Recently in The Hound Category

Hello from the most inconsistent blogger ever!

I keep meaning to sit down and write something, but in the end I just don't. Not much of an explanation for where I've been, but really, who cares, right? Life has been rolling along as it does, neither great nor terrible, just life.

Let's see, a quick round up of my life since last we spoke.

I cut my hair. It's the shortest it has been since college, in sort of a messy bob. I love it. I'd put up a photo, but I'm not having a good hair day. That's not my hair's fault. I have a cold, so I've been breathing in steam to try to deal with the onslaught of congestion. It helps me breathe better, but it is not so kind to my curly hair.

We successfully hosted Thanksgiving dinner for the first time. Not bad for someone who was a vegetarian until May and who had never cooked a big meal for a large group of people before. I'm pleased to say the turkey turned out perfectly. I wasn't worried about the side dishes, but getting everything ready at the same time and cooking a 20 lb turkey did have me a little worried. Thank goodness for the Internet and most specifically for the Thanksgiving guides on Epicurious.com and PioneerWoman, because their advice gave me everything I needed.

We started watching Dexter. Why didn't anyone tell me this show was so great? Oh right, you did. Well, we've made it through Season One and just started on Season Two. I hate the opening credits sequence, but really like everything else about the show.

Sticking with TV, I'm also loving Top Chef All Stars (although the museum challenge was stupid! I want to see these people cook, not make snacks for screaming children!). This is the pefect antidote to Top Chef Just Desserts, which I watched, but did not enjoy.

I'm definitely feeling rusty in the blog post department, but at least I'm back up on the horse, right Becky? (Note: Becky got tired of waiting for me to get my shit together and asked, very politely if I was ever going to write anything ever again. Hi Becky!)

In closing, I'll leave you with a cute photo of Seamus, who is trying to get into the Christmas spirit:

I really need to start writing again, don't I? For one thing I've had to turn to this blog twice recently to figure out when a particular event happened. If I ever need to look up something from roughly August 2009 to now, I'll be screwed. And it's not like I don't have stuff to write about. I compose posts in my head, but for some reason, never quite get around to typing them up, and then the moment passes. Well, there will be no more of that nonsense.

So, two anecdotes to get me going again...

Bright and early one recent Saturday morning, I stumbled outside with Seamus, who had been quite insistent that is was time to get up. I protested that it was Saturday, but he persisted with the ear flipping and fussing, and eventually hopped up on the bed and stuck his little furry face in my face. That's the sign that he is serious, so even though it was way too early, I got up. As we made our way up the driveway, I kept hearing this hammering noise. "What kind of asshole is hammering at 6:30 in the morning?" I grumbled, cranky about being awake. And then we got closer to the sound and I realized that it wasn't one of my neighbors at all, but an enormous woodpecker. I'd seen him before - and he really does look like Woody Woodpecker - but normally his pecking is a rapid rat-a-tat-tat. This time he was working on some sort of special project, I guess.

****

My Kitchen Aid Professional Mixer is one of the best purchases I have ever made. Seriously, it changed my baking life. So this story should be in no way construed as criticism of my mixer, which I love dearly. But it has this flour guard that you can put on before you add dry ingredients that is kind of a pain to use. The flour doesn't always go in to the little gap cleanly, and as the paddle rotates, it bumps the guard around and is noisy. A couple of weekends ago I was making my delicious lemon cake and decided to try a little experiment. I mean, really, how much flour could the flour guard keep in the bowl? Yes, well, quite a lot as it turns out. I poured a little flour in and then watched in dismay as it flew right back out again in a fine white spray. Don't worry - my cake was fine, but the cleanup was way more annoying than the flour guard could ever be. So the lesson here is, the flour guard is your friend.

My beloved puppy will be 16 this year. After scaring the crap out of me in August with his massive seizure and his infection, he seemed to have mostly settled back into being a happy, healthy hound. Until the other day, when he was sitting on the couch, moved the wrong way and started yelping in pain. We still don't know what exactly the problem was, but the vet thinks he either pulled a muscle or pinched a nerve. It took us a little while to figure out that something was wrong, because at first it didn't happen all that regularly. Then we noticed he'd stopped shaking his ears (he loves to flip his ears. In fact, he just did it right now while I was typing this) and was opening his mouth very gingerly. That combined with an incident where he hurt himself in his sleep and woke up yelping (hello confused humans and dog at 4 am) convinced us it was time for a trip to the vet.

