Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

Category Archives: Uncategorized


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Thanks Ludo!

Gee Ludo, while your Mum is away you have been very busy!  Katie got a package in the mail from you, and she was very excited!  She begged me to open it, but I told her she had to wait until her Dad was home so he could see what it was too!

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This morning we opened it up.  First out of the bag was the Pedigree Meaty Sticks which Katie was VERY interested in sniffing…until she heard me rattle the paper wrapping a bit as I struggled to extract……a PINK doggie stuffie!!!!!!

WELL!  Katie grabbed that even before I had time to take the tag off and ran off with it!

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Notice the eyes.  She’s saying “This is MY toy and you can’t have it!”  She’s not so much about sharing.  I chased her around a bit trying to get a good picture, and steal it from her to cut off the tag.

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Katie 2101Finally I got it away from her, cut off the tag, and made her take a picture with the toy so you all could see how cute it is. (The toy, not Katie.  Katie, as you can tell, is mad at me.)

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As soon as I released her from her sit, it was back to this:

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She hasn’t even noticed the other bag of treats, the “Scrumptious Rolls of Red Fish!”  The bag says:  “Remember – dogs who don’t get lots of fresh water get poorly, grumpy and sad!”  True!  The bag made me smile, but then I haven’t opened it yet for that wonderful aroma of fish –  “dried in the cool Icelandic air, these delicious rolls are made with 100% red fish skin to make the perfect fishy treat for your dog.  What a lucky dog!”  Katie is going to LOVE these!  As soon as she stops playing with pink doggie that is!

Thanks Ludo!

Katie 2092


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Baking with the past

Last night I made cookies.  A new recipe, something I noticed in a magazine the last time I was at the library, all ginger and dark chocolate.  Before I began  blending the butter and dark brown sugar I automatically reached for my “cookie spoon.”  Because I can’t make cookies without the special spoon that has been passed down to me from my mother, and her mother before.

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It doesn’t always happen, but on this evening as I pulled the spoon out of the drawer I thought about my grandmother.   She made the best spice cookies I’ve ever eaten, out of the crumbs of other deserts, probably with this very spoon.  She was born in 1888 and lived to be 94 years old.  She had a hard but  good life, just like most people, and during her lifetime the world changed.  She lived through the depression, feeding her family from the farm, drove a wagon pulled by horses, and learned to drive a car as an adult out in the cornfield.  I’m not sure that she ever truly believed we sent men to the moon.

I guess her life wasn’t anything extraordinary, a woman raising her family through changing times.  It happens everywhere – it’s happening now.  But when I think of the things she witnessed and learned to accept as normal, from cars to telephones to planes I am in awe.  Anyway, the warmest memories I have are of all of us sitting around her big table in the old farmhouse, eating something wonderful that she cooked for us.  And sneaking her  cookies when we thought she wasn’t looking.

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My cookies were great.  But not quite as good as the ones she made from leftover crumbs.  I hope she and my mother are pleased that I still use their spoon.  I think they are.


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Invasion of the fog

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Seems fog is the theme from across the country this week!  We woke up to it today as well.  And it’s not burning away with the rise of the sun, though the weather people said it would be gone by now.  I don’t really mind, it’s pretty in a soothing sort of way.

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Katie was outside in her pen, enjoying the challenge of watching for squirrels in the soupy light while I look for more pretty things in the backyard.

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Here’s one, a beet from my garden that I threw out into the yard for the deer.  The fog has frozen around the edges of the leaves.  So beautiful!

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My computer shows the local weather at the bottom; “Dense fog, 38 degrees.”  I have lots of things I should get done this morning.  But the fog has ways of slowing me down.  And that’s OK.  All the better to notice.

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It’s fun to look for other kinds of pretty now that the leaves have fallen.  If you take the time to look you’ll see pretty is everywhere.  All the time.


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New Park

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It was a beautiful day today, warm and a bit sunny.  So Katie and I went to the park; a new park today, as our favorite one is filled with hunters.  Katie got lots of sniffing in, and we met some other dogs too. Everyone was out to enjoy the last bit of our Indian Summer in November.  They predict snow next week!

We worked a bit on our recall…

Katie 2069…but mostly we just hung out.

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Can’t have a better day than this one was!

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Things learned

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The things you learn when you drop a 9×13 Pyrex baking pan on a tile floor.

