Category Archives: PMS (and it’s not the medical one)

Carpet Cleanup Caper

PMS (and it's not the medical one), Puppy Posts, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Carpet Cleanup Caper

I bargained hard when Hubby wanted to get a second dog. We already had one Norwegian Elk Hound. These dogs are notorious for shedding. I even have a T-shirt that says “EMBRACE THE FUR” above a silhouette of an Elk Hound Dog.

We did indeed have dog hair all over the place.  Dogie Fur “dust bunnies” were overrunning the house the way real rabbits would overpopulate a community in the absence of predators to keep their numbers down. Dog hair covered the carpet, the sofa, the upholstery in the car too. We purchased a Dyson vacuum as the cost of replacing dust bags in the old Sears canister unit was costing us a fortune. But vacuuming was almost a daily chore and Hubby was not sharing the work load here. We started a discussion about what would need to happen if a second prolific shedding machine was added to our household.

It was a given that the fur would increase. So how to make it less of a challenge to keep cleared up? If fur stuck to the carpet and upholstery then we could replace it with wood flooring and leather covered furniture and car seats. I bargained hard. All of this needed to be done before the second puppy arrived in our home.

Hubby decided his first task was to remove the old carpeting and replace this with wood flooring.  As newcomers to the Great Northwest, we spent a few weekends down at the local IKEA store.  There was no store like this in Arizona, although I hear there is now one location out in Tempe. I can only imagine how the locals there are enjoying the IKEA cuisine! I doubt the hardy pioneers of the Southwest been daunted by the recent “horse meat” stories. I seem to recall a shop called “Ye Olde Meat Market” that sold horse meat.  The shop garnered much business when local beef prices went through the roof back in the “seventies” they put a limit on how much one could purchase at each visit.

Anyway we’d spent many weekend afternoons, down in Kent looking at the new fangled IKEA store, specifically at the varieties of manufactured flooring. Of course one developed quite an appetite wandering through the maze.  Inevitably we dined on the Meatball Special in the cafeteria located conveniently at the middle of the maze, so that shoppers could refuel and continue on with their shopping quests through the rest of the store.

Hubby decided the Pergo laminate  flooring would be a relatively inexpensive way to replace the gray carpet that was currently installed in our recently purchased home in Seattle. Anything we could do to brighten up the coloring in the home would be welcomed. We made it through our first winter of no sun but saw the need to improve our surroundings artificially when at all possible to add more light and improving the color scheme.  The blond wood flooring seems to be a solution to our darkness issue as well as provide smooth surfaces to be easily vacuumed of dog hair.

For some reason many of Hubby’s Home Improvement Projects take place when I am out of town on business trips. This is probably due to the fact that it would be quieter around the house with me out of screaming range.  My youngest son’s room walls would probably not have been painted bright blue if I’d been home at the time. Oh well.

 

The carpet replacement job was well underway when I left town for a Gourmet Foodie convention in San Francisco.  The old grey carpet was stripped away and safely at the local dump. The dump is called the sanitary landfill up here, but it is still the same scenario as Phoenix. You drive in and they weigh your car before and after and charge for the weight lost. Hmmm, I wonder if that would work for a weight loss clinic. The work of cleanup and preparation for replacement with the new flooring seems a fairly benign activity to happen while “Mom was gone”.

Upon my return I saw that the floor debris was completely gone and the sub flooring not yet in place.  I could actually admire the cleanup work and rejoice that finally he had completed a job without leaving a monumental mess for me to clear away!

Back in the kitchen, inspired by the Gourmet Foodie offerings at the convention, I looked for a favorite saute pan. I started to whip up a tasty treat to reward my hard working Hubby. I reached up to retrieve the pan hanging on the pot rack in the kitchen.  As I pulled it down I noticed it was a bit dusty.  I chalked this up to not cooking with it for a few weeks.  Later on I needed a strainer which was also located on the pot rack. This item was equally dusty and upon closer inspection was covered with dog hair as well.

All of the pots and utensils were coated with dirt and hair. What had happened?

