Happy Halloween 2008

We have waited for this day. Our costumes are ready.

The Devil Dog waits for the leetle children to come trick or treating.

Instead, this is the day that the rains came down...

and we are left with this

...to deal with on our own. Not the Devil Dog, because chocolate is poison to dogs....but the Witch. She will have to deal with the detritus of Halloween 2008. Now.

Feeble Friday

Not what you were thinking, right? Especially you over there with the potty mouth, Miss MerlotMom.

Today is Feeble because--well, because I say so. And I'm the boss of me, and therefore of this site, and therefore of you, should you be one of the three people still reading it.

I'm TARED. TARED as in, my dog kept waking me up this morning. Not to go out. No, Madam Molly the Cast Iron Bladder Dog never has to go out first thing in the morning or last thing at night. What she does insist on is a belly scratch or rub or both preferably, two-handed if you please. And if you're not doing it just right or in the perfect place? She kicks. Like a baby having a mini-temper tantrum. Not hard. Not painful. Just enough to WAKE ME UP. Again. And again. And again.

Currently she is snoozing, curled up with her body on the carpet (yes, the stained carpet of several posts ago) and her head on the tile floor. Soft body; cool head. Dogs are perfect examples to humans of how to go about getting what you need in life. Just go get it. And if you can't, curl up and snooze.

I am so tempted to go take a photo of Molly to illustrate this post, but I'M TARED. So lookee at this one instead.

As I Walked Out In The Streets of Laredo...

I am not the most productive person in the best of times. I seem to need stretches of time in which to get things done. And then of course sometimes I never do--get them done, I mean. But today was a complete washout, even for me. On my agenda: Pay bills. This is my most hated task. I don't know why. I used to think it had to do with never having enough money and that once I was solvent, I would pay them with aplomb. That has not been the case. So I must every month (or so) gird my loins, as it were, and write checks. Today was that day. Except--

This morning Molly and I went for our usual morning traipse around the neighborhood and half way through, that is one baggie down, Molly was accosted by another curly white dog. I didn't see where the dog came from; I only saw it standing at attention in the middle of the street, woofing away at Molly. She, of course, went into her who are you pose (the precursor to the I am in love pose), standing stock still and almost pointing as if she were a bird dog flushing out prey. I am not calm. There is a dog standing the middle of the street, at almost the same spot where one was killed last month. Somehow, and truthfully I can't remember, I got the little white dog onto the sidewalk with us.

I hate finding lost dogs. I feel absolutely and completely responsible for them, but I have no confidence in my ability to deal with them. Sometimes they scare me, and sometimes that seems warranted. But this one, this one I picked up and tucked it under my arm and walked right home with it. Frankly, it seemed quite happy to have me do that, and when I put it down at the front door, it just trotted after Molly into the house.

And then the fun began. They sniffed and woofed and ran circles around each other. They ate lunch--nicely--and then lay down at my feet and went to sleep. Meanwhile, I called Animal Control, answered a lost dog ad in the paper, posted a found dog ad on line and emailed a friend who works for the SPCA. My gut said not to let the dog go into The System, and my friend concurred.

It was obvious that I would keep the dog if I couldn't find the owner. Already I was thinking of names: Mamie? too close to Molly. Gwen? possibly. But first I would try to find where the dog lived. It was well groomed, so obviously came from A Good Home. It had a nice collar, but no tags. I decided to put it on a leash and walk it 'round the neighborhood and see if anything struck a chord with it. Twenty minutes later and that dog had sniffed at every pile of poop, even spot of pee for three blocks around. I was giving it its head, so where it wanted to go, I just followed. There wasn't anything different about one house that it stopped at, except that after sniffing away, it plopped itself down and stretched out to rest. I thought that was interesting enough to ring the doorbell--

Sugar is now back with her family. I glad and sorry. It was such a kick to have the two dogs here. I've often wondered if I should get another dog for Molly. I thought Sugar might have been the one.

