Category Archives: Zelda

Twelve Years Old

22 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by in Pets, Zelda

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zelda photoZelda went on another food strike this weekend. In the saga of Z-food over the past three months, there have been no clear winners, except that anything is good for two or three days, some things are good for two or three weeks, and everything, in the end, is not interesting. She’s not apparently sick—not throwing up or having obvious digestive trouble—she’s just not in the mood to eat.

This, of course, makes me crazy.

When my son was picky about food, I let it go entirely. My philosophy was, “Eat what you like, kid, my responsibility is to provide good food, your responsibility is to listen to your body.” Did I have to grit my teeth when he didn’t bother to bring a lunch to school? Yep. But I still didn’t say anything (much!) and I definitely didn’t get into a power struggle about it with him.

With Z, I have lost the power struggle before it’s begun. I will feed her whatever she wants to eat. Except that I keep trying variants of healthy food, of course. The oldest dog in England is a 26-year-old Jack Russell terrier that eats fish fingers and other people food. Apparently when he turned 18, he got picky and his owners decided he was old enough that he could have whatever he wanted. Not on the principle of “make your own healthy choices, dog,” but on the principle of “you’re going to die any time now, let’s make your last days happy.” Eight years ago. I’m not quite ready to do that. Zelda’s only twelve. If she will eat healthy food, she should have plenty of good years left.

In fact, she’s not quite twelve — tomorrow is her birthday! I’d bake her a cake if I thought she’d eat it.

A dozen years ago (tomorrow), I got a phone call saying Woody, Z’s mom, seemed to be going into labor and asking if I could stay with her because her owner had to work. The answer was yes, of course. I pulled R out of school for the day so he could be there with me. That turned out to be unnecessary: Woody didn’t start having her puppies until late afternoon. Z was the last one born, sometime around 6:30 PM.

She was not a lovely puppy. She was mottled pink and black, minimal fur, pink rims around her eyes, a red nose where Woody had been chewing while trying to deliver her. She was the biggest of the puppies and her birth was more of a struggle than the others. I’d post a picture, but I have, in fact, no pictures of newborn Z, because I didn’t think she was the puppy we were (eventually) taking home. I’ve got several pictures of the other girl puppy because we wanted a girl and with one cute girl puppy and one not-cute girl puppy, the choice seemed obvious to me.

It was not so obvious to R. Within the very near future—not that day but fairly soon—he said that we needed to take Z instead. He was worried that no one would ever love her, because she was so very ugly. I was surprised, but the puppy was going to be his dog, so it was his decision, of course.

Ha. She was never his dog. Maybe for the first fifteen minutes after we brought her home for good, but after that, she’s been my dog, heart and soul. And I’ve been her person, the very same way. I’m sad about B, the thought of losing him makes me cry, but when it is Z’s turn, I will be devastated.

And the fact that she’s growing older is always in the back of my mind. She’s losing her hearing pretty obviously and family members have commented on how much she’s slowing down. She was a pretty typical Jack Russell when it came to energy level: visitors didn’t usually see her sleep because she was always ready to play when there were people around and she could spend hours chasing balls and swimming. Not so much anymore. She still likes long walks, but she used to have no upper limit on how far she’d go and now she does.

This weekend someone asked why I was going to Galveston and I admitted a truth that I only realized recently: I’m headed to Galveston because a long way back, before I had Serenity, before I’d even decided to buy Serenity, I read an article about the best dog beaches in the country and Galveston was on the list. When Z was a puppy in Santa Cruz, we spent tons of time on the beach and she loved it. Her happiest day of our trip so far was probably the day we spent on the beach in Gloucester, MA. So yeah, I’m taking my dog to the beach. In Texas. It would have been an excellent birthday present, but I’ll have to deliver it a little bit late.

Happy Birthday, Zelda!

Heading south

05 Thursday Jan 2017

Posted by in Campground, Reviews, Zelda

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Today is a movement day. I think the RV term is “relocation” day, although maybe that’s just when you’re making a big, big movement, like heading off to a new state. I’m just leaving this campground and heading to Fort Lauderdale for a couple of nights, and then coming back in this direction, so “relocation” sounds way too dramatic. I’m just… moving.

I am excited about this movement, because I’m meeting my brother and looking forward to it, but last night was one of those nights where I feel like I spent hours floating on the edge of sleep, not quite awake but definitely not soundly resting, so I’m tired and that tiredness is definitely shading my mood. When I was walking the dog this morning, I was counting good things. Yay, it was 63 degrees and felt so comfortable. The mist rising off the water was lovely. Sandhill cranes flew overhead, making their plaintive whirr, which always sounds magical to me. Lots of good things, but somehow I still felt grouchy.

