Posted tagged ‘Dog’
February 10, 2017
It is 1:30. The wind is still raging, but the snow has stopped. Most of the snow was wet and heavy, and in the late afternoon a downed wire cut off my electricity. I sat for a while reading, but because the house was getting a bit cooler, Gracie and I headed upstairs to take a nap. I was thinking warm down comforter. I don’t know what Gracie was thinking. I could hear the branches brushing against the house, against the wall in my bedroom. Then I heard a crash. I ran downstairs, opened the front door and saw nothing but branches. They extended from a giant branch, half of a pine tree, now lying across my front yard. It was torn off the tree by the wind. Its branches are near the front door and have cut me off from the outside world. Poor Gracie had to go out among the branches. It took three times before she decided it was branches or nothing.
I went to bed around 2:30. Gracie woke me up around 4. She was shaking. She was also panting: signs that Gracie needed to go outside. She wouldn’t get off the bed so I had to help her. We got down the stairs to the door and she went outside and did her business just this side of the branches.
I’m hoping my landscape guy comes today to free me. I know Skip will be here to plow and shovel as soon as he can. Right now the day is beautiful to look at, all sunny and bright, but that’s deceiving. It is only 20˚. I guess I’m okay for now with being stuck in the house, the warm house.
This was a terrific snow storm. It even had thunder. We probably got near a foot of snow. It covers everything. I couldn’t see out the back windows until a little while ago, but the sun is still the sun so the windows are clear again.
Looks like we have to postpone dump day.
Categories: Musings
Tags: -20˚, beautiful day, bizzard, branches, clear yard, Dog, fallen tree, landscaper, pine tree, shovel and plow, thunder, Wind
Comments: 14 Comments
February 5, 2017
If the morning is a prognosticator, today will not be a good day. Gracie is herself but refuses to go down the back stairs. I totally understand as she fell down some of those stairs the other day so yesterday I had a solution. I opened the back gate so she could get into the yard, but she went right up the stairs into the house. I then started taking her out front, and that was fine until this morning. We have been out six times, and she has yet to go. The outside world grabs her attention and she is far more interested in the smell of the air and the grass and what might just happen down the street. I stand there begging her to go, but she doesn’t hear me, which I prefer to the idea I’m being ignored.
Today is the big day, Super Bowl Sunday. My friends and I are getting together to watch the game. We are making two appetizers each. I am falling back on the traditional queso but adding sausage and jalapenos. My next appetizer is a naan pizza with honey-caramelized red onion, feta, ricotta and blueberries. We are, of course, rooting for our Pats.
Maddie is among the missing. She isn’t on her chair and doesn’t come when I call. Now I have to go hunting for her. She was down earlier, had a snack then I lost track. These animals will be the death of me. They rule the roost (perfect animal metaphor).
My mind belies my body, mostly. I do forget some things, but they always pop up later when I don’t need them. My body doesn’t rebound. My back is till complaining about my having lifted Gracie. I haven’t even been able to bring her dry food from the car to the house. The 14 pounds seems daunting.
Maddie is back and sleeping on the chair. Gracie finally went the bathroom on trip number eight and is now asleep on the couch. I am the only one awake. I am about to immerse myself in Warbirds, a science fiction movie, and from the sound of it, a bad science fiction movie. “During World War II, an all-female flying squad and a platoon of male American soldiers land on an island and battle dinosaurs.” By the start of it, I suspect they will also be battling Japanese soldiers who have unearthed the dinosaur. Can it get worse? Yes, it can. As the flight commander leaves the plane to check in at Pearl she has some parting words for her crew. “If the brass drops by, Girls, remember, chest out because that’s what Uncle Sam wants to see.”
