Category Archives: Pets

Practical angst

18 Thursday Aug 2016

Posted by in Personal, Pets, Randomness, RV, Serenity, Travel

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I bought my coconut milk in haste at the store the other day and it is vanilla-flavored coconut milk, instead of normal coconut milk. It is, to put it in a nutshell, disgusting. It is making me sad when I drink my coffee and I refuse to contemplate what it might be like on cereal. I ought to throw it away, find myself a new grocery store, and buy myself some new coconut milk, but the last “coconut milk” I bought was half almond milk, half coconut, and it was also disgusting. I did throw it away. Throwing away two almost full half gallons of milk-like substance feels so wasteful.

Plus, that time, the store didn’t have any regular coconut milk. I’m currently in a place that could be safely described as middle-of-nowhere, and I’m wary of heading out on a drive to a grocery store that might be half an hour away only to discover when I get there that it doesn’t have coconut milk. The obvious solutions occur to me — GPS nearby grocery stores, find their numbers, call them up and ask! — but I currently have no internet, so even that solution means packing up for a drive to find myself some connectivity.

Obviously, by the time you’re reading this, I will have done so, because ha-ha, posting to my blog also requires internet, but at the moment I’m feeling very disinclined to get on the road. It rained last night, gloriously heavy, so that the pounding of drops on the roof of Serenity was like living inside a maraca. And I totally have to google that word, because I’m not sure whether I’ve got the name right, but again… no internet.

So yeah, living inside a maraca, or if that’s not the right word, one of those instruments you play with as a kid, a gourd filled with seeds that you shake like a baby’s rattle. I wasn’t being shaken, but the sound was that fast, heavy rattle. It was lovely. But I had decided when last I looked at the sky that the overcast white wasn’t gray enough to bring real rain, so I left my chair and my towel and my purple-striped Mexican blanket outside.

They are well beyond damp.

I don’t want them inside Serenity.

Honestly, I don’t even want to touch the blanket. I put it down for the dogs because the ground here is hard gravel and dirt, with some puddles of mud, and I didn’t want them — Zelda especially — to choose the mud puddles as the comfiest place to get cozy. Zelda would. Bartleby also likes to roll in the dirt, but not with the same abandon. He’s not a huge fan of baths and he’s much more sensitive about the possibility of scolding. Z likes baths and she’s seldom been scolded so she luxuriates in the dirt, then comes in and goes straight to the tub. With no tub, I don’t know what she’d do, but tracking mud all over my bed has never bothered her, so I’m pretty sure it would involve me needing to do laundry. I guess I’m going to have to do that anyway, since the blanket might never be clean again. But at least after it dries I ought to be able to shake off some of the dirt and fold it up, so it’s out of the way until I manage to find a washer. My sheets, on the other hand… well, sheets are turning out to be a saga of their own.

Dirt in general is turning out to be an interesting aspect of living in a camper. I’m not a dirt-phobe. Good thing, because campgrounds are dirty and dogs track in dirt and living partially outside and otherwise in a very small space means that there is dirt. I was showering yesterday in my cute little bathroom and the floor was muddy. Not just from my dirty feet, but because I have to stash outside stuff on that floor when I’m on the move. The power cords and water hose lie on the ground outside while I’m parked and when I’m putting them away for a drive (“away” being defined as “on the bathroom floor”), I’m not worrying about the fact that they’ve picked up dirt and bits of leaf debris and grass. Generally speaking when I go camping and things get dirty, I think, well, I’ll get it clean when I get home. Except this is home.

I thought my solution would be to wipe them dry with a towel as I rolled them up to stow them away but at the end of that process, I have a dirty towel. And towels — well, towels are causing me almost as much angst as sheets.

Yesterday the radio hosts on a show I was listening to were debating how many times one should use a towel before washing it. There was an actual, honest-to-goodness argument for once. Dry yourself with a towel one time and then wash it. Um, no. I brought five standard towels with me and I’ve jettisoned two of them to take back the storage space they were using. I brought four or five dish towels with me, and that turns out to be not nearly enough. Drying dishes, wiping spills, cleaning hands after cooking, drying hands, wiping off dogs’ feet and bellies after coming in from a walk… at that point, the towel goes in the laundry bag and before I know it, I’m out of dish towels, and nowhere close to needing to do laundry for anything else.

