HAPPY BIRTHDAY

On Feb 6, 1974 my daughter had a terrible cold. She was 4. I got up in the middle of the night, very pregnant, to go take care of my little girl, and my water broke.
I went back to bed after settling Stacey and cleaning up and called the Doctor. Was I in labor? No. He said, stay put. Don't move around. Call me when you go into labor.
I waited.
And waited.
And waited.
And I did not go into labor so around 4 or 5 in the morning I called him back and said, I'm not doing anything, but every time I move I lose water. He said, get in here then.

So John went out to start the car and it would not start. It was cold and snowy and I was pregnant and the car just sat there like the huge red lemon that it truly, honestly was.

We called a neighbor. They drove us to the hospital and went home. I never did go into labor, I was induced. They were very worried about the baby. This was long before you knew whether you were having John or Harriet. So they piggy-backed some Oxytocin into my IV. This is like going from 0 to 100 in 10 seconds. You skip over all that boring prelim stuff, like having contractions increase slowly over time. You go right into the monster contractions, no warning. One second you are laying there fretting and the next you are clawing at the ceiling. All you want is to go home and forget about it all.
I remember thinking "This was a BAD idea!" But of course, it wasn't.

Christopher John was born at noon that day. He was small but perfect and had a head of black, thick hair. He was my baby.

At home, Stacey continued with her terrible cold. She was angry. Mommy was gone, she was sick, she had been rousted out of bed and taken to a neighbor's in the middle of night, more or less. And worst of all, Daddy had no ride home. He finally called a co-worker who came and got him. Al. Al and Daddy stole a pass (no one but family allowed) and Al came to see me and the newbie, the only non-family member who got in.

And then, there was the gas shortage so that even when he got the car running, John had trouble finding gasoline. Eventually it all worked out, and I got home, and Stacey after awhile  decided the new kid was ok. Not wonderful, but at least acceptable.

Today my baby is 37. I hope he has a wonderful Birthday and I wish I could be there with him. Happy Birthday, Christopher John.

BOOKS

This is part of one of my bookcases:  (There are 5 in this room alone.)

Mushrooms of North America
A Pocket Guide to Hawaiian Birds
Guide to Rocks and Minerals
A Golden Guide to Trees
To the World's Best Mother
Advanced Birding
Bats of America
Audubon Guide to North American Seashells
In Cold Blood
Spineless Wonders
Grasses
Smithsonian Guide to Rocks and Minerals
Hawks and Owls of the Great Lakes Region
Birds of North America
The Great Influenza
Winterdance
Living to Tell the Tale
My Life
The Essential TE Lawrence
Sibley's Birding Basics
The Wit and Wisdom of Harry Truman
President Kennedy Has Been Shot
Everything Here is Mine
AKC complete Dog Book
The Gourmet Cookbook
Poisoning in Dogs and Cats
Managing the Veterinary Cancer Patient
The Basset Hound
Surviving Your Dog's Adolescence
Tracking From the Ground Up
Medical and Genetic Aspects of Purebred Dogs
The Winning Edge
Training Tracking Dogs
The Official Book of Basset Hounds
The Belgian Sheepdog
Merck Veterinary Manual
Honest Dogs
Iditarod Dreans
Canine Terminology
The Back of the Pack
Father of the Iditarod
Complete Works of the New Yorker
Ten Ever-Lovin Blue-eyed Years With Pogo
Born to Win
Lord of Misrule
Stories of John Cheever
Lucky Jim
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The Secret of Germs
How to Cook Everything
From Julia Child's Kitchen
Blue Latitudes
Measuring the World
Field Guide to Warblers
Shattered Innocence
Pony Farm
The Worst Hard Time
K-9 Structure
To Kill A Mockingbird
Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders
Sibley's Birds
Cannery Row
The Comedians

and it goes on and on and on...........

