Rescue Grand Slam

The Potting Shed (aka where George Bush voters have to sleep when visiting.)

I made it to my Virginia destination in quite good time yesterday. A record 10 hour drive with no glitches and only one or two state troopers eyeballed in the entire 600 mile drive. Also, I only made quick stops because rest areas creep me out. Every 150 miles, I got out to stretch and fill up on coffee. My gas tank only required one refill. After a year, my Accord still delivers 31 miles to the gallon (more than half of which was mountainous and all of which required air conditioning.) I love this car.

The Pond (if you click on photo, you can see the fish. Fish like cheerios, who knew?)

When I got to my sister's house, no one was home but I heard voices. Following the voices (I never claimed I was a member of Mensa), I found Cayda who was crated and watching Animal Planet. I opened the crate and she greeted me like she would anyone, with lots of slobber and butt wagging. I could have been the burglar, she didn't care; I was the person offering freedom. We got along quite well until she investigated the bags of yarn. Then we had a stern discussion and I put the yarn up. Very high up. In this particular photo, she looks to be paying strict attention to the fact that I told her she'd be sleeping in the woods if she ate that yarn.

The cousin of Jezebel. Very sassy and incredibly spoiled. I pulled her out of the pond twice today. She had jumped in to cool off.

After breakfast today, my niece and I hit the farmer's market in town. We both bought quite a few things we didn't need and went downtown to the vintage clothing store. This is where I rescued two beautiful hand knit items from where they were hiding in obscurity.


One is a beautiful fair isle sweater in black, aqua, pink, purple and turquoise. The inside stranding (above) is as beautiful as the outside. There is no pilling on this sweater at all and I wonder if it was ever worn. Color work doesn't really suit me. It's way more complicated than what I'd ever choose to do and therein lies it's charm for me. There it was, this thing of beauty, hanging on the clearance rack for $10.00. I would never in a million years wear this, but my Rachel will. She'll love the warmth and the duckies.


The other item I found there was a shawl in the palest blush. This item took my breath away. Lace work is difficult. It was knit in a superfine, possibly alpaca, yarn. It's incredibly soft. If there are any flaws in this shawl, I can't find them.

I even know who knit this piece as it had a label (proof this was a labor of love) stitched into it with the knitter's name. Pride of workmanship. It was found in the bottom of a heap of sweaters that were not hand made and possibly constructed (by machine) of acrylic. I felt so sad for the knitter, though I'm sure she isn't aware it was in a resale shop. I won't say how much it cost because, like the sweater above, I think it was sold for a song. That would hurt me to know if it were my name on this beautiful shawl, I'm sure she'd be offended too. I wondered about this piece and I googled her name to not much avail. I'll check Ravelry, but I'm not so sure I'd find her there. Although the fiber arts world is large, it's also tightly knit so to speak. If anybody out there knows Niki Gliptis, send her my way. I have her masterpiece.

In the mean time, I'll give this piece a soak and block it. I already checked, it looks great with my shawl pin.

Womanly Ways

Having not had an un-spayed female dog in my house in many, many years, I had forgotten the joys of the female heat cycle. Aside from the general mess, I've come to believe that many of Jezebel's obnoxious behaviors are due to her heat cycle.

My floors have never been washed so often. Keeping this dog in pull-ups can be a full time job. She is an accomplished escape artist in more ways than one. I go through the trouble of cutting a hole in the pull-ups for her tail and slipping them backwards on the dog-voila, instant dog menstrual pads complete with tail escape hatch. She responds by first looking humiliated and then by adeptly stepping out of them. Note the down and back position of her ears and the "silent tail." This dog is not happy in her embarrassing panties.

There is blood splatter here that one doesn't need luminol to appreciate. It would make a crime scene investigator wonder just who I stabbed and where the hell I put the body. He'd be able to follow a trail Hansel and Gretel couldn't miss. Around and around the kitchen table in circles it goes, then makes a beeline from the front door to the back door and back again. It's everywhere and quite impossible to keep up with. If I happen to be cooking, this hound can barely sit still. She prances in circles in my kitchen's cooking area waiting for a morsel of something other than dog food to fall from the counter. Drip, drip, drip. At this time, the mess is almost more than I can manage in my germ laden state. It can't be helped for now, she'll be spayed in a month and therefore only has a few more weeks to embrace the joys of her womanhood.

She must be watched like a hawk in the yard. She'll not turn down a single opportunity to jump the fence in a never-ending effort to find conjugal dog heaven. She is shameless. Her tail is often high and to one side with her behind in the air. This place has turned into a canine anatomy and physiolgy classroom/dog brothel. I'm thankful we've not had inclement weather, at least I'm able to enjoy sitting outside with her. I don't know if it's our constant presence when she is out or if my makeshift head knocker on the gate is keeping her on this side of the fence. I have noticed her checking out other fence climbing options. I'll run out of garden tools if this keeps up.

