fun stuff | Change Is Hard

March 4, 2009
by dawnkinster 8 Comments

We've got toys…wanna play?

katie-1283

Following the recent theme of toys…Katie and I thought we’d share some of hers. Well. Not really share; I’m not sure she’d be good at sharing being an only dog. But she has a basket full of toys, all of which she has loved at different times. She mostly loves whatever is the new toy. But some are her favorites all the time. Like Mister Froggy whose yellow belly you see in the basket above. And she’s pretty psyched about her frisbee too. But her all time all the time can’t resist toy is her small tennis ball. If she can find it (it’s frequently under some piece of furniture) she will drop it at the feet of anyone not payng enough attention to her.

Today I didn’t have to work and I have to say that I didn’t get much done around here either. It was sort of a Katie free for all day, mostly playing fetch the ball, fetch the froggy, fetch the doggie…that would be me fetching…not her. If the toy gets flung into a scary place, say under the desk, or under a chair she will plop herself down and look expectantly at you until you give up and just get her the toy. Really I don’t think she needs anymore doggie training, she is smart enough as it is. I took a picture of her with her ball today that reminds me of the picture Sara took of Oreo:

katie-1313

So I have to go…she wants to play! We’ve already taken a trip to the pet supply store where we practiced heeling with distractions. She did so so. We’ve thrown the ball for what seems like hours. You’d think she’d be tired, but no, right now she’s growling at a possum that is eating birdseed outside her back door. Possum doesn’t seem to be intimidated, so I’ll distract her with a toy. Time to go. As Katie would say, we’ve got to go Go GO GO!!

February 22, 2009
by dawnkinster 5 Comments

Blizardless Librarian

For a couple of days we’ve been warned that another big snowfall was headed our way this weekend. Four to eight inches they said. Supposedly it would start snowing Saturday morning at 10 a.m. and would continue, intensifying throughout the day, ending around 6 p.m. Great. I was working all day at the library, 9-5, and figured I’d have a doozy of a drive home.

As I was getting ready in the morning I glanced toward my front door and saw this:
trees-784

Hmmm, I thought. “Red sky in morning, sailor take warning.” So Katie and I went out to investigate, and to put a letter to my sister in the mailbox:

trees-787

When we got back in the house the glass storm door had steamed over. Look how pretty!

trees-790

I headed off to work with extra gloves, a hat, and boots, prepared for the terrible ride home I anticipated. But though it did snow, all day in fact, starting at 10:00 just like they predicted, we got 2 or 3 inches at most. And the ride home, while slow, wasn’t nearly as awful as I expected.

The other librarian and I thought maybe we’d have a slow day, maybe with the weather people would stay home. We were so wrong! My favorite story of the day involved a grandmother who had a granddaughter doing an internship in Poland. She came in to find out how to get into her email. Since we were still slow, first thing in the morning, I taught her how to use her email. She got to read a note from her granddaughter, view the photos that had been sent, and write the granddaughter a long note back. She was thrilled, and even better, was proud of her new skill.

Another interesting experience I had at the library during the day included the shy young girl and her dad who came into the library “looking for poetry.” After I showed them where most of the poetry was, at the far back of the library, she pulled out a piece of paper folded up into a small square. After unfolding it all she informed me she needed “these five books of poems,” which turned out to be in the kids area, near the front door. Which taught me (once again) to ask more questions at the start rather than taking the first sentence at face value.

We were busy all day; I helped a middle-aged woman figure out that the horror author she wanted was Dean Kootz, a high school student find information about steroid use, a recent graduate of law school fax her information out for numerous employment opportunities, found another student a biography about Harriet Tubman, commiserated with a woman about how we both get “click happy” when we’re reserving books from our home computers late at night. All the books we’ve ordered tend to show up at the same time and it’s nearly impossible to get them all read. Another family wanted help finding a book about polygamous cults as well as something to help them diet by reducing carbs. Someone else wanted a book to help diagnose an unspecified medical condition. And a teenage girl needed help learning Latin “so I can write vampire stories.” And those are just the ones I remember!

The day flew by, I had lots of fun, the snow wasn’t too bad, and this morning, after another dusting of snow, we have sun! What a wonderful weekend!

And it’s only Sunday morning! 🙂

katie-1281

I don’t have to work again until Thursday. Katie and I are going out to play in the new (not so deep) snow!

