What DID happen to them?

 

 

This is one of my favorite videos in a long time. 24 minutes and some change, but if you're interested in dogs and history, or the history of dogs, worth every bit of it. Carolinas of course do feature, and in this context pups like my girl are even more interesting.

Collection

When an article features Terry Crews and mentions Rosey Grier, I'm going to be all the way in for clicking THAT. When that article fully displays the principle and ever-perfecting manhood, well pre-dating Crews' current testimony before the Senate, and how sumptuously he expresses not only his humanity but his convictions, I all but weep. He's proving what we know - and most need to know. Additionally, he's funny as hell.

A joke I heard on Twitter once: "White people upset about BET asking, 'Why don't we have White Entertainment Television?' ... We do, it's HGTV." Worth the click because sometimes online discourse is fertile.

In other TV musing, something struck me about Pose recently. Having watched other Ryan Murphy works, I knew early on that the discussion I'd seen regarding how unrealistic Pose is was almost funny: Murphy's not interested in realism, he presents setpieces, and he does that nicely if you choose to take it on his/those terms. (Feud felt intentionally setbound; even outdoors scenes are claustrophobic and closed-in. That plays to the emotional worlds of the Crawford and Davis characters in play.) For Pose, the archness is not as visually obvious, so I've seen complaints about, say, just how glamorous the scene is made to look, or the opening sequence for the series itself, where "real" historical costumes are stolen from a museum for a gay ball. Preposterous! And duh. Here is the thing: Pose is 80s TV. Figuratively (it's set in the late 80s) and literally (its emotional beats are ALL Very Special Episode-worthy). The depth of plotting is *veeeerryyy* much like 80s TV - sitcom or drama. The pacing is extremely 80s; when TV took time to lay things out. For many, this seems slow or dry or even insulting (making the implicit explicit). But this is so, so true to its time. It takes the 80s seriously, AND it tells stories no network (remember, we really had three back then) would have told in the time itself. I kind of think that's genius, and it's not Murphy's first time reining pace enough to slow things down like this. Given his current influence, you wonder how this might bear out in others' work. Imagine a vogue for *less* cinematic TV; imagine the VSE's regaining ascendance. I've seen surprising amounts of ink on VSEs over the past couple of years. My guess is nostalgia is bringing it back, in service of subjects even the original concept never served.

Leaping from television to literature, who has read Connie Willis's Doomsday Book? I actually re-read it a year or two ago, and - forget Jurassic Park - this book will scare the willies out of you, in both its plague-ridden timelines. So reading about the extraction of leprosy from centuries-old skeletal remains ISN'T HORRIFYING AT ALL. Just as long as you haven't read the wrong books. Yeep.

Finally ... hmm, and more hmm. Yes, fella babies, it's Adventures in Science Reporting again!

I have written in the past about Penelope's ancestry, and as little obsessed as I am with pedigree, it's not beyond me to admit fascinated with the idea my beloved Pariah descending from millennia of fascinating forerunners. Oddly enough, it seems like cancer is about all we really have left of pre-contact canine breeds. Still - being a critical thinker - it is hard not to wonder about previous DNA studies, pointing to modern Amercan dogs' long history here. Hmmmm. Keep us posted, Dr. Ostrander.

Puppy Smell

The cocka-poo we adopted when I was in middle school, I used to call Mufferstinker. Sidney was my Stinky Tuscadero (though someone once told me, when she was like eight, that she smelled like a puppy; and it was true, most of her life). I always used to tell her, "I like your stink" because - I did.


Penelope came inside from a morning playing in her yard. She smells like sunshine. The soft metallic scent of her blood, warm from playing, and her breath. The grass.

Through winter, Pen really has little odor. Carolina Dogs are very clean, and she doesn't have the sebaceous musk Siddy always had.

For those of us who love our dogs for themselves, who need the heartbeat near us, who appreciate they're animals, who appreciate the excuse to remember we are animals ourselves ... puppy funk isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's a warm, seasonal scent right now: summer is coming! It's homey, in a way. It's part of her, part of being a dog-lover; I know there are some who consider it unpleasant or a sign of dirtiness (my *home* does not smell like dog; even her bed isn't a stinky spot).

For me, puppy-stink is one of the silly, secret privileges of the baby girl I am blessed to care for.

I like her stink, too. She gots good stink.


(For his part, Gossamer smells like honey bread baking. It's amazing.)