She is INCREDIBLY clingy. An annoying feature to be sure. If you're sitting and trying to do something, she'll nudge her way in, tuck her head down and then stick her ass in the air. God I hope this goes away, it's beyond offensive. Nothing however, beats the disgusting attention to detail she is giving herself in her nether-regions. This, is something else.

I read this knowledgeable info from Pet Bits For You. The parenthetical comments are my own:

Do not take her for walks at all, but keep her confined to the fenced back yard for the whole time. (Ummm OK, I'll try, but this beast has a one track mind and is far more capable of escaping than I ever thought possible. She's not affectionately nicknamed Jezebel for no purpose-she's earned that name. Also, I am running low on garden tools.) The reason for this is that she will urinate frequently while on a walk, just to let the boys know she is available.(Does this explain the piddling inside the house? God, I hope so for her sake because I'll tolerate that bullshit just so long and then it's doggie prison for un-rehabilitated dogs for her.) The males will pick up the scent and follow her trail to your home.You really don't want a motley collection of canine suitors hanging around your house. (If that happens, I'm charging an entry fee.)

(Can Ellie Mae come out to play?)

This particularly joyful state of affairs has put the kabosh on this dog going to the mountains this week. Thats too bad because we were heading to the birthplace of black and tan coonhounds (a breed created by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.) Perhaps she would have run into a relative. She shall stay home instead because her "condition" is just too much to handle right now. I know she'd love the ability to tree whatever her little heart desires, but her mating behaviors are just too unmanageable at this time. Besides, can you imagine the motley suitors following us from rest area to rest area all the way to Virginia and back?

Don't Take Your Love to Town

Jezebel is an escape artist. A smooth talking, hard headed escape artist. I went out yesterday to buy her a little jail cell which she didn't seem to mind so much and today, she flew the coop. The devil. Part of me was secretly relieved for the sake of all my yarn and the other part of me was stunned.

The men folk couldn't call me (no cajones) so they put the eldest girl-child in the tough position. She called me from her work where I work to let me know the men had failed at the simple task of dog sitting. Someone had let her out and the little squirt with the legs of Secretariat hopped the fence.

Now here I am living in my fishbowl at work, unable to leave and sick with worry. I'm worried because she came from a little town with not much traffic to a big urban area and obviously she has no common sense. I thought for sure I'd hear she was whacked by a truck or car. It was not to be.  I did the only sane thing I could think of and had the girl-child call the local police with a description of the runaway.  Hound.  Blue Collar.  In heat. Jumps. Wags Tail.  Begs. Mooches.  Steals yarn.

The police called me at work an hour later to tell me that someone in the neighborhood crime watch had captured the little felon. They asked for a description which matched and said we'd have to pick her up or they'd take her to the doggie lock-up.  I can just picture her on an MSNBC prison show.  I told you she's a bad, bad dog. Part of me wanted to play tough love with her and let her ride it out in dog prison. I just couldn't do it so I had the man-child pick her up. He had some choice words to say about her but if he had said them to me, I would have had to wash his mouth out with soap.

I just hope she didn't get herself "into trouble" since it is her "time of the year".  Hussy.

Today's music selection is for Jezebel.  I'm gonna go have a beer.

God Give Me Wisdom....please

 I have renamed the sweet dog we got yesterday Jezebel.  A name that generally is used to describe a "wicked female."  Thats her, wicked.  I know now why she was shown the door.  She is bad, bad, bad.  It has not a thing to do with being gun shy.  No indeed.  She is pure sass and spite wrapped up in a cute little body with a beguiling and misleading sweet face.

Not even the way she follows me can appease me.  All cute and wagging her tail like she is the happiest puppy soul on earth.

Not even the deep, beautiful baying sound of her voice can warm my heart.

Not even the way she has shaken my precious Duke out of his slumbering ways.  

Not even the way she helped me put Rachel to bed.  She just jumped right in there and snuggled up to my sweet baby and kissed her goodnight like she's been doing it for years.  Since kids with disabilities can be unpredictable, not every dog will warm to them.  This one did.  I'm certain now it's all for show.  And brownie points.

What could upset me to the point I have to struggle to forgive this creature?  What could turn my heart so cold?  This bad little doggie has a "thing" for yarn.  I have rescued 3 skeins of yarn from this little devil.  At first, it was sort of funny the way she stuck her nose right into a plastic bag and pulled out the cheap acrylic baby yarn.  That was cute.  In 10 seconds flat, she jumped on the sofa with the skein in her mouth, undid the wrapper and began to unwind it.  Like a freaking pro.  I immediately recognized this as a BAD sign.  I promptly went around hiding the yarn that was just laying around the joint, including the new stuff.  Then I got sidetracked by the siren call of all that brand new yarn.