The vet agreed that something was wrong, and gave him a shot of painkillers and an anti-inflammatory. Seamus is on physical restriction for a while and has to have more anti-inflammatory drugs each morning for ten days. Well, he started feeling better almost immediately. Ok, first he felt stoned. On the drive back to the house he was sitting in the back seat smiling and kind of nodding with his eyes half-closed. Then when we got home, he took to wandering around, staring at stuff. He'd walk over to his water dish and just stand there, like, dude, why did I come over here? Or he'd suddenly have to sit down. It was funny, although he looked a little scared a couple of times. But then, the next day he was not drugged and he felt much better. So much better that he resented the baby gates on the staircases and our attempts to keep him calm. When I explained to the vet that Seamus can open the baby gates on the stairs, he laughed and said that is typical beagle behavior. They are stubborn little guys. So we have two gates on the front stairs, and on the back stairs we have one with a chair in front of it. By the third day, Seamus had had quite enough of that, so he jumped on to the chair, over the baby gate and ran up the stairs. He was totally pleased with himself too. So we took that chair away and put a folding chair in its place. Yeah, today he figured out how to get around that too.

We've also had to switch to using a harness instead of a leash. I don't know what it is about this thing, but you practically need to have a PhD to get it on him properly. Every time I have to sit there and think it through, and I've put it on him wrong and had to start over more than once. That plus the whole baby gate thing is making me wonder if he's actually smarter than I am. I guess as long as I have thumbs I'll manage to retain the upper hand.

Seamus says: Who me? I would never do such a thing! I'm just sitting here with my bears.

Sometimes in the morning we are greeted by deer in the backyard:

The first time, I shuffled sleepily into the bathroom and looked out the window and thought, I wonder if we'll ever see deer out there. Then I took a closer look and realized there were two them calmly nibbling on the grass. I know lots of people think of them as pests, but I find them a charming sight. They seem to leave the vegetable garden alone, not that I have any idea what is actually growing there. I thought vegetables would be more recognizable as what they actually are, but about half of them are a complete mystery to me.

Seamus is entranced by the deer, watching them avidly from various vantage points:

He likes the new house quite a bit, but I think the deer just might be his favorite part of the whole move.

He really does seem to be feeling much better. Doesn't he look happy playing with this new toy from his Aunt Becky?

He's certainly carrying it around the house energetically:

I'm still pretty worried about him though, watching him like a hawk for any signs of a relapse. He goes back to the vet in two weeks for a checkup, and we'll decide what to do for him then. For now I have to content myself with giving him extra cuddles every day, and hoping for the best.

It doesn't feel descriptive enough to say that the last two weeks have been busy. Busy is too short a word to cover all that I have done in that time frame. I went to Boston with my mom for a family wedding. I came home and frantically sorted and packed stuff into boxes in preparation for our move. Then Seamus had a major health scare. I thought we might lose him, and there really aren't words to describe how I felt about that. Start with terrified and heartbroken and inconsolable, and then go into soundless weeping, maybe. He's on the mend now, although he may need surgery and he definitely needs medicine. The good news is we found out yesterday that he does not have cancer, which is what the vet feared.

My sweet puppy collapsed the night before we closed on the house which meant we spent half the night at the ER vet. We couldn't leave him alone, so he went to the closing with us, his little paw all taped up from where they put in his IV, and curled up under the table while we signed papers. Then the movers came, and worked and worked and worked. It was 11 of the most hot and humid and miserable hours I have ever spent, and they were ones doing the heavy lifting! Oh yes, and also in the middle of all of this, the product launch I've been working on for almost six months now, the most delayed launch in the history of my personal career, yeah, that went in to high gear right before I left for Boston. I haven't been to the gym in weeks, I'm behind on assignments for my writing class, and most of my stuff is still in boxes.

On Sunday I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I love the new house. It is wonderful, and every day I find something new to like about it. But I was more tired than ever before in my life, I was so worried about Seamus I was practically throwing up, and there was just so much to be done. I'm glad to say I'm feeling a bit better now. Getting a diagnosis for Seamus lifted a huge weight off my shoulders, plus you can see him getting better. The house is slowly coming together, I actually handed in my writing homework on time last night, and the launch is theoretically kicking off at noon today. I shaved my legs this morning and I'm making my triumphant (where triumphant = pathetically huffing and puffing on the treadmill) return to the gym tonight. Hopefully my next stop is contented blissville.

