A dog's life

I haven't blogged about Penny in a while. I think it's ok to entertain you with Penny Tales.

My dearest Pen loves, loves, LOVES the winter. This has upsides and downsides. Watching her run around like a fuzzy little bullet, blazing her way through the drifts and burying her snout in the snow just to look excitedly at me as if to say, "HI! Mama, this is the best thing EVER! Nowigodoitagainagainagain!!!!!", makes me laugh with delight. However, once we get her home, as you have seen, getting the snowy crust off her wee legs and tummy takes quite some time. She looks like The Thing from the Fantastic Four, only with snow. Inevitably she has to spend time thawing in the back room until we finally let her small, damp self out.

She then goes to find a bit of couch to dry out, curled up in a Pennyball. However, I don't want Her Sogginess on our nice furniture, so I drape towels on the cushions for her to lie on. Inevitably, she will manage to get to the one place I didn't cover and snuggle riiiiight...there.

As we tell her at least three times a day, what a rough, rough life she leads.

Two quick thoughts and an exclamation

1) There is little that's more pitiful than watching a fluffy dog stagger around, post-anesthesia, with a large shaved patch on one side of her and an Elizabethan collar (one of those cones) on, catching said collar on doorways. (She's recuperating today--they cleaned her teeth and removed a cyst; hence the surgery.)

2) Jillian Michaels should stay the hell away from yoga. I did her version this morning and she took something that involves stretching and holding poses and strength and...jillianized it. Doing three sun salutations in a row at top speed "because that's the only way you melt those pounds" is not inspiring or pleasant. She also had disdain for yoga speak, preferring not to say phrases such as "bring your heart center to your knee" because it wasn't "English". I'll do the Shred with her all day because then I feel justified in thrashing around to the beat as I try to copy Tami in the corner who's doing the beginner version, sweating, and occasionally gasping obscenities at Jillian and her blazing eyes and killer abs and tattoos. Yoga, not so much.

Here's the exclamation: We have strawberries randomly growing in our yard! I have no idea how they got there; one of us must've chucked a bad one and it took root or something. It is SO COOL. And our blackberries are growing! Yay, wild berries!

How much is she? Priceless.

It's a little dark, but click to enlarge and you'll see why I love coming home every day because I get to see this:

Lessons from the Dog

I know I always croon about Penny's latest (if only you knew how much I held back. Thank my brother for that, who begged me not to become "one of those people"), but having spent quite a lot of time with her this summer, she has taught me a few things.

Don't worry about getting dirty. Hell, if there's a puddle there, go for it. If the mud's there, don't be an adult--splash in it! You can wash your clothes and yourself later.
Love with your whole body. Light up when that person you loves comes home or even into the room. You may want to wiggle your behind in delight; I leave this up to you. Go ahead and greet that person with kisses. Lots of them.

Eat when you're hungry. Otherwise, it's not necessary. But find yourself good, healthy things to snack on in the meantime...as long as it doesn't require replacing anything expensive.

Go on walks with friends. Everybody benefits. And there might be fun puddles to jump in.

Play well with others. If someone snaps at you, you need to figure out whether to snap back or turn and walk away. Otherwise, just have fun.

Take naps whenever you can. Self-explanatory.

Enjoy life every day.

I don't care if this sounds corny. I like it, and this picture of a filthy, happy dog says it all:

School, wedding, summer fun

I feel I've been so out of posting, but then I look and realize it hasn't been THAT long. I've just been insanely busy. My last day of the school year was June 25, a Thursday. My other summer class started on the following Monday and I've been up to my eyeballs in Special Education since then, considering a four week summer class has to squish a semester's worth of information into that time. Plus I have another class on Wednesday nights. It's all fascinating stuff; things I wish I had known years ago as a teacher. I feel out of sheer ignorance that I have too often unfairly glossed over the needs of my students with special needs or even my students who just need extra help, assuming that "someone else" would take care of them, such as the special education teachers. It's not that I don't help my students; I just think I can do more, now, to reach a broader spectrum. Now I know how to work with numbers, see patterns in what errors they make, and have more ability to alter my teaching style to best fit them. I'm very excited about implementing new strategies in the fall.