I went to the closet that held various cleaning equipment meaning to grab my vacuum and do a bit of clean up of the area.  I glanced over at the Shop Vac® and clearly it had not been used in a few weeks, the cord was still wound up neatly from the last time I had deployed this equipment.  However the leaf blower was there cord sprawled all over the floor, the attachment still in place too, indicating that Hubby had recently used it.

Even though I knew it was the wrong time of year to be blowing fallen leaves I could not resist asking what the heck he’d been doing with that leaf blower. Sure enough the answer I received more than explained the dust and dog hair that covered all of my cooking equipment on the pot rack.  In a brilliant ploy to save time and be efficient, Hubby had literally blown out the back door, all of the construction debris. Of course he never looked up! Obviously he didn’t cook using any pots or pans during this time. In my head was a cartoon-like image of Hubby screaming “Woo-hoo!” as he waved the leaf blower.  He opened the back sliding door to our deck and proceeded to blow, through the kitchen, all of the accumulated dust, wood scraps and contributions of hair from the family Norwegian Elk Hound, into the back yard.  Did I happen to mention the dog is a male? They probably did a  high-fiver (or pawer) each other in congratulations on the job well done.

Happily the wood flooring went down without further incidents. Leather sofa and chairs were purchased. Our new puppy was driven home in my newly upholstered car. Clean up of fur was easier and we enjoyed living with two Elk Hound pups, fur and all.

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Channeling Erma

Living on the Spectrum, PMS (and it's not the medical one), , , , , , , , ,

I believe I channel Erma when I cook.

I refer to Erma Bombeck, the American humorist whose columns included a piece called “Substitutions, A Piece of Cake”.

Erma started out her career writing for Dayton Journal Herald. Very quickly her articles were nationally syndicated and loved by readers all over the world.

I believe Erma and I are kindred spirits, especially when we tie on the aprons and pull out the pots and pans.  I too grew up in the Midwest not far from Dayton, Ohio, where she was raised.

In the column I mention above, she substitutes ingredients with reckless abandon. Her hilarious results did not remotely resemble the finished product described in the original recipe. When you live out in the country, a good 30 minute drive from the local Kroger grocery, you may have to improvise… just a little bit.

Tonight I made “White Bean and Chard Soup”. This is a family favorite, made frequently.  It can be thrown together in about 30 minutes. It’s one of those “Go To” recipes that I have in my plastic green recipe box.

The avocado shade of green gives it away; it is an old box. The top hinges are broken.  I have to keep sliding them back into the grooves on the bottom half of the box. It is treasure trove of irreplaceable recipes. Some are so old and faded that if I did not already know them by heart I’d be searching the internet for similar recipes.

A favorite is my grandmother’s recipe for Spaghetti Sauce. Ingredients include “one 5 oz can of tomato paste; to be rinsed out and refilled with red wine”. This is to be added to the sauce and simmered for an additional 30 minutes.

Priceless! Just for the nostalgia factor alone.

I received this recipe box as a Betty Crocker promotional give away. I loved it because it was much bigger than regular recipe boxes. My Mom had a little white enamel box, decorated with red fleur–de–lis. It was rusted at the edges, from years of use in steamy Midwest kitchens.

I was in my “Earth Mama” stage of life.  I cooked from scratch with whole food ingredients. I immediately tossed all of Betty’s preprinted recipes that involved use of canned soup or boxed cake mix. The alphabetized place holders came in handy. The extra blank cards were put to use. I filled the box with my tried and true family favorites.

Prepping for the evening meal, I was in trouble.  I looked in the pantry. No cans of white beans! There was certainly not time to soak and cook the dried ones.  Going out to the store was not the least bit appealing.  We were in the middle of a drizzly, Seattle winter day. At 4:00pm, it was already dark.

Lucky me!  I found 2 cans of Black Turtle on another shelf. The rest of my ingredients were pretty close to the original recipe. Who would truly notice that I substituted Kale for the Swiss chard?

