So now it's the 21st century and...

SUMMARY: It's going to be WHAT? 2024? No wayyy!

Inspired by my comment on FB: Dec 31, 2023

A friend on FB threw the question out to his world, having lost his partner of 20ish years: What is everyone doing for New Years Eve? Party? Family gathering? Champagne at midnight? Me? Probably in bed by 8, scrolling for a fun movie. No one to kiss at midnight.

Taj MuttHall responds -- I'll be doing something useful like washing dishes or OH NO donating to charities at the last minute, snuggle with Zorro a bit but no kissing because COAT BEING BLOWN WHY?! when winter is just starting?!, in bed I hope by 8 and hope the fireworks noise isn't enough to keep me or Zorro up. Last year he hid in my closet and seemed fine there. Thank goodness I don't have Chip's terror to deal with any more. [But I miss him none the less]

Wishing you and the world at large a happy 2024.

 (How can it possibly be that year?! I still keep referring to, for example,  six years ago as 2007. Or sometimes 1997. Too many years to keep track of )

Me and former husband at a friend's fancy New Year's Eve party.
Back in 2018.... 2008... oh good grief, 1988. I'm sure I still look the same

Mr Fox Knock Yer Blox Off Blockz Party

SUMMARY: Pretty much everyone who was anyone came.

Backfill: Sept 28, 2019: Added Morse Code translation link.

Human Mom had to go off to the office to do some employment-something-or-other. Accidentally left her camera home.  Later, when uploading photos, she was surprised to discover that considerable quantities of organization had occurred in her absence. Not clear whether Mr Fox no.12 was behind it, or Chip (who wasn't in the photo, so who's using the camera, you well might ask?), or most likely Squeaky Snake who can't resist a really good noisy fling.

Now Human Mom is taking names in case there's an investigation, which seems likely given the state of the California King bed on which certain visiting foxes, plus the local foxes (el zorro and Flying Fox) have been--allegedly--sleeping.

More or less from front to back, left to right:

Row 1: Zorro, Ropebone, Flying Minkey, Liddle Toy, Liddle Ball, Foot, Ladybug, Duck Jr., Mr. Ball, Flying Fox.

Row 2: The Braid, Crunchie, Purple Hippo, Hedgehog.

Row 3: Ballflower, Happy, Monkeyface, Mr. Rabbit, Lattice, Mr Fox no.12, Bluedog, SqueakySnake.

Row 4: Squirrel (actually a Chipmunk but, through a sad case of mistaken rodentity, answers only to Squirrel), Puffin, Mr. Bear, Spidey, CAP-tain America, The Incredible Hulk, Tusker, Pirate Chicken (standing in for his late lamented cousin, Bikini Chicken).

Row 5: Buzzy Bee, FrizBee, Riot Tug, Milker Toy, Booda News.

Row 6: Mr. Duck, Mr. Alien, Cthulhu Face, Skunk.

No Row: Probably hiding for safety purposes: Flatball Blue, Flatball Purple, Flatball Red, Flatball Purple, Flatball Blue, Binkie, Binkie, Binkie, Rope, Jolly[Ball].

* Chip would like to point out that, being the biggest dog in the house, he iz gotz dibs on all Liddles.

** Monkeyface and Happy take turns spending the day with Buzzy Bee, who has inconveniently lost his eyesight. ... Well, ok, his eyes entirely.

*** Upon closer examination, Tusker was found to have hidden in his stomach a note that no one could make head nor hair of.  We repeat it here only for completeness.  ".-- . / .. --.. / - .- .--- / -- ..- - - .... .- .-.. .-.. . .-. ... / .- -. -.. / .-- . / .. --.. / ... . -. -.. --.. / --. .-. . . - .. -. --. . / - --- / . ... - . .- -- . -.. . -.. / -.- --- .-.. .-.. . . --. --.. / --- -. / -.-. --- .-. -. / .-- .- .-.. .-.. --..-- / .-.. .. -.- . ... / ... .. -.. -. . . / .- -. -.. / -- .. ... ... / - . .-. .-. -.-- .. --- ..- ... / ... ..- . .-.-.-"  (Translation)

Dog Ladies' Day Out

SUMMARY: Had a fun day off on Tuesday and took NO PHOTOS.

