Life Among the Spinoni

2010-11-20T12:27:00.000-08:00

That's Money You Smell!

2010-06-15T15:29:00.000-07:00

It's summer again at Juniper Hill, and the neighbors are busy. It's quite common to turn out the driveway and land right behind a tractor making its way from field to field, which sure slows down those trips to the beach.

From time to time the wind shifts, and you get a whiff of what the locals are up to at this season. When I would remark on this as a child, my grandfather would nod wisely and intone "that's money you smell." (I am compelled to point out that Pop was not a canny old back-country farmer, but a banker in residence for the summers only, who purchased the right of way to our house from old Thurmon Maine, a quite authentic COBCF, MORE THAN ONCE.)

The other day, I found myself behind one of those ancient and mysterious pieces of equipment that move around at this season. It was soon clear to me that it must be a manure spreader, so I fell back a bit and continued my leisurely drive home. Once home, I settled back in to clearing out the squirrels' nests, hanging curtains and, still getting faint whiffs, musing about my grandfather and the glories of country life.

At least I did until I looked outside and discovered Pete shoving his head into the spitmobile's wheel wells and giving his ears a good annointing.

Another Year Older

2009-12-30T05:33:00.000-08:00

And deeper in debt. Somehow 2009 got by me and I never got a handle on it. Then December was just packed with events, good and bad, bringing me to the conviction (or longing) that NEXT year will be different. I may not be wearing a silly hat, but, like my dogs, I am ever hopeful.

Emails Never Sent

2009-10-23T07:48:00.000-07:00

I found this among my drafts, I wonder why I never sent it.

...I was up much too late last night as Pete and Hector pursued a large pine borer about my bedroom. I thought it was a bird or bat at first. They chitter at you when they are pissed off, and believe me, this one was. It also didn't want to go outside, I gather because it prefers its dinner properly sawn and not on the hoof out in my hundred-acre woods. No wonder my house is like this.

If it's not that, it's an elusive singing katydid. So you may blame my effusion on sleeplessness...

All Is Vanity

2009-09-08T09:05:00.001-07:00

Ah, vanity! You might think if I didn't spend all my money on dog food and fancy license plates, I'd have a nicer car.

This was my dear Jeep Cherokee, 14 years old and 240,000 miles when it had its last explosion on the Cross Bronx Expressway one fine fall night last year . Fortunately it's not that hard to find a car service that will take you, two spinone, a semi-comatose pekingese and the cat the rest of the way home at 11:00 at night, as long as your credit card still functions.

This wonderful vehicle served me well, carrying dogs and vanity plates (with the help of a bit of baling wire) in style, AND making sure that nobody among my passengers was ever gunshy. I've been driving something newer, and while I can hear the radio over the rattles, I spend much more time worrying about it that I ever did about my Jeep.

Summer Houses

2009-07-26T09:41:00.000-07:00

Our house was built by a poet, at the turn of the LAST century, out of scrap lumber from the sawmill where he worked and bits of old chicken coop. It is held up by metaphor, not engineering, and this weather is not doing it any favors, although thanks to a new rubber roof (it's like an enormous inner tube, but white) there are no leaks this year. It occupies a hill at the edge of Bell Cedar Swamp, and is more than just a little damp from the daily rain.

Today, I decided that bad lighting and worse eyesight would no longer suffice, and that I had to vacuum. This is always an interesting process, as you are just as likely to suck up bits of house that have mysteriously disintegrated as you are to suck up spider webs and spinone hair.

I squinted at the bathroom ceiling, which needs a bit of work, and put up my brush to see whether it was a knot hole, dry rot or just stuff, when PLOP, something landed on my head. I hoped for dry rot until it ran down across my shoulder and leapt onto the floor. Fortunately, it was just a snake.

Mice, while inevitable (the inside/outside dichotomy is poorly defined at best, and you can't blame nature for not knowing), are an embarrassment and spiders give me the howling horrors; but I have convinced myself that snakes are interesting and exotic. The ring-necked snakes that occasionally drop in (sometimes onto guests who are just reading quietly on the couch) are very small and pretty, so there's no end to the amusement. (As my favorite sister-in-law—and it's a brave person that marries into our family—once said, "oh NO, there could be an entire nest of writhing shoelaces up there!")

