Suzy Says

This year was about change: getting the jobette; swimming lessons; having to make peace with driving a lot more. Change is good, right?

One deleterious effect of working more is reading less. I read 118 books in 2011, vs. 140 in 2010. The favorites of the year were Sue Grafton’s “V Is for Vengeance” and Candice Millard’s tour de force, “Destiny of the Republic”.

We are also getting a lot less rain this season. Last year, we totalled about 60 inches (or 153 centimeters), and already had half of that by December 31, 2010. This year, we’ve gotten about 11 inches (28 centimeters) so far. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here by saying there’s probably a drought in my future. Number of power outages: 3. So far this season: 1, and an early one at that.

It was a great summer, though: lots of sun, little fog, no heat waves.

As far as last year’s resolutions went: not bad. I did a lot of work on the garden, though there are more things I’d like to do, given time and money, always in short supply. I still worry about the cats, and probably always will, to some extent. The loss of the beautiful and beloved June was traumatic, and, as Jessica pointed out to me, I’m a worrier. Maybe I should just embrace my inner (outer?) worrier.

This year’s resolutions are to reinstate Thursday dinners for my overworked sister – they fell by the wayside with the increased busy-ness of my schedule – and to spend more time with my brother when there’s no project to be done or special occasion to be celebrated. I always have a great time with him, but I don’t see him often enough.

And, you know, keep working on the garden and trying to minimize Calamity Suzy episodes.

Let me know what your resolutions are. And thanks for reading yet another year!

January:

How to plant tulips. Logging road walk. A check-up for the kittens. A walk with Schatzi. The beginning of A’s life-threatening illness. Another vet visit. A walk through the Village. A surprise visit from Jessica! Falling off a log really is easy. Dealing with two broken fingers: not so much. They still look freaky and witch-like. A brief trip to San Francisco. A is improving.

February:

Back in touch with the outside world. A finally gets out of Intensive Care. And I get the jobette! The boys make a windmill. Week One at the jobette. A’s slow recovery continues. Beautiful new garden chairs. A rare and magical snow day!

March:

A quick tour of the jobette. A graduates from Intensive Care to the HIghly Dependent Unit. Tragedy strikes our sister city in Japan. Doin’ it Rob style. Signs of spring. My beloved father’s 80th birthday. It’s not snow this time, it’s hail! The painting saga. Flooding. The week in pictures. Spring arrives in the garden.

April:

The painting problem is solved – at least, for now. Power outages. Little salon in the big woods. A is finally in a regular hospital ward, while Clyde is a little limpy. A nice little burn to go with my broken fingers. Jessica’s birthday! My blog’s 10th birthday! First BBQ of the year. A sad and loving farewell.

May:

The fabulous circus. New contact lenses. A walk through town. Star’s birthday. My tulips in bloom. Countrified. Fabulous garage sale finds. Girls’ night out. A short visit to San Francisco. The magnificent Balenciaga exhibit. Back home. Megan’s birthday. Car troubles – and a birthday celebration.

June:

Car trouble and bad weather. Truly rural. Bi-coastal. Rainy birthday to me. Happy first birthday to the boys! Rob is scheduled for more surgery. An evening with Erica and Jessica. Rose’s chicken curry. Unveiling the clock of ages. Rob’s surgery is rescheduled. The operation. Back home. Houdini lives!

July:

Audrey turns four. Found poetry. Both Rob and A are on the road to recovery. Kitty updates. Home improvements. Jessica visits the jobette. Musical contrasts. Erica and Jessica move to Portland (~sob~). The last Harry Potter movie ever.

August:

Propane prettifying. Encore de car. A change of address. Garden updates. The tenth anniversary of my father’s untimely and completely unnecessary death. I love you and miss you, Old Bear. More car fixing (or not). The bliss of Brian. Star meets quail.

September:

Mark’s seizure. He has epilepsy and is taking meds for it. So far, so good. Thank goodness. Free palms. The Houdini dog expands her repertoire. Planting the palms. The joys of aquafit. The delights of the County Fair. Clyde takes it on the chin. A visit from the generator fairy. A total meltdown.

October:

The car is finally fixed. I hope. Swimming clinic doesn’t go quite as swimmingly as I’d hoped. Car-share begins (and is still going on). The plague descends. My second anniversary of moving to Hooterville. The arrival of Turbo, Mark’s horse.

November:

Pool problems. Feeding the family. Meetings in San Francisco. Too tired to shop. A delightful day. Back home. The lowdown on high beams. Star and Megan are both stars. Thanksgiving Eve. A happy Thanksgiving. An early season blackout.

December:

Sunny days and sparkling nights. A look around the garden. An amazing experience. Girls’ Night In. A sudden loss. Up with the tree! An adventurous evening. And a tree adventure. Christmas cheer. A magical evening. The wit and wisdom of Jessica.

That’s it for 2011. Wishing you all a happy and healthy new year!

