Valentine girl
Author Archives: dawnkinster
Remembering Bonnie
The last couple days I’ve been thinking about Bonnie, our sheltie-girl who lived with us before Katie. She had an entirely different life with us than Katie has. Not bad different, just different.
The only school she went to was puppy school, where she was mostly shy, but very smart. She threw up on the ride over to school most weeks. I’d arrive with a damp, smelly puppy and jeans soaked in puppy vomit. Regularly. When we got to the distance sit/stays she was so scared she slowly turned around until her back was to me as I stood on the other side of the school gym. The instructor said to me, “Well, she certainly hasn’t bonded with you!” Yet, at the end of the class she won 1st place in our mock obedience trial. Because she was a very good girl and had, in fact, bonded with me just fine.
She had lots of health problems. Born with a heart murmur, she had occasional seizures and was on meds for that her entire life. She had a toe amputated, and her tail, too, after it was injured durng a stay at a kennel. Through it all she soldiered on.
She was lost for four days once, when she was staying with her favorite Grandpa Jack and got out of the house when no one was paying attention. Bruce and I were out of town and Grandpa Jack didn’t tell us she’d run away until we got home. Devestated didn’t begin to describe us and him. Luckily we got her back after signs were put up in the neighborhood and a woman called to say Bonnie had been hanging around in a vacant lot several streets away from Grandpa’s house.
She got lost for a little while here at home, too, when she chased a cat into the woods behind our house and I couldn’t find her. Turns out we hadn’t realized she had become deaf, so she didn’t come when we called for her out there in the woods. My husband found her sitting in a clearing waiting for us to come get her.
I called her my sweetie-girl because she was. Except the three times she got skunked. She never needed to be on a leash, we let her out to do her business at night, and sometimes she got involved with the visiting black and white kitties. Oh the smell! I can tell you with certainty that tomato juice does not take away the smell of skunk. It does, however, give you a smelly, wet orange dog.
She was a special little girl who died three months shy of her 15th birthday, here at home exactly 15 years ago today. I wrote about her last afternoon with us way back when I began this blog. Today I went back to the blog to find out when she died, because she’s been on my mind.
Imagine my surprise to find today was the anniversary.
She never went camping, never explored a park, didn’t go traveling, never really liked being in a car. What she really liked was being home with her people. I guess she’s been hanging around my heart and my mind these past few days because she wants me to know she’s still here. Of course she is. She never ever wanted to be anywhere else.
Love you forever Bon-bon, my sweetie-girl.
More snow?
Those of you living in warmer climates would probably like to see more snow photos, right? Since my retirement I can attest to the fact that snow is better viewed from behind windows than windshields.
Similarly I bet snow is better viewed from a beach in, say, Alabama, than from the deck of a home here in Michigan. And since I didn’t want you to miss the exquisit beautify of life here after a snowstorm, I figured I better get to it and post a few more before springs drops on us.
Because this is the time of year that I am fooled, every single year, into believing that spring is right around the corner. Even when I look outside and there’s nothing but snow as far as my eye can see.
We have had sunshine the past two days, which in itself fools a person into thinking winter is almost over. After weeks and weeks of grey skies I felt like I needed to take the camera and go somewhere, anywhere, just to get outside.
But I needed to feed Katie her lunch and then take her outside before I left her for a few hours. And of course on our walk I saw this.
And of course then I had to hurry her back to the house, grab the camera and go back to the robin tree (which is actually a dead tree covered in bittersweet vine) which was shining in early afternoon light.
And by the time I got done taking those it was getting sort of late to go on any big adventure, so I settled in to process the robin images, and that ended up being my big photo shoot for the day.
Next week I have meetings and appointments almost every day. And of course who knows if we’ll have sun again any time soon. It’s hard to say if I’ll have another opportunity in the near future to run away for a few hours with the camera.
But since I know it will be spring soon I’m not too worried.
Yep. Next week or the week after I’m sure I’ll be seeing little green nubs pushing up in my gardens. Though at the moment I can’t actually see my gardens since they’re buried under the snow.
