog entry that triggered her question until afterward. Had I read it first, the context and thus content of my answer probably would have been different.

I think the answer is, "It depends." Some faith healers probably believe they have a gift, and some may be in it for money or notoriety or some other reason. Some probably start one way and end up another. Who gave the title of "faith healer?" The priest himself, or people who had seen the work he'd done or _____? I think there are some people who can facilitate other people's healing, at various levels. In one sense, we do that when we "kiss a boo-boo and make it better." When it comes to more serious illnesses, like cancer, I still think some people can help some others heal or heal themselves, in part or in whole. No single "conventional" treatment works for all people, so I think it stands to reason that no single "unconventional" treatment, be it snake oil, prayer, or casting out demons, is going to work for all people.

I do a form of bodywork and training for animals that can be energy work or can be done without energy playing an obvious role. I don't *try* to transfer energy in either direction when I'm working with a client, but people (I sometimes work on people I know) tell me my hands feel very, very warm or hot to them. To me, they are comfortably warm. Can *I* heal? No. Can I, in some cases, help bring awareness to the client (human or animal) so that they are able to change something? Yes.

What I think we don't acknowledge is that we can be operating at multiple levels. There may a part of us that wants to heal right here and now. There may be another part, which we may not even be aware of, that says there is a reason for this illness or challenge and sustains the progression of the disease. Maybe our souls have something to learn or experience from this event, maybe we're there as a teaching moment to others around us. Sometimes our environment, be it physical or emotional/mental, does not permit us to heal. I think many of us have heard of kids who act out their parents' issues by getting sick frequently or having behavior issues. Heck, my *dogs* do that for me because we're so tightly linked. I may not be aware of how I'm feeling because I stuff things down, but they know and act stuff out in their bodies and behavior to clue me in. Sometimes there is something in the physical environment, not just the psychic one, that prevents healing. Maybe it's something that doesn't bother most people, but in a particular case, it does bother one enough to prevent healing.

This is when it's helpful to believe that we are energetic beings choosing to have a physical experience in this lifetime.

Impressed, but not in a Good Way

2008-01-31T11:43:00.000-08:00

Because I have dogs, I bought a Honda Element. It is a great dog car because the upholstery is designed to be water-resistant and easy to clean and the car lacks carpeting, instead having textured plastic that does not absorb water or other fluids. I have mine configured with only one back seat installed, so about three quarters of the back is just floor. The seat that is installed has a blanket on it because I'm more likely to throw a blanket in the wash than I am to actually clean the car (yes, I am a pig).

I took Fluff with me to run to the grocery store. Got out of the store and opened the hatch to load the food. I notice a little bit of puke just behind the back seat, so my eyes travel upward. It appears that Fluff has outdone herself. First, she rarely pukes. Second, she has managed to puke so she almost entirely missed the blanket. She has, however, puked in the hinge pocket which is lined with more absorbent fabric and on the seat where stuff could pass through and drip on the floor. On the floor right by where the spare tire cover ends so there is another slight path to another level of the car.

I'm impressed. With over 80 percent of the available surfaces impervious to puke, she's managed to find the places that are not and use them. Oh, well, at one point when the car was less than a year old, her sister Sleek puked down the emergency brake housing. I love living with animals!

Snappy Good Comeback Needed

2008-01-29T09:59:00.000-08:00

Scenario: kabbage, sleek, and fluff are returning from their morning walk. when they reach their own yard, kabbage continues across the grass with the dogs still on leash. since sleek is nearly completely deaf, kabbage wants her away from the street (no curbs, for one thing) before turning her loose. car pulls over to the side of the road. middle-aged (older than kabbage, who is mid-40s!) woman lowers the passenger window and asks kabbage something. kabbage has to ask the woman to repeat herself twice before actually hearing the question. woman asks kabbage if she ever wonders what people think about her walking her dogs across their yards. kabbage is dumfounded and stares blankly with mouth open. it's her own fine* yard, for heaven's sake! and this is a total fine* stranger. gradually kabbage's lower jaw begins to waggle as she tells the woman that this in fact her own yard and by the way, did the woman notice the used bag kabbage was carrying? Woman says, "Okay, good" and drives off, leaving kabbage in a highly adrenalized state.

kabbage has come up with some better replies since then (plenty of time to think in the shower!):

do you ever wonder about people who make snap judgments about other people's behavior and feel free to share those judgments with the people?
do you have cats? do you allow them out of the house unsupervised? pot, kettle, black.
do you know the people who live in this house? do you think they'd have a problem with these dogs being in their yard? (this one had the most potential for interesting dialogue going further, if woman answered in the affirmative)
bursting into song from Jesus Christ Superstar (where Judas is dissing Mary Magdalene and JC comes down hard on him for being judgmental)
saying numerous unprintable words loudly and rapidly

questions for the viewer:

what situations would lead you to pull your car over and comment on someone else's behavior?
was the woman's behavior appropriate? why or why not?
is kabbage over-reacting? why or why not?
what would you have said to the woman if you were in kabbage's shoes? would you have smacked the woman's car with your used bag in the hopes of premature bag failure? why or why not?
would you have apologized after kabbage told you it was her fine* house? why or why not?
do you become apoplectic if someone's dog unloads in your yard but the owner immediately picks up after it? why or why not?

*fine is the "polite" 4-letter f-word.

Miscellaneous Bits

2008-01-22T22:10:00.000-08:00

My skin is too "mature" to handle drying east winds, temperatures in the 20s, and swimming. Am I wishing for the adolescent grease? The still-functioning brain cells say when I swam in my past, I sometimes ended up with dry flakey oily skin.

Swimming was great fun again today. I was the only person in the pool, so I had my own personal lifeguard! Mantras were pretty similar to last time.

Weather is beautiful. This is the stuff that made leaving the midwest for the land of winter rain challenging (hot, humid summer weather is why I left. Even the SAD I have now is better than the perpetually crabby mood of summer in Cincinnati). Cold, clear. Low humidity, so very crisp air. Almost full moon. East wind. I'm so enlivened that I walked my dogs twice today and client dogs 2.5 times (the pugs don't count as a full walk, even though I took them out twice). And I swam a half mile.

Now to feed starving ravenous bitches (just ask them) and go to bed!

Swimming Mantras 1-20-08

2008-01-20T14:30:00.000-08:00

I am strong, fit, and flexible in body, mind, and heart.
I love and am loved. I live in a universe ruled by love.
I set goals and act to achieve them.

Lovely day in the pool. The mantras seemed to help me release worries about time, and I was still able to keep count of my lengths (previously my length # had been my mantra). I had the lane to myself, which is especially nice when I'm doing backstroke and elementary backstroke. My relaxed state led me to swim a little farther (further? not sure on those two when to use one and not the other -- comments welcome), so I did 36 lengths (1/2 mile) instead of stopping at 30. Had some nice conversation with women in the locker room -- nothing earth-shattering but a nice confirmation of mantra #2 above! -- and messed with the lifeguard's mind by thanking him for being there so I'd be allowed to swim. Perhaps it's not fair to hit a poor teenaged guy with something like that, but it was fun. The admission person at the front counter was pleased when I thanked her for being there.

Off to have a little experience with my little red vacuum cleaner!

Fading

2008-01-19T20:01:00.001-08:00

Sleek is fading away. It began years ago with a little frost on the muzzle. Then her feet started looking lighter in color. Her stomach began to have trouble with food that previously hadn't bothered her. If she ran and played really hard one day, she'd be stiff the next. She could no longer jump into my arms. About 3 years ago, I began to see the beginnings of clouds in her eyes. Off leash, she began to walk within 20 feet of me instead of 200 yards.

Two years ago the vets began to mention a heart murmur. She stopped being interested in chasing the ball after years of knocking other dogs out of the way if they got to the ball first. A year ago I took her to the cardiologists at OSU. They confirmed the murmur but said it wasn't bad, just watch for changes in exercise tolerance and coughing.

Over the past few weeks, Sleek's hearing has gotten really bad. For a long time I've thought it was fading, although it's been hard to tell physical hearing loss from psychological hearing loss ("Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't hear you say not to chase those deer...."). Now even a high-pitched "Sleeeeeeeek!!!!!" seems to be genuinely hit or miss. We had a tornado in town a week or so ago. We were nowhere near it, but I heard some odd thunder or thunder-like noises. Sleek didn't react. In the past, she has reacted when she heard thunder on the radio, so this was big.

I wonder what it is like for her. Does she know her hearing is going? Does she ever think about how quiet her world has gotten? Does she wonder what happened to the noises? She'll look at me sometimes when I'm talking to her while I fix the dogs' food. Her ears are up, she looks alert, but her ears are not moving as my intonations change. On the other hand, she's not cocking her head to the side like she's trying to understand me. Does that mean she can hear some of it or just that she knows what I say at times like that is never really important anyway?

Ah, well. We go on. She has general routines for daily life, so she has a good idea of roughly when things are going to happen. I've never given my dogs a really rigid schedule so they're fairly flexible and accepting of 1-2 hour variations in meal times, walk times, etc. She's still very happy when walk or meal times come around. A few weeks ago she got to flirt with a male Tervuren (long-haired version of Malinois). That made her very happy to think that she still is sexy in the eyes of a boy in his prime. As long as she's still happy to be here, she is welcome to stay. When she says she's tired of this life, it will be soon enough to say goodbye to my beautiful blonde.

Updates

2008-01-19T19:43:00.000-08:00

Xena and 3rd Co-owner tell me Fleur was being Fleur. The good news is I can thus more easily not take it personally. The bad news is that I still think she was being a jerk. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but I don't want to get a dog from someone I think is a jerk, so she's still moved way, way, way down the list of breeders to consider.

I found my checkbook. In the car. Strangely, it has no more money in it now that I've found it than it did before I lost it. Disappointing. You would think if the thing is going to go MIA, it could be doing something useful like finding someone to put its deposit slips to good use. I'm glad I found it. I would hate to lose the checkbook cover.

It's fabric origami and way cool. Click on the link to see more patterns. I think I'm going to get one of the brighter ones, too. Then I'll use this one for business checking and the brighter one for personal.

sunny side of life

2008-01-19T10:03:00.000-08:00

The bad news: I can't find my checkbook. I need to pay bills.

The good news: I've cleaned up a lot of stuff over the past hour while searching for the damn thing.

I Don't Understand

2008-01-17T19:08:00.000-08:00

About 14 years ago, Fleur and friend drove to Canada with Sleek's mom so Sleek's Mom could meet Sleek's Dad. Fleur is the breeder of record on Sleek's papers.

In the intervening 14 years, Sleek was born, bounced around her co-owners' homes, and successfully shown to a conformation championship and an obedience title. Then I stumbled into the picture just after Sleek was spayed because they had decided she wasn't needed in her breed's genepool. She has lived with me for the past 9 years, picking up a herding certification along the way, being a loved and loving member of my family. Although Fleur signed off on Sleek's registration papers so I could own her, she really had nothing to do with the decision to rehome Sleek with me. That was Xena's choice, and the others just agreed to it. The 3rd co-owner moved up to our area a few years after I got Sleek, so we've seen her a number of times. I've sent Fleur pictures and a few anecdotes over the years but never met her until a year ago when we ate dinner at the opposite ends of a large table. So not much contact and usually at my instigation.

Yesterday Fleur flew into town here so she could go to a dog show this afternoon. I called her yesterday and asked if she would like to see Sleek while she was here. She said yes and gave me a few factoids of her schedule: where she was staying, when she was leaving. She thought maybe we could get together this morning and asked how Sleek is doing. I paused and then told her Sleek is doing okay, a little creaky, has heart murmur, and such. She is and acts like an old dog. Fleur told me they were just reaching the hotel and she would call me back in half an hour after they checked in so we could make final arrangements to meet.

Fleur didn't call.

I tried calling her a couple of hours later, and her phone went straight to voice mail. I called both her hotel room and her cell phone this morning with no reply and no return call.

I do not understand this. I can understand where it may not be important to Fleur to see Sleek. She no longer has any dogs closely related to Sleek, and I doubt she's looking at lines similar to Sleek's for the future. That's fine. Maybe Fleur hates to see old dogs. It's painful sometimes if you knew them in their prime to see the changes. Maybe she'd rather have the memories of Sleek as young and full of herself and, frankly, sleek. That's fine.

Just be honest with me. Or at least white lie: gosh, wish we could get together, but it's such a short trip that I won't have any time. Don't tell me you'll call and then turn off the phone.

It's tacky, it's incredibly hurtful, and Fleur is old enough (probably in her 50s) to know better. Additionally, it's a stupid business move, given that Fleur still breeds dogs of Sleek's breed. Where I might have thought naturally about going back to the breeder responsible for breeding the dog I love, I now probably will not consider her. If she's not available for me when I do NOT have a problem, would I reasonably expect her to be if I did have a problem with a dog of her breeding?

They Took My Stash

2008-01-10T21:43:00.000-08:00

Of plastic bags, that is. My car had to go back to the shop this week because of extreme leakiness. Turns out that when they repaired the 2007 accident (as opposed to the 2006 accident, neither of which were my fault, btw), they pinched some drain lines and left some plugs out. Things were bad for my interior in our rainy weather! As soon as the car moved, there would be a stream (sometimes 2) of water from the ceiling. Nellie the Element was a very soggy girl inside (thank heavens Honda Elements have no carpeting, or Nellie would be a very stinky girl, too).

Anyway, I cleaned out the car before I took it in since I knew they'd be crawling all around the interior. I left a stash of plastic bags under the front seat, though, and now they're gone. I guess it's what I get for living an alternative lifestyle -- other people don't understand the need for plastic bags in the car and see them as trivial or, in this case, trash.

I, on the other hand, see them as future poop bags and keep some in the car in case I've somehow emptied all my pockets.

Sigh. I guess I have to buy and eat some produce now so I can get more bags.

Accents

2008-01-09T15:42:00.001-08:00

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
Boston
North Central
The Inland North
The South
Philadelphia
The Northeast
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

And it's been over 15 years

2008-01-09T11:20:00.000-08:00

You are 97% Pittsburgh.

Great job! There's nooooo doubt about it. You're from Da Burgh. You deserve a reward, so go have an Ahrn City or two. And GO STILLERS!

How Pittsburgh Are You
See All Our Quizzes

Politics

2008-01-09T11:12:00.000-08:00

89% Barack Obama
88% John Edwards
88% Chris Dodd
86% Hillary Clinton
84% Bill Richardson
81% Joe Biden
79% Mike Gravel
73% Dennis Kucinich
41% Rudy Giuliani
36% John McCain
35% Tom Tancredo
31% Mike Huckabee
28% Mitt Romney
20% Ron Paul
20% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

New Year's Greeting for Mrs. G.