Except maybe sheets. My sheets are causing me some serious angst, but I need to eat breakfast and get moving — and I can’t believe I haven’t written about the more interesting stuff that’s going on! — so more on sheets and sleeping later. And also the interesting stuff.

Gettysburg Farm RV Resort

08 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in Bartleby, Pets, Randomness, Zelda

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I can tell already that the campgrounds are going to blend together. Less than two weeks and I was struggling this morning to remember which one had the concrete pads, cracked and broken, with grass springing up in the ridges, and which one was like parking in a field. A nice field. With a lovely walk for the dogs. (Ans: St. John’s RV in St. Augustine for the first; Bass Lake in Dillon, North Carolina for the second.)

I don’t think I’ll forget today’s campground soon, though. There are goats! Lots and lots of baby goats, wandering around the driveway like they own the place. As, in fact, they might do. It’s a first-come, first-served campground, so after I picked my site, I wandered back up to the front to turn in a card with my site number on it. I brought the dogs, both because they needed the walk and because, like apparently a lot of campgrounds, one is not supposed to leave pets unattended. (I suspect I’m going to have to break that rule upon occasion, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.) We were headed back when we startled a little white and brown goat that had been browsing in the bushes by the mini-golf course. It bounced away like a Superball, surprising both dogs. Z looked mystified, but B was all set to charge after it.

B has been seriously rambunctious lately. It’s quite a surprise. I expected him to tolerate traveling while Z would like it, but Z’s been anxious while B’s energy level has skyrocketed. At my brother’s house, he was playing, chewing on a blanket that wasn’t his, mouthing my hands… not at all the “hide in closets” puppy that he used to be. Serenity has a screen door that I suspected would be no deterrent to Zelda if she saw a squirrel, but Bartleby was actually the one who barreled right through it — and for no other reason than that he thought it was time to be outside! He wasn’t chasing anything and he didn’t need to be walked, he just didn’t feel like being in the van so shoved his way out the door.

Or maybe he wanted to check out the campsite. I chose a spot that looks onto the water, and instead of pulling in or backing in, I parallel parked Serenity, so that she’s alongside the water. Well, I didn’t literally parallel-park. There was plenty of room, so I just pulled in as if I was parallel-parking. You can see the view from my window on instagram (because I am having trouble uploading files to wordpress.) Having trouble taking photos, too — my phone stopped letting me save photos, which is possibly the universe telling me that I shouldn’t bother? But it’s hard to resist the temptation.

So I’m going to be here for a week. It’s my first test of real life in Serenity. I’ve been living in her for two weeks already, but it doesn’t feel like it at all. It’s been two weeks of driving and learning and visiting family. I’ve felt busy and on the go. This is my chance to slow down, take some deep breaths, and get back to work. I wish I could say that the weeks in which I’ve not been writing have been inspiring me, the words piling up like water behind a log jam, but alas, such is not the case. I suspect I’m going to be off to a slow start. Still, better slow than not at all.

Walking in a cloud

01 Monday Aug 2016

Posted by in Randomness, RV, Serenity, Travel, Zelda

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Sitting in a parking lot outside the vets. Both dogs are inside, getting looked at. Poor Z was pretty frantic about being left, but B, it turns out, had a goopy ear, which inspired me to ask to have Z’s ears checked, too. And of course they’ll give her an exam, so if her stomach stuff is anything feverish, we’ll find out about it. (Given the circumstances, I’m really not worried that it’s anything more serious. Well, that’s not true. I’m worried, but only in the way that I know it’s probably not a bomb, despite my predilection for worrying about such things.)

This morning’s walk took place in something between a mist and a drizzle. I could hear the rain in the trees, but it felt like a cool damp breeze on my skin. Pretty much like walking in a cloud, I suppose, but a cloud at a temperature that felt lovely, not too warm, not too cold. I walked both dogs around the “block”, so to speak. Is it a loop in a campground? But when we got back to Serenity, Z didn’t want to go inside, so I left B and took her on something more like a hike. We walked up the road and up some more, past campers and trailers and sites more like summer homes than temporary habitations, up and up, and then found a trail through the woods that led back to the front of the campground.

