It was dog days at the pool yesterday! Cool beans, no? Here are some pictures of our goofy canines enjoying their chance to swim … or not.
First off is Chaco. He got in ONCE. He loves water, but jumping in … no. He won’t do that. He’d rather stand at the edge and whine at the tennis ball/frisbee/whatever it is that you’ve asked him to retrieve. Walking in is slightly better, but he’s still tentative when it comes to letting go of the steps and *swimming* out into the great blue … pool. Here he is, though:
Zamba’s another story altogether. She can swim like nobody’s business. Seriously, when we went to Mud Lake when she was about 13 weeks old (she’s 17 now), she jumped right in and swam in a horseshoe shape beautifully. Then, she got out and investigated the reeds and mud. She wouldn’t get back in.
Yesterday was slightly better. She put her paws in without any cajoling.
And then she went “diving” for a tennis ball! (We’re amazed by this. You wouldn’t catch Chaco putting his head underwater in a million years.)
But she wouldn’t swim. “Ben,” I prodded, “she’s got to at least get wet. Can you please put her in?” So he lowered her into the water about 10 feet from the steps. (You’re not allowed to enter the pool, by the way. It’s dogs-only.) What did she do? She swam in a small circle and then tried to get out RIGHT THERE. You’d think the water was boiling or something!
We managed to coax her to the stairs. She got out and showered everyone around her by shaking off. Then she ran off to eat crabapples.
We threw her in a couple more times after that. Each time, she swam around like Michael Phelps. Then, she’d make it to the stairs, shake off, and run away so that she wouldn’t be put back in the water. You’d think we were trying to drown her or something with all her running off!
THEN came the really funny part of the day: our departure. The pups were exhausted, so we decided to leave. They were already waiting at the park’s door. However, there was a couple leaving with their two dogs: a golden retriever and a pug, and they accidentally let Chaco and Zamba through. So now we had two dogs running around like maniacs in the parking lot. “Chaco! Zamba!” I called futilly. Chaco I wasn’t so worried about (he’s so scared of strangers that he wouldn’t go NEAR them, and he’s pretty smart around cars), but Zamba … I wasn’t sure about Zamba.
I should’ve gotten some pictures, because she was adorable. She followed the retriever and pug’s people out to their car and HOPPED IN. Meanwhile, I was running behind her the entire time, trying to prevent her from doing just that. Then, she flopped down on the seat like a wet rag. Have you ever tried to lift a sixty-pound, sopping wet puppy who’s entirely limp? It’s not easy. Fortunately, the retriever and pug’s parents thought it was hilarious.
And not to jinx myself, but we haven’t had any accidents today!
First, Zamba’s doing really well. We’re even leaving her alone in the house (not alone alone, but alone as in we’re not in the same room as she is), and she hasn’t pee-ed, pooed, or chewed up anything valuable. =) Score one for us! No, score many for us! A million! No, a gazillion! I’m very happy.
I take that back … in the time it took me to run downstairs and retrieve my iPhone, a pee stain appeared on the floor. Sigh. We’ll get it one of these days (years?), though.Now for some photos of places I would HATE, courtesy of the Boston Globe. The first is a swimming pool in South Korea:
And if that doesn’t cool you off, may I suggest a calming retreat to the shore? You know, so that you can relax with the soothing sound of the waves and seagulls …
These places look like HELL to me. I can’t IMAGINE going to either one of them voluntarily! Am I just weird? I wouldn’t have enjoyed this BEFORE my strokes, and now … NO, thank you.So about my job: I’m “co-teaching” one class of advanced math (algebra I and algebra II) to middle schoolers at the Watershed School. There is a ‘real’ teacher who’ll be there, but as the year goes on we’ll be ramping up my participation so that *I* give the lessons. It sounds pretty good; I’m excited about teaching gifted and talented students, I’m co-teaching and won’t be in charge of the lessons at first, and it’s only one class a day.