Categories: Musings
Tags: bad morning, Dog, naan pizza, outside, Patriots, queso, smelling the air, Super Bowl
Comments: 18 Comments
November 26, 2016
Okay, last night started off great. I watched, binge watched, all four episodes of Gilmore Girls. I had wanted to savor them, but I couldn’t wait. Each one got better than the one before so the last one, fall, was wonderful. It was like Gilmore Girls of old. I hated finishing. That happened about 1:30. I then went up to bed followed closely by my faithful hound Gracie; however, Miss Gracie didn’t settle down on the bed. She sat up, started gulping then panting. She moved around trying to get comfortable but couldn’t, and she was shaking. I turned on the light and tried to comfort her. That didn’t work. We went downstairs, and I let her out. By this time it was after 2. She came in, jumped on the couch and laid down. So did I. That lasted only minutes before she was up and panting again. We did the spider plant routine. I cut and held and she ate. Now we were closing on 3:30. I went upstairs, got my pillow and blanket. I took all the cushions off the couch and made myself as comfortable as possible. Gracie jumped on and was okay for about 15 minutes. I went back to the dining room followed by Gracie. I snipped more spider plant fronds which she scarfed down. After that, Gracie seemed okay so we went back to the couch. That didn’t last either as she wanted out again. It was close to 4:30. When Gracie came back inside, she jumped on the couch, got comfy and fell asleep. I couldn’t get comfortable. My last time check was 5:00. I woke up at 11.
Last night had a silver lining. Maddie didn’t howl. I think she was entertained by the antics of Gracie and me; also, she had company.
It is a good thing I live alone as I am a bit grumpy. I woke up with a headache and a back ache. Both are almost gone due to the miracle of modern over the counter medicines, but grumpy still remains. I have hopes of getting out today despite the rain. Perhaps a bit of shopping and a stop for lunch will make me fit for human company again.
Categories: Musings
Tags: Dog, fall, Gilmore Girls, grumpy, gulping, headache, in and out, insomnia, night, panting, restless, tired
Comments: 10 Comments
August 5, 2016
My usual quiet morning disappeared with the jarring sounds of saws and wood chippers. The house on the corner is minus a tree, but I don’t know which one as the truck obscures my view. It is the house of a new neighbor whom I met only once when I introduced myself. Earlier, she had a backyard fence added for her dogs, and in taking down a tree she is beginning to make the house her own.
Last night was a delight. It was actually cold enough for a blanket. When I woke up, the house was only 67˚. Gracie was again lying right beside me and Fern was at my feet. Fern comes upstairs, jumps on the bed and meows over and over until I wake up and pat her. After I do, she settles in on the bed.
The noise stopped for a while giving me hope that my quiet morning is back. I was wrong. It is even noisier than it was. I wish I were a cat. Both of my cats are sleeping soundly.
Sounds like bells or buzzers I can tune out after a while. Other noises, especially loud noises, seem larger than their reality, and this truck is one of them. It intrudes. It makes me grimace in annoyance. I want it gone. I want my morning back.
Yesterday was one of my most constructive days of late though that’s not really saying much. I did two loads of laundry, swept and wet mopped the kitchen floor, dusted down the stairs covered as they were with dust balls and cat hair and watered the plants. By the afternoon, I was tired and sweaty and on went the air conditioner. I have to make a dump run, but I’m leaning toward Monday. I feel lazy today.
I’m thinking of spending the afternoon on the deck. The breeze is wonderful, and my table is under shade from the trees. Gracie always follows me out and sleeps where the deck right angles. It too is a shady spot.
It’s getting on to lunch time. I’m thinking grill cheese.
Categories: Musings
Tags: 67˚, Blanket, Cat, Dog, getting older, intolerant, meowing, noise, saw, wood chippers
Comments: 8 Comments
June 6, 2016
Yesterday I chose to do little. I took a shower for the sake of cleanliness, but that was it for constructive. Today I go back to the old list and change my bed and do laundry then I’ll need a new list. I’m not all that enthused about doing anything so the new list will be short. Outside might just be the only item. I have chairs to clean and lights to fix, and being outside might make doing work a bit easier.