It's A Dog's Life

They're funny, these animals that we have half civilized and half not. This is a photo of Molly eating a crunchy. Crunchies are nuggets of dog food, Science Diet mind you, that are always in a bowl by her water. She doesn't eat the crunchies at the bowl, as she does her wet dog food. No, each crunchy must be personally selected and brought to the Crunchy Eating Pillow. That plaid thing is the Crunchy Eating Pillow. The process is this: she trots off to the other room to get a crunchy. She returns to the office with her crunchy. She deposits said crunchy on the Crunchy Eating Pillow. Then she circles the crunchy, going 'round in several circles until she finds the best angle. Her goal is to bury the crunchy and she works mightily at nosing the fabric of the Crunchy Eating Pillow over it. This is, of course, impossible. The crunchy remains in view. She tries again, nosing more aggressively. Still, the crunchy will not be mastered; it sits there like the cherry on top of the sundae. What to do? What to do? What to do? Aha! you can almost see the thought bubble above her head. To get rid of the crunchy, she must eat it. Right now. Yes, that will definitely deal with the recalcitrant crunchy. Which she does, and it does--whereupon she trots off to the other room to get another crunchy and begin the process all over again.

Atavistic dog behavior: she knows she must hide her food from the rest of the pack. And she knows how to do it. She just doesn't know that she's totally in the wrong setting.

Morning Pages, the Canine Version

Molly and I have just gotten back from our Morning Walk. This is the doggie version of Morning Pages, and her daily output may be more meaningful than mine. Molly likes some dogs, is disinterested in others, and some she seems to be extremely wary of. Generally the strong, silent ones; the little yappers she figures she can bat out of the park. Every once in a while, though, she seems to be struck from afar with the beauty, the very charisma of another canine on another leash who is some distance away. This morning it was a dog who looked like this:

Molly was stopped in her tracks--and I, not knowing that, continued to walk until our full sixteen feet of leash had played out. I had been deep in thought (cogitating, as it were), so I didn't realize what was happened until the leash jerked me to a halt. Then I saw the dog and then I looked at my dog, and what I saw was: I am in love.

Even now, she is dreaming of him.

Life Under The Table At Knitique

Molly and I spent a couple of hours this afternoon at Knitique. Usually Molly amuses herself by searching for any crumb of food she can find. Today, however, she had a playdate. In the lower left corner is a black and white mop called Baya. Molly has never spent so much time with another dog, and really, they got over smelling each other's butts pretty fast. I thought perhaps they would do a tear up and down the shop chasing each other, but Baya's mom had TREATS in her
knitting bag. Greenies to be exact, and frankly, there is nothing that will get Molly's attention quite like Eau de Greenie. In fact, this dog, who is usually glued to my side and would prefer that I NOT shut her out of the toilet when I'm in there, refused to come when called. She lurked, instead, in the general area of the knitting bag that that had once held the Greenies. Even when I threatened to leave her, she would not move. She plunked her curly white butt down as close to the knitting bag as she could get and stared at me, with great meaning. In fact, she might still be there--!

EDITED TO ADD: I entered this post in a weekly meme called Camera Critters. You can see the others here.

Wanted: One Dog Shrink

Why does my dog go under the bed to sleep sometimes? Like last night and the night before, when it's just marginally comfortable temperature-wise on top of the bed without any covers on.

Why is my dog under my desk right now? At my feet.

I'm guessing that this has something to do with security, but what makes her suddenly feel insecure? Does she have PMS?

Iron Chef Sacto-style

Chef Yossi Ben Dayan, Head Teaching Chef at Hadassah College's Culinary School in Jerusalem, made a whirlwind tour of the West Coast. I was there! I prepped for him. Molly was there. She supervised him (look to the right side of the cooking table). Tomorrow I will report on this exciting event with RECIPES!!!!!

