Category Archives: Pets

Yoga and dogs

27 Tuesday Jan 2015

Posted by in Grief, Mom, Personal, Pets, Randomness, Yoga

≈ 2 Comments

Yesterday was a seriously tearful day. It’s been a while since I grieved so fiercely, but for the day — ugh, and now this morning, too — I missed my mother so intensely that the tears just kept flowing. It has gotten easier — I used to have days like that all the time and this was the first one in months — but the hole doesn’t go away.

That’s not what I wanted to write about, though. In yoga last week, when the wonderful yoga instructor was giving instructions for wild thing (camatkarasana), I … followed the instructions. And did the pose. A year ago, wild thing was one of those poses that I scoffed at. Ha, ha, yeah, no way. No way was my body ever getting into that position. Not going to happen. Not in a million years. Or, you know, as it happened, one year.

Yoga, for me, has been a little about the exercise but mostly about the mindfulness, trying to be in the present, trying to breathe and let myself feel. If it had just been exercise, I wouldn’t have lasted more than a few weeks, because I’ve never really cared that much. Most exercise has seemed pointless to me. Run three miles? Why would I want to? But I was so satisfied last week, so pleased with myself. I want to remember that feeling.

Last night, both dogs were being snuggly. Zelda hates it when I cry — well, or possibly she likes it, because she is passionate about trying to thoroughly clean my face if there are tears rolling down it — but Bartleby was, if anything, worse. For Z, once the tears are stopped, it’s over. She heaves a sigh of relief, and goes back to chewing on a toy or sleeping or doing one of those doggie investigations of the backyard. But Bartleby appears to think that tears mean he should put his entire body on top of me and stay there indefinitely. He’s like a cat. Well, except that I don’t think most cats care if their people cry. But he was not going away and he was not getting off and that made Zelda worried, too. I finally wound up lying in bed with a dog on each arm, completely cuddled up next to me, their heads by my shoulders. And then they went to sleep. And both of them started to snore! Not in the same rhythm. Crackle-wheeze, crackle-wheeze, crackle-wheeze. I felt, in that moment, supremely blessed and very lucky. Also, eventually, ridiculously stiff. I finally slid them off my arms and rolled over to sleep myself, where I dreamed that Christian Kane was my personal trainer and that running felt like flying. It was a good dream.

Sushi with rice, wasabi, soy sauce (gluten-free), and white wine yesterday — four things I am not allowed to eat. I feel okay today, though. Okay enough to go stare at my file and wish I remembered how to write.

Home for the holidays

10 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by in Bartleby, Marketing and promotion, Personal, Pets, Self-publishing, Zelda

≈ 2 Comments

R is home from school, which makes me happy, happy.

Except that because he’s 6’4″ and the daybed available for sleeping on is not, I’m sleeping in the living room on the small bed. This would be fine/is fine, except that Bartleby, who is the smallest creature in the house (well, bar any unknown creatures like spiders or beetles), is a bed hog. I cannot count how many times I woke up last night feeling like there was no room for me, only to discover that somehow the thirteen-pound chihuahua had angled his way into half the space and Zelda and I were curled up in what was left.

I would try to move him back but he sleeps like a log in the water. You push him and he rolls closer. Whenever I would finally give up and get up enough to lift him into a better position, it meant entirely re-arranging the bed. He finally wound up sprawled across the pillow like a cat, with Zelda and me in the remaining 3/4 of the bed.

R will be home for three weeks, which means B is going to have to get a little more reasonable about sharing the bed. I’d say I’d leave him on the ground, but past experience has taught him that if he makes a low rumble on the ground closest to my head for long enough, I will give in and pick him up. He’s trained me well. But we’ll figure it out, I’m sure.

Yesterday, Ghosts was included in a mailing from themidlist.com. The download numbers were great for a site that doesn’t change for advertising: 695 copies downloaded during the day. I spent money this summer to have Ghosts automatically posted to multiple sites ($15 for 32 sites) and didn’t get results from any of them that were noticeable, plus $30 on Digital Book Today for about 180 downloads, so the midlist results are pretty impressive, comparatively. (Probably I should be writing this on my business blog instead of here — c’est la vie.) Anyway, the weird thing was Amazon’s sales ranks. The sales rank didn’t rise during the day for hours. Instead it kept getting lower. My fascination meant a ton of wasted time while I looked at the sales rank and tried to calculate the math. If 300 downloads meant that my rank dropped 3000 numbers, how many free downloads was Amazon getting? I felt like I was discovering some fascinating business news–Amazon free downloads reaching an amazing peak–but when I came home from bringing C back to her mom (at 8 or so), Ghosts’ rank had skyrocketed to about #280 in the free store. It’s dropped back to 300+ now, so that was its peak, and the numbers were just a glitch or delay in Amazon’s reporting.