It was a day that was MADE for photos, and I even took my camera, but somehow didn't take a single shot of anything at all. Maybe having spent the morning sorting, labeling, and editing 300-ish photos from the weekend had something to do with it. Still, it was a trip that cried out for photos and, in retrospect, I regret not having taken any, but every time I thought about it, I just wasn't in the mood.

We had borrowed a teeter from club NAF out in Turlock for our trial this past weekend and it had to go back. KK had it in her van, and, as co-chair for the trial, I felt that it was my professional responsibility to make sure that it safely returned to its real home, no matter what hardship it entailed on my part.

Drove up to my seester's house with the Merle Girls, where they got to explore and get petted and although Boost went into the evil floor method of walking, her tail didn't stop wagging and she got some good exploring in anyway. I got a chance to chat with my sister a bit and check out the raised planters they're building in their back yard after having hauled a couple hundred concrete pavers from somewhere else.

KK met me there with her three dogs, and off we went, all crammed into the vehicle: Two Dog Ladies, four border collies, a dismantled teeter, and a nondismantled Tika.

We chatted all the way to French Camp, where we met up with with more Dog Ladies, DS and CC, at DS's beautiful house, all those lawns and that gorgeous agility field and the brand-new electricity-generating wind turbine that looks a bit like a propeller-driven rocket.

The four of us went off to a really delicious sushi lunch, leaving the dogs staring forlornly in through the sliding glass door from their cool, shaded, grassy yard. I said "no raw fish," and we ordered up a variety of rolls (lobster roll, "the volcano", I don't remember the others) that were SO GOOD (and not raw), and beautiful, too.

We sat at the restaurant and chatted long after the food was gone so that we could have room for dessert--we piled back into CC's dog-transport vehicle and ended up at the Ghirardelli chocolate factory, which is right down the street from DS's house--she said, you don't know how difficult it is to drive by there every day! I had my Ghirardelli standard, a hot fudge sundae with dark chocolate, and did not split it with anyone like CC & DS wisely did.

We went back to DS's house, played with the dogs a bunch in the yard, then crowded around my computer and they helped me to identify people in my photos from the weekend whom I didn't know.

Finished that just in time for the 45-minute drive the rest of the way to Turlock, where we dropped off the teeter and then stayed for a really helpful class with Rob Michalski. Got a couple of good suggestions for Boost and let Tika have one run, too. (DS & CC are regular students in that class--we crashed the party but everyone was really nice. Of course, we knew most of the people in the class anyway).

That's when, in the heat of the Central Valley, I was REALLY regretting not having split the sundae with KK (and she, too, likewise with her mint fudge sundae, which is my other regular favorite). Still, we survived.

Watched and cheered as one of the classmates was ordered to remove her shoes & socks and presented with a brand new pair of Aussie socks because she apparently was always complaining about not having any matching socks. Fun was had by all.

When that was done, KK checked out NAF's breakaway tire a bit, and we threw toys for the dogs--not too much, as it was still pretty warm, probably high 80s to low 90s even at 7:30-8:00ish. Boost got to do her favorite game, doing out-runs on a flock of border collies. Eventually we loaded up our bags of huge juicy peaches from CC's orchard and headed home.

Got back to my house around 10:30, realized I hadn't had dinner and wasn't even hungry (duh! no surprise there!), had a light snack and retired for the night, secure in the knowledge that my great sacrifice in taking the day off to make sure the teeter got home paid off in a safe delivery to its rightful owners.

About to Be Swamped By Dog Agility, Plus Drawings

SUMMARY: My leisurely spring is coming to an end.

