Some random thoughts of randomness

1. My dad bought a new bike recently. He's always been a big walker, and goes around the White Estates neighborhood where I grew up, picking up trash with his grabbin-claw or whatever that thing is called and a Wal-Mart sack. He enjoys biking around now too, although I don't think he can still pick up trash, because wouldn't that be kind of hard? You might have to pedal in circles around, say, a cast-off paper McDonald's bag, before you could actually pick it up. ANYWAY, my mom was talking about getting a bike for herself so that she could join him, and I brightly suggested, "Why don't you get a bicycle built for two?"

My dad, who was sitting in an armchair with his eyes fixed intently on SportsCenter, snorted. Mom cast him a brief glance and said, "The last time we rode on a two-person bike, on Mackinac Island? He said he had to do all the work."

"I did," my father said emphatically, his focus on the television unwavering.

"Well, maybe you could promise to pedal really hard," I said soothingly.

My mother sat thinking for a moment and then announced, "I think I'd rather just get a rickshaw. We've been married forty-nine years. Why bother with pretense?"

2. Our new school year starts this Thursday, September 1. Meelyn will be a senior and Aisling will be a junior. I AM STARING DOWN THE TWIGS OF AN EMPTY NEST, PEOPLE.

3. Since school is starting up, I think I'll start Menu Plan Monday next Monday, which is Labor Day, so maybe I'll start next Tuesday. Just keepin' it real.

4. Dobby was barking at the people across the street, who were doing nothing more threatening than sitting on their front porch, talking and drinking iced tea. I know, I can't believe the nerve of those trolls either. Dobby barked at them so violently, he fell off the back of the couch onto the floor. Epic fail.

5. I'm teaching a class in British literature this first semester, plus my usual Shakespeare class. The Shakespeare play for this semester is Julius Caesar, and by some amazing happenstance, because I promise I did not know about this earlier, the Indiana Repertory Theater is doing Julius Caesar this fall! I am very excited, because although I have the three extant copies of Julius Caesar on DVD (one starring Marlon Brando as Mark Antony and the other starring Charlton Heston as Marc Antony and the other one starring no one I've heard of before and ALL THREE OF THEM SUCK LIKE A SHOP VAC.

6. This morning in water aerobics class, the music of the day was the greatest hits of Elton John and I knew the lyrics to every single song. Did some great in-pool jumping jacks to "Philadelphia Freedom."

7. I've been accused by several people of shamefully neglecting my blog. It's been a very busy summer - that's the only excuse I have. I'll try to do better.

With visions of my slippers dancing through his head

Because you don't really think that this boy is day-dreaming about all the good things of Christmas, do you? No, I assure you that he isn't. What he's doing right here is wondering what new sort of mischief he can get into as soon as he jumps off the couch, aided and abetted by Zuzu, his partner in crime. It's like having two toddlers in the house again -- two really naughty (but unbelievably cute and funny) toddlers.

Not at all sorry

Dobby and Zuzu make quite a team. Yesterday they were playing together in the living room, tugging a toy back and forth and chasing each other around while I was in the kitchen loading the dishwasher and in the laundry room matching socks. I was listening to some Christmas music and kind of humming along to myself when I noticed that all the noise of the dogs playing had ceased. That set the Mommy Alarm a-whirling and I went to the living room to see what they were up to, with a strong and clear remembrance of Meelyn falling suddenly quiet at age two and going in to my bedroom to find that she'd drawn quite a large picture on our newly painted bedroom walls with my tube of mascara.

The two dogs had somehow managed to snitch a peppermint candy cane off the tree and were so absorbed in eating it, they didn't even noticed when I came into the room and took their picture.

I plan on telling Santa to bring them each one piece of coal and a big, big bottle of violet-scented dog shampoo for Christmas.

Cute little ugly baby

This is the best picture I've ever taken of Dobby since we got him a month ago, mostly because he is so rarely still that every time I point the camera at him, he immediately starts whirling around like a spinning top as if he's trying to find the best pose: "This way? How about this way? Like this? Or did you like this one better? Wait! I've got a whole new one...."

He was sunbathing on the couch in this pic, looking dapper in his blue plaid sweater. I adore his pink nose and his sticky-up ears and especially that little wrinkled hairy chin. We kiss him ten thousand times a day and coo over him with disgustingly syrupy baby talk and always make sure that his jaunty winter jacket -- the one with the faux fur-lined hood -- is securely velcroed up so that hims won't get a chill on him's widdle chest, 'cause we don't want that Mister Baby Sweetie-sugar to gets sickies, now do we?

*ahem*

Sorry.

The big chill commences

"Summer's lease hath all too short a date," Will wrote in Sonnet 18, and although I'm always glad to see the seasons change -- particularly from winter into spring -- I have to say that I don't mind that this summer is behind us. It was hot. And too long, because it pretty much just ended a couple of weeks ago, in my opinion. I'm inclined to be snappish with Mother Nature when the temperature climbs into the seventies in mid-November. It's supposed to be cold, I complain to the great outdoors. It is supposed to be rainy and windy so that we can feel COZY as we sit indoors with our books and our mugs of tea and our Ambient Fire DVDs (it makes me a little sad that when our house was built, fireplaces were considered hopelessly old-fashioned, with huge coal furnaces being all the rage.) I've had enough gasping in the heat to last me until, well, next summer.

So here it is, cold. Our old windows are surprisingly tight in this house, but my husband reinforces them with that tightly-stretched plastic - not a decorative look I'm particularly fond of, but truth be told, it's almost impossible to tell it's even there behind the blinds and the curtains. Our front door poses more of a problem when it comes to keeping drafts out because it is about 130 years old, is nine feet tall, has wavy glass as thin as tissue paper and a number of gaps between the door and the frame that range in size between "matchbook" and "cavernous." The fact that it is beautiful and makes my heart happy every time I look at it is the most important of all its attributes, in my opinion.