It was exactly like my daydream of a week ago. Except for the bugs and the sticks that kept getting in my shoes and the drizzle. But the joy and the sense of freedom and adventure, those were exactly right.

At the entrance to the campground, we found the enclosed dog park with agility equipment inside. I took Z in and tried to get her to play on the agility equipment, the tunnel, the low fence for jumping, the ramp and slide. I always kind of thought she might love agility games. Ha. She did not understand why I would want her to take the indirect routes and wouldn’t go on a single one of the objects. I’m sure I could get her to do it if I kept her on a leash and gave her treats, but letting her run around off-leash and sniff all the corners made her happy, so I didn’t bother. Maybe later.

Family time and campground days

31 Sunday Jul 2016

Posted by in Bartleby, Personal, Pets, Randomness, RV, Serenity, Travel, Zelda

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My Saturday night was an exercise in contrasts.

It started out great. I’d had a really nice day, filled with family time. Hanging out with my niece, working on a jigsaw puzzle from my childhood. Video games with my nephew, including introducing him to World of Warcraft. Running errands with my brother. The farmer’s market, where I bought fresh kombucha and spicy radishes.

We even watched some bike racing at the Velodrome. (I mostly felt sorry for the bicyclists — it was a hot day to be dressed like they were, even without the biking really fast in circles in the sun part. bike race . )

After dinner, the whole family watched Guardians of the Galaxy. And at 10:30, my niece, sister-in-law, and I headed to Barnes & Noble for the big Harry Potter release. My niece, M, was probably one of the youngest kids there, but stayed resolutely awake. I got to sit and color with her at the Ravenclaw table while her mom waited in line.

Such a nice day.

But when I went to bed, Serenity… well, smelled. Bad. Like something had gone wrong with the black tank, where the sewage accumulates. I tossed and turned, worrying and sleepless, making plans. I’d get up, take her to a dump station. Or no, maybe a full hook-up campground would be better. I hadn’t dumped the tanks before, so I wouldn’t want to be figuring it out and maybe messing it up if I had to hurry. Still, how could it have gotten so bad, so fast? Maybe a week in the heat of summer was too much to let accumulate? But (if you’ll excuse the TMI), there wasn’t a lot in the tanks to cause a problem — I’d mostly been using the bathrooms at rest stops and campgrounds and my brother’s house. However, clearly it was enough to get bad because it was bad.

But it shouldn’t be. But it was. So was something wrong? Toss, turn, toss, turn, worry, hold my breath, try to sleep, toss, turn, worry, repeat endlessly. At 4AM, B wanted to go out. Sometime after that, maybe 5ish?, Z wanted the same. I think I finally fell asleep for a while after the sun came up, which meant I missed my chance to go to a coin show with my brother, much to my annoyance when I finally got up around 9.

And, of course, when I did get up, I discovered that the black tank was fine. One of the dogs — or maybe both of them? — had had diarrhea under the bed while I was out. Ugh. So not nice to wake up to. And made even worse by worrying about them, of course. B has been scratching himself into a scabby hairless mess and Z has been refusing to eat her kibble. I honestly think that both of them are going to love this lifestyle eventually, but at the moment, they’re both really stressed out by the change and uncertainty.

My big plan for tomorrow — one week after the house closing, the first of August, the day I had determined was going to involve lots and lots and lots of writing words — is to find a Banfield and take B to the vet. I would take Z, too, but based on my past experience with Z having digestive troubles, they’d want to keep her for observation and right now, I feel like that would be a truly terrible idea. If she’s stressed, the cure is not going to be to make her more stressed. (The first time I took her to the vet for digestive stuff — years ago, now — the vet wanted to keep her until she was eating and going normally again. After two days, they finally said, “We don’t think she’s going to eat while she’s away from you.”) So as long as she’s still enthusiastic about walking (she is!) and giving me happy smiles, I’m going to give her a few days to mellow out. The long car days weren’t good for her but the campground days are.

So yes, campground days! I stuck to my campground plan, in part to empty the tanks and in part because the house electricity in my brother’s driveway was just about enough to run the AC consistently, but not if I did anything else that took power. And it only worked if I was parked in his driveway, close enough to the house for a single cord to reach Serenity, but on a fairly steep slope. The extension cords weren’t capable of handling the load if Serenity was in the street. (I’m learning more about electricity than I ever needed to know before, including that long extension cords are not good.)