The campground I’m in — the Thousand Trails in Clermont — is one that I picked purely to have a couple cheap days, plugged in, with very low expectations, but it’s been lovely. It’s a “first-come, first-served” place, so when you show up, you just wander around and find a campsite, but it’s big enough that they have guides with golf carts helping you find the right spot. My guide was terrific. She asked me a couple questions to which I didn’t have great answers and then I said that I was really trying to write a book, so quiet would be good. She had just the place.

And it really has been perfect. I’m in the wooded section, and the sites are angled, so my view out the back and out one side window is of peaceful plant life. It’s easy walking distance to a lake that gets the sunrise and a dog park that Zelda has enjoyed sniffing her way around. And the campground is huge, so I’ve easily been able to take long walks with Z without feeling like we’re going over the same territory again and again. There’s even a nature trail that goes through the surrounding scrub pine forest. Z flat-out refused to go on the nature trail this morning and actually ran away from it when I finally grumbled, “Fine, whatever,” and turned back to the road, so maybe there’s even some serious nature back there. I liked imagining that she smelled far-distant bear better than concluding that she prefers pavement, anyway.

But I’ve got a lot to do, so I should get to it. I told myself this morning that it was a new year and I didn’t have to write a Thursday blog post, but I guess 52 weeks of Thursdays has made it feel like… not an obligation. But like brushing my teeth. It’s part of my Thursday morning routine and I just didn’t feel good about not trying to get it done.

But now I must start the packing up routine — stowing all my belongings, sweeping out, unmaking the bed, unplugging, and so on. And maybe quick making a little more coffee, because I am seriously not awake yet. The final stage of my website restructuring (the domain moving to a new host) finally came through this morning and I spent half an hour trying to get my email fixed and finally decided that I was just too tired to figure that out this morning, but I’m going to have to spend some time fighting technology later, too, and that is worthy of extra caffeine, I suppose. I fully expect today to be a nice day, but it might be a nicer day if it included feeling a little more energetic.

Welcome to 2017

02 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by in Books, R, Zelda

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I had the loveliest/weirdest New Year’s Eve. It was R’s 21st birthday and I was prepared to be sad about not getting to spend time with him on his birthday. Obviously, now that he is an adult, that’s going to happen less and less often anyway. It is certainly within the realm of possibility that I will never spend his birthday with him again. Although having written that out, it seems very unlikely. I didn’t often spend my birthday with my parents between the ages of 20-30, but after that, I sometimes did, especially the major birthdays. I definitely saw them on my 30th and 40th.

Anyway, it’s a nostalgic day, of course. As always, I remembered details of the day 21 years ago, mostly how madly, head-over-heels, totally joyfully in love I was. I know some moms don’t get that. My midwife told me it was the endorphins from a very long labor. It might also have been some exhaustion delirium—my water broke on Thursday and R was finally born on Sunday morning and there was not a lot of sleep during those three intervening nights—but whatever, I was dazzled and awed and infatuated beyond anything I have ever experienced before or since.

But I was also trying to remember details of the year before that — 22 years ago, the New Year’s Eve when I had no idea, none, of how dramatically and permanently my life would change in the next 12 months. I couldn’t remember a thing. I assume I spent it with the boyfriend that I was coming to realize I ought to be breaking up with and probably that we both drank too much, but no specifics beyond that.

And then my thoughts turned to last New Year’s Eve. It was just a year ago. I had no idea it would be my last new year in my house. If you’d asked me then, I would have predicted this new year’s to be just as the previous seven or so had been: quiet, at home, probably including a nice meal with R…

Instead, he was in Paris. And I was sitting in a friend’s driveway watching the best fireworks display ever. Best, not because the fireworks were out of reason spectacular — Disney has some great fireworks shows with music and fireworks that create designs in the sky, ie Mickey Mouse ears, so I’ve seen some impressive fireworks — but because it went on and on and on, and I could watch it from the cozy comfort of my own bed with the dogs on top of me.

I would love to know what Zelda thought about the whole thing. She’s always hated fireworks, but she’s never figured out that they’re the flashing lights in the sky. She started to get agitated, barking and pacing, when she first smelled the smoke and heard the banging, but then she came and sat on me and watched them with me. Ears up, eyes alert, I really think she paid attention to the whole thing. And they were beautiful, big fireworks, some simple explosions of blue and red and green, others those swishing things like one little explosion after another in white sparkles.

It was a lovely night. Not what I meant to write about this morning, but I’m glad to save the memory.

