THIS IS THE WAY THINGS HAPPEN

Yesterday I bought a bicycle. I rode it around the block a few times and then later repeated the performance. The second time some a-hole yelled at me, just a nasty, changing neighborhood comment which I ignored, but which made me wish I had had a K-9 officer trotting along with me.
Today it is raining.
When I got up a started a laundry consisting of my clothes.
Then:
I dropped the little do-hickey that holds the window shade up and couldn't find it. Got the flashlight. Discovered a disgusting mess under my work table so I pulled everthing out and cleaned up under there. I took the dustpan full of crap to the kitchen and learned the bin was full so I took it out and put in a new liner and in doing so pulled out the bin and found all sorts of dirt behind it. I got the broom and swept that spot but there was a stickly spot on the floor and the dirt stuck to it.
So I took the rug out and shook it and then swept but there were also two glops of raspberry on the floor that now had hair and dirt stuck in them.
I got out the Swiffer thing and the pad was filthy so I got under the sink to find a new one and discovered that nothing was where it was supposed to be and so I pulled everything out and cleaned under the sink and put stuff back where it belonged but the Swiffer pads weren't under there anyway, they were over by the Swiffer.
I put a new pad on and set the old one on the counter for the moment and saw that the counter was dirty. I cleared everything off the counter and washed and bleached it and dried it and put it back and put the new pad on the Swiffer and did the kitchen floor. I let it dry and then put the rugs back.

I heard that the washing machine had stopped so I started moving stuff to the dryer and discovered that the little credit card wallet john gave me yesterday had gone through the laundry with all my credit cards and membership cards and medicare card in it.

I got the clothes in the dryer and emptied out the soaked wallet and laid everything on top of my currently inkless printer to dry.

And here I am and it is not even 8 o'clock in the morning....

And now John has looked in all the same places I looked for the little gizmo that holds my shade up (which is now held by a bobby-pin) and been as unable as I to find it.

Thus begins my Saturday.................................................

DOING THE SENSIBLE THING

First off I want to change the default font on this computer. Can anyone tell me how to do it so it stays changed?

Secondly yesterday we tried an experiement with Nigel. Well no. I tried an experiment with Nigel since John was gone. I put a good belly band on Nigel and fastened it with straps to a harness on the sides so he could not pull it off and I let him loose in the house.

Now I have a fabulous diaper thing that Val Brewer made for him and it fits but when I put it on him he freezes. My dogs, un-used to clothing of any kind, find this idea terrifying. He is getting better about it, but he still needs a pad in there to catch the dribbling urine.

So I put this on him and of course, he slept all day. I did all the dog laundry and I steam-cleaned the rugs. And my house smelled GORGEOUS. CLEAN. And so I took the belly band off to change the pad and OH MY GOODNESS!!!! A wall of ammonia and a doggie crotch the color of our local fire chief's SUV. Little bumplettes everywhere that the pad, soaking and dripping with urine, had been.

Oops.

And Nigel....well poor Nigel did not smell gorgeous or clean.

So I got out the doggie dry shampoo (I just ordered a gallon) and the Gold Bond powder and I went to work while he whimpered and squirmed. I think I got all the urine off. Then I dried him, kind of gently I hope, and then I poured on the Gold Bond (those people must make a fortune just from Drool members)  and left him to air out. The pad went in the outside garbage and the belly band into the washing machine.

Clearly I need to acclimate him to this slowly. And to change the pads every hour or so which may make it more trouble than steam cleaning the rugs.

He seemed very relieved (no pun intended) to have his naked self back.

And after all that housework I went to my WWatchers meeting and had gained a pound.

Sometimes I hate everything.

THINGS

When the kids left home our water bill dropped dramatically, and it stayed a pittance for a long time. Then Nigel went down in the rear.
The other day John pointed to the water bill, his mouth working soundlessly, eyeballs red and bulging.
I in turn pointed to Nigel, enscounced on my bed, which is covered with thick, waterproof padding, and to his pen which is likewise covered with padding and to the bottles of enzymatic cleaner, odor killers, dry shampoos and towels.
Every morning I get up and the very first thing I do is to start the dog laundry.
Today I have at least three loads because I am also washing the comforter and blanket and sheet from my bed, all of which are covered with the waterproof stuff and a comforter and pads to prevent urine leakage.
Also all the pads from the living room (couch and John's chair) need to be washed and later, all the pads from Nigel's pen need to be washed. Ok, four loads.