1.  That you can move really really fast while scooping up Sheltie dog to get her away from the shattered glass.

2.  That the glass goes everywhere…and a long way.

3.  That the shapes of the broken glass are sort of interesting; pretty in a sad and dangerous way.

4.  That those little flecks of light on the floor aren’t droplets of water.

4.  That you have to vacuum a whole lot before you don’t hear any bits of glass being pulled up the tube anymore.  And that you will continue to vacuum long after just to be sure.  Cause you’ve got little Sheltie feet to consider.

5.  That your floor was disgustingly dirty.  You just hadn’t realized it prior to today’s close inspection.

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Just taking a walk

Trees 1377 Yesterday I decided I had missed enough beautiful days doing nothing much in particular, so I decided to go for a walk.  Alone.  Of course it was no longer a beautiful warm sunny day; it was cold and the sky was gray.  But still, a walk alone would be nice.  Deciding to walk to town I began my journey.  It’s only a mile from my house to downtown, but there’s a lot to see along the way.

Trees 1368 First stop, perhaps a third of a mile into the trip was the local cemetery.  I’d always meant to stop by and look at some of the older markers from the town’s founding fathers.  It’s a pretty cemetery, quite small, and as I came to realize, very old.

Then on down the road to a little park with a bridge to get over the creek that runs from the mill pond into the wetlands.  Almost to town!  Trees 1373

And there it is, the entirety of our downtown.  Well, there is a little more…

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…the other side of the street!

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Along the way I enraged two sets of doggies in the windows…This Bulldog, Beagle and Minpin who had been sleeping on the ledge inside the bay window…

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…and this pair of  Bichons who could hardly stand that I was walking by their house!

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On the way back home (which is pretty much all uphill by the way!) I stopped to take a photo of a pretty wild crabapple tree.

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And then the crabby Dairy-Queen tree!

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And finally a wild apple tree that had just a few apples hanging out at the end of her limbs, as if they were Christmas ornaments.

Trees 1364As I walked up my driveway there was little Katie, not even mad that I had gone on a walk without her.  Just happy to see me as always.  Today, of course, it’s bright sunshine.  I think Katie and I will go to the park.

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Favorite

Several evenings this past week were filled with special events.  It’s unusual to have so many scheduled in one week, but there you go, it’s the life of the unemployed; I’m unhindered with work and able to accept all invitations!

Last Sunday my husband and I went to a tiny, intimate theater in downtown Detroit to watch Rita McKenzie’s “Ethel Merman’s Broadway.”  I didn’t know much about Merman prior to this show, which told her life story in the first person.  Rita McKenzie dressed and sang like Merman as she talked about her life.  It was a lot of fun.

Thursday I attended the University of Michigan’s version of “The Marriage of Figaro” with my aunt.  It was so professionally done and we had great seats which allowed me to watch the pit orchestra as well as the stage.  I’m not an opera fan, but this one was very funny, with modern translations of the words being sung.  I enjoyed it and didn’t realize till after it was finished that it had gone on for over three and a half hours!

Last night found us back in Ann Arbor with my aunt, attending the Ann Arbor Symphony.  They did three pieces.   After hearing the first, Overture on Hebrew Themes by Sergey Prokofiev (who did the ballet scores for Cinderella, Romeo and Juliet and Peter and the Wolf,) I thought to myself, “Well that’s probably going to be my favorite this evening” because it was so fun, flirty and light with bits of humor and history thrown in.

After the second piece, Symphony No 1 in C Major by Georges Bizet, written when he was 17 years old in 1858 as a homework assignment...I thought to myself, “That last movement is my favorite tonight…the violins were crazy busy, off to the races, and it ended about 3 times, almost as if the composer was saying ‘See teacher?  Here’s some MORE..and some MORE and MORE!’ ”  I couldn’t believe he wrote it at seventeen. And that it wasn’t played for 80 years because he didn’t feel it was worthy, and that it languished in the basement of his school until it was discovered by someone doing his biography.

Then the crowning glory of the evening, a piece by Johannes Brahms,  the Concerto No 2 for Piano and Orchestra.  The guest pianist was Anton Nel, originally from South Africa, once a piano professor at UM, now teaching in Austin TX.  He was phenomenal.  I thought to myself  “Well…I guess in the end the last movement of the Brahms is my favorite for the evening…it’s racy tunes, the strings driving toward the finale…a wonderful end to a wonderful evening.”   Everyone in the audience was on their feet as soon as the last note began to die away.

While we were clapping I wished that everyone in the world could sit where I sat; that surely if they could then we could end wars and crime and all injustice.   Because how could anyone that received such a beautiful gift, that let such beauty inside themselves, anyone who sat next to strangers and felt their hearts expand..how could these people not be positively effected?  I know, I know. Totally unrealistic.  But still.