I got out my yarn swift and ball winder and began to wind the skeins into balls.  This is ordinarily a peaceful process for as the crank on the ball winder turns and winds my yarn, my own tension unwinds.  I felt the calm like I'd just swallowed a xanax only this was purely yarn induced.  Until the evil little puppy decided to take a flying leap from the floor to the table to check it out.  The yarn, not the table.  I scold the little beast (still trying to be gentle since I'm sure she is out of sorts with the newness of things) and place her on the floor.  I resume winding my yarn and just when I'm getting in my zone again I hear a noise, look behind me and see her with a ball of yarn in her mouth that is connected to a live work in progress.  A moebius scarf.  OMG.  Now I'm really worried.  That was a skein of Mountain Goat and was connected to a skein of mohair and Mountain Moguls and she has dragged it all 8 feet from where it was perched.  All very dear in a costly way and a gift for my yoga instructor.  This dog is possessed!  I scold and she looks at me like OK, I get it, NO YARN!

In the meantime, I put the dog in the yard and finished hiding all my yarn (she does follow me everywhere so I didn't want her to see my hiding spots.)  This is doubly difficult because outside of my family, nobody really knows how difficult hiding "all my yarn" may be.  It's pretty much everywhere since I like to display my stash as the art I think it is.  It's in bowls, vases, on tabletops in working bags and one skein of camel yarn is wrapped around a carved camel's neck.  Remember?  I'm Lebanese-we all have a camel in our homes.   It's a task to hide it all. The dog begins to yodel in the backyard (charming me with her soulful voice-dammit) and Duke goes out to join her.  All is well and I let down my guard and forgive her.  Fool.

Later, as my oldest daughter packs up her stuff to leave for the evening, I hear her giggle and quietly say "OH NO."  The beast has found my pink sweater.  Still with live stitches on the needles.  My daughter was trying to cover for her-like she's this little devil's sibling or something.  I scooped up the sweater and put it up high but still haven't had the heart to look and see if anything is awry.  My heart can't take it right now.  I think I'd have a meltdown if I had to find and pick up lost boucle stitches.  By this point, I'd had this Jezebel for all of 10 hours and I think she took 10 years off my life.

In the morning, I'm off to find a crate.  Or a shovel.  I haven't decided which would be best.  

Sweet Beyond Words

BD (before Duke), I wanted a standard poodle. I love those dogs. They're smart and beautiful. I'm not the kind of girl who dresses her dog up. I think they're gorgeous all on their own without pompoms and hairdos. My son who was quite young at the time told me if I got a poodle that he wouldn't love it. He was serious. So we got Duke the Giant Dobie. We had pick of the litter and Duke was the most obnoxious of all. He pushed the other pups out of the way (muscled them out) and climbed into my son's lap and promptly fell asleep. He has been the ruler of the roost since. When I showed the men in my house the dog I wanted to rescue they both nixed it. I promptly showed them what I think of that and brought her home today. My son is smitten.

This is Ellie (BK wants to call her Shelby but that is his Mustang fixation showing.) She is a very affectionate dog. She has endeared herself to Rachel (I think it's the long tail) by climbing into her lap. She has already figured out that Rachel leaves crumbs. I was relieved this meeting between Rachel and Ellie went so well. If it hadn't, we would have had to get rid of one of them.

Duke is not so happy, but Ellie is trying awfully hard to please him. He is behaving like a pain in the arse. Grumpy. And aloof. He hasn't been mean, just grumpy. Ellie is a pup and Duke's an older fella. He's probably miffed that she got to the butter that was out on the counter before he could. Ahhhh. It's good to have two dogs again.

She has a sweet face with familiar markings like a brown muzzle, eyebrows and (partly speckled) bow tie. She shows some pretty good indoor manners (well, some.) Someone has trained her to fetch. She races to the door to say both goodbye and hello. How could someone just dump her? Can it be as simple as finding her useless because she is gun shy?

She stood in the car all the way home and was at times half in my lap as though she wanted to drive. Right now, she couldn't get much closer. I'm curled up on the sofa and she is draped across my feet (and I think they're going numb.) Sort of clingy.

Oh. Lucky me. It's "that time" of the year for her. Sheesh. I can't believe she isn't spayed. So tomorrow, we're off to the vet (I need a first or last appt--don't want my pooch getting jumped) to see just how she really is.

I haven't had the pleasure of hearing her bark yet. I'm told she sounds just like a hound. I have visions of the hounds in Cool Hand Luke. I hope so. I think I'll find it charming-unless she lets loose at 3 am.