THEN WHY AM I SO NERVOUS?!?! There are several specific things that I’m terrified of. (1) The class starts at 9:30am. That is very early for me, and I’m scared that I won’t be on an “early sleep schedule” by the start of school. (2) I’m scared of the kids. This is ridiculous, I know. However, middle schoolers can be disruptive, annoying, and mean. What if I don’t get any sleep the night before, I get into class, the kids are swinging from the rafters in the classroom (which is what my class did when we had a substitute in sixth grade), and I follow my modus operandi, which is to stay absolutely silent? (3) What if the other teacher asks me to write? (I’ve told her that I can’t, but what if she forgets?) What if she asks me to demonstrate the solution to a problem for the class? Do I write VERY slowly, keeping my letters big? Do I bring a student up to the board to write FOR me? Or do I admit to the entire class that I can’t write because of a stroke and simply beg off? I don’t know!!!
School starts September 11. Knock on wood, I’ll be over my phobias by then. Wish me luck!
Those of you who’ve lived in California understand about car chases. About four times a year, a car chase (preferably in prime time) would eclipse EVERYTHING else on television. They’d get a helicopter pilot up there, and a cameraman, and you’d watch until it was over. It doesn’t matter if it was a fast chase or a slow chase (and yes, I’ve witnessed one of those, too). It doesn’t matter if it’s a notorious criminal (a.k.a. O.J.) or some regular punk. Everything just stops.
“OK, Jim, we’ve got him in our sights now. Do you think he’s going to get on the 5? YES!!! He’s now headed north on the 5. He’s going about 17 miles an hour … now he’s down to 16.”
“15, Joe. He’s going 15mph.”
“Thank you, Jim. Going 15mph up the 5. This is so exciting! Oh my goodness … my goodness … he hit the curb. The curb! The curb! HE HIT THE CURB!!!”
It would continue for 20 or 30 minutes like that. As the hands on the clock turned, we missed our favorite shows. It was fun for the first three minutes, especially if you heard the helicopters churning overhead, and then? Then it just sucked. We’d sit there hoping the driver had forgotten to fill the tank before going for his exciting drive. Or that he’d crash. Or that the police would catch him. ANYTHING to turn off this “exciting live broadcast”.
Tonight, I watched the news — not something I normally do, but the Olympics had us tuned to NBC and when my recorded show was over, that’s where it dropped me. Anyway, so help me, WE’VE GOT ‘CAR CHASES’ HERE, TOO!
“We’ve gotten a report from a trained spotter that a funnel cloud has been spotted in Happy Canyon. More after this from our anchors hanging out at the [empty] DNC venue.”
“OK, welcome back! We’ve currently got video of this tornado spotted just north of town. The dark stuff you see is dust. It’s kicking up dust as I speak. Wow, this is a big one. Shelby, can you give us some details?”
“Sure, Steve. I’m here in the 9News chopper, far away from the funnel (for those viewers that are concerned), and as you can see, it’s a big tornado. It hasn’t destroyed any houses yet, but it’s sitting dangerously close to them. We’re staying on top of it. Steve?” This continues for 20 minutes, after which the tornado has disappeared, leaving video of a thunderstorm but nothing else too interesting.
“Shelby? Are you there?”
“Yes, Steve.”
“Can you tell us what happened?”
“Well, the tornado has dissipated. About two minutes ago, the funnel appeared to detach from the cloud overhead, and that signaled the end of the rotation. All that’s left now is a swarm of dust over the area where the tornado was on the ground.”
Good grief. I mean, tornadoes are pretty cool — infinitely cooler, in my opinion, than car chases — but when the tornado’s over, I lose interest. Thank you, 9News, for making sure I’m safe. 8(
Hey, y’all! I finished another quilt! And pillowcases and curtains! This idea from www.joanne.com. The fabric, it is nice. (At $9/yard, it should be!) The quilting, however, leaves a little bit to be desired. Or a lot. I bought the cheap batting (doh!), as it was thicker and fit in with my miserly budget, and it just doesn’t work as nicely. But … you can’t really see it. Don’t look too hard. I also made curtains, which are far from perfect but which will do just fine for my purposes. They’re a bargain. Black-out fabric is only $6/yard! I bought three yards to make these curtains. For comparison, white-out blinds for our bedroom cost on the order of $300.
