Category: Pets

Pets, Photography

Elliott (March 1994-July 29, 2005)

Shelly

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Late Thursday night, I lost my heart dog. I got Elliott as a puppy, eleven years ago. Eleven is a nice, respectable age for a dog, but it’s not enough

From the start, he was my constant shadow, always underfoot and alert to my every movement. He was a dream puppy–reliably housebroken from day one and thoroughly trustworthy. With one exception, he never touched anything that wasn’t his. (In his defense, the chair he ate was later eaten by two other dogs. Obviously, it deserved it.)

Elliott had a wicked sense of humor, something that won’t surprise anyone who has lived with Chowy dogs. They’re deeply, but quietly, funny. Elliott’s Pit Bull half meant that he was also silly, gregarious, and big-hearted. He was glad to do anything I asked of him, and more. Bomb-proof, nothing fazed him.

If I could design the perfect dog right this minute, it would be Elliott. I wouldn’t have changed a thing about him.

When Elliott was five, I decided it was time to add a second dog to our home. When I got Harriet, Elliott was ecstatic. He wanted desperately to play with her, but she was Not Interested. It took her about 24 hours to warm up to him, but when she did, they became good friends.

As playmates, they were well matched. Elliott taught Harriet how to play chase games and she taught him how to box. Hardly a day went by without riotous games of bitey-face. He let her boss him around (that’s what girldogs do best and Elliott was happy to let her exercise her bitchy prerogative). She let him take care of alerting to strange noises and intruders (watch dog duty is not her Thing). Despite occasional disagreements and the odd fight, they were deeply bonded to each other.

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I don’t know how dogs perceive death, but I know that Harriet’s at loose ends. She was terribly bossy toward Elliott, but she always took her cues from him. If he decided that a noise outside wasn’t worth worrying about, she believed him. It’ll be interesting to see how she adapts to not having Elliott to hold her paw.

Another area for concern is how well I’ll be able to deal with her activity level. Walks and play time aren’t an issue, but there are games that dogs play with each other that humans just can’t participate in. I went outside with Harriet this afternoon, at their regular “dog play” time. She stood on the deck and looked at me like “Now what?” Even when she was just mooching around, eating grass, she was always accompanied by Elliott. She doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with herself without him.

At some point, I’m sure I’ll get another dog–a male Boxer, if all goes according to plan. It’ll be a while, though. For now, I’m just trying to get used to having a one-dog household. It’s a little surreal. Elliott took up a huge amount of psychological space. He was always glued to my side, so that, even when he was resting quietly, I was always aware of his presence.

Goodbye to the bestest dog ever. I miss you like crazy.

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Crankypantsing, Meta, News & Politics, Pets, Photography

Nitpickings and Ramblings

Shelly

Have I mentioned that if it’s not one thing, it’s ten others? Yes! Yes, I believe I have.

I keep finding pesky little issues with the website. Most of them stem from having used my host’s silly web FTP to upload files. Life would’ve been grand if I could’ve used a proper FTP client to do the uploading, but, obviously, that would’ve been far, far too easy. I think there are approximately eleventy-hundred separate files, so when loading them five (yes, *5*) at a time, it’s not surprising that a few went AWOL. I keep a close eye on my error reports and fix problems as I find them, but if y’all run across files that seem to be missing, just let me know and I’ll fix them ASAP. So far, it’s mostly been large images that have gone walkabout, but I also ran across a couple of links that were, um, pointing with their middle fingers. I dunno how that happened, as I used relative URLs for internal links. Another issue has been file names changing case when uploaded. What’s weird is that they changed from lower to upper case. Hmmm. Usually, it’s the other way around.

Anyway, that’s a rambly way of saying that I’m continuing to tidy things up around the edges. Which, you may have guessed, is the story of my life.

No art today. I’ve been driving myself to tears with this Color Erratica round robin. Someone dropped out, causing a log jam of books, so a bunch of us are scrambling to get caught up and get the group back on track. I took a break from it last night, though, and sat on my ass and did N-O-T-H-I-N-G. Well, not exactly nothing. I watched some–you guessed it!–really bad TeeVee. I’ll spare you the details, as there really aren’t any.