So yes, that's been my summer so far, with a few nice interludes in between. One of longest-known friends got married last weekend at her family's summer house in Canada. For those of you who don't know, that's not that strange around here to spend the summers across the border; it's right there. With good traffic, I can get there in half an hour. Anyway, she got married at the house and had the reception right in the back yard. Everything went perfectly and we all had a wonderful time. Here are just a few of the pictures I took:

It looked so gorgeous once the sun went down

Bridesmaid L, the bride, and me--we've all been friends since we were tiny

The bride's sister pulled out the boas for us all when they played "Lady Marmalade"

The bride and groom

We also took the weekend to spend it with T's cousin, also in Canada, and Penny spent the weekend at doggie day camp at Pet Smart. Combine that with a visit on Sunday to T's friend's family place out where there's a lot of land and numerous dogs, and we had one tired pup on the way home. Plus she fell into the pond, so she looked and smelled like something that had been following the Grateful Dead all summer, as T said. She was so tired that she slept all the next day, which was what we wanted to do after our fun weekend.

Now my sister's home for a while, the annual Taste of Buffalo is this weekend, and Harry Potter's coming out on Wednesday. Makes for a good summer! But I think this picture sums up summer for me:

You be the judge

A friend of my husband's pointed something out last night. I want to know what you all think.

Does my dog look like Wilford Brimley? (For those who don't know who he is, he's an actor and now does commercials for diabetes--as he pronounces it, "diabetiss".)

Last Weekend's Fall Fun

We went to my FIL's for a visit and for Penny to race around and generally act like a dog with his three dogs. I'll treat you to a few pictures; he has a pond, which she found immediately and had a happy time racing around becoming completely muddy filthy. She did NOT like the bath she had to take as a result....

I wish I'd gotten pictures of the glorious leaves; you can see them a little bit. I love this time of year most, even though (because?) it's so fleeting.






Tonight we'll have dinner with my dad, who's in town, and my 93 year-old grandmother, who still has a sharper mind than most people I know. She's been around a while (OBviously) and, as an aside, says that while she doesn't entirely like either candidate, she's voting for Obama. I laughed my head off when, before the VP debates, she said, "Maybe Sarah Palin will bring her baby up on stage to get a few more votes." How fantastic.

Enjoy the weekend, everyone!

Our Little Pup's Growing Up

Before:

After:


I swear it is the same dog! It's Penny! We got her adult Wheaten cut, and they had to take more off than usual because she was just covered in knots, which, frankly, is part of the reason why we got the cut in the first place. She's still her sweet self, but I admit I called T and blurted out, "She looks weird!" I just have to get used to it, and it will grow out a bit. We're also looking at doggie daycare at least once a week because 1) she needs supervised socialization, and 2) the dogs at the neighborhood Evening Get-Together seem to look at her as a Live Moving Chew Toy, and we'd rather not make her afraid of other dogs. PetSmart has one that we'll check out; not sure others exist around here that DH can easily drop her at on his way to work. We'll check it all out carefully, don't you worry. (Papa, S. herself told me to do this, so I trust her advice. Everyone else, S. is a dog expert who ran a dog daycare herself and now does private training in Atlanta. She knows what she's talking about.)

I am sure we will still get crazy poses on the couch with new, chic Penny. And yes, I will post them.

P.S. How cool is it that I teach a class where we get to watch snippets of Shaun of the Dead?

One more reason why my husband is cool

Well, we had the Masonic picnic this weekend and it went quite well, due in large to my lovely parents lending us two gigantic coolers and a 20x20 tent, the kind you pay about $100 to rent. Thanks, Mom and R! We had nice weather, the dog was good with the little girls, nobody got hurt, and no toilets overflowed. To me, that's success. Next year: more tables. We didn't have enough.

Here's the cool part, with a little background: T's friend M. has lymphoma and had to shave his head for the chemo. In a move of solidarity, T. and his friend E. both shaved their heads so they could look like M. Admittedly, T. did not have long hair to start with, but I still love that he did it and I know that he would've no matter how luxuriant his tresses. I do have to give serious points to E., who had been growing his hair for seven years; it was about as long as mine. He donated the majority to Locks for Love, and the rest will line various bird nests, I guess. I'll post pictures tomorrow. In a funny side note, he didn't tell his girlfriend [of three years] of his plan and freaked her out when he came home. As he said, "I can grow my hair; I can't grow another M." Well put.

In other news, today Penny got her cone off and got her staples out. Sigh. After tomorrow I think we should start asking for Frequent Flyer discounts.

