Pick your jaw off the floor and wipe the drool off your chin. Turn off that video.

I'm not sure how it happened, I think I was looking for a Phoenix video on youtube, but I just found myself watching EllesGlitterGossip. Next thing I know I'm staring at the screen, my jaw slack and my eyes glazed over. Because she talks like this: "Ijustlovethistimeofyear!IloveeverythingaboutitIlovethemusic!andthefood!andthedecorations!andthelights!andthetraditionsandeverything"
and periodically she adds and upward-toned query sound for variety: "Ijustreallylike?tags?thatareholidaythemed" while tilting her head and looking to the corner of the screen for a studied quizzical/cute effect.

I probably just lost some crucial part of my brain because it seeped out my ear.

Darth Vader

So, um, I joined Twitter. I thought I'd just take the self-absorption all the way, you know? Plus also I use it to keep tabs on Congress, now that I'm not at FCNL any more. But really, that's beside the point. The point is that Twitter gave me this:

Oh holy shit, Martha. You make my heart go pitter pat. Look at that wrapping. Have I mentioned how much I love wrapping presents? Given the choice (and the time) I would spend as long wrapping a present as I spent picking and buying/making it. Seriously, this article (and its longer counterpart) is making my brain go all mushy. Paperfabricbowspreeeettttyyyywrapping, want.

(Oh yeah, and I, er, added a Twitter gadget to my blog. We'll see if I can stomach it or if it makes my soul die a little bit.)

Another shooting in DC, this one closer to home

A store owner in my neighborhood was shot and killed over the weekend. I guess a couple of guys were robbing the place in front of his wife and son, and when he came out from the back room, they shot him. I walked by the shop on my way home last night, and people had put up flowers and notes of prayer and sympathy.

There was also a candlelight vigil last night, organized by the neighborhood. I didn't go since I didn't know Mr. Patel, but it's nice to know that so many people knew him and care about him and his family and want that to be visible and known.

Haverfest '09

I scanned some pictures from the end of my senior year. They live on the walls of my cubicle at work. They make me happy. Notably, we totally have the automated photo booth timing thing down. We're photo booth rockstars. (Ha.)

I should note that the plate of curly fries was totally full when Steph and I got in line for the photo booth... but the line was long. And we were hungry. I think we had Steph's boyfriend go refill it for us once, too. So we ate two platefuls in line. That's what the end of senior year is all about, right? Hanging out with friends and eating way too many curly fries.

Vouchers redeemable within the continental US

My family (and Fernando, our exchange student for the year) came to visit me in late October. My littlest sister suddenly cares about clothes? We took one of those trolley(bus) tours around the tourist sites, we ate good food, we went to the arboretum, we took a walk in the woods, and we played a lot of Wii. It was so, so good to see them. The weather obliged this time around, after being cold and wet and generally everything that sucks about DC fall and winter when they came last October. Last October Celeste was still recovering from her torn ACL, and couldn't walk too far or too long -- so when we went to the zoo we got her a wheelchair so that she wouldn't get tired and achey and cut our zoo time short. We took turns wheeling her around with an umbrella covering her legs to keep the wet, and some of the cold wind, off. This year though, was sunny pleasantly autumnal during their visit.

Bu-bump

Then what happens is we get to the hospital only to realize that my bag -- ID, insurance card -- is still sitting behind the sound table at Annual Meeting. But it turns out they have been trying to reach me -- they looked at my CT scans again and realized I have a very small bleed. In my brain. More doctors, more following fingers with my eyes. Another CT. An IV with anti-seizure medication in it. They tell me I need to stay overnight for monitoring. I end up spending the night in the ICU, no food allowed, on a saline drip with all kinds of wires hooked up to my chest, being woken every hour to make sure I know my name, date of birth, where I am, and the date.

I pass. In the morning they finally allow me to eat. They've been giving me anti-seizure medication by drip which I will need to continue in pill form. I am not to take ibuprofen or aspirin. I am not to ride my bike or do anything that might possibly result in another head trauma. I may have headaches. I may not feel like myself. This is normal. I am free to go.

A little bump in the road

Two weeks ago was FCNL's Annual Meeting, Thursday afternoon to Sunday. I took Raleigh to Colin's to stay there for the weekend so we could share dog duties. On Saturday morning we were biking up Pennsylvania Ave's bike lane to get to the Annual Meeting hotel when I crashed my bike.