2008-01-03T17:15:00.000-08:00

As George did not have your email address, he asked me to pass this on to you. I'll tell him you said Hi....

(let me know if you need the larger bitmap version of this!)

Possibilities

2008-01-02T17:24:00.001-08:00

I took a walk at our local Little League park today. This place probably has 6 or 7 ball fields of varying sizes. Today is rainy, probably about 0.75 inches so far, so I wore boots and planned to puddle-stomp. The infields tend to have generous puddles at the juncture of infield dirt and outfield grass, and I hit almost all of them. It was great!

Some of the infields are a slick mixture of clay and sand, making some of the run-n-stomp moves a little more exciting. I started to think about skating. Wouldn't it be cool if these ball fields were converted to ice rinks for the winter? Our winters are too mild, but what an idea! With a multitude of rinks, they could be split for different functions. Some could be for rank beginners or tiny kids. I'll be on the one for adult incompetents! Some could be designated for hockey or even curling. Some could be teaching rinks, while others could be for open skates. They could even be split by music preferences. The fields already have benches in the dugouts that could be used for donning and doffing skates and concession stands for hot chocolate.

One thing we would have to do in this town, if we were heading for nuclear winter instead of global warming, is to improve the drainage of the parking lots and walking paths. Those had the deepest puddles in the park.

Things to Remember in 2008

2008-01-01T20:18:00.001-08:00

These are not resolutions, don't you know.

Change is good, even necessary.
Keep Einstein in mind. "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
Simple way to apply to life: ask myself, "so, how is X working for you?" where X is some trait or behavior that I know is self-defeating but that I continue to do.
Go to bed at a reasonable hour. Midnight is not a reasonable hour when the alarm goes off at 5a.m.
Exercise! Exercise with dogs, exercise without dogs. Moving blood around the body is a good thing that allows one to keep the furnace setting lower.
Speaking of the furnace, change the filter! Poor thing probably has a dog's worth of hair on it. That is, a whole 'nother dog, made out of hair from the incumbents.
Give the incumbents quality time (i.e., get off the freakin' computer, idiot!). I'll be surprised if Sleek sees 2009. Then again, last January/February I didn't think she'd see 2008. Fluff is 12 now, so she's no spring chicken, either. Not to mention, who wouldn't want to look at these faces rather than the computer screen?

Fluff and Sleek smiling at Champoeg State Park a couple of summers ago. photos courtesy of brisbeethewhite.

Happy 2008 to all of us (that includes you, dear reader)!

(gratuitous Sleek picture. This is one reason we refer to Malinois as "Maligators", although Sleek is only scratching her back here. You can't even see her tattoos from this angle, but doesn't she have the longest jaws?)

Classic Body Language

2008-01-01T19:47:00.000-08:00

This is classic canine body language.

Sleek is warning Whitey away from the toy (small blue/white and yellow blob near Whitey's upraised paw in the picture). Sleek is all about straight, hard angular lines. She's standing very straight, stiff, and tall with her head up. Her eyes are hard and her stare is very direct. Even her ears are laid back stiffly. She's showing darn near all her pearly whites in her rigid jaws. You can't see in the picture, but her hackles are probably raised and her tail is probably stiff and held almost level with her back.

Whitey, on the other hand, is all about curves and softness. He has realized he made a bad mistake in trying to take Sleek's toy. He doesn't have the social position or self-confidence needed to convince Sleek that he really should own it. His posture is soft and somewhat crouched -- he wants to look as small and harmless as possible to Sleek. His left paw is up in a submissive move as he tries to move slowly away from She-Who-Owns-The-Toy. You'll notice he's curving away from her -- look at his right shoulder and ribcage -- although he's afraid to take his eyes off her. His ears are soft and submissively lowered, and his head is going down as he bows to the Toy Queen. His eyes are probably soft and not looking straight at her, and he's probably licking his lips alot.

This was the end of it. Whitey backed off, and Sleek picked up the toy to carry it to a human. Whitey, being fairly short and lacking opposable thumbs, is absolutely useless in the toy-throwing department, and Sleek wanted the toy to fly again. Whitey probably never has tried to steal Sleek's toy again. If you are a dog, you just don't try to take Sleek's toy.

Happy Anniversary to Sleek

2007-12-25T07:44:00.000-08:00

On this day in 1998, my friend Xena came for dinner. She brought Sleek with her. I'd met Sleek a week earlier when Fluff and I went to see a rescue Aussie that Xena had. The Aussie wasn't a good fit for either Fluff or me, so Xena and I were sitting around the living room talking. She let Sleek in because it was cold outside and Sleek had been spayed a few days earlier. Fluff liked Sleek, even though Fluff doesn't normally like other girls. After a while, Xena asked me if I'd ever thought about owning a Malinois as she might be willing to place Sleek. We agreed to think it over and talk later in the week. Xena brought Sleek over on Christmas, and, since the girls still seemed to get along, we decided to see if Sleek would fit in long term. Nine years later, I think we can say this was a good fit!

Fluff is my heart dog, but Sleek is one of the most beautiful dogs I've ever seen, especially when she was younger and doing her own thing in a field.

Sleek in January, 2007, age 12.

Sleek had the most beautiful movement. She was breath-taking. She's still pretty, but arthritis has robbed her of some of her glide. January, 2007.

Sleek in January, 2003, watching another dog work sheep. 8 years old. This picture took me 4 years to get -- Sleek doesn't like cameras and usually puts her ears back when she sees one.

Sleek in joyous possession of a floating Kong. Probably 2003. Washington coast. Age 9.
Sleek and Fluff the year we traded in a septic system for a sewer connection. The side yard had to be put in the front yard to dig deep enough to have the pipe run the right direction.

Updated with Christmas 2007 photos. We were supposed to have rain today, but some of it is white.... Dogs were anxious to enjoy the snow rather than hold still in it, so pics are quick. Sleek is wearing a coat because she is trying to switch from being a sleek, blonde beauty to a sleek, bald beauty. Not bright in this climate, but arguing with a dog about its haircoat is pretty pointless. Now I just lecture, and she does her thing. Fluff looks okay in these pictures, but if we get serious snow she's going to look like a "before Clorax" ad.

Pet Sitting at Christmas

2007-12-24T17:05:00.000-08:00

Oy vey, it's already a long Christmas, and compared to more established sitters, I have a light load!

Get ready to do 5 visits this morning. Before leaving, find out my kitchen sink is almost completely stopped up. Why? Because I ran the freakin' garbage disposal is why. You know, the thing you use to speed up the sink? Murphy rules.

My usual plumbers (2 companies) neither answer the phone nor call back. They also do not mention on their voicemail that they will (apparently) not be working Christmas Eve. I'm guessing they're also not working Christmas Day.

Did I mention the sink full of dirty dishes? And the dirty crockpot on the countertop?

How about my need to take a hostess gift Christmas Day to the wonderful soul who is feeding me? And did I mention I had planned to take homemade spiced nuts as the gift? That aren't made yet. That will require some of the dirty dishes to be cleaned for the making? And again after the making?

I need a dogwalker for my own dogs. I walked them this morning, but it's after 5pm now and they're ready to go again. I'm ready to go, too. To bed. But I have to wash dishes in the bathtub and make spiced nuts. At this point, I'm a nut. Can I just rub spices into my skin and attend the dinner? Too bad this isn't the kind of crowd for that. Maybe the 2nd time I meet them, but not the first. Tacky on the first meeting.

Now Murphy is threatening this post. Whew! Successfully saved. More installments to come, but I am going to take a nap.

7pm update: one plumber has called back. No, he's not working today or tomorrow. Heck, he's not working the whole week. He said he will try to find a way we can work something out.

The clog is moving. I think it may be near the bathtub now because the drain was pretty slow when I was washing dishes there.

Fluff Turns Twelve

2007-12-22T23:24:00.000-08:00

I don't know her exact birthdate, but I celebrate Fluff's birthday on December 22. Give or take a month, it's about right.

This is Fluff at about 3 years old, maybe 4.
Fluff during an agility run. Fast, responsive to her handler, but not always tolerant of handler error.

One of my favorite pictures of Fluff. "You want this stick? It's a really good stick. You know you want it. Catch me, and we'll talk!"

Fluff at the Washington coast. She loves retrieving from water. I think she's about 8 or 9 in this picture.

My best girl. Looks, personality, and a whole lot of love. Thanks, sweetheart.

Solstice

2007-12-21T22:41:00.000-08:00

It's Solstice Night tonight. The moon is nearly full and only covered by a thin veil of clouds. We may even get frost tonight, if the cloud cover stays thin.

I walked the girls near the Columbia River in the late afternoon. It was a beautiful solstice, and we still had some light after 4:30pm. Likely this wasn't the shortest-feeling day of the year this time!

Sleek was feeling young tonight (I know it was today, but we were in twilight, so tonight feels right). She dug after a few moles or mice and trotted along quite happily. I was the first one to see the deer, and I grabbed Sleek's collar about the same time she saw them. She whined, and yowled, and barked because they were so close and she felt young and strong enough to catch one, surely. When I felt the deer were far enough away to be less interesting, I let go of Sleek's collar. Darned if she didn't take off after them, as deaf to my calls as ever when faced with that valuable a resource. She ran straight toward barbed wire, much to my cringing horror. But Sleek still has it. Just like in her younger days, she managed to slide between the wires unscathed. She is amazing.

Fluff did well today, too. She had a grand time splashing in puddles and kindly refrained from actually lying down in any of them. She bounced at the deer when she saw them but is far too smart to actually want to go near them.

In addition to the deer, I saw a raptor of some kind. I used to always see a pair of bald eagles in that area during Christmas week, but I've not seen them for several years. I miss them.

I'm really bad at coming up with a concluding paragraph or sentence to tie my thoughts together. I was bad at that in those high school 5-paragraph essays, too. I always wrote the body paragraphs first, then tried to come up with an interesting introduction and conclusion. Now I just write something closer to stream of consciousness and end when I want to leave. Sometimes I want to come back later, but I never seem to get around to that.

Linus & Lucy

2007-12-21T10:51:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite pieces of music, this piece by Vince Guaraldi appears to be among the most frequently used songs for synchronized Christmas light displays.

This one has a pretty good soundtrack, but the camera movement can cause a little queasiness.

I used this song about 5 years ago when Fluff and I competed in Canine Musical Freestyle. I ran out of time (and patience) to choreograph it properly because I have no musical talent or rhythm or knowledge of how to choreograph. It's tough to find someone who can help with choreography for a dog. Telling the dog to "do that spin just a little faster at this point, slower at that point" doesn't really work well. It's entirely possible to teach a dog to spin at a certain speed (assuming the dog is physically capable of it), but it takes exquisite timing on the trainer's part. Then there are human and canine nerves at exhibitions. Many dogs tend to slow down when their handlers appear nervous or uptight in a doggy effort to let the handler know everything is okay and it's time to calm down. Fluff, on the other hand, tends to get amped at this stage and try every behavior she knows in rapid succession to see if any of them are the key to calming me.

Anyway, this song worked for us. Despite my notorious dislike of costuming, I could deal with a red & white striped turtleneck and socks combined with green tights and a Santa hat. Fluff, who really needs no adornment with her flashy colors, wore a jinglebell collar. We got out there and did our favorite moves and had fun. There are advantages to completing your title the day before -- I was relatively relaxed because I had no intention of moving up to the next level of competition. At one point, Fluff curtseyed to me then looked over at the audience and grinned at them to a collective "Awwwwww" from the crowd. We won a special award for Most Bonded Team that day.

One of the best local trainers in freestyle later asked me how I taught Fluff to pay attention to me because "she never takes her eyes off you in the ring." Unfortunately, I didn't really know. I thought I hadn't specifically trained attention because it seemed to just flow out of our lives together. Thinking back now, I realize I did teach some of it as a way of dealing with Fluff's insecurities around other dogs. If she didn't stare at them, she didn't get so nervous about dogs being near her. If she was staring at me, she wasn't staring at them, so I encouraged her to watch me carefully in show environments. Fluff learned "watch Mum carefully whenever you are nervous or uncomfortable." Since she picks up on my nerves in competition, she's nervous and uncomfortable in those situations.

In fact, 4 months later Fluff let me know she was retiring from competition. The night before a national competition, she went lame to the point where she could barely get to her feet. I apologized to her because I had ignored her saying she didn't want to do this any more for several months. In my selfish way, I wanted to show her off one last time, so I ignored her very unusual lack of enthusiasm for training. We did not compete that weekend, and she has not competed in freestyle again, although she has done a few demos. She's happier retired, I think, although we both miss some of the connection that comes through training. I'm too lazy to think up training goals when I don't have a competition behavior to focus me.

Too Bizarre...

2007-12-17T09:02:00.000-08:00

....not to post.

15

Vicious Cycles

2007-12-16T21:28:00.000-08:00

(note that these are not viscous cycles, even when runny noses are involved)

I taught my dogs that my clearing my throat is often a good clue that they need to reconsider their current behavior. If Sleek is thinking about chasing the neighbor's cat, then she had darn well better think about staying where she is. If Fluff is thinking about barking at somebody walking down the street, she gets to think about how golden silence really is.

Now I have a cold that has settled into my chest. Now I have to really clear my throat for physical reasons, not just canine behavioral ones. Now my dogs have decided that throat clearing is not a significant event. Now what do I use for a warning signal?

December depression is an extremely vicious cycle. You know, it does feel viscous as well. I feel like I'm walking (on a good day) through a very thick, sticky, nasty mess. I like molasses or else I'd use it as an analogy for the fluid. Maybe this is dark Karo corn syrup in December. I'm semi-paralyzed by this depression. I can get things done for other people, meaning I'm going on my pet-sitting visits. I just can't do much for myself. My slippers are still unknit, bills are not always getting paid on time, papers are not filed so I can find the freakin' bills, and the house is a disaster area. My diet (never good) has gone to hell in a very fast handbasket, and I'm not doing much to clear up my cold. Fine.

Unfortunately, I have this little cognitive dissonance from my upbringing that means I can't ask for help unless I'm strong enough to not need it. When I'm depressed, I feel needy and that no one else needs to be subjected to a depressed kabbage, so I avoid people. Then I get lonely, which is depressing, especially near the holidays. Hell, it's damn near unAmmurican to be lonely during the godly holidays of excessive spending, eating, and getting together with people. Which means I have to hide that I'm alone which means I must become invisible which means hermitting more than usual.