I stood shivering in front of the door one day, contemplating the ways it could be fixed so that all the winds of the world couldn't roar through in gusty drafts that caused the curtains covering the windows in the foyer to dance merrily around. My ideas were few: 1) Get a new front door, an idea I immediately rejected because I am emotionally involved with this front door, even if it does have all the wind-halting properties of a cheese grater; or 2) just leave it as it was and start wearing so many turtlenecks and sweaters, we'd be unable to bend our arms, which seemed unworkable, considering that I need the use of my bent arms to type, cook dinner and put on my makeup; or 3) go to Lowe's or Home Depot and get some of that sticky foam stuff you apply to the edge of the door to give it a tight seal. The very thought of committing such an act of desecration on our lovely door gave me sweaty palms, so after I washed my hands, I went to my husband.

"We need to do something about the front door," I said, standing in front of the television so that his view of whatever current football game was playing was obscured.

"By this 'we' you actually mean 'me,' right?" he responded, arching his neck back and forth to see around me. Because of the generous proportions of my figure, he was unable to do so.

"Yes," I admitted. "I mean you. But only because I can't think of what to do."

My husband flipped down the footstool of his recliner and stood up. "Luckily, I grew up poor, so I know exactly how to fix this kind of problem. Do you have any magazines you're done reading?"

I did. I went and got him a couple of old issues of Martha Stewart Living, which I thought was appropriate for the kind of task he was undertaking, and he spent the second half of his televised football game cutting, folding and taping. When he and the game were both done, he called me into the foyer to demonstrate his creation.

He held up several magazine pages, folded lengthwise and taped together to form one long piece about the width of a ruler. He'd actually made two, I found out shortly - one of which was stuck in the crack between the door and the jamb above the door's knob and lock, and one for below. "That's all it takes," he said, squatting back on his heels. "If we'll just be sure to keep this draft blocker across the bottom of the door, I think we'll find that it stays warmer in here. My mom used to make these things out of grocery bags when I was a kid," he added. "It always worked then and it's a nice, cheap fix."

"Cheap is good," I said gladly, pleased that I didn't have to do something aesthetically violent to my door.

And you know what? It works! In the back of the house, because our laundry room is so out of plumb, the door back there has some issues too, but it is a regular sized door, and when the wind's from the north, that door is low enough that we can stuff our artfully folded magazine page-and-grocery bag "door stuffers," as we call them, all around the edges, which makes the whole back half of the house warmer, in spite of the fact that the dogs feel that the sand-filled draft blocker that lies in front of the door is one of their special and most favorite playthings to drag around the house.

Speaking of the dogs, there are Dobby the minature pinscher and Zuzu the schnoodle up there on the couch in a rare moment of quiet, wrapped in a fuzzy fleece blankie and enjoying the fact that if a blanket should ever fail them, there's always a warm lap waiting.

Brand-new baby

Okay, I have pictures of our new dog, FINALLY. Blogger did some dubious "upgrades" the other day which left me with the inability to post images for the past three days, which is like GRRR. So here he is, our new shelter adoptee, Dobby the miniature pinscher. He was caught just at the very beginning of a large yawn -- he and Zuzu were lounging on Mee's big squooshy pillow, Zuzu flat on her back and Dobby stretched out on his side.

I have never been particularly drawn to miniature pinschers before because, well....they're hideously ugly. I mean, LOOK AT THAT FACE, if you dare. It could just about stop a clock. He's a tiny boy, only eleven pounds, which is what Zuzu weighs. But Zuzu is furry and curly and snuggly and Dobby is all skinny and wiry, with legs that look like #2 pencils and a pinkish nose that looks like an eraser. His eyes are beady and his ears are about three sizes too big for his head, but in spite of this appalling list of beauty flaws, his personality is all you could hope for in a dog.

Dobby is a sweet boy and makes the funniest little cooing sounds almost constantly. At first, these little sounds were very anxious,  which just wrung my heart. He also had a frightened, ill-at-ease look in his eyes the first few days we've had him. The people at the shelter told us that he'd had a hard life, born in a puppy mill and chosen by his first owner from a room swarming with puppies and mothers and strewn with spilled water and torn up newspapers and poop. Then the first owner took him home for a year, neglected to ever buy him a tag with his name and her phone number on it ($4 at Wal-Mart) or get his annual shots. Then he slipped out of her house and got lost in the city, was picked up as a stray and went to the shelter. He was there for a week and we saw him the day after Hershey died: I couldn't deal with the jangling loneliness of having only one dog in the house and the girls and I went there just to see what the process was for adopting a pet and to fill out an application.

Dobby was standing in a cage when we walked into the room at the shelter where the small dogs were housed. For a min pin, he was a handsome boy, the first chocolate-and-red miniature pinscher I'd ever seen. I thought they only came in the black style! He looked so forlorn, so utterly defeated, that I was immediately attracted to him, in spite of the fact that there was an adorable Yorkie mix in a cage not far from his. The Yorkie mix still had some spirit to him, though, and poor Dobby just stood there and looked at me with what I perceived was longing. I put my hand up to his cage to sniff, and after checking me out, he gave my palm a solemn bath with a long, pink tongue, closing his eyes as I put my finger through the bars of the crate to scratch his big ears.