Next week I’m running my first ever promotion on A Lonely Magic. Now that it finally has a new cover, I’m doing the Kindle Countdown Deal and lowering the price to .99 for a week. I’ve paid for one ad, $20 on Booksends, so I’m not exactly going crazy with the promotion. But since I haven’t finished writing the sequel yet, there’s no hurry.

Speaking of writing, I should go do some. This feels like writing, but it’s not the kind that might ever let me stop feeling anxious about my mortgage payment, so it probably doesn’t count.

But R’s home. Yay!

Clever Title Here

15 Monday Sep 2014

Posted by in Boring, Personal, Randomness, Writing, Zelda

≈ 8 Comments

Not a very clever title, is it? But it’s Monday morning and I’m sick. The dog has been trying plaintively for two hours to get me to take her for a walk and I’m just not up to it. My muscles hurt, my chest is heavy, my throat itches, oxygen isn’t making it through my sinuses… so I have to type. Zelda is smart enough to know that when I’m engaged in any other activity, I *might* be willing to take her for a walk, but when my hands are on the keyboard, I’m working and it’s not going to happen. So writing is, at the moment, a self-defense against a dog who doesn’t understand the difference between a human with a cold and a human who’s being lazy.

I really resent this cold. I’m three plus weeks into the 30-day autoimmune protocol diet, and I have been so, so good. I haven’t cheated once. To the best of my knowledge, not a single bit of any of the forbidden foods has crossed my lips. I say “to the best of my knowledge” because a couple times I used something, then later looked at the ingredient list. Green ginger tea apparently has “natural flavors” in it. I have no idea what those natural flavors might be so maybe they’re okay and maybe they’re not. I stopped drinking ginger tea after I figured that out.

I figured it out because eh. Even before the cold, I wasn’t feeling as good as I had hoped I would. So maybe I need to stick with it longer or maybe I need to up my doses of fermented foods and organ meats or maybe I need to try the FODMAP version… but at the moment, I’m not convinced it’s worth it. On the other hand, I have a cold. I feel like crap. So possibly now is not the best time to be making this call.

The good news of having a cold: I binge-watched Once Upon A Time over the weekend. Just the first season. I don’t think I would have gotten into that show without a need for sleepy sick television, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have stuck with it–it gets quite slow during the middle of the season–but I’m happy I did if only for the sake of the story of Red Riding Hood. What a great twist on a fairy tale! I won’t provide spoilers, but watching the whole season was worth it just for the development of that character.

The bad news of having a cold: well, it’s a cold. Sufficient bad news, yeah? But writing just hasn’t been going well at all. I’m not finding Fen’s voice again. I’m going to go back and start the first chapter over–I think it’s the right time, the right place, the right overall experience, but there’s something wrong with it and I think it might be Fen. But I suspect that’s probably not going to happen today. Today feels an awful lot like a lie in front of the television drinking green tea and piling up tissues sort of day, and good news for me, I still have two more seasons of Once Upon a Time to watch.

As for my website redesign… well, I changed the site. But I realized as I spent hour upon hour trying to create materials that would be my “landing page” on the Web, my “portal” to selling my books to new readers, that I really just don’t want to turn my blog into that sort of space. I’ve been posting here off-and-on for eight years and it’s personal, not professional. Changing it, fine. Making it a “sales tool”–nope, not okay with me. So I’ll have to think about that some more, I guess. Maybe I can optimize the Rozelle Press site so that it becomes top of the search results for my author name and then it can be the professional marketing space and this can stay my nice little casual, low-tech, unprofessional corner of the internet.

The most fun object in my universe *

13 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by in Bartleby, Pets, Randomness, Zelda

≈ 5 Comments

* Within my budget

Yesterday I took R to the actual mall to buy new shoes for school. Pro tip: if the mall parking lot is so crowded that multiple cars are illegally parked on grassy verges and over curbs, you’re not going to like the lines or the crowds.