Actually, my memory of the morning goes like this:
I'm leading, and I'm feeling good. The air is cool but not cold, the bike wants to go. I'm cruising -- not too fast, but not dawdling, either. We're getting close to the White House, where the lane ends. We're at maybe 11th or 12th.

Then I'm being loaded into an ambulance, strapped to the stretcher. Colin climbs in the front. I fade out.

I'm on the stretcher in the ambulance. There's a guy near my head and he's talking to me. He's asking me something. He's asking me if I know where I am, what day it is. I think about it. I have to think about thinking in order to think. Thinking is slow. I have no idea what month it is, what time of day, why I am in an ambulance. Thinking is like wading through a thick sludge. Slowly it comes to me that maybe, possibly, it is the weekend. I think I was going somewhere. Is it the weekend? More wading. Is it November? Maybe? The guy, my ambulance buddy, asks me if I know how old I am. Or maybe question was first, before November? I slowly process the words, individually, then as a unit. I think about it. I think slowly about it. I can't remember if I'm 22 or 23. I start to get upset. How can I not remember how old I am? I think that maybe I just had a birthday. I am pretty sure I'm 22 or 23.

Then we are at the hospital. My ambulance guy asks me if I use instructables.com. "Instructables?" I say. "No," somewhat authoritatively, although 10 minutes ago (20? more?) I couldn't have told you what month it was. "I guess I lost that bet," he says, laughing.

They wheel me in, I guess, but I'm in and out. Colin is there, answering questions before I've waded through what it was that was just asked. Good. I probably couldn't answer, anyway.

I ask Colin what happened. "You crashed your bike," he tells me. "I crashed my bike?" I can't remember crashing my bike. I start to get upset again. I crashed my bike. I can't remember crashing my bike. I can't remember.

Doctors come in and out. They slowly turn my head, check my spine, unstrap me. My spine is not broken. They give me a tetanus shot, which hurts more than my head. I follow fingers left and right without moving my head, up and down. Lights in my eyes. More fingers. A woman takes me to get a CT scan. Colin has to wait. The woman, a different woman, tells me to close my eyes and be still. I tell her that won't be a problem. All I want to do is close my eyes and be still.

They scan my head. Slowly up and down, pausing here and there. Whirring. It's like being a sheet of paper in a machine, with the line of light that I can see, moving, through my closed eyelids.

Just out of the hospital, going to CVS

We go back to the room with the curtain and the machines and a view of the nurses' station. More time passes. They tell me my CT scan is negative -- that's a good thing. It means I just have a concussion. I am to take it easy and take pain pills. I might have headaches for a while, or I might not. I am free to go.

Colin and I get directions to a CVS to get me ibuprofen, Tylenol with codeine, and sunglasses. I guess I was wearing mine when I crashed. They're bent. The CVS pharmacy is closed, so I get sunglasses and we take a cab to Annual Meeting. Colin gives directions. Colin gets the key to Tommy's room, where I gratefully lay down.

Colin wakes me up for business meeting, like I asked. This is why I'm at Annual Meeting -- for the business meetings. I am not going to miss business meeting. I think Colin got pills while I slept, though now, two weeks later, I can't remember. I sit behind the sound equipment with Colin, who, after seeing me motionless on the pavement, does not want me to go too far away. He saved me a veggie wrap from lunch, he brings me juice and water. I'm very hungry, but I realize I must have jammed my jaw because it hurts terribly to chew. My head hurts. Everything is slow. I take more codeine and ibuprofen.

I feel like I might puke -- probably the ibuprofen on a nearly empty stomach, my jaw too sore to chew. It's almost the end of business meeting but I stand up, go slowly to the bathroom. I sit on the toilet, put my head in my hands. I am not going to throw up, so I get up and go to the lobby.

Standing there, telling some FCNL people what happened, why I am now fine and able to go to business meeting, everything starts rushing. The sides, my peripheral, starts to go fuzzy and drop away. I know this. This happened to me once before. "A chair, get me a chair," I say. Stephen's face is worried, he gets me a chair. The rushing is so loud I can't hear them, can hardly hear myself. They want to lay me on the floor, but people are coming out of business meeting. "Not here," I say. I hear, "A wheelchair. Yes, now!" I fade out.

