Change Is Hard

…but change is certain.


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A New Day

After watching the election results last night I find myself in the unusual place of having no words to express myself. It seems all the best words have already been used. It’s historical…a time of change…hopeful…energizing…inspiring. All those things are true, but it’s more than that. It’s history in the making that we got to watch live, and it was a happy historical moment. No one had to die, the world didn’t crumble, and yet we will all remember where we were when we knew that America finally made a huge step toward true equality for all. There was nothing but joyful tears and excited cheering, and it is important to note that all kinds of people were cheering, shoulder to shoulder, in Chicago, in New York, and around the world. Their faces were rapt, and their eyes filled as they listened to the inspirational acceptance speech.

Even if you didn’t vote for the new president-elect I hope you can feel some of the overwhelming excitement, the first we’ve felt for many months, even years. The best part is that regardless of how you voted, you get to come along for the ride, to participate in the changing of America for the better. We have hope, new plans and exciting ideas to look forward to. And though the road will be long, the work will be difficult, and some of the gilding will likely become tarnished, we have turned a corner. Together we can make things better for all of us. We can make a difference.

Yes we can.


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Katie wanted to vote…but she's not registered.

After my library interview this afternoon Katie and I went to the park to work on her homework. As it happens the park is right next door to my local library which is housed in our township government building. This is where I voted earlier today. I figured I’d take Katie down to the library and try to teach her not to lunge and bark at moving cars. There were a LOT of moving cars. Katie pretty much lunged and barked at most of them. Sometimes she’d listen to me tell her to “leave it!” and “NO!” and “SIT!!!” But mostly I don’t think she learned very much. Eventually we moved further away and practiced our heeling and waiting. She did better at that.


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It's election day

So go vote if you haven’t already, it’s important, regardless of who you support. We went this morning and luckily didn’t have to wait very long at all. But I was prepared to wait, dressed in my interview clothes in case I had to stand in a voting line for 4 hours and then go straight to the interview site. We’ll be up tonight waiting and watching election results. It’s an amazing day in an amazing country. We are all so very lucky.


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The early dog gets the groceries

Today my plans included making bread, soup and maybe cookies. But I needed stock for the soup, so off to the grocery store I went, very early this morning. As I headed back to the car with my bag of chicken stock, I noted that a full 50% of the cars parked in the lot had dogs waiting patiently, and not so patiently, for their owners. I wondered if there was a correlation. Are people with dogs forced to get up early, and therefore get an early start on their days? Certainly I was there early because Katie got me up. Hmmmm.

Now the soup is simmering and the bread is rising. The cookies..well, we’ll see if I get to those!


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Can you stand more photos of Katie?

I know, I know. An unemployed librarian just doesn’t have that much to talk about. Except the dog. We went to our first advanced dog obedience class on Wednesday night and Katie was out of control crazy through most of it. Maybe she was nuts because we hadn’t done any homework in the park for a couple of weeks, given the rain and my broken foot. So since yesterday was so pretty I decided we needed to go.

She was SO excited when I asked her if she wanted to go to the park. Actually she gets excited whenever I ask her if she wants to “GO.” Katie did rather well with her homework. Even did a few stands and stays without much prompting, and is starting to remember where she’s supposed to be while we’re at heel. Sort of. Then, since the weather was beautiful, and neither of us wanted to go home we wandered over to the pond at the park.

We spent about an hour exploring the pond; Katie was interested in the green alge and some fallen leaves floating in the clear water. but she wasn’t brave enough to actually get her feet or nose wet! After she and I ran around a bit I settled at a picnic table and let her explore on her leash. She had a wonderful time. Come to think of it…so did I!

After a big afternoon at the park, Katie was happy to go home and take a nap on her favorite sofa pillows.

But she wasn’t in the mood to share her pillows with me!


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Falling gold

Early this morning I noticed all the bird feeders were empty and little birds were hopping arround and around the big feeder, checking each opening in the hopes of finding breakfast. So Katie and I headed out to refill three feeders. The sun was just up, tipping the trees in rosy light. The one remaining maple tree that still holds it’s leaves shone like a brilliant golden beacon against the other drab and leafless leaves behind it. As I poured seed into the largest feeder a few reamining birch leaves spun slowly down like drops of gold all around me. Katie sat patiently as I finished up, even though we could hear the finches in the branches above chriping restlessly. As I walked back into the house I glanced back and saw the feeder swarming with birds, each eager to find their place amid the falling gold that is the last vestiges of fall.


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A skunking good tale.

Bonnie: May 1992 – February 2007

I read a column in the Detroit paper the other day, describing a dog’s skunk adventure at 3 in the morning. It made me laugh out loud and recall my first skunk experience during the early years of living rurally. This story’s heroine is not current dog Katie, but the previous sheltie Bonnie. Well, heroine might be too strong. Lets just call her the lead drama queen. Though I had a pretty important supporting role. As it turned out.

I worked back then in the very stressful demanding mortgage industry, lots of hours, lots of late nights. Poor Bonnie waited patiently for me every night, but was always ready to run out and do her thing as soon as I got home. This particular night I let her out the front door, and followed her out as I did every night. She ran over the berm by the garage to go to her favorite wetting spot. Not unusual. What was unusual is that she ran back almost immediately, shaking her head and coughing. I didn’t figure it out immediately, but the smell followed her. Of course I panicked, and we both ran into the house. Bad idea. She immediately began to rub her face on all the furniture, with me running after her yelling to stop! Now! Really! Stop! The smell was..well…horrendous is a kind word for it.