But we persevered, because he leaves on Saturday (!!!) and eventually wound up with two pairs of Vans shoes, one a subdued gray and the other black with a blue pattern. They’re very nice and quite R-appropriate. I did decide, however, that since I was surviving a situation which is pretty high on my personal list of nightmares, I deserved a present for myself. A cheap present. Something fun. And/or something useful, but if useful, still cheap.

As we wandered the mall, I considered my options. No, no, no, no. Too expensive, not fun enough, too unnecessary, too wasteful, not fun enough. I considered some soft t-shirts for a while. I could use a few new t-shirts. But I could tell that they were the kind that would wear really quickly–worn for a summer and then good-bye, and even at $15 for 2, I didn’t think they were worth it.

On the way out of the mall, I felt sad. Sadder, I guess. Robin Williams’ death hit me hard. To have someone so successful, so gifted, so loved, lose the fight to depression is heartbreaking. But it’s also frightening. If, with everything he had, he couldn’t make it out of the black hole, will my hole someday be that deep? (My psychiatrist, incidentally, promises me no, and I take her at her word. Well, to the best of my ability, I take her at her word.)

Addicts probably felt the same way about Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death. And I know, #depressionlies. Also depression hurts, also depression comes back, also depression kills. People diagnosed with bi-polar disorder get 9 years knocked off their life expectancy and not just because of the risk of suicide, but also because of higher rates of every kind of health misery. (I remind myself of this every time I worry about the fact that I’m using up my retirement savings trying to be a writer. It matters less for me because I’m likely to have a short retirement at best, ha.)

Although lord, I really hate the people who say, “he’s in a better place.” Talk about making suicide tempting! Seriously, what’s up with that? During my earliest suicidal periods, the risk of burning in hell for eternity was a thread that tied me here. I’m not going to say it kept me alive, but if I’d thought suicide was a shortcut to heaven… well, that wouldn’t have been good for me.

But I have now seriously digressed from my story. I was sad. So I started thinking about what single object–within my extremely limited budget–could possibly make me happy? Store after store after store in the mall, all of them filled with stuff, and what object would make me happy?

I was almost out of the mall when I thought of the answer.

Zelda's best-beloved toy

Zelda’s best-beloved toy

Zelda has owned this duck for at least eight years. When a visitor comes over, she brings the duck out to the living room and offers it to them. At night-time, she searches for it. When we were on vacation, the first night she tried very intently, repeatedly, to tell me something and I finally figured out that I’d forgotten to bring her duck. Two nights ago, it was shut in the wrong room at bedtime and I had to disturb R after he’d gone to bed to retrieve it in order to get Zelda to relax. She always sleeps with it, generally after licking it for a while.

And it’s wearing out in a big way. I’ve sewed it up several times. One wing is half-chewed and both wings are held on by replacement thread. The beak’s missing, the head wobbles. It is as well-loved as any kid’s teddy or blankie. There is no way it can ever be replaced. But! The most fun object in my universe, within my budget, is definitely another duck for Zelda. So I came home and splurged and bought this plump duck. It arrives tomorrow (with some squeaky chipmunks for Bartleby and Macie, because I can’t buy one dog a toy and not give the others something) and I am so, so, so glad that the universe contains dogs and dog toys and dog love.

A dog post

11 Monday Aug 2014

Posted by in Bartleby, Pets, Randomness, Zelda

≈ 1 Comment

For the entire time I’ve had him, Bartleby has been anxious in the car. He whimpers, he fusses, he climbs around, he tries to get into my lap while I drive or escape from his carrier if I’ve used it. It makes sense–one day last summer, his people must have stuck him in a car and then dropped him off all alone, totally throwing his world into chaos, so it’s not as if it’s unreasonable for him to be worried about car rides. Dogs remember trauma, even if they don’t exactly remember the details.

When we went on vacation, I figured he’d calm down. An hour or two on the road, and he’d relax.

Not so much.

Writing about it now, it does seem a little optimistic of me, but I thought he’d get tired and go to sleep. And the RV was nice and big with plenty of places for a dog to nap, especially for a dog who likes to hide in small spaces. Under the table, behind the bed, on the floor of the passenger-side seat–lots of options.