Meelyn, Aisling and I had Zuzu with us, so we introduced them to one another in the shelter's parking lot. Zuzu's ears pricked up and she bounced around him like a rubber ball, sniffing him all over and then going down into the play bow to see if he'd like to play a game of chase. As it turned out, he did not. He was very diffident, looking at us all shyly, as if aware that his personal charms weren't centered on his looks. My heart was captured.

We adopted him three days later.

Once back at our house with the new baby, my first mission was to get him a collar and an ID tag, along with a sweater -- as it turns out, miniature pinschers have such sleek, tight coats, they can get chilly in cool weather and our house is not known for its sauna-like atmosphere. Leaving Dobby at home sitting in my husband's lap, the girls and I sailed off to Wal-Mart where we found him a dapper red collar and a couple of cozy sweaters. The sweaters, one in fall colors and the other a distinguished blue plaid, are just the funniest things I have ever seen on a dog. He looks like he could be a male dog-model for L.L. Bean. Very preppy, with the turtlenecks all folded over. I wish so much we could find him an Izod dog sweater. Maybe my husband wouldn't notice a couple of holes on the upper left side of his golf shirts....

It's taken Dobby all this past week to settle in, but he's doing very well, considering the traumatic circumstances of his recent history. He's very smart, learning his new name by Day Three and coming at a run when called. He's very affectionate, gazing at us all with beady eyes brimming over with devotion as he climbs into our laps. He and Zuzu have taken a liking to one another and are constantly whirling around the house, tumbling around as they grr and play-fight and wrestle with the toys and pull a plush bear back and forth between them. Then they flop down in a heap together to sleep. Zuzu has taught Dobby to come running whenever they hear someone in the kitchen opening the cabinet doors.

I don't think we could ever consider Dobby a substitute for Hershey. Hershey's loss is still too fresh in all our minds. But I do think that Dobby will make his own place in our family's history and that we'll love him like all our other pets. And he'll help comfort us with his funny ways and sweet affection as we say goodbye to the good dog who came before him by getting to know the new one we were lucky enough to find behind the bars of a cage at the animal shelter.

(What they teach us) Hershey, July 31, 2002 - October 27, 2010

It all happened too fast.

One moment, everything was fine and the girls and I were saying hello to Hershey, who was glad to see us as we came home from doing some shopping for Aisling's Halloween sleepover, which was coming up in a week. We'd been to Dollar Tree and Wal-Mart and a couple of other places and we were laden with bags; he came to the back door to greet us, tail wagging happily. He followed us into the dining room, where we flung our spoils on the table to begin sorting them out, and Meelyn dropped down on her knees so that she could be at his level to hug him.

Hershey was hugged at least a hundred times a day. He was just that kind of huggable, snuggly dog, always very tolerant of being kissed and cuddled, although there were occasions when he'd heave a heavy sigh if we got a little too lovey-dovey.

But this day was different. When Meelyn hugged him, Hershey cried out with an extended wail of pain that went on and on, his eyes frantically seeking me out, his body shaking. Meelyn jumped to her feet saying, "What did I do? Hershey, what did I do? Hershey, baby, it's all right..." and I just knew that things were not all right, they were definitely not okay.

Since it was late on a Friday afternoon, the vet's office was already closed.

Hershey finally stopped that howl of pain (and I wish I could quit hearing it, wish I could just erase that sound out of my memory) and came over to me. I felt his head and it seemed the same as normal, ran my hands over his neck and his chest. And found four lumps. Big lumps, the size of hard boiled eggs. Where had they come from, so suddenly? How could things like that appear so quickly on a dog that was petted so often? He began panting heavily and went to wearily sink down under the dining room table. He stretched out on his side and we all looked at him, then looked at one another.

"What was that all about?" Aisling whispered fearfully. "Something really hurt him.

"Is he going to be okay, Mom?" Meelyn asked, her lip trembling.

"I hope so," I said, and I began silently praying. "Please. Please please please please please..." was what it sounded like. Hershey's panting continued, heavy, heavy panting that sounded labored and almost painful. I sat in the dining room with him, one of us under the table, one of us at the desk (when I spoke to him, he'd cut his eyes up at me and thump his tail gamely on the floor), and I entered his symptoms "enlarged lymph glands + panting" into Google.

And came up with canine lymphoma.

Which is what the vet diagnosed after a blood test on the following Monday. She put his life expectancy at two to eight weeks, and the girls and I drove him home, crying. I called my husband and could hardly get the words out, and he stood in the parking lot of the car dealership where he works, and cried with us.

Hershey died two days later.

It was so unexpected, so fast, and to keep from coming totally unglued, I had to think hard about what a pet's death teaches us, and these are the things that I told my family as we sat tearfully in our living room on the day Hershey died, one week ago today.

1. Dogs teach us about unconditional love, how they love us even when the water dish is dry. Hershey used to grip his bowl in his teeth and bring it to me, dropping it on the floor by my feet and giving me a sorrowful look that seemed to indicate, "I'm sure through no fault of your own, this oversight has occurred and I'm equally sure that you'll get up RIGHT NOW and fill this bowl up with water. And two ice cubes. Please. Because I know you love me."

2. Dogs, with their limited life spans, teach us about the cycle of life. In one human lifetime, a really dedicated dog lover could keep company with maybe nine or ten dogs, even more than that if the house seems empty without at least two. They teach us that death comes and sometimes it is bitter, but somehow, in the midst of all that sadness, there's still some hope to cling on to. Will this be a help when we lose our human loved ones? Yes, I think so. Because we'll have the experience of knowing what it is to grieve, and recover from that grief finding that there are still things to laugh about, things to look forward to.