I just realized something

I mentioned Penny's in the cone again and had to get staples because her surgery incision opened up. Now I think I know why: It was already a little shaky and then, THEN, the other day I had the Scary Neighbor Dog Walk:

We were almost home from a walk when the Airedale on the corner comes running at Penny. She's always been a little afraid of this dog; he's bigger, barks aggressively, and Penny's a beta if I ever saw one. Well, this time the dog keeps coming and I realize not only does the invisible fence not seem to work, the dog has no collar on. My first thought is to grab this other dog before he runs into the street, but there's nothing to hold on to. Next thing I know he's got Penny on her back, she's making this horrible, high-pitched squeal-bark which I now interpret as, "I'm terrified! Get away from me!", I panic and try to pick her up, and the owner comes running over and finally gets her canine menace away. She's asking, "Oh, is she ok?" over and over again, truly feeling terrible about this (and I don't care about her feeling bad, I am shaken and angry, and she better feel bad), and fortunately Penny is unharmed. I say, "You know, usually when we walk by here the invisible fence is on. And he has a collar of some kind," and she responds with something about them showing the house and the fence must've been turned off and your dog is so cute, and I just want to get away from her and get home. So I get Penny out of there, even crossing the street because she's still so scared. She had no visible cuts or scrapes, but I bet all that thrashing around caused her incision to open further. That's my realization.

When I told T about our walk, he got very quietly angry: I could see his body tense up and I felt this tangible fury come out of him. Uncanny, really. He only said in a low voice, "Boy, was that dog lucky that I wasn't there." Yikes. If there's a next time, I'm sorry, I will grab the other dog's tail and bodily pull the animal off my dog. In a somewhat delayed reaction, I also burst into tears an hour after it happened as I realized what might have transpired. But we gave her lots of treats and love, and she seems fine, except for staples and that dumb collar she now has to wear AGAIN. Good thing these people are moving and taking their mongrel cur with them.

People, please, PLEASE train your dogs and keep them leashed if needed. I'm doing the best to train mine so these things don't happen to other dogs or people, so please do the same. Now I'm going to pet my girl and prepare for the Mason picnic, which should be lots of good, clean fun.

Have a good weekend, folks! Play nicely!

As promised

I thought I had more, but they're all old. However, I think this one's pretty sweet. She chose to curl up in the bookshelf next to the couch:


Today is my sister's bridal shower, which is why I can't join Scarlet, Feathernester, and Ouiser in CNY!

Two Updates

OK, first of all, due to problems in personnel (read: someone wasn't doing his/her job when he should have), I now won't find out about my job status until the end of the month. Because that doesn't mean too much longer and because I have no control over the situation, I will patiently wait. Or just wait.

In other news, instead of getting our puppy in May, we will go get her next weekend!!!!!!!!!!!! This means we're frantically reading our Cesar Millan and cleaning the house so little girlie won't lick anything she shouldn't. Here are a few pictures of the pups. I don't know which one we'll get, but one of those little balls of fuzz will come home with us! The one boy, Clancy, likes the soccer ball, and that's Mom with all of them.







Prepare for me to bore/dazzle you with various tales of puppy cuteness and woes with training. I'm sure the woes will mostly be us screwing up....

Puppy Pictures

Go to The Daily Puppy link I have to see what our future doggie may well look like, sans the Zsa Zsa Gabor dog bed.

whoops

I realize via Scarlet Lily that I may have caused confusion: The dog will not be home until May. We're just really, really excited. We're getting a soft-coated Wheaten terrier, which won't trigger my allergies.

Here's what they look like:



We're not sure exactly what ours will look like; clearly we have a few choices because they don't all look the same. It will also depend on how short we keep the coat, of course.

Pseudo-update

Nothing new to report this morning because Cousin T's father has become quite ill (he's elderly and now probably going into hospice), so, funny enough, painting our house hasn't ranked high on his list of priorities. I can't imagine why. I'll just post after everything's finished. I will mention that DH has put his den back together and it looks like an entirely different room. All we need to do now is hang some art. We have so many paintings that I suggested we keep a few up at all times and then rotate the rest, like a museum.

In other news, as of Monday I will have made it through half a year at my job. Teachers announce their retirements at the end of this week (technically) and I know of at least one who probably will, though she's keeping quite mum about the whole thing. It will just give me a little more perspective on my prospects for next year...keeping in mind that the other three new people will also vie for any openings. I never knew the world of teaching could get so political! Wish me luck.

Oh and one more thought: We're considering Hurley or Hugo for dog names (LOST, anyone?) We had settled on Barney (also from a favorite show, How I Met Your Mother), but feared too many others would think of the big purple one. No thanks. We're not TV freaks; we just like the sound of these names for a dog. I welcome your thoughts.

I recently added a reader in CA (my dad), so hello, CA! One more red dot on my reader map!