Instead he cried and fussed and tried to get in my lap and was a general pain for days. He made himself thoroughly unpleasant to R, growling and snapping at him when I was driving. He also had ear infections for which he needed daily ear cleanings and ear drops and he was miserable about those. He wound up biting me once, actually drawing blood, when I was trying to hold him still and I finally had to muzzle him twice daily. Eesh.

But I persevered, of course, and we were on the road, so it wasn’t as if I could change plans, and when he was mean to R, I made sure to be super-nice to R, petting his arms and talking softly to him. R thought that was creepy, I think, but Bartleby needed to see that R outranked him in our pack and that growling at R meant R got attention and love. That was my theory, anyway.

I think it was a good theory. By the time we were driving home, Bartleby had relaxed. His favorite seat was the front passenger side. He’d curl up in it and sleep, then stand up on his back legs, peek out the window, check the road, then lie back down and go back to sleep again. He stopped whimpering and while he didn’t exactly get easy about his ear drops, I don’t have to muzzle him every time anymore. And he stopped growling at R, as far as I can judge.

And I think my optimism has been rewarded. Now that we’re at home, Bartleby is being a sweetheart. Over the course of the year that he’s been with me, he relaxed a lot. He went from constantly hiding to generally hanging out with us. He’s a lap dog, and loves to be held and petted, but he also… well, expects to be ignored, if that makes sense. He’s a self-sufficient little guy. (Not literally, obviously–he does not go out hunting his own dinner.) In the last week, though, he seems to have gone from a reserved affection to decided fondness. Nothing like Zelda’s level of devotion, of course–Zelda is the poster girl for unconditional doggie adoration. But a notch up. So much so that he is now (for the first time) responding to his name when called, sitting down upon command whether or not I have dinner in my hand, and every once in a while tentatively licking me. I would think it cute how careful he is with his kisses, if I didn’t mostly think it’s sad that he’s so cautious.

He’s still getting ear drops and he still hates it, but he watches me and listens to me, and mostly puts up with it. Such a good dog he is.

In a related R story, R found a Yorkie in the road the other day. No tag, no collar, tangled fur. He made his friend stop her car so he could get out and get the dog out of the road and then they wandered door to door for a bit looking for an owner. And/or someone who would take the dog off their hands. He said he spent the whole time with a deep fear that he was going to wind up bringing the dog home with him and that we would end up with four dogs living with us. I think maybe he’s afraid that I’m turning into the dog version of the crazy cat lady. But eventually an owner came out of a house and claimed the Yorkie, so with much relief, he was free. He told me this story and I laughed, as I was meant to, but afterwards, I was so ridiculously filled with pride. He stumbled across a lost dog and he didn’t just leave it in danger or to be someone else’s problem. He took the time to make sure the dog was safe. Such a good boy he is.

Judgements

10 Tuesday Jun 2014

Posted by in Bartleby, Personal

≈ 3 Comments

I invited a couple people over for dinner last Friday. And then, one thing leading to another (mostly the people I like having significant others that they like) we wound up having a dinner party of 10 people. It was lovely. We ate on the back porch, the butterfly lights and torches alight, with much delicious food, and a rousing game of Cards Against Humanity before the evening ended.

One of the guests was a stranger to all of us (except the guy who brought her) and her reaction to CAH was a fascinating, “but you’re all going to be judging me.” Nope, only on how funny her answers were and she was tied for the win at the end of the evening, so go her, but it made me think about judgement.

I always tell people the full story of how Bartleby came to be my dog when they meet him. Literally, it’s the most boring story in my repertoire, because if you say, “hey, cute dog,” I’m going to share with you how he showed up in my backyard during a thunderstorm, and how I give him eyedrops in the morning, Benadryl at both meals, glucosamine and omega three oils in the evening, and how he’s got chronic dry eye and patellar luxation and allergies to all grains and maybe dairy, etc. etc. And sometimes–not always, but often–people respond with things like, “he was lucky to have found you.”  And I always feel vaguely like, “no, that’s not the right response.”

Enlightenment struck on Saturday. I realized, because of thinking about judgement and people judging us, that I tell people these stories because I’m still seriously embarrassed about owning a chihuahua. Possibly mixed with a “mini-pin” according to one of our guests. I don’t even know what these minis are! But I tell people his history so that they won’t think me a chihuahua person, even while he barks to get into my lap and I follow his orders, and then spend the CAH game petting the lap dog who occasionally tries to lick my nose.

