Things To Get For Whatever New House

 SUMMARY: Things I need or want no matter what house I end up buying

Note: No posts for the past 3 days because I've done nothing house related and a lot of things unrelated. 

When I left San Jose, I made conscious decisions--consciously considered for, in some cases, quite a few years--to not take a variety of furnishings with me. Because: New House! Retirement! Get things I like better! Here are the bigger ones.

• 

  Welllll crud, I don't find ANY photos of the
  guest room and its furniture... after all these
  decades! You can kinda see the white & gold
  on the mirror over the dresser.

  
  Guest bedroom furniture. 
  White & gold bureau, side tables, double bed with headboard, box springs, and mattress-- inherited from my Grandparents. Good, solid pieces and in excellent condition. BUT (a) I've had them for 44 years, (b) they were never really my style anyway, and (c) I've not often had sleepover guests, so it all took up a lot of space that didn't get used often.
  Replacement: I'll definitely have some nice comfy bed for visitors, but I'm thinkin'--Murphy bed! James Bond! I've been reading up on them. With some kind of bedside table (that also folds down!) and a separate bureau...TBD
  
  
  
• Sofa.
  The large ivory fabric sectional served me perfectly for a long time. BUT (a) I bought it used in the first place back in 1991, and it is showing its age, (b) it is simply too low for me these days, (c) it is most useful with several guests (which doesn't happen much any more because EVERYONE MOVED OUT OF STATE, and (d) keeping a couch of that color clean and nice looking for guests when I had ... ta da... dogs! remained an ongoing challenge.
  Replacement: Friends with dogs and leather couches let the dogs on the furniture with impunity and it still looks great. So: Darker color, leather, higher seating profile, long enough to lie down full length.
• Entertainment center
  I got a lovely oak one that matched the rest of my furniture--free! From FreeCycle! in excellent condition. It had shelves for all of my audio/video gear (CD player etc) and plenty of storage for other things. BUT (a) the space for a TV can't be rearranged or changed in size and is useless otherwise, (b) it's so big that one needs a whole wall for it, not flexible, and (c) although I almost never watch TV anyway, the configuration of this one made it difficult anyway.
  Replacement: Not sure yet. Some kind of modular units for the audio/visual gear. So, TBD.
  
  

  

  Big white sectional sofa in the back; entertainment center on the right.

  
  
• Television
  Yeah, I seldom watch TV, but the newer ones are amaaazing. I think I want a larger TV than the one I have (which is at least 20 years old and that I got free from a friend), and I want it wall mounted. Maybe ceiling?!  Maybe silly because I don't watch often--but if I get the right seating and right TV location--probably would watch more
  Replacement:  TBD
• Sewing machine table, sewing machine
  So handy when I did sew stuff. BUT Sewing machine died and newer ones probably don't fit this table. I hardly ever sewed any more. The table took up a lot of space, even though when closed it could be used as a generic large, heavy (i.e., inconvenient) tabletop.  
  Replacement: New sewing machine, but no table for it, thenk yew.

Do not think for even a minute that I have an unlimited budget. Soooooo we shall see how this wish list goes.

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Squim (Or Sequim if spelled correctly)

SUMMARY: What you see is not what you say.

My seester and I did a driving scouting-of-locations around the Seattle Area May 8-18. But not actually in Seattle. Where could we retire to? Since I'm almost there this year, it's kinda important that I know what the heck I'm doing. Or going. Sequim is very nice. In May.  We thought that a nice quiet small town near sailing for my B-I-L would be good.

I learned how to pronounce Sequim (the name developed from the Klallam language) when a couple I know moved there in 2019. And also when another couple I know moved there in 2019 (actually to Port Angeles). And also when a couple that Linda knows moved there a couple of years ago also (actually to Port Angeles, too, but who's counting). And they all love it there.

All from our general area in California. 

An exercise for the student: what will Sequim look like in 20 years??!

Another exercise for the student: Find Sequim on the map. Or use your favorite maps app.

Dogs. And Agility.

SUMMARY: Pix and Ponderings about dogs, agility, nonagility, travel, activities...

This started as a blog about me and my dogs in agility.  And it pretty much continued that way for over a decade, with forays into random realms.

But I hardly ever post here any more. Mean to, really I do. Because the secondary purpose was to be my diary, since I suck at keeping a written one, plus can't click to insert photos into paper!