So what you all been up to?

Two of my most dearly held beliefs go thusly:
1) 5:30 a.m. is for sleeping
2) It is only acceptable to see 4:30 a.m. if you are rolling in after one hell of a night on the town. And frankly, while I did that pretty regularly in college and just after, I'm fairly certain I haven't been out that late since I hit 30. I've got stuff to do during the day. I need my sleep.

Which brings me to Seamus, who suddenly thinks sleep is for losers. I don't know what I've done to offend my little dog, but he's decided that we should start getting up between 4:30 and 5:30 in the morning. He starts with flipping his ears, knowing the noise will wake me. Then he breaks out the flop and sigh, followed by sticking his nose into anything he can find in the bedroom that will make a rattling noise. For the grand finale, he resorts to fussing and hopping. This is all interspersed with me grumbling "hush, Seamus, it's not time yet" and "no, go lie down and be quiet!" Kicking him out of the room doesn't work. He just runs downstairs, gets even more excited, and comes bounding back up to start shaking his ears again. And I thrash around and try to sleep until I can't take it anymore. "Fine!" I mutter irritably and stomp around the bedroom getting dressed as Seamus wriggles and squeaks in celebration. It's hard to stay grumpy when faced with such an ecstatic dancing beagle, but if he keeps this up, I'll manage.

At first I thought, ok, he's getting older, maybe he's having trouble going all night without well, going. So I tested adding a late night walk just before bedtime. He was so worked up about the change in routine that he hardly slept at all that night. And frankly, when we go outside, he's not desperate to take care of business. He just thinks it would be a really great idea for us to go outside, right now. There must be a dog in heat in the neighborhood somewhere. I hope there's a dog in heat somewhere, because at least that will pass. I can't take much more of this. On Wednesday, I took moldy bread for lunch, because I was so tired I didn't notice it was green. Yesterday I actually cooked myself some macaroni and cheese to take for lunch - hey, I was up with plenty of time to spare - and I was so out of it that I left it sitting on the counter.

Seamus thinks you should ignore the crazy human. He'd also like to know if you want to go outside.

Seamus and I were out for our morning walk, squinting sleepily in the thin morning light. We paused so Seamus could sniff his 759th blade of grass, and while we stood there on the hill, a large flock of geese passed overhead in a perfect V formation. Two geese veered off, honking like crazy, suggesting a course correction. I imagined they were shouting "Right! To the right!" in goose. The others followed, honking to add their own two bits, the perfect V reformed, and they continued on their way in harmony.

Seamus and I watched them fly by (Seamus always likes to give geese the narrow eye - I think he disapproves of how noisy they can be) and then continued on with our walk. It was a nice little interlude. So I guess sometimes good things can happen early in the morning, if I'm not too groggy to notice.

I'm a wee bit stressed out at the moment. The stock market insanity is just plain making my job - and the jobs of everyone I work with, this isn't confined to just me - very difficult. I probably spent a good hour and half last night just lying in bed, worrying about stuff. Because that is what I do. Get through the days fine, and then just when it is time to sleep, that's when I get anxious.

This morning I was predictably tired and cranky. And it was raining, which always makes the drive in to work extra special. As I was getting ready for work, Seamus jumped up on the bed and curled up in a little ball, looking as sweet as can be. I was preoccupied trying to find my red v-neck sweater (which is still mysteriously missing by the way) and but he eventually caught my eye. And I stopped, went over to the bed, crawled under the covers, and had a nice long cuddle with him. We just relaxed together, listening to the rain pounding on the roof. It was an excellent and extremely reviving way to spend 10 minutes or so. And lo and behold, the drive in wasn't all that bad, and work was ok and the stock market even rallied (although I wouldn't count on that one to last if I were you.) Behold the power of a good snuggle with a lovable furry friend.

I finally got around to getting a new camera. I bought a Canon PowerShot SX110IS and I'm quite pleased with it. It has a number of settings, most of which I don't know how to use just yet, and I think it takes lovely photos. I'm looking forward to doing a lot with it, and I got my start today.

