Interspecies Contagion - 2

The other day, Resident Family was on the way somewhere - don't really remember where, and actually it's irrelevant to this story - the relevant bit is that Resident Spouse was driving and I was sitting in the passenger seat with the Mimsical Creature sitting on my lap.  Nice and warm, I might add.  The warmth triggered a jaw splitting yawn in me, which resulted in a thorough examination of my molars by the Creature.  I finished yawning and sat with my eyes watering from the effort when Resident Spouse looked over and said, "Hey, you made her yawn!"

"Tain't the first time,"  I responded and reminisced about a warm sunny spring day.  I was rather fond of my little ditty, but realize that Resident Spouse doesn't read my blog so in a fit of pride, I left the original post up on the computer.  The response?

"I thought you were going to say something about pupkus*."  My eyes stop mid-roll.  Hmmm.  I may have to add a stanza...

*  "Pupkus" is the result of a wet nose painting on the window.

Asterisk Pass

Yesterday the fambly and I and my bro and niece headed to Smith Rock State Park for a little hiking and poking around. The day was drop dead gorgeous with crystalline blue skies and not a cloud in sight. The serrated rocks cut the sky with a crispness in sharp contrast to another day I spent at the Park. But I will defer that story for the moment.

Yesterday was just about the perfect temperature for the park. Warm but not roasting in the sun and cool but not freezing in the shade. What a Goldilocks moment. The Mimsical creature got a little toasty, being a black critter, but a dunk or two in the river seemed to cure that ailment and she scrambled up and down the rocks to Asterisk Pass like a little goat. I didn't quite make the pass, being on the road to recovery from a chest cold a couple weeks ago the lungs were willing but not able to sustain the effort. So I sat in the shade partway up and penned a draft of this entry.

As I looked eastward I remembered another day we had spent at Smith Rock with some friends from Hungary. It was not a perfect temperature day, I think it might have been August and the sky had that hot hazy look to it and the edge of the rocks were smearing against the sky. A stiff hot breeze kept the air moving and things somewhat more comfortable than if the air were still.

We had just set up a top rope on a short pitch and were about to do some climbing when we noticed little wisps of smoke passing overhead. Clambering up to the top of the pitch (and the parking lot) we found that the park was full of dark smoke so we pulled up our rope and headed for the car (which was all of perhaps 100 yards away). Driving back through the park, we were berated by park personnel for lingering so long in the fire zone, while we wondered why park personnel hadn't check the series of pitches where we were climbing because they were so close to the parking area and were popular climbing spots for that time of day (being in the shade).

Later we found out that the fire started because a park employee was welding a fee box for the bivy area and with the stiff hot wind caught the nearby grasses on fire and it spread fast through the rest of the park.

Yesterday, about 15 years later, it was hard to pick out signs of that fire. But maybe I missed a few as my lungs labored to recover from the trek back up the grade to the parking area. The Mimsical creature provided invaluable assistance by pulling on her harness to give me a little boost up the tough parts. I thought she well deserved the ice cream cone (minus ice cream) to chew up on the way home.

A pitiful excuse...

...for not writing is the lure of the small outdoors.  Our yard, which in comparison with the terrain twenty minutes out of town, is miniscule indeed but it does take a relatively huge chunk of attention, particularly as we tend to live in our yard over the summer months.  The warm weather days are when we tend to do more entertaining and so I like to spend time sprucing up our outdoor living rooms.   Sprucing up is a bit of a misnomer because the rogue trees I find tend to be more amongst the Ponderosa pine, maple and ceder ilk. 

A bit of a shocker today as Resident Kid asked if there was any gardening I wanted done.  While I really needed some areas weeded or the compost turned, I didn't want to discourage such nascent gardening tendencies and directed Kid Energy to giving a few small shrubby herbs some haircuts.  Not a bad choice as the aroma of fresh thyme filled the yard.  It was cut short, pardon, when the Mimsical dog hauled some nasty stuff out of the pond and Kid started chasing said dog around the yard trying to get her to drop whatever nasty treasure she'd found.  The thyme does look better now.