And someday I will get to my clothes, and John's clothes one of these days... maybe next week.

Meanwhile, the robins are back. This has nothing to do with laundry. The robins build a nest in a faux nest-box hung on the eaves of the building in back of the house which is falling down. (The other building, not the back of the house.) The squirrels also nested in that building for awhile, driving the birds out but the floor to the squirrel playground fell last winter and now they are gone and the robins back, which I much prefer.

The above photo shows what it looks like now, with the paranoid robin on the nest, but soon there will be eggs-- maybe already, and then a nest of hideously ugly baby birds which grow into cute baby birds of which, inevitably, one will fall to the ground at the feet of an otherwise oblivious Basset who suddenly finds himself confronted with Manna from Heaven-- not only a snack, but a LIVE SNACK.

Baby birds are harder to rescue from the dogs than baby squirrels, which were also always falling out of the damn nest. Plus, the baby robins do not bite as hard as a baby squirrel, altho the parents are usually more difficult. I have never had a Mother squirrel attack, altho they raise holy hell, but I have been dive-bombed by robins.

This adds a note of nature to our little corner of the world, not counting the Coyote I have seen trotting down our street three times now, early in the morning, always alone, always going the same direction, once carrying a rabbit. (The rabbit was not a voluntary passenger, I do not think.)

This means i go out with the dogs the first thing, or the first couple of times if it is still dark or dawnish the second time. Usually they sleep until around 8 or 9 after they have gotten me up to feed them at between 5 and 6 in the morning.
Life goes on, Basset-style.

(Photo from Google)

THREE AM

I don't need sleep. Silly me to think I do. But there is something else. I am listening to my husband, in his room at the other end of the small house, coughing and coughing and coughing. He has been sick. The first few days he tried to plow through (and did) but the cold, if that is what it is, got worse and worse.
Now he claims it is breaking up.
I claim he needs to see a doctor.
About once every 5 years he gets genuinely sick.

When Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Spouse was in bed, piled under blankets, shaking with the Hong Kong Flu. Remember that? Boy, I do. I never got it but he sure did. For my hollow-eyed spaceflightaholic, I dragged the tv into the bedroom so that he could watch and he did, with alternating current: sometimes his teeth chattering and other times the sweat pouring off him. I honestly think it helped him get better, seeing those first images from the moon. THE MOON!!! It means so little to us now but my God, what an accomplishment.
We can walk on the moon but we cannot cure the cold.
************************************

Yesterday Nigel was laying on the bed which is right next to this table. I can reach him from here anytime for a belly rub or whatever. I was rubbing under his jaw and neck and when I quit my hand was all....yukky. I give him dry baths frequently but it is mostly concentrated around the nebbeminds and he was just plain filthy all over.

So first I did not want him in the tub because he is incontinent to a point and I had visions of him, how do I put this delicately?-- shitting in my bathtub. Having worked in grooming I have encountered this before and it is a holy mess and I have to shower in that same tub and I knew no amount of bleach would ever convince me it was clean again.

So John found me a tub he had used to mix cement in, and I spent a half hour cleaning every speck of dried quik-set off it and we dragged Nigel into the bathroom and put him in that little tub in the big tub. But he had pooped just before all this, while I was looking for the shampoo and so when I discovered that I was never ever going to get the soap off his undercarriage I dumped him out of the the little tub and did it right.

Despite his looks of misery I cannot believe he didn't feel better.

I had put extra waterproof padding on my bed and extra towels because I worked hard at drying him but he was still soaking wet. It took about 4 or 5 hours for him to actually get about 90% dry, and then of course, his hair started falling out in huge quantities. He has the heaviest coat of all the Bassets, it is technically probably an incorrect coat because it is thick and soft, not sleek and hard.

But I do think he feels better. I hope so. I can barely move after leaning over that damn tub.

THE DECISIONS WE MAKE

      This is Nigel.

This is also Nigel, on the top.

This is Nigel now, in his pen in my room, wearing a belly band that comes off when he scoots along like a seal.

Nigel has a cart. He has his own 4X4 foot pen in my room. He is routinely taken outside and sometimes he is able to let us know that he really NEEDS to go out and we try hard to accomodate him but sometimes it just isn't possible and then we have cleaning up to do.

Today he has pooped 4 times. The last two times were in his pen while I was making lunch. John had just taken him out. The poop extended from one end of the pen to the other, hitting every pad I had in there and Nigel was squished in one clean corner looking mortified.

