I leave in a few minutes, taking the metro to the airport. This year I feel better about my experiences at our “Sorrow to Strength” conference. Maybe it’s because we had a specific issue to fight for; freezing the size and weight of big rigs. Maybe it’s the Senate bean soup I had for lunch yesterday in the Senate basement cafe. I don’t know. I’ll think about it on the flight and let you know.
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Here in DC it's raining
It’s raining here in DC. Outside and in our hearts. We’ve attended two days of meetings with other grieving families. We’ve learned a lot about pending trucking legislation. We’ve hugged a lot. We’ve cried a lot.
We’re headed off now to meetings on the Hill. I’m doing a press conference this morning which makes me nervous, but I remember Dad, and he makes me strong.
I’ll tell you all about it when I get back home. It’s sad, it’s empowering, it’s confusing, sometimes it’s overwhelming. Always Dad is in my heart.
May, my favorite month
Who can’t love the month of May? The flower vendors are putting their flats of annuals out and you can still dream about the beautiful gardens you’ll have; the overflowing pots filled with beautiful colors, the luscious vegetables ripe for the picking, the roses bug free, the arborvite not yet consumed by the neighborhood deer. There is just so much hope before the weeds begin to fill in the blanks, the rodents begin to dig up your bulbs, the rain ceases and the dust begins. I love the optimisim of May.
I’m headed out very early tomorrow morning for D.C. Wish us well! I’ll tell you all about it when I get back.
Squirrel alert!
I’m Katie, the ever-vigilant squirrel hating dog. I can never rest. Now that it’s spring the squirrels are back! They could be anywhere! Just anywhere I tell you! It’s madness!
What’s that you say? Stop barking? Get off the chair? Are you crazy? Don’t you know that if you let your guard down for ONE MINUTE those squirrels will be back? And you just never know what they may do next! Climb a tree! Scamper across MY lawn!
Awww…OK, I’ll get down. But it’s your risk if they get by me. I’m telling you, it’s a bad decision to make me get off this chair. They’re sneaky, those squirrels, could be anywhere. Probably are eating MY birdfood right this minute. They know when I’m around, yes siree they sure do. Can’t be nearly as effective if you curtail my tools. Silly humans.
Can’t expect me to keep track of those guys when I can’t see out the window…..HEY! SQUIRREL ALERT!!! Don’t worry guys, I’m still on the job! SQUIRREL ALERT! SQUIRREL ALERT! MAYDAY MAYDAY!
Can’t keep a good dog down. No siree, always on the job, that’s me. Hope they appreciate it. Might be a biscuit in it for me if I do a really good barking job. Hmmm… gonna ask for a raise, yes I am. This kind of work makes a girl hungry. Should be getting more food at supper.
And another thing. What’s up with no dessert for dogs? Gotta check with my union rep. Yep, sure do. Oh no…there’s ANOTHER ONE!
Squirrel alert! Squirrel alert! Gather round guys, they’re out there. They’re everywhere. Stand guard! I’ll take care of them, let me at em!
Sigh. I know, I know…get off the chair. Geeze.
Holy springtime Batman!
Wasn’t it just last week that we had snow? OK, maybe two weeks ago tops? And it’s been icky and cold and rainy since. Then we got one or two days of warm weather and while I wasn’t paying attention spring appears to have sprung!
This morning Katie and I went on a little yard reconnaissance to see what we could see. First off, out near the mailbox our creeping phlox has little pink buds! Yesterday there were only small green nubs easing up out of the cold wet soil. I’m sure of it. And the peonies that were planted a couple of years ago? A day or so ago there was no sign of them. This morning? Well, see for yourself:
And my violets are blooming, 
as is the bleeding heart that had only just sprouted out of the ground last time I checked. Even the red bud tree is in bud! 
Everywhere we looked we saw signs of spring. Katie had a wonderful time, such wonderful things to smell! 
I tried not to look at the dandelions flourishing in among the chosen plants. 
Have to get cracking or I’ll be overrun again this summer!
School results, cause we know you're sitting with bated breath wondering…
Yesterday Katie and I got to go to an advanced competitive obedience class. It meets every Saturday morning, but I’m usually working, so this was the first time I’d been to it. Katie’s first time too! 🙂
We got there pretty early, so we walked around in the parking lot of the mall, sniffing stuff and doing the potty thing. She’s getting good at being able to go in strange places, which is handy. After I got that all cleaned up and thrown away we ventured inside. There were only a few other dogs there at that point, two big Rotweillers and a big German Shepherd. They were practicing coming, and stopping and going DOWN! and waiting. They all looked good, very professional. I felt WAAAY out of my league. I had never called Katie from across the room, then yelled “DOWN” when she got part of the way and had her go down like they were doing. Katie had never waited to chase after a toy until she had been told to “GO GET IT!” Heck she didn’t even heel very well; while these dogs were attached to their people at the hip, gazing adoringly at them, ready to respond to every whim, Katie heeled with her nose on the ground, looking to pick up any leftover treats. SIGH. I was intimidated, and whispered in her ear that maybe we were in the wrong place.