No more quiet, relaxing weekends at home doing calming, casual activities like frantically trying to clean up a yard that hasn't actually been guestified in a couple of years to be ready for a blackberry sorbet party (Prince sings in the background: "Blaaaackberry sorbet..."). [FYI, yes, thanks for asking, my 25-yr-old electric ice cream maker worked great!]

Summer used to be agility down time, but not no more.

• This Sunday: My club's agility fun day--agility plus potluck plus hanging out and enjoying each other's company.
• July 4 weekend: 3 days of USDAA agility
• July 10/11: Open
• July 17/18: 2 days of USDAA agility (it actually starts Friday night but my common sense finally absolved me from having to go friday night for one run).
• July 24/25: 2 days of USDAA agility.

Whew, I will be having had enough of agility for a while after that, and WOW LOOK no agility for 4 more weekends after that! How'd that happen?!

I can answer that: Because all the clubs scheduled all their USDAA-like events IN IMMEDIATE SUCCESSION starting at the end of August:

• Aug 28,29 SMART USDAA
• Sep 3,4,5,6 Bayteam USDAA
• Sep 11,12 VAST USDAA Turlock
• Sep 18,19 TRACS USDAA
• Sep 24,26 USDAA course-building clinic (if I can afford it by then)
• Oct 2,3 NAF UKI** (** UKI being USDAA-like, if I may be so bold)
• Oct 8,9,10 Haute Dawgs USDAA
• Oct 16,17 VAST CPE

and those are ONLY the trials I'd consider going to; not even mentioning the many ones that I'd not attend.

I think that I will not do all of those, but it is hard to decide which to skip! I mean, all my friends will be there!

Meanwhile, Tika and Boost are bored bored bored while I do exciting things like try to catch up on sorting all my photos, cleaning the house once a year whether it needs it or not, trying to see all the good movies while they're still in the theaters--oh yeah, and working--

So, because I always like stealing good ideas and using them to avoid doing the things that are nominally at the top of my priority list, I was reading Team Small Dog's blog, and once again TSD's talented producer who is an actual artist produced some actual drawings of her dogs in yesterday's post, and I thought, hey, I'm a writer, which makes me capable of drawing, too! (Oh, yes, I get this all the time: "I'm an engineer, but I know how to type, so that means I CAN WRITE!" and "I'm a marketing person and have my MBA and I wrote term papers in college so that means I CAN WRITE!" and "My mom loves my stories so that means I CAN WRITE!" and so obviously having any kind of skill, call it SkillA, means that you automatically also have SkillB, call it DrawingSkill in this case.) (Plus someone gave me a book "How to draw dogs" when I was a kid, likely because they saw one of my earlier drawings of dogs, and I faithfully followed all the exercises, mostly by tracing the pictures in the book.)

So I labored over drawings of the Taj MuttHall dogs for at least 3 minutes, and now in the future instead of photos I can use my extremely accurate, talented, dog-drawing skills to illustrate my tales of agility woe and exhilaration. As you can see for yourself.

I hope that no one will mistake my drawings of Tika for a mangy dwarf coyote. Poor Tika. I wonder whether she'll hold still long enough for me to trace her on a large sheet of paper?

Party Done, Dogs Aren't

SUMMARY: The advantage of having people over is that you clean up!

The back yard now looks SO much nicer than it has in a while, because I spent hours and hours over a couple of weeks getting things organized, trimmed, ready for summer, put away, and so on. (Plus the tree trimmers coming through a couple of weeks back and getting rid of all that dead wood helped tremendously.)

This is why I should have parties more often.

The blackberry sorbet was, as always, astonishingly delicious, the friends were good, the weather was pretty much perfect--not too cold for sorbet, not so hot as to make us uncomfortable.

The only thing that didn't work well is the fact that my dogs are so dang bad about bringing toys for people to throw. I have to send them repeated graved invitations every day when we go out into the yard. It's not that they don't WANT the toy thrown. It's just that Tika prefers to prove that she can get it and then wait for me or Boost to do something with the toy (and I refuse unless she brings it back). And Boost gets tired of bringing it back and then always having Tika--Ms. Dominant Dog--get it first when it's thrown.