The unholy hot weather continues. “They” say we’ll get a break from it tomorrow. I’ll believe it when I see it. In the meantime, because Freshman orientation is over and the wee kiddies and their parents have left the building, and because the heat index has been in the triple digits, and because we supposedly need to conserve energy, The Powers That Be have declared that our building will be having periodic chilled water outages. Yep. When it gets super hot, they turn off our AC. Of course, this is an eleven story building with no windows above the third floor, so it’s not like we need AC or anything. M’kay. All that means that here are about a zillion fans going full-blast, so A) it’s impossible to hear yourself think and B) I really have to question whether there is, in fact, any sort of energy savings at all.

Le sigh. If I ran the world, things would be very, very different. Not better, mind you, just, well, different. For example, we might have year-round snow:

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And, finally, for those of you who care, the House of Representatives re-upped the Patriot Act. (A pdf of the full text of the Patriot Act can be found here.)

Pets, Photography

Fog and Dogs

Shelly

I took these about a month ago, when we were having a spate of drizzly, misty weather. After it cleared up, we had nearly a month without useful precipitation. Hurricane Dennis came to Indiana this week, breaking the dry spell. It’s been a lovely, soaking rain over several days–exactly what we needed. It’s not been as picturesque as the pictures below, though, so I’m using them instead.

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Elliott is our dog-in-fog model. The grass was too wet for Princess Harriet to put her delicate little feetses in.

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And, because I can, here’s the obligatory dogblogging. Have I mentioned that Harriet is not (not!) a fan of air conditioning? Well, if I didn’t, she’s not a fan of AC. When it cools down in the living room, she scrunches up into a little ball and moans and groans and sighs until I take pity on her sad little self and cover her up with a binkey. If I’m a meanypants and ignore her, she goes to the bedroom, where there’s no AC, and roots around on the bed until she’s got the bedding wadded to perfection. I use it as an excuse not to make my bed in the mornings, because she’s only going to mess it up. I just pull the covers up and wait until bedtime to make the bed. A) I’m lazy and B) I choose my battles.

It’s a good thing she’s cute.

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Burritodog

Pets, Photography

Another Brief Respite

Shelly

I’ve been out mowing and got a couple of shots of Elliott while I was taking a break. This one–he’s hunting moles–was framed particularly nicely, so I thought I’d upload it. The photo on the right was taken a week ago. Even though it was hot and yucky out, the shade from the tangled tree branches looked cool and inviting. I wasn’t able to get a picture of him, but there was a male cardinal cheeking up a storm in the sassafras tree. Every time I’d get the camera focused on him, he’d hop to a different branch.

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I know it’s cooler out today than it has been in ages, but it’s still too bloody hot for yard work. Yuck! Frequent breaks are, I think, the ticket.

Crankypantsing, Pets, Photography

Letters to Esther Updates Forthcoming

Shelly

I have what may prove to be a really boring photo project planned for tomorrow. But! Because of the nature of the project, I should have time to finally (!) work on Letters to Esther. I’ve been neglecting it dreadfully and figured that if I voiced my plans out loud (um, in writing), I wouldn’t be able to back out of them.

In other, tangentially related news, I’m nearly finished with the art website. The package I bought had a ridiculous amount of space (five (5!!!) gigs), so I’ll have more than enough room to host Letters to Esther and its future, related art projects there, too. This has been an interesting project for me. The two halves of my brain just do not play well together, so the constant to-ing and fro-ing has been a challenge–a fun challenge, though.

