Day 4: Today I am thankful...

 

Today I am thankful for things that sometimes irritate me in the short term.  I'm talking about technology.  There is a point in life where one becomes pretty proficient at what it takes to live.

Then technology comes along and changes the rules!

Today I'm thankful for having to learn new technology to navigate the world in terms of exchange of services and good.

Little things that have bugged me:  changing the way we pay for parking meters, or pay bills online, or even donate to our favorite charities.  It takes some learning, and sometimes you just feel (once you've reached that point in life) that you just don't have the bandwidth to learn this new thing.

Then once you learn it, it becomes "no big deal".  Cell phones and tablets and swiping and pinching and touch screens and drive-through "everything"... all of them have replaced "the way it was" when I was a kid and even a young adult.  Amazing!

Life is good.  Keep Sparking!

Day 3: Today I am grateful

Today I am grateful for a warm house when the temperatures finally decided to drop.  I am thankful that it's only gone down to 31 degrees on its way to 30, as opposed to the 26 the weatherman said.  I did not drain the main line of the underground water sprinklers, but I did turn it off for the 4 a.m. schedule for this morning.

Val said she could tell better whether Ember was "overweight" from a photo from directly above.  Here she was eating her breakfast Tuesday morning.  I'm thinking I might take some progress photos over time to see how the waist starts to reappear.  Who knew I'd be having to manage a dog's diet?

Life is good.  Spark on!

Day 2: today I am grateful

 

Today I am thankful the peace that comes from the fact that Ember does not bark at squirrels.  I can't even take credit for it, even though I was careful not to use the word in front of her or excite her over their existence.  I think a good part of it is just in her genes!

Here's a link to a video of the squirrel running across the top of the fence.  If you turn on the audio, you can hear the absence of barking.  Ember was sitting right below on the shed pad, with me.

Life is good.  Spark on.

Thanksgiving Season begins

One thing I neglected to mention about Friday morning what's the smoke. There was a fire to the South and west of me, maybe six or seven miles away.  The smoke was so thick before sunrise, it was as though the whole neighborhood it started up their charcoal grills.  

The reason I mention it now is that Saturday morning I woke with phlegm on the cloudy side.  I think I breathed too much of that Smoky air before it cleared off.  It got better as the day wore on, but Sunday morning, still seeing a less-than-ideal nasal discharge.

As a result, I kept the weekend pretty quiet.  Ember and I did a morning walk on both Saturday and Sunday, and a trip to the dog park between puppy naps #1 and #2 each day, too.  I did dash out to get groceries, as well.

Here's Ember, sunning herself on a cool and breezy Sunday afternoon shortly before I tucked her in for puppy nap #2 of the day.

Monday morning as I type, and it is Thanksgiving Day in Canada and some other nations around the globe.  Traditionally, I post gratitude every day between Canada's Thanksgiving Day and the US Version.  This year that will be 45 days this year.  I am no longer restricting myself to no duplicates, as that's too much keeping track for me.  I am also going to do a little projection this year, not just what I'm grateful for, but what I think Ember and The Prisoner might be thankful for.

I promised the family that Day 1 (Today) my gratitude would be for the kindness of strangers.  Specifically for all those strangers that come to my rescue when I am out and about with Ember and she goes into her "no legs" routine, refusing to get back in the car for the trip home.

Sunday when she did this at the dog park, a very fit young man was walking a tiny dog back to his own car, and he volunteered not just to hold the leash for me to lure her.  "I can just pick her up and put her in," he declared.  Most of my helpers of late had been older, like me, and having them hold her leash while I tempted her from the other side of the car had become my go-to strategy.  This young dude schlepped her up, same as my son does, and into the back seat she went, quite happy with her reward (being picked up is apparently a reward).

People are awesome!  I am grateful for every parent, schoolteacher, store owner, pastor, mentor, etc. who helps children develop into kind and respectful young people who are ready to take their place in adult society.  Kindness rules!  For this, I am thankful.

Life is Good.  Spark on!

Reusing stuff you already have

 Written on Wednesday:

Ember likes big toys.  You may or may not recognize this one.  In 2009/2010 when my son was deployed, this was "Rawlings" the basketball I tried to deflate to ship overseas to him.  I ended up ordering one directly delivered to his APO from Amazon, instead.  Rawlings, named because of "Wilson" in the movie Castaway, remains at my house, and when Ember started exploring the basement, out he came to play.

