Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.

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Honest Weblog

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We were tagged by Ludo to design a list of ten honest things about Katie the devil dog..er Sheltie. Katie has flatly declined to help with this list. She is patently ignoring me; now that she has finished barking at the garbage truck out front and the trio of squirrels out back she has collapsed in glorious exhaustion in the foyer. So I will take this time to squeal on her:

  • * Katie likes to sleep on top of pillows. Preferably on pillows on top of furniture. Most especially pillows on top of king size beds. And in the middle of the bed so that no one else but her gets space. She likes to lay kitty-corner so that she takes up the most amount of space possible. Which is quite a lot considering she is a small dog.
  • * She will make the rounds daily, maybe hourly or even every few minutes of all closets to guarantee the doors are closed. If they are not closed she will pick the choicest piece of clothing or footwear and prance about the house with it. If it is underwear she will place it adoringly in the middle of the living room as a prize. She knows instantly if a closet door has been opened in any part of the house and will within minutes arrive to show off the gifts of her plundering.
  • *Katie hates Hates HATES squirrels and cats and people walking on her road and trucks and anything that moves outside unless she has given prior permission to be within her eyesight. She will bark until she scares them all away. And then she will nap; the better to gain strength for the next potential attack on her property.
  • *Katie is a pig.  She will scarf down her dinner, lick the bowl clean to hide any evidence and then go find human #2 to ask for her supper.  “Please please please feed me,” she whines, “Human #1 NEVER feeds me and I’m just starved!  I haven’t eaten in MONTHS!”  If she pulls it off and human #2 feeds her (again) she will scarf down dinner #2 without any problem.  She would probably eat herself to death.
  • *At school Katie prances around and does her obedience exercises perfectly while looking adoringly at her Mama.  At home she pretty much ignores any direction from Mama, being that Mama is too far down the family power hierarchy to pay attention to.  Certainly Mama is well beneath Katie’s powerful position in the family!
  • *When called by her humans because she is barking, Katie will bark back until it’s an lose-lose proposition and the humans give up.  Katie always has the last word.  If she’s picked up in an attempt to quiet the barking, she will lick the human’s face all over until we are laughing.  It’s her secret weapon.
  • * Katie barks hysterically, in a very menacing way and flings herself onto the bodies of anyone who accidentally sneezes while in Katie’s house.  This comes as a startling surprise to visitors, and is a constant embarrassment to her parents.
  • * Katie also barks hysterically whenever the tinfoil drawer is opened, and increases her frenzy if the tinfoil box is actually removed from the drawer.  Heaven help us if tinfoil is pulled from the box.  We are working on this, with a bag of treats in the drawer.  If she’s good she gets a treat, but that generally only happens if  her Dad is in the room.  If it’s Mom trying to use tinfoil, well…Mom’s on her own.
  • *Don’t even get us started about the vacuum.  It has bite marks on it and Mama is afraid Katie will break a tooth trying to kill it.  However, progress has been made.  After an initial bit of barking and lunging, if Mama ignores her, she will slink away to another room and give up and Mama can continue to clean the floors.  It’s all so exhausting for both of us.
  • *Sometimes (OK, a lot of the time) when Katie wants attention she will bring her ball or toy and drop it at our feet.  If that doesn’t work she’ll go to the front door and cry, which generally means she has to go out.  So out we go, where she will spend innumerable minutes sniffing around at all the excciting things out there.  But not go to the bathroom.  Hmm….inside we go where the cycle will repeat itself until we get down on the floor and PLAY!  Playing only has to take a few minutes until she’s satisfied.  You’d think we humans could figure it out.

Looks innocent, doesn’t she?  Don’t be fooled.  She’s plotting.

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What goes through your mind

Aunt V. and I went to visit Aunt G. who is newly ensconced in her hospice room. The hospice is a very nice place, clean, quiet, large colorful rooms. But it’s still a place to come to die.    Aunt G. appeared tiny under the soft blue blanket made by her granddaughter, but she smiled when she saw us, and participated in our conversations. Still, when I was back at home in my own bed, I had to wonder what was really going through her mind.

What does she think about, after all her guests go home, after her family has left, or is sleeping on the other bed. When it gets quiet outside, does it get quiet inside her mind? When she has time to think, now, while she’s still lucid, does she think back over her life, or think ahead to the future? She says she has no regrets, and I’m glad. But I still wonder.

Both my parents died unexpectedly away from home. They each left home fully expecting to return to it. But Aunt G. left her home knowing she will never return. What is that like? Do you clean before you leave if you can? Do you gaze around and mentally say goodbye to favorite things? Or are you so caught up in the events that you leave with no goodbyes? When you’re finally alone and things are momentarily quiet, do you think back to that leave-taking?

Being away from home in a hospice setting was her choice, but it feels odd to me. To be taken away from everything you know, taken somewhere to die feels alien. Yet is it? Weren’t there Indian civilizations where the elderly went away to die? Does going away take away the clutter of everyday life, give a person time and space to focus on how they want to spend their last days?

So I lay awake last night and wondered. What is she thinking. What is she feeling? What is it like? I have no conclusions, only more questions. The hospice facility is a wonderful place, but in the end Aunt G. is really on her own. No matter how many of us are around her.