And then when I do post, it's hardly ever about dogs.   So, here's a dog. Waiting for the neighbor's dog to come to the fence so they can bark ferociously at each other. What passes for entertainment in the dog world.

Not too many weekends ago, I went to my club's agility trial about 50-60 minutes from here. Nice freeway drive through less urbanified areas. At least, early in the morning.  I worked. Took a few photos.  My heart wasn't into either one. I think what finally did it for me was that there was a snooker course with an element in it that is one of the spectacular Ellen-and-Boost-fail-to-get-a-Super-Q near misses that just broke my heart.  I let too many things break my heart in agility, I think, but even telling myself here and now that that didn't matter and I'd do anything to have my little blue border collie back, it just kept hitting me.

And I'm not that interested in the courses now--I'm nowhere near competition ready in that I have no agility dogs, even if I were completely physically fit.  (Actually feeling pretty good these days, but quite out of condition.)

Agility people are still wonderful. Lots of friends there. Chatted with several. And then they'd need to go run their dogs, or walk their dogs, or take their dogs to the doggie masseuse (really, she's wonderful; Tika loved her).  More and more people running, every time I go to a trial, whom I don't know from Adam.  More and more known people with new dogs I've never met and know nothing about So many of the people I became friends with--and dogs, too-- by being in classes and seminars with them for long periods.

I haven't done agility trials or classes or seminars now for over 3 years, except for a  very few small attempts at class with each of the dogs. I know that Zorro would love it and would be very good at it. I just can't spark my own interest in working on it.  Doesn't he look like he's ready for something new and more exciting?

And then, with that last trial, I just didn't even want to go to the next couple in the same location, and now there's one right here locally this weekend and I'm not going there, either. Can't exactly say why; I had planned on it. But didn't.

Meanwhile, I've been going more and more places and doing more and more things as I get physically better and better-- all the interesting and different kinds of places and things that I used to do a lot of before I started agility--

• Las Vegas and Grand Canyon in November, for a photo seminar and much more.  (I've posted almost none of the photos, but here are a couple.)
• Yosemite in March, and lucked out in having snow fall on us, something I've wanted to happen for many many years but haven't had the spare weekends also for many years. (Almost no photos posted, but here are a couple.)
• Walt Disney World in Florida in April. (almost nothing posted yet, but here are a couple of shots.)
• Arizona in May (even though it was for a memorial, still we got around and did things.) 
•  Later this summer, I'm going to Reno for the balloon races, something I've wanted to do since I first learned about them many many years ago. 
• Later still, in the fall, I'll be going to Ouray, Colorado, for a photo workshop on fall colors in the Rockies, something I've almost done several times and then didn't for one reason or another.
•  Tomorrow it's Big Sur: my sis and bro-in-law and I are going on an adventure--Driving there, taking the shuttle to the closed part of Highway 1, hiking over the brand-new trail around the damaged highway, then shuttle on the other side to Nepenthe, a restaurant that we like perched above the cliffs on the ocean, before it's too late and they finally replace the destroyed Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge and the shuttle will no longer run and Big Sur will no longer be isolated from the rest of the world (at least, from the North--who knows how long until they find the missing Pacific Coast Highway south of there). Until the next Highway 1 disaster.

Had I been doing agility, I likely wouldn't have done any of these. So, it's tradeoffs. Always.

And the dogs have stayed home through everything. So, it's a different life.

I still mostly think of myself as an agility person. Hard not to, with 20 years of classes and competitions and seminars and trips and parties and clubs and all. And yet--I feel that I'm slowly going back to being just a Boring Pet Dog Owner.  And yet--I'm still not ready to let the Agility go.

And then--Retirement is looking more and more like it could actually happen. Sooner rather than later. How cool would that be? But what would it mean for what and where and when and how and who? Thought for EVER so long that I'd travel around, hiking, doing agility, and like that. But--now--who knows!

The future is wide open.

Can You Teach an Old Dog to be a New Dog?

Does this look like a dog who's turning 13 in a month?

Jake is getting old. It's hard to accept.

It seems to happen to dogs--I know that surprises you, as it did me--but Jake seemed eternal. Now that I've allowed myself to decide that it truly is time for his retirement, it appears that I've also allowed myself to see the signs more clearly. And yet, sometimes I wonder--when I thought he'd go forever, like the Everready Agility Dog, did I see only the positive signs to rationalize my perception? And, likewise, now that I'm working towards his retirement, am I seeing only those things that rationalize my decision that the time has come? One wonders. Perhaps more than one wonders, perhaps even two or three.

