Winter Blahs

I've been absent. Hibernating I guess. After claiming..actually proudly announcing..that I never get sick, it has hit. Sinus infection. I made it to school on Thursday morning only long enough to sit through Mass with my first graders. It was their first one. There was no way I would have missed that. Two of my students who were involved were also ill. I was prepared for one so had another student take her reading (thankfully the student taking her part has about an 8th grade reading ability! She read not only her own part, but the absent student's part). The other absent student was unexpected, but he was only carrying the lectionary, so that one was pretty easy to substitute.

So I'm home sick on Friday, on meds, and will be better on Monday. While I'm feeling lousy, have no energy, no voice, and a sort throat, I thought I'd catch up on reading the blogs I follow and write just a little.

Nothing exciting is happening around here other than I'm waiting for Captain to sneak somewhere and poop in the house since all he wanted to do in the yard this morning was chase back and forth along the tree line looking for a squirrel. Oh, and Erin has no classes today, so she is home with me. She is very excited that she made a fried egg without breaking the yolk.

Well, Maybe Not

Did I not write yesterday that my dogs are my new children? I don't think I should have said that.

My dogs don't wreck cars.

I Confess: My Dogs Are My New Children

It occurred to me tonight how much my dogs have become my children. I had an appointment to get both of them groomed. I'd do it myself but both of these dogs require professional grooming really...a Goldendoodle who is fairly curly and mats easily, and a Mini-Schnauzer who likewise needs a specific kind of cut to not look weird and also can get matted...of course it is nice to have the hair pulled out of the ears so they won't get infections, get their claws trimmed, etc.

To make a long story short, I messed around at the book store, ran some errands, ate dinner and read by myself in a nice quiet booth and returned to the groomers around the time they thought the dogs would be done.

As I pulled into a parking spot right in front of the grooming place, I could see Roxie standing on the table through the big picture window. She sort of looked like she was looking out to see who was out there as I pulled in, turned off my lights and engine. Right away I said to myself there is no way I'm going in there. If she sees me she'll start having a fit. It reminded me of preschool.

Just a small thing, I know; but it's a fact. There are other things as well...loving it when they come and greet me when I get home, getting excited over a treat, doing little tricks..doing what I want in order to get a treat...yeah...they are just like kids.

They've recently gotten into the habit of sneaking into bed with me too when I'm asleep. Well, sometimes I'm aware. I don't sleep that soundly; but there have been times when I've been completely unaware too. They must be very careful getting on the bed because I honestly don't wake up if they jump up. The other morning I opened my eyes to find Captain with his head on the pillow...one more good reason to keep them groomed.

Molly's Spot

This is Molly in her spot for this week. Last week Ed found her curled up similarly in the basement on one of the chairs, on top of a vibrating back massager pad his sister left here on a recent visit. He'd find her down there one evening, go to work the next morning, go back to the basement to watch TV and she'd still be there.

This week she's decided to curl up on the detached pillow on one of our great room chairs. We again would leave for work in the morning, and I'd find her there...still (or at least that's the impression she gave me), as if she hadn't moved all day. I think she is pulling our leg.

There's one way I know...her food bowl is emptying. I can just picture her hearing the garage door come up, and making a mad dash for her spot to make us think she hasn't moved and that there is something wrong with her. It's probably because the dogs get so much attention. This is attention seeking behavior if I've ever seen it. Cats are that way.

Good Golly Miss Molly!

Meet Molly. She isn't in sight too often. Since we got the first and then the second dog, she sometimes goes into hiding. They have all adjusted though, and she pretty much has learned to behave in the typically feline fashion...aloof....around the dogs, instead of running from them.

For some reason, she refuses to drink water from a bowl. Actually she probably does since I do provide water for her, but as is typical of cats, she wants to do things her way and would never allow me see her drink from the bowl. So when I am in the kitchen she occasionally hops up on the counter (I can hear the non-animal people gasping) and I know she wants a drink. I turn on a slow steady stream and there she goes.

Of course, she does it when I am cooking off of clean counters and don't particularly want to have her on the counter. Note the muffin tins in the background. We had chili with corn muffins for dinner tonight. No one complained about finding a hair in their muffin, so I guess we escaped discovery.

Saturday Morning Excursion

Although it would have been easy for me to lounge in bed a bit longer this morning (the first Saturday following the beginning of school) I didn't. Instead I invited my husband to go with me to the Zionsville Farmers Market (thanks to my friend Janet who wrote about this in one of her blog entries). Ed isn't one to stroll and just enjoy the moment sometimes, but it was good for us to do something together and to get out of the house.

We did a walk through of the market first and went around a couple of more times to buy what we thought was the most and best for the money. We picked up a cantaloupe (which is called in Indiana a muskmelon and is somewhat different looking and better tasting than a plain cantaloupe), tomatoes, green peppers, hot peppers, peaches, chili sauce, sausage (his pick), rosemary/olive oil bread, and lastly (with all the cash we had left) this beautiful bouquet of flowers.

He seemed to enjoy it, although I did have to encourage him to relax and stroll, and not become his "efficiency expert" self. We should have brought the dogs. There were dogs everywhere...next time.

I think we have to learn to do these sorts of things together more frequently and rediscover ourselves. When you are raising children you are going every which way and are so busy all the time. It is hard to learn to spend one-on-one time together again. We are entering a new phase.

Of course on the way home, he fell into one of his favorite things to do...explore...go a different way...get lost sort of (but not admit it). He's never really had a hobby other than that he reads a lot....maybe something to do with cartography, not that there are any places in the world left unexplored. I know...he could be the person who creates better directions for online services, since they never give you the most efficient route.