“Is this KAAALE?” Hubby’s exaggerated pronouncing of the word gives anyone within earshot a clear idea on his lack of affection for greens.

I strategically first suggested a different entrée; Hearty Pumpkin soup. Hubby likes his pumpkin in the form of pie.   He was happy to hear the 2nd choice would be the White Bean and Chard recipe.  Good thing he voted for that one right away. I did not have a third recipe to offer that would not involve a major shopping trip.

Our middle son, dining with us on this evening, happens to be totally blind. He certainly would not notice the bean substitution. Black turtles are about the same shape and size as White Canella beans. If you cut the black ones in half, guess what? They are white inside!

This soup is so full of veggies that it makes a great entrée. I love it topped with a poached egg. Add some crusty whole wheat bread to dip into the egg yolk and the broth, there is no need for more than a glass of wine and maybe some dessert.

Hubby enters the kitchen and lifts the lid of the pot. He loudly announces the obvious; “There are black beans in this soup!”  I confirm “yes, indeed these are Black Turtle Beans.”

Hubby stirred suspiciously through the liquid mixture simmering on the gas burner. He replaced the lid on my Le Crueset® soup pot.

“What recipe is this?” he asks.  I assure him that this is the usual recipe with a substitution with the type of bean only.

Well just another slight change. I used Sun Dried tomatoes in EVOO. I normally would use canned Organic S&W roasted and peeled tomatoes that for this recipe.

And of course there was the Kale. But when greens are cooked they pretty much all look the same. I didn’t trouble him with this additional detail.

My son, now alerted to the switch on the beans, is asking all sorts of questions about the soup and dinner in general. I assure him this will be great and he will enjoy every spoonful.

It helped to remind him of the Flourless Chocolate Torte topped with Caramelized Pears that was for dessert.

Dinner went off without further challenges. I grated lots of Parmesan cheese over the servings.  Subterfuge needed to distract my diners from the fact that we didn’t have Aged Balsamic vinegar. Recipe called for vinegar to drizzle on top of the servings.

Hubby was delighted to try out Tabasco sauce on his poached egg topper. Tabasco and Sirracha Hot sauce are his usual condiments of choice on most entrees anyway.

Erma would be proud! Thanks to the chronicles of her adventurous culinary spirit, I certainly have little inhibition when the need to improvise arises.

I wish the Erma Bombeck Cook Book existed.  I’d love a quest to cook my way through all of her recipes? I’d substitute ingredients freely and blog about the results. Maybe write a cookbook? Hmmmm …

My recipe substitutions rarely result in “Erma Bombeck recipe disasters.  Not many of my entrees get tossed onto the compost heap.  My meals are not fed to the “In Sink Erator” garbage disposal. My culinary experiments turn out great!

I write down those “amended” versions on one of the blank cards and file in my big green recipe box.

PS: here is my recipe: Chard and White Bean Stew

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What’s For Breakfast?

PMS (and it's not the medical one), , , , , , , , , , , ,

What’s For Breakfast? Such an innocent question! NOT!

Me to Hubby: “What would you like for Breakfast this morning?”

Hubby:  “I don’t know, what are my choices?”

Me: “Well it is Sunday, so I could cook something more complicated.”

Hubby: “I don’t know, tell me what the choices are, please.”

Me: “OK, there are eggs and bread so I could make something like French toast. There is yogurt and granola, or I could make hot cereal…”

Hubby:  “I’ll just have raisin toast.”

Me: “That was not one of the options I just listed.”

Hubby:  “Oh, now you are going to be difficult.”

Me: “You obviously WANTED raisin toast, why didn’t you just say so in the first place?”

This is going to go south fast and I have choices.  I can put raisin toast in the toaster oven and walk away. Or I can continue the conversation. I grab the bag of Ezekiel 4:9 Organic Sprouted Wheat Cinnamon Raisin bread from the freezer. There are four slices, counting the heel of the loaf,  in the bag. Here is another “choice situation” for Hubby. How many slices does he want this morning?