And, just to keep folks happy, here’s Zamba, out to PAR-TAY on Pearl Street:
I may have to take this down, as I haven’t checked with Erica yet, but here’s Cassandra. (Erica, just email me if you’d like me to take this down.) 5 pounds, 2 ounces of utter gorgeousness. Seriously, this is a beautiful baby.
Howdy, folks! Sorry for my long absence. A lot has happened in the week I’ve been gone, so please allow me to catch you up.
I did well on The Women’s Wilderness Trip. It’s not that I took good pictures, because (1) I didn’t, and (2) it was a photography trip, after all, but … drumroll, please … I stayed AWAKE!!! The first night, I slept terribly. I felt like I didn’t sleep at all, actually. I rolled over in the middle of the night and patted my tentmate’s head because I thought she was an animal. I was almost glad to get up at 5am to see the sunrise because i was so fed up with not sleeping. I woke up and hiked up to the first lake; then, I started considering whether or not I could sleep under the rocks scattered around, and decided to return to my sleeping bag. I was also having aphasia problems; I couldn’t think of the name of the rock all around. It’s GRANITE! (No geologist could ever forget that.) So then I tried to think of the term used to describe the granite in the Sierras; I knew it started with a “B”, but I couldn’t recall the actual name. It’s batholith. I needed more sleep.
At least the sunrise was pretty!
Then I went back to my tent and took a nap. It felt FANTASTIC! I slept for three hours, and I had two dreams, so I KNOW I was sleeping. I was so pleased; napping is historically very difficult for me.That afternoon, we hiked up to Chasm Lake. That was pretty fun. We found a field of Columbine that were just beatiful:
Emily overlooking Peacock Pool:
Back at camp, I caught Emily in a shameless “Sierra Designs” pose (they sponsor TWWI, and said they’d welcome submissions for their catalogue):
Then we started to make dinner. Dinner is done very differently than Ben and I do it when we backpack; while we bring in light stuff, like macaroni and cheese, TWWI hikes in gourmet. We had three colors of fresh peppers, green onions, sweet onions, and garlic (blecch). For breakfast, we had a pint of fresh blueberries, a bag of apples, and a bag of oranges. Good grief! All those vegetables are full of water, which weighs a lot. And they have to be stir-fried, which requires a pan and oil. And sauces, like teriyaki and curry. I packed my backpack before arriving at TWWI, and it was heavy (because I brought three lenses and a tripod) but manageable. Once I put my share of the food in, however, it was like strapping a boulder to my back.
The second night I slept really well. (No wonder, after the sleep I’d gotten the night before!) I even woke up at 5 for the sunrise! Unfortunately, it was a bust. Cloudy with a bit of rain in the distance. =P
Suck. What else could I shoot? I WANTED A SUNRISE! I like SUNRISE pictures! Oh well … I shot a bunch of wildflowers instead of a beautiful sky. They turned out pretty well!
These pretty flowers lined the creek on the way to our campsite:
And these flowers were entirely cool. They’re called “saxifrage”, and if you look at the petals, you’ll notice multicolored polka dots. Our guide Danika, a botanist in another life, pointed them out to us. Awesome!
Overall, it was a fun trip. For me specifically, it was a phenominal trip. I told everybody about my strokes, and they were incredibly understanding; they let me sleep in the mornings (and made me breakfast when I woke up!), checked on me during our hike, and they listened to me. The second night, after dinner, I told my saga; nobody laughed at me. Most importantly, I told them about what’s hurt me most: losing friends. The people on the trip were incredibly supportive, and though it still hurts, I’m getting better. I’m still disappointed; I’m still sometimes angry. However, the magnitude of my disappointment is waning, and the frequency of my bouts of anger are fading. I’m on the mend. (And if you’re reading this but have stopped talking to me, PLEASE say something! Even, “I can no longer be your friend because …” or “I think you suck because …”)Whew, I got that out! And, rereading it, it sounds pretty good! Cool.