This is a house that some people find reason to never, ever visit again. But others recognize that it is imbued with a charming 1930s Nick and Nora appeal. My grandparents bought the house from the poet (his family had to move to town during the war, the first one, and inexplicably refused to move back) and tacked on a bathroom and hot water. Grandma would come down from NY with the maid and children and Pop would come for weekends then his vacation, and they would have friends visit and ply them with cocktails and dress for dinner and have a wonderful time. Long summer days at the beach and evenings of talk and laughter...

I learned to mix a martini here, aged maybe 8 or 9, and to play bridge, and that I could hear everything that the grownups were saying from any part of the house as I sat up under the blankets reading my book with a flashlight. And really, what else can you ask of a summer?

You are what you eat

2009-04-06T13:20:00.000-07:00

Look at this happy, happy face. Come Spring, there's a lot of, ahem, activity over by the horses and my Pete sure knows how to make the most of it. Back when he was an unsophisticated puppy, he'd come home and regurgitate it wholesale, to my horror. He could, in a matter of only moments, liquefy and expand the original materials and get them EVERYWHERE, in a form oh-so-much-more-noxious than the original.

Now that he's older, he takes the time to consider and digest it all and, oddly enough, it seems to help in the formation of a perfect, or more perfect, output. In what some could dismiss as just a load of horse puckey, he finds an essential fiber that helps bind his own contributions; learning to take the roughage with the smooth, so to speak.

As ever, we can learn from our dogs. Happy Spring, and everybody, let's roll!

Nobody suffers like my dogs

2009-03-12T22:12:00.000-07:00

Why, when I thwart this creature (as I so often do), does he stretch out his little neck and lay it out across tables, knees, chairs, whatever, like Ann Boleyn across the block? Just look at that expression. It's extortion.

Ominous, much?

2009-02-19T15:13:00.000-08:00

I was wondering where the 21st Street pigeons were this gloomy afternoon, but then I looked up...

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heuugggh, ganache, hhorck

2009-02-17T15:40:00.000-08:00

I was awakened last night by the honks of a maddened goose, or perhaps a bull elephant, in bed next to me. (I know, but I'm a single lady, so I was a little taken aback.) It was my sweet Annie, who was either trying to vomit up something truly dreadful, or suffering from aspiration pneumonia from all the recent pills.

So off we went to the vet this morning with Pete in tow as well, as he likes to come along for the fun of it and we never waste a walk.

Even though she had done some excellent honking in the waiting room, Annie wanted to be at her best for Justin (the very handsome vet tech) and clammed up on the table. But the vet, from the noises she had overheard as we came in, and in the absence of busted guts or pill-filled lungs, declared kennel cough. She asked how’s Pete, I said just perfect as I gave him an encouraging thump on the ribs, and gaack, blergh, honk. So she wrote two prescriptions, and told me that this was a courtesy visit. Life is good.

Then she removed some of the rosy from my day by saying that we would be contagious for about three weeks, even after they’re done whooping it up.

But officer, I didn't mean to...

2009-02-12T07:28:00.000-08:00

Westminster, even for a mere interested observer, is the most exhausting dog show ever. I go there only to socialize, and find myself staring blankly at people who I've known for years, and kicking myself all the way home because I've met exciting new people and only said "nice dogs this year" when I really have a TON of things to say to them, or, more to the point, ASK them. I just can't imagine how the people who are actually there with their dogs hold up so well. I suspect I'd be curled up in a crate weeping by mid-afternoon.

And we all know what a tribute it is to the temperament of the spinone that the dogs hold up so beautifully. We were benched near Dogues de Bordeaux and Dobermans, and every once in a while there was some notable evidence of tempers fraying.

I drifted away from the dog show at about 4:00, fully intending to return in an hour after walking my dogs at home. But once I was home, Pete and Annie were SO glad to see me that I walked them, fed them, and settled down on the couch with them for just a LITTLE rest...

Just as I flipped on the TV to watch the sporting group from the comfort of my living room, Pete started doing the FETCH OF MISCELLANEOUS UNSOLICITED OBJECTS. (This behavior proves that I am really training him, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, and should not be discouraged.) So he brought me a sock, then a leg from a dismembered squeaky, then a wire coat hanger (NO!), all of which I received with gratitude and loud praise. But then, what does he bring me? Oh saints.

