A Pie Dough Kind of Day

When my grandmother baked a pie, she'd roll out the dough, place a turned-over pie plate on top of it and trace a knife around the plate to get the right-sized crust. Then she'd gather up all the scraps that fell outside the circle, roll them together into a small, flat patchwork crust, sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar, and bake it alongside the pie as a special treat for my sister and me. I think that's how we got Leap Day. Horology experts (who presumably had grandmothers) figured out they could tidy up the calendar by sweeping up all the bits of leftover time from four years' worth of ordinary days and smooshing them into one whole extra day.

So is Leap Day a treat? Should it be a holiday? I'd like that, I think. How nice it would be to wake up and think: "Ah, it's Leap Day--twenty-four hours that don't count. Today I have time to read or write or paint or sit outside and daydream in the sun." Actually, being retired, I have time for that on almost any given day, but it feels self-indulgent to do fun things while the rest of the adults in the family are busy at their jobs. Guilt ruins a lot of potentially nice moments. 

The only momentous thing about this particular February 29th is that my grass was cut this morning for the first time in 2016, signifying the transition from tracked-in-mud season to tracked-in-grass-clippings season, the only two seasons that exist here in South Dogdom. If that's all that makes this Leap Day special, so be it. Life is good, and an extra day of it suits me just fine.

Ten Years Later

I had intended to post a new blog entry yesterday to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Velvet Sacks, but first the shower curtain fell, rod and all, then the dogs went outside and came back in with thick mud-soup all over their paws, and by the time I got everything cleaned up, straightened out and rehung, I was no longer in a writing mood. Doing laundry seemed like a better idea.

Well, guess what! This morning I realized that today, not yesterday, is the actual anniversary date. Apparently, fate intervened and kept me from posting a stupid, self-congratulatory mistake on the Internet. Way to go, Fate (or Coincidence)!

Some things were different ten years ago, some remain the same. I was working full time when I started the blog in 2006; now I'm retired. I didn't have health insurance; now I'm safe in the arms of Medicare. My knees were just beginning to give me trouble; now I have one new, sturdy knee and another, still unstable one, in line for replacement not too far down the road.

My two beloved dogs from ten years ago, Kadi and Butch, have passed on and made room in my home for two new ones, Levi and Gimpy, who share their days here with my grand-dogs, Lucy and Oliver. Lucy was with us back then, but Oliver came along later, after Winston passed.

The size of our family has both grown and diminished. Three of my five grandchildren have married during this blog's existence, each of those three marriages has produced a baby, and a fourth child is on the way in a few months. In that same time span I've lost aunts, uncles and a few good friends. This very morning my great-niece gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl, and this afternoon a 58-year-old niece by marriage will be laid to rest, too early, near her mother.

Ten years ago I was complaining about President George W. Bush. I was so glad to see the end of his two terms, yet if I match him up against today's crop of GOP candidates, he seems a little more sensible than the rest of them do. Or at least a little less idiotic. That doesn't mean I'd want him back.

Ten years of water under the bridge, and life goes on. So will Velvet Sacks for the foreseeable future. Many thanks to all of you who have joined me in this journey.

Spiffy!

Levi has been wearing my old T-shirts for the last week and a half after I found a small but nasty-looking wound under the curls on his left side. He had apparently sustained the injury a few days earlier, but it didn't bleed enough to discolor his thick fur. I might not have found it when I did had he not been snuggled up next to me on the sofa and flinched when my "skritching fingers" landed on that particular spot. By then it appeared to be badly infected.

We went to the vet the next morning, where a saucer-sized patch of Levi's fur was shaved off, the wound was thoroughly cleaned out and we were given two weeks' worth of antibiotics and one week's worth of doggy pain pills. My canine-trodden floors are not sanitary (there is no five-second rule here), so I asked the vet about bandaging the wound to keep it clean. He didn't want to do that, said it needed some air circulation, and suggested putting Levi in a clean T-shirt instead. So, that's what we've done.

I had no idea that Levi would be willing to wear clothes. He surprised me. He didn't object when I put the first one on him, and he's been as cooperative as a fashion model each time I've changed his outfit, often two or three times a day. He hasn't tried once to get out of a shirt. He wears a loose elastic belt around his waist, which allows me to roll the shirttail once or twice to keep it out of the line of fire when he pees.

The wound is healing nicely. I could probably leave the shirts off by now, except I don't trust our three other nosy dogs to pass up a chance to explore what the heck that thing is on Levi's side. As long as he seems comfortable, I'll lend him shirts until there's no more sign of the injury. Besides, he looks really, really cute!

The Beat of a Different Drum

I wish I knew what goes on in Gimpy's mind. When the dogs start from anywhere in the house to go outside, they have to pass between the dining area and the kitchen, go into the den, then turn left to go out the door onto the patio. Three of the four do it just that way. Gimpy, however, skips that first left turn, runs straight ahead to pass between the futon and the cedar chest, steps up twelve inches onto the hearth, then turns left, steps down, passes by the large dog crate and turns right, ready to burst out the door. He  doesn't choose this crazy path always, but he does the majority of the time.