I try to avoid the holidays as much as possible. I went through a period of being a pleaser who tried to keep my family as happy as possible during the holidays. I think this led to no one in my family, and possibly my friends, to really know who I am. That led to a series of Christmas gifts I found devastating in their deviation from what I would want. I wondered if any of these people had any clue who I was or am. After blowing up a few times (including my memorable use of the F-word at the Christmas dinner table at my parents' house -- to the best of my knowledge, I'm the only one of us who ever did that -- such an award -- too bad more of the sibs weren't home to hear it), I decided to start avoiding holidays.

Then I get pissed and afraid that I'm turning into my mother. I proceed to act even more like her by avoiding people because I'm afraid I'll act like her around them, which is not nice and not lovable. If any more people stop loving me, I will completely run out of people who do love me. Not that I don't feel suspicious about the ones who do love me because they're obviously crazy if they love someone like me. The dogs are simply trapped by biology -- they NEED someone to love, and I'm the one most consistently available and I control their access to other people.

Meanwhile, back to the vicious cycles. Depression fuels itself. I get up later, when the (nominal) sun is already up, so I don't spend time in front of my lightbox (Fluff is happy because those lightbox sessions are most-likely-times-for-Fluff-grooming which she hates). I'm running later, so I don't go exercise. Food becomes problematic when running late, too, so decent nutrition goes out the window. Sugar, on the other hand, comes a-running. I'm sensitive to sugar -- I can spike and crash pretty easily, and it sure doesn't help cold-recovery. Let's summarize: poor self-care.

Now, off to what I CAN do. I started on St. John's Wort today. Although that stuff is supposed to take weeks to have a visible effect, I find the tinctures can kickstart me almost instantly. If it's placebo effect, I don't give a rat's ass. It works. I'm going to finish this post, feed and potty the dogs, and go to bed. Now.

Thanks for reading.

Star Gazing

2007-12-13T22:25:00.000-08:00

Although it's clear outside, there is a lot of moisture in the air. I took the dogs out and looked to admire my beloved Orion. I could only see his belt on my inhalations. When I exhale, the moisture in my breath condenses to form a mini-cloud, blocking my view of the stars.

It's a beautiful night. There are some ground clouds (aka fog) forming, but looking up gives me a clear view.

I still remember my first sight of the Milky Way. I was 18 years old and a freshman in college. A group of us went out to one guy's dad's farm for a hayride. I was a child of suburbia, and I attended a suburban college with all the streetlights suburbia embodies fading the stars. Yes, I knew there were stars above, but I had no concept of the glory of the Milky Way as seen from an Indiana corn (or maybe soybean) field. My childhood horizons were hemmed by trees and mountains, not the limitless flat expanse of northern Indiana.

I had never seen so many stars before, and perhaps I haven't since that night. It was a magical, safe, wondrous night. I leaned back into my dear friend Edge's arms while he talked of the stars and pointed out the many stars and constellations he knew. He wanted more than anything to spend time in the sky as a pilot with those stars to guide him. There were so many stars that it was difficult to see some of the constellations -- was he was pointing to this star or that one?

I shivered with cold. I shivered with awe at the size of the sky and the size of the universe. I shivered with the rightness of my being there right then, a part of the universe. An integral part of the universe, despite being so tiny in the universe. It was me, and I was it, and the stars sang.

The Answers

2007-12-05T14:03:00.000-08:00

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer first aired in 1964 when kabbage was a teeny wee lass of 3.

Despite its dreadful attitude toward women, I love this show. I suspect it's a matter of identifying with the misfits and hoping that someday I too will fit in. I love the music and can sing (albeit badly) most of the lyrics. I remember the old GE ads that used the elves from the show.

My family of origin abused the song "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas" when we were growing up. We found out, somehow, that singing this song when someone was already in a bad mood was a nearly foolproof way to enrage that sibling beyond reason. Once they're beyond reason, it's easy to set them up so you look like the injured party in front of Mom and/or Dad. I struggled while in my 20s to not react negatively to this song each December. People don't understand why you would be riding along with them in the car in a perfectly good mood and suddenly go berserk and smash the radio when that particular song comes on. Go figure.

Blocking

2007-12-04T23:14:00.000-08:00

You know you are blocking your emotions when, catching only the last 10 minutes, you tear up when, after Hermie removes the Bumble's teeth, the bumble and Yukon Cornelius fall over the edge into the ice ravine.

Name that TV special. When did it first air? How old was kabbage at the first airing?

Random Bits

2007-11-30T19:03:00.000-08:00

Why is it easier for me to rub my dog's belly while simultaneously patting her head than it is for me to do this on myself? Took no extra effort at all, beyond trying to keep the dog in place while I laughed like a loon.

Computer joke: Jesus and the Devil are having a computer competition, with God as the judge. Jesus and the Devil do everything using MS Office. They write Word documents, they calculate everything they can think of using Excel, and then they present their results in PowerPoint. God is about to call Time when the power goes out and the room goes black. After a few minutes the power comes back on and the computers boot up. The Devil calls for a do-over since his computer shows nothing. God looks over at him and says there is no need for a do-over because Jesus saves.

In my pet sitting, I see houses of all ages, with room size somewhat inversely proportional to house age. The modern master suite tends to be quite large (my house lacks a master bath and walk-in closet in the master suite. In fact, the master suite appears to be a decently large bedroom with a non-walk-in closet). What I don't understand is why the master bath and the walk-in closet are contiguous. Don't the clothes get damp or dampish if people take long, luxurious showers or soak in the jetted tub? I've lived in cities where the towels couldn't dry between showers without artificial air circulation, and those towels tended to smell a bit nasty by the end of the week.

Why do pet owners not understand the connection between good food and their pets' health? I have clients who dearly love their pets and pay fortunes for surgery for them and then turn around and feed them nasty (albeit well-advertised) grocery store brands or vet-supplied brands where the first ingredient is corn (a major source of allergies for dogs and not exactly what one thinks of carnivores as eating regularly). Makes me want to scream.

Living with a Mutant

2007-11-29T23:10:00.000-08:00

Fluff is a mutant. Normally it's not a big deal as she is pretty healthy. Right now it's a problem. She needs to have a tooth (maybe more?) removed, which means she has to be anesthetized. Unfortunately, her mutant status means most of the commonly-used pre-anesthetics are off limits to her. They're neurotoxic to mutants, and I like my girl to have a functonal nervous system. We tried masking her down (clamping a mask with a connection to a safe anesthetic gas to her face) for a procedure years ago, but she's the world's shallowest breather and most-determined-not-to-be-anesthetized dog. She kicked, thrashed, and blew out her anal glands in that attempt so we'd rather avoid that approach.

Fluff is not alone in her mutancy. She is what they call an MDR1 mutant. MDR = Multiple Drug Resistance. It means she can't get rid of certain drugs in her body like a normal dog can, so they build up and can cause nervous system damage or destruction. She cannot take Acepromazine and she cannot take Ivermectin for heartworm prevention. There are a whole host of drugs that must be avoided by the owners of these dogs. This mutation is extremely common in collies, shelties, Australian shepherds, miniature Australian shepherds, Silken windhounds and long-haired whippets. It also is present in other breeds and mixes that trace back to an affected breed. If you look at breeder webpages, you may see notations like "MDR1-NN" or "MDR1-NM" or "MDR1-MM" which means the dog was tested for its MDR1 status. "NN" means "Normal-Normal" or dog is completely unaffected by the mutation. "NM" or "MN" means one copy of the gene is Normal and one is Mutant. "MM" means the dog carries two copies of the mutant gene. It's not completely clear yet if NM dogs are affected by the mutant gene or if it takes two copies to fully express the defect. I personally would err on the side of caution and assume my beloved friend needs to avoid certain drugs.

To find a list of affected breeds and information on how you can test your dog to see if it carries the mutation, see http://www.vetmed.wsu.edu/depts-VCPL/ This site also mentions some of the drugs to avoid if you own a mutant dog. Another site with an extremely useful list of drugs to avoid is http://busteralert.com/

Be aware, if you own a mutant, that vets are not always thinking about the MDR1 mutation or may not even be aware of it. Just yesterday my vet and I were discussing Fluff's upcoming dental surgery and how to anesthetize her. My vet knew we couldn't use ACE as the pre-anesthetic so she mentioned she'd probably use butorphanol instead. Oops, that is on the list, too, so now we're a bit stuck because she's going to have to use a different drug in a protocol that is unfamiliar to her to anesthetize a dog she knows darn well is my heart dog, my Best Girl. Yeah, we're a little nervous now! Get the information. Give it to your vet. Make sure it's in your dog's chart at the vet. If you have to give drugs or have your dog anesthetized, ask what the drugs or anesthesia are, and check the list! If they won't change their protocol for your dog, go to another vet.

The above has been a public service announcement from Fluff.

So Soon!

2007-11-25T22:16:00.000-08:00

Wow! So many people have their Christmas lights up and lit already! Seems to be mostly the people with extravagant displays who are lit up now. That may be a function of the weather: we've had over a week of clear, dry weather. A few days have been too windy to put stuff up, and it's been in the 40s (F) the last few days, but overall good light assembly weather.

I grew up with a much different model. We generally didn't decorate for Christmas until the weekend before the day (we kids were a bit bummed the years Christmas fell on Monday!) and lights were lit from decorating day through January 1. My mother was into understatement, so we only had the tripod "candles" (yellow-orange bulbs) in the front windows and a (plain white) spotlight on the door wreath. Our Christmas tree was in the family room in the back of the house, so it didn't affect our outdoor display.

Now I don't decorate at all. I wonder about the electric bills of the elaborate display houses. I know some of the most modern lights are cheap to run, but some of these big displays probably took years to acquire. I doubt they are all new-style lights.

Manifesting

2007-11-22T19:36:00.000-08:00

Today I had the urge to see "Home for the Holidays," a Thanksgiving movie that delights with its dysfunctional family and still a happy ending. I don't own the DVD of this movie, and I don't watch TV at home, so I felt stuck.

Then I went to my last pet sit of the night and turned on the TV to have some quality cuddle time with the cat. Lo and behold, the TV is set to a channel that will be playing "Home for the Holidays" in 15 minutes! The 30 minute visit turned into 2 hours of snuggle time for the cat. Everybody's a winner on Thanksgiving!

Joys of Pet Sitting

2007-11-21T15:24:00.000-08:00

One house, 2 cats, 3 litter boxes. Taking care of all this in 30 minutes should be simple, right? I walked in to multiple hairballs on the entry rug. Fine, I have a project in mind, so I'll clean those up in a bit. These cats kick and track an unbelievable amount of litter around, which I need to sweep up to get to the project. Do that, then I scoop all 3 boxes. The project is to completely clean and refill the stinkiest box. That takes a while because I have to find an outside spigot, I can't find a scrubbrush, and the scoop also is filthy enough to need cleaning. Then I clean up the mess by the food dishes (looks like somebody decided to mark her territory by the dishes) and wash all the food and water bowls at the kitchen sink. Bowls refilled, I put down new paper towels under them.

Whew! I'm almost done! I go to locate the second cat (she hides under beds, but the other keeps me company while I work). I check in the master bedroom. She's not there, but I find puke on carpet and then puke on catbed. Must clean those up. Must clean up the mess on the entry rug. Go upstairs. Locate the second cat and decide to check on the carpet upstairs. Why, why, why do I do this???? Now I must clean up a spit spot in the hallway and three more in the bonus room. Sigh.

Now I'm really almost done. I go to the mailbox and bring the mail in. I write my note to the owner, then I glance into the dining room and find several more spots to clean. One week into this assignment and there are only 3 carpeted rooms in which the cats have not expressed themselves. I hope they are not saving those for Thanksgiving.

Seventyfive minutes after arriving, all known carpet spots are cleaned up, the boxes are clean, etc. I leave!

I get home and go in the side door because I forgot to put a pee pad by the front door. Sleek, for some reason known only to her, likes to lie on the vinyl floor when I'm not home. The good news is that the vinyl does not absorb urine. The bad news is that, with no pee pad, only Sleek's fur is available to absorb urine. This was a large puddle, since I was gone longer than expected, and Sleek's tail has been lying in it. Sleek comes running to the side door with her tail wagging happily. Another sigh. I scoot the dogs out the back door and clean up the spray.

Whose idea was it to let my life go to the animals?

Sad Eyes

2007-11-20T23:06:00.001-08:00

Oh boy, oh boy! She's feeding us good stuff for supper tonight! Ground raw turkey! Much better than the mostly broth stuff she's been giving us for supper lately.

Why does she take so long to put those supplements in? Heck, why does she bother at all?

You know. She says they're "good for us."

I wish she'd hurry. My ears are getting tired of being at full alert. My eyes, too. I'm an old dog and I don't have time to waste waiting when I could be eating!

They have a point. It does take a while to decapsulate or break up supplements, but only one will eat any of the supplements in capsule or pill form and both consider having the supplements poked down their throats somewhat insulting.

Those bright eyes, watching every move of my hand from bottle to bowl, then grasping the fork to mix the powders in, moving the bowls to add some hot water so the food will be warmer for old dog bellies. How alert, watchful, anticipating joy in the food.

So much waiting for just a few moments of eating. Then the crestfallen looks all around the bowl. Did I really eat it all already? Surely I knocked a morsel or two under the edge of the bowl? Hmm. Let's swap bowls. Maybe you left something in yours, for I surely did not in mine.

After a final potty break outside, we come in to one last bit of food as a reward for a good emptying of bladders. Dogs race for the back door in more joyous anticipation. Once again, the ears are up, eyes alert and missing no gesture toward a possible food source. Cookies distributed, they head for bed.

Christmas and Aging

2007-11-19T22:52:00.000-08:00

You know you are aging when you think about whether you would rather have a new set of laundrable pee pads for the dog or Cool-Max socks for yourself as your Christmas gift to yourself. And both of these seem like a desirable options. Your previous thought for a Christmas gift to yourself was a new toilet. You know, one without mineral deposits that affect the flushing action. Thanks to spirited use of a bent dry-cleaner's hanger, enough mineral deposits have been removed (good exercise, too!) that the toilet no longer needs to be at the top of the list.

What things would you like for Christmas?

Facing Things

2007-11-18T19:01:00.000-08:00

I'm not good at facing unpleasant things. I tend to put them off until I absolutely cannot figure another way to avoid facing them.