Today marks the second anniversary of my moving to Hooterville.

What better way to celebrate the occasion than a walk with my sister and Schatzi on the headlands of the Village?

Come on, let’s go!

Here’s the Village. If it weren’t for the cars, it could be the 1800s:

Here you can see the remains of a dock. Because of the rocky shoreline, loggers and visitors had to basically zipline from the ship to the shore, standing on a tiny wooden platform. I’ve seen pictures of Victorian ladies doing it with an air of surprising insouciance.

Schatzi wasn’t quite as interested in the view as I was:

I tried to capture how her brindle looked like the fall grasses in the sunlight. Also her beautiful smile:

I feel so lucky to live somewhere so beautiful:

And to share my life with such wonderful family, friends, dogs, and cats.

Mugshot

Megan was getting ready for work when she discovered that she couldn’t find her handbag.

In all fairness, it must be said that she is a little careless of it at times. Mostly it lives on the backseat floor of her car, just as her keys live in the ignition, except when she’s at work. How else would you know where they are? And when it’s sunny, she often leaves the car doors open so the car doesn’t get too hot inside.

We knew she had her bag when we were buying the last-minute items for our brother’s belated birthday barbecue, but we couldn’t remember seeing it after that. She and Rob scoured their house-ette and the car while I called the store.

No luck. Megan was late for work, so she had to leave after borrowing some money for lunch – when you work a 12 hour shift, you have to eat twice while at work, so planning is necessary, especially in a place where everything is closed overnight.

After she left, Rob was watering the garden when he stumbled over something.

It was Megan’s wallet.

Then he came across the little pouch with her hairbrush, etc., in it. Eventually he found the bag and the rest of its contents, including a now-empty treat bag. We had taken Star to Big River and used the treats in a training session, and Megan had left them in her bag when we got back to the car.

We know it wasn’t Star, because she was in the house. Remembering the sunny day and the open car doors, Megan realized that Schatzi had taken the bag from the car and brought it into the garden to eat the treats. Whenever you give her a treat, she always takes it back there to enjoy it.

So there you have it. You can teach an old dog new tricks. She can sneak out of your brother’s house at the dead of night and go home, or jump out of an upstairs window without hurting herself, or help herself to your handbag in the back of a car.

It takes a Schatzi!

Sleeping shop cat in the Castro

While we were away, Jonathan was on pet patrol. It turned out to be a lot more complicated than he thought.

Early one morning, he woke up freezing, only to discover that his door was wide open. Star was sleeping peacefully, but Schatzi had apparently pushed the door open and escaped.

It’s hard to find a deaf dog in the pre-dawn country darkness. He eventually found her shivering in her own backyard. She happily hopped into his car, and he added a long training leash to the backseat before taking her back to his place. Schatzi spent the rest of the day on the long, long leash if she was outside, or not, if she was inside.

That evening, she asked to go out and pee. As soon as she was out, she made a break for it. Jonathan clapped to get her to come back while scrambling into his shoes to chase her. By then, she had a good lead, and by the time he got in the car to go after her, she vanished.

He spent all night looking for her to no avail. Finally, he called Megan in hysterics early in the morning to tell her that Schatzi was lost. It takes a lot to make him cry, but we all know how Megan adores her dogs. It must have been one of the worst nights of his life.

Megan told Jonathan not to worry, and he kept looking for Schatzi. Eventually, he found her sleeping in her garden as if nothing had happened. He shut her in the house anyway, since we were coming back that day. Checking on her later, he found her in the garden again. He was sure that the doors were closed, but checked them again, just in case.

They were.

This time he just left her outside, since we were due home in a couple of hours.

Guess how she got out?

She went upstairs, climbed up on a chest and through the window which is open for Harriet and Ramona, Megan and Rob’s cats. Then, like the cats, she jumped to the ground from the porch roof outside the window. With her fragile old bones. There’s a good idea.

She did make it, though she needed extra pain meds that night. Nothing like an old dog who can learn new tricks, is there? Maybe we should re-name her Houdini!

Star meets Padawan, June 2010

Yesterday morning, I saw Schatzi go tearing past my house. Alarmed, yet impressed with her speed given her state of decrepitude, I hurried outside to make sure she was OK. Calling her is pointless at this point, yet I persist in doing it. I clapped my hands a few times and Star came bounding up, but no Schatz.

I accompanied Star back to her rightful residence, despite the fact that I was wearing PJs and slippers and the driveway was full of puddles. Somehow, the speeding Schatzi had beaten me there.

Megan was still up. And something was up. I guess a speeding dog can be an omen, just like a shooting star or a meteor.

When L cut our hair a couple of weeks ago, Megan thought his dog, Padawan, looked pretty bad. She was having trouble walking, and was panting, though it wasn’t hot. She persuaded L to take Padawan to the vet. It was nice Dr. Carl, and he had to tell L that Padawan had cancer in her leg. She is an 11 year old Rottweiler, and even if her leg was amputated, the cancer had spread, and was a particularly nasty and fast-moving one.