Now I have been telling people that the USDAA Nationals will be his retirement show, but I found that that wasn't easy enough for me: There's one more trial that we'll attend this year, a CPE trial Thanksgiving weekend (2 weekends after Nationals), with just 3 runs a day, and I thought--you know--he finally earned his CATCH in June, just in time for the CPE Nationals the following weekend, and at the Nationals we just totally sucked. And that would be our going-out for CPE with his still-new CATCH. I couldn't bear it. So I have entered him at 12 inches (for the dog who earned his ADCH jumping 24" and 22") as a Veteran for the first--and last--time. Six more runs. And then--that's it. The end. All gone. No more agility competitions for the JakeyMon--my Jakemeister--my JakeyNoodle-oo, my little red Jedi Gambling Master.

I might be repeating myself from earlier posts, but it'll be the first time since May of 1997 that I've had only one dog to run at a trial. And I don't even have another one in the works (unless I get serious about training Casey My Man the Emergency Backup Wired Dog). And, for a few, very few--too few--weeks, I was running three.

Tika's first fully-entered trial (rather than just 1 or 2 jumpers runs) was Remington's next-to-last. So, painfully, Jake's retirement brings back those memories--I thought I'd have another dog to keep running for a while after Jake got too old.

Yelling and clapping and whistling won't wake the sleeping Jake any more. No reaction whatsoever. I have happend upon the tactic of lightly touching one of his feet to wake him; I believe that it avoids his wild-eyed frantic awakenings where I'm afraid I'll end up with dog teeth embedded in an unfortunate part of my anatomy.

He seems to sleep a lot more. (Except that every time I turn around and look at my snoozing dog, he has another apple stashed under his chin, dagnabbit. He's got to stop eating those! Putting on weight! So he's going out long enough to hunt down the elusive apple and bring it to heel.) Several months back, maybe as much as a year ago, he stopped wildly chasing Tika out to the yard when some eventful activity (e.g., squirrel, bird, cat, noise, fence, tree, grass, air, exciting things like that) occurred. He'd start to follow, but slower, then stop at the sliding door and just look out, woofing, wagging his tail if that seemed a strategy appropriate to the level of threat. I had thought at first that it was because the new, young, wild Casey had moved in and was always 3 inches from Tika's heels as she blasted through the doggie door. And that might have been some of it--he himself suddenly realized that he wasn't part of the A team any longer.

When my housemate is here watching TV upstairs, Jake seems to prefer snoozing on the floor with her than downstairs here with me and the Wild Things, even when I'm working at my desk. (Just to balance things out, Casey likes to lie under my desk near my feet--Tika and Jake used to take turns doing that. Who knows how these hierarchies work...Casey always waits for Jake and Tika to finish eating before he starts.)

I think he hears me clearly sometimes, and then I'm sure he doesn't. We were sitting at the dinner table the other evening, and it was quiet, and Jake went to stand and look out the door. To test, my guests started calling his name, clapping, whistling. This is people at the dinner table. Food is potentially involved. Other than my inability to imagine Jake ignoring people paying attention to him in any situation, this was so clearly exhibiting deafdoggedness that it was almost startling.

I have noticed for quite a while that his back legs do not always behave perfectly. Months ago, when Jake started sometimes missing his leap onto my bed, I again set up the makeshift steps that Remington had used in his illness. True to form for a one-brain-celled dog who takes a while to learn things, it took forever to convince him to step up onto the box, thence onto the chair, thence onto the bed, rather than leaping from the side as he has always done. But, once figured out, he seemed to seek it out.

I see more of it all the time. Last night I was downstairs late, reading at the table, and he was snoozing underneath. When I woke him to go upstairs, he was undoubtedly stiff and woozy; when we started up the stairs, his back legs didn't carry him at all and he slipped and almost fell back down. I grabbed him and steadied him, but he seemed frozen with fear and incomprehension at what had happened.

It will only happen more. What then, when he can't walk up the stairs on his own? When Sheba got to that point, she just didn't go up--but then, it seems to me that she often slept apart from us anyway, exerting her Husky independence. But Jake always wants to be sleeping where I am. Taking a nap on the dining room floor with a view of me and my desk isn't enough; he has to be here in the office with me.

And yet--he flies after his toy in the yard with the same vehemence and speed that he has always shown.

We are in transition.