More people came in with their dogs, another couple of Shepards, a Boxer, a Wheaton Terrier, a Doberman, an Australian Shepherd. All of them bigger than Katie. All of them with more experience, and it appeared, more confident handlers. Poor Katie! So we started going around the room in a big circle, heeling as the instructor called out commands and worked one of the Rottweilers. Katie was keeping up pretty well, though still not exactly where she needed to be. Then the instructor commanded us to do a moving down. Unsure what that was I sort of watched. Everyone put their dogs into a down, Katie went down too. Then everyone started walking but the dogs stayed! WOW! Katie stayed too and I trotted to get back in my spot. The humans walked around the room, up next to the dogs, until we got back to our own dog. Not a dog moved a muscle. Even Katie. I was so proud of her. We did several other things with our heeling, and she did pretty well.
Then we did sits and downs. A THREE MINUTE sit! That is forever. Katie sat between the Boxer and a Shepherd. We all walked way down to the other end of the room. She stared at me. I stared back. People started talking amongst themselves and one by one almost all the dogs broke. Katie kept looking at me. I kept looking at her with my arms folded, my feet planted apart. She looked at all the other dogs moving, getting yelled at, getting reset up. She looked back at me, I looked back at her. She never moved! I was so so HAPPY with her! Of course then we did the down. FIVE minutes, though I didn’t know how long it was because I missed what the instructor said. I got her into a down, walked away, then faced her from the other end of the room. Arms folded. Feet planted. We watched each other. Some of the dogs flopped over and went to sleep. Katie and I just watched each other. She woud occassionally shift her hips, you could see she was thinking about what was up. Was she done working? Was it OK to explore. She looked at the other dogs, no one was wandering. She looked at me. I looked back. And she NEVER MOVED! I can not believe my little hyper dog lasted 5 minutes without breaking! Such a girl! She got lots of treats for that when we went back to them!
Then it was Stand for Exam. Well. Katie HATES being touched, especially by a stranger. She is always happy for people to come up to her, but when they reach out to pet her she backs up. She rarely does well on this, sometimes she won’t shy away too much, but she never stands still. Guess what? She let two different strange men walk up to her and run their hand along her back and didn’t move. I was six feet away from her and she was standing in the middle of a room full of strangers and she let them touch her and didn’t balk. At this point I am beginning to wonder if I brought someone else’s dog!
Of course she was good on her recalls, she loves that game, didn’t even anticipate and break early. She was perfect.
So all I really need to work on is heeling, getting her to heel where she’s supposed to, rather than surging ahead or getting behind, and especially getting her to stop checking the floor out for good things to eat. Hopefully the weather will hold and we can go to the park and practice some more.
Meanwhile I am so proud of her! What a good girl!
Doggie plans
We’re going to doggie school tomorrow morning! I don’t get to take Katie as much as I would like, economics being what they are, and my work schedule being so random. But tomorrow I don’t have to be at work till the afternoon, so Katie and I can attend a competitive obedience class for a small drop in fee. YEA!
I should be working more with Katie. Since our last disastrous fun match we’ve worked only a little bit in between the thunder storms and random work schedules. It’s hard to heel around the sofa, but we’ve done some of that and a little bit of work at the park too. She’s getting better, but not nearly as good as she was last summer when we worked every day at the park. Of course I didn’t have a job back. Darn job interfering in dog progress! LOL!
It was 79 degrees outside when I emerged from the library after a full day of being inside a dark old damp clammy building. Can’t waste an evening like that, so Katie and I went to the local softball park. I thought we’d practice some heeling, but Dad had just fed her and she wasn’t nearly as interested in me as she was in sniffing stuff.
She sniffed the pond for a bit but it wasn’t particularly interesting, so off we went down a path into a big field. 
She had to keep coming back for me as I was busy taking pictures of all the pretty brown grasses, and wasn’t keeping up. I found a couple of pretty places for her to model for me as well. There was a viewing deck at the far back of the property that I’d never seen before. Not sure what we were supposed to be viewing, but we tried to look like we knew what we were doing. 
And there was a pretty red twig dogwood bush out there, shining in the lowering sun that I asked Katie politely if she’d sit next to. She did, but it was grudgingly. She really wanted to be running around and sniffing more exciting things rather than posing for me. 
It was a pretty long walk, and we were both hot and sweaty when we got back to the car. Well. I was sweaty, she was panting. She had a drink, so did I and then we went home. She’s sleeping now. This walkie thing is wonderful, wears her right out!
Wish us well in school tomorrow morning. I need all the help I can get!