But, even when Boost DOES get it, she brings it back about 20 feet away, drops it, and stares at it, waiting for someone to throw it.

Oddly enough, this does not get a lot of action from party guests sitting in their chairs on the patio chatting cheerily with their neighbors. So the dogs are not completely worn out. (Jake used to be the superhero of retrieval. Nothing deterred him from dropping the toy at people's feet endlessely.) But at least they were on their feet pretty much all day from around 1:00 until just now (8:00) following me and/or the guests around, so that should hold them anyway.

Oh, and I saw Toy Story 3 this morning. I cried at the end (it was happy but sad at the same time, you know?) and then I laughed at the further end in the credits. But I also got the lump in my throat when the family dog--who was a bouncing crazy fun little guy in the earlier movie(s) showed up old and gray and barely mobile. Dang dogs. Movie was well worth seeing, and the 3-D was nicely done, not gratuitous.

White Elephant Gift Exhange Isn't For Chickens.

SUMMARY: Or maybe it is.

The Bay Team's annual holiday party, combined with meeting, awards, and what's now become a traditional annual retrospective slide show, took place Saturday. The gift exchange is a White Elephant Gift Exchange (read our rules for stealing--er, re-ownering--gifts). Many gifts are beautifully wrapped with dog or Christmas related themes.

First time around, I stole a gift with a huge Rollover-type sausage and a blinky collar light. That was eventually relieved from my hands. At that point, my skewed sense of reality went for the plain brown wrapper. My theory was that the best gifts come in the plainest wrapping.

I was right about that--this time, anyway--as it included both a Lance Armsquawk squawking toy (find several bird-related sports figures here):

And this luxuriously soft blanket:

 By the time I had received this treasure, most people had already had their turn, but none-the-less it also found a new home very quickly and I had to pick again. I unwrapped one more, and it was the perfect gift for me (everyone started yelling about how it was the perfect gift for me--what makes them think I like blue tie dye?), and here we are together in my office the next day.

Team Small Dog was also there, and scored big with three new coats for the Little Black Dogs:

I'm sure you'll read about it at TSD when the time comes.

Scully Retires

SUMMARY: Scully--Verwende Prinses--treats her friends to ice cream and it's COLD out there plus going nuts with the camera

You'd never guess that Scully is closer to 14 than 13. She's been mostly retired, trying to get just 1 last Q for her lifetime bronze but just not quite fast enough any more most of the time. Plus she's a LITTLE dog. Plus a princess. Scully's class-time retirement party was last night, so we visited the class and took photos of everyone there to celebrate.

OK, maybe they were mostly there for class. But Scully's human dad came up for the mini-party, too; he made awesome ice cream

and it was still excellent but would've been even more excellent had it been 2 days ago and 100 degrees instead of last night at 60 with a brisk and icy wind. Yesterday: Summer. Today: Winter. Gotta love california.

Scully could hardly hold still, she was so excited. This is about the only shot where she's not in full hyper motion-- with her human family, waiting for some ice cream.

Mostly the Little Black Dog looked like this in all the photos.

You would hardly believe that this little active fluffball, multiple agility champion and possibly the most-titled dog in the Mixed Breed Dog Club's history (to be exact: ADCH APD SACH RCH-Bronze SCH-Bronze TM-Bronze AKD-Gold AGD AJD; C-ATCH3 ExSN ExJP ExCL ExFH ExWC ChSN ChST ChJP ChCL ChFH ChWC ChJU U-CD MB-CH MB-CDX MB-RA MB-VM5; EAC EGC EJC CGC), spent the weekend in the hospital being treated for just-discovered kidney disease and a tetch of pancreatitis. She will be getting IV fluids two or three times a week for the rest of her life. I guess if you get ice cream with that, it's not so bad.