But it won’t be long. I just know it.
Reporting in
Katie here.
I’ve heard through the grapevine (OK, from mama) that some of you are wondering how I’m doing. I guess mama gets worried and writes stuff and then you guys get all worried too. Mama says it helps to share her worry, cause sometimes she gets overwhelmed by all the ‘what ifs.’
Mama says sometimes she looks at me and wonders if I’m still happy, or if I’m hurting but not telling her. Or maybe she’s just too blind to see. But I have to ask you all….do I LOOK like there’s something wrong?
I thought not.
But of course you all know there is. I’m in stage 4 of kidney disease. I’m eating the special food and taking all my meds like a good girl, but you can’t change the fact that I’ve got an incurable disease.
But let me remind you that I’m fifteen now, and that’s a good old age for any sheltie-girl, even a princess like me. Of course I’d love to live to be 17 or 18 like mama sees sometimes on Facebook, but honestly? Only if I still felt like a puppy, and I don’t think that’s possible.
As it is I sleep a lot, and I have some trouble getting up and down because my hips are stiff. Mama and daddy have talked about this with the vet and I’ve got some meds for that, but the meds seem to make me unsteady and sometimes I can’t get up off the floor at all!
Mama says I look like a beached seal, flapping all my legs trying to get them under me. But she’s not laughing when she rushes to pick me up. Once I get my feet back under me I’m just fine and I usually ask her for some lunch. Or at least a snack.
They took me back off the meds and will discuss all of this at my vet appointment next week. Mama and Daddy are really hoping my numbers aren’t getting worse. I hope they’re getting better, but mama says that isn’t likely. Well. A girl can dream, right?
Meanwhile I’m pretty happy most of the time, so don’t worry about me. Mama and daddy are taking real good care of me, and in return I’m being my normal annoying demanding self. I figure it’s my responsibility to uphold the princess job description.
Royalty always carries on, and I’m definitely the one most royal in my family. I’ll have my staff keep you up to date on my progress.
And thank you all for the kind thoughts and notes that mama gets. They help a lot especially when she’s having a bad day. She should learn from me to take each day as it comes.
You’d think after fifteen years she’d know to follow my lead. Silly mama.
Musing Wordle words
I am terrible at Scrabble, I can never come up with words within my set of tiles. I can’t do crossword puzzles either, though my mother loved them.
And then along came Wordle.
In case you’ve been living in total isolation (in which case you’re not reading this anyway) you’ve seen the game, or read articles about the phenomenon it’s become.
People around the world are figuring out the 5 letter word of the day, through a process of guesses and elimination. There are any number of ‘best’ strategies, most centered on how to choose your first word, from which you will, hopefully, discover the final word.
I haven’t read any of the articles; I think doing so would take the fun out of the experience. But I will tell you why playing Wordle is fun for me.
It’s fun because there’s no time pressure, nobody else is waiting for me to make my move. I can take my time and methodically work through all the available letters. I can consider different combinations at my leisure, ponder on it for half a day if I want to. Consider my next move. And when I am successful I get to share my success (but not the word) with all my friends. For me the sharing is the icing on the game.
And there’s something interesting about knowing that thousands of people are all looking for words along with you. All kinds of people are taking time off from their regular life to discover one word. Across this country and around the world people are focused, for a few minutes, on something as simple as a word
The same word. We’re all thinking about, stratigizing over, smiling or frowning over the same word. It kind of makes me feel connected, and in these lingering times of isolation, that’s a good thing.
But I swear there’s a novel waiting to be written based on the way this game has spread, in the way someone is manipulating us all to find a single word each day. Somewhere, in the far reaches of my brain, I wonder how it could be used in a story of suspense, if the one word each day could begin to change people’s opinions, or thought processes, or even behaviors. Or maybe the daily words are a series of hints to some horrible event that will end the world unless someone figures it all out and saves us all.
The thing about this game that I like the most, that everybody’s headed for the same word, is the thing that makes me feel a little creepy once in awhile. Especially if it’s a weird word that might have several meanings or connotations. I imagine some guy in a dark lab somewhere chortling over his choice of words, anticipating a whole society gasping in shock when they figure it out.