Here, I drew this floor plan of my (overcrowded) den for those of you who prefer pictures to words: 

He also has his own convoluted route to get back inside from the backyard: 

I"m pretty sure I know the reasoning behind his chosen path in this instance: anole lizards hang out on the patio furniture. They're only there in warm weather, but Gimpy does it this way in winter, too, just in case. (Sometimes he shortcuts under the table.)

(Speaking of convoluted, those little squares placed in odd positions near the round patio table in the second drawing represent chairs positioned just where we like 'em. I like to sit in one chair and prop my feet in another one, symmetry be hanged! We don't arrange them nicely unless company is coming.)

Gimpy's eating habits are peculiar, too. We separate the four dogs at feeding time because Lucy is greedy, doesn't take time to chew, and doesn't mind eating out of someone else's bowl. She and her bowl get locked in the hall behind a gate until Levi and Oliver are finished. Gimpy eats in the crate with the door closed. The gist of the long story behind that is that before we got him, he shared a home with his Golden Retriever father, who intimidated him and wouldn't let him eat. He was getting skinny. Here, closed in the crate, he can feel safe that no one will interfere with him during his dinner. That worked fine for a long time, but he's been taking things a step further recently. Now, when I put him and his bowl in the crate, he faces away from the bowl, lies down and waits. Only when the three other dogs have all cleaned their bowls and have gathered around his crate does he stand up and begin to eat. He does it very slowly, as if he's relishing every bite, and he glances up now and then to make sure the other dogs are still watching him. I'm pretty sure that if he could talk, he'd be saying, "NA-NA-na-NA-na-na."

I love Gimpy. He's funny, the most clownish of the four dogs, and the cuddliest, most affectionate, too. He gives far more chin licks and tail wags than the others do. He also happens to be the most jealous: if one of the other dogs is getting hugs or skritches, it's only a matter of seconds before Gimpy shows up and squirms into the middle of the action. It's sweet and funny when it happens, but we all know jealousy isn't a particularly good trait. He's sneaky, too. If I tell Levi to stop licking or scratching, Levi stops it. If I tell Gimpy the same thing, he gives me a dirty look, then gets up and goes around the corner where I can't see him.

I love him even more for his weirdness.

April Already?

This year is whizzing by! Allergy season has arrived and has brought with it a couple of intense bouts of vertigo, during which I could do nothing but lie flat on the bed and watch my dresser and chest of drawers pass by again and again. Fortunately, antihistamines and this exercise seem to have stopped the spinning for now.

The new thyroid medicine has kicked in, and I'm feeling much better than I did a couple of months ago. The sunshine and warmer temperatures helped, too, of course. My spirits would probably be even higher if my summer clothes still fit. Thank goodness for the lightweight, stretchy knits we call "activewear." What a misnomer that is!

The weather this week has been beautiful, warm enough that the little anole lizards are out and about, which makes Gimpy just about the happiest dog on the planet. Every time he steps out the door, he closely inspects the drain pipes, the patio furniture, the spaces between slats in the privacy fence--all the places where lizards hide. He almost never catches one (thank goodness!), but it isn't for lack of trying.

Kim hosted a small dinner party last weekend, and my Goldendoodle boys seemed to think they were the guests of honor. Levi placed his ball in front of each person in turn, allowing everyone a chance to throw it for him, eventually narrowing the players down to one or two people who could throw the farthest. Gimpy played ball, too, but his main objective for the evening seemed to be making sure he left no chin unlicked.

One of Kim's guests had a charming accent (Mississippi, I think). When he spoke of "one feller who had a 'dee-limmer,'" I chuckled to myself at the quaint pronunciation and listened more closely, trying to determine what the fellow's dilemma was. Turns out Kim's friend was talking about clearing trees off some property. What the guy actually had was a delimber, a machine that removes the limbs from cut-down trees. My bad. Who knew there was such a thing?

Speaking of words, the Life Writing class I've enjoyed so much has been canceled, along with all the other LSU-sponsored classes in this parish. Our last class was Monday. It seems that enrollment was so low that the classes weren't cost-effective for LSU. That disappoints me, though I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that continuing education and artistic or intellectual pursuits aren't high on the bucket lists of many people in this small-town community. What delights me is that the members of our Life Writing class have decided to continue meeting and writing together on our own. We've found a meeting place and will start next week. Yay, us!

I'm looking forward to Sunday, when I'll get to spend time with kids, grandkids and great-grandkids all at one time. Those get-togethers are precious to me, and I hope you get to share the holiday with those you love most, too. Happy Easter, y'all!

I'll See You in My Dreams

I didn't imagine I'd be writing any new stories about Butch; he's been gone for three years now. But this morning, when I finally slept hard and late after a night spent tossing and turning, he came to me in a dream.