All in all a lovely morning.  How was yours?

Chili dog

Not a foodie entry, but perhaps could be construed as food related...

Our mimsical dog is of indeterminate heritage.  Miniature pinscher is pretty well certainly in the mix but her other characteristics have connoted pug or chihuahua or some terrier sort depending on who is looking at the time.

Now the adults in this household are fond of food of spice, simplistically put, we like flavor and if the flavor has a burn to it, all the better.  Resident Kid, on the other hand, breaks out in paroxysms of coughing and spluttering if the slightest burn hits delicate mouth.  Sigh.

I ventured into burn territory recently by picking up a lovely chipotle powder, deep smoky with a hint of chocolate in the flavor.  But quite burny in proper proportions.  So I use it sparingly and even managed a few dinners with a hint of smoke that have gone over well with Resident Kid.

I also am fond of wasabi and, on a recent trip to Portland I picked up some little Japanese rice crackers flavored with wasabi.  I tricked...I mean persuaded...a certain kid to try said crackers and I swear I could hear a train whistle in the distance.  I also had plain rice crackers that were much preferred by kid and munched by dog when her begging got the better of us.

One day I was munching the wasabi version when  little dog came by and very politely asked for a try.  Not really thinking, I gave her one, and then paused to think whether that was a good idea.  (After all, Doppler had gone for a roasting pan with roast juices in it that was on the very peppery side and he gave a hoot like a freighter when the pepper hit his tongue.)  I was fascinated to watch this dog tongue and mouth the cracker.  She never made a sound but ended up crunching it down and asking for more.  Resident Kid should take a lesson.

Back to chipotle, I bragged a bit about my insidious use of chipotle and brought out the supply to be properly appreciated by the other resident adult.  Funny thing, little dog saw the spice packet and very politely asked for a taste.  I stuck my finger in the baggie and held out a sample for her to try.  She licked my finger clean and politely asked for more.

Aye, chihuahua!

Interspecies Contagion

A warm and sunny day
We're driving in the city
Off to do some errands
Boy, the day is pretty

Sunshine in the windshield
I'm feeling kinda groggy
A yawn soon splits my face
Look, the same with doggy

Going to the mattresses

The shock of a new, fast canine in a formerly feline-dominated world, sent LWK into a bit of a tizzy and, as I think I mentioned before, a retreat to the basement realm.  I would go down every morning and turn on a light and roust her out of a den she'd selected amongst some boxes in storage.  Her love of attention didn't change one whit but she was quite tentative about venturing upstairs.

I'd often talk to her as I collected jars from the pantry or socks from the laundry.  One day while I was folding laundry, she sat down nearby and struck up a conversation.  We stuck to small talk at first, until I broached the subject of the new dog.

"It's your house, too," I said gently, but also firmly.  I wanted to let her know that she had every right to the upstairs that she had previously enjoyed.  "Besides, she's a chicken, you know?  Just swat at her and show her where you stand."  As I said that, I swatted the air with my paw...er...hand.  LWK stared at me in disbelief.  I nodded, "You just have to let her know your boundaries."  I swatted the air a couple more times.   LWK stared and then slowly lifted a paw and swatted the air.  "That's it!"  I crowed.  Hauling my laundry load upstairs I left her to mull things over.

It must have taken her nearly a day after my pep talk to work up her courage, but LWK showed up, puffed out from her nose to the tip of her tail, and stood her ground to that freaky dog.  When Mimsy got too close, LWK swatted at her and Mimsy duly scrambled to cower behind a piece of furniture.  Mission accomplished, LWK reclaimed her post beside the kitchen phone.

Doppler 5

We settled into a long stretch of comfortable being with dogdom, about 4 years in all with little extraordinary in the way of happenings and events.  Doppler slowly, in the slow way only a fast dog can, slowed down a bit in terms of his frenetic puppyish chasing madly hither and yon.  A household routine took hold and everything held an even keel.