I'm also notoriously awful at asking for help.

I have a situation now where both Fluff and Sleek need surgeries for different things. Fluff needs to have a tooth removed, and Sleek has a lump in her groin that needs to be removed. Both dogs are geriatric. Both are from breeds that often have issues with anesthesia. Sleek has a serious heart murmur, making her even trickier to anesthetize. The pre-op bloodwork hasn't been done yet, so something else could crop up with that, too.

How do I face the fact that it is entirely possible that either dog could die on the table? This writing is actually the first time I'm acknowledging that Fluff could react badly on the table and die. Mostly I'm concentrating on how I don't know how to face this chance with Sleek because a) she has more things going against her in the anesthesia department; and b) because she is, frankly, my Next-Best Girl. Fluff is my Best Girl. Period, end of story. She has been my Best Girl since the day she came home from the shelter, and she will continue to be my Best Girl at least until the day she dies, may it be several years away, and probably will be my Best Girl even after her death.

I know death is only a transition. Only the body dies, not the soul. And I know my dogs have souls. It may be that they feel their work or play here is done and they are ready to move on. Fluff will stay in touch with me, and I think I'll see her in corporeal form again after the current corpus ceases to amuse her. Sleek may have other agendas to pursue beyond my happiness and education, so I may not see her again in my current lifetime.

But how do I work the current situation? How do I visualize them in perfect health and hold that image in my heart as they go into surgery when I also know I may be saying goodbye?

Favorite Things

2007-11-16T07:00:00.000-08:00

Per Mrs. G. of Derfwad Manor, today is Favorite Things Friday. I'll post later because I'm off to one of my favorite things: a Watsu session!

This is the pool where I go for Watsu.

Watsu is heaven on earth if you like water and human touch. The name is a combination of "water" and "shiatsu" massage, so Watsu is massage done in a warm water pool. The therapist uses floats (various sizes, depending on size and body composition. My feet sink, my midsection does not, so I wear floats just below my knees) to get you to a pretty neutral balance. Then they swirl you around in the water and listen to signals from your body on what needs to be stretched or moved. It's great for releasing physical knots and often some emotional or physical ones, too. The water is warm. Today we had the pool at 97 degrees because I had said I thought I probably needed more of a stretching session. Sometimes I start moving a lot both face above the water and face below -- your therapist is prepared for this and makes sure you get your head above water when you need to breathe.

In some ways Watsu is more intimate than massage because the therapist may need to hold you close to her body in order to be able to stretch you without you floating away.

Watsu just lets me let go of a lot of the (self-imposed) tension I feel daily. I set the way the session runs -- if I want to be quiet and relax, great. If I want to thrash about and pretend I'm a dolphin leaping out of the water and back under, great. I love, love, love it!

=========================

I also love knitting. My mom tried numerous unsuccessful times to teach me while I was growing up, but a woman I worked with shortly after grad school was the one who finally taught me. My first project was a Lopi sweater similar to this:

They're easier than they look because they are knit in the round so you don't have to purl much. Also, traditional ones never have more than 2 colors per round, so keeping other colors from peeking through is easier.

My current project is this:

This will be my first experience felting something. Okay, my first time deliberately felting something. I have the first one knit up, except for the cuff. I have to knit the second one and see how much yarn I have left before I can figure out what color the cuffs will be, or even if they will be the same color. The felting idea is scary. It feels, now before the deed, like I will be deliberately ruining something because of decades of trying to avoid felting my sweaters into too-small, semi-rigid blocks of wool. On the other hand, it's something I haven't tried, so it's exciting, too!

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Stumptown coffee. Go see, order some for yourself.

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I love and need natural light indoors. I live in a 50-year old house because it had more windows and fewer CC&Rs than comparably priced current houses. And it has a basement! And only one bathroom to clean! In my last cube-factory job I bullied my way into a cube by the windows by informing my officemates: "I have Seasonal Affective Disorder. You want me to have the seat by the window!"

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Four books (of many) I love:

Arctic Dreams: Imagination and Desire in a Northern Landscape

Isn't the title awesome for a work of nonfiction? I love Barry Lopez's writing.

Bones Would Rain From the Sky by Suzanne Clothier. I told one of my sisters if she wanted to understand what I want my relationship with my dogs to be, she should read this book. I don't think she's read it, but I have, many times. When I grow up I want to be Suzanne. Failing that, I want the bed next to hers at the "Home for Little Old Dog Ladies" when we're retired.

Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin. A mystical story of New York City in the early 20th century. What can I say, other than one of the main characters is a (non-talking) horse?

King Hereafter by Dorothy Dunnett. I love Dorothy's work and am sorry there will be no more of it. This is a fictional account of the life of the real MacBeth and a touching love story.

Another Reason

2007-11-13T20:51:00.000-08:00

Trader Joe's enlarged their place in my heart tonight. I dropped by tonight to pick up some stuff, including the Candy Cane Joe-Joe's cookies someone mentioned in another blog (I thought it was Mrs. G. of Derfwad Manor, so I was going to provide a link but I can't find the entry although I can apparently run this sentence on into the ground with stream of consciousness-type typing. Breathe!). I managed to space out and leave a bag of paid-for, mostly cold or frozen foods groceries there. Off I go to home where I dial my friend Sr while unloading the groceries. As Sr answers the phone, I realize I've left the bag at TJ's, but I can't hang up or disengage immediately because I feel guilty about not calling Sr sooner after she had an MRI last Thursday. So I have to hear about the MRI results (don't show any reason for the symptoms, but the symptoms have abated for now anyway although they could stay away, return, or return with a vengeance. It could rain or not rain any day of the week, too) and talk about a few other things before breaking free.

I zip back to TJ's and find the checkout people who helped me. They instantly recognize me and call the back-of-store folks to bring my bag up to me. The bag carrier checks on some of the frozen stuff (without prompting) and says it must be replaced with hard-frozen versions. Good customer service. kabbage likes that. It makes her happy.

(oh, and the candy cane Joe-Joe's are pretty good, too. I still like the Girl Scout Thin Mints the best, but these are good and have NO trans-fats and NO high-fructose corn syrup [not sure about the thin mints on either of those things])

Updated to say I found the original mention of the delightful Candy Cane Joe-Joe's at http://outtamymindwithworry.blogspot.com/2007/11/ho-ho-ho-its-joe-joes-time.html

Windy

2007-11-12T22:36:00.000-08:00

The first of the winter winds came in today, from the coast. Not much rain, considering, but gusts close to 50mph in the valley. Fortunately, I did not need to cross the river today. My car is shaped like a box, and I really dislike involuntary lane changes.

A neighbor's slowly decaying shed is now down. The roof died a year or so ago, but the walls were still standing. I'm not completely sure if all the walls are down because if they are, there was another matching, butt-ugly, slowly decaying shed just beyond it. If there was wind-liftable debris involved, it doesn't seem to have made it as far as my yard, so I'm happy about that. The winds did startle me when I looked under my patio cover and the dog crate started moving. Usually stuff is pretty secure under the cover.

We had enough wind today that the airport re-routed incoming airplanes over my house. We're close enough to the airport that you can just about read the registration numbers, although not the "step here" markings for maintenance, on the planes because they're so low. During the house shopping and buying process, the planes had never been routed over my house while I was here. Shortly after I moved in they were. I thought there was an imminent crash with the first one and listened carefully for the crash. It never came, but more planes soon did. Today, for the first time in years, Fluff objected to the planes flying over. She did her dead-level best to send them packing and was entirely successful: not a single plane landed in our yard!

It's been a beautiful fall, but I'm okay with the rain starting. Rain for the year has been low, so it's time to get some winter rain and snow to set us up for a drought-free summer next year.

Absurdity

2007-11-09T08:02:00.000-08:00

Words coming out of my mouth this morning:

"See? This shows how much I love you. If I had human children I would not feed them green tripe, no matter how much they begged for it!"

If you are not familiar with green tripe, it's tripe that is only cleaned to the extent of removing the big globs of semi-digested food left when the animal hosting the the tripe is killed. It's really good for the dogs, being loaded with enzymes and such, but it smells awful. Usually I try to buy it in single-serving containers which never come back into the house once emptied on the grass for canine gustatory delight but instead go directly to the garbage can. I also try to feed it half-frozen to reduce odor.

The dogs are happy, but there will be no doggy kisses accepted for hours!

The Good Picture

2007-11-08T22:07:00.000-08:00

I realized that none of the pictures I posted is particularly flattering, so here is an example of sisterly love:

Sleek & Fluff, November 8, 2007

I was shocked at how willing they were to be close to one another today. Long ago when we were forging our Pack of Three* they generally preferred to not touch one another. Then again, my biological family rarely touches one another. I have one picture from my cousin's wedding a dozen years or so ago where my 5 siblings and I, all over 30 years old, are standing or sitting 3 in front and 3 in the back. There is visible airspace between all of us.

Living as the sole human in our household can lead to some odd observations. Despite no biologic ties between us, or between them, I often see my own behaviors in my dogs. Was I attracted to them because of their mannerisms, or did I shape them into mirrors of me? I suspect it is a little of both.

*Pack of Three -- see Carolyn Knapp's thoughtful book "Pack of Two" for a description of her relationship with her dog Lucille.

End of Indian Summer

2007-11-08T18:15:00.000-08:00

The rain is supposed to return tonight or tomorrow, so this is probably it for the glorious days of fall. The girls and I did a tour of county parks today, and I took some pictures.

This one shows why Sleek is sometimes known as Zippy the Pinhead.

Fluff, after a bit of digging in the sand at the water's edge.

By this time sitting for portraits has begun to lose its charm.

A different park, later in the day, and at least Fluff can smile for the camera.

Time Change

2007-11-06T20:40:00.000-08:00

The evenings are much, much longer now. Thank heavens the weather has been beautiful this week so days are not truncated by clouds. Even with full blue sky it's pretty dang dark by 5:30pm. All of our stomachs are still not quite with the new program, so we want to eat early. I still need to adjust the living room light timer. It's now going off at 9:30, and that's too early for my taste.

I must get back to my knitting. I don't even know why I'm not knitting. I have one slipper pretty much knitted, except I want to change the cuff color. I'll have to rip back a bit to reclaim that yarn. I can't really finish slipper #1 until I do most of slipper #2 and figure out how much yarn I have of which colors. Even though I've never felted before, I felt the need to modify the pattern by dinking with the color scheme relative to the directions.

Knitting will also limit food intake. I use good yarn, usually wool, and don't want to get food crumbs or grease on it. I just made brownies with the old family recipe (which used to be on the Baker's Chocolate box forever) because the only chocolate in the house was unsweetened. Even now I felt the urge to lick the pan after melting the chocolate, but I'm growing up! I didn't do it! I guess the fifty thousand times I did it as a kid to much disappointment are finally teaching me something.

Filler Stuff -- Hidden

2007-11-05T21:26:00.000-08:00

This is something I left on jo(e)'s blog a year and a half ago when she posted a writing exercise with the word "hidden."

Hidden.

The dog scratches. I part her black fur, seeking the flea I think is there. A sense of movement among the soft tangles. I pinch, miss. The flea errs, straying onto the lightly furred belly. I grab. Success! One less flea, surely one less itch.

==================================

Later we walk in twilight, my dogs and I. She with the white ruff remains visible. The other, tawny in daylight, becomes a shadow in the night. I feel her slip through the night, reliving the history of her kind, but I do not see her. I call, and her eyes shine green in the streetlight as she returns to me.

==================================

Soon my dogs will be hidden from my sight forever, for they are aging. Will I feel them still? One I think will remain. Or perhaps she will return in another body. Will I see her spirit there, or will it remain hidden? And the other? I sense her future lies in another direction, without me, hidden from me during the remainder of my body’s lifetime. We are friends, but we are not of the same soul-plane.

Perspective

2007-11-04T20:49:00.000-08:00

I was going to write about being tired today after cleaning the house, washing dogs, cooking, and hosting the women's group meeting today, but then I started an unrelated preamble to capture a thought.

Even if I only participated in NaBloPoMo every year sans other blogging or journaling I would get an interesting way of checking in with myself over the course of the year. It would be similar to looking at the previous New Year's Resolutions at the end of the year in preparation for the new ones. Or taking stock at birthday time. What did I accomplish? What did I fail to accomplish and why? The failure might have been due to external factors that required a change of direction or focus, or I might have looked at the goal relative to other things that could be goals and decided to shift to a new focus. A month's worth of entries gives a slightly larger perspective because the time allows for wider diversity of thoughts and focuses. A month allows for less intense days or days focused on the weather or the trivial, not just the BIG THINGS IN LIFE.

From the reader's perspective, too, reading only 1 month of someone's life could be fascinating. I see potential here for fiction in either written or film form. If I read only the last 10 or so November entries from someone's diary or journal, how will that shape my view of that person? Would I form a different image than if I read, say, only the April entries? What if I read the entire journal? I think if I ended up reading the November entries of someone who mourns a lost beloved person in November plus has uncomfortable memories of childhood Thanksgivings and suffers from SAD while living in a rainy climate, I'd "know" a different person than the July person who lives for getting out on the boat with friends and family, even though the two share the same body. How about if I read the November entries, my friend reads the July ones, and both of us meet the author in April? Might one of us say the author is exactly what I pictured, while the other shakes her head in surprise? I think so, although it's possible that scenario is more likely if we meet the author in July or November.

If I'm the author of the journal, how do I react? Do I know these readers have only had 1 month of every year and that they had different months? If I met this readers in November, would I be pulled more toward the November reader or repelled because the privacy invasion might be more obvious?

I'm too tired to think about this any more, and my typing mistake rate is going way up.

Hostess with Mostess

2007-11-03T22:05:00.000-07:00

I signed up to host our next women's group meeting because this month we are supposed to try something new, and hosting the group (or any group, really) at my house is feeling pretty new to me. Then in a fit of insanity, I also signed up to do the food for the meeting. The meeting is tomorrow. So far (late evening), I have scrubbed the kitchen floor and the toilet and one dog and started the cooking.

Food is tricky with this crew. We might as well be considered walking wounded in the digestive tracts. Some are lactose intolerant to greater or lesser degrees. Some are gluten-free. At times we've had vegan and/or ovo-intolerant members. Some are forever on diets so avoiding sugar and/or carbs. It's hard to find things everyone can eat. Add in the "will eat" thing, and it could get absolutely insane. Even though the restricted diet people are willing to be responsible for their own food, I think it adds a lot if we can all share something.

