Ok, I'll admit to playing around a bit now that I'm a comfortable blogger. Well, more or less comfortable. So, to set the mood for this next entry please play this clip quietly in the background:
A while back a friend came through town and stayed with me. I hadn't seen him in a long time and it was a really wonderful surprise to get acquainted with him all over again. He is the son of a friend of mine and I was happy to know he wanted to reconnect. He had with him this wonderful, amazing dog. He was a big German Shepherd with a serene expression in his amber eyes. Both the young man and the dog left a lasting impression on me. About a year ago when I decided to get a new dog (rather impulsively I'll admit and in part as an effort to lift a depressed pall that had settled on my teenage son) all I could think about was that gorgeous fellow with the amber eyes and sweet disposition. The two of them were traveling around together in a Subaru wagon, often sleeping together in the back. So I went out and got myself a double pedigreed beauty of a German Shepherd. She is really quite gorgeous and has big amber eyes. However, serene is not an adjective you could use for her for even a split nano-second. I have since learned that the German Shepherd, although a fine dog with higher than average intelligence and extreme loyalty and tons of personality, takes between two to three years to stop being a puppy. So I live with this 85 pound dog that looks like Rin Tin Tin but behaves like Tigger. Yes, the bouncy, pouncy, flouncy, trouncy friend of Winnie the Pooh's whose character is described this way: "When Tigger is in a bouncing mood he is actually expressing his zest for life and is a form which he often uses as a technique to share his eagerness and happiness or even fondness amongst his dear friends. He shall act on impulse and will make a dash on being jubilant but that impulsive dash more often than not is jumping around without taking measure of the surroundings. This at times leads to mishaps and causes utter mayhem." Unlike serene, mayhem is indeed a word you could use to describe my canine friend. While we've been to doggy kindergarten and the madness is only intermittent now instead of constant, there is another trait of the German Shepherd that wasn't on my radar screen that is the reason for the theme music. They shed. I mean, they shed buckets of hair a few times a year. I have become obsessed with both brushing my dog and doing my floors and tackle the job every single day with an occasional second light pass through to boot. This morning as I prepared for my day I walked through the house imagining that theme music as the tufts of beige fluff disturbed by the air current of my movement reminded me distinctly of tumbleweeds blowing on a western street. As I walked out of the door and the sunlight hit me I felt like Pigpen from Peanuts as the hair followed me out, swirling around me as I made my way to my car. Sigh. I bought a ten acre dog and I'm moving into a 7x12' trailer.
Today I let go of:
1. A heavy cotton, mustard yellow tablecloth
2. A stack of gift boxes for wrapping gifts
3. A set of six inch tall tracing letters - perfect for a teacher
4. Puzzle cubes
5. A deck of playing cards
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