Stuff I Did in January

SUMMARY: Random photos 1st half January 2021

Probably not much different from the December 2020 one. But with more rioting.

(Many but not all photos have been seen on Facebook.)

Life continues as it general has, since April of 2020. Stay at home. Go nowhere. Wear a mask if I go somewhere other than nowhere. Walk with the dog. Stores try mightily to remind people not to be idiots.

New Year's morning selfie in the park behind my house with Mr. I Don't Do Photos.

Startin' the new year with the usual Mr. You Owe Me Something But
You Have to Figure Out  For Yourself What It Is.

Glamour Magazine version of New Year's morning.
At the park near my house.

Evening walk. 
Same location as the "...So, we walked at sunrise..." image in December.

Marie Callender's has sanitized pens 
and they won't take back their empty pie tins until A.P. (after pandemic).

Designed to be disposable, apparently.
Tiny screws requiring a screwdriver size that probably most folks don't have.
Everything comes apart into multiple pieces. 
I can't find replacement batteries in the stores so far.
And not sure I can get things entirely back together the same way anyway
(notice tape holding battery and contact in place?!).
Design companies, c'mon, it should be trivial to replace batteries!
OK, no more long captions.

Braved the nearly empty mall for one quick purchase (not at this store).
Every store had COVID "stand here" spacing decals outside their doors, and inside, too.

Sunset walk. Same place as "Evening Walk" above.

Dusk falls. 
Same place, same evening, 15 minutes later, standing 50 feet northeast.
When ya go so few places, ya gotta take different perspectives.
That's my secret to this glamorous travelogue.

Fast Times at Nowhere High: DayTimer refill pages arrive.
Usually I order in September, not January.
Usually I have things to write in it.
I'm sure any day now--
{fire up uplifting music and break into song}

Sunset from the car. 
The glamor continues.
I try to remember how to drive.
With luxury glamorous turkey feathers.

Remember Mr Fox No.12?
Showed off a beloved Christmas present but has mostly laid low this year.
Don't know why; I don't think foxes can catch COVID-19.

When the going gets tough, with insurrectionists in D.C. spurred on by the outgoing President,
the tough finally give up and go load up on boxes and boxes of crucial supplies because
it's going to be a long 14 days till the 20th and who knows what'll happen then.
At 50% off.

Guard dragon's old mask disintegrated.
Who knew all of this would go on long enough to need a replacement?

On the fridge. Someone's having a good ol' banana time.

Newspaper shows San Francisco city hall lit up red, white, and blue.
D.C. events are on everyone's minds.
I'm trying to be cheery here.

Zorro buried up to his chest, dig dig digging.
He'd better keep an eye on that croc, is all I can say.

Living with this view cemented my resolve to always live where
I can see sunsets and/or sunrises from my home.
Maybe next time without my neighbor's tree smack dab in the middle.
At least *I* have a dogwalk.

And this.

Chance to become a billionaire! 
With gritted teeth, I pry open the NO GAMBLING purse and remove $20.
Yay, I win $5 back! My lucky day!
Cannot pry open that purse again even though no one wins this round.

Sorry, anyone reading, and future me rereading this post,
right now it's all about the horror in the White House
and in the streets with 20,000 armed National Guard and other security forces lining up
and insufficient vaccine for COVID and death rates hitting new records.
But at least they kicked Trump off Twitter.

Now back to our usual warm and friendly blog... 

Phoned in my order. Fortunately I could bypass that line to pick it up.
COVID, no touching, no sitting.

My office develops blue spots! Whaaaaaa???


Oh...          
this....

In the traditional Cultural game of Bitey Face, those who have faces full of hard, sharp pointy objects have a distinct advantage over those who have faces full of soft, blunt fingers.Isn’t it then cheating for the one with hard sharp pointy objects to then bring his front grabbers into play, also?

A 4.2 quake not too far from home will get you *and* the dog to jump.
Gods: Hahahaha made you look!

Look. Nature.

What our friends think we do on our morning walks:
Maintain iron-fisted control over insurrectionist ground squirrels.

What we really do.

Finallee! I iz forced big danger-vans bringz us boxes!
Gud onez, too!

True Confessions: Yes I sometimes go shopping.
Needed one piddly thing from Office Max. Cost: $2. 
To order by mail: add $5 shipping.
To dash into store with my mask
when it's nearly empty during maximum COVID lockdown,
 risking my very life : Priceless. 
Yes: Price...Less.

Fun with Clouds with Dick and Jane.
See clouds arch.
Arch, clouds, arch.
Arch you glad I'm blogging for you?