We're at the elevator. It's very important that I be backed into the elevator. I have a group of waists around me. I fade out again.

They're trying to get me through the door to Tommy's room, but the wheelchair is too wide. They have the wheelchair tipped and my head is falling back. There is a belly behind me but too far to lean my head on. It hurts. The wheelchair is too wide, so they carry me, although I am in and out. I'm on the bed. The rushing is quieting. My peripheral is coming back. "I feel better," I say. "I'm feeling better." Two members of the General Committee who are physicians are there, and they are worried about my blood getting to my brain, worried that I passed out (sort of, nearly), worried about leaving me without a promise of monitoring. I am put back in the wheelchair. We go back to the hospital.

Raleigh earned his Pupperoni last night

Last night at about 3am I suddenly heard banging on our front door. Raleigh hesitated for about half a second, presumably to assure himself that it wasn't just a dream, and started his furious WHY YOU AT MY DOOR I WILL GET YOU AWAY FROM MY DOOR OR LICK YOUR PANTS ONE OR THE OTHER hound bark, the one that sometimes happens in the middle of the night and I tell him to please yell at the air molecules more quietly in the future, except that this time it was 3 in the morning and there was some persistent pounding on our door going on.

The banging stopped and I went to Elise's room, where she told me that there had been someone honking and yelling for half an hour and she didn't realize the yelling was directed at our house, but then there was the banging on the door. I looked from the side of her curtain at the black SUV double parked in front of our house and to my horror saw the driver notice me and get out of the car and start waving furiously. My Oh Shit moment included "We don't have any lights on how can she see in the window" accompanied by "There are too many fucking windows downstairs for me to go down there because last I checked glass doesn't stop bullets and what if this woman thinks her husband is banging some 19 year old hottie in this house and that's why she's here and she has a gun or what if she's got someone else with her and NO WAY am I opening the door at 3am." Elise and I agreed we should call the cops, just so they would send a cruiser by, and as she was on the phone with our precinct a cruiser came by, paused next to the car, and then they both pulled forward out of site. We couldn't tell from our angle if the cop was still there or if it had just told the lady to stop double parking and then cruised on.

Then the banging started again, this time on the door and also the metal knocker. BANGBANGBANGBANGBANG pause BANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANGBANG and meanwhile Raleigh going WHY ARE YOU STILL AT MY DOOR GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM MY DOOR OR GIVE ME SOME PUPPERONIS BUT STOP IT WITH THE RACKET I WAS ASLEEP WHY ARE YOU STILL BANGING. I said to Elise that there was no way I was answering the door and we should call 911. She asked if I wanted to or if she should but I already had the phone in my hand and was saying "There is someone pounding on our door and there's been someone honking and yelling for half an hour and I am not going to answer the door at 3:20am because I don't know who it is please can you send someone." Then we noticed that there was a cop, maybe two cops (realized later it was a cop standing next to the lady from the car) in front of our house so Elise and I agreed that with a cop right there probably no one was going to shoot us and we should maybe open the door because the BANGING and the HOUNDBARKING wasn't going to stop unless we answered the door.

We went down, the two of us -- Raleigh already at the door -- and I yelled "Who is it?" "The police!" was the answer I got. I hollered that we hadn't opened the door because we didn't know who it was and I was going to put my dog on a leash so he wouldn't run out the door, and Raleigh was all "Oh, a walk? Cool!" So we opened the door to the cop who started asking us about the woman's son, which I guess is why she was honking and yelling and banging, she was looking for her son, and the cop was asking us about some guy named Mike, and asking us for our IDs, and the whole time Elise and I were standing there wide eyed and shaking explaining that there wasn't a man in the house unless he snuck in, no one named Mike lived here, we don't know where that woman's son is, and the woman was saying something about Oh, he must have gone to some other place. She piped up from the sidewalk that someone had been peeping from behind the curtain and Elise said, yeah, that was us! because someone had been honking and yelling and totally freaking us out and no way were we going to go downstairs with that going on. The cop said something about a call for help from one of the houses, and we said "That was us! Someone was banging on our door at 3:20am and we didn't know who it was!" The cop at the door turned to his partner on the sidewalk and said, "This is fucking ridiculous." He turned back to us and told us he was sorry for bothering us, that we could go back to bed now.