February 14, 2009
by dawnkinster 6 Comments

Dog rally…and it's snowing agin.

Katie and I went back out to where we used to go to obedience and met with our agility instructor who also teaches rally. That’s where dogs (and us humans) go through a series of dog obedience drills on a course. Each station has a sign with instructions like: Sit, Down, right turn, 360 degree turn, and lots of other stuff. I almost didn’t go because it’s been so long since we’ve done any obedience, and crazy Katie is pretty much out of control lately. I figured we’d just embarrass ourselves. But here’s a lesson: “Do what you fear most.” Katie did GREAT! We got all sorts of compliments from both instructors and some of the other students. Isn’t it funny how you always think someone else’s dog is beautiful and well behaved but you don’t notice your own is the same?

Katie loved being back at school. In the parking lot, once I had attached her lead, she leaped out of the back of the SUV and trotted toward the door. Once inside she was a different sort of girl than the one I’ve been dealing with these last few snow filled weeks. She was attentive and alert and obedient (mostly). She only barked once and that was when we were in the back and one of the instructors was explaining something and Katie wanted to stop sitting and listening and go Go GO! It was a little “yip” that reminded us that it was time to MOVE!

So we had fun, and I’m hoping to be able to drop into rally class whenever I’m not working. Maybe even do a “fun” trial with her in March. They had one yesterday but I didn’t know about it. I think we can do this, it’s stuff we can practice here at home, and she’s loving the showing off part of it. I can tell.

Meanwhile…it’s snowing again here. Yesterday the total back yard was grass, turning green even. Today? Well, it’s snow covered and slippery, just like the back roads we took on our way to and from school! Guess all that spring stuff was just a teaser. Darn.

Time for a nap now.

katie-1114

February 9, 2009
by dawnkinster 4 Comments

Bright Side

This past weekend my husband and I took my aunt to Detroit to see “Spamalot” with Richard Chamberlain. It was a lot of fun; just a crazy musical that makes no sense, and doesn’t have to. We laughed through the whole thing. And in a state where the unemployment is over 10% it was heartening to look around and hear the audience singing along with the cast at the top of their lungs:

Always look at the bright side of life:

“Some things in life are bad

They can really make you mad

Other things just make you swear and curse.

When you’re chewing on life’s gristle

Don’t grumble, give a whistle

And this’ll help things turn out for the best…

And…always look on the bright side of life…

Always look on the light side of life…

If life seems jolly rotten

There’s something you’ve forgotten

And that’s to laugh and smile and dance and sing.

When you’re feeling in the dumps

Don’t be silly chumps

Just purse your lips and whistle – that’s the thing

And…always look on the bright side of life…

Always look on the light side of life…

–originally from Life of Brian, Monty Python.

(Words and music by Eric Idle)

The audience laughed and sang and whistled along. And for a few moments we were all looking at the bright side of life.

.

February 6, 2009
by dawnkinster 5 Comments

Questions for dog moms (and dads)

It’s Friday again, and a new session of dog agility starts tomorrow. I have been wavering on whether or not to sign us up. The biggest issue is paying for a four week session when I know at least one of those weeks I have to work. I’ve been working a set schedule that gave me my weekends off, but that changes the week after next and I’m back on the “don’t know when or where I’ll work” schedule again. The other reason not to register is that my knee still isn’t better from last week when I twisted it while stopping abruptly at the chute. Of course the knee thing is also aggravated by the extra pounds I’m carrying, and I think it’s stressed in general, not just at agility.

The reasons to go back to school tomorrow? Well, Katie LOVES school! And I would miss the other dog moms and the instructor as well. It’s a great time for both of us, we get to work on stuff together and bond (though she’s already attached to me at the hip so I don’t know that we need more bonding!). She just loves the treats, and to RUN RUN RUN! The park is still covered in snow and closed, so no running there. She’s a crazy girl with no real outlet except to run around and around the sofa. Which of course makes this mom and dad crazy too!

So what do you think? Go..or sleep in tomorrow?

My second question revolves around someone’s blog that talked about a product to put in the dog’s food that helps with teeth cleaning. But I can’t remember who talked about it. So if you know, could you give me the name of the product and any positives or negatives about it?

Thanks! That’s all the dog questions for today!

katie-6412

January 31, 2009
by dawnkinster 5 Comments

Agility…but we're not that agile! Either of us.