The other lovely thing that happened was that Andrea Host released a new book in her Touchstone series. I don’t know whether I’ve mentioned the series here before — I know I have elsewhere on social media. But those books somehow became comfort reads for me, such that a few months after reading them for the first time, I got sick and the only thing I wanted to do was reread the series. They’re fantasy/science fiction, but the new book, In Arcadia, is very much a romance: it’s a calm, quiet, slice-of-life story that tells the tale of the main character’s mom from the previous books falling in love. I read it between fireworks and thoroughly enjoyed it. If you haven’t tried her books and you like fantasy/sci-fi/romance, I really do recommend them—she creates worlds that I love escaping into. I’ve reread almost all of them, I think.

In fact, my one regret about In Arcadia is that it makes me want to reread all Andrea’s books, one right after another, and I really shouldn’t. I should be writing my own books!

Resolution for 2017: write lots of words.

Vero Beach

13 Thursday Oct 2016

Posted by in Bartleby, Grace, Pets, Travel, WIP, Zelda

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I’m attempting to bore myself into writing. So far… eh, it might be working, but if so, it’s going slowly. Maybe by Monday I’ll have made some real progress.

I’m staying at the same campground for ten whole days. And not a beautiful or fun or inspiring campground — a parking lot campground. In fact, when I first got here, I thought it was creepy as hell. I wasn’t sure I was going to stay even for two days, much less ten. The next day (aka yesterday) I realized the creepiness — a general impression of a ramshackle, disheveled ghost town — was the result of the hurricane. It’s actually been sort of fun to watch them clean it up, one stretch after another going from debris-strewn to neat and tidy.

Plus there is a lovely huge fenced field labeled a dog park. I’ve been working steadily during the past eleven weeks on improving the dogs’ stays and recalls and a big space gives them a chance to really practice. Alas, status quo remains: Z is a rocket scientist and B has absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. I tell Zelda to stay and she sits and trembles and waits as I get farther and farther away, until finally I turn and point at the ground and she barrels toward me at joyous hyper speed, her ears trailing behind her, as if she actually thought I might leave her behind. B, on the other hand, bounces along two steps after me no matter what I say or do. But hey, eight more days in this park gives us a lot of time to practice.

Especially because I’m trying really hard to not let myself do anything but write or knit. No reading, no television, no internet browsing. Walking dogs and any form of exercise, okay. Eating, yes (obviously!); planning and cooking elaborate meals, no. I’ve given myself permission to write anything so I’ve written lots of personal babble, but I’ve also done plenty of staring at Grace. And enormous amounts of daydreaming. I wish more of it was daydreaming about Grace, but at least some of it will work its way into future stories. I love lines of thoughts like “People who feel rejected do stupid things: if Fen felt rejected, I wonder what she would do? If you had magic and felt rejected, hmm…” And off my brain goes. It’s so nice to feel like my daydreaming might be useful.

My sister tells me that I write about Z a lot and rarely about B. I’m not actually sure that’s true but just in case she’s not the only one who wants to know how they’re doing with the traveling lifestyle…

B loves it madly. He is more energetic, more rambunctious, happier and bouncier than he has ever been. He gets adored in campgrounds: all small children instinctively gravitate to him and he takes their attention and sticky hands as his due. He has entirely stopped hiding under furniture and in closets, perhaps partially because there aren’t a lot of places to hide in Serenity, but he doesn’t even try anymore. Instead, he cuddles up next to me and suggests I pet him. And he’s looking great, too. People have commented that he’s lost weight and he might have, but he also just seems sleeker and shinier and healthier. And happier. In Massachusetts, I very confidently said, “B doesn’t play,” just as he tore across the room and grabbed a tennis ball ahead of Z before returning it to my uncle, tail wagging.

Z, on the other hand… I think she likes parts of it. She likes our morning walks. She likes exploring new places, sniffing new smells. But it also seems to stress her out more than I expected it to. She’s gotten even pickier about her food, often rejecting her kibble entirely, and she’s seriously clingy. She’s always been a very attached dog — the feeling is mutual, I’m very attached to her, too — but her level of worry that I might disappear entirely seems to have increased. As long as she’s touching me, she’s calm, but she seems more high-strung and anxious than she used to be. Her separation anxiety isn’t manifesting as destructiveness, thankfully, but it’s hard to leave her. Although now that I’m analyzing this, she has adjusted to Serenity as home. She’s fine about being left in Serenity now. She’s just not fine about being left in other people’s houses, which I’ve had to do because it’s been too hot to leave her in the van when I can’t run the AC. Hmm, so I just need to go to colder climates to keep the dog happy. Works for me. 🙂

But not until I finish writing Grace, so I had best get back to it!

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!

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!

Towels

25 Monday Jan 2016

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

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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

≈ 6 Comments

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