Saturday, May 18, 2013
I'm back
Decided to take a bit of a sabbatical. Seems like everyone has been illl. Daughter has been IBD-ing and ITP-ing out the wa-zoo, too. And, just needed a break. Have some great pictures of wine, crochet, food, and other assorted "stuff" to be sharing so get ready for it in the next week or so....
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Mind Boggling
Sometimes, I don't even know where to begin. The NRA is just plain bonkers if they think we need armed guards at schools. There have been shootings at malls, movie theatres, professional offices, and workplaces. Do we need to go through checkpoints and past armed guards everywhere? Everywhere? Really?
There was a "good guy" near the Gabby Giffords shooting. In all the chaos and confusion, he shot another good guy. Can you imagine a teacher in a classroom of screaming 13 year olds being able to discern who's who in a similar situation. Nuts.
And WTF is wrong with having to fill out some paperwork and pass a background check to purchase ammunition and a firearm? I damn sure filled out more paperwork and jumped through more hoops adopting a frappin' pet from basset hound rescue than I would buying an assault weapon at a gun show.
Texas Tollways can snap a photo of my license plate and send me a bill but we can't have a national registery of gun owners? I have to prove I am "responsible" every year when I renew my license plate tags and safety inspection. Hell, when I renew my driver's license, they make me peer into a machine to ensure I can even see! But, tracking guns? No fucking way.
Boggles the mind.
There was a "good guy" near the Gabby Giffords shooting. In all the chaos and confusion, he shot another good guy. Can you imagine a teacher in a classroom of screaming 13 year olds being able to discern who's who in a similar situation. Nuts.
And WTF is wrong with having to fill out some paperwork and pass a background check to purchase ammunition and a firearm? I damn sure filled out more paperwork and jumped through more hoops adopting a frappin' pet from basset hound rescue than I would buying an assault weapon at a gun show.
Texas Tollways can snap a photo of my license plate and send me a bill but we can't have a national registery of gun owners? I have to prove I am "responsible" every year when I renew my license plate tags and safety inspection. Hell, when I renew my driver's license, they make me peer into a machine to ensure I can even see! But, tracking guns? No fucking way.
Boggles the mind.
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Monday, December 31, 2012
Jenny Basset
Once upon a time, we loved a little brown dog that we named Jenny Rose. My daughter and I bought her from a breeder on the side of the road in NW Austin. These days, that's illegal. However, we got to meet Jenny's mom and siblings as well the breeders. Normally, I would not do that, but.... there was something about that little brown puppy with the white spot above her tail that called our names. So we brought her home in July of 2000.
Jenny was a mess (in a good way) from the get go. Congo loved her - amazing since he was a curmudgeon on his best days. He taught her how to hunt birds like a cat would, so we frequently saw them tag-teaming a dove. They would snuggle up together on the bedding outside our back door. They were inseparable.
Jenny was a bed hog. We slept with her, and she would crowd us out by stretching and groaning with delight at lounging on a king sized bed. She liked to be covered up. She liked to put her head on the pillow. She loved it when you would curl up with your arms around her. She was a four-legged kid. Spoiled? Yeah, she was, but then else why do you have a pet? (p.s. That's Remmy-basset in the foreground.)
She also loved little children. Jenny wasn't always the biggest fan of being walked, but if she spotted a little one, her ears and gait picked up. She'd trot, with the white tip on her tail waving, towards the child. Once they started to pet her, she'd roll over to expose her belly to them. She loved having them fawn and crawl all over her. We'd often have to start dragging her, still tethered by her leash and laying on the ground, away so we could finish our walk. What a goob! I wish our grandson could've met her because she would have been absolutely bonkers about him.
She was, most of all, a glutton. This frequently got her into trouble. She loved to eat the pecans that fall in our back yard. One October, she swallowed one whole. It lodged in her duodenum and had to be surgically removed. I still have the pecan in a sealed specimen cup, a $1200 testament to her piggy ways. Not a week after she had her plastic collar and stitches removed from that episode, we found the half cracked remains of several pecans in her bedding. Bad Dog!! ;-) She got to spend multiple nights at the emergency animal clinic because of gastric issues until the vet told us that if we suspected she'd ingested something putrid, feed her a Pepcid. It worked! Ka-Ching!