It was past time for me to get up, and in the dream I did that. I put on my robe, stepped out into the hallway, and there, where I expected to see Levi and Gimpy, I saw Butch instead. He was doing his familiar, happy tap-dance on the tile floor, wagging his tail so vigorously that his whole back end moved. In the way of dreams, I believed I was awake, but the sight of a living, breathing Butch made the wide-awake dream-me think I must be dreaming. I reached out first to touch the door frame, then the green, high-back chair, reasoning that if I could make myself touch real things, then I must be awake.

Butch didn't seem to have any such concerns. He was all over me, wriggling against my legs, pushing his face against my hand, soaking up all the loving he'd missed while he'd been away. I dropped onto the sofa and picked him up, holding him like a squirmy baby, running my hands through his soft fur, sniffing his ears and his popcorn-scented paws, relishing the impossible moment.

My grandmother walked into the room, she who passed away in 1988, and my daughter Kim, too, who is very much alive today but was a young girl in the dream. Still not believing Butch could be here, I asked them both if they could see him. They could not.

I turned to look again and saw him standing by my knees, his tail still wagging, then I looked across the room and he was there, too. He was everywhere I looked. Sometimes I could see four or five of him in different places at once, all of them moving, sniffing corners, exploring every part of every room the same way I would do if I could visit the house where I grew up.

Eventually the long dream changed into a twisted scenario involving a long bus ride with the child-Kim in New York City, and it ended almost immediately after that when I woke up for real. I lay quietly in bed for a long while, soaking up the joy I'd felt at the dream reunion with Butch. He'd seemed younger than he'd been at the end of his life. A little thinner, too, and much more agile. Every bit as affectionate. I've tried to remember whether or not he was still blind in the dream, but I can't recall. It doesn't matter; we could see each other just fine.

Later this morning, after I'd been up for a while, I noticed today's date: March 19th. Butch was a found puppy who came to live with us on the last day of April, 1998. The veterinarian who checked him over that day estimated his age at six weeks, so we counted back into the middle of March to choose a date to celebrate as his birthday. We picked a date we knew we'd always remember because it was my second husband's birthday: March 19th.

To the best of my recollection, this is the first time I've ever dreamed about Butch. Happy birthday, sweet angel--and thanks so much for sharing it with me.

Smart Cookies

Back in November I wrote about Levi's attention to bells and timers. At one-thirty the other night he stood by my bed and poked me awake with his nose. I scratched his head and told him to go back to bed. Instead, he stood up on his hind legs, placed one paw on the mattress for balance and used the other one to slap me repeatedly on the shoulder. When he was satisfied that I was wide awake, he walked to the bedroom door and looked over his shoulder, waiting for me to follow him. I did -- all the way into the kitchen, where he stopped and looked up toward the spot where my cell phone lay on the counter. At precisely that moment, the phone lit up and the text tone sounded. It was a wrong number, but Levi didn't know that. I like to think he'd alert me to an urgent call, too.

********

The arrangement of chairs on our patio looks odd but has a purpose. Two of the chairs sit facing each other with about a foot of knee room between them. The chair that looks out onto the yard is for sitting; the other chair is for propping feet on and is also used as a tennis-ball return spot. After we get tired of throwing the ball for the dogs, they get a little more mileage out of us by placing the ball on the seat of the chair, where a human foot hardly has to move at all to knock the ball off the to one side or another. Kim noticed recently that Levi and Gimpy understand spatial relationships well enough that they wait on the left side of the chair if her foot is positioned to the right of the ball. If she moves her leg to the left side of the ball, both dogs scurry around to the right side of the chair. 

They do something similar when we play coffee-table ball in the house. Once they've placed the ball under the low-slung table, they watch while I stick the broom handle under there, then they quickly map out some kind of mental trajectory and race each other to the exact place where the ball will roll out as soon as I give it a good whack.

********

Levi is the only dog I've ever had that understands to look in the direction a finger points instead of focusing on the pointed finger. This skill comes in handy. He rarely goes outside without a ball in his mouth, and he knows it's his job to bring the ball back in the house when playtime is over. Usually he does it. Sometimes, if he hurries back inside, I have to send him out a second time to get his ball. That's an easy task for him--unless he can't remember where he left it. Being considerably taller than Levi is, I can often spot the yellow-green ball that he can't see behind leaves or grass at a distant spot. That's where the pointing comes in: I point, and he finds it after a short search. Now, if I can only get him to understand what I mean by "warmer" and "colder"... 

********

Such shaggy dogs! Haircuts are coming soon, just in time for warmer weather.

Gimpy

Levi

Home is Where the People Aren't

The quieter it is in my house, the harder it is for me to leave it. Right now I need to go grocery shopping, but the dogs are all sleeping. How can I bear to leave this peacefulness and head out into the busy marketplace?