So it’s Saturday again, and this morning Katie and I went to the last agility class of this session. We worked on chute quite a bit, and after about 4 runs through it I thought maybe Katie would run it without someone holding up the end..but when we tried again toward the end of the class she still refused unless her favorite instructor was peeking in and calling her. Sigh. And she hates hates HATES the teeter. After many attempts I picked her up and put her at the pivot point where she would sort of walk off it if she was forced too. The hatred of the teeter transferred to the dog walk too. So once again all through the class I had to pick her up and put her on the dog walk. She won’t approach it or even attempt to walk it. Double sigh. On the good side we had the tire again for the first time in three weeks, and she jumped right through it each time, and she still loves the tunnel. So, after 7 weeks of agility she still won’t do chute, dogwalk or teeter. But she has fun with jumps of all sorts, tunnel and table. We didn’t do weaves today, so I don’t know how that would have gone. Not good I think.

We are debating whether to spend more money on the next agility session. I know she has mostly fun. So do I. And it’s good to get some exercise in during the winter when we can’t go play in the park. But I twisted my knee today, stopping suddenly when she refused the chute (again). And tonight I feel like I ran a marathon, complete with shin splints. But she had fun. I think. Maybe.

January 27, 2009
by dawnkinster 6 Comments

Libraries Rule

Lately as I am working at the library I think about a quote I heard last week on NPR, about public libraries having to do more with less resources. How true; where else can a person go to get information as wide ranging as a DVD to learn Belly Dancing and a children’s picture book about recycling? Yet there I am, in a small Midwestern town late at night, finding material needed by my patrons on just those topics. It takes only moments to find what they need, they get to use it and then return it so others can use it too. Libraries are just amazing places. And as the economy continues its downturn more and more people are figuring that out.

Over the past week or so I’ve been helping young people look for information on different inherited diseases. Apparently there’s an assignment out there in the local school system which requires at least two print references in addition to whatever information they find on the web. I appreciate the teacher requiring them to look at print materials, and I am steering most of the students to the medical encyclopedias we have in our reference area, though sometimes we find good stuff in the stacks as well. Tonight I worked with a young man looking for information on cystic fibrosis. We found some generic material, but we stumbled upon some other stuff that would put a different slant on his paper, and he got all excited. That is so fun to watch!

Last night I had a group of first graders in for a tour of the library. I think I converted about 5 of the 7 into maybe growing up to be readers. OK. I know that one visit and tour of the library won’t a reader make, but 5 of them got library cards and checked books out. I conveniently forgot to give them a tour of the DVD’s; we practiced finding stuff in the nonfiction and biography sections, and they had fun, so maybe they’ll be back! That was fun to watch too.

So all in all, I’m enjoying my new career, seeing its impact on a community, feeling part of some sort of solution to growing problems. Can’t think of a place I’d rather work. And that’s the best part of all.

January 19, 2009
by dawnkinster 6 Comments

A little bit of this, a little bit of that.

It seemed like a lot going on this weekend, and yet not so much. Katie and I did agility on Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon I drove through snow to Ann Arbor to attend a concert at the University of Michigan, Sunday morning I drove back home, again in snow, so that I could work at the library Sunday afternoon, and now Monday I’m enjoying a day off thanks to Martin Luther King, watching inauguration doings on television and cooking stew.

During agility Katie and I practiced a lot on all the different equipment. She got over her fear of the dogwalk, and loved leaping up and over the A-frame. She still had problems with the chute, and had to have it held open for her to run through, but she ran through the tunnel no problem and even went over a very high jump that had been left high after a German Shepard had jumped before her. No problem! Then we got to the teeter totter which she decided she hated. The instructor and I worked with her for quite a long time, but only succeeded in making her afraid of the dogwalk and the A-frame again! Just doesn’t like that yellow paint. Oh well, we’ll try again next Saturday.