She can actually pick him up with her mouth and carry him around.

The photo on the right is me holding Rawlings in 2011.  That year I did a once a month (on the last day of the month) progress photo for a year, then followed up the next year, month by month, with a recreate of the same pose, showing the effect of fitness training while maintaining weight.

Written on Friday:

Thursday was a bit of a dumpster fire around here.  Ember not only refused to get into the car to go to the dog park, but she proceeded to tear into a bag of clover seed.  She also ate an apple core she found in a bush on our leash walk Thursday morning.  I sacrificed a cardboard box to her to keep her from barging into the cat's room while he was there.

On the plus side, we did "the big loop" on our leash walk for the first time, covering 1.24 miles total.  She would have been familiar with both the start and the end parts of this walk, but the connecting stretch was totally new to her.  The apple core was close to the beginning of the walk.  Perhaps the length of the walk contributed to her reluctance to want to go run with other puppies, too.

End of the day, I was feeling bummed and low energy and went after sugar in the kitchen.  I was also worried about my cousins in the Tampa, Florida area.  The one that I ran a half marathon with down there had a tree fall on her garage during a pretty awful night of Milton coming through.  Her mom fared OK, though, and no people in the family were injured, so that's always the good news.

Friday morning, Ember and I had a shorter morning walk.  As we were on the far corner, we came across a garage sale.  For sale, among other things, were three dog crates.

I saw the biggest of the three from across the street and wondered if it were large enough for her to easily sit inside, which is a requirement for several stages of "crate games".  Crate games is day 6.  It's also the place where I got stuck in the Recallers program.  Having a well trained Crate Games behavior is vital to so many later games in the program.

The photo is "after" I got it home.  The seller helped me collapse and load it into my little Dexter (Honda Fit), and asked if I had someone at home to help me unload it.  I said no, but that I was sure I could handle it, and I was right.  I reassembled it in my kitchen/dining area and put a couple of towels that I'd been using for Ember "hot zones" inside.

After letting Ember out of her original crate and working with familiarizing her with the big training one, we got in the car and went to the dog park, where she ran around with her doggie friends.

When we got home, I made us salads, and after she finished hers and I was eating my own, I heard those sounds of... impending loss of tummy contents.  Yep, she lost a whole tummy full!

Looked like something she picked up at the dog park (a beggin' strip?), plus some of her partially digested breakfast, assorted treats, and of course, her "salad".  Cleanup on aisle seven!  I did what any fur-mommy would do, went back through all the things that could have contributed to her upset tummy, including the apple core, her habit of inhaling EVERYTHING, and the car ride.

She was a little low energy after that.  She put herself to bed in the new crate, melting her mommy's heart.

She stayed there snoozing for 15-20 minutes before moving out to lay by the back door.  I had left the door open the whole time.

I sang her to bed in her plastic crate after a little, put a load of laundry in, and came upstairs to blog.

Life continues to be good in Emberville.  Spark on, everyone!

Memory is such a funny thing

I think I have mentioned that I sing to Ember, especially when it's time for a nap or bedtime.  I had been singing "Oh where oh where has my little dog gone" but someone mentioned a week and a half ago that they remembered "How much is that doggy in the window"... and I tried that one.  I found out Ember likes it better.  Especially when I voice the "arf, arf, arf"!  She comes running, looks into my eyes, and licks me.

What started this whole thing is that the lyrics to the song came back in a strange order.  Here's what I sort of remember (and I learned this from a plastic record that we played at 78 rpm on a kid's record player when I was pre-school age).

"How much is that doggy in the window?  (arf, arf) The one with the waggly tail?

"How much is that doggy in the window?  (arf, arf) I do hope that doggy is for sale.

"I must take a trip to California, and leave my poor sweetheart alone.  If he has a dog, he won't be lonely, and the doggy will have a good home (arf, arf, arf).

"I read in the paper there are robbers.  With flashlights that shine in the dark.  My love needs a doggy to protect him (arf, arf), and scare them away with one bark (arf, arf, arf)"

I'm not sure how accurate this is, but I can tell you, the chorus came back to me first.  The love needing a doggy to protect him and scare the robbers away came next, but I couldn't remember "read in the paper"... that was the last bit that came back.  I remembered "I must take a trip to California" third.  And the doggy would have a good home came back before "if he has a dog he won't be lonely".  