Sometimes I think I have a case of agoraphobia-lite. It's similar to real agoraphobia, except that the fear is removed, the anxiety reduced by half, and a fair amount of self-indulgence and antisocial tendencies are added to the equation. I suppose that makes it exactly like garden-variety introversion. I don't panic at the idea of going out among crowds; I just generally prefer not to do so. There are certain things so good they would overcome my reluctance to leave home--a must-see movie based on a favorite book, a James Taylor concert in an intimate setting, a figure-skating exhibition--but shopping isn't one of them.

I have never and can't imagine that I will ever insert myself into the "fun" of Black Friday shopping; no bargain is that good. And you would be surprised at what I'll eat for dinner if it means I can postpone grocery shopping one more day. Today, when there are actually two viable dinner choices in the freezer, staying home is a no-brainer.

Grocery shopping is hardly the worst thing, of course. Yeah, it requires bathing, dressing, doing hair and applying minimal makeup, but at least it doesn't involve a lot of talking to people. Parties are much more difficult unless I know all the people there and they all know me well enough not to be offended when I leave early. Family parties, in fact, are wonderfully comfortable. I look forward to them.

On the other hand, the pressure at parties full of strangers is almost insurmountable. I skipped a toddler's birthday party two years in a row, intending to show up both times, then bailing at the last minute. I rationalized that the toddler, whom I love dearly, would be too excited about her gifts to notice whether or not I was there and that her immediate family members (who are also mine) would be too busy for me to hang onto their coattails while pretending to be invisible to the other guests. Lingering guilt is the price I pay for skipping the parties.

So here I am today, home alone with four sleeping dogs, happy as a pig in you-know-what, even if I know it means I must get an early start tomorrow or suffer the consequences of an empty pantry. The good news is, if I make a good shopping list and do a thorough job tomorrow, I won't have to go again for a week.

Canine Comedy Hour

The dinging of a timer bell is a common sound in our household. The microwave timer sometimes goes off several times in short succession if I'm keeping an eye on something and unsure how long it will take to cook. Same thing goes for the oven timer. I also set the oven timer throughout the day so I won't forget soft drinks being quick-chilled in the freezer or Oliver, who always wants to stay outside a few minutes longer than the other dogs do.

Levi has decided that the timer is important, maybe because I stop what I'm doing and get up to tend to something every time it sounds. In fact, he has appointed himself Timer Monitor. When that bell dings, he stops what he's doing, too, and presents himself at my feet, presumably to call my attention to the timer's signal or, possibly, to let me know he stands ready for duty should I need his capable assistance.

I think that's pretty cute. Last night, however, it became problematic. Not for me, but for Levi.

All four dogs were asleep in the living room when I tuned in to watch Vegas ER. Have you ever noticed how much beeping there is in a hospital emergency room? Every time a piece of medical equipment beeped, Levi woke up, climbed off the sofa he'd claimed all to himself, walked over to where I sat and reported for duty. It took a time or two before I noticed what sound he was responding to, and he seemed confused when I didn't jump up in a hurry to do something about it. He'd stand there looking at me for a minute, then return to his place on the sofa.

I watched two one-hour episodes in a row. I can't tell you how many times Levi showed up at my feet, but it was obvious that the frequent sleep interruptions were getting to him. Each time he came to me, he was more dazed and confused than the previous time. I tried to explain to him, the way I explain when the dogs respond to a barking dog or ringing doorbell on TV: "It's a TV noise." He didn't get it. He was so tired by the end of the two hours that I felt really sorry for him (hugged him a lot), but that didn't stop me from cracking up laughing.

******

A similar story:  All four dogs rushed over to my desk the other morning when I watched a video that featured yelping puppies. Lucy, Oliver, Levi and Gimpy all barked their concern for a moment, then three of them wandered away. Levi stayed behind just long enough to push past my knees and do a quick puppy-search under my desk. He's responsible, that one. And thorough.

******

Oh! I almost forgot to tell you one more funny thing that happened last night. Gimpy was asleep on the other end of the sofa I was sitting on. The constant ER bells on TV didn't bother him at all, but he tends to participate actively in his dreams. At one point, sound asleep, he started running, his legs moving slowly at first, then faster and faster, stretching himself out to a full-length hard run before suddenly trying to stand up. Fortunately, he woke up just before he flung himself off the sofa. He looked sheepish for a second, then flopped over and went right back to sleep.

My life would be so boring without these dogs.

Gimpy (left) and Levi.

Potato Soup Weather

Last night wasn't the first night I've turned the heater on this year, but it was the first time the heater has had to work so hard to keep the house warm. Tomorrow it's supposed to be ten degrees colder, possibly breaking a record according to the local TV weatherman.

The sky is gray and dreary this morning, but the oak tree next to our driveway is more colorful than I've ever seen it. Vivid foliage is a rare treat this far south.

Today I'm especially aware of the blessings of retirement. There's no place I need to go, nothing I need to do that would take me out into the cold. The dogs have been outside twice this morning and don't seem eager to go again anytime soon. Last time they went out it was raining lightly, which I didn't realize until they all came back wet. It tickles me how firmly their routines are established in their canine minds, how patient the four of them are as they line up and wait to be dried off with a towel.