The concert in Ann Arbor was lovely. It was called a Collage concert, all the departments in the University’s music, dance and drama departments participated. The stage had either the band or the orchestra in the center, and smaller groups along the edge, the chorus on risers along the back. What was really cool is that while the spotlight was on a particular group and they were preforming, other groups were coming and going, and as one group ended, the next began, the spotlight moving to them. It was snippets of music, dance and drama, one right after the other, each piece totally different from the one before. It moved really fast and was fascinating and wonderful. At one point lights reflected off the cymbals and threw patterns of moving light on the wall. For an instant I panicked thinking Katie would start barking at the moving light! And later I noted that concerts are sort of like agility, except it’s the musicians and dancers all taking cues from the conductor rather than dogs taking cues from their handlers. This particular concert probably felt more like that because there was such a sense of quick movement between the groups of performers. It just felt so similar to what I had been doing with Katie earlier in the day, in an odd sort of way. I have to say I loved the four cellos playing Fandango by Jeremy Crosmer, and the group of five saxophones who played The Girl with the Flaxen Hair by Claude Debussy, the dozen or so drummers doing Samba Batucada arranged by Sissauyhoat; but my favorite turned out to be the full orchestra playing Nimrod from Enigma Variations by Edward Elgar. It just made my heart swell and float away it was so beautiful.

Working at the library Sunday was fun as well, I was at a different location than I had ever worked before, so there was the usual questions from me as to where stuff was. But this particular library had patrons that checked out books! Real books! Of course there were also the movies and music going out the door, but a big percentage of the stuff heading out were books! I was elated and the time flew by. Once home I realized I was tired, I’d been on my feet nearly the whole time because it was such a busy branch.

And today, Katie is wound up, needing attention as I try to watch news from Washington. We went outside a bunch of times, but Katie wasn’t happy to be in her plowed out walkway. The snow is up to her shoulders now, we got 5 or 6 more inches of snow over the weekend. She wanted to go PLAY in the snow.

katie-1199

So we did. I put the long leash on her and the high boots on me and we went out in the back yard to play. She loved running and leaping in the snow, and we only came in because my fingers were freezing. Hard to try taking pictures of her while running and trying not to fall in the knee deep snow yourself!

It’s a wonderful, optimistic time for all of us. Katie is grateful for the run. I’m grateful for the hope I see coming from Washington. Maybe we’ve hit the bottom; the bottom of the winter, the bottom of the economic downturn…maybe we’re headed back up into the light.

January 16, 2009
by dawnkinster 9 Comments

Winter can be over now. For sure.

trees-736

It’s record breaking cold around here, and a lot of other places too. This morning I layered up with sweaters, scarves, hat, coat, gloves and boots, and picked Katie up to carry her out to her favorite place. I thought the -6 was too cold for her to be walking on the snow. As soon as I put her down she turned and hightailed it back to the front door. Mission not accomplished. She didn’t ask to go out again until much later in the day, when I again carried her out, she did her stuff and we trotted back to the house at high speed. At least by then it was merely zero degrees, a definite improvement.

There are several good things about today though, even with the cold temperatures. I have the entire day off! And there is very little wind, so we are appreciating the bright blue sky, the sunshine and the pretty white snow. Of course we’re enjoying it mostly from inside the warmth of our house. I’m experimenting with a new recipe for soup, with carrots and peanut butter plus a touch of lime juice… and later on I’m trying a new chicken dish for dinner. There are gentle, softly aromatic smells coming from the kitchen. It’s been a good day, even with the chill.

Here’s a photo I took of Katie today, as she watched me from inside the house, through the frosty storm door. Shelties are SOOOO smart!

katie-1186-auto-corrected-reflection-with-frost-jan-2009

She and I hope you are enjoying your day too! Even if it’s darn cold out. Remember, we’re halfway through January…and February is a short month, so we’re not so far away from spring! Right? And more proof of that are the seed catalogs I’ve been receiving in the mail. Seed catalogs in mail = hope for spring. At least where I come from!

January 12, 2009
by dawnkinster 3 Comments

A lazy Sunday

We got snow this weekend. The good news is neither of us (or Katie) had to go much of anywhere, and snow is always more fun when you can stay inside and look at it rather than try to go outside and drive in it. We all spent much of Sunday napping.

katie-11471

For those of you that have moved permanently or temporarily to warmer climates, and are doubtless missing your snow quota, Katie and I ventured out this morning to see what there was to see. We’ll share a few pictures with you!

katie-1172 Katie wanted to explore under every tree to find something truly remarkable to share with all of you…but found that most of the good stuff was deep under the snow!

katie-1169 After much snuffling around she’d give up and look fairly confused, complete with snow all over her face.

katie-1170 In the end we found a few interesting places, but nothing really special to share with you. Like frozen food…or mice or rabbits to chase. Just a lot of snow piled up on everything.