3. Dogs teach us to celebrate their short lives with the gift of more dogs. Even while we're still mourning Hershey, we can save another dog from being euthanized by going to our local animal shelter or animal rescue, and picking out a new pet that will become part of the history of our family. The shelters and rescues are so full right now, with pets dropped off because their owners can't afford to keep them, or because their owners have to move, perhaps to a place where they're not free to take a pet. As it happens, our household is jarringly empty with only one dog -- we all feel the absence of that second canine presence keenly -- and we can help with that.

There are so many more things Hershey taught us, most of all that you can have a little bitty head, a big, blocky body, beady eyes and a bulbous nose and still be the sweetest, handsomest, most loving Big Buddy (my husband's nickname for him) or Mommy's Angel Sugarboy (my nickname for him) ever seen.

Hershey, sweet darling boy, we'll love you always and you will be missed.

Thanks so much to my sweet sister-cousins Susie and Carol, who helped me over the roughest part, to my friends Catherine L., Katie W., Debbie J., Julie P. and Jerri K. who were so good at expressing their sympathy, and to my parents, who loved Hershey too.

Happy 8th Birthday, Beltie!

Hershey is a Beltie - part Sheltie, part beagle. His head is tiny and triangular, featuring beady little eyes that are usually brimming over with love for us, and a nose that can be most kindly described as "bulbous." His beagle body is square and stocky, perched perilously on long, skinny Sheltie legs. Hershey is an assortment of shapes, most of which do not fit together into a pleasing blend. He does have, however, a very attractive tail.

We got Hershey from my friend Julie, the owner of his mother, when Hershey was five weeks old. I didn't actually want him, but Julie looked at me with her big, brown eyes and said, "I don't want to give Candy's precious babies away to strangers. I can't do it! Please take a puppy. Please please please please please please...."

Julie gave every indictation of being willing to repeat that word until I fell prostrate to the floor, foaming at the mouth, or until kingdom come, whichever happened first. So to shut her up, I said we'd take a puppy. Five weeks was really too young to take him, but Candy, who didn't give a hoot in heck about her puppies' welfare, had shaken them all off her one morning and gone off to hunt for turtles in the river with the dog next door. If it had been up to her, they would have been set in a box on the side of the road where any old crackhead crazy-person meth cooker could have picked them up and taken them home to be a cherished family pet. Or lunch. Whatever.

"These things bore me to sobs," she indicated, and off to the river she went.

Did I mention that the dog next door was Hershey's father?

Anyway, Hershey was an awful puppy, the worst dog I have ever had. He drove Wimzie to distraction, drinking out of her water dish, even though he had his own, and flatly refusing to eat his own puppy chow softened in milk in favor of crunching up her food in his tiny little needle-sharp teeth. And speaking of teeth, he chewed everything he could lay them on. He once chewed up half of a vinyl floor we had installed in front of our sliding glass patio door and then when I yelled at him, he ran like a jackrabbit down the hallway to the girls' playroom and chewed the leg off a Barbie.

We called him the "little

Wait. I can't tell you what we called him because my mom reads here and if I type what we called him, she'll telephone me and say, "I didn't raise you to use language like that."

The day I told my husband I wanted to get rid of him -- in a piercing shriek you might have heard at your house, if you think back to somewhere in October 2002 -- was the day he jumped on me and tore a hole in my gorgeous new plum colored sweater that looked so nice with my white camisole top.

"I HATE THAT DOG!!!" I yelled. True to his nature, Hershey didn't look cowed or frightened or even mildly worried. He just peered up at me with his squinty little eyes, chewing vigorously on my favorite pen. "GIVE ME THAT!!!!"

He ran, of course. My husband chased him down the hallway and retrieved my pen; Hershey came back a few moments later carrying one of my Clarks of England sandals. He was still so little, the sandal was practically as big as he was, but he was undeterred: he intended to eat that sandal right in front of my livid face.

"CALL JULIE AND TELL HER WE'RE BRINGING THIS DOG BACK! I HATE HIM! LET HIM CHEW HER SANDALS AND TEAR HER SWEATERS AND....AND.....EAT THE ARMS OFF HER BARBIES!!!"

"Julie has two boys, Shelley. They don't have any Barbies at their house," my husband said. He did not want to get rid of Hershey, having formed a deep attachment to the little ba-....whoops!!! None of his shoes had been chewed or clothing ruined, however.

"That is totally beside the point," I said bitterly. "I hate this dog. He's ugly. He's stupid; he doesn't even know his name and he's three months old!"

"Oh, he does too know his name," my husband demurred.

"Does not," I contradicted. "Listen. Hershey! C'mere, boy!"

Hershey sat before us, sandal dangling from his tiny jaws, and looked around curiously to see where Hershey was.

"Hershey!" my husband called, squatting down and calling out with a musical lilt to his voice. "Come here, buddy!! Come on, little man!" And then finally, growing impatient, "COME HERE, YOU LITTLE...."

Hershey sat, gnawing cheerfully on my sandal strap. He perked his big ears up as if to say, "You are sure nice folks, but I don't know who the heck you're talking to."

My husband stood up and put his hands in his pockets. "I see what you mean."

"Yes," I said, "but that's not even the worst of it. He's destructive. He chews, and anything he can't chew, he pees or poops on. No matter how many times a day I take him out. No matter how many chew toys I buy him. Puddles and piles and little heaps of spitty leather are all I get from this hell beast."

"But look how cute and funny he is," my husband said fondly as Hershey tired of my sandal and went over to lift one tiny leg in order to better pee on the piano.

"He's about as cute as a sucking chest wound," I said through gritted teeth as I went to find the Murphy's Oil Soap and the Resolve pet stain remover.