Tonight we'll have potato soup and cornbread for supper, a favorite cold-weather meal that I haven't had in way too long. I haven't started cooking yet, but I'm almost salivating just thinking about the smell of potatoes and onions simmering on the stove.

And...half a minute ago the dogs asked to go out again. The sun came out right as I opened the door, giving the appearance of warmer weather, but the wind has kicked up and an icy blast nearly blew the door out of my hand. It's definitely colder than it was a few hours ago. Time to pull out the sweatpants.

I hope it's cozy and colorful where you are today.

Odds and Ends and Reasons to Floss

September ended with a suggestion from the man who mows my lawn that it's probably safe to cut back from once a week to every two weeks now. Yay! Lawn care is my third-biggest monthly expense, after house note and telephone/cable/internet bundle, so reducing and eventually eliminating lawn care for the cooler months serves as my version of a Christmas Club Account.

*****

I try to get all four dogs to go outside at the same time, but that doesn't always happen. When Gimpy asked to go out yesterday, I called all the others to the door. Until I opened it, I hadn't noticed that a light rain was falling. Gimpy and Levi went outside anyway, but Lucy and Oliver steadfastly declined. That's what made it so funny afterwards when I towel-dried Levi, then Gimpy, while Lucy and Ollie queued up behind them for their turn with the towel. It reminded me of our last set of dogs (RIP, beautiful babies!), when Butch needed ear drops twice a day, and the others always lined up behind him, rolling their eyes and looking gloomy, while I pretended to put drops in their ears.

*****

Seems like it was about this time last year when Levi and Gimpy discovered a possum on the fence. It happened again the other night:

The possum sat as still as a statue while the dogs repeatedly leaped and threw themselves against the fence. They seemed to have no fear whatsoever of the ugly creature. The next night, however, a cockroach (yuck!) got into the house and strolled boldly through the living room. I might have missed it, except that both Levi and Gimpy stood very still, swiveling their heads back and forth between the nasty intruder and me, until I got up to see what they were looking at. I killed it, of course. I guess I don't blame them for not taking care of it themselves; they weren't wearing shoes.

*****

I've been reading, reading, reading in the daytime and at bedtime, taking a break in the evenings to watch the season's new episodes of Survivor, The Amazing Race, Grey's Anatomy and Nashville. Also burned some CDs so I'd have new tunes to listen to on weekly trips to Walmart or Life Writing Class. 

I wanted the songs in the second (bottom) CD insert to be numbered from 21-40 but couldn't figure out how to make iTunes do it that way. Meh. Teenagers may think they originated the "whatever" attitude, but I have it way more in my seventies than I did in my teens.

*****

If you're retired, do you sometimes get your days mixed up? I missed a dental appointment a couple of weeks ago--first time I've ever done that. I knew the appointment was on the 23rd; I just didn't realize that that particular day was the 23rd until they called to see where I was. Fortunately, they had an opening later the same day, so they didn't charge me extra for wasting their morning slot. 

Wouldn't you know that my one molar that doesn't already have a crown on it suddenly needs one? I'll dig into my savings and let them fix that tooth, then I'll look forward to seeing what dentist-income source they can find to fix the next time I go in for a cleaning. They've been pushing me for years to replace my partial with implants, but I have no intention of paying for teeth that will live longer than I do.

*****

That's about all that's going on around here. Book list coming up tomorrow.

"Butt Out, Mama!"

Do you ever feel as though your pets don't need you? Yesterday afternoon, at the request of three of our four dogs (Lucy was sleeping), I let them out into the backyard. I usually go outside with them, but yesterday I was in the middle of something and didn't join them until five minutes later. I might as well have not shown up when I did.

Levi, Gimpy and Oliver were lined up on our side of the chain-link fence. Lined up facing them on the other side were my next-door neighbor and two of her lady friends. It looked like two pared-down volleyball teams until one of the friends squatted to pick up the green tennis ball that Levi had just pushed under the fence. She gave it a hard throw back into our yard, and Levi and Gimpy raced to get it and poke it under the fence again.

This sequence was repeated over and over for another ten minutes while I watched and gave an occasional tip, such as, "If you tell him, 'I can't get that,' he'll pick up the ball and move it closer to you." She did, and he did. The polite visitor tried to include me in the activity by asking a series of questions about the dogs in between pitches, but Levi and Gimpy rarely even glanced my way. They made it quite clear that they had their own social life happening and didn't need or want me to stick my nose in it.

It feels sort of weird to think that my dogs are getting acquainted with people I don't know. I don't guess it'll be a problem as long as they don't start inviting their new friends over for dinner.

Simple Pleasures

What a lovely day this is! It's bright and sunny, with the temperature hovering somewhere in  the mid-80-degree range, just enough of a drop to take the abject misery out of summer.

After fasting overnight, I hit the road early this morning to go for more blood tests. The woman in line behind me at the lab was holding a three-week old baby girl, whom I volunteered to hold while the mother filled out paperwork. At first the mom declined, but minutes later, when she had to go to her car to retrieve insurance forms, she approached and asked if I'd still be willing to hold the baby. Of course, I would.