Oh, but all this is ridiculous. People would have to be addicted to playing the game. The game would have to be run by some huge mastermind. There would have to be sinister intent not readily visible to the regular folks playing the harmless game.
Since I’m not into conspiracy theories, I’m going to just enjoy finding the word each morning and cheering my friends on when they find it in fewer guesses than me. And when the New York Times starts charging for the game I’ll move on to the next craze.
But for now I think it’s kind of cool that people are focused on words.
How about you? Are you playing or have you resisted the temptation?
Randomness
I was looking for something specific in my old blog posts and came across this one, when husband and I visited the Detroit Institute of Art (DIA) on a cold January day back in 2014. It doesn’t seem like it’s been 8 years since we were there. We need to go again.
Time is flying by, and standing still at the same time as we shiver through another January. Today is the last day of the month, finally, and I’ve always said February is short, and then it’s kinda almost sorta spring.
We’ll see.
This day last year I had just arrived in Alabama for a few weeks respite from the cold. I wish I could be there now, but I promised Katie I’d stick around. And I can’t take her so far away from her vet these days. I know she’s missing adventure just like I am.
I went to the post office this morning to complain about shoddy mail delivery. All I got was rolled eyes and a statement that they couldn’t do anything about my lost mail. I didn’t expect they could, but I did expect an apology. What happened to customer service?
Katie is feeling better today than the other night when I thought maybe it was time to let her go. I’m sure she’ll post more about how she’s doing soon. She’s getting her nails done this afternoon, but I doubt she’ll feel that’s much of an adventure at all.
We’re still being safe here, I’m ordering my groceries online and picking them up with no contact from anyone. I miss browsing at the grocery store, but I don’t miss the frustration of empty shelves, the lack of checkout lanes open, or pushing a cart through a slushy parking lot in a blizzard. I may stick with this online thing even after covid.
Do you think there will be an ‘after covid?”
I was going to write a post about the word game Wordle. But randomness flowed instead. If I think about it there’s a connection there. But that’s for another post.
Bird stories
Who knew that one partial day of bird photography could turn into three blog posts? Well. To be honest, I know I take way too many pictures, and then I have no place to share them but here. So you are once again subjected to my interpretation of bird life.
I’m sure the birds don’t mind me sharing their inner most private thoughts.
As I was leaving the nature center, fingers and toes frozen but happy that I saw the eagle and all the other birds, I noticed a flury of activity centered on a stairway railing.
Someone had left a pile of seed on a post and the blue jays decided to share the spoiles. Most unusual as they aren’t usually known for sharing anything.
No one else was invited to the feast. They seemed to be an exclusive club, and were definitely showing their true colors.
There was much flapping and jeering and jostling for position among them. But when another bird tried to join in, they became a united front. Only jays allowed.
Beautiful bullies, those jays.
And then I was driving home, wishing the eagle had stayed a bit longer, but happy with what I had. And out of the corner of my eye, as I crossed the last bridge before the park exit, I saw this:
So I turned around and parked at a lot above the river and walked back down. Because who can resist swans and blue water on a beautiful winter day?
I spent a lot of time watching them come and go, and then I walked over to the other side of the bridge and saw this lovig couple.
Well, actually, he was busy eating and she was thinking that a bit of grooming was in order. Typical. But then he puffed all up.
Was he just showing off for his lovely partner? Or was there a something more suspicious?
A flock of swans flies overhead. Could that mean danger? Would he have to defend his sweetheart?
Oh no! A brave interloper lands! He must be dealt with swiftly!
With no time to spare the original swan was on the case.
The offending swan, uttering his apologies, immediately moved on.
Life got back to normal on this little part of the river, and the two love birds lived happily ever after.
The end.
When I got back to the car a lone bluejay greated me hopefully.
And I smiled at him, shook my head and waved goodbye for now. I’ll be back. I know they’ll be waiting for me.
Change Is Hard 