Time for a Penny Post

When Gossamer and Penelope first came into my life, there was a pretty regular stream of posts about their development and ours as a little community, with the occasional nod to making these points relevant to publish, but mostly just the indulgent and frustrated emotional responses of a pet owner and Virginian dealing with that ultimate trial: CHANGE.

“How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb?”

Five. One to actually do the job. Two more to stand off to one side, tut-tutting about how much better the old light bulb was, and fretting with semi-religious fervor about the implications of a new bulb. And two more to write the history of the original bulb with maps and Civil War footnotes.

My dear old Sweet Siddy La was the absolute finest in mellow, sittin’-at-your-feet dogness. She knew my dad a little when she first came around, and he approved of her. He tole me when I got her, “Don’t you feed that dog from the table, don’t you let her get fat.” She got the occasional treat (she loved pizza crust), but I never forgot what he said, and she did eat pretty healthily. To her last months on earth, you could see the shape of the muscles in her legs. And she had beautiful legs.

Lolly was a wonderfully “well behaved” dog, as defined by a bit of fulsomeness in the greeting department and a tuggy deportment on walks, but never causing messes in the house and always calming down fairly readily.

Miss Penelope, by comparison, has always seemed like a handful. For one, she’s still only three; not even the age *yet* that Siddy was when I was blessed to take care of her. For another, she is just a very different dog. Massively energetic, terrifyingly intelligent, skittish where Sid was calm and oblivious to storms (the one area in which Sid would lose composure. aww.). Penelope was untrained when I got her, and fed off the faintest energy from me with exponential emotional results. If I was upset, Pen was beside herself; if I became excited, she was rendered utterly uncontrollable.

And yet, from the beginning, she submitted to me in ways Siddy never did (and never had to). Pen was still juvenile when we came together, with all the dependence and the lack of discipline that comes with. I’d sworn I would not adopt a puppy, knowing the limited time I have to commit to training and so forth – and there she was. My dog. My baby, scared, confused, lunatic dog. And I loved her.

I despaired of time ever passing and her ever Being Like Sid (I never would have admitted it then, least of all on those terms).

But I reveled in her incredible trainability, and especially the fact that she would take command not only from me, but from others who came around; my friends and family.

It wasn’t long before she behaved almost as if she had a button – the alacrity in her obedience is still so speedy and so emphatic it’s as endearing as it is comical. She binds me to her, and I am overjoyed that she and I can communicate. She still thinks, “Oh! Mom told me to sit, so I will do that, then I will lie DOWN, then I will give her BELLY, because that is even more than she asked for, and I want to give my ALL!” – and we’re working on “that’s not sit” in the gentlest way, still. But “back” she has down to a tee, which is unbelievably handy for us both, and “stay” she’s getting better at though still likes boundary testing.

But in non-command behavior is her magic.

Siddy, right out of the box as they say, had some of the subjective behaviors one most wants in a pet. She would no more touch my food even if I weren’t in the room than she would poop in the house. I never had to teach her – and, after perhaps one incident of “HEY THIS DOG IS DIFFERENT” with Penelope getting tentative at my supper, she really didn’t require teaching on the point of food heirarchy either. Siddy was far more aware of her food surroundings, indeed, than Penelope is – a single molecule of anything people-edible going astray was instantly claimed and cleaned up by that Hoover of a Good Girl, but Penelope misses a surprising amount. She’s getting better, but actually drops even her own kibble and forgets about it from time to time. I drop a piece of it and tap my toe to indicate she should pick it up, she’s so het up about feeding time she can miss after three tries. Into each life, a little kibble must fall.

Gossamer’s even worse. But I do get a warm mommy smile at my Pen, when she is oblivious to tiny morsels available for the pickin’.


Penny turned three-ish on her made-up birthday, April Fool’s day. And it’s been during the past month or two I’ve been watching more changes in her, more maturity. She’ll never settle down, quite, but her ability to greet visitors with less wee-ing and tungsten-clawing (all well-intentioned love and submissiveness, but no more appealing to most contemporary humans) has  markedly improved. Though perhaps markedly is the wrong word to use …

In her own space and on her own time, Pen has always been a pretty mellow kid; prone to bursts of energy, and occasionally instigating, or being insitgated into kerfuffles with, Gossamer. But generally a dog – lying around and not being a complete drama queen about every last instant of her existence.

But seeing her regulate herself a bit at social moments is – well, I won’t say exciting. It’s just nice.

One of the best parts is this: Penelope is in her own skin, and she’s comfortable there. Her home, her dogmommy, her semi-pal Gossamer. She’s got this thing, y’all, she doesn’t have to freak about it alla time.