We try to take Seamus to the park on the weekends, if not for a hike, at least someplace fun and different for him. Today I decided to document our park time.

Some very autumnal seed pod thingys (why yes, I did take horticulture in college):

I really liked the twisty roots on this tree, plus I thought the way the tree was reflected in the water made the shot more interesting:

Then there were ducks. Lots and lots of ducks.

We are ducks. We swim nonchalantly by, quacking madly.

Oh, but perhaps you humans have some food?

"Hey lady, when the humans come to the water's edge, we expect them to have some bread crusts. Don't make me come out of the pond!"

Seamus: "Watchit, ducks, leave my Hillary alone!"

Ducks : "See ya!"

Seamus was not cooperating at all with my many attempts to get a photo that captures his jaunty happiness as he trots through the park. I got one picture of him peeing on a lamp post, about 27 of him looking off in the wrong direction, and right at the end, just when I thought I had finally gotten the perfect photo, I hit the power button instead of the shutter. Again. Argh. Aside from that though, I'm having a lot of fun, so you might want to prepare yourself for more photos.

Seamus would like to wish the Internet a very Happy Halloween. May you get all the Milk Bones -- I mean candy -- that you desire. BatDog will be here to protect your Halloween goodies from villians!

Seamus is a wonderful dog, a splendid pup, a most beloved hound, almost perfect in every single way. However, every so often he goes through a troublesome phase. See, Seamus is not fixed. He had heartworms when we got him, so he couldn't have surgery, and by the time he could have surgery he had started having seizures. So no unnecessary surgeries for my boy. That means that a couple of times per year we have to put up with him being an annoying, fussy, lovesick little guy when some girl dog in the neighborhood goes into heat. We're very responsible and don't let him breed puppies or anything, but it's not for lack of trying on his part.

Unfortunately, now it is his little girlfriend Lucy who is in heat. He wants to go looking for Lucy on a normal day, so he's being triply insistent about wanting to go out and see her. On Sunday night we were watching a movie in the basement and we could hear him running, click click click in to the kitchen to stare intensely out the back window, pause, and then click click click back toward the front of house to stare out the window by the front door. I've actually kicked him out of the bedroom at night for the last couple of nights because the constant pacing, sighing and flopping was keeping me awake. At one point he actually went in to the bathroom and started pushing the trash can around with his nose. In the middle of the night! It's like hanging out with a dog who is trying to quit smoking. Last night he tried to wake me up at 3:30, 5 am and 6 am by poking his head in the bedroom and shaking his ears at me.

Thankfully, this shouldn't last much longer. I sure hope it doesn't! Any second now I expect to see him pouring over a set of engineering plans and conferring with a motley assortment of animal pals on a scheme to first tunnel out of our house and then go down through the chimney into hers, Oceans Eleven style. There'll be a parrot lookout, a monkey working electronics, a cat burglar (of course), a squirrel for roof work, a field mouse to be the inside man, a gopher to help dig any tunnels, and perhaps a fast-talking meerkat who can help them get equipment. You laugh, but he is one determined little guy.

Yesterday as I was driving to the gym, they said an Arctic front would be moving through the area today, and the temperature would drop pretty dramatically. Then they followed up with "there will be wind advisories for most of the metro area, with the exception of Frederick County (my county) where there is a high wind warning." At the time I wondered to myself if a warning was better or worse than an advisory. Well if today is any indication, I'd say a warning means more wind than an advisory. Holy crap is it windy out today! I saw shingles flying off roofs. I actually got pushed around by gusts of wind. Seamus paused to smell the wind on our afternoon walk, and not only did his ears stream back from his head like a scarf, but at one point, they stood straight up.

Seamus has had quite a day actually. The poor guy has an infection in a rather private area. We ended up at the emergency vet this morning because it became clear that something was wrong. He'll be fine, but we did have to put a cone on him for a little bit to keep him from licking off his medicine. We took pity on him and got rid of it after a little bit though because he was so miserable. Now we just have to keep a vigilant eye on him, but luckily he's being very good. Behold one very unhappy puppy dog:

In other news, the Maryland primary is coming up on Tuesday, and I still haven't picked a presidential candidate. The problem is that I don't like Hillary or Obama. You'd think I'd go for Hillary, what with us having the same name and having attended the same school, and of course there is the whole woman president thing. But unfortunately, I feel that Hillary has made too many compromises to get to where she is. I used to like her, but she's strayed too far from her liberal base for me. I think she could do the job, but that doesn't mean I agree with her.