It moved faster than we expected. L asked Megan to call Dr. Karen and make arrangements. She waited until it was late enough to call – keep in mind that she had just come home from her 12 hour night shift – and got an appointment for 4:30. She relayed this to L, who said it would have to be sooner. So we settled on 11:00.

Megan took L and Padawan to the vet. Poor Pad yelped on the way there – it was definitely time. Dr. Karen came out to the car, parked beside the garden at the back of her office, and released Padawan from all that pain and suffering. She was very kind and gentle.

When it was over, Megan called Jonathan and me, and we met them at L’s house. The EMS workers efficiently and lovingly transferred Pad’s body to a wheelbarrow for her last journey. Jonathan took charge and I carried the tools. We made our way down the steep path to the spot L had chosen, overlooking his house, bowered in ancient trees.

It was hard work, but as I thought when we laid little Henry to rest this same time last year, it is somehow therapeutic to do this last thing with your own hands for a loved one. Padawan rested in the spring sunshine as we worked. We all bade her a final farewell as the birds sang and the water rushed by far below.

L asked to be left alone, and we all hugged him goodbye. It was hard to leave him there, but I know he is not really alone, and neither is Padawan. They will always be together.

Yesterday, Megan and I took Schatzi to the vet. They wanted to take some blood to make sure that her medication isn’t affecting her liver too much. The test results were complete in about ten minutes, and Schatzi’s liver is fine, though her kidneys were showing on the high end of normal.

Dr. Karen said that if we brought her a urine sample, she could run another test to make sure it wasn’t something bad (all the medi-chat and charts went way over my head). She then handed Megan a ladle.

I had thought that “ladle” was medi-chat for something, but it was, in fact, the type you’d use to distribute soup to the deserving poor or your undeserving family. You can imagine the lovely picture we made walking around the village, me with Schatzi on a leash and Megan with the ladle poised under Schatzi’s underpinnings.

Needless to say, this was the one time in Schatzi’s entire life when she didn’t stop every two minutes to pee. She was prancing around in the sunlight as if she were a puppy. You’d never know that her hips and spine look like cheap Swiss cheese inside.

Finally, Megan was successful and the test revealed nothing untoward. Yay! Apparently cats and dogs tend to get tired kidneys as they age, and since Schatzi is 11 now, it’s not too surprising, just something we need to keep an eye on.

After all that, we felt Schatzi deserved a real, ladle-free walk, so we headed to the headlands.

I love how the wind-swept trees frame the ocean here:

And the path:

The headlands jut out into the rocky ocean:

It was a beautiful day, and Schatzi trotted along happily on the narrow path, enjoying the sun on her fur as we enjoyed being with her in this lovely place.

Today’s sunrise

I woke up this morning to the comforting sound of the propane heater downstairs. I set it for 52 degrees before I went to bed, so I knew it would be a chilly morning. But for the moment, I luxuriated in the warmth of my bed and the fact that the kittens were snuggled up to me, purring. Audrey hadn’t even asked to go out yet. It was about 6:00 when I checked the Moonbeam clock on my bedside table, so she was running late.

She scampered out into the darkness as I put on the outside lights and made coffee. Six in the morning does a very good imitation of midnight at this time of year. But when the sun comes up, it’s dressed to the nines. Or even the tens (see above).

We made the most of the sunny weather this weekend. We’re slated to get another front of storms starting tomorrow, so we’ll have more rain to join the 30.38 inches we’ve already accumulated. But in the meantime, it was great dog walking weather.

On Saturday, we took Star and Schatzi to Navarro Point. I had reckoned without the windiness by the ocean, and regretted not wearing a hat, though Megan’s kept getting blown off. It was a good test of the expensive sneakers, which strode jauntily through the mud and streams, leaving my feet warm and dry.

I loved the look of the wintery blackberry hedges in the foreground. They are such a beautiful reddish brown and look like something out of a fairy tale. Maybe surrounding a wicked witch’s house:

Here I liked the windswept look of both the sea and sky:

We were glad to get back to the car. Well, not the dogs.

On Sunday, we met Lu and her two dogs at Big River. It was another beautiful day, so there were lots of other people and their dogs, cyclists, and people riding horses. I am proud to say that Star behaved herself almost perfectly, not barking at strangers or horses. Megan did a lot of work with her on heeling, sitting, and staying. Schatzi, as usual, was off doing her own thing, stopping to sniff long enough that I could take pictures of the river, here:

And here, through the winter trees:

We walked them for about two hours. So far, I think I’ve done a pretty good job keeping my “walk dogs more” resolution. Talk about a fun resolution to keep!