I could go on and on because that's what loving a pet is all about.
Remembering.
It's been a year now that we took her to the vet for the final time. Her end was close but it was so hard to acknowledge it, even with the vet's help. In her usual Jenny way, she put her head on my lap and looked at me with those big brown and soulful basset eyes. It's OK to say goodbye. She selected New Years Day 2012.
Love. The best "Little Brown Dog" ever.
Jenny was a mess (in a good way) from the get go. Congo loved her - amazing since he was a curmudgeon on his best days. He taught her how to hunt birds like a cat would, so we frequently saw them tag-teaming a dove. They would snuggle up together on the bedding outside our back door. They were inseparable.
Jenny was a bed hog. We slept with her, and she would crowd us out by stretching and groaning with delight at lounging on a king sized bed. She liked to be covered up. She liked to put her head on the pillow. She loved it when you would curl up with your arms around her. She was a four-legged kid. Spoiled? Yeah, she was, but then else why do you have a pet? (p.s. That's Remmy-basset in the foreground.)
She also loved little children. Jenny wasn't always the biggest fan of being walked, but if she spotted a little one, her ears and gait picked up. She'd trot, with the white tip on her tail waving, towards the child. Once they started to pet her, she'd roll over to expose her belly to them. She loved having them fawn and crawl all over her. We'd often have to start dragging her, still tethered by her leash and laying on the ground, away so we could finish our walk. What a goob! I wish our grandson could've met her because she would have been absolutely bonkers about him.
She was, most of all, a glutton. This frequently got her into trouble. She loved to eat the pecans that fall in our back yard. One October, she swallowed one whole. It lodged in her duodenum and had to be surgically removed. I still have the pecan in a sealed specimen cup, a $1200 testament to her piggy ways. Not a week after she had her plastic collar and stitches removed from that episode, we found the half cracked remains of several pecans in her bedding. Bad Dog!! ;-) She got to spend multiple nights at the emergency animal clinic because of gastric issues until the vet told us that if we suspected she'd ingested something putrid, feed her a Pepcid. It worked! Ka-Ching!
I could go on and on because that's what loving a pet is all about.
Remembering.
It's been a year now that we took her to the vet for the final time. Her end was close but it was so hard to acknowledge it, even with the vet's help. In her usual Jenny way, she put her head on my lap and looked at me with those big brown and soulful basset eyes. It's OK to say goodbye. She selected New Years Day 2012.
5-3-2000 to 1-1-2012. Nice symmetry.
Love. The best "Little Brown Dog" ever.
Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Congo and Christmas
To say that this has been an interesting year is an understatement. We started it off by having to put our beloved Jenny-basset down on New Years Day after a lengthy battle with a mammary sarcoma (another post on another day). My mother-in-law was diagnosed with and had surgery for breast cancer about three weeks later. Fortunately, she recovered nicely, and is in good health now. And, of course there have been our daughter's health travails (well documented here). Blessings include, among others things, the birth of our first grandchild.
Then there was Congo.
This will be the first Christmas in 18 years that we have not had Congo kitty helping us celebrate the holidays. He was a holiday fanatic. As a kitten, he would climb high into the tree and lay in the branches. Made no difference to him if the tree was real or fake. It was put in the corner for him to roost in. He loved to wander amongst the gifts, laying on and in them, hiding behind them, and eating the bows and ribbons. Low hanging ornaments were to be batted at, removed from the tree, and swatted across the floor. The tree skirt was for laying on in a shaft of sunlight. I'm not a fan of all the hoopla and disruption, but he looked forward to it every year. I think he enjoyed me admonishing him like one of the children to "be nice to the tree".
Strangest of all was Congo's obsession with a homemade Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. My mom was a second grade teacher, and one year as part of a school fund raiser, the High School Shop boys made Rudolphs to sell. She bought me one, and I began setting it out every year when the kids were little. My oldest is almost 31 years old now, so suffice to say, Rudy has some miles on him. He's a rustic piece of my family's "holiday heritage". Assembled from a landscaping timber, wooden dowel legs, plastic eyes, and do-it-yourself antlers made of twigs culled from the yard, he is also wired to accept a single, red light for his nose.