For those who are not hip to the whole “Sprouted Whole Grain Bread” product scenario, this is pretty special stuff. There is a reason it is kept in the freezer. At almost $5 a loaf it is ridiculously expensive and I do not want to have a single slice go to waste! The grocery department at our local health food co-operative is also cognizant of the potential loss of value on the product. The store stocks all of the Ezekiel 4:9 types of bread and other similar short shelf life bakery products in the frozen food section too. This is where I got the inspiration for maximizing the life of the raisin toast in my home.

So you can see the potential for waste of a perfectly good slice of this rather expensive product begs the question I ask; “How many slices?”  We’ve had days when Hubby only wants one slice and I’ve toasted two. He is too full to eat the second slice or in too much of a hurry to get catch the bus, etc. Once toasted, the extra slice moves quickly into the status of a pariah.  It can’t be put back and served up later. Hubby is way too picky for that trick to work.

He hates dry toast. Hubby will not consume any toasted product that has been in the toaster oven too long for his delicate sensitivities to tolerate and consume. Not burnt mind you, just in there a little too long. The inner portion of the slice has lost its soft texture and is therefore no longer acceptable for Hubby to chew and swallow without the possibility of gagging.  It is almost impossible to reheat the “extra slice” rejected by him on a previous morning without his detecting this trickery and rejecting it outright.

So Hubby elects for two slices this morning. After all it is the weekend and he has leisure time to consume it with several over-sized mugs of Organic Sumatra freshly ground coffee which is heavily laced with his favorite Dari Gold Hazelnut flavored creamer.

I leave the kitchen to go work on some laundry needing immediate attention in its cycle. Upon my return I see that Hubby has taken his two slices from the toaster oven at just the right time, slathered them with Sunflower butter and has eaten one slice already.  I have returned to the kitchen and retrieved my two slices from the toaster oven, spread on some Almond butter and taken a seat beside Hubby at the table.

“Oh, oh.” He has grabbed the “end piece” of the loaf from the depths of the toaster without seeing the other two slices further back on the rack. The heel pieces sits on the plate, barely spread with any of the Sunflower seed butter, growing colder by the minute, clearly NOT going to be consumed by Hubby this morning.

Me: “Why did you take the heel? I know you do not like all that extra crust.”

Hubby:  “I thought there were two heels in there and I was trying to be nice.”

Me: “But you don’t eat the heels, you don’t like them. Would you like to trade with me?”

Hubby: after about 2 seconds of hesitation, “Yes, I’d like to trade.”

At least now all slices of that expensive toasted Ezekiel 4:9 Cinnamon Raisin toast will be consumed by the humans in our family and not  by the gaping maw of the In Sink Erator®  Badger 500 garbage disposal in our kitchen.

Hubby used to simply toss his unwanted and uneaten slices of toast directly into the trash can, on his way out the door. I caught him a few times and rather than listen to me complain about wasting food, he became stealthier.  The subterfuge now enacted when Hubby’s toast becomes inedible for whatever reason, is to “disappear” the dried out or over toasted piece by stuffing it into the garbage disposal. Of course running the unit would make noise and give him away. Hubby hopes that I won’t notice the toast hiding in the dark depths. The toast will simply disappear under the onion peelings or other refuse fed to the metal monster under out sink later that day. Kind of like those dead bodies that are hidden in the trunks of cars at the junk yard awaiting their turn on the crusher belt. The evidence of the crime is disposed of and no one is the wiser after the smashed metal hunks hit the smelter.

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We Cook with Gas!

PMS (and it's not the medical one), , , , , ,

My Hubby is a “handy man”. Our boys all think so too. A recent Father’s Day gift was a “Tool Man” tie. Note that we have only sons. I am sure that if a daughter were involved in the gift decision it may not have been the Tool Tie.

My hubby’s handy man skills emerged later on in our marriage. During the dating / living together stages he showed little enthusiasm for fixing anything around the house. In fact I secretly rejoiced, when upon viewing a flooded floor next to my water heater, he stated that he’d have to look into some home repair manuals when he had his own home. He walked away from the scene, content to let a “professional” deal with this mess.  This appeared to be a man who would be OK with calling a repairman. Hallelujah!