It’s noisy right now. I hear hammering and wood being piled. I suppose in the scheme of things they aren’t very loud, but this is generally a quiet place. Dogs do bark and kids do yell but that’s it. The bird songs tend to be the loudest.
Usually all three animals are here with me when taking their morning naps. The only one here now is Maddie and she is roaming. Fern is in the living room and Gracie is in her crate. I can hear her snoring. If I move around, Gracie sticks her head out to see where I’m going. She’ll follow me if it looks interesting enough. Gracie is never far from where I am.
When I went to Ghana, it was the first time I ever lived alone. It took time to be comfortable living alone because I couldn’t just pick up the phone and chat or drop over to visit. Here I was trying to adjust to a new culture and a new country so being lonely and homesick at the same time felt crushing. I had to figure ways to deal with it. I wrote letters, some of which were never sent. They were filled with my feelings, my sense of failure and my wondering if Ghana was right for me. I ached for letters from home and ran to the staff room to check my box at least twice a day. I also concentrated on figuring out how to speak English so I could be understood by my students. I gave myself until Christmas. Come to find out, that was more than enough time. I adjusted to speaking English slowly with an emphasis on letters like t in better or letter. My students were catching on as well. The more they heard, the more they understood. I started going to the market and shopping for food. It connected me to the town and the people. They stopped seeing me as simply the white lady. Now I was madam, the teacher at the training college. I used Hausa, the language Peace Corps had taught me. The Ghanians were delighted.
I began to feel I was home, a different home but still home. I stopped running to check the mail. Sometimes I ever forgot for a day or two. I read in the evenings or wrote letters about my day to day life. Every one of those got sent. I loved being in Ghana.
Categories: Musings
Tags: birds, Dog, doga, Gracie, kids, lazy, lonely, Peace Corps Ghana, quiet, Shower, sleeping animals, Sunday
Comments: 10 Comments
September 25, 2014
I am back to myself again. The only aches and pains come from age.
The morning is dark, almost ominous. Everything is still. The house was cold when I woke up, down to 64˚. I broke my no heat vow. The house is now comfortable, and I am in my winter garb including slippers and a sweatshirt. I’m thinking it might be time to replace the back door screen with glass. That’s where Gracie’s dog door is, and when it’s cold, I have to keep the inside door shut, and Gracie can’t come and go at will. I’ve added that to my to do list for today. I’m also going to put a blanket on the bed. I was cold last night, and I know Gracie was too because she was leaning against me. It wasn’t comfortable.
Duke, the boxer I grew up with, was not allowed on furniture, including beds, but he always figured that only held true when we could see him. At night he’d sleep on the couch. We could hear him getting off when we walked down the stairs in the morning. When we went somewhere and Duke was home alone, the bedspreads would miraculously get circles in the middle, the sort a dog makes when turning around and around. We never did catch him at it. He was one smart dog.
Yesterday was computer day from hell. My Mac screen stayed black. The keyboard lit and the cursor worked, but the screen would die just after the apple appeared. I went crazy. I got my iPad and went hunting. One site told me to hold the shift key so it would open in safe mode. That didn’t work. I’d read my book for a while, but I kept stopping to stare at the computer. I hate computer problems, and I have this overwhelming need to solve them. I’d put my book down and try something else suggested by some poor computer illiterate with the same problem. I went from forum to forum. I felt like Diogenes wandering with my lamp looking not for an honest man but for a solution. I actually found one. It was five steps, and the woman who posted it had gotten the solution from Apple. The comments after the steps were from people thanking her which gave me encouragement and also let me know the problem was not the machine. It was a glitch from an Apple system automatic update that never quite got past the login screen. When my desktop appeared, I was Rocky running up the stairs of the art museum in triumph: computer 0, me 1.