So we'll be getting a chain for the front door today. And I'll probably not yell at Raleigh for barking at air molecules in the middle of the night for a while.

Last night, I had a dream.

And then I dreamed that I woke up from the dream and wrote about it in my journal. And then when I actually woke up, I was like, "Am I not done with this dream yet?" And it was 6:05 and Elise's alarm was going beep beep beep beep very quietly but very insistently. She only hit snooze for like 35 minutes today though. YES, I'm talking about you, Elise. You know what I say is true.

Dear Shane, you're driving me nuts.

Pandora thinks I want to get married.


I don't want to get married, I just want to skip ahead to the babies. GET IT RIGHT.

Oh, and

Is there such a thing as Late-Onset Dyslexia?

I just tried to write 'influence' and it came out 'inclufe--' (then I realized what I had typed and tried again).

Hey you girls

Um, babies.

I'm so so so busy at work right now but fuck, there's this magnet pulling me in. This is Thunderpie's  wife's photostream, and damn, but they've got a beautiful baby girl. I want to eat her. Her curls make me want babies RIGHT NOW. My womb has totally chilled out in the last several months but those curls and that face and TICK TOCK TICK TOCK.

Praise God and all things holy

I think peaches are proof that there is a higher power, and that [pronoun] loves us. Seriously.

Suck it, 97 degrees.

(This is an unknowing guest post from my mom)

(Because I haven't really been able to reflect on this enough to write about it.)

Saludos Amigas quien fueron a El Salvador en el año pasado y conocieron a Alicia de Garcia, (greeting Friends who went to El Salvador last year and who met Alicia de Garcia)

I am afraid that I have very sad news to relay to you all. I know that you met and were deeply touched by Alicia, the director of COMADRES, last summer. Her strength of spirit and generous nature seem to have known no bounds, and her steadfast commitment to non-violence has been an inspiration to many. 

In the late spring Alicia, as well as Patricia, the co-director of COMADRES, both were diagnosed with uterine cancer. It seems that many women who experienced brutal and repeated rape while being held and tortured by the military during the civil war have contracted this form of cancer. Maybe it is spread by sexual contact, the way that some forms of cervical cancer are. 

The cancer and the treatments were very hard on Alicia, and she suffered greatly during her fight against this disease. In early August her body was unable to keep fighting and she died. Many people are grieving her passing, but Patricia says that we can't understand the ways of God, and now Alicia is with Him and with Monseigneur Romero.  I heard of her death while I was traveling out west with my family, and spoke to Patricia on the day of Alicia's funeral. I'm sorry I haven't written to you about this sooner.  

I had been in touch with the women of COMADRES over the summer and talked to Alicia a few weeks before her death. She told me that it was a delight to have met you all, that you were a strong group of jovenes. She was happy that more people had learned of their struggles during the civil war, and hoped that you would not forget.

And so I pass on this thought that motivates me and I hope will motivate you all as well. Whenever there is war, atrocities are committed, people are tortured and murdered. The victims and the perpetrators suffer, as well as family members and neighbors. Communities and whole societies are affected. Our government has GOT to stop perpetrating war. We who have heard Alicia's story know the consequences of war. We cannot be silent on this topic. 

The last thing I feel called to write is that this summer I sent money down to Blanca, Alicia's daughter, who was caring for both Alicia and Patricia. (I haven't talked to Pati for a couple weeks and don't know how she is doing right now, but her condition was still grave when we last spoke). They are unable to cover the medical bills and are struggling with even keeping up with rent and food costs. If any of you would like to send a contribution to help cover Alicia's bills, and Patricia's ongoing health care costs, I will wire it down to Blanca's bank. 

Please hold Patricia and Alicia's family in the Light.

--
Ruby Steigerwald

Raleigh-dog

Yesterday was the day I designated for Raleigh's birthday (although in reality I suspect he may be an October baby, like me -- give or take a month). To celebrate I played frisbee with him when I got home (he loves the beat up Donkey disc I stole -- sorry, boys -- at Layout) and then Elise and I biked over to Petco. I got him a new tag (he managed to lose his off his collar when I was out of town?) as well as:

• A rubber squeaky lizard with a tongue that pokes out when you squeeze it.
• A stuffingless plush squirrel. So yes, there will be bitz of fuzzy squirrel skin all over within 15 minutes of when I give it to him, but there won't be huge clumps of fluffy squirrel innards that he could choke on and that drift about as I try to clean them up.
• I also got him a toy that will last longer than 30 minutes -- a rubber tennis ball that squishes when he chomps on it but will, I think, hold up better than an actual tennis ball.
• Oh yeah, and an assortment of treats from their bulk treat section.