Anyway, I’m now parked in a KOA campground about twenty minutes from his house. It’s expensive, but very nice. Lots of families here — there’s mini golf and a swimming pool and a nice playground, plenty of grass and trees. The spot I’m in is huge for Serenity, with a picnic table and fire pit and big tree. We’ve gone for a couple walks, chatted with some of our neighbors, and I ate my dinner — an antipasto plate, basically, with olives, dates, prosciutto, cheese, crackers — outside at the picnic table. The best part, I think, is that Serenity is backed up to a stream. Zelda saw the stream and immediately waded right in. B saw the stream and immediately sat down and refused to move any further. So typical!

Bass Lake, Dillon, South Carolina

26 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by in Bartleby, Serenity, Travel

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376 miles today. I do not intend to do days like this often. I kept passing places that sounded intriguing and wanting to stop: historical sites and parks, beaches and artisan stores. But I just kept driving by. It is NOT the point of my adventurous life to always be moving. Well, sort of it is, but not moving without stopping at the cool stuff along the way. Once I get to Pennsylvania and unload the things that are making life in Serenity a little too complicated — she’s not really sized for carrying Christmas ornaments, china, and a large-screen television — I’m going to be slowing way down. When I see something that sounds fun, I will stop.

Not, however, when it’s a restaurant. What is it about road trips that makes unhealthy food seem so appealing? I wanted waffles today. And pancakes. McDonald’s french fries. Fried chicken. BBQ. Every time I saw a sign for restaurant I’d never heard of, I wanted to stop and check it out, and every time I saw a sign for fast food that I once liked and haven’t eaten in years, I also wanted to stop. I wasn’t even hungry most of the time. For breakfast, I had gluten-free rice Chex with fresh blueberries and coconut milk. For lunch, I had prosciutto-wrapped dates and cherries. And for dinner, I had turkey slices rolled up with peach-honey mustard, avocado, and arugula inside, with sliced radishes as a side. How could McDonald’s compare? And yet…

One of the reasons that I drove so far today was that it is seriously hot. I thought about stopping earlier in the day, but with the van moving, both of the dogs were in the front seat area, AC blasting on them, as the back got hotter and hotter. I knew if we stopped in the heat of the day, the AC would be hard-pressed to keep up. It can drop the temp about 20 degrees, I think, less if she’s sitting in full sun. So with the temp breaking 100, stopping earlier would have meant sitting inside an 80 degree van, at best, or staying outside in the heat. I could have done it and Z probably would have been fine, but poor B does not love the heat.

I accidentally gave B a full Benadryl tonight. I don’t know what I was thinking — over-tired, I guess — but I stuck the whole pill in the peanut butter and handed it to him and only thought, “Oh, wait, I usually cut it in half,” when it was already in his mouth. Not like I could get it back at that point, but I was filled with maternal anxiety. Not about whether it would be bad for him — a double-dose of Benadryl’s not going to kill him — but about whether his reaction would be stoned dog or hyper dog. Either was possible. I am feeling exceedingly fortunate that his eyes are glazed and his head nodding. I’m not exactly in the mood to entertain a bouncy ball of enthusiasm although it would be sort of fun to see B have crazy energy. It’s not his usual style. I should probably drag him out for a last walk before he completely crashes, though.

And then maybe I’ll start planning tomorrow’s journey. The question will be: zoom through North Carolina and well into Virginia, or take it easy and stop early? Except VA, it turns out, is only 3 hours away, and that seems like a pretty short day. But maybe that’s what I’m ready for. Decisions, decisions!

To-do lists

02 Monday May 2016

Posted by in Bartleby, House, Swimming, Zelda

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I looked at my to-do list and with the exception of one ridiculous item — finish writing this damn book — it is very close to being completed. Most of the items on it are either things that I am waiting on someone else to do or things that are optional. For example, wash all the windows. Well, that’s a nice idea, because clean windows look good. But if I don’t get around to washing all the windows and someone doesn’t buy the house because the windows weren’t clean, they probably weren’t someone who needed a thirty-year old house anyway.