As you've probably figured, we still have Hershey. I'm happy to say that his worst traits did mellow with time and I can't remember the last time he used my furniture r carpet as a toilet. He also doesn't chew my shoes or tear holes in my clothes with his claws. In fact, I've been known to address him, in a gooey voice, as "Mommy's little sugar-angel." When I talk baby talk to him, it makes him fall down on his side for love of me and his appreciation for snuggling has earned him the alternate nickname of "Mr. Cuddlesby."

Yesterday, though, we just called him "Birthday Boy" and got him a package of Beggin' Strips (bacon and cheddar flavored, his favorite) for a present. I'm so glad we kept the little ba-....whooops!!!!

The shaving of a schnoodle

Yesterday was the first time I have ever taken a dog to a professional groomer, being as how I am an old school kind of pet owner who thinks that I shouldn't pay more for the dog's hair to be styled than I do for my own. Which is, of course, what ended up happening, only it was one of those styles on Zuzu where she came out looking worse than she did when she went in and I'm all, like, "OH MY GOSH, your HAIR! WAAAAHHH!!! YOUR ADORABLE FURRY BODY!!!!"

It wasn't the groomer's fault. Blame it all on the idiots who abandoned the poor little thing out in the country on that lonely road last winter. When we brought Zuzu home that day, I noticed -- once we'd MELTED ALL THE ICE OUT OF HER FUR -- that she had some substantially matted hair. Matted hair was something I was used to dealing with with Wimzie, who was a broken-coat Jack Russell. Wimzie's mats usually happened on her belly and her legs and I'd just carefully snip them off with scissors when I was grooming her with my pet clippers - Wimzie was violently opposed to groomers and tried to bite the one I took her to once, which is why I ended up with my own personal pet clippers and a very entertaining and instructive video titled "How to Groom Your Dog."

Anyway, when Zuzu had her first bath at our house, I noticed that some of the mats were biggish, but when I tried to brush her, she cringed and cried and I nearly cried myself, thinking hotly of some former "owner" who had pulled her fur and hurt her and scared her. Other mats were small and I clipped them off of her body in the same way I did with Wimzie. Zuzu was reconciled to this invasion of her modesty by the generous application of Pupperoni treats.

Over the past few months, the mats got worse, naturally. Here's a thing I didn't realize: poodle fur, which is what Zuzu has inherited from that end of the gene pool, along with the schnauzer face from the other side, is very high maintenance. I realized this after we got to our appointment at the groomer's studio and she looked at me pityingly and said, "Poodles have very high maintenance coats."

Great.

I brought Zuzu to the groomer's -- Kathy -- because it was clear that the mats weren't going to untangle themselves. Her outer chocolate-colored coat didn't look so bad, but her silvery undercoat was a mess. It was beyond what I felt I could attempt with my handy clippers, seeing as how my video didn't include a segment on How to Shear Your Dog Like a Sheep. So to Kathy's we went, Zuzu pleased as punch to be going on a car ride and me silently cussing at the money I was getting ready to be parted from. Funny, but my dad is approximately thirty miles away right now and I can hear his incredulous query: "You took the DOG to a GROOMER?" This is an item on his personal list that covers everything from lying in bed past seven o'clock for the sole purpose of reading a good book to going to more than two stores to find a pair of shoes. That list is titled Things That are Spoiled and Self-Indulgent and Leading to the Rapid Decline of Western Civilization.

Kathy removed nearly every hair on Zuzu's body, leaving her clean and untangled and looking NOTHING like the dog you see in the picture above. The only thing left on her face (yes, there were even mats in the under-fur on her beard and moustache) are her fluffy ears, which have been trimmed and carefully combed out. Kathy left enough of her bangs to affix a bright red ribbon, to which Zuzu is very partial, given her smug attitude. She also made Zuzu's tail, the only part of her that was really, really ugly, look somewhat cuter, like a lion's tail with a tuft at the end. Kathy's assistant bathed Zuzu, blow dried her remaining fur and sprinkled her with some kind of substance that makes her smell better than I do, even after she got wet outside this morning.

In spite of the royal treatment she received at Kathy's hands, looking at Zuzu makes the four of us here want to burst into tears. She doesn't look like her. But the funny thing is that she's not even acting like herself. She's always been bouncy and happy and sweet-tempered and energetic, but this morning when she exited from her crate, she positively bounded to the foyer like a white-tailed deer. She went outdoors to do her business and frolicked in the rain in a manner that I can only describe as Gene Kelly-esque. When I let her back in, she tore around the house like a dervish, emptying her toy basket in about three seconds and randomly throwing stuffed plushies up in the air and pouncing on them when they came back to earth. She literally did not stand still long enough for me to take a picture of her in her shaven state.

I would have thought that being shorn would have wounded her pride, but it has obviously done just the opposite. I have never seen a dog so full of ginger. If she had a soundtrack accompanying her this morning, I believe it would be something along the lines of Michael Bublé's "I'm Feelin' Good" -- "It's a new day, it's a new dawn, it's a new life for me....and I'm fee-e-e-elin'....goooooood." At the present moment, she has jumped up on "her" chair beside me as I type and settled into a contented, drowzy curl, chin pillowed on one of my husband's socks she filched from the basket of clean laundry that was waiting to be carried upstairs. She positively oozes well-being and I frankly wouldn't be too surprised if she suddenly pulled out an Audrey Hepburn-style cigarette holder and languidly asked me for a light. She's that relaxed.

It's making me feel that a gift certificate to the day spa for a massage and a mani-pedi might cure than sinking spell I get every day around five-thirty, which now requires a glass and a half of wine to pull me out of.

See this pretty flower pot?