And I marveled at how memory fills in gaps in an order of its own choosing.  I did not look any of this up on Google, by the way, and still have not.  Anybody else remember the lyrics the same or differently?

Added Wednesday morning

"I don't want a bunny or a kitty.  (arf, arf) "I don't want a parrot that talks.

"I don't want a bowl of little fishies. (arf, arf) "You can't take a goldfish for walks.  (arf, arf, arf)

My little love, playing tug with me this morning, holding the flirty lure bit with her paws.  This episode, and for that matter, how we are learning to play tug with toys that have a puppy end and a human end, turned my mind to "this is how puppies learn the laws of physics".  Action, reaction.  That cord that I'm holding the end of is a bungee.

Life is good.  Spark on!

A one-dog weekend!

 

Saturday afternoon sunning.  Would you believe it got up to 96 degrees Fahrenheit?  On October 5th?  Those football players must have had a rough time of it down on the field at 3 p.m.

Mom actually watched most of the game, on TV, while the Cornhuskers seemed to be reviving their old winning ways.  Knock wood!  They are now 5-1 on the season, having defeated Rutgers in the heat.

Mom calls this one a moment of peace.  A warm puppy and a biocoffee in the mug.  

Ember slept outside the crate for puppy nap #2 on Saturday and had at least part of her pupsicle in her X-Pen.  As warm as it was, it was a good day to just chill.

Sunday morning challenge was that Mommy put on a different pair of shoes.  Mommy did her distraction thing to get the focus on other things.  One thing that startled Ember on Sunday morning was the discovery that if she dropped her big bone on the tile floor, it clattered loudly.  She went into indoor zoomies over that one.

Sunday featured a morning neighborhood walk, and a late morning visit to the dog park.  I seemed to have a hungry puppy on my hands.

At the dog park, I walked Ember on leash outside the fence for a bit before going into the "free play" area.  Someone had brought a child that looked to be five of six and said child was hanging out around the entrance to the park while parental unit was chatting with another adult.  I was concerned about the clump of dogs, the child, and Ember the adolescent puppy who loves people but doesn't always greet appropriately!

Still, we got inside.  Given that I had a pouch full of treats, I attracted lots of dogs.  I would ask their owners if it was OK to give them treats before I did, just because.  Another dog owner had an "open bar" bowl of water at his picnic table base, and Ember took advantage of both that one, and one at the entrance before we left.  On Sunday I figured a way to get her back in the car without assistance of another human!  I crawled into the backseat myself, and across it, and out the other side, turning it into an agility "tunnel".  Ember followed me in once I got out the other side, and happily allowed herself to be clipped into her seat belt.

At home, there was a roast in the crock pot, and an ounce and a quarter of that became the topper for Ember's supper kibble.  She ate the roast pieces, but did not polish off the kibble.  All the treats from the morning filled her up.

Monday morning, we had a fly inside the house!  Given that we keep the sliding door open at lot for ease of Ember entrances and exits, this should surprise no one.

I was distracted for a minute and left the flyswatter on the counter.  One of Ember's favorite toys.  Flyswatter.  Dust pan.  Empty plastic bottles.  Anything she can destroy.

We had a neighborhood walk before Mom cooked her own breakfast.  Mom kind of overdid the fat and sugar and even some flour Sunday night, trying to regulate her feelings after Ember chose the basement level to use like a giant pee-pad... both pee and poo.  I cleaned it up. I put her to bed and then I went nuts in the kitchen.

Sunday night I did not sleep well.  I cannot do the night before / morning after thing these days.  Too hard on the body.  I was therefore not hungry Monday morning at the usual time.  Ember did not seem to mind going for a walk without waiting for Mom's breakfast.  We used to do it that way when the sun rose earlier, anyway.

During puppy nap #1 I did a little furthering of the deconstruct of the sliding door myself.  After puppy nap #1 the HVAC guy came to do the annual heating check of the furnace.  All clear for the heating season.

It was a bit of a shuffle to get Ember out of the way, into the back yard, and later into her X-Pen, so as not to interfere with the young man's work.

After he left, we did a reward trip to the dog park.  Ember raced around with a whole new group of dogs.  She's getting to expect this level of exercise, and I truly appreciate how calm she becomes afterward.  From just three trips to the park.

We'll see how Tuesday goes!

Life is Good.  Keep Sparking!