There were four curtain calls.

And then a grateful gasp rose from the hall as Dr. Nel, exhausted from the 50 minute concerto he had just finished, sat back down at the piano.  Just one man, one piano.   And then the sound.. the most beautiful, most soulful, indescribable sound.  He played something from Franz Liszt, I don’t know which piece.  It was so very beautiful that tears ran down my face.  And I said to myself…”This is my favorite.”

I don’t think I was alone.


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Learning to slow down

This week I was out shopping for a zippered sweatshirt to wear to doggie school.  While I drove I was listening to public radio; such soothing and beautiful music!  As I pulled into the parking lot a clarinet was playing a contemporary piece based on a 14th century hymn.  It was absolutely stunning.  I was sad that I had arrived at the parking lot because I wanted to hear the rest of the piece.

Then I had an epiphany.

There was no need for me to jump out of the car just because I had arrived at my destination.  With no employment I was operating with no schedule and  had the luxury of sitting in the car listening to the radio all afternoon if I wanted to.  So I did.

And as I entered the store later I was assulted by ceiling high red Christmas trees and Madonna singing “Santa Baby.”  Should have delayed reentry a bit longer.

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So it's Tuesday. I think.

Remember when I said that having a random work schedule made it difficult to figure out what day it was?  That the weekends had no meaning and I was always checking the calendar to figure out where I was supposed to be and when?  Well, let me tell you,  being unemployed is even more confusing.  With nothing at all scheduled I have no place to mark time.  So I’m just going to have to fill up the space, organize some organization into my days, get myself going.  Or not.  It’s taken a couple of weeks, but I’m beginning to like this feeling of not knowing what day it is – and not caring anyway!

Katie and I do have the Monday drop in competition obedience class…but I don’t have to go every week.  And last week I did start her in a Rally class on  Thursday mornings.  So I guess there is some semblance of organization and purpose in my life.  Or in hers anyway.  We went to Obedience last night.  Twenty-four dogs (at least) there.  Way too big, we had to do things in groups and wait while other groups were working.

Katie and got there an hour early so that she could acclimate to the building.  We sniffed all around the edges of all three rings.  Looked at the agility equipment piled in the corner of the building, caught our reflections in the mirrored wall…sniffed all the dog crates.  And suddenly as I was wandering with her I realized she was heeling and looking at me expectantly!  All by herself!  And we were only 10 minutes into our hour!  What a girl!  So we did some practicing of our own in the empty rings.  Heeling, staying, coming, more heeling.  She was spot-on.  Of course after all that I still had 30 more minutes to fill before class began.

We met three other shelties, and I got to have a long talk with the owner of one of them, a small breeder, about sheltie attitude and shyness and what they (the breeders) were doing about trying to be careful not to breed shyness into the dogs.  Mostly though I waited my turn to get a little ring time.  Katie is not a patient dog, and was barking when she had to hang around too long.  Another sign she was acclimated and feeling her oats, the fact she’d bark at instructors and other dogs.

This week she waited when she was supposed to and didn’t follow me out as we were doing recalls.  And she was perfect on her long sit.  We were doing long sits and downs near the end of the class and a large group of people were gathering (maybe for another class) in the waiting area.  They got louder and louder until it was difficult to hear our instructor.  There were lots of dogs waiting as well, and Katie, sitting near the edge of the ring had her back to all this activity.  She was doing a pretty good job of ignoring it all when suddenly two big dogs, waiting with their owners right in back of her, got into it.  They growled and barked at each other in anger, and Katie went straight up into the air then began running toward me on the other side of the ring.  I was already moving fast toward her and we met in the middle.  I led her back to her spot, put her back into a down while the dogs on either side of Katie were struggling with their owners, refusing to go back down.  Katie just sat and watched each of them, her ears flat.  One of the instructors came up behind me and said “Good recovery.  It’s OK to go back to her tell her she’s a good girl and come back out.  They all need a little reassurance sometimes.”  So I did.

That was the end of our class and Katie was glad to leave.  I think she won’t need as long to get into the training mode now, and we won’t have to be there so early.  She really was ready to go home about the time the class began!  And it’s just way too big.  So when our 8 visits are over we probably won’t go back.  The Rally class is much smaller, the building is more quiet, and she gets 30 minutes of obedience which is just about right for her.  So we’ll enjoy that more I think.

On the other hand, when we got home she still wanted to play and brought out some of her favorite toys to entice me.  Silly dog, she should have been worn out.  I know I was!  But she’s still ready to go Go GO!

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