It has taken me four years of careful tending to turn that flower pot from something that looked like a piece of crap I got at Wal-Mart for $3.99 into an object that I fondly told myself looked like a fine aged piece of Tuscan terra cotta. You can imagine the pardonable pride with which I planted that beautiful geranium, which will have fabulous pink blossoms when it blooms, and then displayed it on my front porch.

Four years of nurturing, developing that chalky and be-mossed exterior. FOUR YEARS.

It took Zuzu exactly thirty seconds to shoot out the front door like a rocket and get her leash wrapped around the little table the pot was sitting on, sending the whole kit and kaboodle crashing down the steps, table, geranium and pot flying every which way. Actually, my pot flew in about fifty different ways and low and fervent was the vulgar language emanating from my ladylike lips as I picked up the pieces and tossed them in the bin.

I kind of wanted to toss Zuzu in there, too, but we already spent that money on her shots.

Delinquents

Here's a picture of my husband starting off on his morning walk with the dogs and it was not a happy one, as evidenced by the fact that both dogs are in the process of having a cow. As it turned out, another dog-walker was just getting ready to walk by our house and that dog went insane with the barking and then our dogs went insane with the barking and when the three of them got back to the house, panting, disheveled and a little wild around the eye, my husband said:

"Please listen to me. When these dogs die? Let's not get any more. Okay?"

Not a good start to the day. Cesar Milan, we need youuuuu...

Petty thievery

There was a time when I used to think the clothes dryer was responsible for stealing odd socks here and there. Not that the socks themselves were odd; what was odd was the fact that while all four of us have two feet each, sometimes we'd have only one sock of a pair to keep our toes warm, or to keep our feet from going all sweaty and slippery inside our shoes.

I now have a new idea of where all those singleton socks go -- they go under the dining room table, courtesy of Zuzu. Here you see a pile of unpaired socks and also the squeaky Kong toy which is supposed to be Hershey's, but which Zuzu adores and carries under the table where she guards it jealously.

You'd think that would teach us all to pick up our socks from our bedroom floors, but no.... No.

Everything not as it appears

See this dog? The dog in the little green sundress, looking very cute? Well, that cute dog would be the SAME DOG who found a dead baby bird that had blown out of its nest during a high wind and landed on our porch.

Zuzu brought the dead baby bird into the house as a fun toy to play with, tossing it gaily up in the air and then pouncing on it, giving it another toss, pouncing, tossing, pouncing, tossing, back and forth.

Finally, all of us wondered what this new fun toy was that was providing the dog with so much entertainment. Meelyn went to investigate, unwisely picking the toy up to get a closer look and then let out a high-pitched yelp of disgust that alerted not only our family, but also our neighbors down the block.

The fabulous new toy went bye-bye, Zuzu looked rebellious and refused to even play with her favorite toy, a stuffed monkey attached to a tennis ball that Carol bought for her. Meelyn went into the bathroom where she washed her hands twelve thousand times. Aisling insisted that we needed to have the carpets steam cleaned throughout the entire house, even in the rooms where the dead bird hadn't been carried. I worried about Diseases People Can Get from Birds, Especially Dead Ones (lice? dead lice?) because I am both a mother and a hypochondriac both on my own behalf and that of my family.

Then to ease the tension, Zuzu went into my bedroom and yacked up various pieces of dead baby bird. In three different places.

So if you were looking at her picture and thinking what a precious little fluffykins she is, please think of her jumping into your lap and licking your face with bits of dead baby bird clinging to her tongue and understand that things are not always as they appear.

Mr. Boots on the go

Honestly, just look at that sweet face. And those boots - please observe their cuteness! And now squint your eyes and peer at the screen a little more closely. See that left paw? No, not your left; his left. See how his toes are kind of spread out, as if he's gripping the upholstery of that rear seat in our minivan as if someone's just about to hit an eject button and catapult him up into the rainclouds hovering over our city on this April afternoon?

Hershey does not enjoy a car ride. Wimzie, now - there was a dog who even learned how to spell C-A-R and R-I-D-E. At the end of her life, we had to take to saying things like, "You know that rolling box that achieves forward propulsion through the intricacies of an internal combustion engine? Well, we need to get in that thing and go buy a gallon of milk."

And then there's Zuzu, who has already learned the deep pleasures of barking at bicyclists, motorcyclists and people pushing baby strollers as we zoom by. Her long, houndy ears flap around her head like dish cloths on a clothesline and every hair of her elegant mustache goes all a-bristle with excitement: Car ride? A CAR RIDE??!! You betcha! When? Whenarewegoing? Rightnow? Rightnowarewegoing? All expressed in a high-pitched yapping that could deafen your ears and quite possibly stop a clock.

But Hershey's different. Car rides, he clearly indicates, make him feel ishy in the tummy. He tolerates them. He has no desire to hang his head out the window, tongue lolling. He will look out the window -- firmly closed -- but that's only to peer anxiously at the passing landscape to see if it looks anything at all like home. When we finally have the car parked safely in the driveway, he scrambles out as soon as the door opens and high-tails it for the back door. He does everything but kiss the ground.

So that's why I was so pleased to capture this picture of him nervously gripping the edge of the seat, it is true. But also smiling and holding his head up. His smile does look a bit fixed, like a middle-aged woman accidentally running into her husband's much younger second wife in the liquor store when she is buying a bottle of chardonnay to spend the weekend with and the new bride is buying some champagne to celebrate the happy couple's six month anniversary, but it is a smile nonetheless. Which is, you know, better than barfing on the carpet.

Fun facts about Zuzu

I took Zuzu to the vet yesterday to get her shots and have a general check-up and I learned some very interesting things about her that I wanted to share for all of you who have been kind enough to express interest in our little foundling, who has now been with us for two months, a refugee from the cold, cruel January world.