The baby slept the whole time she was in my arms. That's good, because I'd have hated to have panicked in front of strangers. I loved having a close-up view of her tiny, delicate features. Her brown skin and straight black hair were so different from the pale pinkness and blonde fuzz of my own children and grandchildren, but were every bit as precious and beautiful. In fact, I can't really think of anything more beautiful than a newborn baby. Although Last Comic Standing's Rod Man makes a good point to the contrary.

The television in the waiting room was showing a clip about a lost dog's reunion with its owners. From where I was sitting I could see all the other patients in the room. Everyone was turned toward the TV, and every face wore the sweetest, gentlest expression when the dog saw its people for the first time. Happy dogs do that to people.

When the lab technician called my first name, I jumped up and followed her back through a curtained door, where she handed me a gown and asked me to change. What?!? I have to strip for blood tests? Turns out a different woman named Linda was there for x-rays. I knew lots of Lindas in elementary school, but these days it's rare to run into another one.

Later, when it was my real turn, I felt sorry for the lab tech who tried to draw blood. She blew the veins on her first two tries, which made her so nervous she almost gave up, saying she didn't want to stick me again and suggesting that we wait for another, more experienced tech to return to the office. I talked her down off the ledge and assured her the third time would be the charm, which turned out to be true. I hope her bad experience with my stingy old veins didn't destroy the confidence she needed for the rest of her patients today.

On the way home I stopped at McDonald's two minutes before they stopped serving breakfast and scored a Diet Coke, hash browns, and a bacon-egg-and-cheese biscuit, probably my last one. I've been cheating on the low-carb diet for months now (hell, not cheating--over-indulging--occasionally binging), as evidenced by tight-fitting clothes and higher cholesterol levels. I know I need to stop that. The only thing that's holding me back from healthy eating today is the blackberry-cobbler ice cream in the freezer. Oh, and the Cheezits in the pantry. As soon as I finish all that, I'll get back on track.

Anyway, with breakfast bag in hand, I sat down at the computer to watch the Tiger Cam, but it seems to be turned off this morning. Instead, I'm getting my wildlife fix by watching a tiny lizard,  no longer than three inches from nose to tail, that has crawled through a small hole in the window screen and can't seem to find its way out again. Tigers...lizards...I'll happily watch any of God's creatures that has four or fewer legs.

Hm. A minute ago I discovered that the Tiger Cam trouble is on my end, not the zoo's. It's not too difficult a problem to solve, just time consuming, what with resetting Safari, rebooting the computer, and remembering infrequently used passwords, so wait a couple of minutes...There, it's fixed now.

The tiger cubs are sleeping. So are all four dogs here at my house.

Yep, it's a good day. Not without its minor complications, perhaps, but still peaceful and lovely--and a little bit cooler, thank goodness.

Lazy Day

It's mid-afternoon and here I sit, still in my bathrobe. Here's a list of what I've accomplished so far today:

1. Um...
2. Er...
3. Ahem...

Okay, so it's a lazy day. And it's raining. I went back to bed for an hour at eight-thirty, having risen at six. The dogs have slept all day, scattered around the house in their favorite places. Two are curled up now, one on his back, sprawled out with his belly exposed, the fourth on his side, paws flapping and tale thumping against the floor while dreams take him on some grand canine adventure. 

I've had breakfast (Ritz crackers) and lunch (more Ritz crackers and a Diet Dr. Pepper). I read for a while after waking for the second time, first from a novel on my Kindle, then right here at the computer, checking must-read blogs and news websites.

I told someone the other day that I don't especially enjoy reading biographies, but today I remembered that I do like autobiographies and memoirs--a lot of them, anyway--so I started making a random list of some really good ones: Angela's Ashes, The Glass Castle, The Water Is Wide...

A perplexing question has just occurred to me: If I want to begin a sentence with the word "iTunes," do I capitalize the "i" or leave it lowercase? Either way looks wrong. Anyway, I've had music playing for hours, and I love the iTunes shuffle feature that surprises me by playing classical music after bluegrass or an old favorite hymn after Kid Rock. At this very moment I'm listening to an Irish tune, "Raglan Road," by Van Morrison.

I decided I'd try to work in a blog post because it bugs me when I go from one "Saturday Song Selection" to another one with nothing in between. How lame is that? The best thing about writing on the computer is the world of reference materials available at my fingertips. The answers to anything I'm curious about are just a few keystrokes away. (For example, I've just now learned that, yes, even at the beginning of a sentence, the Apple website spells "iTunes" with a lowercase "i." That's good enough for me.)

Kim is dog-sitting for friends this week. It's funny how different a day feels when no one is expected home at any certain time, and no one is expecting me to be anyplace else. It's a fact that I always have plenty of time to be self-indulgent now that I'm retired, but I don't usually do it with the same wild abandon I feel on days like today, when I'm alone and the hours on the clock are nothing but numbers. It's fun at first. Later on, until I get used to it again, it gets lonely.