BLIZZARDTIME

Offically we have 19" of snow but I am not sure, at our house, that we have that much. Nevertheless it is a substantial amount, and with the wind it has drifted badly. Keeping the doors clear has proven to be a monumental task.
I went out at 4:30 a.m. to shovel paths (very short ones) for the dogs.
When Conley went out he decided he wanted one of his own and to my total horror he struck out across the yard, with the determination that only a Basset can have, to blaze a trail.
He is not feeling well because I forgot and loaded him with vaccines yesterday instead of breaking them into small groups. So his entire rear was sore and he looked as if he ached all over. He spent last night voluntarily in his crate, and so far this morning, that was where he had been until I gave him a Deramaxx. Now he is more mobile.
Anyway here is our blizzard altho, honestly, you do not get the whole picture and the depth of the snow is somehow less impressive:

My Van. It is going to be there awhile.

Llewis in the lead, surprisingly, patient (for once) Nigel close behind, following (wallowing) along in Conley's path through the yard.

Cooper starts and then thinks about it and changes his mind. It would exhaust him to go that far through such deep snow with only 3 legs.

Conley checking to see if possible there is less snow where I am than there is where he is. It is the same.

             Dis are Cnly an I hab had enuf ob dis stinky dam snow.                                      Stay warm and safe.

BLIZZARD!!!!!

It really, truly is happening. I went to the store this afternoon and when I came home the roads were juuuuuuuust starting to get slick. Not slick enough that the lady in front of me really needed to go 15 friggin miles an hour down a main street that was plowed and sanded, but I could tell it was getting there. I came home and sent the dogs out. They were out awhile, came in snow covered but not in any big hurry.

Conley and Llewis played a little bit in the snow, nobody too cold, nobody in a big hurry to come in. Covered with snow, but....

I can tell by looking out the window that it isn't getting any better.

Looking across the street out the front window, the snow is very heavy. I can see, but it I would not want to be on the tollways. I wonder what time my daughter gets off work, and whether my newly widowed Sister-in-Law is ok. I call her and chat, she is fine. My daughter's KinderCare is not closing early and it is her night to close. She will be there until the last child is picked up, and some of these parents are struggling to get home themselves.

The Bassets came right in. The other one... the non-basset with three legs and supposedly with Osteosarcoma-- he wanted to PLAY. He thought this was the best weather we've had for a long time.

****sigh****

WINTERWINTRWINTERWINTERWINTERWINTERWINTERWINTERWINTER

Is NEVER going to end never never. It is going to go on forever. There will never be another spring.
Not this week anyway, according to the weatherman. Men. More than One. All of them. Even the ones who are always wrong agree this time that the midwest is due to get socked with a good, old-fashioned, midwestern Blizzard.

As long as the power stays on, I will only be a little psychotic, not a lot. If the power goes out longer than a couple of hours I will be big-time psychopathic, homicidal, paranoid, delusional...all of it.

Brudder Elwood's good Mother called me tonight to see if I was ready for this storm that is supposed to dribble in tonight and then really get going tomorrow evening. I did go to the store. When I was talking to Debbie I suddenly realised that like any devout dog person, the dogs were taken care of-- I had bought ten pounds of hamburger for Cooper, extra treats and checked the kibble bin.
Also I got nothing for us. No extra toilet paper or candles or water or bread or eggs (I have eggs) and no contingency plan for the hundreds of dollars of food in the big freezer if THAT goes out again.

I have decided if the power goes out we will somehow get the dogs to the Animal Hospital and board them,
 and just stay there at the AH with them. Why not? It's pretty much how we live now.

Back to winter.

UNCLE HAL

Yesterday afternoon, while the snow was sifting heavily down and everything was kind of still, my Brother-in-Law, Harold Pendexter died. He left behind my husband's sister, Marcia, and his and Marcia's children: John and Dianne and their families, and Stephanie. And a thousand people whose lives he had touched in one way or another.

Hal was a type AAA. Loud, often overbearing, smart, politically conservative, outspoken. Also devoted passionately to his wife and children, to his job, to his life.

When Hal asked you a question: "How are your dogs?" Even though I knew for a fact that he did not care about dogs at all, I also knew he really meant the question, and he listened to the answer, and he asked more questions, and he listened to those answers, and you were, for those moments, the most important person at the table, or in the room. All his attention focused on you, and your dogs, and what you were saying about them.