Then there's Obama. I don't know as much about him as I should, but so far, he has come across as kind of a lightweight. Does he have the experience necessary to be an effective president? One of the many, many, many, many reasons George Bush is such a crappy president (worst president we've ever had!) is that he was not prepared for the job.

Got a favorite candidate? I can't vote for a Republican in the primary, and I like John "I love war" McCain and Mike "I want the Constitution to reflect the Bible" Huckabee even less than the Democratic candidates, but if you want to argue for anyone who is running, I'd be interested in hearing your opinion in the comments.

Seamus is getting older, and while he seems to be enjoying good health, he has gotten much more sensitive to cold weather. We keep finding him huddled on the couch, shivering and looking forlorn. He had his checkup last weekend and the vet said we could get him an electric blanket to lie on, which have done. I'm not sure what he thinks of the blanket, but he seems to like curling up on it from time to time. Yesterday we got him a little sweater to help him stay warm. We were both sure he would hate it and think it was undignified. He is a dog with a very keen sense of what is and is not appropriate. It turns out though, that he likes his sweater. I guess he can tell it is keeping him warmer. Apparently we were just in time too, since the DC area got its first snow storm today. Hello two hours in the car on the way to work and an hour and a half to get home.

I give you my sweet and furry be-sweatered little guy:

Yesterday was also my office's end of year "thank you" celebration lunch. It was definitely the best one they've ever had, and I'm not just saying that because I won my weight in chocolate during the raffle at the end. It was the first holiday luncheon in seven years where I ever really had any fun. The food was delicious (there was this fried cheese-risotto ball appetizer that I MUST learn to duplicate), the people were fun, and then there is the matter of the aforementioned chocolate basket. Behold the glory of my prize:

Can you believe how much chocolate is in that basket?

• It got cold enough this weekend for our first evening in front of the fireplace for the season. That fireplace is one of my favorite features of our house. It's like we go in to a special cocoon down in the basement, snuggled under blankets, watching the flames dance and listening to the fire pop, with the whole universe condensed down to John, me and Seamus.
• On Tuesday, while we were whiling away some time on the treadmills at the gym, I asked my friend Becky if she'd ever used one of those exercise balance balls. She had, and even went so far as to say she thought they were good for abs work, and it would be useful for me to get one. On Friday I got a coupon in the mail from Target for $5 off a balance ball/DVD kit. Coincidence? I can't say for sure...but I'd kind of like to believe Becky has that kind of power.
• I spent a bunch of time cleaning my car on Saturday, in preparation for looking at new cars and perhaps trading it in. Unfortunately, while working getting some duct tape residue off my dashboard, I seem to have actually scrubbed some of the color off the dashboard. With a sponge. Suddenly my car seems far less sturdy than I thought it was. Also annoying me: Car dealers in Frederick aren't open on Sundays. Why the hell not? I would think the weekend would be the best sales time.
• In other car news, John finally experienced the wobbly tire thing I've been saying was happening from time to time when I drove the car. We still don't know what the problem is, but at least now I know I'm not insane. It does make a wobbly noise, and it is unnerving.
• Apparently Seamus has picked up my anti-fundamentalist tendencies. Yesterday, he was perched on the couch in his favorite spot, head propped up on the arm rest, watching the world go by out our front window. A young man and woman went up our next door neighbor's walk, and Seamus started barking and growling. Seamus is not a barker, but he just would not stop. I kept telling him the people weren't even coming to our house, but then I saw them heading down our neighbor's walk, straight for us. Well, it turns out they were from this big fundamentalist church in Frederick - a church that I think is pretty darn pushy, because they send people in to our neighborhood just about every weekend to go door to door. They are really big on the whole "wife must submit to her husband" thing, along with being anti-gay, pro-life, and pretty much the complete opposite of everything I believe, and everything I think Christianity should be. Not that I can claim to be a Christian, but still, I think they've got it wrong. Anyway, by the time they got to our door, Seamus was beside himself over their presence. I explained as politely as possible while also restraining my raging beagle boy that we weren't interested, and they went away. Seamus, on the other hand, kept woofing to himself discontentedly a while longer. Later that day we left to go for our weekend hike, and as we came down the front steps, Seamus stopped and stared at the head of the street in his best suspicious, narrow-eyed, tail up, I-sense-a-threat manner. Sure enough, our visitors were there waiting for the church van to pick them up. I don't know what he hated about them so much, but I think it is hysterical.
Of course, if this was a novel, they'd secretly not be church members at all, but aliens or pod people or robots, and yet only dogs could tell. Real life is much more boring. Now, if I could just convince these people to stop coming by my house every weekend. Perhaps a tasteful sign with a little dancing devil on it - "Liberal. Socialist. Feminist. Most definitely going to hell. Don't even bother. P.S. Cute appearing beagle is hellhound."
• My laptop seems to be feeling sorry for all the trouble it has given me lately, which is nice, because for a while there I thought it was going to be reduced to being a very expensive DVD player. Of course, I have no idea what I did that might have solved the problem, which means that either I haven't solved the problem and it will recur, or I did solve the problem, but if it ever recurs, I won't know what to do to fix it again. Either way, I'm pretty much screwed, so let's just all hope my lovely laptop decides to keep behaving like a good computer.