Hmmm… What else…

  • The wind and storms have finally died down (thanks a lot, Arlene!), so we should have blue skies and warm-but-not-ungodly-hot temps for the next few days.
  • I kept forgetting to take my camera with me, so I missed my chance to take a picture of The Bust o’ Darth Vader perched atop the Burger King building. At one point, he was about 1/3 deflated, so he was half reclined, wielding–like a cop holding a billy club in one hand and thwacking it against the other–a similarly deflated light saber. In all, it was the worst Viagra ad, EVAR!1!! Alas, Mr. Vader was gone when I drove by this morning.
  • I had to stop at three–three!–Bigfoot/Circle K/BP/Macs (lord knows what they’ll be called next week) before I found one with a working pepsisodapopcoke fountain machine. And, no, I couldn’t just stop for a cold, caffeinated, carbonated beverage at any of the other 250 gas stations between my house and my workplace, because none of those other places has my favorite brand of crack–Go Ape Energy Drink. It’s red, it’s ubercaffeinated, it’s tart, it’s slightly bitter, and it’s fizzy. In short, it’s divine ambrosia.
  • Summer teevee sucks so badly that I’m counting the days until Big Brother starts. Yes, I know how sad and pathetic that is.
  • I’m sick to death of cataloging COR Opinions. Title o’ the Day: Opinion on the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning the quality of bathing water. Riveting stuff.
  • The last book for a round robin I’m participating in went AWOL. Hopefully it’ll turn up soon, but it should’ve been here three weeks ago. Mail out day was yesterday, so now its absence is cutting into the next person’s work time. There’s nothing I can do about it, though I can’t help but feel bad that someone’s book might have gotten terminally lost in the post. At this point, I’m just hoping the next one gets here before the its mail-out date.

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    from 2000-ish

  • It was finally cool enough last night for some spectacular biteyface action. I was enjoying the show too much to go get the camera, so I didn’t get any pictures. It was really, really good, though–lots and lots of zooming, vaulting, rolling, and dragging each other around by the face. Oh, and the faux snarling and growling. Mustn’t forget that. It sounded like a pack of rabid hyenas had landed in my yard. And, afterward, I had two flat dogs with lolling, slab-o-ham tongues who were more than happy to go to bed early.
  • Speaking of dogs, Harriet has discovered that, if she brings me a mouthful of looong grass, I’ll tear each blade into small pieces and hand feed it to her. She’s not spoiled or anything. My excuse for obliging her is that there is nothing, and I mean n-o-t-h-i-n-g, cuter than a Boxer dog smack-smack-smacking her lips while eating itty bitty pieces of grass.

I think that’s about everything. As you can see, I live a most exciting life!

Crankypantsing, Pets, Photography

Score! And, Some Other Stuff

Shelly

I got back from the pop machine and found that some very kind soul had left a couple of issues of Real Simple sitting on the magazine table. Real Simple is a good source of gluebook images. The thick clay-coat paper is also great for recycling into handmade art journals.

And, I found out that I’m getting my old desk back tomorrow. I cannot articulate how happy this makes me. The new, supposedly “ergonomic” furniture we were given is pure crap. It’s shoddily made and uncomfortable to use, especially if you’re short, like me. The computer sits in the corner and the keyboard tray is like an a ginormous platter. The sheer hummensity of the tray means that the monitor is at least two arm lengths away, which is not good. The tray also extends out so far that it’s impossible to reach over it to use the desk behind it. That means that I have to do a bizarre hybrid of The Twist and The Cha-Cha in order to get my work done. No, no, no. But, tomorrow, I’ll have my beautiful old desk back. Wheee!

In other news, I was suddenly possessed last night by a lawn mowing demon. It’d been weeks–literally–since I’d cut my grass and it was reaching critical mass (um, length?). There were several sections that I had to cut by raising up the mower and lower it down. My only complaint about this mower is that the grass chute gets clogged too easily. Because of the length and the dampness of the grass, I had to clean out the chute every two steps. It ended up taking me over three hours to do the whole thing, but it’s done, done, done. For now. I’ll have to do it again before the weekend is over. Between the monsoons and fact that I had to cut it on the highest setting, it’ll be due for another cutting in a few days.

Finally, in gratuitous cuteness news, I present Miss Harriet Brown the Amazing Burrito Dog:

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Harriet, as you can see, is a Boxer dog. Boxers are dainty (ha!) little things who are sure to perish if they get cold or wet. Physicists take note: I have it on very good authority that it is possible for a dog to melt and freeze at the very same time. Anyway, Miss Brown is fond of her creature comforts, first among which is her binkey. When she’s feeling a wee chill (pretty much anything under 75F), she brings her blanket to me so that I can wrap her up like a burrito. At night, she insists on sleeping under the covers, as far away from The Eeevil Fan as possible. On sunny days, she likes to pass the time on the front deck, baking her little pea brain to a crisp.