Fundamentally, I don’t need people to think me a good person for rescuing a stray: I just need them to know that I wouldn’t have gotten a chihuahua if he hadn’t wandered into my backyard and needed me. So now that I know that, I hope I can stop telling his story. Yep, I own a chihuahua. (OMG, how embarrassing.)

But the peril of judgement is that you never know all of what you’re judging. Every story has dimensions that the surface doesn’t show.

If I were a filmmaker…

05 Monday May 2014

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

≈ 2 Comments

Not really a serious filmmaker, just someone good with a camera, I would make a movie of my two dogs and their styles of playing Fetch. Possibly I should call it playing with balls, rather than Fetch, because the fetching part… not so effective.

Zelda (a fifteen-pound Jack Russell terrier) doesn’t like small balls. She likes basketballs. I think I posted a movie once of her playing with the basketball in the water, but the balls are twice the size of her head. I throw the ball in the water, she jumps in after it, herds it to shore with her nose, corners it and chews it until she succeeds in popping it, and then, triumphantly, brings me the remains. Then we play with the remains for a while.

Bartleby doesn’t know how to play. Not at all. We’ve been working on it, trying to encourage him, being enthusiastic–I actually made him a toy from a couple socks because he won’t go near real dog toys and every once in a while, I can get him to chew on that for a while. But today he was out by the pool with us and I could see that he wanted to play. He kept sort of trying, until finally I got up and found a tennis ball. Tried to get him to take it from me. He wouldn’t. But when I placed it on the ground between his feet, he actually put his mouth on it, then carried it about ten feet away and dropped it. I was so pleased and so proud of him. Yay, Bartleby, you go, you moved a toy! So I went and got it and we did it again. And then again. And then I realized that Bartleby’s version of Fetch requires that the person do the fetching. He does the removing, I do the retrieving. But hey, it’s a game, and he’s playing.

So the movie would be two minutes long, one a super-condensed version of Zelda taking three hours to retrieve the basketball (because she has to destroy it first) and one of Bartleby taking the tennis ball and moving it ten feet away. My dogs. So sweet they are.

In other news, I haven’t written anything for a week. I’m doing a presentation at an Orlando library this weekend and it’s occupying more of my brain than it should. It was meant to be a repeat of a presentation I’ve given before, but I feel like I have new things to say about context and layering and point-of-view. So I haven’t written that yet, but I will and then I have to decide what to write next.

I think one of the reasons that I haven’t moved on is that I really haven’t. I gave ALM to the editor but I have a pretty lengthy list of edits I want to make to it, ranging from stuff like “do I mention cookies too often?” to “make scene x more plausible by adding y details.” Some of them are fairly big edits. I have one idea–courtesy of Barbara (thanks, I think?)–that would mean at least another major chapter/scene to write and more dramatic ending revisions, so I’m contemplating that. Not with a ton of enthusiasm, but if it makes the book better, it’s worth it. But I can’t do anything until I get it back from the editor in June. Writing it was definitely a lot more fun than editing it has turned out to be!

To the people who dumped their dog on my street last July…

05 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by in Bartleby

≈ 5 Comments

Just so we’re clear, I pretty much still hate you.

But I thought you might like to know how your boy is doing.

Let’s start with the eyes. Incredibly goopy, chronic dry eye, probably going to go blind some day. But it turns out that one dose a day of cyclosporine does a great job of keeping them clear. I’ve done the math and it costs me about twenty-five cents a day–and you know, I can live with that.

Now the joints. That limp? Or maybe I should say those limps? The poor guy has three legs with patellar luxation. Frankly, that just sucks for him. I’m thinking you bought him from a puppy mill and that whoever puts that puppy mill out of business is doing God’s work because no dog should have to live with knees that dislocate so easily. That said, on the days when he doesn’t want to walk, he doesn’t. The rest of the time, he comes out with us and walks a mile or more and is perfectly happy to smell all the smells and bark at the other dogs. It’s sort of obvious that you never walked him–he didn’t have the leash concept down at all–but he trots along next to me now like a trooper most days. I’m fairly sure he likes it, based on how excited he gets when he sees his leash come out.