I came home and fed him treat after treat (I planned ahead and only gave him half dinner) and then I gave him the lizard and he was immediately THE HAPPIEST DOG ALIVE. Then he chewed a hole in its belly so that it no longer squeaks and he went down to only being one of the top 10 happiest dogs alive. All in all, I would say, a success. Pictures of Raleigh and his new best friend forthcoming some time after I move. That's a story for another day, I'll just say that I feel alternately totally panicked about packing up all my belongings TONIGHT, and really excited about having gin & tonic dance parties in the living room with my soon-to-be housemates (if you have no idea what I'm talking about, ask Ariella or Ella about the wild and crazy Saturday nights we used to have).

the perfect, clever, punny headline for this post

Consider this my "Extra! Extra!" of the past couple of weeks. To, um, all my loyal readers.

News item: Got a facebook message from a woman who has done with with the Comadres. We learned that Alicia and Patricia were both maybe terminally ill. A little unclear.

News item: Will my baby nephew ever come?

News item: Hey so you know how you struggled seflessly for the human rights of your people for over 2 decades in some of the worst conditions imaginable including periods of captura and all the bells and whistles electricity water wood hoods powder metal cells horror that go with the captura of a "subversive"? You know how maybe you thought that the physical invasion of your body would be over with the Acuerdos de Paz and the years that followed and the election of a member of the FMLN party to national office? Hey, guess what? 18 years after the war officially ends, those years are going to catch up with you in the form of a disease that calls for treatments that can aptly be compared to torture. Thanks for all your work!

News item: Actually it turns out the cruel treatments may be doing what they're supposed to, although they will continue for several months and the future remains unclear. An emergency trip to El Salvador is not in the works at the moment.

News item: I'm an auntie!

News item: Oh hey there, PMS. Here to make sure I feel like I'm on an emotional roller coaster right now? Awesome. Glad you've got my back.

[/bitchandmoan]

Upcoming news: Wildwood 2010 - more beach-related Ultimate and debauchery than you can shake a stick at, coming up in 5 days!


Upcoming news: 2 1/2 weeks in the mountains with my immediate family. Will it be idyllic bliss? Will it be a camp horror? I suspect some of both... but mostly I'm rooting for this.

orange, periwinkle, and FUCHSIA

This whole garden thing started when I ordered a set of "easter bulbs" for super cheap. It said you could plant them up through May, which is around when I finally stopped fighting with the ivy taking over the yard enought o be able to plant them, and though they were kind of shriveled and TINY I planted them in the ground. Well, and then I got a packet of wildflower seeds and one of cosmos, and now I have a small jungle in my yard.

See those little dots of fuchsia in there? Those are the only ones from the bulb mix that did well (possibly because the cosmos devoured all the sunlight) and they're just today starting to bloom!

Aren't they just the sweetest?

Eartha Kitt

I've had this song stuck in my head for the past couple of days... finally remembered enough of the lyrics to find it. Thank goodness!

My pretty pretty Motobecane

I got a new (to me) bike to replace my Schwinn (affectionately named Schwinn "The Tank" McSchwinnster). I need something I can weigh down and haul groceries, you know? And also ride to lobby visits in a skirt and look classy. This bike is pretty classy. (Yes, photos will be forthcoming -- she looks like this but blue.)

So anyway I rode this bicicleta to work today so that I can fix it up after work using tools that are not mine. I don't have tools. I have a stupid adjustable wrench and all I want is a set of flat wrenches... So mom, Christmas? Christmas is so far away.

Anyway, I was riding the bike to work and I kept thinking of the Motobecane as "she." I've never felt that way with my Raleigh. Never had a desire to name it, never personified it in my head. Then I started waxing poetic while biking past the patch of prairie on the Metro Branch Trail as I considered my two bikes. See here's the thing: the Raleigh is a machine. It's light and responsive and when I ride it, it's really mostly about me. My Motobecane, she is a blues singer. She's all soul. When I ride her (yeah, getting a little dirty...), it's all about her. I bow down to you, you beautiful French coquette. Keep doing like you do.