The Petard Upon Which I Am Hoisted

I wrote this post last year, September 10, 2007 to be exact, when I was feeling like the loneliest voice in the blogosphere talking about issues of aging. And in fact, there were no comments, nary a response to what I wrote. Rereading it now, and knowing that there's actually a dialogue going on, I'm going to republish it.

The original title was: Today's Blog Is Brought to You By......What I Read In Bed At Night. It was a rather lackadasical title, truthful but not especially meaningful, or appealing. Some titles are like that for me, but others come out of some hidden place and insist on being, despite seeming nutty, wild gibberish. Then after a time, I'll suddenly see how absolutely perfect the gibberish was, how it so summed up things I felt but couldn't articulate. The one for this post today is that kind of a title, and after you read this post, see if you can tell me what that petard is.


Last night, and the night before actually, [I was reading in bed] Living in the Light of Death and The Northern California & Nevada TourBook. The second was a function of the first and, obviously, they have very different authors and completely different subjects. The former (the first, that is) is a book by Larry Rosenberg on breath awareness meditation or, as the subtitle says, "On the Art of Being Truly Alive." This is so what I'm needing to foster in my life: breathing, being alive, and a knack for taking the piss out of topics that I really do believe in. Ooops. Can I suck that last sentence back? Or at least the final clause--or is it really a phrase with an adverbial in it?

But I digress. The TourBook is the AAA's tome on where and what to visit in--hey!--Northern California and Nevada. If you belong to the AAA, you can go to one of their offices and slide your card in the appropriate slot, punch the appropriate buttons and--woila!--maps and tourbooks come falling out. Sort of like the candy machine at a Motel Six (not that I'd know what that's like, since I foreswore motels with numerals in their names about a decade ago).

I got the TourBook (I hope you're noting the unique capitalization) several weeks ago when I was looking for a likely spot for Molly and I to visit. I found one, but we didn't go; we knitted instead. That is, I knitted at Knitique, my LYS, and Molly veered between greeting the customers and sweeping the floor searching for and finding all manner of crumbs, a task which leaves the floor cleaner and a black low water mark on her chin or beard or muzzle or whatever you want to call that curly white hair that grows on her face.

But again! I digress. I had the TourBook in bed with me because there are three practice centers for Insight Meditation in California, and I wanted to see which was near me. Instead, I got caught up the first chapter of Rosenberg's book: "Aging Is Unavoidable." That's a contemplation, and Rosenberg says it's one people want to avoid. They accept it intellectually--oh, sure, big deal--but to actually take in the real fact of it, of the eventual disintegration of the body--? Nope, that's for someone else. Part of it is a question of self-image, he says, and that, that point is where I got nailed to the wall.

"Self-images are a problem. They are designed to help us feel adequate and secure but also often cause a great deal of suffering. We all have them, and most of us aren't aware we do. We spend enormous time and energy and even money creating and protecting them, trying to keep them intact while our daily experience is chipping away at them. Then when someone sees us in a different way, we are shattered. They mention a senior-citizen discount, and suddenly we see ourselves in Bermuda shorts and canvas shoes, wearing a funny little straw hat. That isn't the image we want to present at all. The pictures we have in our own head are way out of date."

I've been thinking on that. It's a gendered description, so I'm not caught by the Bermuda shorts and funny straw hat. Except--except, the image in my head of a senior citizen is my mother. Short little Libby, who loathed being called cute. Who wore Bermuda shorts and Keds in matching colors. And berets--she was famous for her berets (in fact she was buried in one). There is a whole world of negative images that I have attached to aging, not only clothing, but behaviors and attitudes and ways and means of being that come from watching my mother age. Things I vowed I would not do or feel or say. Except...except...well, you know what I'm going to say, don't you.

Give a Dog a Bone--Again

This time Molly elected to chow down on her beef short rib, straight out of the pot, on the living room rug. A girl's got to be comfy when she eats, doesn't she???