Don't worry, it had a happy ending, but I remind you: Make sure all medications are up high in a cupboard; spinoni are always happy to get things from the tops of pianos and bookshelves, and are work in close cooperation with cats when you aren't looking. Discard empty pill bottles some place that they can't be gotten back from. Try harder to remember how empty or full the pill bottles you keep are. Don't assume that your GOOD dog can be trusted, there is no such thing as an angel spinone. And above all, if your middle-aged memory (called by some "encroaching senility") cannot be relied on to cough up really essential information in an emergency...

Well, I forget, but I'm pretty sure I won't forget Tuesday night for a long time.

You kiss your mother with that?

2009-02-08T09:47:00.000-08:00

It has been suggested that I put my money where my mouth is, and I have therefore accepted a nomination to run for office in my dog club. Nobody appreciates the tireless suggester any more. Since I'm currently self-employed (no, that's NOT code for unemployable), I have the time to devote to my duties should I be elected. And is there any better way to ensure that I immediately find a job, or at least a client who wants all my time?

The Unexamined Life

2009-02-01T07:50:00.000-08:00

It is very cold, and besides, I have one, so I am simply not in the mood to do anything useful at all. Instead, I took a nice hot shower, with Hector the cat snuggled in between the shower curtains enjoying the warmth and Pete lying low on the bathroom floor hoping I didn't get inspired to wash any dogs. This was such a success that I finished up and promptly filled the tub, grabbing my New Yorker and immersing myself in both.

As I wallowed and, with growing horror, realized that this week seemed to be the doomsday issue, I noticed that Hector was shifting his position on the edge of the tub. At first I thought perhaps he, like I, was reading attentively to see if Vermont, Alaska or the sailboat was the better way to prepare for the end of Life As We Now Know It, but no. He was just getting a drink. (He also likes spinone water, so I just don't ask.) You know what happened.

Head stuffed, bosom bloodied, cat wet...February 1.

Regime Change

2009-01-21T04:52:00.000-08:00

Well, it's done! And yesterday, more happened than just changing one president for another.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.... What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them — that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply.

Business in the light of day, rejecting as false the choice between our safety and our ideals, extending a hand to the unclenched fist. These aren't new ideas, but it has been a long time since we have seen them in action. It was time.

...Among the Pigeons

2009-01-15T12:28:00.000-08:00

My urban spinoni are great hunters. I have learned never to think that I'm just taking them out for a fast poop, because there are several notable pigeon feeders on our block and there are always plenty of birds about. Oh, the stares we get. (Admiring, of course.) They spot a pigeon, and it's just like Niagara Falls (slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch...) They lock up in perfect unison, and stay there.

The pigeons? "Feh," they say, and go back about their business. They don't move, the dogs won't move. Annie is no longer in the first blush of youth and can be persuaded to leave them and go on her walk, if you make an issue of it, because she knows we're not going to shoot anyone in the middle of New York. Pete, however, is young, and full of hopes and dreams -- he stays and WILLS me to do the right thing. I have to do a lot of explaining. Ten years down the line, the only hunter education class in Manhattan will be jammed with graduates of P.S. 11 who were treated to the daily sight of bird dogs in action in their formative years.

The other day, my mighty hunters decided that the pigeons did not interest them. Even though they were right in front of the playground where the pigeons parade about in great flocks, thumbing their noses at any bird dog that passes, MY little lambs were pointing the local bike rack. It turns out that among all those wheels is a tiny pile of oak leaves, the last ones that haven't blown away. In those leaves is a little family of sparrows, fluffed up like tiny tumbleweeds against January cold desolate.

Well, That's YOUR Opinion

2009-01-11T07:03:00.000-08:00

It seems to me that dog world inhabits a very shaky place on the reality continuum. My inability to inhabit it myself must ever betray me as a mere dilettante.

I was quite delighted to see this in the Sunday papers; how it reminds me of recent conversations with the leading lights of the spinone fancy.

http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2009/01/11/

Baths

2009-01-04T17:45:00.000-08:00

The problem with washing these big old bird dogs is that the only thing that smells worse than dirty dog is wet dog. And, while dirty dog is just on the dog, WET dog permeates everything. So to improve stinky Pete, who so sorely needs it, he first has to get much worse and it comes off on me and all our surroundings as well.

It might have been better, some would think, to just leave the dirty dog alone, because now the mess is everywhere. Drains clogged, hair on the ceiling, wet towels draped all over. Yuck.