It’s a sunny morning, and you know what that means. It’s still barely 32F/0C outside. I’m drinking hot, black coffee from my tiny, as yet unbroken cup. The kittens are sharpening their claws on the records (a few days ago, I discovered the damage they had done to the Martin Denny section and walked away, counting to a thousand and reminding myself to be zen). The kittens have an amazing ability to tell which things are really important to me. A few days ago, they broke one of my grandmother’s antique wine glasses, and I finally packed up my birthday lamp and put it away when they knocked it over eight too many times.

Audrey has left the house in kitten disgust, as she does after every meal, and Schatzi just strolled by in her bright blue sweater.

I used to try and bring her back home, but mostly, by the time I’d put on shoes and another sweater, she had wandered off again. Now I look forward to her brief, tail-wagging visits in the morning.

Perusing the local newspaper, which is published once a week, I came across the following classified ad: “GOATS WANTED for brush control not for eating. 9xx-xxxx”

Country living.

Saturday morning hail

Ah, twenty-nine degrees. Bilingually unpleasant, both in Fahrenheit and Celsius. It happens to be the F version here in Hooterville this morning. We knew there was a freeze warning through tomorrow, so I brought in the orchid, fuchsia, geraniums, and marigolds, which were still valiantly blooming.

I also left the heater on at 52 degrees when I went to bed last night – about the temperature it usually is in the house in the morning if I leave the heater off, which I usually do. I heard it come on four times during in the night, meaning it was warming up the house to 52. And that’s just the times I heard.

Roscoe stayed Henry-style in the cozy bed by the heater all night, while Clyde (now being held in my left arm) slept on my pillow and Audrey slept beside me. As an aside, I think Clyde likes her and really wants to be her friend. He’s getting closer. Here they are a couple of days ago:

I’m up so early because I let Audrey out and didn’t want to leave her out there in the freezing cold for hours while I slept and didn’t hear her asking to come in. As I write, the frosty, almost-full moon is shining through the skylight, and I have a blanket around me. And she’s still playing around out there, so I may have once more been The Worrier.

It’s been a wintry kind of week. On Saturday, we had first hail of the season, and of the kittens’ lives. They were fascinated by the sight and sound of the hail, which was accompanied by thunder. I couldn’t see any lightning, but my sister, working an extra twelve hour shift, called me from work to ask me to check on Schatzi (Star was with Rob), and she said they had lightning in town.

I ran over there with a nearly-pointless umbrella, wearing my waterproof sneakers, and Schatzi was asleep, one of the benefits of losing one’s hearing, or nearly so. She was still happy to see me, though, so I petted her for while until she went back to sleep and I slid back home.

About twelve hours after Megan and I parted ways with Lu at the Wharf, we met up at Big River.

Ligament tearing seems to be all the rage these days, since both Schatzi and Lu’s dog Marko (who can be admired here) are sidelined with the same injury. Schatzi will see Dr. Karen next week for a leg once-over. We’re still hoping to avoid the expensive and time-consuming surgery for her, but Marko and Lu’s wallet are not so lucky.

Though Marko is a mere three years old, he’s also 123 pounds of lovin’, and big dogs like that don’t self-repair in the way we’re hoping Schatzi does. So he will definitely have to face the knife and Lu will have to face the bill.

But we tried not to think about that as we set off down the path with Star and Harlow.

Once again, I failed to bring my camera, thinking that I had posted enough pictures of Big River, but I should have brought it to take pictures of Star and Harlow together. If I can make a resolution halfway through the year, I resolve to bring my camera with me whenever I leave the house.

We had a good walk. Star met a really nice older dog (rescued from horrors in Mexico) and several cyclists without getting upset or nervous. She’s really come a long way since Megan started fostering her. We’re hoping that we can bring her to the local Humane Society’s event in early July to meet some prospective parents.

Arriving back at the car, we discovered that Calamity Suzy had struck again.

Megan and I did some shopping for her belated birthday barbecue before meeting Lu, and since the provisions included beer and wine, and the parking lot at Big River was full of visitors, I thought it wise to lock the car. Unfortunately, I didn’t run this by Megan, who usually leaves her keys in the ignition. So we were locked out of the car.

It takes a Suzy.

It was especially ironic since I’d made a point of propping the doors open at my house so it wouldn’t be hot when I got home, and I had remarked to Megan that when I lived in the city, I made sure every door was locked when I was going to be out all day, whereas here I make sure they stay open.

Megan called Rob, who agreed to meet us at Frankie’s with the spare key. Lu drove us to Frankie’s, where we sat in the sunshine eating ice cream while waiting for Rob. When he arrived, he wasted no time in repo-ing Star, and drove off. Lu took us back to the car, and wisely waited while Meg made sure the key fit.

It did, and everyone was much nicer to me than I deserved.

Up next: a birthday barbecue and a haircut! Not necessarily in that order.