Need a funny story?
Tonight as I drove home through our subdivision I noticed a Canadian goose sleeping alongside a driveway a couple of doors down. I thought it was odd, but then again the driveway is a single car width dirt drive, with ponds on both sides.
This spring I’ve witnessed the territorial aspects of the pair of geese that appear to live in the bigger pond. They consistently and with intensity chase away any other pairs of geese that happen to land on their pond. So it was with laughter that I watched the homeowner try to come home from work this evening. They pulled into their drive; the goose was still sitting in the middle of the driveway. The SUV stopped. It’s not like they could go around the goose, with water on both sides. Suddenly, with great noise and a very wide wingspan the mate of the sitting goose rose out of the water and attacked the stopped SUV. Then the goose on the driveway got up and flapped it’s wings at the vehicle as well. With both geese honking and flapping their wings in front of the SUV, the homeowners finally backed up and drove away.
Eventually the geese settled back into their pond, the homeowner circled around and successfully made it up their driveway and into the house. Obviously there’s a nest somewhere near the driveway. I have to wonder how they’re going to get out tomorrow morning.
Going to DC
I’m in the midst of preparations to attend a Sorrow to Strength conference in Washington DC. The conference, the first weekend in May, is put on by The Truck Safety Coalition (see http://www.trucksafety.org/) and is attended by survivors and families of truck crash victims. We spend a few days together talking about truck safety issues, lobbying on Capital Hill and remembering the people we’ve lost. It’s an oddly fun and sad experience all at the same time, and one that my siblings and I look forward to in a weird sort of way. It’s comforting to be with people that know how we’re feeling and have been through the same wide range of emotions, yet it’s hard to look around a room filled with people all hurting from the same experience. Especially when so many of our losses could have been avoided.
What really gets me the most is listening to the stories on the first evening. We all stand up and tell the short version of what happened to our family, the horrific events that led us to this conference room in a DC hotel. You hear the stories, one after another, and so many of them are exactly the same; someone was struck from behind by a tractor trailer driven by a tired, inattentive, or sometimes drugged driver. Usually a driver who had been on the road more hours than was legal, trying to make a buck, trying to support a family, trying to get by. And now here we are, just a fraction of the 5,000 families affected like this every year, in a room trying not to cry as we each describe “our” crash. Regardless of the details most stories end the same. Someone is gone. Sometimes someone survives, but at such a cost. Always the pain is there. That’s what gets me mad. And sad. And what makes me go to Washington, to talk to Senators and Representatives, to their staff people, to the press. To anyone that will listen. To you. Because so much of what the trucking industry appears to view as “collateral damage” doesn’t have to happen.
I know that I’m just one person. But in that room this year on the first weekend in May will be too many people, too many families, too many broken hearts. For one weekend we stand united; we will have a presence and maybe someone will see us. Maybe someone will listen. Maybe, just maybe, we can begin again to make a difference. We’ve lost family members, but we haven’t lost hope that change is possible. Change can start with one person. Dad believed that and so do I.
This trip is for you Dad. Miss you.
Out of control rally fun match
I worked all day today, rushed home, grabbed the dog and drove 45 miles south to a fun match this evening. The result? Katie was out of control. We had little to no time to warm up, though the facilities were very nice. She was scared; she loves to go to school, but when we arrived she knew right away this wasn’t any school she’d ever been to before. She immediately peed all over the asphalt behind the car. Poor girl, she’s never done that before!
Inside we were one of the first few people there, so we started right out with Rally. They were really good with me. There was a “off set figure 8” that I had never seen before that some lady explained and explained to me. Then the judge explained it again better! Also a right step that wasn’t set up very well and that we never did do quite right.
Katie was a wild thing, paying attention to the other dogs, other rings, loud noises, people going by. She didn’t focus on me until the judge asked me if I had treats, which I did. Once Katie figured out I had treats she focused a lot better! LOL! But still.
They let me go through the course twice with a judge and we learned a lot. But half way through the second time Katie just sat down. Then jumped on me. She was WAY DONE MOM! We finished strong though once I got her moving again.
In obedience they were really patient with me too. Most of the issue is me, obviously. The obedience judge gave me some good pointers for stand for exam, and for getting her to heel closer to my leg. So that was well worth it, though I was somewhat embarrassed by how out of it she was.
Then I FORGOT to stick around for sits and downs, which we really could have used practice on. On the other hand, Katie was not in the mood to sit still for very long.
So all in all, it was an OK $10.00 spent. It did show me that we have a TON of work to do, mostly on heeling correctly. The rest will come from that. And from me studying my rally move cards more!
Don’t know about Katie, but I’m exhausted! I have to work all day tomorrow and all day Sunday, so I’m headed for sleep now. Unfortunately, Katie, now at home, wants to PLAY!
Silly dog.
Change Is Hard 