The sound of toenails scratching frantically on wood a moment ago alerted me that Lucy is awake now and thought I was in my bedroom with the door closed. She apparently needed me--immediately! Her actions reminded me that there is some accountability in my life, that I'm responsible for feeding these fine, four-legged creatures at a predictable time, that even if dogs don't wear wristwatches, they clearly know when suppertime is approaching, that no matter how reckless and uninhibited I want to be with my own unscheduled hours, I need to rein myself in for their sake. And so I do. As quickly as that. I will not let them down.

Help! The Sky Is Falling!

About ten minutes after I let the dogs out into the backyard this afternoon, I heard such a frantic outburst of barking that I hurried out there to see what was going on. Gimpy met me at the door, so excited he was practically doing backflips. The source of their agitation wasn't too hard to spot:

My big yellow boys, Levi and Gimpy, turned four years old last Friday. Unless they saw a hot-air balloon before I got them, this was their first. Saying it gave them pause would be an understatement.

That's Levi in the photos. I would have liked to have had Gimpy in the picture, too, but he wouldn't move more than three feet away from my side.

Kim's little Oliver, on the other hand, wasn't impressed. He saw balloons a couple of years ago--lots of them--and had better things to do this time around. Ollie is the dark spot near the bottom center of these photos, shown having his daily tête-à-tête with Buddy, the Maltese next door.

Lucy isn't in the photos, either. She was asleep in her favorite place behind the toilet and missed the whole darn thing.

Sure am glad I didn't. I love the big balloons!

Corn on the Cob and Strings of Ash

It's America's 238th birthday and I feel excited! Well, maybe not excited enough to justify the exclamation point at the end of the previous sentence, but a pleasant, anticipatory sensation nonetheless. Don't ask me why. July 4th used to excite me because it meant a holiday from work, but now that I'm retired, every day is a holiday, so that's not the reason.

We aren't celebrating with a festive cookout, though tonight I will cook oven-barbecued sausage links and serve them with store-bought potato salad, slices of the single home-grown tomato remaining from those my younger daughter brought us from her garden, and maybe we'll finally eat that corn on the cob that's been in the door of the freezer for god knows how long. That all sounds holiday appropriate, doesn't it?

What I'm feeling might just be residual excitement from childhood. The 4th of July felt like a really big deal in the '40s and early '50s, though the truth is our family celebrations weren't elaborate even then. We usually had a watermelon, which made the day special, and we must have had some kind of picnic food, or else why would I think the occasion calls for potato salad and corn on the cob?

I'm not excited about fireworks. Fireworks displays are nice to see, but my enthusiasm for them has diminished in inverse proportion to the number of dogs I've had who've been frightened by them. When I was a kid, we lived in town. We couldn't have Roman candles or any other kind of "bombs bursting in air." We did have small firecrackers that the grownups would light. Sometimes there'd be a few cherry bombs we could throw hard against the sidewalk, and we could count on having sparklers year after year. I was always afraid of sparklers. (Whose brilliant idea was it to put fire on conductive metal wires and hand them out to children?) I gritted my teeth and waved them around anyway, because my little sister wasn't afraid and I needed to be as brave as she was.

My favorite firework back then (if one can call it a firework) was made of some type of gray-colored material that had been compressed into the shape of a sitting dog no taller than the diameter of a half-dollar coin. A lighted match held briefly to the dog's rear end would cause a long, continuous string of black ash to shoot out of its butt, a sight that cracked me up no matter how many times I saw it. Now that I live with four real canines, dog poop doesn't seem so funny anymore. Although dogs do look funny when they do it.

Whatever. I can't really explain the source of my mild excitement, but it's Independence Day in the US of A, and maybe that's reason enough.

"I'm Gonna Be Good, Whatever It Takes!"

Gimpy

I'm pretty sure Gimpy has whipped his stealing habit. It's been a long time since towels went missing from the bathroom or dishtowels from the kitchen counter, weeks since papers were snitched from a desktop or books pulled off a shelf. It's always seemed unfair to crate Gimpy while allowing the other three dogs unsupervised freedom, but I've done it for his safety and my peace of mind.

Lately, considering Gimpy's long stretch of good behavior, I've begun to trust him--enough that I haven't put him in the crate the last three times I've left the house.  He hasn't disappointed me; each time I've come home to find everything in its place.

I do wonder if I'm more comfortable with this new arrangement than Gimpy is, if my trust for him may be greater than his own sense of self control. I say that because Levi, Lucy and Oliver come to greet me at the front door when I get home, and there sits Gimpy, way back in the den in his crate, watching the action and wagging his tail, but not coming out of the crate until I call his name.

His self-imprisonment touches me. I kind of understand how much pressure he must feel when confronted with an opportunity to help himself to whatever's within his reach. It's the same pressure I feel when I know there are cookies in the house.