Megan gets a kiss from Shiloh, Monica’s foster puppy

It’s Megan’s birthday today. For the first time we can remember, her traditional birthday BBQ has been rained out. When we were giving Schatzi her walkette yesterday, Megan mentioned that Hooterville’s longest and most beloved resident had recently told her that one year long ago the rain had lasted until the Fourth of July. Let’s not try and break that record, ‘k?

Megan worked last night, but took the rest of the week off in honor of her birthday. She did this several months ago (both of us having a long-standing belief that working on your birthday is just wrong), before we had any idea that it could possibly still be raining. It’s supposed to stop raining on Friday, but even if it doesn’t, we will still have fun, because Monica, Lu, Megan and I have a date to see “Sex & the City 2″ that night.

We’re hoping to have a combined birthday BBQ on the weekend. And at some point, we have to have a Juneapalooza, because Erica, Lu, Monica and I all have June birthdays.

Megan was supposed to be born on my birthday, but Mom’s obstetrician had a feeling something was wrong and took her out early (my brother was a Caesarean, and in those days, that meant that the next baby was one, too). Good thing, because the cord was wrapped around her neck, so she might not have made it.

Instead of being born on my birthday, she came home from the hospital on my birthday, and I couldn’t wait to peek in the bundle of blankets to see her. She was the best birthday present I ever had.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:

It’s 35 degrees outside, dark enough that I have the lights on, and it’s pouring. The cats and I are huddled by the heater, the girls in their fur coats and me in two unmatching sweaters. The calendar claims it’s May, but I think there’s been a mix-up somewhere. Or I’ve somehow found myself in Early Narnia, where it’s always winter, but never Christmas.

Everyone is saying this is the coldest and rainiest spring they can remember. “Worst May ever” comes up a lot, and I’ve noticed people eyeing me askance as they make the connection between my moving to Hooterville and the increasing crapitude of the weather. If I don’t look out, I’ll get run out of town on a rainy rail. At least it will be too wet and windy for the tar and feathers to really stick.

Megan and I took a break yesterday to walk Schatzi briefly on the headlands. She looks almost normal when she walks, though she is undoubtedly wondering why we won’t let her off the leash and why the walks are so short. It’s three more weeks of leash duty, and Dr. Karen is going to check her again next week.

You will be relieved to hear that I obeyed the sign. Actually, I may have jinxed myself by observing to Megan that we are almost halfway through the year and I have managed not to damage myself so far. Finally, a New Year’s resolution that lasted beyond January!

It was a very low tide, so something smelled fishy, all right. Also there was a very loud Canada Goose honking his fool head off on one of the rocks. And I thought Canadians were so polite. Maybe he picked up some native ways during his visit.

We ambled amble a couple of errands in the village between rain showers. We got some blueberries and lettuce at the fledgling farmers’ market – there’s not that much available this early in the season – and attempted to get the ingredients for the magical soup, planning to make it for dinner last night. But there was no joy in Mudville, since there was also no chorizo. We grumpily made shepherd’s pie with ground turkey instead, and consoled ourselves with a “Sex and the City” marathon, just in time for the movie’s release next week, thoughtfully located between my birthday and Megan’s.

I feel a girls’ night out coming on.

The good old days

First of all, the truly important news: Schatzi does not need multi-thousand dollar surgery!

[Pause while the crowd goes wild]

Thank you, thank you. Dr. Karen said we should keep her on the anti-inflammatory for another week, but continue giving her the Chinese herbs for another six weeks. We can start taking her for a 15 minute leash walk once a day on flat surfaces. She’s a very active and fit dog, not an ounce of fat on her, and I think this is the key to her youthful, Dick Clark-style vigor. She has hate-hate-hated being cooped up in the house and not allowed to run.

To add insult to injury, this happened pretty much the minute we got Star the foster dog. We take Star out for walks, but leave poor Schatzi at home, staring at us sadly as we drive away. There are few things worse than Schatzi’s patented Sad Eyes, my friend.

And of course this had to happen in the “summer”, instead of during the rainy season, when she would have been trapped in the house anyway.

But…not having to come up with thousands of dollars and having our beloved girl suffer through surgery and its aftermath is pretty much priceless. So is Dr. Karen, who didn’t charge Megan for checking Schatzi’s leg every week. Dr. Karen’s kindness extends to people, too. A couple of young men who drove with a friend from Montreal to San Francisco and then hitch-hiked here are staying at her house indefinitely, doing odd jobs and generally enjoying the scenery. She says now that they’ve stayed with her a few days, she doesn’t like the thought of them hitch-hiking anymore.

She has also had an intriguing offer to act as the vet for a nearby nature preserve which specializes in seriously endangered hoofed African animals, such as zebras and antelope. She’d be on call and examine the animals a couple of times a year. I had no idea that this place existed. Apparently zebras are pretty mean, prone to kicking and biting. When I expressed surprise at this, Dr. Karen pointed out that dealing with lions on a daily basis will do that to you. The zebras have to be sedated with a tranquilizer dart à la Wild Kingdom before they can be looked at. Megan said she’d go with her if she took the job. Wouldn’t that be cool?