Dessert is in the oven. The chicken is boiled and refrigerated. I still don't know exactly what I'm doing with the chicken tomorrow. It will be some sort of soup. I can't decide if I want to go basic or for an Italian feel, Mexican feel, or Creole feel. Hate to rush these things. I can add tomatoes and still be undecided, which is intriguing.

Dessert is Pumpkin-Brown Rice Pudding. I started with a recipe, but I tweaked wildly. This is the test run. Okay, I used pumpkin and spices per the recipe. It called for a quart of milk. I wondered if coconut milk would work to replace some of the milk, so I tried that. You have to bring this pumpkin and milk mixture upto a boil and then take part of the mixture to add to beaten eggs. I'm whisking the mixture into the eggs which start to cook instantly because the pumpkin is just off the boil. The egg reminds me of the egg when making egg drop soup: thin strands floating in the liquid. This time, though, the liquid is opaque and very thick. I also removed all the sugar of the original recipe and added raisins instead. Now the stuff is baking for 90 minutes.

I wonder about my life had I had a different family of origin. Would I perhaps have developed into a cook or chef? I enjoy cooking for friends and can follow many recipes that only call for basic equipment. Now more than ever I find I can enjoy deviating from recipes to see what will happen. Taking notes so I can duplicate or build upon successes while avoiding previously made mistakes would be useful.

I'm off to vacuum. Time falls back tonight, and I'll need that extra hour!

Christmas Season

2007-11-03T08:37:00.000-07:00

The good news about Christmas season starting so bloody early is that I have eggnog to use in my coffee now. Eggnog will probably be available through mid-January, so I'll have nearly 3 months of even happier coffee.

The bad news is that I saw the first Christmas ornaments for sale at Labor Day weekend and I just should not be dodging trick-or-treaters while hearing Christmas carols on the radio.

Food Sensitivities

2007-11-02T22:19:00.000-07:00

My women's group will be meeting at my house on Sunday. Have I cleaned? No, although I dusted the hideous light fixture in the eating end of the living room. I think it's a bad sign that the plastic meant-to-be-candle-looking bits are starting to flake apart when I dust.

The tricky part is food. For some silly reason I thought it would be easier for me to supply the food as well as the house this time. I still think this is correct, but this group is challenging in the food department. Fortunately one or two of the most dietarily-limited can't be there this month. While I will miss them, I'm glad I don't feel obligated to try to come up with a vegetarian, ideally vegan, meal when I am essentially carnivorous. I'm lactose-intolerant, although I eat cheese and use milk in cooking. Another is gluten-intolerant. I don't think anyone is diabetic. Somebody was unable to handle eggs. Nearly all of us could afford to lose weight. Take away meat, eggs, wheat, and dairy, and things get tough for the noncreative cook.

Oh well, that part will somehow come out okay. I was bummed when I realized barley has gluten, negating my great plan to use a soup mix. I now have to look to see if all the interesting varieties of rice, including wild rice, are gluten-free.

Meanwhile, poor Sleek apparently has a fungal invasion of her liver and has to be on a zero carb/sugar diet to try to starve the fungus while she's also on strong liver cleansers/tonics. Ha. She essentially can eat meat and green leafy vegetables. Guess who doesn't care much for green leafies (she seems to take after me in this regard, species or nurture for the formative years being no obstacle to taking on my characteristics in nearly 9 years living together). Fine. She'll be eating close to 2 lbs of meat a day to keep her weight up. It has to be good quality meat since we're trying to help her liver, not do it in.

Fluff is not amused at the thought of Sleek getting more/better food than she is (Sleek is bigger and less efficient at converting food to dog). She does like the idea that she gets all the grain-containing dog biscuits, though.

Maybe I'll have to see if I can make blue pork again. That was pretty interesting visually. I never tried to see if it would work with chicken, either. Simple technique. Boil pork with purple kale, probably for an hour or more. Leave them together and refrigerate overnight. Although the pork was the usual grey of boiled pork the night before, it truly looked blue in the morning. If it works for chicken, I think it would be very cool for someone (I have no human children) to serve their kids blue chicken noodle soup for lunch sometime.

33 Years Ago Today

2007-11-01T20:14:00.000-07:00

My first dog was born. I was 13 years old and in the 8th grade. Only my little brother (then 11) and I were still home full-time, although all 3 of my sisters were home for college holidays. He came home 6-1/2 weeks later, what I now believe to be too young an age. He was the only dog of my parents' 51-year marriage. My older brother had allergies, and neither of my parents were particularly interested in dogs. I worked hard at breaking them down. I suspect they did because the thought of their daughter running around the neighborhood playing with the neighbors' dogs didn't gel with their idea of how a teenage girl should behave. At least this way I was running around with my own dog and probably less likely to be invited into someone's home for nefarious purposes.

He almost was named Trooper because he ran amok (and a-muck) through the house as a baby and ended up being nicknamed Pooper Trooper before I came up with his final name. The morning after he came home was the last time my father plugged in the coffee until I left for college. Poor man went down to plug in the coffee without turning on the lights. The puppy had gotten out of his box and left a few landmines on the kitchen floor. Did I mention my father was barefoot? He found at least one of the deposits the hard way and came upstairs to let me know I needed to take my goddamned puppy out and I might as well plug in the coffee on the way.

He was an odd little dog, not particularly affectionate in a breed that was usually thought of as affectionate. He also was indifferent to food although he loved, loved, loved his tennis ball. We almost killed him with that thing, not realizing that, no, all dogs are NOT smart enough to stop playing when they start to overheat. He always flipped the frisbee over so it wouldn't trip him while he brought it back. He had the best natural retrieve to hand of any dog I've ever seen, at least of his ball and frisbee. Many other things (e.g., sticks) were not worthy of retrieving. If I knew then what I know now, he might have been a darn good sport dog. I trained him to jump by turning picnic table benches on their side (he was only 14" tall at the shoulder, so a couple of picnic table benches worked well) and trained him to Novice Obedience standards by myself. No classes, nobody I knew that I could ask about competition, just some Blanche Saunders books. Agility didn't exist yet. Really, obedience and the conformation ring were our only options for competition.

Ah, competition and parents who really don't get it. With an allowance of $1 per week and entry fees that ran about $10 per class, I was dependent on my parents for shows. They were needed for getting to shows anyway. My dog was a sheltie, so hair and grooming were important and hard to learn from magazines and books. I remember my father telling me numerous times, "if you spent half the time on your own hair as you do on that goddamned dogs, you could be attractive." Thanks so much for that boost to the adolescent ego. I bought special shears to trim the dog's ear hair and around his feet. One time I came home from college to find my father had swiped those scissors. He said they were the best scissors he'd ever had for trimming his own nose hair. Uh, dad, I hope you cleaned those suckers well. They sometimes got used for cleaning up the nether portions of the dog's body after intestinal distress.

We never competed all that well. I knew we were in trouble when someone complimented my "pretty little puppy bitch" when I was standing there with a 3-year-old male. He was rather light-boned, and I wasn't good at starching the front leg hair to make his legs look thicker. He also did not grow a full, thick coat until after I left for college, so he always looked immature during his showing years. In obedience, I eventually found out that I have ring nerves. We failed at several trials, then I went to a match (practice show). We won High Score in Match with 195 out of 200 points. Entered a "real" trial, and failed again. Yep. My voice and body language changed under pressure, and he didn't know what I was asking him to do.

We did a lot of walking together, all around our (fairly large) subdivision, and sometimes beyond. We went up to the elementary school playground sometimes. He would go berserk in the sand, digging madly in one spot, then springing over to a new spot and digging there. He would herd his playground-type ball all over the backyard and was a ferocious 4-square player, although he wouldn't stay in his own square. He had to be put in the house for us to play basketball or soccer because those balls could really hurt a 15-lb dog when he went in for the block. He also had to be inside for badminton because he believed in destroying the birdie.

I feel kind of bad that I left him with my parents even after I finished college. He was only 8, but I didn't want to try to find an apartment where his barking wouldn't be a problem. I told my parents that they should let me know if he needed to be put down and they didn't feel they could stay with him to the end. I felt I owed him a debt for what he added to my adolescent life. A few days before my 29th birthday, my mother called. She said to the answering machine, "Happy birthday. I have to go into the hospital for some cancer tests. Oh, and you need to come home to do something about the dog." My then boyfriend added to the occasion by suggesting that I could go home that weekend to put the dog to sleep. Yeah, dirtbag, nothing like putting the dog down on my birthday. Wouldn't that be festive? Instead I went down the next weekend. My father had already dug the grave earlier in the week. He and my mother had been living in terror of the dog, now sight- and hearing-impaired, among other frailties, falling in the grave and hurting himself before I could get there to have him killed. My brother and I took him to the vet, and he tried to get us to play as we walked to the door. I almost lost it at that. The vet was very kind to the two of us as we held our little dog and sobbed. Even the vet ended up in tears listening to us cry. He fought the sedative shot, trying to stay awake. Some part of me so wanted him to stay awake, to stop his death. Another part said, no, this was for the best. He was largely incontinent in addition to the vision and hearing loss, and I still lived in an apartment in a busy city. We finished the deed and took him home for burial. He was 14 and a half years old. We buried him ourselves and then went inside to tell my parents he was gone. My father asked why we hadn't let them know we were home before burying him. I felt like asking if he'd wanted to see it because he wasn't sure we'd actually go through with the euthanasia or because he wanted to celebrate while we shoveled dirt onto my good dog. Instead I retreated to the time-honored, "I don't know. Guess we didn't know you were interested" in a mumbled, eyes-down way.

He was the smallest dog I've ever owned. He was the only male dog, and the only intact dog, I've owned. He was my first blue merle, my first show dog. He was the only dog I've owned where I met his parents (his face was nearly a mirror image, markings-wise, of his father's), although I've seen videos of Sleek's father. He was my first AKC-registered dog and the only dog whose AKC number I memorized (still know it to this day). Interestingly, my best girl Fluff has eyes that are colored almost exactly like his. Left eye is dark brown, right eye is dark brown with some gray flecks in it.

Thank you, Flint. You were a good dog.

Marriages

2007-09-09T18:23:00.000-07:00

My parents were married on this day in 1950. They had 51 anniversaries together before they died, less than 3 months apart, in 2002. I've been ambivalent about their marriage for many years. Was it remarkable that they were together for 51 years? Yes. Was it good for each of them? I'm not so sure about that.

My parents had 6 kids, all of whom survive to this day. My mom said she felt she probably had some miscarriages in between my next older sister and me -- given that she had her first three daughters at 17 month intervals, and I was born 51 months after that, it seems likely that she is correct. I don't know if they meant to have a lot children or if that is just the way things played out. This was the 1950s and early 60s, so it's not like they were all that unusual in the number of kids they had.

Six kids were a lot of work and pressure, though. My parents were the first generation in their families to go to college. Heck, my grandfather's wish was that my father finish high school. Thanks to WWII and the GI bill, my parents went to college, where they met and married. Their goal was to give each of their children a college education. They paid tuition, room & board; we paid for books, transportation home, and other expenses of college life. All but one completed bachelors degrees, and the last chose to quit school after 3 years since he really didn't like it.

I think this goal is a major part of why my father became an alcoholic, as his increasing use of alcohol seemed to tie to increasing number of kids at or approaching college age. For two and a half years, he had 3 kids in college, on one engineer's salary. I can understand why this pressure would drive him to drinking. He also changed jobs a few times, including the time he quit his old job with no new one arranged and a few months before he had two kids in college. I was there when he told my mom he'd quit, and I had never seen her turn so white or rigid. I was only 11, and my parents did not really discuss finances with us, so I didn't really understand the situation.

My mother later developed an extremely vituperative tongue when it came to my father, and most people for that matter. She could only see the negative and would bitch until the cows came home and about how the cows came home once they were home.

I was talking with my SIL one time about my parents (her father also was an alcoholic). We agreed that my mother had cause for her bitterness, esp. since my father was nasty-tongued to family when drinking, but that either of us would find drinking necessary to live with my mother at that point in her life.

Because they were so miserable together, I often wished, especially as an adult, that my parents would divorce and create new lives for themselves. I think around the 30-year mark would've been a good time for this. Kids would be either grown or in college, so less disrupted. Parents would've been roughly 60 with reasonable health (for alcoholics) left.

They stayed together and miserable for many more years. My father got sober in 1987 but was drinking again by 1995. My siblings and I, sans spouses and children, got together in 2000 to take my parents to dinner for their 50th anniversary. I had mixed emotions about participating since I didn't see the 50 years as something to celebrate. I showed up, though. My brother arranged a small banquet hall for the 8 of us, but my father said he didn't feel well and didn't go. We weren't sure if he was feeling sick because we had been at their apartment most of the day, so he hadn't been able to get to his alcohol or what the deal was. His absence allowed my mother to choose to drink, which could get ugly, too. It was a nice enough dinner, and I caught an early morning flight out which allowed me to get home in time to run my dog in an agility trial that afternoon (my parents lived in ET, I live in PT zone).

Even now, I feel they would have been better off divorced.

Adventures in Bicycle Land

2007-09-08T19:59:00.000-07:00

I took my bike out for a spin this evening. First, I start out heading west in the late evening, so the sun is in my eyes and in the eyes of any motorist coming up behind me. That makes me nervous. I don't want to be out after dark, so I can't be out too long. My usual quick route (about 5 miles round trip) has shoulders on it much of the way, but they are sometimes sloped for drainage rather than riding.

It's St. Joe's Sausage Fest weekend, which is a big event in this town. People are parked in MY cycling shoulder for about a quarter mile each direction, so I'm riding more in the roadbed than bikes usually do in that stretch. I also have to keep a sharp eye out for parked cars either pulling out or having their doors open into my space or their once and future occupants stepping out in front of me.

I'm still working on my shifting and getting the gear levers back to the level of functionality they had 11 years ago. I can't remember how one numbers bike gears -- do they increase with the size of the gear or are they inversely related? Anyway, the rear gear lever is happy to go larger gears but sometimes takes 2 or 3 tries to shift to a smaller gear. The front gear has developed a charming habit. It is happy to shift from small to middle and mostly okay shifting from middle to large, although it sometimes tries to hold in the half-middle, half large mode which is rather noisy. What it won't do right now is shift from large to middle. It will bypass middle and go directly to small. I can feel a slight double click, but they're too close to prevent the 2nd shift. Why is this bad? Because I go from pedaling at a normal rate to spinning madly because the small gear is way too easy. The bike shop guys tell me the best thing to do about my funky gear shifts are to shift as often as possible in the hopes of clearing the internal springs of their hardened internal lubricant.