I was a fairly “handy” woman in my own right.  Having been single for a few years I’d managed to install a ceiling fan, remove and replace a garbage disposal, and had even scrambled up onto the roof of my southwestern home and replace the water pump on the evaporation cooling unit. Hubby had no real opportunities to demonstrate his mechanical prowess during the early stages of our life together.This changed as soon as the “I Do” part happened.

Hubby moved into my existing home and now had concern for items like leaking hot water tanks, sagging gates  and other miscellaneous items that he’d been eyeing, during our courtship.  I found that his passion was to work in the yard and  garden. There was already a substantial vegetable garden on the south side of the house, which under his nurturing care increased the production of greens and herbs to the point I was giving away heads Romaine to all my friends!  I even learned to make pesto from cilantro. Hubby’s love of fruit trees was boundless. Added to the typical Southwest Pink Grapefruit and Valencia Orange trees, he planted unusual varieties like “Dolly Parton” lemons, two varieties of limes . Next he added a Peach tree and two Santa Rosa Plums.  Hubby even planted a Dwarf Apple tree that was guaranteed to grow in desert climates.  At one point I considered signing him up for  “Plant Buyers Anonymous” meetings. I swear I saw a brochure for this on the bulletin board at Home Depot!

I truly became concerned when I saw that he moved plants around the yard like we women might rearrange the furniture in the house. He couldn’t plant the Plum trees next to the Mexican Limes… they’d get too tall and provide too much shade. He needed to move them around!  Digging all those holes eventually meant that Hubby learned the location of the underground utility lines. We had the our city’s Home Safety Department on speed dial.

The most memorable event was the time he “found” the gas lines on the west end of our back yard. Even the fire department arrived for this occasion. Indeed the neighbors probably thought we were hosting a party for personnel of our city’s public utilities.  Both the gas company and the local firemen from our city crowded into the back yard to look at and listen to the hissing gas lines that had been breached with Hubby’s shovel.

Flash forward about ten years. We relocated to the  Seattle area. Moving only provided many additional opportunities to meet new personnel at various water, gas and electrical utilities in the great Northwest.

We’d been spoiled by the luxury of a gas grill in our backyard down in the Southwest. Many a meal was grilled in our own back yard and the best part was that we never had to refill Propane bottles! Our cast iron El Patio gas grill was fueled by in line gas that ran from our house main across the back yard. Remember those visits from the Gas Company and firemen I mentioned?

Hubby set about to recreate this convenience in our new home in Seattle.  Never mind that the house had no actual gas lines. He did research and found that indeed there was gas available to our home. The lines came up the street. He just needed to link into those lines and bring the gas into our home via copper pipes.  Welding copper was no problem. Just about every boy has had a welding kit as a toy or at the very least had some experience with welding in Shop class, right?

So how hard could it be to plumb a home that was not constructed with any gas lines? This project was before Internet searching and You Tube technology. But Hubby is a very good student so he consulted books on the subject. He even called our local gas company office to consult with a woman in Consumer Service and Safety, about when the inspection could happen when he’d finished work on our pipe layout. She freaked out to say the very least that he was going to do this work!  There was a justifiable concern about an amateur homeowner doing work with a combustible substance without the oversight of a professional!

Hubby has regaled many friends and acquaintances with his imitation of his conversation with the high pitched screeching voiced women on the other end of the phone at the local Gas Company. I have to admit it was pretty humorous too, even if it did paint a member of my own sex as a hysterical raving loony.  When she did pause for breath, Hubby did reassure her that a licensed contractor would be inspecting each and every joint, before any gas flowed through the pipes!

At the end of this project we did indeed have a gas grill on the back deck. We have enjoyed many wonderful grilled salmon dinners. The fact that we have to work with an umbrella in one hand on many occasions has just become part of our Northwest experience.