Crankypantsing, Pets

But Wait, There’s More…!

Shelly

Apparently, I’m not finished frothing about the little stuff at the bottom of my Giant Bucket of Craptacular Things

So, last Saturday, as I’m merrily working my way through a waist-high pile of Things To Do, my scanner decided to have a nervous breakdown. It started with a loud grinding noise which became progressively more grindy and more loud. Then, my computer crashed. Guess who did not have “shopping for scanners” on her Things To Do list? Oooh, Teacher, pick me!

So, I got dressed (working in one’s PJs is one thing, but going shopping in them is quite another[1]) and headed out for some hunting and gathering. Not that I held out much hope that I would actually find a scanner in Spencer (pop. 2000). But, you know what? I did. O frabjous day! Of course, it was a scanner-copier-printer-FAX-toaster-microwave-coffee maker-all-in-one thingy, which isn’t exactly what I was looking for, but it scanned, by golly, so I bought it. And a USB 2.0 adapter, because I couldn’t remember if I had one at home. And a nifty crackle paint kit that was on clearance for $2.50. And some Xacto blades. And deodorant (mmm, cucumber and melon). I forgot the flashlight batteries, though.[2]

I went home and installed Mr. Scanner and, for the first time ever I was able to convince Windows to play nicely with the cute little USB device. I went back to work and, though the new scanner has some software issues I don’t like, it seems to work okay. Whew!

Then, on Sunday, we got a sudden storm. One minute the sky was blue with harmless looking, puffy white clouds and the next it was black. That’s the down-side to living in a valley–you can’t see storms coming in until they’re rightontopofyou. I managed to get my computer shut down before the power went off, which was a relief. Sitting through the hail and winds was not such a relief, though. Storms scare the pants off me, so my hands were shaking and I felt like throwing up. Yuck. The storm passed almost as quickly as it came, though, so it didn’t last long.

And, because life isn’t exciting enough, Harriet cornered some sort of wildlife last night. Because it happened in the far corner of the yard, where it’s pitch black, I couldn’t see what it was.[2] From the way it bounced against the fence, it sounded fairly big, though–maybe 20-30 pounds? And it hissed and growled. Maybe it was a raccoon? ‘Possums don’t usually growl, as far as I know. Whatever it was, it beat the hell out of Harriet. She ended up with hamburger face. None of the cuts or bites were deep, though, thankfully. By the time I finally got her away from it (“kill! kill! kill!” she said) and inside, she was completely freaked out and panting so hard I thought she’d swallow her tongue (um, no, not really, but still, she was pretty tweaked). I washed her face with hydrogen peroxide, checked out her mouth, and looked her over really well.[3] Everything seemed okay and she calmed down quickly. She slept on the bed with me and I woke up several times to check on her. She was fine and looked good this morning–no sign of pain and her appetite was normal. When I got up, I took her out on a leash, not knowing whether or not The Thing was still there. We checked out The Scene and there was no sign of It. Hopefully, It will never, ever come back.

Oh, and Elliott, bless his little heart, decided to sit this one out. He hung back and let Harriet do all the work. That’s probably a good thing, because she was suffering demonic possession. If he’d gotten in the middle of the fray, she might’ve eaten his face. Or tried to. Those itty bitty Boxer teefies of hers are comical.

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[1] Unless, of course, you’re one of the high school girls I saw while scanner shopping. They were wearing matching PJ bottoms, matching tank tops, and–I am not making this up–matching hair.

[2] A flashlight would’ve been handy to have during the encounter with The Thing. But did I remember to pick up batteries? Nooooo. Guess who will be stopping to get some tonight?

[3] For such a tweaky girl, she’s a peach about being handled when she’s sick or hurt. Those cuts must’ve stung like hell, but she didn’t flinch when I cleaned them.