In other good news, Megan and Monica raised $1,500 for Star and Shiloh at their fundraiser yesterday. They sold cupcakes and beautiful clothes donated by local merchants. Some people even made cash donations. Not bad for a day’s work! I love how this community rallies around and supports local causes.

Thud! Splat!

That was my head exploding and falling off. It’s raining yet again. I can’t remember it raining in May since the evil El Nino winter of 1996-1997, when it rained from September until May, and rained every single goddamn day in February. I worked in a cool old brick building in downtown San Francisco in those days, and the constant deluge took its toll. Rain came down the exposed brick walls, so I had to keep a plastic hood on my computer like a grandma protecting her fresh beauty shop ‘do, and I had no fewer than three wastebaskets collecting rain around my desk.

Sitting here in my sweater by the heater in May just seems wrong. I also have that east coast feeling of “Will winter ever end?” while simultaneously lamenting the fact that the lilacs have already bloomed and gone.

It takes a Suzy.

People have been asking me how June and Audrey are doing. They don’t actually accuse me of being a negligent cat doorman or dumping them in favor of doggier pastures, but I can read between the emailed lines.

Audrey catnaps on the balcony

The girls are doing fine. Since they now have the great outdoors, they’re a lot less destructive in the small indoors. They generally come in to eat or nap, though I have seen them napping outside from time to time. I was slightly surprised by that: I thought they went outside to play and hunt, but apparently they also use it to increase their living space, much as we do.

Excuse me, you interrupted my bath!

June spends more time inside than Audrey does. June sleeps with me most of the night, pinning down the covers so parts of my anatomy are exposed to the chill night air in her patented manner. Audrey’s in and out all night, though thanks to Rob, I’m no longer the night watchman.

It’s funny how when I first moved, I thought I could bring them in at dinner time and that would be it for the night. In retrospect, I find this hilarious.

I visit Henry at least once a week. She’s safe and cozy under the chinkapin tree. I always bring her flowers and fill her in on the latest news. I miss her so much. She was such good company. I wish we’d had more time together, though as Rob says, it’s never enough time.

Star went to her first obedience class on Wednesday. She was fearful of strangers, barked at kids, and it was generally a somewhat depressing experience. I was surprised, since she adapted so quickly to us and is so friendly and affectionate with us. She’ll go every week and hopefully will improve. We have to get her properly trained and socialized before we can even hope to find a family for her.

Schatzi seems to be doing better. Dr. Karen thought so, and will have another look at her on Friday. Keeping her still is a real challenge. I took care of her yesterday while Megan taught a CPR class, and she followed me everywhere. Finally she settled down on the couch, but you can tell she’s really depressed at being kept inside all the time. A friend of Megan’s is giving her a sort of dog playpen so she can be out on the garden but not wandering around. I’m still hoping we can avoid surgery.

Schatzi in a field of clover

You know how when you go to the dentist, your tooth stops hurting? Well, Schatzi has her own variation on that. Within an hour of coming home from the vet last week, she was limping around the garden.

An investigation of her paw and leg showed former EMT Megan nothing, but when a couple of days had passed and the limpiness had not abated, it was time to go and see Dr. Karen yet again.

The verdict is that the Schatz has torn her ligament. She’ll be re-checked on Friday, and if it’s not better…it’ll cost $2,000 to fix it. So think good thoughts.

While Megan and Rob were getting the bad news, I was Star sitting. My idea of doing this was to sit in the sunny garden, painting my toenails, reading Vogue, and drinking the remains of a bottle of wine from my sister’s refrigerator. I’m not just the hostess with the leastest, I’m the sitter with the leastest. You have been warned if you ever ask me to baby-sit.

Star meandered around, sitting in sunny patches and occasionally asking for pets. She can’t be left alone because she freaks out, and has an unfortunate tendency to chase cats (also butterflies, birds, rabbits, lizards, and pretty much anything else ya got). Rob had to go in his truck to take Schatzi home after the vet, since Meg had to go on to a meeting about fundraising for Star and then, you know, her first twelve hour night shift of the week.

Earlier that day, my brother came across a dog wandering in the middle of the road, dazed, clearly having been hit by a car. He stopped, and was in the middle of examining the dog when another car stopped behind him. The driver offered to take the dog to Dr. Karen, and added that if the owner can’t be found, she’d be glad to keep her. Rob told me that he had seen the dog at the vet and she’s fine, thankfully.

The fundraising for Star and a rescued pit bull puppy, little Shiloh, is set for May 15. Since Monica is hosting and organizing it, there will be fabulous designer clothes and delicious cupcakes for sale. We’re hoping to set up a PayPal account soon, so that those of you who don’t live near us can still help out. Wish us luck!

Schatzi had an appointment at the vet, so Star and I went along for the ride.