And I began to wonder.

Was this the right decision? Keeping him alive? Keeping him in a situation where his every whim is either met or he is at our mercy. What happens on the days when I don't feel well? There are parts to Nigel's care that John cannot do. He cannot catheterize him, which I do twice a day or once, depending on how many times Nigel has been out to pee and how much and whether he actually peed or not.

And that's another thing, our obsession keeping him running with fair regularity.

So he eats special food, designed to produce firm stools.

And he gets UTI infections.

And he cannot climb up and look out the windows, or even lay on the couch without assistance.

Is this what we wanted for him?

No, but. BUT.

On the other hand, when he originally went down in the rear his tail quit being waggable and he has gotten that back.

When this happened, he could not support himself at all for any length of time, not even a second. And now if we position his feet he can stand (kind of) for 10 or 15 seconds before he begins to sink.

So of course on the bad days I remind myself that Nigel certainly didn't ask for this, and that some improvement might mean more improvement will come in time.

That's what I tell myself, anyway.

GOODMORNINGMOMITSTIMETOGETUP

HEYMA ITS TIME TA EET
Hey hey hey
It's almoss FIVE THIRDY!! You up? You up? Dis Conley youse leddin me sleeps wif you you UP?? Here lemme stick my nose in you eer. YOU UP??
Ya let we ousside an forgot??
How meny times gotta tellya not  to put youse hedbone beke on da pilow once we ousside!!
HEY MA WE AT DA DOOR WANNA EET

Ok Ok I nose dey sleepin next dore.

Oboy she mekin food, oboy, lookit dat clck it almoss 5 fordy fibe. HEY MA HURRYZUP

Oh dat ole ledy so slow she moob like a.....like a.....

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooZOMBIETIME. Guess it too errly for she.

hey ma comeon feed we. We no buyin da Zomby aact.

Aaaaaahhhh, dat much bedder. Brekkas in beddy. Now for naptime. MomPerson gonna start londree. Affer all it fibe fordie nine. Time da get sheself started.

OK NIGEL AND LLEWIS, NAPTIME!!!

Dis bin gettin up in da morning. Brung to youse all by'
Nigel, Llewis and Conley

MOVING ON WHETHER I WANT TO OR NOT

Down to three dogs. When we began owning dogs and my Mother was still alive, every new dog and cat brought a chorus of dismay. Oh no, we didn't REALLY need another dog (cat) did we?
Well no of course we didn't NEED one.
We wanted one.
Or two.
Or three. Or.....
And at one point we had 5 and then 4 and now 3.

I have friends with drop-dead gorgeous homes, who travel widely and have beautiful art and gardens and in their closets they have clothing and extra linens and good pots and pans and new dishes and in my closets I have extra blankets for the dogs, throws for the furniture, cases of KOE and enzymatic barf cleaner, stacks of paper towels: cupboards sport dog bowls, dog dishes, dog plates, extra cans of dog food, emergency dog food for sickies, and my medicine cabinet has Flagyl and Tramadol, Rimadyl and GasX, Benedryl,Reglan, a few antibiotics and a couple of tablets of Prednisone...if I cut my finger my choices are purple or green Vetwrap.

The shelf in the other room is a veritable nest of leashes: leather,nylon, show leads, braided leads, 4 foot leads, 6 foot leads and collars-- prong collars, martingale collars, buckle collars, collars with nameplates and tags, collars without, small ones for puppies, and a slew of as-they-grow sizes. Tracking harnesses, tracking leads, surveyor poles with flags and without,  and  gloves, socks, hats, wallets and little tins to use as articles on tracks.

The kitchen drawers contain special treats, Frontline, HeartGard, some old toys and some chewed up bones.

If you come into my house and inhale and say BOY THAT SMELLS GOOD I am cooking for the dogs.
Chances are good if you come in my house and inhale you may also think--wow, she needs to steam those rugs!

Decorations consist of crates, dog blankets, dog beds, little portable stairs so the Bassets can access the furniture, dog show photos, backyard dog photos, and the one or two trophies we have managed to snag.
And on another shelf, somewhat hidden away, are the cannisters and glass urns and the boxes....Walker, Quiller, Mitchell, Zelda and now Cooper. (And the cats.)

So down to three now. And it is so quiet. Way too quiet. I have begun searching for that new addition.... and when it is very very still I can almost hear my Mother saying "Oh BEVERLY, Not ANOTHER one!" But is it faint, and I can ignore it.....