Got any tips for dealing with discolored dashboards, wobbly tires, or persistent church recruiters?

Seamus is in loooove. He's got a little dog friend named Lucy who lives in a house on the street behind our house. She's a very sweet, very little dog -- I think some sort of rat terrier -- whose owners are very nice, but a little casual about things like keeping her on a leash. Every morning when we're out for our walk we just have to swing by Lucy's house just in case she's outside. Seamus is actually pretty insistent about that.

And now Lucy is in heat, and Seamus is just beside himself. He's up and down. He runs in to the kitchen, click-click-click-click, to peer longingly out the window. Then, click-click-click-click, he comes trotting back into the living room to flop down at the top the stairs, sigh, and lie there, willing the front door to open. A few minutes later, it's click-click-click-click, back to the kitchen. Every once in a while, like this afternoon when Lucy was actually out running around in the space between the back of our house and the back of her house, he started fussing to himself.

He's so worked up that he can't sleep, which means I don't get much sleep. On Friday night I actually encouraged him to get out of the bedroom, because the endless pacing and silent pining was keeping me up. I think he spent half the night standing in the kitchen, looking out the back window. This morning he started trying to wake me up somewhere around 5 am. Not cool.

I feel bad for the little guy, totally at the mercy of his instincts. At the same time, I sure hope this doesn't last much longer. I need my sleep. And click-click-click-click, flop, followed by intense obsessing is getting old.

I’m terribly sorry, but tonight’s regularly scheduled post was interrupted by a serious snuggle session with my hound. After an extended period of belly rubbing, stinky paw smelling and ear scratching to the soundtrack of happy beagle wuffles, I’m no longer in the right frame of mind to finish my angry rant against the Bush administration.

I bet the world would be a happier place if everyone had a pet to cuddle with for a while. Personally, I highly recommend Beaglus Cutus.

As if any more proof was needed, here is a great story from the Washington Post about how a beagle saved her human’s life. And this isn’t the first beagle story like this. They are so clever and so loyal and so loving. Truly the best dogs in the world.

Ever vigilant, BatSeamus keeps an eye out for the Biscuit Signal over Gotham city.

As I may have mentioned before, I am not the sharpest tool in the shed first thing in the morning. This morning as I was walking Seamus, I came up with a stupid saying that I’m pretty sure tops all of my previous morning slow-brainedness. (See? Still not good with the words. Too early.)

On Monday when we were walking, Seamus dove into a thicket of bushes and came up with a squeaking, terrified mouse in his mouth. Naturally, I freaked out, and started yelling “drop it! Drop it!” and being a good dog, he did. This took me totally off guard, because while Seamus stalks the odd bunny, squirrel or pine cone, he’s on the leash and never really gets to actually go after anything. Prior to this he’s always confined his hunting to stuffed bears, which he kills with great enthusiasm. Plus, he’s a beagle, so he’s more interested tracking scents than he is in actually catching anything. I don’t think he actually hurt the mouse, just scared it.