She’s home. It’s a good place for us both.

Walkin'

Even on a good day, her strength is enough my back is strained holding on. But today - today, she's been good. And the light has leached out of the sky silently, soft and easy, colorless moment left behind. Twilight is truly over, but either night is paused delicately or I can't believe it's here, and the trees still reach up, and out, and are the only shapes that matter.

Other than the yellow girl, the smudge of muscle and light just ahead. Tugging, but gently.

Tonight wasn't a night I talked with her a lot. Just taking in our neighborhood, our route, our walk, our evening exercise.

The tap of her toenails on the pavement. It really isn't honestly dark out; headlights and black silhouettes notwithstanding. Muzzy, garish red light of the signal up ahead; too much, but beacon of home.

Early in our circuit, on the way down the hill, the breezes were dying as we descended below them a little, and the sun had left enough behind I saw the message on the asphalt THE END IS NEAR. Not a trashy grafito, and amusingly accurate as to its own longevity; some kid had sprayed it right on the road. Funnier than threatening, I arc my body to read it as we go. And then we just go.

Signal growing closer, and the house is rising, dark against the light of busier places to the north, and there is my maple. It reaches up - maples never shrug, never sag and reach down or bow to the ground. They twist a bit, in my neighborhood; a local peculiarity, the slightest screw-turn in their trunks. Why they grow that way around here - never have understood. I may be the only person left in this state who even knows it, and therefore makes a point of seeing it.

My big branches - this beauty, and the kitchen, they sold this house. Fifteen years in a few months. Hard to believe. And more than half the mortgage, thanks to the magic of refi. The maple really is mine now, in some file cabinet - or file drive - somewhere those things matter.


The new neighbors have put out candy-colored playthings for the kids in the yard. It's beautiful. That holly is gone, away from the front porch, now naked and open. The St. Patrick's flag in the nighttime breeze.

And home. Tugging home.

Pummy

One of Penelope's more recent nicknames is Pummy. I've always called her Pen-Pen, which may or may not be the echo of someone I know whose child's name has a first syllable she doubles up in much the same way - or may just be the way human linguistics works, especially with diminutizing nicknames. So Pen-Pen, when spoken quickly, begins to sound like Pempem, which can begin to sound like pumpum ... and there you go.

Pummy was just sitting at my knee here at the couch, facing perpendicular to the front of it, chest near the end of the furniture. She turned her head round to look at me - a pretty steep angle, almost Exorcist steep, and looked up. And had her chin on the arm of the couch.

Seriously, y'all cannot imagine the levels of adorableness it is necessary to be able to tolerate, in this house. I'd have photographed her, but the true effect would have been lost. Her head pointed upward, ears at full-unfurl, a shadow over her face, but enough light on the gloss of her eyes and her shiny black lips and nose to gleam softly. And her CHIN resting on the ARM of the COUCH.

It's untenable, that's what it is. I can't ten either of 'em, and Gossamer the Editor Cat uses it *KNOWINGLY* and still it works, the crass little PR man.

And now Pen is lying down, and her chin would be on her foreleg - but NO, her ROPE TOY is there, and could that even possibly be more hilariously, more endearingly, more winsomely sweet? I ask you.

And I'll tell you, too:

No. No, it could not.

Collection

“I remember when I had my first beer”, “I remember when I invented feminism”, “My diet is morally superior to your diet” and other stories of baffling enragement. The “standing desk” link is a great impression of the psychotic/proseletyzing vim and fervor people insist upon applying to their own choices. The diet link doesn’t say anything I haven’t pointed out before, but is very, VERY well written. Like, I have a little bit of a crush on the author well-written. Also he’s smurt. So go kill a mammoth, have a snack, and enjoy the read. But do it standing up.

Louisa Young takes us on an absolutely wonderful journey into the joys of research at The History Girls, starting with the charming portrait of a little girl and her cat ... and ending with a couple more very like her, and some winsome surprises along the way.

Lauren at American Duchess once again wows us with shoe designs of the early 20th century - the first pair are stunning. The third pair I crave.

Jeff Sypeck asks, “Dante? I’ve never grasped what Americans hope to do with him—maybe because the answer turns out to be 'everything.'”

The Arrant Pedant (ahh, how I love a new post at The AP) discusses Fifty Shades of Bad Grammar Advice. Awesomely. And, in case you're leery of (a) reading anything whatever to do with the Fifty Shades novels or (b) sick of reading snark *about* the novels, this post really doesn't touch (hee) those to speak of, but takes the discussion beyond. As, apparently, Grammerly did in dispensing poor advice about writers from Shakespeare to Hemingway whom they have deemed to employ substandard grammar.