CH. MIDNIGHT ACRES HIGH NOON, Hct:  "COOPER" APRIL 5, 2012

COOPER

Tomorrow Cooper will undergo exploratory surgery to see if there is anything we can do to help him eat and keep it down.

If there is not, I will let him go.

Without the surgery, he will die slowly, starving, so this is kind of a no-brainer.

I will be there so I will be able to see what is in there and make the choice.

I hope I can live up to his standards.

They are pretty high.

THE GLASS SHOW AND MOSTLY PICS

The glass exhibit is over and the kids are heading back to Tennessee. We are left with good memories, a new lamp and I have a wall-mounted glass bird. Black with beautiful sunflower yellow speckles and streaks down his back.

Over the weekend we held the show, went to dinner, cleaned the back yard and wore ourselves out. Koda, Stacey Adam's lovely Aussie-with-a-tail visited as well, altho he went for a walk with Conley he did not meet the Gang of Four head on, but spent the afternoon in the yard while Stacey, Christopher and John cleaned the yard up and I cooked stuffed Manicotti.

The banner in the window of the Salon Artists Gallery, where the glass was being shown.

A pair of birds done by Chris Szaton of Marble City Glassworks

A section of the glass exhibit. Flowers napkin holders, with tumblers and a pitcher behind them.

The pendant light section.

These are paperweights done by Matt Salley, the other half of Marble City Glassworks. He does these and Christiopher does the birds, and both of them do other items together.

My new bird, from the front.

...and the back

Our new living room lamp.

Koda, a wonderful dog

Stacey helping to clean up the backyard of cut down saplings and a winter's worth of plant debris.

Half of Marble City Glassworks, my son Christopher cleaning the yard with

his girl, Stacey and his Dad, John. It looks fabulous, the yard.All in all it was a great weekend, and I think they sold a lot and did well. I also got to see my daughter (Stacey) andher husband John Arguello, and meet their neighbor, Bonnie. My sister-in-law drove in to see the exhibit and we all went to dinner.
Last night we said goodbye to the kids and I wish Stacey A and Christopher and Koda a speed and safe trip.

Glass can be viewed and custom ordered at

www.marblecityglassworks.com
or viewed at their Etsy store
http://www.etsy.com/people/MarbleCityGlassworks?ref=ls_profile

BITS AND PIECES

I find it fascinating that the dogs get me up at 4 or 4:30 in the morning and, apparently energized, go out and check the entire yard and then, once I am up for good, go back to sleep. I mean, they are ASLEEP--- that level where they would not even hear me if I left. But if I rattle the treat box moving it aside, I have them awake and underfoot

Yesterday I took Conley and went for a walk with Stacey and Koda. Stacey power-walks or something akin to it and I was trying to keep up, but Conley and I fell behind. Conley snuffled every bush as he went but Koda, a herding breed and determined to follow instructions, did not. I can teach the Belgians to hup along and not check out every upright plant, but not the Bassets. Those noses are just the key to the world of smells, and the siren song is too strong. On the other hand, the Bassets could care less if everyone comes in when called, but the Belgian has to go back out and bring them in. Everything in it's place, I think is the herding dog motto.

I met someone yesterday who rescues mixed breeds but not purebreds because rescuing purebreds "only encourages show people" to continue breeding and everyone knows--according to this person-- that they abandon the dogs that are not show quality. Of course this is absurd, but I kept my mouth shut. I was not at home but in a public place with other people and she was a customer and so I was quiet but when she asked whether I had dogs I said yes, I show and breed Bassets.

It was a bit of a lie, since I am doing neither at this time, but was worth it for the look on her face. Heh. I am a rotten person.

Conley, when I am in the kitchen, places himself between me and the counter or sink. It is a damnable habit and one I would stop. No matter how often or with what force he is ejected, he returns.  It isn't so much that he is waiting for me to drop something but that he is creating a situation where this is much more likely to happen. We say the Belgians need only one instance to learn something, but Bassets are not dull and need only one time with a food dropping off the counter to recognize a golden opportunity.And they are perfectly capable of projecting this into the future, so that they anticipate the event. Between leaning over the dog to the counter and the slipperly drool on the floor, Conley has created the perfect environment for an accidental dropping of foodstuff. And he knows it.

The softest spot in the house is the only place a Basset belongs.