When Hal wrote and asked "How are you and John?" he actually meant it. It was not a polite salutation, he wanted to know.
He was a passionate sports fan. He was a passionate Opera fan. I have no idea what else-- he bought two huge pieces of glass art from my son, he drove all the way to Tennessee to attend the wedding.

Hal was unique, as are we all. Before John's (my husband) mother died, we would all go to Marcia and Hal's for holiday dinners or desserts or whatever, and Genevieve, John and Marcia's Mother would say "Now Beverly, please, don't pick a fight with Hal today."

But always, sitting round the table, Hal would say something about politics, or social norms, or wars, and I would be instantly on the offensive. I was never very good at arguing with him but I always gave it a try. It was a game. My mistake was, early on, treating it as more than the game that it was. It was a serious game, but neither of us held a grudge.

Gradually, over the years, we both grew up.

Hal had a presence. A power. He was a fine man, a fantastic businessman, a devoted family man, and he DROVE people to excel, to try their best. It must have been hard on the kids, because I have no doubt that he drove them, as well. Marcia was always right there-- the mitigating factor: the gentling touch, the port in everyone's storms: but her devotion to Hal was unquestioned and profound.

I cannot now imagine the cosmos without that Presence, that Force. The laugh, the hugs, the guidence, the love of life,  the quick riposte, the appreciation of arts and the interest he had in everyone, and everything.

We will miss you terribly, Hal. God be with you. And please, Hal-- don't argue with Him.

FSAH DOGS

I went to work at FSAH in 1985.
I began in the kennels. I was probably at that time the oldest kennel attendant they had ever had. I was 40 years old. My "boss" was 19. The head honcho was 35 or thereabouts.
I cleaned kennels.
The first week there I lost 17 pounds.
There were two wards, a recovery unit, and two wings with indoor-outdoor kennels. There were 3 of us. Me, Heidi and Bobbie. Bobbie died of cancer last year. She was I think 57 years old when she died. She was still working there in grooming.
By the time I "retired" I had been there longer than anyone except the office manager and Doc.
By the time I "retired" I had been a kennel attendant, the Kennel Manager, a Vet Tech, and later I came back as a bather-brusher for the groomers. There wasn't much I hadn't done. Receptionist. Not a job I ever wanted and not one (with my temper) Doc was likely to offer.

Shortly after I started there I met Arko. Arko was a German Shepherd. He worked for a neighboring Village and he was a K-9 dog, one of the first of many who I met while I worked there. But Arko has always remained my favorite of all the cop dogs I have met there.
Some of them come in wearing muzzles, for a good reason. Arko wasn't like that. He knew who his friends were. When we cleaned the outside runs we would let Arko out and he would chase the hose, leaping and snapping at the water.
One night Arko was boarding and was in the back. This meant there were several doors between Arko and the front.

In the morning, we were greeted with Arko at the front door. He had spent the night "patrolling" the front: several food bags had been looted and the plants in the windows were on the floor. People tended to use the parking lot to turn around, and we thought Arko spent a lot of time leaping from chair to chair in the front window, "chasing off" intruders. We never did figure out how he got loose, or how he got through the doors.
Arko retired after a number of years on the police force. He was given to a local petting farm as a guard dog. Unfortunately, he developed oral cancer and was put down. I adored Arko. I have never forgotten what a neat, well-trained and intelligent dog he was.

And then there was Bob.
Bob was a Great Pyrenees, the first I had ever known. He came to us as an adorable, fuzzy, white, friendly little thing and grew into a huge, fuzzy, white, friendly big thing. I loved Bob. Bob was the kind of dog who, if you saw him outside as you drove by, you rolled the window down and yelled "Hi Bob!"

Bob was around for several years. At one time his owner told us that they were moving to Texas. They had a real estate agent who was working with them to sell their house, and she happened to walk in one day after no one answered the door.
Despite his fuzzy friendliness, Bob didn't know her. And so, the family found the real estate agent pinned against a wall with a large white Great Pyrenees sitting watching her, guarding his "flock". Every time she moved, he growled.

I don't know what happened to Bob, but it was a long, long time ago so I seriously doubt he is still alive. It doesn't matter. He imbued me with a lifelong love of Pyrenees, even though I will never own one. He and Arko taught me that dogs often know, better than we, who their friends are.