Not knowing what gear you'll be in when you shift adds to the excitement of early evening riding with parked cars and pedestrians. It also is slowing down my learning curve. My previous bike had 12 gears, of which I used 10. This bike has 24 gears, and I think I can use 22 of them. It's not a linear progression, though, where one uses front gear A and runs through rear gears 1-8 with increasing difficulty, then shifts to gear B in front and picks up where one left off with the difficulty and the rear gearing, and so on onto gear C in front. No, different combinations are interspersed. I can't learn these easily if I don't know what gear I'm going to be in with any given shift.

Anyway, I still love this bike, even after all these years. I need to get chain cleaner and lube now, to help her love me, too.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

2007-09-05T08:43:00.000-07:00

--My sitbones are accepting my bike. I no longer wish to scream or yelp when I sit on the bike. That took less than 20 miles in 3 sessions, so pretty quick.

--I walked the dogs this morning and came home to find two slugs entwined in passionate embrace hanging from the wall next to the front door. They had some sort of extruded body parts entwined and were hanging from that, in addition to being entwined in the main body. I wasn't up for PDA, so I knocked them off the wall and into the dirt. I feel a little bad about the dirt covering on that extruded, slimy-looking bodypart, but I'll skip picking them up and washing them off.

--My current theory on hypocritical lawmakers who vote against legal marriage, etc. for non-heterosexuals but turn out to be homosexual themselves is that they are afraid the gays and lesbians will take marriage seriously thus reducing the number of people available for extra-marital liaisons for said hypocritical lawmakers.

--Sleek's leaking is not as bad as I had feared it would be after yesterday's dogfood mixup.

Bad Dog-Mom Moment

2007-09-04T18:55:00.000-07:00

I think I mixed up the dogs' food this morning. I think Fluff got Sleek's, and Sleek Fluff's. I try to have a double-redundancy where the bowls are different from one another and I fix the food always with Fluff's bowl on the left. I always put Sleek's bowl down first, then I walk across the kitchen to where Fluff eats. Today I noticed I was putting down what is usually Sleek's bowl in Fluff's place. Did I mix up the bowls before fixing the food or did I put the wrong bowl in the wrong place?

For most of their lives, this would not be a big deal. Unfortunately, Sleek is on a bunch of supplements for her heart and to help her deal with urinary incontinence. If she misses a round of the incontinence stuff, the results tend to show up quickly and drippily. Judging from the floor after I left for a couple of hours, they got the wrong bowls. Sadly, it usually takes Sleek's bladder a couple of days to get back in shape. Laundry, here I come!

Oh My

2007-08-29T10:14:00.000-07:00

One fixed bike.
One five-mile ride.

I now know where my sit bones are. On the bike seat or off, I know where they are....

(why is that fat I put on my hips of absolutely no use in this situation?)

Bike

2007-08-28T21:19:00.000-07:00

Eleven years ago (about 4 months before Fluff came into my life) I bought a bike. It was a very nice bike with carbon fiber tubes and aluminum joints. A lightweight bike. A road bike for doing centuries (100 miles in a single day). A beautiful bike. I had it fitted to me, got the pedal clips fitted properly to my shoes. I bought a cyclometer with the ability to read my pedal rpms so I could protect my knees. All this cost me roughly $1000 (3 zeroes, yes). Then I bought Fluff (for $50 (one zero, yes), and rarely rode the bike. It didn't make sense to go off for 6-8 hours of pedalling knowing the 8-month-old puppy was storing up energy or using it by redecorating the house.

Now, 2 dogs and 30-40 additional pounds later, I would like to ride my bike again (Fluff is 11 and Sleek 13, so their exercise needs are much reduced). I took it out last night to see if I could remember how to shift (bike has different shifters than any other bike I've ridden regularly, plus many more gears), brake, and get the shoes loose from the pedals when stopping. My rear shifter would only shift in one direction, so when I ran out of gears, I was where I was. Since I was on a shake-down ride, I had stayed on mostly level ground, so I got home okay.

I took the bike in today to see what was up with the gear shift. The guy at the bike store was very nice and explained that this type of gearshifter really likes to be used. Without regular use, the grease probably had hardened and might be gumming up the internal springs. Sometimes they can fix them by working them (and maybe adding more grease to sort of dissolve the old stuff) and sometimes they have to be replaced. He dinked with it and says the gear shift is mostly working now but I might have to shift a couple of times to get the thing to actually work.

This may be strong incentive to ride: if I don't get that gearshift used to regular work, it may forget how to shift altogether!

Happy Anniversary, Fluff!

2007-08-26T10:08:00.000-07:00

Eleven years ago today I went to the Humane Society to pick up my girl Fluff. She was about 8 months old at the time and had been dropped at the HS by her previous owners 2 days earlier.

I woke up on August 24, 1996 with a voice in my head telling me I needed to go the Humane Society. I was resistant because I wanted a dog of the breed I wanted where I'd met the breeders and the parents and totally approved the way the dog had been raised. For some reason, though, I decided to go. I thought perhaps I would find a German Shepherd dog there, like the one my long-haired friend had found a couple of years earlier. I had loved Greta deeply and was with them when LongHair had to have Greta euthanized due to cancer -- Greta was only three.

When I walked into the dog section of the shelter, I knew I was a lost cause. There, in the first run, was my girl. She was an Australian shepherd. With a tail (I am not enthused about the bobbed tail most Aussies have, so this was quite a bonus). She was sweet, even though obviously very upset about being there (her people had only dropped her off an hour or two before I arrived). I tried soooo hard to talk myself out of taking her home. I wasn't really ready. The house wasn't puppy-proofed. The yard was not puppy-proof. I didn't have all the things I needed to take care of a dog. She really had too much white on her face (one of her eyebrows, which should be tan, was covered by her white blaze). I put a hold on her and called LongHair. LH came up, took one look and shrieked, "She's ADORABLE! Of COURSE you have to get her!!!" Left the hold in place and went home to start puppy-proofing. The HS at that time was not open on Sunday, so I had an extra day to work on house and yard.

After work on Monday, LongHair and I headed for the Humane Society. She drove so I could make sure the future Fluff (her name at the shelter was Heidi, but she didn't seem to know it) behaved safely in the car. Fluff was very eager to leave the shelter and loved riding in the car. She sat in the back, peering between the two front seats like Snoopy pretending to be a vulture. LongHair left us so we could begin learning more about each other.

Later that evening LongHair returned because her girlfriend had just broken up with her. I sat on the floor with the sobbing LH. Young Fluff came over to me, laid down beside me, and put her chin on my leg. I fell completely in love with my little dog.

Fluff has been a wonder for me. She changed my life so much. One of my non-dog friends commented about a month after I got her that I now spoke in terms of "we" instead of "me."

2007-07-19T22:22:00.000-07:00

You scored as Ron Weasley, You often feel like second best and as a result don't have an awful lot of self confidence, but a truer more capable friend would be hard to find.

Ron Weasley

80%

Hermione Granger

70%

Remus Lupin

70%

Sirius Black

65%

Harry Potter

65%

Ginny Weasley

60%

Severus Snape

60%

Albus Dumbledore

60%

Draco Malfoy

35%

Lord Voldemort

35%

Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is...?
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Politics

2007-07-16T08:17:00.000-07:00

Here's a quote I need to remember when I think of the current US political situation:

I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him. -Booker T. Washington (1856-1915)

Hat tip to A Word A Day (http://wordsmith.org/words/aposematic.html) for the quote.

Pets and Fireworks

2007-06-30T20:59:00.001-07:00

Fireworks Tips for People with Pets

If fireworks are legal where you live (or available and used, even if illegal):

Keep a close eye on your pet to see if fireworks make them nervous or unhappy. Be aware that your pet’s attitude toward fireworks may change with age, typically for the worse.

Keep your pet inside on nights when fireworks are going off. If you need to take your pet outside, use a leash, even if your yard is fenced. Panicked animals may bolt in unpredictable directions and jump or climb fences that normally would hold them.

Indoors, run fans or air conditioning to help block the noise of fireworks. If you play the radio or TV, choose the station carefully. Your pet will not appreciate “Saving Private Ryan” or other war movies – comedies or nature stories are more appropriate. Also, be sure the station will not be broadcasting fireworks. One local station, for example, broadcasts the Local Music Festival AND its fireworks. The big public fireworks in town are televised.

Make sure your pet is wearing identification. July 4th is one of the biggest nights of the year for pets to go missing. Give your pet every possible chance to be re-united with you. Even if your pet is micro-chipped or tattooed, a collar tag with your phone number may help him get home sooner. In case your pet does get loose and you need to post flyers, have recent photographs that clearly show any distinctive markings or expression.

Your pet will need plenty of cool, fresh water to replace water lost through panting.

Other things that may help:

Staying calm yourself, even if your pet is upset. If you become angry at your pet’s behavior, you will only confuse and further upset him

Flower essence blend called “Rescue Remedy”

Tellington TTouch

Wearing a T-shirt (with human supervision)

Playing interactive games with a favorite human

A really good chew toy or bone

Sedatives (talk to your vet beforehand so you have the appropriate dosage on hand)

Some pets are happier in a small, secure space like a dog crate, while others will panic and hurt themselves trying to escape.

You Know....

2007-06-18T08:30:00.000-07:00

You know your dogs are getting older and/or are extremely well-trained when you wake up to find you left a package of pork ribs on the floor overnight, and it wasn't touched with tooth or nail. At times in their youth and middle ages, those ribs would have been long-vanished into dog bellies, or they might have re-appeared in the middle of the night in slightly different form with the hurk soundtrack.

Now, though, the dogs simply got a couple of the ribs to consume in the backyard this morning while the rest are boiled for an hour for future dog food.

Right or Wrong?

2007-05-22T21:54:00.000-07:00

The family behind me consists of a mother and several children, the youngest of whom is a boy about 13 or 14 years old. I'm not sure how many of the kids currently live with the mom, but this boy seems to be pretty full-time right now.

The kid picked up a new hobby this year. It's axe-throwing. I don't know why he's doing it, but he is. He throws the axe at a large fir tree in their backyard. By large, think over 2 feet in diameter, and correspondingly tall, much like the tree in my backyard. Our yards are about 7500 square feet, btw. At first Axel was not that good at axe-throwing, so the axe tended to bounce off the tree. With months of practice, he's improved a lot, and the tree is showing visible wear and tear to its bark. I can see some of the damage from my backdoor, about 100 feet from the tree, and I can't see the side he most often uses as a target. I think it's probably in worse shape. Mom seems oblivious to Axel's throwing.

Today Axel was in his yard with a couple of buddies. He was goofing around with the axe, doing amusing (?) things like chopping hard at the (much smaller) tree supporting the hammock where his friends were lying. He also jokingly (?) threatened his friends with his axe. Mom is still oblivious.

I'm a non-confrontational chickenshit, but with 2 car accidents in one year, I'm getting a little paranoid about irritating my insurance company. I think they would be annoyed if that stupid tree fell in my direction, even though it (like my car accidents) was not my fault. I, too, would be annoyed. A fall in my direction would do many nasty things including taking out electricity, phone, and cable lines for everyone north of us. The tree would probably hit my house and damage it. It also could hit MY big fir which would fall on at least my garage and car (parked in front of the garage, while the fir is behind the garage) and probably would also hit the Good Neighbors' house and/or their big firs setting off another round of fir tree crashes onto houses. Like I said, I'm a paranoid, non-confrontational chickenshit. And I'm one who doesn't want to find out how the insurance companies would allot blame for this, because I'm certain there will be more blame than money. I can't afford to be out of my house for months while the damage is fixed, either. My nearest sibling is 2000 miles away, so commuting from there is not reasonable, either.

In my passive-aggressive way, I looked up the owner of the property behind me, using the county property records (sidenote: it's kind of creepy how much info they display about one's house there) on the internet. As I thought, Axel's mom rents. So I called the real property owner and told them that the kid was using an axe on the tree and damaging it.

Right thing to do? Wrong? I think it would've been nicer or fairer or something to talk to Axel's mom directly, but I was loathe to do that. She's often home when he's axe-throwing, so how could she not know about it? If she knows about it and doesn't stop it, to me that implies she sees nothing wrong with the behavior. Do I have the right to tell her the behavior is wrong and she needs to stop it? It's a value judgment I'm not comfortable saying to her face, although I'll tell the world via blog that I think it's wrong and she needs to stop it. What's up with this? It's not like we've been close friends ever since I moved in. We rarely speak and those instances have usually been dog-related like the time her kids were teasing my dogs through the fence. I did confront directly over that one to stop it immediately.

How does one become less of a paranoid, conflict-avoidant, trying-to-appear-nonjudgmental-when-I-really-am chickenshit? Suggestions welcome!

Getting Better All the Time

2007-05-10T14:32:00.000-07:00

Whew. The good news is that I'm not severely damaged. The dogs' chiropractor let me walk them over to his house for a check (since they can't go in the no-pets rental car), and they're basically okay. I had a precautionary X-ray today of my neck so we can compare it to last year's views. I also had an absolutely fabulous Watsu session yesterday, which really helped me relax and process some of this stuff out of my body. I do love Watsu. Warm, warm water, salt water pool, relaxing music and touch -- pretty close to heaven for me.

The bad news is that Bozo's erstwhile insurance company called today to say they only heard about the accident from MY insurance company, and they are investigating to see if he's even covered by them (I did notice that the insurance card had a 2006 expiration date -- why did I not say anything at the time????). This guy was old enough (looked to be in his late 50s) to know better, which now means I wonder if he should've had his blood alcohol level checked. The only thing they'd've found in my breath or blood would've been a boatload of adrenaline -- I hadn't even had coffee. The collision center called to say the damage to my car will run about $5800 as it is substantially out of square in the rear.

Breathing, I repeat: I am in pretty good shape. The dogs are in pretty good shape. Honda did a good job of designing the car to protect the occupants. Thank you, Honda engineers!

Singlehood

2007-05-08T11:08:00.000-07:00

Times when it really sucks to be single:

When you are in your second car accident in 10 months (to the day). Nobody's shoulder to cry on, nobody to coddle you.

The bad news: no witnesses who can say that the fireplacing moron ran a red light at the speed limit to hit me while I was trying to make a left turn on the green light. My dogs were in the car.