FIFA Copa Mundial!

I know I'm not the only one going soccer (scuze me, football) nuts right now... Like today: I'm sorry, ref, WHAT? You're gonna go and take away our goal -- not just any goal, but a winning goal -- because that Slovenian dude fell over? Yeah, he fell. Why'd he fall? It might have had something to do with him forcibly holding Bradley back, as Bradley struggled to get at the ball. Yeah, it might have been that.

Photo courtesy of NYTimes

This is Team USA being all, "WTF?" and the ref is like, "No comment." 

Look! I can garden!

My first flowers are blooming! I've got this beautiful cosmos and a little pink something or other so far.

In other news, Raleigh and I do this a lot. No explanation is really needed:

Hahahahahahaaa

This happened today:

Me to Alex:
In case you were wondering what you were out and about doing last night while you slept, you were showing up in my dream. Yep. I had a dream that you and your parents were flying to Fiji for dinner (!). I stopped by your house as you were getting ready to go and then it turns out that someone had used one of those credit card swipey things to steal  your credit card info and had spent like $8000 and you were like, "Yeah, I think they took my info from outside the house." And I was like "Those things have that kind of range?!!" Then you thought about inviting me to Fiji but you had to go take care of the credit card thing and then my computer got a Fijian virus and I had to use a cardboard box instead and it meant I couldn't get in touch with you to find out if you had decided to invite me to Fiji because you had changed all your contact info and I couldn't look up your facebook account ON A CARDBOARD BOX. They're too slow. Oh yeah, and it turns out you had changed your phone number to 202-509-TIGER (yeah, like that's exactly how it showed up in my cell phone). And then I was like, "Hold on, who is this guy who flies to Fiji for dinner and changes his phone number to 509-TIGER?? This is not the Alex I thought I knew!" Then I got food poisoning.

All in all, what the fuck.

Alex to me:
hahahaha that is one of the funniest dreams I've ever heard. a cardboard box. ahhhhhhhhhhh

you know that now you need to call that number back, right?

Me to Alex:
yeah, i'm going to call and it's going to go like this

TIGER: Hello?
ME: Hi. I'm calling because your phone number showed up in my dream last night. Is your name maybe Alex?
TIGER: Ummmm....... what the fuck?
ME: Look, I don't know. Maybe we're fated to meet. Like you're my Wesley Snipes or something. I hate you, but I have to marry you anyway. I don't know.
TIGER: [click.]

i [heart] farmer's market

Observe:

Special on bread - 2 loaves of country white for $3. Niiiiiice. Also, produce:

Wait, wait, wait. We need a close up on those sugar snaps.

Unnnnnh. Sugar snap peas. I can die happy.

Oh yeah, and that asparagus was so fresh and tender that even Colin (who doesn't like asparagus) liked it. Also thanks to Baby Kap and Mama Kap (yeah, I just called you Baby Kap. Deal with it) for bringing [cue celestial music] roasted asparagus into my life. A little olive oil, a little salt, and then stick it on a pan in a toaster oven at 425F for 11 minutes. 11 minutes is perfect. 9 is DEFINITELY not enough minutes. 12 and they might be kind of limp. So trust me, 11 minutes.

Pilgrimage

Yes, I went to Ithaca. Ithaca and Costa Rica, my childhood homes, are like my (nonreligious) Mecca. Without a once yearly pilgrimage to one or the other, I feel like my life is missing something.

Putting my feet in a creek, for example. I met up with Sue and Abreham and Adamu at the Wildflower Preserve, where I hadn't been back in 12 years. 

Abreham hunted for crayfish with his bare hands (brave!).

And it turns out that Adamu is quite the swimmer! That boy just loves the water!

Seriously, I don't think I can express how happy it made me to go hang out in creeks. Monday (the day we left) was the only day I didn't put my feet (or my whole body...) in a creek. I was really happy to have rented a car so that I was able to take my pup with me, and let him play in creeks too. He loved it! (Surprise, surprise.)

Oh yeah, and Elise graduated (with honors!) from Cornell. You know, no big deal.

Look at that: a real live college graduate/adult. Damn, girl. Good for you.

Fin.

Bah.

Dog training sucks.

Growing pains

The consolation is that in the end, there will be a flower. Right?