Finally, in a self-referential link, someone finally commented on my post about a particular peculiar behavior of my dear little ur-doggy; it looks like it may be that this *is* a Carolina Dog thing.

If Looks Could Cuddle

Goss and Pen haven't actually become the adorable snuggling pals you see in aww-inducing internet photos ...

But they fake it pretty good, don't they?



The secret is, the space heater was right at the end of the couch where they were situated. Radiating heat and a good nap beat out a bonk on the brainpan any day.

WFH

When the office is closed, it's nice to have a laptop and still be able to accomplish something in between shoveling and such.

It's nice, also, to have a change of personnel.

Warm Day

I don't usually start seeing canine carcass out in the backyard like this before spring time, but today it's in the sixties, and Penelope is out there soaking up rays on her tum. Goss the EC and I are inside with research for the WIP.

There will be a grocery run for my breakfast protein goodness and some sort of supper for the week, but that will be a relatively short task, followed by a very short stop at the drugstore. I'm fighting the temptation to go look at paint for my kitchen and bath (the happy yellow cabinets, originally painted to match my Harvest Gold range, now dead and gone, are in for a change, as is the violet blue trim in the badezimmer). I might try to blame Janet Reid and her blog's community for a burgeoning obsession with painting - but the fact is, I seem to be in a season of creative nesting; this house has seen fussing and cleaning the like of which it rarely enjoys - every cobweb is vanquished, the tile has been scrubbed ALL around the bath, even the walls and cabinets of the kitchen have been washed. I've also got ideas about area rugs which are best left unexplored for now.

For now ... the house is quiet but for my loud typing, and a nice weekend has been shared by friends and family so far. Goss's bright pink tongue is glossing up his beautiful white paws in a sunbeam borrowed away from Pen's back yard. There is a big, heavy wrought iron fleur de lys my mom gave me in the window, overlooking affairs, and I am contemplating the best hour for a Sunday afternoon nap. There may be a certain pearl grey helper in on that with me.

For now ... I type, and finish the grocery list, and revel in the fact that I don't "have" to go, but can any time I like. I've got on comfortable shoes and it's bright outside. Punxsutawney Phil may have us in for six more weeks of winter. But today, it is spring, and peaceful, and blessed.

Penelope Outside

Pen and I had some quality mommy-doggy time on Christmas day.  She seemed like she enjoyed it.

(No, her right ear didn't go the way of everything else I keep losing lately.  She was just hiding it to be funny.)

Random ... NESS

So, I give my pets a whole lotta nicknames.  It's not like they connect any name with some sense of identity in any case - so I just count on them recognizing "eat", "treat", "come" and so on, and know the rest is pretty much for me.

In this house, the pets are their own essences.  So Gossamer is The Goss-ness.  Before him, Smikey the cat was Smike-ness.  Siddy was Sidness.

Now.  Let us all speculate.

Why is it Penelope does not get this treatment ... ?

In a Week ... Happy Anniversary!

Twelve years ago, I took my little niece with me on a beautiful Saturday morning to go looking for a new dog.  I honestly can’t recall whether she and I went to more than one place, but I can tell you the moment I saw this giant-eared, black-masked beastie looking out across the parking lot at the pet store, and I thought, “What a weird looking dog.”  She was one of a kind, yes, even down to her looks – and I remember looking at other animals, but could not tell you what we saw.  My niece and I both seemed to zero in on Sid – or maybe she zeroed in on us (certainly, I have been adopted by pets in my time, seemingly almost without will of my own).

Her peculiar, masked face was topped with one black ear (her only other black feature; and it did not go grey, as  her mask did, and disappear) and one white one with little dalmation spots.  She had a big square head like a Volvo:  it was boxy, but it was good.  And a deep furrow straight down the middle, from the top of her nose right back between those prodigious ears.

Siddy was four, and if “when they thought” her birthday was was right, we shared one.  And she was within about a week of being the same age as that niece of mine.

I remember the adoption process seeming so daunting, and even fearing I would not get to have her – I developed a fast crush on her, and the inimitable Zuba told me, when I was telling her about the other dog I was thinking about, “Diane, you are already calling her Siddy.  That is your dog.”

Zuba is no damned fool, and neither was Sweet La.  She got Zuba so well tied around her little claw even a sneeze straight in her face never dented her auntie’s love for that pup.