One of our first abodes in our new home town of Bend, Oregon was a minuscule rental house will all of 600 square feet.  The main attraction of this shack was that it was freestanding and it allowed dogs with relatively little fuss (in other words, you didn't have to sign away your annual income and your firstborn to have a dog in the house).  By the time we had found this place we had already accepted the fact that we would have to find a rental that would allow a dog because the alternative, giving up Doppler in order to find a place to live, was not tenable.

This little place, which has long since succumbed to the bulldozer, was one of three tiny houses where a variety of young wanna-be professionals/entrepreneurs lived.  We quickly made the acquaintance of our neighbors and started sharing hotted up barbecue grills and the like.  The back house had a young man living there for a short time at the beginning of our stay.  He ended up moving to Portland and left behind his cat, Pumpkin, in the care of our other neighbors until such time as he could find a place that would allow cats.  He gave them a huge jar full of change to pay for cat food and Pumpkin took to living under the houses in the crawl spaces.  As summer wore into fall, the former neighbor made contact periodically and we wondered if he ever would collect Pumpkin (who was, as you might have imagined, a very fluffy orange tabby). 

Doppler, it turned out, was very tolerant of cats.  If they ran, he would chase, but if they stood their ground and swatted, he would respect.  Pumpkin was one of the latter types and had both Doppler and the other neighbor's dog at quite the respectful distance.

Bend was a wonderful town in the mid-1990's.  It had a lot of characteristics of other towns we had traveled through on our early retirement trip (other stories to come) and we had decided to try to make a life in Bend.  I was working retail into the early evenings and Eric was working retail into even later evenings so I often found myself alone, with or without Doppler, watching TV. 

One bitterly cold night, after stoking the little woodstove into producing the 80 degree hot house that was inevitable because any stove was too big for this house, I propped open the front door to temper the heat.  After a few minutes I felt I was being watched and looked up to see an orange face peering in the screen door.  Being a total soft touch, I thought for perhaps a few moments before opening the door to let Pumpkin in.  He walked over and sat on the hearth in front of the wood stove as if he'd done that for years.  We spent a pleasant evening watching TV until Eric came home.  His words, upon entering and taking in the scene were, "So, do we have a cat now?"

Ghost stories for dogs

I think I mentioned that we recently added to our household a critter in the form of a miniature pinscher mix named Mimsy.  She's a cute dog, smart, personable, but a trifle hard for the cats, especially LWK, to stomach.  Thud and Mimsy are close in size, 14 and 15 pounds respectively.  LWK is about half that, tipping the scales at 6-7 pounds. *

The first week was full of the drama of introductions and various vocal displays.  Thud was somewhat unruffled by the advent of new dog, but then we always suspected she was part canine in character.  She quickly learned the ways of wrestling and escape.  She soon discovered the delights of sitting under the furniture that Mimsy wouldn't or couldn't get under and swatting at the poor frustrated dog. 

LWK (Little White Kitty) was less comfortable.  She retreated to safety in the basement, secure behind the baby gate at the top of the stairs.  Each day, we'd give her love and talk to her so she would get at least some of the attention she would normally demand and after a few days, moving whiteness would catch the corner of our eyes as she flitted around nooks and crannies upstairs. 

One night I had flopped down on the bed to read a bit when I felt Mimsy jump up next to me.  I didn't really pay attention to the fact that she didn't demand attention like she often does, in fact, I kind of appreciated being left in peace to turn the pages at my leisure.  Then I felt a tremor...kind of like the tremor that you might feel when a huge truck rumbles by, but here there was no noise.  There it went again  ... and again ... finally I noticed and looked up to see Mimsy sitting, tight and alert and shaking from head to foot.  She had never acted like this before so I sat up to get a bead on her line of sight and saw a demon ghost kitty sitting in the hallway with the light reflecting blue-green off her eyes.  I have to admit, I was a little spooked myself.  The ghost soon evaporated, leaving a shaken little dog in her wake.



*  Names have been changed in these stories to protect the innocent.  The fact that one of these names is real is probably an indication of non-innocence.

Doppler 4

We weren't long in Doppler's finding place before we decided we needed to move to the Pacific Northwest.  My memory is vague in the regards, but at some point we met one of Eric's friends from the Peace Corps in the Eugene, Oregon area.  She was visiting a friend and we were in the area so we decided to meet up. 