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Comfort food

Today I am taking husband’s Aunt V. to her eye doctor appointment. She’s 92 and is slowly losing her vision. She can no longer paint or read very much, so TV and her bird are her primary sources of entertainment now. She is under additional stress lately as her sister, Aunt G. has recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer and was moved to hospice Saturday. They say two weeks, which is hard to believe; as recently as last month we had no idea.

I remember when my grandma was over 90, still living in her home on the farm, using a walker to get around. During my last visit with her she told me not to get to be such an age because you outlive everyone. I think of her now as I watch Aunt V. struggle with the impending loss of yet another of her sisters. She has lost many friends and relatives in the past few years. It must be overwhelming.

So this weekend I made potato soup and banana bread for her. Such little comfort, but it’s at least something.  I’ll spend the day with her too which I know is much more valuable.   I wish I could make it better, but I can’t change the inevitable. Many of our elders are in similar positions, so if  you know someone who is elderly and alone, facing more loss, stop by or give them a call, maybe drop a note in the mail. It’s not much, but it’s something.

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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.

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Remnants of thought from a librarian

I was just sitting here thinking about how interesting it is to work at a library. How you never know what the next person is going to ask about. How fun it is once you get over the fear that someone is going to ask you something beyond your abilities. Which hardly ever happens, and when it does, people are pretty good about accepting your failings.

So in the past few evenings I’ve had people ask about trains, the real ones, and trains, the toy ones. A small child, probably in the fourth grade, wanted books on the Viet-Nam war because, as his mother says, he’s “into” reading about war right now. A young mother needed help with fractions so that she can prepare for an entry test into the military. Middle school kids are still coming in looking for information about genetic disease. That’s been going on for a couple of weeks, and I think the paper must be due this week based on the increased urgency in their voices and faces. And, as always, there are those odd requests that make you wonder why someone wants the information. Like the nutritional value in walnuts. But, being professional we don’t ask, we just find the information and use our imaginations to figure out the why of it all.


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Snow snow go away

katie-12601 Yesterday we had a day of weather almost like spring. 59 degrees and sun! And it’s been several days since we’ve been below zero. Though I know it’s foolish to think this is the beginning of spring, I can’t help myself from hoping. I do this every year. You’d think I’d learn. But we really deserve this to be an early spring. It’s been snowing and cold since mid-November, steadily getting worse and worse. We are so tired of cold, snow, bad roads, shoveling driveways. We so much want to believe all that is over.

katie-12631 We still have snow in the yard, though with today’s rain most of it should be gone by the end of the day. Katie tried to get her last licks of fresh snow.
It was windy but sunny out.  She just wanted to be outside, and I finally put her out in her kennel, the first time she’s been out there this year.  The yard was wet, and I didn’t think she’d like getting her feet wet, but she sat out there quite happily for quite a long time, barking at trucks on the road, and birds at the feeder.

Today almost all the snow is gone, and look, just peaking up through the ground are the tips of tulips, yellow green with youth, pushing hopefully up toward the sun.  I can’t wait for spring, looks like my tulips can’t wait either!

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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.

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Bluebirds…and other things

This week I had multiple sightings of bluebirds as I drove through the countryside near my home. At first I wasn’t sure I had actually glimpsed a male bluebird, but when I saw it and what I thought might be his female partner near the same location the next day I started paying more attention. Turns out I saw bluebirds nearly every day and in several locations. Yesterday I got a really good look at a pair on the road just up from my house. So I think they are here for good! For more information about the Eastern bluebird go to: http://www.nabluebirdsociety.org/ which is the North American Blue Bird Society page.  Yesterday afternoon I went to my library and checked out a book about bird behavior and read more about bluebirds.  I’m hoping the fact that they are around means we are almost to spring!  I’ve known to be wrong about the spring thing before though, so don’t count on me…I’m about as reliable as the Ground Hog.  But more optimistic!

As for the other things:  Katie and I went to agility today.  But turns out there isn’t another class starting!  I was so confused, came home and looked at their webpage and it says there’s agility today.  Will have to find out what the story is.   Anyway, all that worry and decision making about whether or not to go…big waste of time.  Which in general is what I find worrying often is…really.  So Katie and I are going to go out and romp around in the wet snow.  It’s much warmer today and the predicted rain hasn’t started.  She can’t wait.


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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!

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Sisters

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Not everyone is lucky enough to have a sister, but I know how lucky I am to have mine.  She is as talented and intelligent and sensitive and caring.  She’s a teacher at heart, as evidenced by the fact that she can teach herself to do anything; from learning to play the bagpipes to figuring out how to rewire a light fixture and use power tools to do major repairs on her house.  She’s the family’s cookie baker and seamstress.  Oh..and her pie crust?  Well, enough said.  She’s always there when you need her, and always will be.

Today is my sister’s birthday, a day that marks the beginning of a new year, a better year, the first of many wonderful years ahead.  Today is a day she might begin to believe that difficult times will soon be left behind.   She can see the light at the end of the tunnel and knows that the future is going to be fun once again.  Fun and a lot warmer!

So Happy Birthday sister!  Here’s to the future!

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