What I've Been Reading

The Rope

by Nevada Barr

Just the Way You Are
by Barbara Freethy

Gray Matter

by Nick Pirog

Moonfixer

by CC Tillery

Blindsided

by Jay Giles

The Escape Artist

by Diane Chamberlain

Electric God

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Pawleys Island

by Dorothea Benton Frank

To read a description and reviews of any of these books,

click on its image above.

This was a good batch of books, my favorite among them being Catherine Ryan Hyde's Electric God. Hyde has written that some readers didn't like the main character, Hayden Reese, but I loved him from the get-go. Hayden, though human, is a lot like my dog, Gimpy. Sometimes he does bad things--he just can't help himself--but he's always sorry, he always tries to atone in the best way he can, and his heart has more love in it than he'll be able to give away in his whole lifetime.

Puppy Dog Tales

Three of our four dogs had to go to the vet last week for their annual examinations and shots. Only Levi was exempt, having had his turn earlier in the year. On Wednesday I went with Kim to help her wrangle Lucy and Oliver. Except for a small amount of leash tangling, they didn't really need wrangling. There was one semi-chaotic moment when the vet tech took off Ollie's leash and picked him up to carry him to the back for blood work. Lucy, still off leash from having been the first to go back there, scurried through the open door and took off down the hall. Kim and I stood by helplessly and watched half a dozen vet workers bump elbows in the narrow hall as they scrambled to catch Lucy.

On Friday I went back there with Gimpy. He's the smaller of my two Goldendoodles but much, much larger than Lucy and Oliver. Size, evidently, does not equate with courage. The same vet tech who had taken Lucy and Oliver's leashes off left Gimpy's on to lead him to the back. Gimpy had other ideas. He wouldn't go. She talked soothingly to Gimpy as she tried to pull him toward the door; he sat back on his haunches and pulled backward, his eyes steadily on me, as if begging and expecting me to come to his aid. I got up to take the leash and encourage him to go through the door, but it didn't help. The vet tech pulled Gimpy and I pushed him. When the tech brought him back a few minutes later, she said he'd been nothing but cooperative in the back.

While we waited for the vet, Gimpy relaxed, alternately lying on the floor and getting up to sniff all the equipment in the room. I was relieved that he was back to behaving normally. Then the vet opened the door, and Wimpy Gimpy was back. He scrunched his big body into the corner behind my chair as if he were trying to make himself small enough to disappear. Pulling and pushing once again, we managed to slide him on his rump far enough out of the corner for the vet to examine him. The vet and Gimpy both sat on the floor through the entire examination.

*****

Three people live in our rent house across the carport from my own home. Every time one of those people steps outside the house or pulls into the driveway in a car, our three male dogs go nuts, barking and growling like trained guard dogs bent on keeping those friendly, familiar people from entering our home.

On Tuesday, when the plumber drove his truck into the driveway, the dogs made not a peep. To keep the dogs out of the plumber's way, I had closed the gate and shut them behind the indoor fence that separates the front half of my house from the rear. They watched in curiosity as this man they'd never seen before walked in and out of the house several times, but they never made a sound.

We replayed that scene on Saturday when the air conditioner stopped cooling and I had to call out the second repairman of the week. Once again, the dogs didn't voice any warning or concern whatsoever. After the A/C repairman finished the job and I handed him a check, he asked if I'd mind if he opened the gate and played with the dogs for a minute. I gave him the go-ahead, and in seconds he was surrounded by all four of them. He petted and played with each one in turn, much to their delight and his, too. As he cuddled with Lucy, Levi broke away from the pack just long enough to retrieve a tennis ball, returning to poke it at him. The repairman bounced it toward the hall and laughed heartily as Levi and Gimpy lost their footing and skidded after it. What fun!

All the vicious barking as the neighbors come and go had made me think our dogs are good burglar deterrents. Now I'm not so sure. Maybe they are, as long as the burglar doesn't show up driving a big van and carrying a toolbox.

Baby Boy and Big Brother

As many photos as I've taken of Levi and Gimpy, this may be the first one that clearly shows the difference in their sizes. Full brothers from the same litter, Levi (on the right in the picture below) is taller than Gimpy and outweighs him by at least twenty pounds. If I correctly remember what I was told by my niece, who owned their parents, Levi was the anomaly in the litter; the other pups were Gimpy's size.

Long-time visitors here may recall that I got Levi almost a year and a half before Gimpy came to join us. They've been inseparable ever since, so close I can't imagine how either one ever got along without the other. It's even harder to imagine how I could get along without them. God, I love these curly blond boys!

The other day I was tinkering with this blog and browsing through the list of personal favorite posts in the sidebar. One of them (from 2007) featured a picture of a pile of Butch and Kadi's dog hair I'd swept up, sprayed with water, sculpted into a dog shape and digitally painted facial features on. Seeing that image again, I was surprised at how closely the fake dog resembled the two big boys I have now. Levi and Gimpy weren't even born until four years later, but maybe the idea of them was on my mind (or in my heart) way back then.