I eventually got her shepherded down to her kennel in the basement. Not finding any dog shampoo I headed back out, still in business suit and heels to a neighborhood convenience store, looking for tomato juice. I walked the isles twice before approaching the register in the front. I asked if they had any tomato juice, the attendant said, no…then paused as my smell arrived…and apologized profusely that they didn’t, and offered her condolences. I headed further into town to the larger grocery store. It was going on 11:00 p.m. My feet hurt. So did my head.

At the grocery store I quickly grabbed a couple of cans of tomato juice and a big bottle of dog shampoo. I headed to the express lane (this was before there were such things as self checking) and waited in a long line. The people in front of me glanced at me, wrinkled their noses and moved almost imperceptibly forward, away from me. When it was finally my turn and I put the cans of tomato juice and bottle of dog shampoo on the conveyor belt the cashier asked how my day had been. I replied that I was buying tomato juice and dog shampoo. She finally got a whiff of me and said she was sorry. But as I was picking up my bag of goodies she still sang out that I should “have a nice evening!” Yeah. Right.

Back at the house I loaded the dog into the laundry tub and poured tomato juice all over her. Then I shampooed her with the dog shampoo. And then I rinsed and repeated. I can tell you with authority that tomato juice merely makes your skunky dog an orange skunky dog. She smelled still, ode of skunk with a faint tomato base. Yummy. It was late and I had to be at work early, so I gave up on the dog, confined her to her kennel and went to take a shower. I showered until there was no more hot water. In the morning I showered again until the hot water ran out.

I dragged myself into work, exhausted but determined to get a lot of work done. I sat quietly in my cubicle while the rest of the staff came in. My neighbor in the adjoining cube sat down, turned her computer on and called over the wall, “Hey Dawn! Did you smell skunk when you walked in here this morning?” DRATS! I didn’t let on that I did, and hoped I could finish out the day, but by afternoon she was having headaches and could still smell skunk, so I went into my boss and told him the (short version) story and went home. Walking in the door I realized the house reeked of skunk. I took the dog to the groomer for a skunk bath. But it took almost a month before the smell was gone from the house.

Poor Bonnie, she got skunked two more times in her life. I learned not to let her inside, and not to waste my time with tomato juice; just schedule the groomer’s skunk bath. I’m pretty sure that if Katie ever gets to run free she’ll be skunked too. I’ve got the groomer phone number on speed dial.

Katie: born December 2006

Still skunk free…knock on wood.


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Is it hard to play a violin if you're Cookie Monster?

Last night I attended the Halloween Concert put on by the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance. As usual a wonderful time was had by all. The musicians were dressed in costumes; the percussion section were crash dummies, the violas were Crayola crayons, each a different color. Oboe players dressed as characters in Alice in Wonderland. There was a butterfly and a bee, ghosts and devils, a couple of rabbits, one with a tire print up the front of his white teeshirt. A few farmers played violins, a male geisha girl played the cello, and five assorted princesses played the piccolo part of the Sousa march “Stars and Stripes.”

In the audience were costumed people as well. Adults as well as children of all ages were dressed for trick or treat. The couple who sponsored this concert were dressed as bacon and eggs; he was the bacon, she was the eggs. Just down our row of seats was the most adorable baby skunk, and up ahead of us was a child dressed as a remote control. Really. Throughout the concert parents dressed as witches and pirates carried sleeping monkeys and princesses out of the auditorium. It was a delightful scene.

And I wondered absently as I watched the performance if it was more difficult to play a violin if you’re in a giant cookie monster costume. One of the first chair violinists was ensconced in a bright blue furry suit, with the giant bulbous eyes of cookie monster lodged above her forehead. It had to be hot. And certainly not as easy to hold the violin under your chin. I saw other members of the orchestra adjust costumes as they played. I wondered if they had practiced at home in their outfits, just to make sure it all worked together. Probably not!

But my wonderings came to an end during the last piece, “The Great Gate of Kiev” by Modeste Mussorgsky. The cookie monster played a beautiful solo, low and deep and melodic at the beginning of the piece, answered in kind by the Mad Hatter’s oboe. Apparently it doesn’t matter what a person looks like on the outside. It’s what’s on the inside that counts.


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Can you do yoga with a broken foot? And other unrelated thoughts.

I went to my last physical therapy session this morning for that annoying crick in my neck. I haven’t had neck pain since I started PT, plus they gave me lots of exercises to do to keep the neck muscles stronger. And they reminded me about the importance of posture. In fact it feels good to be doing anything remotely athletic given I can’t run at the moment. Which makes me wonder just what I can do with a broken foot. I’m thinking maybe I can do some simple yoga? Do you think? I’ve got a few yoga dvds…I think I”ll dig some out and see what might work with a broken foot.

On another front I have two interviews scheduled for this coming week. One is tomorrow for holiday temp work at a bookstore. Another is later in the week for part-time library work. Wish me well, I’d like to try to do them both. Even with a broken foot.

Thirdly, Katie graduated from intermediate dog obedience this past week. She wasn’t particularly well behaved on our last day of class, probably because I didn’t work with her as much, and we only went to the park to practice our homework once during the week. But she still graduated. So next week we move on to advanced obedience. We considered for a moment not enrolling her, as a cost saving measure, but she loves school so much. And it certainly works out some of her energy on school nights, which works for me. Especially with a broken foot.