We spent the day in Eugene and went to the Saturday market in town, admiring the wares and getting a variety of foodstuffs.  Most of which we were eating on the spot but we did pick up a half pound of fudge to offer to the gathering that evening.  About half of the fudge was chocolate espresso bean and the other was another chocolate variety, probably rocky road or some such, because, after all, fudge isn't fudge if it isn't basically chocolate.

We had a lovely dinner with our friends, new and old and twilight had fallen before we remembered the fudge in the truck.  So we wandered out to collect it and to see how Doppler was doing. 

Well, Doppler was very excited to see us and highly anxious to get out of the truck.  As he bounded out we discovered that he had eaten the entire half pound of fudge. 

Oh, crap.

Well, we had heard about dogs and chocolate, but didn't really know what to do about it at night in the middle of a rural area that we were really unfamiliar with.  So we took him for a walk as that's what he really seemed to want at that point.  So we walked up through an undeveloped subdivision that was thick with trees and Doppler was an absolute freaky whirling dervish so either he pulled himself out of his collar or we finally wanted to save our arm sockets and he was off the leash.  Not only off the leash but off like a rocket.  He tore down the road and was off into the darkening night in no time at all and we were left hoping that he would remember his name.  We walked the roads calling for him for quite a while before we finally gave up because the night was pitch black and we couldn't see a thing.  We decided to give up for the night and try looking for him in the morning. 

We headed back for the house and our truck thinking terrible thoughts about what might happen to a chocolate poisoned dog in the middle of the night.  We came around the side of the house and there was Doppler sitting very properly by the side of the truck.  He got up and stretched and wagged his tail very lazily as if to say, "What the heck took you guys so long?"

We opened the door and he jumped in and curled up on the seat.  Go figure.

All mimsy were the borogoves...

I had the opportunity to be in Salem, Oregon a couple times in the last month and I was taken by the daffodils and late crocus that were in full bloom.  These are some of my favorite flowers, but then, ask me in another month or so and my favorites will have changed.  I was particularly taken by the Salem daffodils because on my first trip to Salem, on February 12, I left Central Oregon still in the late winter doldrums.  Some trees were starting to set buds, but there were no crocus yet, apart from some foliage starting up in some sunny spots.  Now, here at home, the crocus are in full bloom around the house.  I have tended to plant a lot of crocus because the deer don't eat them and we get a spot of color early.  Last fall I planted more, because I wanted to mark Doppie's howe.  Much to the resident 10-year old's ire, I also planted a slew of bulbs in the lawn in front of our house..

Major complaints arose when she saw the first flowers popping out because she didn't want to walk on them.  "Just wait until they're done blooming," was my response.  I think I heard a slight growl but I'm really not sure.

Well, recently, a new member joined our family.  Mimsy, a miniature pinscher and something mix, is a sweet little critter that is only slightly frenetic for being about a year old and having gone through the shelter experience.  She still has those puppy qualities that make her simultaneously endearing and annoying, but she learns so fast, it is somewhat alarming.  She has been with us for less than two weeks and she is sitting, staying, dancing, almost heeling on command.  And, no, it's not like she had been trained to do these things previously, because the first action we worked on, sit, was actually hard to achieve because she wasn't what you would call a natural sitter.  Definitely didn't know the command on hearing.

I am sure that I sound like a proud parent as I boast of this little dog's achievements in so short a time, but really what I am amazed at is the difference in personality between Mimsy and Doppler.  Doppler was definitely all Dalmation when it came to working with him on basic actions.  A distinct stubborn streak would kick in and that, combined with a feigned deafness.  How do we know it was feigned, you ask?  Because that critter could hear a banana being cracked open, sight unseen from 30 feet.  I would open a banana in the living room and he would come trotting in from what I thought was a sound sleep in the bedroom.  For some reason, as a young dog, he liked bananas. 

Anyway, it's the differences between personalities and places that are startling and interesting and that really spice your life's experiences.  And spring is a perfect time to celebrate differences.