Congo LOVED his nose. He would sit there staring at it. He lovingly head butted it, occassionally leaving a strand or three of his lush gray fur hung on Rudy's face. He and Rudy had some mystical kinship. Oddest of all, Congo would gnaw on that blinking red nose. Did not matter if Rudy was plugged in or not -- teeth marks and flaking red paint everywhere. When we caught him doing it, we'd scold him. But the evidence of his crime was always there in the form of Rudy's red nose minus chips of paint. We've replaced many a bulb nose over the years and every single one of them had his teeth marks on them.
Congo died of old age this March just a few days shy of his 17th birthday. Part of his passing was due to his antiquity, but I also think another was grief at Jenny's passing two and a half month's earlier. When she began to fail, so did he. He was a strange cat who loved a basset hound and the holidays.
As I began to dig out and assemble the holidays decorations this season, I knew that I'd have to also un-box Rudy in all his not-so-red-nosed glory. I told my husband I didn't want to set him up, but he encouraged me to anyway. So, I went out in the yard to find him a new set of antlers. Then I set him up and plugged him in. The bulb still works, and if it goes out this year, I will save its mangled remains as a memento.
So, here's to you, Congo. I'd give just about anything to be scolding you not to gnaw all the paint off Rudy's "red" nose. He misses you - and so do we.
Then there was Congo.
This will be the first Christmas in 18 years that we have not had Congo kitty helping us celebrate the holidays. He was a holiday fanatic. As a kitten, he would climb high into the tree and lay in the branches. Made no difference to him if the tree was real or fake. It was put in the corner for him to roost in. He loved to wander amongst the gifts, laying on and in them, hiding behind them, and eating the bows and ribbons. Low hanging ornaments were to be batted at, removed from the tree, and swatted across the floor. The tree skirt was for laying on in a shaft of sunlight. I'm not a fan of all the hoopla and disruption, but he looked forward to it every year. I think he enjoyed me admonishing him like one of the children to "be nice to the tree".
Strangest of all was Congo's obsession with a homemade Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. My mom was a second grade teacher, and one year as part of a school fund raiser, the High School Shop boys made Rudolphs to sell. She bought me one, and I began setting it out every year when the kids were little. My oldest is almost 31 years old now, so suffice to say, Rudy has some miles on him. He's a rustic piece of my family's "holiday heritage". Assembled from a landscaping timber, wooden dowel legs, plastic eyes, and do-it-yourself antlers made of twigs culled from the yard, he is also wired to accept a single, red light for his nose.
Congo LOVED his nose. He would sit there staring at it. He lovingly head butted it, occassionally leaving a strand or three of his lush gray fur hung on Rudy's face. He and Rudy had some mystical kinship. Oddest of all, Congo would gnaw on that blinking red nose. Did not matter if Rudy was plugged in or not -- teeth marks and flaking red paint everywhere. When we caught him doing it, we'd scold him. But the evidence of his crime was always there in the form of Rudy's red nose minus chips of paint. We've replaced many a bulb nose over the years and every single one of them had his teeth marks on them.
Congo died of old age this March just a few days shy of his 17th birthday. Part of his passing was due to his antiquity, but I also think another was grief at Jenny's passing two and a half month's earlier. When she began to fail, so did he. He was a strange cat who loved a basset hound and the holidays.
As I began to dig out and assemble the holidays decorations this season, I knew that I'd have to also un-box Rudy in all his not-so-red-nosed glory. I told my husband I didn't want to set him up, but he encouraged me to anyway. So, I went out in the yard to find him a new set of antlers. Then I set him up and plugged him in. The bulb still works, and if it goes out this year, I will save its mangled remains as a memento.
So, here's to you, Congo. I'd give just about anything to be scolding you not to gnaw all the paint off Rudy's "red" nose. He misses you - and so do we.
Friday, December 14, 2012
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)