Portrait of a Damp Dog

The weather in Elk Grove has been awful. I know it's winter, people, but this is California: it's not supposed to be this cold and this wet. Poor, poor Molly, the poodle who hates the rain. The Bichon who has a poodle coat that kinks in wet weather. The Bichon Froodle who believes rain is a personal affront to her integrity. How miserable can one doggie look? Multiply that by a power of five to get a whiff of how she smells. Wet dog, now that's a treat in one's bed....

Rainy Day Blues, by Molly

Oh I'ma stuck out here in the mizzzerablest weather...
Help me, Lord...I say, help me!
'Cause I been a good doogggiiiee
But whoda knew it from the way them drops do rain down...
Oh, help me Lord...I say, help me...
Ain't my fault if I can't pee when the sun don't shine.
Ain't my fault if my poop won't plop 'cept on sunny days.
Oh, help me Lord...I say, help me, Lord....I say, help this poor sinner stay dry-eeeee!

--words and music by Anonymous

Portrait of a Third Generation Couch Potato, Enjoying Sunday

This is Kaitlyn, aged 5, who is visiting me this weekend. We've had a long day already: up at 6:30 (I tried to tell her it was still nighttime), baking cookies at 10, and my plans for the rest of today were to go to the bookstore where Kaitlyn would--yeah!--get to select a book that we'd bring home. And after her bath, in the soaking tub, we'd read and then sleep. Noooooooooooooooooo. She knows exactly what she wants to do and not. And today, "watch cartoons" and sit on the sofa wrapped in a comforter was it. Oh, and there's a fire going.

Her grandfather came over, brought us lunch, visited with her for a while, and DID HIS LAUNDRY! Sheesh! Am I nuts that I think this is funny, not annoying????

When he left, I sent Molly with him. Kaitlyn is a tad over-exuberant when it comes to Molly. Watching the two of them last night, I kept thinking about how Dooce writes that Leta gets upset if Chuck looks at her. Well, Molly knows just how Leta feels. And Kaitlyn can't resist grabbing and groping and patting and forever "where's Molly?????" She's under the bed, kid, hiding from you. Okay, I put it much nicer than that. I worked a little empathy training in--you know how you feel when some big person you don't know comes over and grabs you to kiss you? But I finally decided that my dog, at least, deserved a decent night's sleep. I, on the other hand, expect another night of snoring and leg-jerking and sideways bed sleeping, just like her grandfather used to do, back in the day.

A Day In The Life of a Dog with a Bone

This is my contribution to the "How Much Do I Indulge My Dog?" sweepstakes. Molly, poor woefully deprived creature that she is, has never had a bone to gnaw on in her life. Yes, she's had so-called treats that are shaped like a bone. And she nightly gets a Greenie, which is, actually, shaped like a toothbrush. But a real, straight from the animal (by way of my cooking) bone to call her own? Nope, never--poor thing. I felt her pain, however, and yesterday after cooking up the most delicious bean soup using the bone from last week's kosher Christmas ham, I remedied that sad lack.



My initial intention was to maintain the integrity of my living room, and thus, I took the bone and the dog outside. At first she merely sniffed at the thing, but soon her doggie instincts came out full force (not to mention her gluttony; the thing was loaded with meat), and she took it in her mouth (which was no mean feat, considering the size of the thing), and she trotted off...to the front door. Where she stood expectantly, because--wah, wah, wah, it was coooooolld outside and sorta wet and you know how I feel about getting wet.

I do, I do, Molly my love. And what careth I about the integrity of my living room, not to mention the state of my lime green love seat when your pleasure is involved.

For those of you less into video than stills, I offer A Day in the Life of a Dog with a Bone in pictures:

INT. LIVING ROOM.
Longshot of dog on sofa snarfing bone.



CU to dog on sofa snarfing bone


CU to dog on sofa showing off somewhat-snarfed bone


CU on what remains of bone after it has been snarfed dry.