Categories: Musings
Tags: animals on the bed, dark day, Dog, furnace, heat, off the bed, rain, Storm door
Comments: 12 Comments
August 19, 2012
The sun appeared for a few minutes then went into hiding behind the clouds. The day is overcast but still light, none of the darkness of the last few days. A damp chill is in the air and a breeze is blowing. It’s an okay day.
Gracie’s panting was so heavy that she shook the bed and woke me at 1:30. She was gulping so I knew her stomach was upset. It happens every now and then. We went downstairs, and I let her out to hunt for grass to eat to settle her stomach. She came back inside about 20 minutes later, and we went back to bed. In not too much time, the bed began to shake again so downstairs we went and out she went. She came in and we went to bed but she kept moving around as she was unable to get comfortable and then came the panting. By this time it was 2:30, and I had yet to fall back to sleep. I went upstairs and brought down a sheet and pillow and went to try to fall asleep on the couch. Gracie joined me. Neither of us slept. She started panting again. This time she was out so long I went out on the deck to make sure she was okay. It was around 3:30. When she came back in, I fed her some fronds from the spider plant. She ate everyone and then went back outside. When she came in this last time, she went into her crate and stood looking at me. That is the universal sign for a treat so I gave her one which she ate then another. Gracie was just fine. It was 4 o’clock when we both went back to bed.
My dog Duke, when he was pretty old, got into a horrible dog fight with the huge dog down the street. Duke got the worst of it. He had really bad wounds on his neck where the dog had grabbed him. This never happened when Duke was in his younger days, when he was the scourge of the dogs in the neighborhood but age had slowed him down. My mother wanted him brought to the vets; my father said he’d be fine.
In those days, my dad worked on the Cape all week and came home only on weekends. We were moving there but not until after school was finished for the year. When my dad left the Monday after the dog fight, my mother brought Duke to the vet who took care of the bite wound with a few stitches and a shot or two. By the time my dad got home at the end of the week, the wounds were well on their way to healing. My dad checked out Duke when he got home and said to my mother, ” I told you nature would take care of it.” None of us ever mentioned the trip to the vet’s.
Categories: Musings
Tags: damp day, Dog, dog fight, Duke, Gracie, vets
Comments: 12 Comments
June 18, 2012
Okay, today is like yesterday which is like the day before. It is cloudy and cool. Gracie woke me up at eight which to me was the middle of the night as I didn’t go to bed until after two. She was barking loud enough to wake the neighbors so I went downstairs where she was standing by the front door. I opened it, but nothing was there. I let her out back into the yard, and there was a dog outside the fence who started barking at Gracie who then tried to jump the six foot fence to get at the interloper. Gracie was as fierce as I’d ever heard her, and she managed to get her front paws on the top of the fence but, luckily, never made it over. When she came on the deck to get a better look, I grabbed her and brought her inside. The dog took off through the yard behind mine. I kept Gracie in the house, drank my morning coffee and read the papers. When I finished, I started my morning chores. I went upstairs and changed the cat litter then was going to change the bed before my shower, but I decided the bed looked inviting, and I was tired so I went back to sleep for another two hours. I just woke up.
I like naps. Even when I was in college, I took naps so age is not a factor. My father was a napper so I am from a line of nappers. My favorites are winter naps in the cold darkness of the late afternoon while I’m snuggled under the down comforter with the animals beside me keeping me even warmer. Rainy day naps are a close second, and I love to fall asleep to the rhythmic sounds of drops falling on the overhang below the roof right outside my window. My friend Jay calls it his nippy nap. I always liked that. His wife is not a napper, but she understands naps. My sisters, who are also not nappers, don’t understand the lure of the nap. My mother never did either, but my father did.
I have no agenda for the day other than finish those chores and do a laundry then I’m going to read for the rest of the afternoon. I think it sounds like a wonderful day!