Here's what I asked:

What kind of dog is this, exactly?

The vet believes that Zuzu is part miniature schnauzer and part poodle, which makes her a Schnaudle? Or maybe a Schnoodle?

How old is she?

The vet thinks that Zuzu is actually not a puppy at all. The tartar formed on her back teeth leads the doctor to surmise that she is two years old. We've decided to make her official birthday March 12, the day she went to the vet for the first time.

Is she healthy? Because we suspect that she was neglected by her previous owners.

She is very healthy, alert and bright. Good heartbeat, good digestive sounds, hearing checks out okay, can obviously see; friendly girl and full of energy. And, er....nothing wrong with her lungs or vocal cords, either. Our mail carrier can attest to this.

How much does she weigh?

Ten pounds, right on the dot!

How big will she get?

Unless she gets fatter, which she shouldn't do because she is at a good weight right now, in spite of her fondess for yogurt and that Kong brand pâté, she probably won't get any bigger. Zuzu is an adult, a grown-up lady.

Isn't she the cutest dog ever in the world?

Oh, most definitely. Without question.

PRODUCT REVIEW: More on the Kongs (and Boodas!)

I went to Petsmart today to see if I could find the manufacturer of those two football-shaped treat toys and the closest guess I can hazard is that they're from a company called AspenPet and these two toys are from a line called Booda. I may have that completely wrong, but that's as close as I can get. These particular toys aren't being made anymore, but Booda has a bunch of other types of treat-dispensing toys available, so between the two companies, you should be able to find a variety of styles for your dog to enjoy. But let this be a lessonto whoever actually did manufacture those toys: put your company name on it. Kong did, and they're getting full credit.

In the bottom picture, I stuffed the Boodas with the three items you see there; the purple Booda seems to be the easiest to see. There's a whitish paste in the purple Booda and that is from the spray can of Kong Stuff'n in the liver variety. The football's holes are stuffed with the two different treats -- the small IAMS puppy biscuits and the Kong Stuff'n Snacks, flavored with peanut butter. I ONLY buy these things on sale, but if you check your favorite pet retailer's website, you'll find that there are quite often price reductions on these items.

I posted the other two pictures to give you an idea of how big the toys are relative to the actual dogs. Zuzu's purple football (formerly Wimzie's) is just the right size for a puppy. The rubber's density gives her a lot of chewing energy to work out, which is good. And then there's Hershey -- see how intent his sweet face looks as he tries to figure out how to get at the goodies? -- is much bigger, meant for medium-sized dogs. Zuzu weighs about eight pounds and Hershey weighs around forty-five. I love the way they hold them with their paws.

These toys seem to do the same thing for dogs that teething rings/pacifiers do for babies: they play to the dogs' instinct to chew, and better these toys than the strap of your Dooney handbag, you know? When that need for chewing is being met, the dogs seem to release tension much better and be less apt to bark frantically every time they see a car sitting at the stop light on our corner. Plus, you can tell that they're fascinated by these things: their concentration is totally focused on How to Get the Treats Out. I think someone could walk in the house, tie us up and steal the wedding silver and the dogs would be all, "Hey. While you're carrying that out, would you mind giving me another squirt of liver paste?"

PRODUCT REVIEW: Kong dog toys

I can't remember how long ago we discovered Kong dog toys in the grocer's pet aisle or at Petsmart or wherever, but they are possibly the best dog toys I've ever come across. In that bowl, the red rubber toys that look like bee skeps are the original Kongs; the big red football-shaped toy and the small purple football-shaped one are not original Kongs. I foresee a visit to Petsmart tomorrow to track down that manufacturer, as a Google search has proved to be unsatisfactory -- I know! I was surprised, too! I guess I don't know what terms to search for! -- and it will drive me mad until I find out.

The whole purpose of these toys is to keep your dog happily busy, and boy, do they ever. Those two Kong toys? See how they're hollow? Well, what you do is stuff that toy with either a meal or just a treat of some sort. You can close up the hole with a little peanut butter, or you can put the Kong in the freezer for about twenty minutes or so. When you give it to the dog, he/she will be happily engaged for a good while in figuring out how to get the treats out of the toy and into the tummy.

When you first give your dog a Kong, you can pack it very loosely until they figure out what they're supposed to be doing with it. As they become more adept at "unpacking," you can put the food in there even tighter so that it's a little more challenging. Hershey is pretty darn clever at getting all the food out, but Wimzie -- that girl was a WHIZ. Zuzu is still learning, but she's a very smart little thing, so it won't be too long before she can receive a tightly-packed Kong and spend many a happy half hour puzzling out how to make it work.

The challenge of the un-packing is one of the joys of the Kong. First of all, the Kongs can roll around on the floor, so the dog has to figure out how to immobilize it. Hershey generally puts one foot on his, but Zuzu cornered hers up against the base of the china cabinet today. Second of all, the holes in the bottom of the Kongs are big enough to stuff food into, but not really big enough to get a nose into. Third, if you buy a Kong properly sized for your dog (Zuzu and Wimzie used the smallest adult version and Hershey's is the middle-sized version), you'll have just the right size to provide them with absorbing entertainment and just enough food so that to toy is stuffed, but not the dog.

Here are some of the things we stuff Hershey and Zuzu's Kong toys with:

~~dry dog food (they eat the small-bite type)

~~puppy-sized treats

~~high-value treats like Snaussages or Beggin' Strips (only purchased when on sale and doled out with a stingy hand)

~~bits of chipped beef, chicken or turkey, which are also high value

~~peanut butter (in small amounts, because you want the peanut butter in the dog, not on the carpet)

~~bits of shredded cheese

~~little pieces of cantaloupe (Hershey's passionate fondness)

~~yogurt to mix different ingredients together (see peanut butter, above)



Kong also retails all kinds of toy-stuffing yummies at grocery and pet stores nationwide.