So Sid came home, still wearing a traffic cone from a kerfuffle with some other damned fool dog in foster care.  The guy I was seeing at the time evinced a bit of intimidation by her, so he had to go (I’d been looking for the right moment …).  And so she and I had nine years, nine months of I-was-the-luckiest- doggy-momma-evarrr, until that sad July 5.  And sigh.

That was just over two years ago, and it took me from July to October to be ready again … and that was when my MOM went with me to go find a pupadoodle.  Small niece was no longer available, though I kept her posted vicariously, and she ended up approving Penelope.

Penelope, whose little noodly yellow butt seemed so small to me, and whose round, light-bulb head was all full of wrinkledy loose skin and a set of ears the like of which even Siddy had never seen.  She hardly seemed built to hold them up.  Penelope, who seemed entirely unaware of the little things when I took her into the kitten section of that pet store.  Penelope, of the head full of white puppy teeth and insouciant underbite.  Penelope, wearing her little blue bandana around her neck, saying “ADOPT ME” – and I did.  (I had no choice:  I adopt ears.  And hers were prodigious.)

She grew into them – though they’re still quite the arresting feature.

Little did I know that 35-pound scrap of wiggles would turn into a 60-pound slab of … well, wiggles.  And tugs.  And would turn out to be the smartest dog I’ve ever known.  And *everything* about what it can be like to adopt a puppy instead of a more mature dog …

This month, it’s been two years since I recommitted my life to ever being good enough for my dog (and, now, Gossamer kitty as well), and the golden days are reminiscent of both pups’ early days.  Of course, Pen is significantly changed – not just physically – since she came home.  Twice the muscular body, to be sure, Penelope is also exponentially higher-energy, but almost heartbreakingly eager to please, and I am utterly her alpha.

It’s a different relationship than “doggy mommy” which was what I called my role with Siddy pretty much from the beginning.  Sid was a mellower animal, of course – and older – so our relationship was as much her choice as mine.  Penelope, being only about six months old when she came home with me, and of a history either unknown or undisclosed, was bursting with health and the sweetness of a baby girl, and cuter than I could even begin to contemplate resisting.  I had no idea what “almost there” meant with house training (and thank goodness, or I’d never have taken her home; she wee’d in the car on the way, before falling asleep in the back seat) … nor, honestly, what it’s like to live with a highly energetic dog of her size.

Ohhh, but my beautiful yellow baby girl.  She and Goss have never yet become cuddling partners, but they do play, and they have a good understanding.  The pair of them make me laugh so genuinely, so heartily.  Last night, Goss had been playing in the tub, as he is wont to do (how sad a day will it be, when I finally get a plumber to fix the leak …), and came out with a wet head bone.  Penelope was licking his head clean … or taking a drink off the cat, to be more accurate.

As adorable affection goes, I know folks go more for the gentle show of “AWW”-inducing love and friendship, but in our house, the dog slaking her thirst on the cat’s skull qualifies.

And, as much of a spazz-matazz as Penelope can be, the fact is, she’s really very like her predecessor, most of the time.  When she’s in the yard, she can blow off all the springbok-bouncing-across-the-savannah energy she can, and watching her physicality is incredible to me and always will be.  She is a Tigger, just a mass of power that hardly has to touch the ground when she’s really moving – and, like a proper Tigger, she’s fun-fun-fun-fun-fun.  But between bursts, she’s mellow and enjoys a good cat-nap just as much as any dog.  Heh.

She doesn’t tend to sit quite right at my feet, as Sid did, when I am on the couch, but does snuggle up by it if I am having a Sunday afternoon nap.  On those special mornings at home, too, when she is allowed on the bed, she is very good at staying in “her spot” until I indicate I’m ready to scratch her belly a little while, and much better than Sid, now that I think of it, at being still and not indulging extended scratching or washing time and jouncing the whole bed to bits.  She and Gossamer can pen me in (har) quite neatly, between them, and they’re both pretty good together when they’re allowed on the bed at once.  Though yesterday there *was* a near-cat-crushing experience, and Pen would not be told not to flop right against my tum, where the little guy already was.  Erm.

Like any dog, she has such power to melt me to a puddle.  She and Sidney MORE than have that in common, though I’m sure she depends on me in a much deeper way.  I love to just hold her whole head, wrapping my arms around her neck and patting her chest or around her legs.  Letting her have a treat – or a privilege in the house (getting on the bed, being allowed on the couch) is wonderful.  The way she physically *looks* to me for guidance is almost heart-wrenching.  Her ears are beautiful, warm, and the thickest velvet in the world.