Then the allergies. Oh, my gosh. You know, I’m totally sympathetic to you on this one. The poor dog is allergic to everything. He has an intimate familiarity with the cone of shame–I’m quite sure you put it on him more than once and it did no good, he still scratched himself bloody. The good news is that a healthy diet of only good, limited-ingredient dog food, with salmon for treats and a little additional omega-oils on his kibble, has done wonders. His skin is much healthier, not so many dry flakes, and most of his fur has grown back in. He can’t eat anything with flour without paying for it for weeks, and I’m pretty sure chicken is also on his no-no list, but as long as he gets only dog food and salmon, he’s pretty comfortable.

I say pretty comfortable–the reality is, though, he still chews on himself. What, did you never give him toys? I’ve figured out that he chews himself like the other dogs chew on treats, stuffed animals, rawhide, bones… when he’s bored, when he’s lonely, instead of looking for a toy, he chews his tail or his paw. I suspect you crated him for eight hours a day. Maybe more. Maybe when you figured out that you couldn’t keep him healthy, you spent more and more time with him locked in a box because you felt guilty and couldn’t bring yourself to deal with the guilt. At any rate, we’re working on that. I can’t say that I’ve figured it out yet, but given that he no longer spends his time hiding, I think I’ll get there.

Oh, right, about the hiding: when he first showed up here, his default position was to find a place to disappear. My closet, underneath furniture, in dark corners. He made himself invisible on a regular basis. I kept thinking he was gone as completely as he’d arrived. Now? Not so much. At any given moment, he’s most likely in physical contact with me. Usually snoring, I admit. Often upside-down, belly exposed. Frequently tucked into my elbow while I try to type above him.

I hope that image is clear enough that you get the most important part of this picture: your dog is being well taken care of. You suck. Really, truly, no matter what, you ought to feel like crap that you left your dog, your sweet, lovable, goofy dog, out on the street, trusting to luck and hope that he would find a home.

But… that said… he did find a home.

I can’t understand why you did what you did. I don’t know where you were coming from. But I do know that he is so sweet that no matter how neglectful you were, no matter how overwhelmed, no matter how out of your depth, you did love him. He is a dog that has been loved. And I feel so sorry for you that you gave that up. So sorry that for whatever reason you couldn’t manage to accept the responsibility that love brings with it. Mostly, though, I’m sorry for your loss. You made a horrible decision. I don’t know how you can live with yourself.

But you got lucky. Or maybe I got lucky. Because he isn’t your dog any more. He’s my dog. And I want you to know that I love him, that I am taking care of him, that he gets eye-drops every morning and omega oil every evening, and that he is loved, loved, loved.

A season of peace

30 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by in Personal, Pets

≈ 4 Comments

I’m sitting on my bed, shivering, because the back door is open and there’s a cool breeze flowing through. I know in most places in the US right now shivering would be an understatement–you wouldn’t have your back door open this time of year–but it’s not comfortable. Obviously, I should get up and close it, but I have one dog on my right, gently snoring, one dog on my left, peacefully curled into a ball, and a third dog on my feet. This is a precarious, precious moment of equilibrium and I don’t want to jeopardize it by moving.

This week has been grueling. I’m exhausted. Major, major, major mistake: making appointments for the dogs to have vet procedures while C was away.

Bartleby, poor boy, finally got neutered. That shouldn’t be a big deal, but he chews on himself. And it turns out that he is very, very familiar with the cone-of-shame and a little bit of an escape artist when it comes to it. He growls steadily the whole time I try to get it on him and when it’s finally on, he wanders off and finds a wall to push it against until he’s getting his head almost out of it. I either need a cone that’s tighter around the neck, but that doesn’t seem possible, or one that’s longer but still just as tight around the neck. I think I’m going to head back to the pet store this afternoon to try again. Meanwhile, I feel like I’ve spent hours chasing him around saying, “No! No chewing!” which he ignores, unless I physically stop him and pet him for a while.

Zelda, poor girl, went in to have her teeth cleaned and wound up having four of them pulled. I can’t say I was surprised–I’ve been worrying about her teeth for years, because several of them were broken. But she’s been in a lot of pain, and a bit of a state of shock. Before she was in pain, we’d established that she was okay with M around (M is C’s dog). For three nights, M slept on my bed with B and Z, and it was crowded–three dogs is a lot–and I didn’t sleep well, but it was okay. After Z was hurting, though, she was no longer willing to let M be in the bed. Or near me. Or in the kitchen. Or on the couch. Z in pain is about ten times more territorial than she is when not in pain and she’s always somewhat territorial.