The football-shaped toys aren't quite the same. You can't stuff them with food items, but you can stuff them with treats. They aren't quite as involved as the Kongs, if you see what I mean. Hershey's big red football will hold about four puppy-sized treats; there's a small half-circle above the bigger opening that you can see in the picture above, and that half-circle is the challenging hole and holds one treat. The bigger opening holds two or three treats, depending on how hard you jam them in there. Obviously, the more stuffed the treat-holes are, the harder the dog will have to work to get them out.

We love both of these styles of toy because, first and foremost, they make the Hershey and Zuzu very happy. They bounce around in delighted anticipation when they see me getting out the bee skeps or the footballs. Secondly, these toys are marvelous for getting yourself a little peace and quiet. Hershey and Zuzu spend a lot of time playing with each other, tugging on their rope, getting underfoot, barking at the mail carrier and when I have just HAD IT, I put together the big Kongs (if I want to keep them busy for around an hour) or the football toys (if I just want them happily occupied for half an hour) and let them enjoy. Everybody's pleased.

Both styles of toy are dishwasher safe and last and last and last. I think all four of those toys in the basket are about four or five years old. They also have the added benefit of calming down an overly-stimulated dog (nice for when you have company and your dog just can't decide which guest to love-bomb next) and helping keep his/her teeth clean.

Wimzie: August 24, 1997 - February 15, 2010

As you can tell from the title of this post, this is just one of the saddest days ever. We had to take Wimzie to the vet to have her put to sleep. We knew it was coming - her health has been deteriorating since last September - but recently she got to the point where we could see her faltering week by week.

The poor old thing got to the point where she didn't like to go for car rides anymore, car rides having previously been her main joy in life. Instead of standing on my lap and peering out the windshield or sticking her head out the window with her ears blowing straight back, she would huddle in my arms with her face hidden in the crook of my arm. She couldn't go on walks in the neighborhood; she had lost a lot of mobility and had episodes where her legs would drag behind her. She wasn't even barking at the mailman anymore.

So my husband, the girls and I started embarking on a series of exceedingly difficult conversations. Like, How do you know when it's time to say goodbye? and Could she possibly be in pain? But yesterday, there was an occurrence that let us know beyond the shadow of a doubt that something was wrong. Really wrong. So I called the vet this morning.

We had hoped to wait until Thursday, which is my husband's day off, but knew now that there was a really good chance that she was suffering. So the girls and I took her in and let me just say this unequivocally: That was one of the HARDEST and WORST things I've ever had to deal with. Which, I don't know, may mean that I have lived a very sheltered and even boring life, although I don't think so. I chalk it up to the fact that I'm an animal person and that Wimzie has been my constant companion for the past twelve and a half years. Those things considered, a strong bond is just a given, particularly since she acknowledged my position as alpha dog, something the rest of my family is often inclined to dispute.

Anyway, for those of you who have never had to euthanize a sick and/or elderly pet, let me just tell you that the whole experience will make you want to fall prostrate to the floor and just, like, STAY THERE. But I'll also tell you that it is a peaceful way for a pet to go, despite the fact that Wimzie summoned up enough of her old testy personality to try to bite the vet's hand off.

I just don't have the heart to describe her passing because I am already typing this through a crazy storm of tears and I'm just about BLIND from the mascara leaking off my eyelashes and into my eyes -- yes, even in times of crisis, I can be counted on to be wearing makeup -- but let me just say this: It wasn't such a bad way to go, you know? After a long lifetime of being treated like a member of the family, to come to the end of that happy life and to leave it peacefully, surrounded by people who loved her, well, who among us wouldn't want that for ourselves, let alone fourteen pounds of fur and grrr, a Jack Russell to win the heart and test the patience of a loving family.

Wimzie, darling girl, biter of plumbers, sworn foe of squirrels, you will never be forgotten.

Step aside, Victoria Beckham

First, a simple question: Why does Blogger format images so strangely? This is a very awkward layout, isn't it?

Secondly, will you just look at that puppy? Couldn't you just pick her up and hug her and kiss her and talk really silly, squeaky baby talk to her? Because believe me, we do that all the time, but never so much as when we put these two outfits on her today.

The lower picture shows Zuzu in the same red Hello Kitty sweater, partnered with a really snazzy plaid schoolgirl skirt, accented with a red satin bow. She liked this outfit: you can tell because her tail went all blurry in the photo, she was wagging so hard.

The upper picture depicts her in a turquoise Limited Too hoodie and a little khaki kick-around skirt. Casual, playful and fun, this weekend wear is perfect for a furry girl on the go. I especially love the holes for her ears.

Because time is not much of an issue...

Aisling and I found out today -- totally by accident, of course -- that Zuzu can fit into the clothing made for the Build-a-Bear Workshop bears and bunnies that Aisling used to play with but had long since packed away.

Here she is modeling a Hello Kitty sweater in a nice, warm red. We also have plans to put a frilly tutu on her and maybe a little pair of jeans and a t-shirt with penguins on it.

You have to believe me when I say that I never thought I would be the kind of person who would dress dogs up in clothing. So far, this madness has been confined to sewing fleece jackets for Wimzie, because she's terribly, terribly old and gets chilled. But oh, now that we know that that box full of BABW clothes will fit the puppy, new vistas have been opened up to me.

I have totally lost it. I mean LOST. IT.