But tomorrow, after a bit of Drain-O, with the towels in the laundry and the vacuuming done, Pete will be all minty-eucalyptus fresh and the world our oyster again. It has to be done.

Vicarious Vertigo

2009-01-03T15:51:00.000-08:00

Oh, the sensation you get when considering the disasters that might befall you if only you were as careless as that other fellow!

Why, I once knew someone whose cousin who had a friend who told her about someone who didn't know how dangerous it was to lean your elbow out an open car window...or was that my grandmother? Well, whoever it was, that truck driver had to make a U-turn and chase him back down the road with the arm. It just makes me shiver to think of it.

I'm just as prone as the next one to pop my eyes at the imagined near-miss of some dreadful calamity. "Oh my lord," I cry, "I was on 81st Street just a couple of weeks ago, only three blocks away! Didn't you think about moving there in the '70s?" It's nearly as good as a roller coaster for a cheap thrill.

What's important is to be able to distinguish between vicarious vertigo and actually snatching up a nice pointed stick to carry on your run. And to be careful that you don't suddenly discover that the the person you think you're sharing a nice frisson of imaginary terror with is leaning across you to slap your hands off the window buttons. For your own good, of course.

A Day at the Dictionary

2009-01-02T13:53:00.000-08:00

club
1. a heavy stick, usually thicker at one end than at the other, suitable for use as a weapon; a cudgel.
2. a group of persons organized for a social, literary, athletic, political, or other purpose: They organized a computer club.

Thanks to dictionary.com.

Which do you prefer?

Surrender, Dorothy!

2009-01-01T12:12:00.000-08:00

I always enter the new year with hopes of better things, and here's one already. Has anyone other than the NY Times (and me) noticed that CNN has finally dropped the crawl? That constant stream of news across the bottom of the news, letting us know, since 9/11/2001, that there was something going on so much WORSE than what the reporters were talking about that we had to be told immediately, is gone. I remember 9/11 (and 9/12 and 9/13) all too well, especially the feeling of helpless fear that kept me perched on the arm of my couch, afraid to take the time to wash the ashes from my hair, listening to CNN and watching the crawl, sure that if I averted my gaze for just a moment....

Since then, because of fear, or the determination never to be afraid like that again, we have entered wars, tolerated torture, expected (and sometimes gotten) the worst from people who were not like us. And why are we so afraid? Mostly because people are so busy convincing us that we OUGHT to be, which is no way to live. It's nice to see some of the frenzy die out, even if it is just that running text below the reporter that makes you gasp with apprehension, no longer knowing where to direct your attention and how to protect yourself.

What does this have to do with dogs?

Well, lately we dog club types seem to have been spending a lot of time discussing the dangers that abound in the dog world. The idea of working together to accomplish things is scoffed at, and met with great lists of every thing that COULD go wrong in this bad world. I, for one, am tired of people who make their points by trying to make others afraid and who, rather than presenting a reasoned argument, warn me that if I am not careful my dogs will be stolen or, worse, I'll start getting SPAM in my email.

It's Locke vs. Hobbes all over again. Is man a noble savage, capable of accepting the give and take of the rule of law, or a savage beast who must form alliances in desperation to gain protection against the other (nasty, brutish, short, not like a spinone at all) savages? Well, some people seem to prefer to live in a world where the preemptive first strike is the only option; I don't, and playing upon my fears is not the way to make me change. Not this year.

Happy Holidays!

2008-12-27T13:38:00.000-08:00

This is BEFORE the plum pudding.

Merry Chrismas to all, and may 2009 bring you joy.

Two Dogs or Twenty?

2008-12-20T20:18:00.000-08:00

Here I am, trying to gather my thoughts in a house full of Spinoni, which is always a mistake. And while I know that two is not really a house full but a mere drop in the Spinone bucket, it sure doesn't feel like it some days.

I remember quite clearly a time, not so long ago, when I thought that another one would be good company for the first and such a pleasure to have around the house, sort of like the doublemint twins. Now that I have the pair of them, I can see why people end up with three, then four, then five—two are not much different than a baker's dozen. Really, once you stretch that special bond with your first one to share the love with another, it's just a big party from then on; you'll find yourself thinking "oh well, the more the merrier." If it's all dogs all the time anyhow, why not?

A slippery slope, I fear.