It became immediately obvious how used I was to Schatzi’s inveterate good manners. She jumps into the back seat and stays there. She may stick her head out of the window for a power sniff, or whimper a little with excitement if she sees we’re going somewhere really good, but that’s about the worst you can say about her in the car. She never even barks when left alone. Bonus: you can leave your groceries with her and she won’t touch them.

Star, on the other hand, is wiggly and bouncy and keeps trying to get into the front seat, where she clearly thinks she belongs. I ended up putting my arm across the space between the two front seats, and she’d push against me and sometimes give me a kiss.

We weighed her at Dr. Karen’s, and if there had been a prize, I would have won it for guessing her weight correctly at 50 pounds. Her lack of fur on her belly and armpits is caused by distress licking, but Karen also said that the fur was growing back, so Star has stopped doing that since the fostering started.

Schatzi is completely perfect, other than her usual need for thyroid tablets. She’s in better shape than most dogs half her age, I’m happy to report.

During the time it took to get the two dogs checked out, a woman came in with a two month old blue-nose pit bull puppy who had fallen and needed an x-ray; a man dropped off a basket of strawberries for Dr. Karen; a woman picked up her dog who had an ear infection, scratched it, tore the cartilage, and had just had surgery; and I helped an elderly lady carry her aged cat to the car. The woman with the ear surgery patient had come all the way from Willits to see Dr. Karen. Never a dull moment in that office, even past closing time on a Friday afternoon.

The wind was howling yesterday as I drove into town for some errands. I felt as if it were trying to blow me off the road, and I wasn’t surprised to hear on the radio that there was a wind advisory in effect. With a haul of library books, groceries, and a tank full of gas for today’s dog rescue adventure, I headed home.

As I turned onto the Ridge, I thought “I bet I’ll get home and find the power’s out.”

This is one case where I wish I hadn’t been right. I unloaded the groceries in the cold, sunny house and plugged in the emergency phone. My brother called to say that the outage was caused by a downed line on the Ridge. This was good news, because a) it wasn’t a whole pole which would have to be replaced; and 2) it was local, so we wouldn’t have to wait for the higher-ranking towns and villages to be restored before ours. Our turn is always last.

Meg, Rob, and Schatzi came over to sit by the heater and eat frozen pizza with me until the power came back on. I was very thankful for Rob and his generator-generating abilities, and for Jonathan, keeping me posted in his official capacity as fireman and unofficial capacity as brother.

Today dawned sunny and only slightly breezy. I know, because I was there to see it. I woke up before the alarm went off, and lay there considering whether to try and get back to sleep for half an hour, or just deal with it and get up like a grown-up. You will be pleased to hear that I chose the latter, so maybe I’m actually maturing. Just really, really slowly.

Meg should be here any minute. We’re taking my car, since it has about half the mileage that hers does, and it doesn’t make a slightly alarming metallic whine, either. We’re meeting Star at 11:00 or so at the Twisted River Cafe in Colusa. Stay tuned for details!

Today’s daisies

Somehow I seem to have drifted into a certain level of activism. These things can be catching.

Monica, Megan’s partner in pit bulls, contacted me about a sensationalized story in the Ukiah Daily Journal with the headline “Pit Bulls Attack Officers, One Shot”. I posted my thoughts in the comments section, a panoply of spelling and grammar errors along with a level of ignorance which made me picture Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel tapping away at a borrowed laptop. I also wrote an email to the editor and helped Monica with her own email to the editor, asking for a follow up story which presents the facts. They probably won’t do it, but at least we tried.

I also emailed the judge who is to sentence Aaron Vargas, asking him to sentence Aaron to time served. Aaron is a local man who was sexually and psychologically abused by a neighbor, starting at age 11 and continuing into his adulthood. Unfortunately, Aaron was far from the only victim. When the neighbor threatened to do the same to Aaron’s young child, Aaron killed him. This story has been featured on the Today show and received a fair amount of coverage nationwide for something that happened in a small town in an obscure corner of Northern California. Usually the stories marvel at how the town has rallied around Aaron, but that’s the sense of community up here and I don’t find it surprising. I just hope the judge listens and returns Aaron to his family so he can finally live in peace.

Another local sensation lately was a woman who fell to her death from the headlands while chasing her dog, Star, watched by her horrified and helpless nine year old son. The dog survived, but is in desperate need of a foster home. Guess who stepped in to help, since Megan walks the walk as well as talks the talk? After all, she drove eight hours in one day to protest Michael Vick for two hours.

So tomorrow morning, we’re driving three hours to Colusa (wherever that is), picking up a frightened dog, and driving right back. Though I’m not a total stranger to this kind of thing, it’s been a while. Megan and Rob will foster her until a permanent home can be found, and Schatzi will have a new (temporary) playmate.

Speaking of Schatzi: I decided that she rates her own category. I was amused to see that my earliest post about her dates all the way back to 2002.