Not Tonight

Mom, PPPLLEEEAAASSSEE...not tonight. You

were gone twelve hours today! We thought you

left for another vacation! Please don't blog

tonight. We're tired! We want to go to bed!

SKUNKED!

After not having slept well at all on Saturday night, I decided I would try my best on Sunday. I soaked in a nice bath for around an hour, reading my book, toweled off, put on my p.j.'s and climbed in. I ignored taking the dogs out, I ignored our guests, I just climbed in and continued reading. I was hooked on the book so did read for awhile until it became the normal bedtime, somewhere between 10 and 11 p.m.

Suddenly my husband bursts into the room with the dogs in tow (we have two...a mini-Schnauzer and a Goldendoodle) and asks me to smell Roxie (our Goldendoodle). Well, first of all he knows my smeller doesn't work well because he always smells odors I don't smell, so I sort of rely on him to decide if something in the pantry or refrigerator has gone bad. Initially I didn't smell a thing (of course), and then it hit me in the face. Roxie had been skunked.

My husband likes to let Roxie run off of her leash. We live on about an acre in a small town. We are in a neighborhood but there is a fair amount of wildlife around us. A railroad track runs along the back of our property and there is nothing but a field on the other side. We have quite a number of species of birds, I've seen deer, ground hogs, bunnies of course, and where those animals live, of course there will be raccoons, fox, possum, and (naturally) skunks around even if we don't see them.

So when he took them out one last time before bed, Roxie got skunked somewhere in the back of the yard. To be fair to him, Roxie doesn't run off when you let her run; at least not far. She has run a couple of houses away but is a bit of a wimp and doesn't stray far. She'll go further if the mini-Schnauzer (Captain) is also left off his leash to run (typically we don't do this). I will let Roxie and Captain (sometimes) both off their leashes and they chase each other around the yard, around the house, and Roxie is pretty good about staying around. If I can get her back on her leash, Captain will follow where she is. And with practice and training, they will get even better at not running off. Our neighborhood covenants don't allow us to have fences, so if we wanted to rein them in we'd have to get an invisible fence.

However, I NEVER let Roxie run off her leash in the dark. First, as mentioned she is a bit wimpy and shies easily. I wouldn't..ahem...want her to get into any trouble or see something (which may only come out at night...ahem) and take off after it. Second, why of all times would my husband assume I needed to be the one to determine whether Roxie smelled of something since he knows my smeller doesn't work well? That's what he said when he came upstairs to our bedroom..."Smell Roxie...does she smell?" Third, if he SUSPECTED she smelled of anything, why in the world would he bring her in, trailing skunk spray everywhere in the house?!?

So OF COURSE, just like he used to not want to clean up children who were throwing up, I basically sighed loudly, tossed my book aside, got up and threw on some old clothes and headed downstairs with Roxie. She was upset, maybe smelling herself, and by that time had not only gone in her crate and laid down on her cushion in there, but also came back out of her crate onto her doggie bed, so the smell was on those things as well. Through all of this of course, he's overreacting (what he usually does when in reality he is mad at himself, not me), and I'm overreacting to his overreacting.

I took Roxie downstairs, put her out on the porch and went to the computer to look up what to do about skunk spray, it never having happened to me before. Our guests were still up, probably from all the chaos going on upstairs. So much for their sleep. My sister-in-law first said tomato juice. I've heard that but wanted to be sure. (I did eventually find out tomato juice is not the answer). We googled it and my computer was being slow, so she actually called a friend in Taos where she is from to get her recipe.

What it took was a quart of hydrogen peroxide, 1/4 cup of baking soda, and a teaspoon of dish soap (the kind that says it removes grease). We had no hydrogen peroxide that I could find, and if we had any it wouldn't have been a quart, so I sent my daughter off to the store. In the meantime Roxie is upset on the porch, barking to get in, and probably still keeping our house guests awake. I had my daughter get 2 quarts of hydrogen peroxide.

After mixing up a batch of this recipe, I started scrubbing Roxie down head to toes. They say it can bleach the dog's fur, but Roxie is blond anyway and who cares. The poor thing was shivering since the night air was cool. I applied two batches to her, followed by a regular shampooing and rinsing, toweled her off, and my daughter (who was by that time helping me) took Roxie to sleep in her room. I then had to go upstairs and grab all her bedding and get it in the wash. Fortunately the daughter who had gone to the store for me also picked up another solution which is also supposed to remove skunk odor, so as the directions indicated I added a capful of that to my laundry detergent to wash Roxie's bedding.

You know how "they" say to never let the sun set on your anger? I don't think that's realistic and if you try to live by it, there is too much pressure on you to pretend you aren't angry when you really are. So if you can picture our king sized bed, my husband and I slept far apart and back-to-back. Sometimes it is better NOT to figure it out right then. Sometimes it IS better to just stay quiet and wait until morning. I don't know what time it was when I got to bed, and I don't want to know, but I did get what I wanted...I did sleep well once I got there.

Oh, and we slept with both the air conditioning running and the windows open. I've decided the only way to know for sure the smell isn't in the bedroom or elsewhere in the house is to remove myself and come back in later. Especially since.....my smeller doesn't work! By the way, we were both fine and laughing this morning, and my husband was being his sheepish self, the way he is when he knows he messed up! If he blogged, I'm sure his version would be very different from mine, but this is MY blog. Not only does he not do puke and not do skunk, he also doesn't read or write blogs, so I can say whatever I want..heh heh heh.