Entries tagged with dog

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I am back from my trip to Florida to celebrate my grandmother's 100th birthday. I now have over 8 hours of music from the 20s, 30s, 40s, and 50s. I used some lists of best American songs of the twentieth century to make sure i had appropriate classics. I'm not sure it registered for my grandmother, but my parents were delighted. Watching my youngest niece be inspired to dance by Rag Mop was a hoot.

I managed to spend much of the driving around in more rural routes than interstates, which was a pleasure: pines, palmettos, and cypress knees. I had brunch with a friend B in the market town of Webster FL. Only the buffet place was open. A few cows lingered in the cattle auction barns, and friend B, Carrie and I wandered the empty open market stalls. Family visits were pleasant, watching the kids fish wonderful. The place i had found for my parents and sib's families worked out wonderfully: i was gratified by a number of acknowledgements as to how pleasant it was. Tampa area weather was balmy. There were some significant emotional demands. I've returned home with one of my facial inflammations: a tiny ulcer in my mouth and an ache that consumes half my face. (Not the burning pain, at least.) Not particularly rested -- i'm glad i didn't over do it earlier in the week.

Carrie was a great road trip companion, and we visited four different dog parks. All were pleasant, and Carrie was a good participant. Winter Park's dog park has lake access and MANY squirrels. That was the best. Also, the first, and i became happy to see how willing Carrie was to stay close while off leash. I would like to have her off leash while i am working in the yard, but a road is moderately close. I was coached on dog park etiquette and dog psychology by my aunt and her husband, which eased me past my anxieties about how Carrie would take it. Then i was able to ease Christine's anxieties.

I do wonder how i could entice squirrels to play with Carrie.

Now struggling to get caught up after my absence.

Crossposts: http://elainegrey.livejournal.com/2267740.html

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Dreams

My dreams tend to have surreal landscapes. Last night's involved river-like waters and odd fishing. The night before i dreamed of a new home that had a second cottage attached. I was finally checking out the cottage and it was a maze of additions and ad hoc construction, including a school bus. It was furnished in a weird sort of dollar store luxury, odd dog kennels built in (and then i would see how plastic laundry baskets and towels were involved. And then we discovered that an older women (or women?) still lived in the maze.

I'm not sure why i would want to remember my dreams. I have a strong sense that the visual symbolism is not tightly coupled to the process that is occurring: the seeking and exploring experience seems more significant.

However, sleeping in the past two mornings i actually have snippets to remember, so there's that.

Friday night Carrie and i went over to my sisters, ostensibly to go for a walk. Instead i plopped down and had a few glasses of wine with my sister. Yesterday morning i spent with my sister at my parents, ostensibly to go through a pile of my mother's craft stuff. I cam home with block printing tools and stuff to preserve flowers. My sister: much more stuff.

We also had a long chat with my Dad who remains distressed about his mother's husband, C. C was scheduled to come home from rehab this week, but had yet another stroke. Meanwhile, Dad's mother has been paying all C's bills (including his broker bills), running her into an overdraft state. I think Dad's resolved the urgent part, but he's anxious about getting C's sister to pay his mother back. All in all he's anxious about C and his people exploiting his mother's generosity. (And C is not in need of financial generosity to survive.) (Although Grandmámá's gifts of gold to C ... eyeroll.) The long story of how C has only partially managed his affairs, such as appointing those responsible for financial & health decisions, but not telling them and not being willing to tell my father who they are, just leads to more indignation.
Because now i'm indignant that this man's selfishness and paranoia puts my dad in the uncomfortable situation of being the competent person on the scene with no authority. I know C has accused my dad of being after my grandmother's money, and dealing with such accusations weighs heavily on my father.

And, this is very comfortable middle class money: my grandmother worked for the phone company when it was an monopoly. We're not talking fiscal empires here.

The rest of the afternoon and evening i just relaxed. We did take Carrie for a walk at the walking track at the near by community college.

At home for me, elephants have been a concern. The rest of the clowder have had their own small dramas: Greycie Loo is coming out of the traumatized reaction to her teeth cleaning. Carrie was going to be spayed, but after being left at the vet, it turned out the vet & back up vets were unwell.

I've finally settled up for my road trip with Carrie, reserving places for us to stay. I remain closed up, not reaching out to family other than those here and not reaching out to friends. Hard for me to parse what is going on with that. The governance issues of this country can't be blamed for everything -- yet ....

[and then i had to go about my day]

Crossposts: http://elainegrey.livejournal.com/2267453.html

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Some light

Due to a combination of triggers, elephants had a rough handful of days. Greycie Loo, too, had a tooth cleaning. Between her vet visit and the cleaning it looks like she smashed her face into something breaking a tooth and chipping a few others. Dog scare seems the most likely cause, so i'm feeling a little guilty about that.

A major trigger looms on the horizon for the elephants (and my mother & father, depressingly enough): we'll be clear in two weeks, i expect.

Carrie Dog has a bit of surgery ahead. We did ask about laparoscopic spaying, but, wow, a bit much. I hope Carrie can do some dog park activity before then so we can get an idea of whether she's OK with dog parks. On Tuesday Carrie goes to play with Christine's sister's new puppy: that should be a good outing for them.

I will be talking some time off and have a road trip, just me and the Carrie Dog, so there's that for me to look forward to. It will be just a handful of days after her surgery: i hope we're able to relax and not be stressed about stitches management, etc.