Every morning since, he has dragged me back to that thicket of bushes to revisit the scene of his triumph. I won’t let him go into the bushes, so he’s had to content himself with sniffing around them and inspecting the area just in front of them where he actually dropped the mouse. Well this morning, instead of trying to go into the bushes, he decided that he would pee all over them. And that was when I said it: “Good boy! I don’t mind you peeing on mousies. I just don’t want you to kill them.” Now there’s a sentence I’d be willing to bet no one else has ever said!

P. S. I don't think Seamus really hurt the mouse. He just frightened it. At least, there was no mouse corpse when I went back later, so I've decided that mouse was traumatized, but not injured. What? Please leave me my delusions.

Keisha was never officially my dog. She was never supposed to belong to any of us, really. Jules took her in for two weeks in the fall of our senior year of college – a small, frightened little pup who had been starved and abused. She was just going to stay with us temporarily while her original owner looked for a new home for her. But naturally, we all fell wildly in love with her. We instituted “love on Keisha time” where we would take turns holding her and petting her and telling her how wonderful she was. And she slowly started to come out of her shell. At some point, I think her owner did say he had found her a new home. I can’t remember exactly what happened, just that there was drama, and in the end, Keisha stayed. Stayed, and came into her own. She was half pit bull and half black lab, which meant she would ferociously hold you down and kiss you. And she loved to swim. One of my favorite memories of Keisha is of watching her swimming around the reservoir at the Medford Woods and wagging and grinning like mad.

Jules and I were roommates for years, so Keisha and I were very close. And even when we didn’t live together, she was still my special girl. Plus, she and Seamus were pals. They loved to play together. She always had a soft spot for beagles. Anyway, she died this morning. I knew it was coming. I’d had a dream about her a couple of weeks ago where she came to see me and sat on my lap and put her paws on my shoulders and kissed me like she used to do, and it was like she was saying goodbye. I talked to Jules after the dream and she said Keisha had been having good days and bad days, and the vet said she was dying. I’m glad she’s not suffering, but I’m so sad she’s gone. I’ll miss you, my sweet Keisha girl.

Keisha and her "brother" Wesley, who died a long time ago. Keisha is the black dog on the right.

The people who live in one of the houses we pass by on our walks have put a sculpture on their lawn. It is a hideously cheesy piece of a little girl lying on her side with a doll, staring off into the distance like she is daydreaming. And even worse, it just doesn’t look like it was properly finished. It just looks messy. Messy and corny.

And Seamus is so suspicious of it! He crouches down and gives it the narrow eye. I wouldn’t be surprised if he started growling at it. The question is, does he think it is some sort of strange animal that is a threat, or is he just showing his good taste as an art critic?

A prodigy at destruction, that is. John’s mom had surgery today. For some reason, they make you get to the hospital insanely early when you have surgery, so we had to get up at 4:45 am to drive her to the hospital. It goes against everything I believe in to be up that early, unless I am still up from the night before – and now that I am old and boring, I never roll in as the sun comes up anymore. However, this morning did go better than when my dad had his bypass surgery. That time I walked into a tree branch while out with the dog and gave myself a black eye. It’s genetic. My mom pulled a thermos down on her face and gave herself a black eye that same morning. People thought we got into a fist fight.

But I digress. This post is actually about Mr. Seamus and what a destructive genius he is. I wish I could post a photo of him so you could see what a sweet, innocent little beagle boy he appears to be (and is, most of the time). And then I could post a photo of the carnage he is capable of producing. Because this morning we disrupted his routine, and he is not a happy little dog when we deviate from his usual schedule. We knew he’d be freaked out this morning, but he outdid himself this time. He got into the trash. He shredded a bunch of newspapers in a recycling bag. And then there was the piece de resistance. He figured out how to open the refrigerator door and pulled out some cheese and a piece of cheesecake and left them on the floor. Not exactly what I wanted to come home to, but at the same time, you have to be impressed by his ingenuity and intelligence.

Oh, and John’s mom is doing well. More tales of our hospital misadventures coming tomorrow, after I've had a chance to get some sleep. At least this time I didn't give myself a black eye.

Outside: Cold and dark.
My bed: Warm and cozy.
Me: Sleepy and sore from yoga class.
My dog: Sweet and snuggly.

You can try to tell me that you would have gotten up on time, but I’d have to call you a liar.