Other guests/students:
Sparkle (Scully's Little Black Adopted Sister):

Bernie the Beagle:

MinPin Belle:

 

Porsche the Wonder Corgi:

Savannah who whupped everyone's butts in 22" Masters Gamblers last weekend:

Dylan, who looks perfect in sunset lighting:

Sooner,  the Papillon whose ears drape gracefully down the sides of his head instead of standing upright in a butterflyish manner, and who was curious about everything except what it would be like to hold still for the camera:

Boost and Tika had to wait in MUTT MVR until the 2nd class of the evening. Tika demonstrates that a really good shake, when in a freeze frame, looks pretty dorky:

Still dealing with my little crappy point and shoot, which likes neither motion (great for photographing dogs) nor any kind of darkness (great for photographing around sunset). But as long as I was there and the lighting and sky were beautiful and the nearly full moon was up--what the heck--get artsy and all that.

Waiting their turns.

Walking the course.

No hamming it up for the camera from the instructor demonstrating push-throughs, nope, not at all:

Tunnel. Moon. Agility handler. What could simpler?

Moon. Field light. Instructor. Successfully finishing a course. What could be better?

More photos uploaded here but mostly of interest to class attendees.

Monday Recap and What's Next

SUMMARY: Who's anal, who ate too much of the wrong things, who needs a camera, who's doing some real hikey-climbey thing.

Who ate too much of the wrong things (at Vicon)

Spent Friday through Sunday at the 25th annual Vicon (VIsalia CONvention, although it's not a convention and this year wasn't even in Visalia, so some people are calling it Sarcon because it was in Saratoga this year). It's a giant 3-day sleepover party for a bunch of college friends who have somehow turned into programmers, tech writers, parents of teenagers, VPs of engineering, PHDs in psychology, executive administrators, retired Captains, and other sorts of things that you wouldn't expect to see at a sleepover party.

Except this year, because it was closer to home, most of the weenies showed up only for Saturday afternoon and evening. Only half a dozen of us slept over, even though it was only 20 minutes from our assorted houses. It's the spirit of the thing, really. Felt kinda lonely Saturday and Sunday morning from the usual 20 people for breakfast. But it was still fun and something like 34 people (including half a dozen small children) made an appearance at least briefly sometime during the weekend, so it was pretty successful anyway. I woke up to a stunning swath of bougainvillea both mornings. What could be better? (I slept on a lawn chair; one guy slept in a tent.)


No dogs at all--TMH Merle Girls stayed home with Renter--but coming out of the kitchen on Saturday, trying to negotiate the small children's toyfield, I almost tripped over this:

The hard part was eating healthy. We had robust healthy breakfasts.

Vegetarian lunches.

Hamburgers and thickly mayoed potato salad for dinners. Plus handy snacks.

And dessert. The cakes arrived with no phrasing, so I was volunteered to add appropriate messages.

Cameras

After a weekend spent mostly trying to take photos in difficult lighting situations of mostly moving objects with a basic point-and-shoot that doesn't like difficult lighting or moving objects, I really really miss having a real camera. Took my borrowed one for a few photos, but battery is getting low. The difference in photos was obvious in most cases. Sighhhh. So what to do about... [ominous fwahhhh]...the Glacier Point hike?

Hiking

It's T minus 5 days. Less. In 5 days at this time I should be on the trail going up. To some AWE. SOME. VIEWS. Need camera. Will figure out something.

This weekend, to prepare for the hike, in addition to my healthy diet regimen, I walked for 2.5 miles around the neighborhood--no hills, but inclined streets--on Saturday, another 1.5 on Sunday, and hauled tons and tons of heavy gear from my house to my car (kinda like dog agility, only not as furry) and in to the party site and helped set up and rearrange and so on all weekend, for a total of about 6 miles worth of steps saturday and not sure how much Sunday, since my pedometer somehow reset itself.

The neighborhood is fancier than my neighborhood. Neo-plantation homes, fancy shrubberies, huge lawns, like that.

This 3-bedroom, 2-bath house is for sale. How much do you think they want?Did you guess $1.7 million? (Details here.) THIS is a depressed housing market? Sure, because it says that average listing price is $2.2M! Life's rough.