I need to become more attentive to the garden. Seeds have all arrived, it's time to start collards and plant peas. I spent time on the raised bed yesterday: not enough time, due to rain. Today, rain or not, i need to make progress. I've 50 lbs of fescue seed for the orchard, 100 lbs of lime for the garden and, well, everywhere, and some clover seed. It's not natives, but my goal is to defeat the stilt grass. I'd been worried about the chickweed and the hairy bittercress before i ID'ed them: it was clear these were weeds on a mission. They are low growing winter annuals, neither introduced plant is yet considered invasive here. Still, i'll see how much of the chickweed rakes up before putting down the grass seed.

I'm tempted to skip Meeting, but there are donations i need to take for a collection.

I'm doing bits of civic minded work. A small group has organized in my workplace, and i'm setting up the google group etc for them. (I did offer a mailing list that wasn't google, but everyone preferred the tech giant to not.) I'm not sure what i was expecting: maybe with time we can talk about bias in our own workplace. It's more an Indivisible group than a Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) group. Ladt night i listened to a phone call sponsored by the AFSC: https://www.afsc.org/sanctuaryeverywhere I think the concept behind #SanctuaryEverywhere is what i was thinking about with safety pins.

Ugh: just thinking about #SanctuaryEverywhere makes me think about the ComingEvent and the myriad of unpleasant side distractions that are involved. The seed of the ComingEvent is my Grandmámá's 100th birthday: her husband's illness, her husband's family, miscellaneous Florida family, and awareness of less than progressive qualities in Florida all lead to a dampening of enthusiasm around what ought to be a delightful celebration.

Crossposts: http://elainegrey.livejournal.com/2266976.html

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Wednesday collapsed under the weight of too many concerns. I read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children sitting on the deck in the sun: it helped. Mental reset. Christine & elephants yesterday and the wee hours this morning. I think once Greycie Loo is back from her teeth cleaning (off to take her in shortly) things may settle here.

Measuring the weight i felt i was carrying, i decided to not attend the Raleigh march and stay home. I suspect i'll end up working outside in the rain, moving dirt.

Carrie Dog is settling in -- which actually means she's less settled. She's getting a bounce in her step and i really wish we could let her off leash in the front yard. She just isn't quite under voice control yet, and she seems attracted to going down the driveway. She's got energy we don't know how to dispel. She's not interested in fetch. Long walks seem like a good plan, and Christine's sister has suggested a local dog park. I'm thinking of trying to tie her out while i work in the yard Saturday.

Crossposts: http://elainegrey.livejournal.com/2266513.html

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Saturday was all about the DAWG. Carrie is her name now, with a nod to the fact that her rescuer's last name is Fisher. She's a hound, somewhere with English or American foxhound in her history. Wouldn't be surprised if someone told be she was a Treeing Walker Coonhound. She's tricolor, with mostly black cap and mantle.

I think she's still recovering: she spent some time isolated while undergoing worming treatments, and then joined a household with three boisterous dogs. She seems weak and tired to me, struggling to get her back legs up on the couch. I'm choosing not to take her currently sedate nature as her native nature. But, oh, sedate right now means the cats are getting used to her.

Yesterday i read John Lewis' March, a graphic novel trilogy depicting Lewis' history with the SNCC. My sister had given it to us for Christmas, and given the weekend and the president-elect's ignorance, it seemed a good day to address my own.

One: reading about and seeing images of all the violence of those years in one sitting was a bit overwhelming. I was aware of the pieces: putting the pieces together was... stunning. I've thought of nonviolent resistance as a type of "soldiering" before, recognizing the parallels between armed, violent combatants and nonviolent resistance. Reading of the training and the strategy, i am certain nonviolent resistance is just as if not more demanding of any characteristics you might glorify in a "good soldier."

I am left with the spectacle of comparison of an intelligent, compassionate, principled, educated, disciplined, courageous man who has given thought to issues from the global scale down to the family scale with the president-elect. And nausea.

Representative John Lewis' example is just stunning. May his story stir my mind and heart into action.

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Gloom was going to continue with my laptop failing to start. That has been resolved, though, so all's good.

Gotta love the new search engine techniques. I simply searched on "macbook won't start" and Google pulled up a little snippet that had, apparently, just the trick.

I miss yanking the battery out as a solution.

Gloom lifts with the lovely emails thanking Christine for standing up against the propagandistic video. Yesterday evening i shared with her the BBS goings-on. We both don't want fear to drive our decisions, and i made clear that my distress that persons would immediately call for a boycott over a post to a mailing list was not distress that she posted. And then we had a good laugh about what boycotting a blog would require.

Regarding the German shepherd question from yesterday, i think my real dog question has to do with how soon do dogs identify a family as their pack? Christine and i have been talking about D-O-Gs (when in front of the C-A-Ts): we've often talked about how when we left apartment living we would get one, or two.

So when i misspell shepherd as shepard, spell check suggests Shepard. When i misspell shepherd as shephard i get no suggestions at all. I hate schwas. I remember learning about schwas in elementary school and spelling and just being completely baffled. I don't think the a vs e schawa issue i have is related to the pen-pin merger of my native region in the southeast US.

On Monday, we were discussing how a dog would affect the cats -- and Christine remains concerned about how the cats have adapted after the move. I have cat-dog concerns too, but mainly because i would want a dog that would be large enough to be threat to the cats. I find most small dogs... unfair to dog-dom? I grew up with medium sized dogs and have a bias towards shepherds. We always had dogs and cats and never had issues -- but a neighbor's dog killed my brother's cat and i am well aware of the potential.