The good news: the dogs don't appear to be hurt, although they'll be seeing their chiropractor to make sure. The car accelerated when I asked, so the other driver hit behind the left rear wheel instead of in my door. The other good news is that I refrained from hitting or otherwise hurting the other driver and didn't even say too much nasty stuff to him. Not good to hit my car when my dogs are in it as I get pissed off. The ambulance techs were impressed that my blood pressure was good (124/palpable) when I was so angry

The question: at what point does one's insurance company decide to stop repairing the same car?

Letter to an old Love

2007-04-30T12:49:00.000-07:00

Hi old love,

I haven’t heard whether or not you took early retirement when it was offered this time. In case you did, and in case you are leaving at the end of April, I wanted to drop you a line.

I wish you well with the rest of your life. The love is still there, and I want to think I have largely forgiven the cruelty of the silence that ended our association. Forgotten, no. Put up shields I’ve not yet been able to lower, yes. Believe I may understand some of the reasons behind the silence, yes. Agree with them, probably not all but perhaps a few. Curious about whether or not I am correct about the reasons, mildly.

It was a complex relationship between two complex people with a lot of baggage. At least we tried, for a while. Whether or not it’s in this lifetime, I do think we’ll meet again.

If nothing else, you were a good catalyst in some ways. I go up on my roof when I need to, and I have Fluff and all that she means to me. I do wish she could meet you again, because she loved you a lot and I think she would still remember you.

Again, OL, good luck in your future. I wish you joy and abundance.

kabbage

Health Insurance

2007-04-27T20:45:00.000-07:00

Right now I have health insurance based on COBRA coverage. Recently I had a few minor blood levels checked (mostly thyroid, IIRC). I just received my insurance statement.

The lab billed the insurance company for $171.35. The discount was $139.30, for a net cost to the insurance company of $32.05. That is a discount of OVER EIGHTY PERCENT! Is this reasonable? Which is the "real" cost of the service: 32 dollars or 170 dollars? I used a lab at the local hospital because it's "in network." Recently I talked to a lab scientist who works there, and she told me that that hospital does over a billion dollars' worth of charity care a year. Is that counted at the "normal" rate or the "discount" rate, I wonder.

If I can't afford health insurance, wouldn't a blood test for $32 be more reasonable for me than $171? How would I afford the blood test to tell me the reason I had such low energy that I couldn't keep a job was because my thyroid was almost devoid of function? Given the blood test and the (pretty inexpensive) natural thyroid, Icould get the energy needed to keep a job and then hopefully afford insurance.

This is a harsh, cruel, stupid system. Would that I knew how to fix it.

Saved by the Receipt!

2007-04-17T11:36:00.000-07:00

The phone rang this morning with "Scott" asking me about my car payment (due last Saturday). I said I had made the payment on Friday the 13th, so he said they had no record of it, but okay, and hung up. I called customer service to see if Scott was legit, and sure 'nuff, they don't have me as having made the payment, either. The nerve of me for making the payment at the local branch instead of by phone or electronically directly to the auto loan people! She could not possibly check on a payment made via branch.

Called the branch who said bring down what you have, unless you can fax it, and we'll figure out what is going on. Off to the branch with my receipt, the kept part of the payment voucher, and a fresh balance from my checking account to verify no bouncing scenario possible.

Strangely the branch guy had to call the auto loan folks, too, but after about 10 or 15 minutes they figured out the branch teller had somehow applied the amounts to principle and interest without actually marking it as a routine payment. Very odd. It's fixed now, supposedly with no late fees applied. Teller is probably going to have a review of "how we handle auto loan payments". The branch guy had the grace (and sense) to apologize for the inconvenience.

I am pleased that I was able to find the receipt quickly and easily (although since it was on an end table, probably no one else would've been able to find it), despite the overall disorder of my papers. Yay, me!

Household Horrors, or You're Not a Domestic Goddess, Are You?

2007-04-15T22:29:00.000-07:00

Last night I decided to vacuum for the first time in forever. While chasing cobwebs in the kitchen, I took a swipe at the overhead light fixture, a tacky stained glass monstrosity in shades of brown, orange, and cream. You know things are bad when the amount of light in the room noticeably increases as you remove the dust.

Tonight I fixed the dogs' suppers from my leftovers. As I finished adding and mixing in the supplements (old dogs, like old people, get a lot of supplements), I dropped Sleek's bowl upside down on the floor. Quick calculation: she'll get more of the supplements if I let her eat supper off the floor than if I scrape up what I can from the floor and put it back in her bowl, plus I won't waste any supplements by restarting her meal.

And of course the bathroom didn't get cleaned this weekend, despite an obvious need.

Update Monday: the shame of confessing the bathroom situation led me to cleaning the toilet and tub before going to bed. Thank you, blog!

Dogs are Weird

2007-04-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

I'm talking food here. Both my dogs love food. Sleek is more discriminating -- she generally wants some form of meat in her snacks -- but Fluff will often eat things like blueberries or apples. I think when she was young she helped herself to some tomatoes from the vine. That's one reason to go with cherry tomatoes: at least you can probably get some toothmark-free tomatoes. Sleek was mad about prune plums for a few years when we had a tree in the backyard. She would eat several windfalls at one sitting, including their pits. All that fiber, surrounding all those very hard, pointy things. I felt for poor Sleek when she said goodbye to those pits.

Anyway, I have leftover Easter eggs and decided to give the dogs part of one of the egg whites. I did a good job with the boiling, so these were very nice eggs. Each dog sniffed her ~1/2inch cube of egg white very suspiciously but took it from my fingers. Fluff laid her egg bit on the floor, where it seemed to be difficult to pick it up again. I handed it to her again, and she mouthed it for a while before swallowing it. Meanwhile, Sleek is chewing and chewing hers. Now, this dog eats a raw chicken wing in about 3 crunches, with none of it touching the ground after its first introduction to her mouth. I have seen her swallow entire four-ounce chunks of meat, but she has to chew 3 grams of hard-boiled egg???? Sleek caught and ate a baby rabbit one time, and I think she chewed that less than she chewed this stupid piece of egg. If she deigns to take a Cheerio, it's the same thing. A single Cheerio must be chewed 20 times. A quarter pound of liver need not be chewed, only inhaled.

I've read that dogs have fewer tastebuds than we do, and that seems reasonable given that most of their diet doesn't stay in their mouths long enough to even leave a flavor. Good thing they have the 10x stronger stomach acid!

Eyebrows

2007-04-11T15:51:00.000-07:00

Which is worse? Having a single eyebrow, or finding you've inherited your father's eyebrows in that there was an inch-long, curly hair growing in one (of two) eyebrow?

A new one for the neighbors

2007-04-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

Ms. Fluff got a bath and blow-dry today. She was soooo filthy. To the casual glance, she still looked okay, but if you took a second look, those whites were cream-colored. If you touched her, you really knew, because of the residue on your fingers. Yick.

I borrowed a dog blow dryer for the big bath because I knew there was a whole lot of undercoat that would be coming out with the dirt, and even more that would be loose but unable to work itself out during the actual bath. Xena loaned me the dryer and gave me some hints on how to get the dog dry and the dead hair out with less tangling. Most dog dryers of this type don't have heat -- they just blast the water out with a lot of air. Essentially they're vaccuum cleaners turned to "push" instead of "pull."

We did the bath in the tub and the drying on the front stoop. You don't want to blow dry in the house because the hair goes everywhere. I really don't know how much was blown out because it just went with the wind. The stoop gave Fluff an idea of where she was going to be, and she was okay with that. Not much fussing or trying to dart off into the front yard to roll. She was a little surprised that I chose not to let go of her neck fur when she decided she wanted to hoot and holler at the neighbors for coming home. Fortunately for Fluff, only 3 steps lie between stoop and driveway, so she landed okay when she launched and I didn't let go.

She looks, smells, and feels much cleaner. In really good news, I had no allergy symptoms during her bath and dry! Last time I bathed her, I had to use an inhaler and didn't even try to blow her dry. Digestive enzymes and other supplements seem to be helping my body cope with its overall load of allergens.

Peaceful Warrior

2007-03-31T21:42:00.000-07:00

I've seen the new movie The Peaceful Warrior twice in 2 days now. My guess is that most reviewers won't care for it because most of the conflict is internal. There is a fairly dramatic car/motorcycle intersection, but any physical action between men and women is understated by today's standard. I'm really surprised it has a PG-13 rating rather than just PG.

I enjoyed it a lot, but I'm into the stuff they're talking about, although I'm much better at reading about it than practicing it. On the visual level, watching high-quality male gymnasts is always pleasant :-) I'm also old enough to see some of the physical cycles. Twenty or 25 years ago, the lead character, Dan, would've been played by Tom Cruise, and his chief physical rival, Trevor, by Val Kilmer. The current actors reminded me much of Cruise and Kilmer in face structure and coloring.

I haven't read Dan Millman's books yet, but this movie will probably work for many people who are fans of Eckhart Tolle and other "new age" authors who believe we will benefit greatly by turning off the mind chatter and spending a lot more time in the present moment.

Equinox Editing

2007-03-20T17:56:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I'm trying desperately for alliteration in this title. If you can come up with a better (more appropriate for the ultimate topic), please drop it into the comments.

Today's edit: my hair. I spent two or three years growing my hair out to shoulder length. It was a nasty, shapeless shoulder length, but it was long enough to pull into a respectable ponytail. My hair is very fine but has some natural wave. The fineness means that only the last several inches can sustain wave without the weight of subsequent hair pulling it flat to my head. The wave is also very humidity-dependent, so I could go from pretty straight hair to wild frizz and back in a few hours if I went from inside the forced-air-heated house to the perpetual winter mist/drizzle and back.

As of this afternoon, I have much less hair and much more shape to it. I'm very happy! I look forward to the first hair wash and feeling how little hair is there. Must remember to use less shampoo! I have bangs, I have layers, I have wave and body. Ahh.

Of course, the outside temperature stayed in the 40s all day, so my neck is cold.

I just warned Ms. Fluff that she might be the next one to get a new spring 'do. She definitely needs a bath, and there is always trimming to be done. The girl is part hobbit -- she has the hairiest feet, for a breed who nominally has short hair on the feet.

No Wonder

2007-03-01T16:56:00.000-08:00

I thought we were having an awfully long gray spell. According to wunderground.com, the last day we had completely free of rain was February 5. We only had a trace on Feb. 6 and 17, but we've had measurable accumulations every other day since the 5th, with another week of rain forecasted!

I think rain and 42 degrees F (502 Kelvin, if I remember correctly -- that sounds warmer!) can be colder than snow and 30 degrees F. Oh well. Despite their geriatric status, the troops wish to go out for a walk. Who am I to deny them? Off we go!

Update: we're back, and I checked Weather Underground again. Despite having only 3 rain-free days in February, we had almost an inch less rain than an average February! We only had 3.97 inches instead of 4.86.

I started thinking about our rainfall on the walk (since it was raining at the time). We have about the same yearly rainfall as most of the places I've lived in the east and midwest. Like those places, we have about 30-36 inches of rain a year. Let's call it 36"/year or averaging 3 inches per month. That doesn't sound too bad: an average of about 0.1 inches per day, so you expect a lot of days of sun and a few of rain.

West of the Cascades, though, we have some very dry months. Typically we have very little rain in July (at least, after the often damp July 4 holiday!), August, and at least the first half of September. When I say "very little", I'm talking about maybe half an inch during that entire time period.

Let's continue on our very crude calculations. If you round it so we have 3 months with 0 rainfall, that means we have 9 months in which to fit our 36 inches of annual rainfall, or 9 months averaging 4 inches per month. We've just increased the month rainfall by one third. This is when things start to get tough to take. Our winter months actually tend more toward 5 or 6 inches of rain per month beginning in late November and running through February or March. We get about two thirds of our rain in one third of the year.

The other factor is that nearly all of this is rain, not snow. Rain absorbs light, snow reflects it. Four months of clouds and light-absorbing puddles can get to many of us.

On the bright side, the pussy willows are starting to come out, and many of the daffodils are above ground though perhaps not quite blooming yet.

10 Weird Things About Me

2007-02-28T15:25:00.000-08:00

I was tagged by Joy for this meme.

1. As a kid I hated popcorn. We had it a lot as a family snack after dinner, and I never ate it. I think I was allowed 3 Bacon Crackers instead. As soon as I went to college, I started eating popcorn. Boy, did I freak out my family that first Christmas break when I oh so casually took a handful of popcorn and ate it.

2. Every fall I become anxious and unsettled and want to move. I think it's a throwback to childhood, college, and grad school. I want to start over with the new school year, even though it's been 20 years since I've been in school.

3. I really became a firm believer in pre-marital s*x after dating a guy with a thing for shoes and feet. It may work for some people, but I am the queen of tennis shoes, Tevas, and hiking boots. Nary a high heel in sight. That turned out to be a deal-breaker for the two of us (among other issues), and I was so glad I found out before we were married.

4. I have 5 siblings with whom I have civil or better relationships. The last time I saw any of them in the flesh was 4 years ago.

5. I studied mechanical engineering because my father was a civil engineer.

6. When we were little, we went to the library every week. For some years they had a limit of 10 books per library card. We all had our own cards, we all took out 10 books, and we all read them before the next week's library day. This includes both my parents.

7. Although I'm extremely messy and disorganized in my own stuff (and in my own work cubicle, when I had one at the corporate cube farm), I really want common areas organized in a sensible fashion. Unfortunately, I'm the only human in the house, so there are no common areas that must be organized or tidy. I do insist on no hard dog toys where I will step on them in the middle of the night!

8. My dog Sleek is a female Belgian Malinois. I was looking for a male Australian shepherd when I found her. Both breeds are dogs, and both belong to the herding group. Physically, they have little in common: Aussies are long-haired, drop-eared, bob-tailed while Malinois are short-haired, prick-eared, and long-tailed. They don't even come in the same colors!

9. My mother tried to teach me to knit multiple times, but it took a work friend to get me to really learn. She had me make an Icelandic sweater (similar to this, but in 3 colors) for my very first knitted project -- no scarves for her!

10. Eleven years ago I spent over $1000 (yes, 3 zeroes) for a bike. It has less than 1000 miles on it now because 6 months later I spent $50 to purchase the divine Ms. Fluff from our nearby animal shelter. Priorities!

Transmission

2007-02-18T22:08:00.000-08:00

Today I walked my dogs past Blonde Streaks' house. Her dog is the one who bit my beloved Fluff. Blonde Streaks was out, so I asked her if she still had her dog, because Animal Control said she had told them she was going to get rid of it. Unfortunately, she replied in the affirmative. I will tell AC this and ask them to press for an abatement so the dog has to be removed from the city.