Click click

When Raleigh and I found each other last summer, he was terrible on the leash. My theory is that he was loved and socialized and went through some very basic obedience as a young pup, and then somehow found himself a stray and [willfully?] forgot most of his training. He knew "sit" and "wait", and he compulsively sticks to my left side when on the leash -- even in the beginning when he pulled like mad.

I did my best with him, considering I've never really done any training before. Still though, I had high hopes for he and I, and I wanted more. I had been playing around with the idea of clicker training for loose-leash walking for several months now, even having gone so far as to buy the clicker and do some basic work with him (mostly just introducing him the the idea that click = treat). This week though, I told myself to nut up and just do it.

But it's daunting, I said.

See the thing is that I really want to do it right. I want to go at the pace he's able to go at, and get each step down before trying for the next one. I want to do everything I can to set him up for success. In the end, I want a dog that will walk nicely at my side, and not forget I exist even if there's a dog barking at him or a squirrel on the phone line of 50 bazillion feral cats in the Secret Garden park.

So we start small, right? We've been playing a lot of fetch to get warmed up -- both to get some of his ya-yas out and to prime him to the clicker. Then we walk, back and forth, back and forth, in the house. Away from distractions. And he's getting it! Yesterday we started in the house and then did some in the yard. This morning we skipped the house part and went straight to the back yard -- and he did great! For the first 30 seconds or so he was very excited (it's so many treats!), but he quickly remembered that he gets the most treats and praise when he walks calmly at my side. Today I also stopped rewarding him after I tell him to get back. He gets treats for doing the right thing on his own, not for me having to remind him what the right thing is. I think tomorrow we'll try walking back and forth, back and forth, in front of the house.

I just hope we have it down before we go to Ithaca in --crap-- two weeks.

Uh oh

Okay, so I know I can't get another dog until I can afford a) obedience classes and b) a car or zipcar to transport the beasts to green spaces and travel with me. And I know two dogs is a lot more than one (and probably harder to find dogsitters/people to stay with), but:
1. Raleigh would LOVE to have a wrestle buddy. He and Bijou love each other, but he does have to hold back with her. He needs a pup more his size!

2. I just. want. more. dogs. in my life. Some people get really excited about traveling all over the world and worry they won't be able to go all the places they want to go; I have minor anxiety about not being able to live with all the doggy soulmates I know I have out there!

3. Look at that face and try to say no:

from Petfinder

My prediction:

Janelle Monae.

Yall better recognize. That's all I'm saying.

sleepsleepsleep

I keep being reminded that I just sleep better in the winter than in the summer. In the summer (yes, it feels like summer some days here) I sleep with the window open, the fan going, and nothing heavy on my body. Too many noises, not enough weighing me down, and too much light. Then I wake up feeling unrested and dehydrated.

Bah humbug.

(so good)

i want to tell you how good i am at transcribing

(so good)

i hear a word and i'm like, gosh i don't know that word

and then i look up what it sounds like

and bam! i was totally right

words of the day:

culatazo (a kick)

ultrajar (to insult, abuse)

fregar (to annoy)

Dr. Who Night

I made a cake. I was going to make it anyway, but I made it on Saturday so I could pawn it off share it with folks who gathered to watch Dr. Who (Colin's got us all hooked). The newest episode was really creepy! It was about these "weeping angels" who are stone statues when you're looking at them but as soon as you turn away or the light goes out or you blink, they advance, ready to eat you and spit you out in 1920 or so. Yeah, it's a little complicated... but they're like a cross between the ninja cat and those freaky videos that are of something innocuous and then all of a sudden it's some crazy scary face and it's screaming at you. Yeah, I know you fell for one of those at least once.

Anyway, cake. Lemon

and raspberry

and food coloring and sprinkles.

Also, Raleigh is allowed on the couch at Colin's so he was pretty happy about the whole Dr. Who viewing thing.

See those eyes? Those are the "Mom I'm so happy right now please don't make me get off the couch" eyes. "Unless it's to get up on that chair with you. That would be okay."

The sky looked kind of pretty like it was clearing up, and then it was like "BAM, I'm gonna rain on your FACE."

Rain, rain, go away
Come again another day
When I don't have to buy groceries

Gosh Inez, you really like that cemetery, don't you?

I have absolutely no idea what would give you that idea.