Gods conjured a huge windstorm just to give Zorro what he always felt he deserved.
Finders keepers; unknown neighbors weepers?

With that-- and the Inauguration coming up at 9 tomorrow morning--I think I'll call this a good Half Month and save the rest of January for ...  sometime after January.

Picking Up Poop

SUMMARY: The never-ending stream of criticism

There's another post today on NextDoor begging people to pick up their dogs' poops, followed by a stream of responses about how often/where/when they find poop, which is frequently/everywhere/every day.

I've had dogs since 1978 and this has always been a problem. Always. And picking up is not usually a hard thing, so what's with that?! I lived in a townhouse complex when I got my first dog (Amber). I walked her twice a day. In those days, it was a trowel and small paper bag that I carried with me for pickup duty.  And, yep, I always found other dogs' deposits and picked them up, as well.  One early morning as I was finishing my walk, a man came out of one of the other units and said, "I've been watching you and your dog. [Immediate fight or flight response starts to build.]  And I am very impressed--I see so many people leave their poop, yet you pick up theirs as well as your own. [Whew!] It's nice to see a responsible dog owner and neighbor."

If I see someone in the act of walking away from their mutt's mess, I might say, "Did you forget your poop bag? Here's one." Almost always they thank me and clean it up. That means that they're probably always forgetting their poop bag, but at least I gave them a hint from another dog owner. I've rarely had a rude response.

Yes, I'm tired of going for walks in any park and picking up after others. I don't want to step in that! And I don't want parks to be closed to dogs because of inconsiderate, lazy people! Yes, I've also seen poop right next to bag dispensers. Crazy, right?
(And on fences!?!)

Dog Owners, it's a responsibility! I have genuinely on rare occasions not had a poop bag--for example, maybe I brought 2, filled both and tossed, and then one of my dogs pooped *again*! (I usually try to have more, but you know, s....tuff happens.) Or I didn't notice that the bag dispenser was no longer attached to my leash. 

It is NO FUN looking around trying to find something with which to pick up the poop--newspapers are not so great, as they quickly absorb moisture and start to fall apart. ;-) On occasion I've used big leaves. Carrying it around in those makeshift "bags" is a pain and can get messy. But it's my responsibility! And yours, too, Dog Owners.

Also see:

• PICK UP YOUR POOP (November 2010)
• Other posts related in one way or another to poop
• Best Poop Bags in the World (scroll to the end of Checking In On Tika) -- actually just see the photo to the right!

Checking In On Tika

SUMMARY: She's doing fine, but what about that eye?

Can you believe that it has already been just about six months since Tika's heart problem surfaced?

We visited our vet today for these reasons:

• Time for a check-up on how she's doing from the vet's perspective.
• Why is she now eating her meals very slowly?--used to finish in half the time that Boost did, now takes twice as long.
• What's the deal with the red lump on her 3rd eyelid?

You can hardly notice the lump at a quick glance, but up close it looks yucky.

I first noticed it sometime the week before the Haute Dawgs trial--so about 3 weeks ago. I don't think it has changed any since then. First question every vet tech asked was, has she had any trauma to the eye? Same from the vet. None that I know of. So, we're going to watch again for a few weeks. Doc says looks like a benign hemangioma (means it's a bloody lump, basically).

Eating--her teeth look great, no sign of pain in her gums. No loss of appetite--still eats everything and is interested in food. Could be any number of things, but without other signs or portents, yet another thing to keep an eye on. Could be her meds, but vet doesn't think that any one of them is more likely than the others.

How's she doing over all? Vet says GREAT! Heart doesn't sound any worse, heartbeat is still strong and slow (despite her frantic terror of being at the vet's) like an athlete's. He said, considering her diagnosis, she's doing very well indeed 6 months later. We'll do a follow-up blood test on general principles in a couple of months.

After that, we bipped across the freeway to Los Gatos Creek Park for a tiny stroll in the sunlight among the Canada Geese and their omnipresent poop. Not too long a walk because Tika was on a sedative, although I gave her only half a tablet this time 90 minutes before the vet.

What a lovely day and what a lucky Human Mom I am.

So many good smells before we even get around the fence to the percolation ponds.

The water fountain has a height just for dogs. Although both Merle Girls thought it was fascinating that water ran into it while they watched, they didn't drink from it.

The gorgeous day called many other people out with their dogs. The one nice thing about a little sedative on the Craussie is no on-leash frenzy about other dogs.

Plus--we have THE best poop bags in the universe. How could the day be any better?