Establishing shot of dog reclining on three pillows after successfully snarfing bone.

Bonus Post: Miss Molly the Orange-haired Harlot

This is just gratis and, also, gratuitous. Molly in her Halloween costume. You may find it similar to last years, but trust me, there is a difference. This year she has a jingly cloth clown's neckthingie to go with her witches hat and hair. These photos, which may or may not be self-explanatory, are of wig as beard and wig on head. Also, just because I can (I think), I'm posting the short video I took of Molly in her costume. I, the director, am giving her multiple commands in the background. She, as you can see, is doing it her way.

Shared Custody

Molly is going to Oregon with her father tomorrow. I have to send her. When she's here, I'm tied to the house. Because she is the neediest little dog, and never more so than just after D has been here and left, and because, maybe, I can't separate the me from the she in terms of feeling abandoned. Whatever--the consequence is that I don't go out when I want to and I don't go out when I need to and when I do go out, if it is at all possible, I take her with me. I feel trapped.

Sounds like a single parent, doesn't it? And that is something I am not prepared to be. I realized this during the week D has been here. I have been out and about every night--gee, a real social life! Which is good, because the grimness of 250 lbs. of Bad Mood or Depression or Simply Lack of Interest is not fun to be around.

I've got a pretty full life going here, and that pleases me. I've got plans for the near and far future that excite me. But I need to be free of responsibility for a while. And he needs to have it.

Still, I'm sadder than sad. I'm suffering from the Welling Tears Syndrome. But I've got to do it. For my sake. And hers. And his.

Today's Blog Is Brought to You By....

...What I Read In Bed At Night.

Last night, and the night before actually, it was Living in the Light of Death and The Northern California & Nevada TourBook. The second was a function of the first and, obviously, they have very different authors and completely different subjects. The former (the first, that is) is a book by Larry Rosenberg on breath awareness meditation or, as the subtitle says, "On the Art of Being Truly Alive." This is so what I'm needing to foster in my life: breathing, being alive, and a knack for taking the piss out of topics that I really do believe in. Ooops. Can I suck that last sentence back? Or at least the final clause--or is it really a phrase with an adverbial in it?

But I digress. The TourBook is the AAA's tome on where and what to visit in--hey!--Northern California and Nevada. If you belong to the AAA, you can go to one of their offices and slide your card in the appropriate slot, punch the appropriate buttons and--woila!--maps and tourbooks come falling out. Sort of like the candy machine at a Motel Six (not that I'd know what that's like, since I foreswore motels with numerals in their names about a decade ago).

I got the TourBook (I hope you're noting the unique capitalization) several weeks ago when I was looking for a likely spot for Molly and I to visit. I found one, but we didn't go; we knitted instead. That is, I knitted at Knitique, my LYS, and Molly veered between greeting the customers and sweeping the floor searching for and finding all manner of crumbs, a task which leaves the floor cleaner and a black low water mark on her chin or beard or muzzle or whatever you want to call that curly white hair that grows on her face.

But again! I digress. I had the TourBook in bed with me because there are three practice centers for Insight Meditation in California, and I wanted to see which was near me. Instead, I got caught up the first chapter of Rosenberg's book: "Aging Is Unavoidable." That's a contemplation, and Rosenberg says it's one people want to avoid. They accept it intellectually--oh, sure, big deal--but to actually take in the real fact of it, of the eventual disintegration of the body--? Nope, that's for someone else. Part of it is a question of self-image, he says, and that, that point is where I got nailed to the wall.

"Self-images are a problem. They are designed to help us feel adequate and secure but also often cause a great deal of suffering. We all have them, and most of us aren't aware we do. We spend enormous time and energy and even money creating and protecting them, trying to keep them intact while our daily experience is chipping away at them. Then when someone sees us in a different way, we are shattered. They mention a senior-citizen discount, and suddenly we see ourselves in Bermuda shorts and canvas shoes, wearing a funny little straw hat. That isn't the image we want to present at all. The pictures we have in our own head are way out of date."