Yesterday’s chores included buying six bags of mulch and spreading it on my front garden; organizing books and items in the garage and taking a load of books to the library donation spot; going to Lowe’s and buying lightbulbs for the overhead kitchen lights, then dragging out the big ladder to change the two that were burned out; scrubbing my bathtub to within an inch of its life (it’s still doesn’t look spotless, but it never will); and much playing and splashing with the dogs.

The last part was fun. It was a beautiful first day of May and the water was perfect. B, I think, finally really likes swimming as long as I’m close to him. He’s like a toddler in the water, running around all excited on the edge, then super-cautious about how he puts his paws in, then always checking back to make sure he hasn’t gotten too far away from safety. And Z, of course, loves the pool and playing with her basketball.

2016-04-26 13.06.13

It definitely gave me pangs about giving it up. I had the gloomy thought of “I will never find another house that I love as much as this one.” French doors to the patio, high ceilings, my window seat, my kitchen cabinets… and then I thought, yes, this is true, I will never again have to be responsible for yard work or worry about termites. Leaks I will have to worry about — apparently, water is the big problem for RVs and getting a leak is both eventually inevitable and the problem that you have to watch out for. Yes, I’ve been doing lots of reading about RVs.

Today’s goals: finish the damn book. But that brings me back to my original thoughts on writing — that goal never moves, because I’ve made it too overwhelming. I need to make it a series of smaller goals. So today’s goal: finish the scene I’m in, write the next one, figure out what happens in the one after that. And, at least temporarily, let go of worrying about the house and the RV and the future and all the things that are driving me away from the story, and concentrate on Grace.

Ironically, I thought my trip to Sarasota on Friday would be really great plotting time to finalize the order of these last scenes and maybe get some real words imagined but I spent most of it daydreaming about Fen. She’s having such great adventures in my head. I seriously am so looking forward to getting back to writing about her. First, though, Grace. And even before that, a Monday morning, a dog walk, some healthy breakfast, and so on. The fingers are warmed up and ready to go!

My Flock

25 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by in Pets, Reviews, Television, Writing

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My dad’s dog is here visiting for a week. I’m sure I’ve posted pictures of him before, but he’s just about the size of Zelda, if a bit heavier, golden and fluffy. He’s a mix of poodle and something else, maybe cocker spaniel? I should remember, but I don’t.

At any rate, three dogs underfoot and on the bed is somehow qualitatively different than two dogs. Instead of having a couple of dogs, I have a flock of dogs. And they are a flock, not a pack, because they are all fluffy. It’s a little collection of fluff balls. Alone, none of them are too, too fluffy — well, B pushes the line. But put them together and suddenly, it’s a serious fluff experience. I would love to get a really good picture of the three of them, but I can never quite get all of them to be cute at the same moment, unless I’m in the kitchen, in which case I don’t have a camera around.

And I am babbling in order to avoid the reality that it’s already past noon and I have written exactly one sentence this morning. I should try to write a second one, because maybe it would lead to a third and then a fourth. I haven’t broken my writing streak yet — I have written every day of 2016 — but the past two days were not good writing days. I’m annoyed at myself, because I can see how I’m being resistant, even sort of understand why, and yet… knowing my reasons doesn’t help me overcome the sensation of wanting to do anything, anything other than write.

I’ve even watched a lot of television. I started watching Person of Interest because of a clip online about the dog, Bear. I am fairly sure I got hooked mostly because I wanted a distraction and it fit the bill, but I’m definitely hooked now. Sometimes it crosses the line into hokey-ness and melodrama and I definitely need to exercise my willing suspension of disbelief, sometimes to a fairly extreme level, but it is, unexpectedly, a show with incredibly fun, powerful female characters.

Ugh, and I just got totally sucked into an Internet rabbit hole of reading about the characters because I wanted to link to my favorite one. But the links I found were all so spoiler-ific that I will not do that to you! I’m also feeling a little bummed that I spoiled myself. Apparently my favorite character (Shaw) misses most of Season 4, because the actress was out on maternity leave. Ironically, the actress also played a character I loved in the television show Life and also disappeared from that show to have a baby. I guess it’s nice that she likes kids! And sort of funny, given the seriously tough, kickass characters she plays. I’d love to see her playing the same type of character pregnant. That would be… huh, you know I bet someone has written the fanfic of that. Okay, I’m not going to fall down that rabbit hole, but I am going to stop letting myself be distracted and go stare at my own story world for a while. But Person of Interest — quite fun if you can suspend your disbelief and don’t mind lots and lots and lots of guns.