Categories: Musings
Tags: barking, Dog, early morning, Gracie, naps, rainy day
Comments: 13 Comments
May 24, 2012
The day is brighter than the last few and the sun is just biding its time behind a cloud. It’s expected a bit later. It’s a long sleeve day which I found out when I investigated Gracie’s intruder bark. She was standing on the rail by the deck stairs, and the hair on her back was raised from her neck to her tail, never a good sign. I looked but saw nothing. It must have been the rabbit which just stands and stares at the dog. While Gracie was standing on the rail, I noticed the border along the side of the rail is in pieces held together by only a single wire; the bamboo has seen its last. I got her inside before she leapt that rail. This time she’d have hurt herself as the rail borders the holly bush. I put wire across the spot for the meantime as I do have a woven screen I bought yesterday. While I was attaching the wire, I noticed a spot near the driveway where she’s started digging under the fence. I put a board across it. Gracie is an escape artist, and when she’s on the run, she’s quick and won’t come to me. Neighbors come out, and she goes right to them. My yard is huge but obviously Gracie prefers the wider world.
When I was a kid, there were no leash laws. Dogs roamed. I never saw one hit by a car as the dogs were wary on the streets and car smart, and I think the cars were slower on local roads back then. Duke, our boxer, was quite the traveler. He’d follow us to school or follow the neighbors to their school. My father would yell for him, Duke would turn around to acknowledge he’d heard my father, then he’d keep going. My father got so angry he’d jump in the car to get the dog. My mother had a different strategy. She’d hold out a piece of bologna and call Duke. He’d come and eat the bologna leaving a small piece in my mother’s hand then he’d run on his way. Duke and his son Sam were notorious for prowling the neighborhoods. Sam was my aunt’s dog, the aunt who gave us Duke, and he lived three or four blocks away. The two would meet up and travel together. They looked fierce but Sam was the gentlest of dogs. Duke was stubborn and protective. They scared people.
We moved to the cape and their days of roaming together were over. I swear the entire town let out a sigh of relief.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Boxers, cloudy, Dog, fences, Gracie, pets, sun, yards
Comments: 20 Comments
May 24, 2012
The day is brighter than the last few and the sun is just biding its time behind a cloud. It’s expected a bit later. It’s a long sleeve day which I found out when I investigated Gracie’s intruder bark. She was standing on the rail by the deck stairs, and the hair on her back was raised from her neck to her tail, never a good sign. I looked but saw nothing. It must have been the rabbit which just stands and stares at the dog. While Gracie was standing on the rail, I noticed the border along the side of the rail is in pieces held together by only a single wire; the bamboo has seen its last. I got her inside before she leapt that rail. This time she’d have hurt herself as the rail borders the holly bush. I put wire across the spot for the meantime as I do have a woven screen I bought yesterday. While I was attaching the wire, I noticed a spot near the driveway where she’s started digging under the fence. I put a board across it. Gracie is an escape artist, and when she’s on the run, she’s quick and won’t come to me. Neighbors come out, and she goes right to them. My yard is huge but obviously Gracie prefers the wider world.
When I was a kid, there were no leash laws. Dogs roamed. I never saw one hit by a car as the dogs were wary on the streets and car smart, and I think the cars were slower on local roads back then. Duke, our boxer, was quite the traveler. He’d follow us to school or follow the neighbors to their school. My father would yell for him, Duke would turn around to acknowledge he’d heard my father, then he’d keep going. My father got so angry he’d jump in the car to get the dog. My mother had a different strategy. She’d hold out a piece of bologna and call Duke. He’d come and eat the bologna leaving a small piece in my mother’s hand then he’d run on his way. Duke and his son Sam were notorious for prowling the neighborhoods. Sam was my aunt’s dog, the aunt who gave us Duke, and he lived three or four blocks away. The two would meet up and travel together. They looked fierce but Sam was the gentlest of dogs. Duke was stubborn and protective. They scared people.
We moved to the cape and their days of roaming together were over. I swear the entire town let out a sigh of relief.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Boxers, cloudy, Dog, fences, Gracie, pets, sun, yards
Comments: 20 Comments
keepthecoffeecoming.blog 