You know, cleaning is bad enough. But cleaning for three hours only to have your hippie hovel still look like crap explains why I don’t clean more often. Dreams of cleaning ladies danced in my head as I abandoned the whole thing to do laundry in my clothes-eating washer*. I was reminded of the anecdote about Churchill, in which a women’s temperance member held her hand above her head against his office wall and said, “Mr. Prime Minister, if all the brandy you had swilled was poured into this room, it would reach to here!” Churchill gazed from the floor to the ceiling, and then commented sadly, “So little done, so much to do.”

Nothing like housework to make a girl crabbier than thou.

Yesterday, on the other hand, was great. Megan and I took Schatzi for a walk at Big River in the spring sunshine. It was so warm that none of us wore sweaters. Schatzi even took a wallow in the abandoned quarry which doubles as a pond in the winter and spring. It was full of tadpoles gadding about. Schatzi paddled cautiously. She’s not much of a water dog, but we’re trying to improve her confidence.

As we headed back to the car, Meg said, “Hey! Let’s go to Frankie’s for an ice-cream cone!” It seemed like the best idea ever. We couldn’t remember the last time we had an ice-cream cone. In a cup, at Erica’s store, yes. In a cone, no. And to think Megan and Rob used to live at Pier 39 for years, where the whole place smells like waffle cones, year-round.

At Frankie’s, I picked mocha almond fudge and Meg had pear sorbet, thereby negating the entire walk. It’s all about balance for me. All the ice cream is made locally and it was fabulous. We sat in the sun, people-watched, and speculated on what it would be like to live in the water tower that was for rent.

After that, we stopped by Mendosa’s for a few things, and then did a quick investigation of the hardware store that just opened next door. It’s so new that they were still stocking the shelves. Our tour revealed that they have almost as much stuff as they do at Rossi’s in town, but much closer. The boys will be glad to hear that.

Speaking of glad: my brother’s one remaining cat went on vacation for almost a week without telling anyone. We had all kind of given up on his safe return when he reappeared as if nothing had happened. I was so relieved to hear that. For both of us to lose cats in two weeks would be too much, even for our family curse. Also Jinx has been spotted in the woods and seems to be eating the food my brother leaves for him.

So it’s been a mixture of good and bad around here lately. It’s all about balance.

*Rob has appointed himself my agent. He’s already spoken to Mark about replacing the washer, and yesterday asked him to get the junk out of my yard sooner rather than later. I said thank you, and he said, “Well, were you ever going to do it?” and I had to agree that my habitual tardiness with the rent has made me a little reluctant to demand anything. I love Rob.

Nature always wins in the end

Yesterday, Megan and I took Schatzi for a stroll on the headlands at Navarro Point. As soon as we turned left onto Highway One, she perked up. Left is lacking in the boredom potential of right, which can mean getting stuck in the Safeway parking lot or going to the bank instead of doing something fun.

At the Point, there were signs of spring: wild irises, tiny violets, starry daisies, red clover, frothy Queen Anne’s Lace. Another sign of spring was deep mud and marshy grass. Apparently I still haven’t figured out the correct footwear for country occasions. While Megan splashed happily through the muck in her trusty Red Wing boots*, I ended up with soaked and muddy sneakers, socks, and pants.

The Point is a nature preserve, so there are signs warning visitors to stay on the paths, stay off the peninsula, and keep away from the crumbling cliff edge, warning that it’s unstable. Just like Me!

You’d think that people would have the sense not to litter in a place like that. But you’d be wrong. We picked up candy wrappers, cigarette butts, and other debris on our way back to the car. We put it in one of the beverage holders until we got to the store and could throw it out.

Arriving at the store, I scooped the garbage out of the holder. A surprise spider dangled from it, so I screamed and threw the stuff away from me. In the process, I managed to scare my sister; get dirt all over her pants; and distribute the trash throughout the car. In just seconds! Megan laughed at her silly sister as she collected it.

I still don’t know what happened to the spider.

Megan sent a package UPS by placing it next to a weeping flowering cherry tree outside the hardware store. Then we went to the store for necessities like PopTarts and SweetTarts. Because we’re girls. Behind us in line was a guy buying beer and pork rinds. Because he’s a boy.

The mail was more interesting than usual. I received the Dogs In Canada issue with my very first ever printed article** in it! I’m even listed on the “Contributors” page! For some reason, this is much more exciting than the pieces I’ve published on their website. We stopped off at the property, where Rob was building a cover for the water tank, and showed it to him. He was excited, too, or pretended to be.

He gave me a box from Bed Bath & Beyond, saying that he almost opened it, since he figured whatever was in it was a project for him. Fortunately, it’s only pillowcases to replace a pair of old, torn ones. But I’m sure I can come up with some kind of project for him…

*She told me later that her entire shoe wardrobe consists of those boots, a pair of Keen sandals, and the bee boots.
**Yes, I do realize how ironic it is that the article is about cleaning, I don’t have a dog, or live in Canada.