Friends and food

04 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by in Food, Personal, Pets, Randomness

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A friend dropped by the other day around eleven and we walked the dogs together. When we got back, I invited her in and offered her lunch. She did that polite demurral thing, but when I said, “Really, I’ve got plenty,” she accepted. I made us salads — mixed greens topped with chicken apple sausage, sautéed onion, apple, and toasted pecans. And on mine, a little goat cheese. She doesn’t eat dairy. Plus, balsamic vinegar. That’s a normal lunch for me, and it was no big deal to make more, but she raved about how delicious and healthy it was.

That evening, another friend stopped by to show off his new purchase — the batmobile of motorcycles, a Victory motorcycle, I’m going to say this one. It was gorgeous. I’d been in the middle of cooking dinner, so I invited him in. He said, “Are you sure you have enough?” and I said, “You might have to eat something more later, but I’ve got extra.” He came in and I chopped up some more squash and made salads that I hadn’t been planning to make, so we had steelhead trout marinated in soy sauce (gluten-free), sriracha, and lime juice and sautéed, with yellow squash sautéed with ginger, plus a salad of mixed greens, celery, radishes, and a peach honey mustard vinaigrette. He said it was probably the first salad he’d eaten in a month and the best meal he’d had in a while.

Yesterday, my same dog-walking friend came by early and walked the dogs with me again — she likes the exercise and B is much, much better at walking when there are two of us for some reason. Maybe because I can really leave him behind when someone else is holding his leash and so then he hurries to keep up? But I had coffee already made, so invited her in and made us breakfast. (She again said, “Oh, no, you don’t have to do that,” to which I answered, “I have bacon.” :)) We had eggs, scrambled with onion, spinach, cilantro, and avocado and cooked in coconut oil (to avoid the dairy), with the bacon on the side. The eggs were actually seriously delicious. Great combination of flavors, and the coconut oil worked really well. It’s a different flavor than butter would give, but a tasty flavor.

Anyway, that day — well, or 24-hour period, since it was really one day to the next — that day was once my fantasy. When I started learning how to cook, it was mostly so that I could feed myself, but there was also a wistful daydream associated with it of being able have someone drop by and whip up a meal for them in the kitchen like it was no big deal. To have a friend over and feed them without having to plan, without having to run to the grocery store or buy ingredients. To open the refrigerator and say, “what can I make with what I’ve got?” and have the meal turn out as delicious and interesting as if I was in a restaurant.

It’s taken me seventeen years or so, but I wish I could go back in time to my younger self, the me that was going through a divorce, alone in a dive-y apartment with a three year old, feeling overwhelmed and grief-stricken and angry, angry, angry, and thank her. The decision she (I) made to learn to cook was made out of frustration and financial insecurity and loneliness. I knew that if I was ever going to be the parent that R deserved, I needed to be able to feed him more than pasta and fruit. But what a good decision it was.

Edited to add: my friend Tim congratulated me on this moment by saying, “Congrats on adulting to the extreme,” which made me laugh. It is the perfect summation of how I feel.

Towels

25 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by in Bartleby, Boring, Personal, Pets, Zelda

≈ 8 Comments

I did laundry this weekend and actually washed ALL the things. Sheets, towels, tablecloths, clothing — by the end of the weekend, all the fabric in my house was clean. Go, me!

Except it turned out to be a terrible idea. I was also freezing all weekend long, wondering whether my heater was broken. I didn’t have two feet of snow, but the temperature was down in the 30’s and 40’s, which for us is cold. It was only on my last load of laundry that I realized that my thermostat is on the wall outside the laundry room. With the dryer running all weekend, the thermostat thought the house was lovely and warm. In my bedroom, I thought socks under the covers were barely enough to get by. Grr… or maybe I should be saying Brr…?