Here is some cool information about the trail to Glacier Point, with some photos and a link (at beginning of article) to a topo map of the trail and more photos; thanks, Dad, for the link.

That anal thing

Got home yesterday evening. Middle of the night, Tika starts licking her under-tail vicinities vehemently. Crap--could it be anal gland again? Have been trying to keep an eye on it. Will have to wait till after sleep and breakfast. By then, however, Tika had popped it open by dragging the afflicted vicinity across the hard soil. Very muddy. Bloody. Gross, actually. So I cleaned it up, applied warm compresses, applied ointment. Will repeat 2-3 times daily for a week. Plus MORE PRUNES!

OK, fans, that's all the excitement I can handle for today. And I am just not in the mood for rotating those photos because Blogger's upload is not behaving itself and I just don't have the time or patience. Turn your head sideways. I'm sure they'll work just fine that way.

I have many many photos to post for the weekend; will do later. Maybe much later.

No Thanks, No Puppy for Me

SUMMARY: In which I continue to realize that I am content with my current dog population and that my current dog population has some agility issues.

There's a brand new border collie puppy at Power Paws, and it visited class last night. It was very cute. It was happy to see everyone. It had delightful puppy breath. It wiggled and ran and fell over and got up and wiggled some more. As astonishingly freshly cute as every puppy ever made. I snuggled it.

And I had absolutely zero, not one, not a whit of, desire for a puppy of my own. Puppies are hard work. Training is hard work. Taking care of dogs is hard work, and expensive, too. I like having two dogs. Me and my twos, we be a happy little family unit.

Someone in class suggested that, when I said, "I have no interest in a puppy," that I was trying to convince myself. Funny that that's the reaction--does everyone else want a new puppy so badly that they can't imagine someone NOT wanting one?

No thanks, no no no--I've got enough training and attention challenges with the dogs I've got!

But I do like having lots of friends in agility. I left my Wednesday night 8:15 class a while back, but I'm still an Honorary Member. So when certain members of the class promised human treats to celebrate his 3rd consecutive placement on the World Team, I invited myself along.



Then they invited my dogs to participate in class, so I got a bonus class this week (in exchange for giving up my Wednesday night sierra club hike).

As an additional bonus for going up to class on Wednesday, I had an opportunity at a stop light to capture the sunset.


Then, as yet another bonus, in Power Paws' driveway, Mr. Owl awaited me on the phone lines for a photo op in the twilight. No tripod, but not bad anyway. (Great Horned Owl.)


And so, with two nights in a row of class, I have established this: Tika runs well at 22", and Boost knocks a lot of bars.

So here we are again.

Birthday Party With Relatives

SUMMARY: Boost's breeder's 40th birthday.

I didn't take my dogs because this wasn't a dog event, but people who were already there had their dogs, and so did the (very surprised) guestess of honor. Many of them were related to Boost.

Bette, Boost's littermate:
Qas ("kass"), Boost's half sister (same mother):
Rowdy, littermate to Qas. He's got the same half-blue, half-brown eye that Boost does (his right eye) but I wasn't able to get a good photo of it:
Quirk, father to Qas and Rowdy:
Quirk in a less dignified party moment:
Tango, "uncle" to all those Border Collie puppies, and a pretty decent agility dog himself (really, those two dogs were the only ones to suffer the indignity of hats, and each wore won for maybe 30 seconds for a photo op. They were very good sports about it.):
Tango's photo was printed in sugar on the birthday cake:
Boost's mom, Tala, is pregnant again with pups from Boost's father, so another litter of half a dozen full siblings is on its way:
Also there were Coty (Boost's dad), Qwik (littermate to Qas and Rowdy), Derby (Boost littermate), but I got out only the crappy snapshot camera and it wasn't cooperating much with me and they were running around enjoying themselves, so no photos. But here's the birthday card that Boost and I made for Tammy:

View all my party photos (none of me, of course).