While he was at it, he plumbed gas to the kitchen and the garage area for additional appliances.  I will say we saved a bit of money switching to a gas water heater and I truly enjoyed cooking on my new Kenmore Elite Self Cleaning Gas Range with its Convention oven. We were truly “cooking with gas” at last.

Hubby’s “improvement” projects can be trying.  In most cases the end results are truly amazing. It’s just living through the process that proves challenging.

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The Great Elk Hound Escape

PMS (and it's not the medical one), Puppy Posts, , , ,

“The dogs are out!” I am a bit breathless as I share this with Hubby. I’ve roused him from sleep fairly early in the morning and he is still groggy. “What do you mean?”

“I mean the dogs have jumped the fence and are in the wetlands!” I am now exasperated and throwing on suitable clothing to go out onto the street in our neighborhood and round up our furry escapees.

“They could not have jumped that fence” he cries in disbelief. He is now struggling into a pair of jeans and heading down the stairs to the recreation room where a doggie door opens to let our pups into their fenced area in the back yard of our home.

I say fenced, but this fence is a “work in progress” and has been since we brought home our new puppies.

Our property is about one half acre and most of the “back yard” is in fact part of a two acre wetlands preserve. Lots of old growth trees and a floor of ferns, sisal and blackberry brambles while unfriendly to us humans, provide wonderful wild life habitat for birds, squirrels, raccoon and the occasional coyote. We own the lot and pay taxes, but there are many restrictions as to what we can do with the property beyond the rear fence that extends out 12 feet from the edge of the house. There is a steep incline to this part of the lot and so once over the fenced dog area it is a pretty steep drop down to the bottom of the lot. There is a creek running through this and the adjacent lots which adds to the boggy marsh like terrain. Not a place we often go hiking through, but rather admire the flora and fauna from the deck on the rear of the house.

Our older dog was pretty arthritic during his last few years while lived with us at this home. He certainly was never spry enough to jump over the fence and explore the wet lands below. Not so with the two young pups! We had several weeks time before they came home to live with our family, to get ready. My suggestions to Hubby about beefing up the fence structure and adding height fell on deaf ears. The process of keeping one jump ahead of their capacity to leap has become a running gag in the family.

Back to the morning I mention above. I had by now run out the front door and managed to round up both of the adventurous Elk Hounds. They were still young enough to fall for the rattling of their favorite treat bag. They scrambled up the side hill of a neighbor’s yard that was not fenced and willingly came back into our house through the front door. Hubby was still down stairs out in the dog run. Shaking his head in a state of disbelief that the pups could have jumped this fence, he had not closed the door to the run.

Both puppies barreled down the stairs and out their door and demonstrated that they could indeed clear that fence. They leaped like deer right over the fence in front of a very shocked Hubby! Just in case he didn’t believe they could do it. The second time the wily pups were much harder to convince to come back. Dog treats didn’t lure them as easily this time around. Hubby finally had to trek into the brambles a bit before they’d get close enough to be grabbed.

A shopping trip to the local Home Depot ensued immediately after we’d secured the pups in crates at home. By the end of the morning the fence had an additional foot of chicken wire added to the top.

Hubby stood back admiring his handy work. He stated smugly “This should hold them”. I just chuckled and muttered under my breath “Yeah, for a month or so until they grow a bit more”.

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Men’s Briefs

PMS (and it's not the medical one), Puppy Posts, ,

Men’s Briefs:

An oxymoron if I ever saw one! There is nothing brief about the length of time many men wear their underwear. What is the “formula”?  How many days before BVDs are considered unbearable?  I do not want to know how that schedule is calculated nor what criteria are used that determines: “Time to hurl them toward the hamper.” I’m a mother of three boys, this is still an unsolved mystery.

I recall a scene from a movie that depicted a guy, probably a single one, taking stock of his work apparel.  He walks about his flat and grabs a shirt draped over a chair.  It passes the “sniff” test so he buttons up and tucks it into his pants, zipping his fly as he dashes out the door.

One of my friends told a story; her mate was packing for a 2 week trip overseas. He had two pair of underwear in the bag. “Why two?” she asked. He said; “I’ll wear them a week, turn inside out and they’ll be good for another week.  The extra pair is just a back up.”