Post all the laundry, I needed fresh towels in my bathroom. I went looking for my favorites, the ones that belong in there. They’re blue, soft and thick, and big. Bath sheets, really, not towels. I’ve got plenty of towels, of course, but those two are the best. I couldn’t find them. I checked all the places towels might remotely hide. The other bathroom, the cupboard, the linen closet, my closet… no towels. I hadn’t seen them for a while but I’d just been assuming that they were somewhere — in a laundry basket or in the laundry room — but no.

And then I remembered — before R went back to school, he asked if he could take towels with him.

I told him, sure, of course.

He asked whether it mattered which ones he took.

I told him to take whichever ones he liked.

He pushed, said, “Are you sure? Any of them?”

I said, “Yeah, we’ve got plenty of towels. Take the ones you want.”

He started explaining to me how he really didn’t like the towels he had, because they weren’t absorbent enough and they didn’t dry fast enough and he liked softer towels, and I, frankly, tuned him out, because a) towels, not the most interesting subject, and b) I was in the middle of getting ready to have people over and thinking about food and cleaning.

In retrospect, perhaps I should have paid more attention.

There’s a part of me that’s annoyed — if I had not thought that MY towels were safely in my bathroom or laundry, I would not have told him he could take whichever towels he wanted. But mostly, I feel a mix of pleasure — I have raised a boy who is aware of the importance of quality linens, ha — and amusement — that teaches me to not pay attention when R is talking! He might even have specifically asked about the blue towels when he was telling me why the towels he had at school were not good enough. Oh, well. I do have plenty of towels, so I’ll survive.

Have I mentioned how much B loves the blow dryer? I don’t usually use a blow dryer but I’d gotten it out recently when I had to leave the house and it was cold and my hair was wet. B danced with delight. Up on his back legs, which he does not usually do, to tell me how excited he was. He knew exactly what it was and he loves it. Since then, I’ve been blowing him dry after his bath. It’s his favorite thing. Z watches us from two feet away, a little jealous of the doting attention that B’s getting but also really reluctant to come near the thing that makes noise. She’s not fond of noisemakers that might be vacuum cleaners.

Anyway, the other day we went for a walk in the rain. Typically, B refuses to walk in the rain. That day, he thought about it at the door and decided to come with us. I was surprised, but when we got home, he went straight to the spot where I’ve blown him dry (a floor outlet) and sat down. It was a very clear demand. My dogs have me so well trained.

Eleven years old

18 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by in Randomness, Zelda

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The electric company let me know that there was a power outage in my area. Wasn’t that kind of them? Then they let me know when it was scheduled to be fixed. Then they let me know that it was fixed! So supportive, so helpful, such great information.

Seriously, I might have appreciated it if the texts hadn’t come in all before 6:15AM. And/or if I’d had the ringer on my phone turned off, which I often do. As it is, I’m trying to not let it affect my attitude toward the week ahead. Or even toward the day ahead.

So far, I have not made it to yoga a single time in 2016. I would like today to be the day. But between the phone calls and the weather, I haven’t walked the dogs yet and in my current state of health, I probably don’t have the energy to both walk the dogs and go to yoga. I’m caught in the trap of being sick and wanting comfort food and not being able to get healthy because I keep eating comfort food. Alas. It’s a bad trap for me. I can know that I feel crappy because I ate food that I shouldn’t eat but at the same time, I don’t feel well enough to put the effort into eating the way I should.

And while I know that getting back to yoga would be really good for me, today is Zelda’s birthday. Eleven years old! (I know I’m getting the year right, but I admit to a slight possibility that the day is wrong. I know exactly how I could find out for sure, but it would involve moving a bunch of stuff to get at a scrapbook and I am currently too lazy.) Anyway, it seems really unfair to not walk the dog on her birthday. In years past, I would have gotten pizza and ice cream and shared both with her. I’m sort of tempted to do that this year, too — I’m sick anyway, so what difference does it make? — but I am quite sure that Zelda, both long-term and short, would prefer that I had the energy to go for long walks with her. There is nothing she likes better than a really long walk. Even swimming wouldn’t beat it. Unless it was walking and swimming at the beach, which would probably be her ultimate doggie fantasy birthday!

So, okay, decision made. No yoga, dog walking instead. And making healthy eating choices so that maybe I can make it to yoga on Wednesday instead!

Zelda at the beach

Zelda’s a great beach dog. Well-behaved off-leash and loves the water