The real point, though, is how much adrenaline and tension flow down the leash. Even having that much of a confrontation (that is, not much of one) with Blonde Streaks is enough to send me into a heightened state of tension and adrenal arousal. Two houses later, the two toy dogs were tied out. We've seen them before, and, although they turn on each other from barrier frustration at being tied, they don't normally bother Fluff. Today, though, she was much more aroused by them and regarded them as a threat. Same deal at the park: even though separated by a fence, she was much more aware and concerned about a couple of golden retrievers who weren't even interested in her.

Emotions are still interesting, and the dogs I love are still wonderful.

Does Life Go On?

2007-02-15T22:03:00.000-08:00

A blogger who does not believe in any sort of afterlife recently lost a much-loved but elderly dog. I thought about this quite a bit today, because some of my comments were among those deleted because he found their expression of belief in an afterlife painful.

My personal belief is that conservation of energy works. We may change form at death, including the possibility of going into a state of no physical form, but there is a form of energy in us, that IS us, that will survive the death of the physical form. I believe there is a good chance that the energy may incarnate itself again (and again and again) if it chooses to do so.

The question may be, why do I believe this? On the one hand, I may choose to believe this way because it's easier. If I believe I have a chance of seeing/feeling those I love again, that may make losing their current physical forms easier. Maybe it's the lazy woman's way to put off dealing with some of the grief that might come knowing that those who are gone are simply, irretrievably, gone. Add to that my own not-so-far-off-as-it-used-to-be mortality. Maybe I can't/don't want to face the idea that this is a one-shot deal. I think this may be a very real part of it, because I certainly don't see myself as being spectacularly successful yet in this life. If I believe I'll have addition opportunities for "getting" what I'm not understanding yet in this life, it takes some of the pressure off to achieve, achieve, achieve. I also grieve less for people like my mother, who died unhappy, thinking she'll be back and hopefully in a position where she can achieve some happiness and maybe some other things she would've liked to do or have (we're talking personality or soul development here, not financial).

Mostly, though, I don't think the evidence supports the one-shot deal theory. We describe our friends as being more than just their physical attributes, often in ways that indicate we feel our friends transcend their physical forms. We feel an anima, a spark of life in them. If/when the physical attributes stop, why would we assume that more than those physical attributes stop? Why would the spark die just because the body does? During life, at least part of that anima needs to be with the body at all times to keep it going, but often part of it seems to wander, whether in dreams or daydreams, out-of-body experiences, or deep sleep or meditation. Why wouldn't all of the anima be able to leave when the body no longer needs it? Dead bodies seem heavier than live ones. Perhaps part of the anima also acts as buoyant force to keep the body able to move on its own.

Another branch of my theory is that we all are interconnected on some level. I believe that many of us live and die mostly unconscious of the level of connection, but that education and experience can help us achieve awareness of the connection, or at least awareness of the possibility of connecton, even if we can't quite feel it. Again, because I feel this connection exists, in some ways we cannot die in the finito sense because the whole would be less than whole with bits and pieces of it continually dying and leaving holes in the whole. This gets me to where I have to stop believing in time as absolute. I believe that we here blogging or reading blogs have chosen to act as if we believe in time and that time runs only in one direction (international date line and speed of light travel notwithstanding). In reality, I think, there is no time. I'm always an infant, a teenager, a young adult, a middle-aged adult, whatever age I get to on this round of the mortal coil. I can't really grasp that logically and describe it because I think our language is inadequate to the task. We're too time-tied, or at least I am in language.

As usual, I don't know how to wrap up my thoughts into a tidy package for a conclusion. I guess, I can just say it's better for my already questionable sanity to believe we go on after death than to believe death is the ultimate end. I think the latter would be a hard way to live.

Sainthood

2007-02-11T12:33:00.000-08:00

My neighbors tell me that they are nominating me for sainthood. They are heading out of town for a week in an hour or so. I usually feed their cats, bring in the paper & mail, etc. This time is much more “special” because 13 (or more) year old GrayBoy has a UTI. This means he’ll be staying inside, with his litter box, and needs antibiotics in his little mouth twice a day. Have I mentioned I’m allergic to cats and rarely touch them because of that? Have I mentioned that the smell of cat poop makes me want to hurl? And that the thought of dealing with the litter box is one reason I have never really wanted to own a cat? Or that GrayBoy usually tries to bite me when I do touch him? And that the only neighbor I am comfortable asking for help with GrayBoy spends half the week 3 hours away from here taking care of her parents? It’s going to be a long, long week! But, that is why I’m nominated.

Update: in the 6 hours since his owners left, GrayBoy has puked 2x on the carpet, used the litter box (solid only, should I be concerned? Esp. with a cat with a bladder infection? Or assume he's found another "convenient" corner to use, which I know he sometimes does?), and had most of one dose of antibiotic, almost destroying the dropper in the process. His sister sneaked into the house and had to be escorted out as she can be destructive. The week is looking longer.

Bits & Pieces

2007-02-09T22:09:00.000-08:00

The publisher did not answer her phone at the time she had suggested we talk, nor has she responded to my email asking her what time on Monday I could reasonably expect to reach her. I sense this is not going well.

Despite my allergies to horses, spent much of the day at a horse expo. Fortunately, I didn't have to use my (new) inhaler. I did some EFT at one point which took the fluid level in the lungs down to manageable levels and kept me from feeling asthmatic. Going for a second, longer day tomorrow should be a trip. It's quite a hoot parroting what people have said about the saddle being sold in our booth.

I've been trying to eat a bit better quality of food (more veggies, less processed sugar), and my body is starting to adapt. Tonight at the grocery store, I looked at my usual sugar highs and really didn't feel like buying them. And I didn't buy them! This is pretty big news for me. Of course, I still have to come up with a gluten-free dessert for our women's group meeting Sunday night.... I'm thinking about coconut sticky rice, which has the added benefit of being vegan (this is a tough crowd to cook for!)

Being stuffed up renders Greek salad tasteless. I can taste the onion if I really bite a piece of it, but the kalamata olives and feta cheese are remarkably taste-free. Sad, really.

Time for bed. I got 5 hours of sleep last night, spent close to 8 hours on my feet on a concrete floor, and can't breathe. I need some rest!

Longer than I Thought

2007-02-08T21:15:00.000-08:00

I hadn't realized how long it's been since I posted (thanks, "Joy" for your note -- I'll try to reply later, although this may answer some of your concerns).

Things are going okay, other than no money coming in. I will be talking to a woman about a part-time editing position. It's only about 1/2 to 1 day per week, though, so not much money. The good news is that I should be able to continue it even after getting a "real" job. I still don't know what I want to do for a real job, although I'm not interested in going back to engineering or major, major corporations (I spent nearly 19 years working for Fortune 100 companies). I have an idea for a business of my own, but there are a lot of unknowns in getting started. I'd love to have a partner, but it couldn't support two people at the beginning (how soon before it can support one is still a question). I also don't know anyone right now that I think would be a great fit for me as a partner, both in terms of knowledge and compatibility.

Anyway, I've started taking yoga which is very nice in terms of stretching, relaxing, and learning to be present in the moment. My instructor had a great quote yesterday, but I can't remember from whom. It was something along the lines of "The gift of a lifetime is to be with yourself." That's not right, I know, but it's got some of the right words in it. I will try to get the real words and author from her. Update: The quote is from Joseph Campbell and reads "the gift of a lifetime is becoming who you are." The instructor is a really sweet woman, and she makes me smile every time she says the word, "belly" because she says it with the same inflections (beh-LEE) that I use when I'm telling Fluff how cute she is with her pink and white and spotted belly.

I've also gotten back in the swimming pool which feels good, although they do use a lot of chlorine in that pool. Keeping my skin in good shape is a little tough with that added to forced air heat at home. Today I had an interesting experience. I wanted to join a woman in a swim lane. I tried to ask her if she minded, but either she didn't hear me or she blew me off. She was swimming counterclockwise laps, going up on the right side of the lane and then back on the left side (from my POV outside the pool). I got in on the left side since she had all her stuff stacked on the right side and made sure she saw me. I then start swimming up the left side of the lane. At the end of the first length she asked me what I was doing and why I wasn't swimming circular laps. I told her from what I had seen, almost everyone in that pool swam parallel laps when only 2 people were in a lane. She told me she felt that wasn't very welcoming, but added "whatever" and took off swimming. To me, her one-person circular laps had felt very unwelcoming, like she was firmly establishing that both sides of that lane were hers, all hers. Apparently she felt otherwise. Maybe she's done more "official" training swimming. I've never done that much group swimming, but it seems to me that it takes time to figure out when you can or cannot pass in circular swimming or to make sure one particular person is in front because s/he is known to be faster, etc. Parallel is much simpler when it's just two people.

I'll be helping out at a TTouch booth at a local equine event this weekend. Must remember business cards!

Oh, I forgot to mention that my girl Sleek seems to be getting worse in the heart murmur department. She's up to a grade IV out of VI. I'm looking at over $500 in diagnostic testing next month (soonest we can get into the local canine cardiologist) to see what is the thing to do. Ugh. The symbology of Sleek's heart being her weakest link is fascinating. She loves the people she loves very intensely and is very loyal. On the other hand, cats and small varmints would consider her to have a very black, evil heart because of her desire to pursue and kill them. Frankly, I don't think there's any malice involved. She's not interested in torturing them. She just loves the hunt and the kill (for those of you with cats, to the best of my knowledge she has never actually killed a cat, although she did catch one once and when young had gone over 7-foot fences to go after them). In some ways, she is a very primitive kind of dog who could have gone feral successfully. On the other hand, she can go downtown in large cities and just look at her surroundings with calm, confident interest. She's well-behaved in almost every circumstance (probably would have been ill-behaved in a cat show) and a favorite with vets and their staffs because she does not bite or threaten to bite (one time a tech was trying to get a blood sample from Sleek's front leg. Sleek twitched and threw the syringe across the room. When they came back with another syringe, Sleek tucked her head under the arm of the holding tech so she wouldn't see and twitch again). I think she'll see 13 (her birthday is in late April), but I have my doubts that she will see 14.

Power of Reflected Light

2007-01-27T22:35:00.000-08:00

I just took the dogs out. It's a clear, clear night, unusual for us in January. Moon is about 2/3 of the way to full.

I noticed the moonlight is bright enough that the power line to the house is throwing a shadow tonight. Moonlight is reflected sunlight. If the moonlight is that powerful, what kind of metaphor could that be for me? Even if I'm still fearful of letting my own light shine, maybe I can let a little reflected light from the rest of the universe shine through or past or off of me.

Watching Animal Control Court

2007-01-24T22:19:00.000-08:00

I went to Animal Control Court today to see how it is run, since there is a good chance I’ll be going there next month to testify about the neighbor’s dog Sadie attacking mine. Sadie is owned by Blonde Streaks. Blonde Streaks had to go to ACC today because of a complaint made by Mr. Volatile, another neighbor. This session promised some interesting emotional outburst possibilities because after Sadie attacked Mr. Volatile’s dogs, Mr. Volatile followed Sadie home and kicked a hole in Blonde Streaks’s front door. That part is a whole ‘nother trial, not in Animal Control Court.

The hearings officer is a lawyer with a strong interest in animal law (and who happens to own several Belgian Tervuren – perhaps my case would be even stronger had Sleek been the one Sadie nailed, esp. because Hearings Officer is Sleek's co-owner's personal attorney). Dress among most of the defendants and complainants was distinctly casual. Hearing Officer wore professional clothing, and the Animal Control officers wore their uniforms.

Blonde Streaks slumped into her chair and made a number of comments that led Hearings Officer to tell her to wait until it was her turn. AC read the appropriate parts of the statutes into the record. Hearings Officer asked for clarification on the definition of “vicious behavior,” which was given from other statutes. Mr. Volatile told his story and mostly stayed to the facts, rather than the emotions. Blonde Streaks had her time for rebuttal and had to be drawn back to the issues at hand (e.g., the door kicking is not relevant to the AC case). Blonde Streaks admitted Sadie had gotten loose and accepted responsibility for that. She said they have gotten rid of their second dog (neighborhood rumor says this dog was Sadie’s puppy) which she said belonged to her son (aka “Wheelchair Man” to the neighborhood). AC mentioned that in terms of legal responsibility, because Blonde Streaks is head of household, she was the owner of the second dog. Blonde Streaks thought about protesting that part. Blonde Streaks mentioned how Sadie could not be vicious because she lives with and has not harmed 18-month-old twins, and children aged 9, 8, and 4 years. Blonde Streaks also mentioned that if Sadie was going to be considered having shown vicious behavior by fighting with Mr. Volatile’s dogs, then shouldn’t Mr. Volatile’s dogs behavior be considered vicious because Sadie could’ve been hurt by them. Hearings Officer was unimpressed and soon cut the discussion off. Blonde Streaks’s appeals were all rejected and her fines were held at the initial levels (total of $200). Blonde Streaks replied that she had no money to pay, and Hearings Officer told her to work that out with Animal Control.

Blonde Streaks stomped out, and Mr. Volatile, his wife Bleached Blonde, and I left a few moments later, accompanied by an AC officer to ensure there was no altercation between Mr. Volatile & Blonde Streaks in the building. Fortunately, Blonde Streaks was gone by the time we reached the elevator.

We all are hopeful that at the next hearing, when my case comes up, that Sadie will be declared a Dangerous Dog and Blonde Streaks will be told to remove her from the city. The timeframe for that is 96 hours.

Keep your fingers crossed! Meanwhile, Fluff continues to grow her hair back and is doing okay around other dogs. (You will notice she was not invited to attend the big dog show this past weekend!)

Choice

2007-01-22T18:57:00.000-08:00

In honor of Blog for Choice day, here's today's off-the-cuff writing.

I believe in choice for a number of reasons:

A woman's body belongs to her. As such, she has the right to determine whether or not she wishes to become a mother and when.

If a woman doesn't want to have a child, why would one think she would be a good mother to that child? Eighteen years is a long time to live with someone who would rather you had not been born.

Birth control education and availability is a disgrace, especially for those who are young or of limited means.

Abstinence works for some people, doesn't work for others.

Abstinence is not an option for those who are raped, forced by partners, etc.

Faintly Stunned

2007-01-21T18:08:00.000-08:00

I've received two emails today from people who've just lost their dogs to hemangiosarcoma. Both dogs were in late middle age and much loved companions valued for their beautiful souls. It's time to go hug my dogs and be grateful that I am watching them go into old age.