And her head is still shaped a lot like a beet.  My dear little Beet Head Ned.

Carolina Dog Behavior - Open Forum!

Of all the behaviors I've read about in Carolinas, there is one Penelope exhibits I've never seen discussed, so I wanted to put it down here - and open the floor to any comments from others, about Carolina Dogs they've known, and whether they've seen this.

Regular readers, of course, know about my dog's unique ur-breed - and probably more about her habits than is interesting.  She does the snout-holes, has the wary attitude, the incredible physical power and energy that come with her breed.  She's a perfect Yella Dog in her coloring.  She has that wonderfully fun fishhook tail (which she will thank you NOT to play with, apart from getting the leash in its circle while out on a walk).

She also has a particular behavior I've never seen before, but which speaks to me of some sort of protective instinct.

If I am sitting or lying on a piece of furniture, and one of my feet happens not to be on the floor, but in midair - if my legs are crossed, or I'm on the bed with a foot hanging off - she positions her body to cover it.

She is very particular about how this is done - she must place herself so that my foot is under her lower belly, between her haunches.  She doesn't want my foot in her genital area, but just having my foot under the tuck of her belly, not surrounded by her limbs, is not quite good enough.

If it weren't for the "low" position she seems to go for - and she will go as far as *lifting* one of her legs, to get her body in the right position over my foot - I might mistake it for some sort of maternal drive, a nursing posture.  But she seems pretty urgent to get the midair-foot rather surrounded by her body.

She herself, in physical affection, and on the odd moment she expresses nervousness physically, does like to surround her own head in my body.  I can encompass her with my arms, but she likes to have my head or my body *over* her as well.  She's the only dog I've ever lived with who seeks greeting with me wherein I don't just bend over her body to pet her, but actually bend over her, and wrap my arms around her belly, so her entire torso is surrounded by me.  And, in this position, her head is not so far from where she tries to get my foot, when she's "protecting" it.

Nothing about this looks like a mating behavior of any kind to me, either.

"Your head's under a chair arm, did you know that, Dog?"

I wonder whether anyone else who has or knows or has studied the Yellow Dog/Dixie Dingo/Carolina Dog has seen this behavior.  I personally have never seen exactly this positioning in any other dog I know, but if other dogs do it, I'd be interested to know how they manifest it.

Pen can be so particular about her positioning when she does this, it gets quite comical.  Particularly when she's lifting one leg to get it JUST right.  Bless her canine soul.

This definitely appears to me some sort of drive, and instinctual, rather than just a peculiar way she and I individually behave together.  Her urgency is just too specific, and apart from my own instinct to greet her in that arms-around-her-belly way I found myself doing with her from puppy-hood for no reasons I even understood, I don't know that she *learned* this in response to anything.  It's just too strong and clear a quirk.

Anyway - anyone's thoughts on this would be most interesting!  Comments welcome, no matter how old this post is when anyone finds it.  Thank you!

Big Job, Little Job - Soft Nights and Soft Cats

Today was one of those days with The Big Job to do.  In this case, that was a fairly sophisticated and elaborately-constructed confection of Excel and PowerPoint, balancing across the chasm of (thank goodness I have these) two large monitor screens, and basically both sticking out their tongues at me, taunting me.  Unfortunately for these particular Excel and PPT data, I appear to be a reasonably quick study, and the were unable to daunt me entirely.  Four or five pithy and specific questions fell out of the job - but, considering its scope and importance (and the urgency for it - all this was before eleven a.m.), that's pretty good brevity in the unanswered-questions-about-incredibly-involved-numbers department.  Better still, I'm very definitely gaining comfort with a process and with information that, only three weeks ago, I had never seen before.

As old as I am, it appears I am still capable of learning, and it's gratifying not only to "get it" but also to know that my coming to understand these things *makes me more valuable*.

A week or so ago, in one of those hallway-chats with another admin, she said to me, "They have you working on things that are way beyond your job description."  She wasn't pooh-pooh'ing it nor complaining on my behalf, the way we kind of do with office friends, she was just expressing surprise at how much I'm taking on.

I've been part of a slow-starting project which will cross not only all of the business lines at our employer, but also includes a number of departments participating in an initiative.  Not a great deal has happened there, but it's already introduced me to folks and groups I wouldn't know (yet anyway) otherwise, and it's showing me to those people.  Never a bad thing - for me individually, nor for my boss and my group, whom I represent.