I wonder if somehow she blames M for the pain? It could be. Her hostility first started when I needed to take M for a walk and Z and B didn’t feel well enough to come along. M has a lot of energy and is bigger than either of the others: she really needs a serious walk to burn off some of her bounciness. Z just wasn’t up for it. We made it halfway down the street and then she stopped walking and just stood and shook. We went home and I took M for a walk on her own, but by the time we came back, Z had gotten growly. And then it rained for two days. M’s opinion of walking in the rain is that we must run, run, run to get home and out of the horrifying WET. B’s opinion of walking in the rain is that we must stand absolutely still and hope it will soon be over. Z’s opinion of walking in the rain is more of a “So? I have things to sniff, who cares about a little water?” Trying to walk all three of them at once… it would be funny if it was in a movie, happening to someone else, but experiencing it is less amusing.

So the last three days, M is her usual bouncy, happy-go-lucky self, only bouncier than usual because she’s not getting enough exercise, and–since her person is away–determined to snuggle with the pack. Z is a grouch, eyes always on M, hackles always on the verge of rising, and wanting to be in touching distance of me at all times. And B can only be stopped from chewing on his stitches when I’m holding him. It’s like trying to watch three toddlers. And with about the same amount of sleep that you get when you’re taking care of babies and toddlers.

Which brings me back to why I’m sitting here, shivering, and writing a blog post instead of doing any of the zillion more essential things that need to be done. Laundry, taxes, filing. Letters to be mailed. Health insurance to be checked on. Grocery shopping. Trip to the pet store. Etc., etc. But for this moment, there is peace.

Happy, peaceful, sleeping dogs.

I think I’ve talked myself into feeling lucky. 🙂

Happy New Year!

Zelda playing ball

18 Sunday Aug 2013

Posted by in Pets, Randomness

≈ 4 Comments

Zelda playing ball

Posted on tumblr because I couldn’t figure out how to post a video here. Less than 30 seconds long, though, and worth the click if you like cute dogs behaving in cute ways. 🙂

Someone suggested Shadow for the new dog name. It would have been a good name, because he follows two steps behind Zelda like a little black shadow to her slightly bigger white body. Instead he’s Bartlebee. He’s doing okay. I think I’m probably going to perpetually worry about his health — he’s a wheezy little guy, snores horribly and has times when he sounds as if he’s choking on snot. (Sorry to put that graphic into your head.) But he’s peaceful and happy-go-lucky and has been quick to pick up new house rules.

In other news, R is in Seattle. I miss him horribly. Not going to dwell on that, because it will make me sadder, but oh, I miss him.

But my friend C has moved in, so my nest was not empty for long. C likes to cook, even more than I do, and we are having amazing meals. C is fond of slow cooker foods wrapped in tortillas and I’m fond of grilled foods wrapped in tortillas, so we’re mostly eating interesting tortilla concoctions: Korean pulled beef with cabbage and carrots, buffalo chicken with blue cheese and celery, jerk shrimp with avocado and tomato. All wrapped in tortillas. C picks the healthy whole-grain kind, but I’m finishing up the flour tortillas. I’ll probably switch to whole-grain when I run out of flour and see how that goes. I’m eating healthier but I’m also eating more, so any nod to fewer calories is probably a good idea.

Anyway, I keep saying I should take pictures and keep not remembering, but I do want to remember this dish. On Friday, we made fish cooked in parchment paper. We took the fillets (swai, a fish I’d never tried before), sprinkled them with salt and paper, added a couple of thin slices of lime, some small pieces of zucchini, carrots, and green onions, cilantro, and a little olive oil mixed with wine, and folded them into parchment paper envelopes. Baked in the oven for fifteen minutes and it was so, so good. Really easy and fast, absolutely healthy, plus the only dirty dishes were the knife and the cutting board. Ha. It wasn’t even expensive. The fish (to feed four( cost less than $5 at the fish market. Totally worth making again and again–although C and I were already talking about all the possible variations. I want to try it with tomatoes and olives, and then with lemons and asparagus, and even though I’m not a huge pepper fan, I think peppers and onions and some Season-all would probably be tasty. So many options!