Jerry Seinfeld’s stand up routine on “Men’s underwear” is very enlightening.  He let us know that some men’s briefs are worn to the point of simply disappearing into thin air. “Poof… they are just gone.”

Today I saw a new twist on this phenomenon.

This morning my husband was searching high and low for some briefs he’d still deemed worthy of wear. Upset, he could not locate said pair. “Where are the dogs? Do they have them?”

Our puppies love to abscond with items of our clothing. No harm is done; they just crawl under the bed and cuddle with us vicariously through our undies, socks and night gowns.  Husband has a whole drawer full of freshly laundered underwear but continued to carry on about a possible hiding place for his Hanes.

The clock was ticking. My husband rides the commuter bus. The last one that goes as an “express” to downtown was scheduled to leave in about ten minutes, so the tension was mounting! He was now fully dressed, coat was on, briefcase and car keys in hand… still searching for those cotton knit boxers!

I went back to the bedroom to straighten sheets and fluff the duvet.  There were his missing briefs…under the pillows I’d thrown onto the bed a few moments earlier.  Each night extra bed pillows get tossed onto the leather easy chair next to our bed. This same piece of furniture is a staging area for my husband’s clothing category called “undecided.” Jeans, shorts, even underwear are in limbo, not yet ready to be deposited into the clothes hamper.  Ditto those boxers that still had a few days wear left on them.

“I found them!”  My message intended to relieve his worries and solve his quest, had the opposite effect. I watched in disbelief as my husband dashed into our master bedroom and completely disrobed from the waist down.  He removed the new knit briefs I’d fished out of his dresser, which he’d donned in desperation and replaced them with the “slightly used” boxers I’d discovered.  He recreated the movie scene described earlier as he dashed out to the garage and zoomed off in pursuit of his bus.

I did not have the nerve to call later and ask if he made it to the stop on time.

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Puppy Paw Print Arts Project

PMS (and it's not the medical one), Puppy Posts, Uncategorized, ,

I truly believe my dogs are in cahoots with one of more of the following: The guys who cleans our carpets, the folks who sell us the “très cher” (too expensive) bags for our equally “spendy”  Miele™ vacuum cleaner or maybe it is my trainer at the health club, who always wants me to do extra workouts in my spare time at home.

All I know is that I go to the club for an hour of working so hard I am dripping in sweat and arrive home to see a “puppy project” that is going to make me delay taking the much needed shower. The latest involved a very deep hole dug in the back yard. So deep that all I could see was the white butt and curly tail of Gordon,  my male Elk hound puppy a midst the flying dirt. But he only supplied the medium. The “art” was charcoal black paw prints well distributed on the 3000 square feet of our light beige carpet, by both he and his sister, Elki.

Elki barks at me with outrage as I vacuum up all her paw print art work. She must feel righteous indignation similar to the chalk artists whose work is hosed away by the street cleaners. In her eyes a thing of beauty and hard work but her inky black paw prints on the light beige carpet incite me to drag out the vacuum. The result is additional expenditure of energy and muscles already exhausted by the prior hour get additional workout as I push through the task.

Pacific Northwest folks are unique in how and what we view as troublesome. Take Blackberries for example.  A delight to eat, they grow wild up here in the Northwest, on very strong spinney canes that rip through the picker’s skin and clothing.  When we first moved to Seattle many years ago we delighted at seeing a host of signs along the road with bold large letters saying FREE and BLACKBERRY but puzzled by the smaller print that up close read “ FREE removal of BLACKBERRY from your property, guaranteed to eradicate these plants forever!”  A cottage industry has sprung up involving owners of goat herds who camp out on one’s blackberry infested property. Goats will eat just about anything and the brambles do not seem to bother them at all.

I’ve been thinking that I should rent out my dirt digging dogs! They are fast and very efficient. They work for dog treats.  Not sure how to entice them to dig on command, but once that detail is solved, we could be in business!

kathy gail@2013

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