I'm also working on this sophisticated update work, which will be a regular task going forward.  Less visible, but ongoing - and so, just as valuable and in (usefully) different ways.

There have been times since leaving my last job, one of a significant majority within my career which was focused on financial services, that I've thought about the opinions Certain People might have about my move.  The industry I've come to is heavily populated with regular guys - you don't see a lot of suits, you don't hear so much self-conscious corporate-speak.  We distribute stuff.  One of the areas of greatest focus in my work now is the fleet.

It's impossible for me not to believe that some of my acquaintances see this move as being downward in a way that doesn't answer to the actual content of my job, my satisfaction with it, the people, or the executive-ness of those I support.  There is this culture in the US, that “white collar” is superior to … well, anything else, in some ineffable (indefensible) way, but:  I just don’t see that.  Not least, because – frankly, how many people even WEAR white collars anymore?  The only people I’ve seen in that old standard, “professional dress” for the past fifteen years have been women.  Oh, we had ‘em at That One Place – but it wasn’t as ubiquitous a conformity of suitedness as you might have found just a few years before I worked at “the second-highest administrative tier of one of the largest financial services firms in the nation.”  Not by a heck of a shot.  It’s all Polos all the time almost anwhere you work now, and if grey flannel was drab, lord deliver me from khakis …  Heh.  (It’s a mighty fine thing I do not go man-shopping when I am at work.)

Anyway – as to the content of my job, which I would consider to be a pretty important factor in any job, let it be said that I see no kind of diminishment in the fact that the information I work with is about trucks instead of servers.  There is nothing intrinsically elite about the hardware of a computer - and, though the computers for which I supported a team to mess with 'em were destined to move our nation's economy ... well, now the trucks I work with have a bit to do with our economy as well, frankly - and I'm much more deeply involved in their particulars than I ever could be in those humming bits of hardware I never even saw.

I see "my" trucks now.  All the time.  Not twenty-four hours ago, I was eyeing one of our drivers on the freeway, making sure he was behaving.  It gratifies me that my favorite places to eat are supplied by people I know, with products I can get behind, that I get to eat well every day at work, that sometimes I'm the real, human voice a person gets when they call our company with a problem or a question.

Yet there is zero doubt in my mind there are people (both those I have worked with, one or two I share blood with, and some I just "know" to one degree or another) who imagine I've moved down in the world.

Yeah, well, this "down" and crucial set of duties I've enjoyed digging into more deeply over the past five months.  It comes with people I respect every bit as much as anywhere else I've ever been, and intriguing little perks too.  There's an aspect of comedy at my office not available anywhere else I've *ever* worked (how many cubes in your cube farm house gigantic glass jugs of wine sitting alongside big jars of minced garlic and giant cans of anchovies, all of which are funny enough - but have recently been befriended by a few pretty sizeable cans of what looks like butane? Party!).  There are the occasional treats left for us to enjoy - not just catering after a meeting, but that one day it was a full crate of breads, or the more-hazelnut-than-cocoa-version-of-Nutella stuff someone had at their desk with a generous supply of sampling spoons.

There is the fact that, seriously, the meat where I work now is easily twenty times better than the stuff at my last job that, even when they tried so hard to make it palatable, seriously was like enough to make the Baby Jesus cry.

That's not small potatoes, kids - you should pardon the expression (not like you get any choice, right?).

Even the fact that the toilets don't flush at me before I've even had the chance to get in the dadgum stall, and I now don't have the tiny, momentary psychic stress EVERY SINGLE DAY of wondering whether the idiot things would do it again - that's one less constant, tiny damned stressor in my life.  All to the good, thank you very much.

I have no more to apologize for in where I work today than I ever had to apologize for in being a secretary at all, is what I am saying.

Not the only point on my mind, though (inevitably).


I haven't taken a lot of time to just REVEL in this job change.  At first – well, it was the holidays and I felt bad about leaving my last job (that was so hard) and I’d been in the habit of lying about even looking for a job for so long maybe the stealth just clung to me.  I know I didn't want to go all gooey and "oh I have this shiny new thing in my life" (again).

But ... I haven't really reveled in a lot of the shiny new things in my life, over the past two years.

Gossamer was easy, and I still revel in his shiny little pearl-grey butt.  Penelope, as everybody knows, didn't kick off a period of easy-as-pie New Puppy Love.  As much as I love her, our honeymoon period was perfumed with poop more than pina coladas, or whatever it is The Kids Today enjoy on their honeymoons (I never really did one of those).  So - the new job, I didn't want to get too excited.  The whiff, in particular, of being a complete snot to my former coworkers, whom I still miss very much, seemed very much inappropriate, professionally.  So I kept the teenage-girl-with-a-new-crush thing tamped down.