I've been thinking on that. It's a gendered description, so I'm not caught by the Bermuda shorts and funny straw hat. Except--except, the image in my head of a senior citizen is my mother. Short little Libby, who loathed being called cute. Who wore Bermuda shorts and Keds in matching colors. And berets--she was famous for her berets (in fact she was buried in one). There is a whole world of negative images that I have attached to aging, not only clothing, but behaviors and attitudes and ways and means of being that come from watching my mother age. Things I vowed I would not do or feel or say. Except...except...well, you know what I'm going to say, don't you.

Miss Molly at The Shore....

How I am and am not laboring...

First, a photo: This is Molly and her niece*, K. K is not riding her aunt; she is guiding her gently down the street via her leash. K does this incredibly well, especially considering she is only 4. But then she does most things very well, including--are you ready for this!--flossing her teeth. I couldn't believe it. My niece and nephew barely brush and K flosses! Wow! This is a testimony to her daddy who is a bit of a tooth care warden.
[*Quiz: what is my relation to K?]

We went to the beach--Molly got her feet wet. She is not a water dog, despite being half poodle. We sat in the sun. We collected shells. We did not get burnt because we were careful with sunscreen. Except for the tops of our feet. However, the Sacramento sunshine has already done it's job on this aging person. I have never been this brown before. I am freckled and age-spotted and--what the hell--my boobs have dropped too. Ah youth--would I have you back? Nope. No way.

Today I am laboring: varnishing clothespins. Yes, you read that right. I am creating, dollinks, and when done shall show all of you, not to mention the world of Etsy, the fruit of my labors..

The Weather Report: Sunny & Calm

Hey, I'm in an immeasurably improved mood today. 'Cause guess what: my garage walls are being torn apart while an electrician looks for "the worst kind of short you can have," the one that knows no name or place.

When I got home from my Travels With Molly on Wednesday, after I freaked out over some shit about D, I went to cool my parched throat with a Coke and found the garage refrigerator dead. Dead, dead, dead. As were all the lights and garage door. And there was zilch power is the laundry room next to the garage. You can imagine, particularly if you've experienced my creative way with bad words, how I cursed the missing man of the house. The one who knows what to do when bad stuff happens construction-wise. Because he spent 20 odd years in construction. And because he's a man, goddamit, and knowledge of such stuff comes along with the penis. So I called him, and I left a message along the lines of: "if you care anything about me at all, you'll call me back and tell me what to do..." He did and he did, but really fixing electrical problems when you're 700 miles away is a tad difficult.

So today, I looked up E for Electrician and a very nice man is now banging away. I'm not sure how much it will cost me, but at least I'll be able to wash my clothes. Which is a good thing, as Martha says, because I was running out of underwear (I have to use that word every once in a while because it makes my Google stats go up).

But that's not what I want to talk about today. You deserve something cheerful and light after my dirge yesterday, so I've got some Molly photos. She seems to make everyone smile; she's just that kind of a dog.

Lookin' out the window at a rest stop, somewhere near the California-Oregon border.

On the road again. She's in her carseat, which is fixed in the backseat, which offers not a lot of room because it's a little sporty VW convertible, but that's okay with her because she's a sporty dog. The carseat was bought originally for Pupi, our late, great Yorkshire terrier. Molly doesn't mind it being a hand-me-down. Nor does she mind that she is three times Pupi's size. She fits, somehow. Sometimes she leans on the front seat like this, and sometimes she looks out the window. I don't know what she's looking at, but I'm fascinated watching her because she seems to be taking in all the sights and scenery just like a human would. What can be out there that would merit such attention? If there's a dog in the mix, then she goes bananas, but otherwise, she's a Quiet Watcher. She's such a good traveller that I'm thinking of buying a camper and going on the road. Too bad I'm not a guy; she'd be a great chick magnet.