Now, on to Monday. Ben took me to the Boulder County Fair! This is a fair as it’s meant to be: with vegetables on display (anyone for a homegrown zucchini?), quilts, cake decoration (ha ha … some of the cakes were pretty funny looking), and science fair presentations. The science presentations were nothing to write home about. “Archery”, “How to clean your 22 gauge rifle” and “How to choose the right gun for you” were some of the memorable ones. It’s a good thing this is a farming community fair and not “The Future of Science in America,” because if it were I’d be pretty disappointed.
AND the best part was that it was EMPTY. There were no events on Monday night, and the crowds stayed away. Score one for me!
I didn’t bring my camera, so I didn’t get any pictures. However, I don’t think I needed the camera. Do you ever get images stuck in your head? Good images, not bad ones. Well, I got one stuck in MY head. Ben and I rode the ferris wheel just after sunset, when all the lights were glowing. It was a perfect picture. The temperature was just right, there were no bugs, it was quiet, we had a beautiful view and missed most of it because we were making out. =) That [and an elephant ear] make me and Ben very happy!
OK, so now for the part you’ve all been waiting for: a Zamba update. Zamba, I’m sorry for calling you stupid in my last post. You’re not dumb. However, you are a bit … challenging. She pooed inside three times on Thursday, while Ben was in San Mateo. When I told him about it, he flipped out. We’ve reverted to the “stay in the crate except for the half hour after pooping and peeing” strategy. We haven’t had an accident in three days! Woo-hoo! And for what it’s worth, she knows she’s not supposed to go to the bathroom on the main floor. The problem is that if you lose her and she wanders upstairs or downstairs, she won’t hesitate to let a big, gooey, disgusting, smelly poo loose. So we’re working on that.
On Friday, we arranged to meet some other people with Newf puppies for lunch. Zamba was reunited with one of her littermates, called “Itsy Bitsy” by the breeder. Zamba was nicknamed “Chunker”. Itsy Bitsy and Chunker got to eat together because Itsy Bitsy needed more food and Chunker needed to refrain from eating everybody else’s food. When Zamba saw her sister, she immediately pulled me over to her and Itsy Bitsy attacked her. It was hilarious to watch; Itsy Bitsy weighs 31 pounds, and Zamba’s now up to 45. However, when Itsy Bitsy, a.k.a. Kiki, assaulted Zamba, she rolled over on her back. Kiki’s mom was a little bit embarrassed, but I told her not to worry about it; Zamba should be able to take care of herself.
There was a 17-week-old Landseer (black and white) puppy, Nina, and it was interesting to note the differences between her and Zamba. Nina, like most Landseers, is much more of an alpha than our “Would you like my food, Chaco? Help yourself!” puppy. She barked constantly. She almost escaped from the pen Kiki’s mom brought. Zamba, on the other hand, fell SOUND asleep underneath our feet.
However, there was one ‘difference’ that you couldn’t miss: Zamba, at 14 weeks, was almost as big as Nina was. She is HUGE. Even the other Newfie mommies labeled her as “enormous”. We’re going to have a large dog. =)
And now, for some video. Zamba’s got a redcollar on for most of it, which you can use to distinguish her from the other dogs in the video. Kiki’s collar is pink. The other black Newf is nine-week-old Lucas, and the Landseer is Nina.
Last but not least, I hosted a baby shower for my friend Erica two Sundays ago! She was due on September 10, but gave birth to Cassandra Rhianne this week by C-section due to maternal health concerns. Both Mom and baby are doing well. Congratulations, Erica!
I forgot something: I heard from Dr. Ning, the neurologist I saw in Boston in April, this week. I got some resolution on my ANA test results: they don’t matter. My strokes were caused by my PFOs. =) YAH!!!