I've kept a lot of excitement tamped down, is what I'm saying.  Not wanting to jinx things, or concentrating on other things, or just not wanting to be an insufferable braggart about insert-my-blessing-here.

Seems to me, though there are still and always reasons not to be a shrill little LOOKIT ME drama queen about it, I should perhaps review this policy of constraint on those causes for jubilation I am blessed with.  It's not natural for me, and ... well, you know, three years and counting without a vacation proper – two years of stress and fear since Sweet Siddy La’s death – Mr. X being squillions of miles away.

I could use some reason to get happy.


Pharell, of course, is all very well - but that song only lasts a couple of minutes, and I am no Lupita Nyongo and I know it.  I just need a little seat-dancing.   A little open-windows-going-down-the-road-with-good-driving-music.  Eine kleine nachtmusik, even.  The year has finally realized it's time to provide what my dad always joyously described as "soft nights" (I can hear his satisfied, deep intake of breath now, his low, gruff voice filled with a warm smile).  With luck - I'll get to those unbearably lovely nights in June with more reason to be thankful than I deserve.

We'll see.

For now, moment by moment.  With my great job.  My headache-inducing chart data.  And one non-poopy puppy and a pearl grey cat.

4/1/14

Today is the made-up birthday for little (hah - HUGE) Miss Penelope, most beloved of baby girls.  She is theoretically two, though it's likely she's two and a month or possibly a bit more.  But she's my delight and my dear and my April Fool, so a big happy birthday to my puppy today.

Deliciously, today is Edible Book Day.   Well, they ARE among the most nutritious things we can consume - have you eaten a book today?

On this day (well ... depending on how you view the way we count dates!) in 527, Justinian I officially ascends as co-ruler with his ailing grandfather, Justin I.  Justinian plays a role in my WIP, though whether he'll actually appear remains to be seen.  Justinian was the subject of Procopius' salacious "Secret History" - but, let it be said, he'd already married the courtesan Theodora before his elevation or accession (later in 527).  So he did apparently have something of a taste for the wild side ...  He presided over riots and plague, built the Hagia Sophia, and in 535 his reign (and the world) was literally darkened and chilled for a period of years, kicking off that interminable period in history some ignorant folks still insist upon calling "the Dark Ages."  Talk about an April Fool's joke ...

Empress Theodora may have enjoyed Veneralia on this day, a festival and worship of Venus, goddess of love.

A very different Theodora indeed, the Saint, has her feast day on this day.  She shares it with St. Walric, who has two feast days.

April 1 is Islamic Republic day in Iran, and Fossil Fools day in North America.

Not so far from where I live, the Battle of Five Forks was fought in 1865, days before Lee's surrender on April 9 at Appomattox.

Apparently, Ali McGraw's birthday is today.  I grew up with one particular aunt who said I looked like Ali McGraw (this would have been in the early 70s, at the height of her success).  Certainly there are worse things to be told, but I have never been able to see a resemblance.

It's also Susan Boyle's birthday.  Happy returns to the lady who proved you don't need to be twenty-two, skinny, and blonde to get SOMEWHERE as a singer.

Happy Birthday also to Traci Lord.  Her actual, real birthday.  Joke was on them, wasn't it, Traci?  Ahem.

Deaths of the day include Scott Joplin and Marvin Gaye, and John Forsythe, known to my generation largely as a voice in a little speaker box.



And, finally.  Oh, April Fool's Day.  I love you.  Because I am going to tell myself these are jokes.

Anniversary

Penelope came home a year and one week ago, and I failed to commemorate this at the time.  Happy pup-day, my smart, beautiful, adorable Whackadoodle Poodle*.

Christmas beauty shot

Head full of teeth!

Beet Head Neddie

Lost puppy rescued in February

(*Who's really a Carolina dog ...)
:)

Friday "Off"

My work schedule is one with four nine-hour days a week, followed by a "half" day every Friday.  At a previous employer, there was a similar setup; four nines followed by every other Friday off.  Flex scheduling is a nice option, and the ability to get certain errands done without having to wait for Saturday, or in the midst of rush hour, is helpful.

Some days, though, it's hard not to want to just go home and rest.

Today, I needed to go to the bank, I thought about mowing my lawn and the neighbor's, who just moved - and I couldn't stomach it.

The thing about having the afternoon "off" on a Friday is:  I've already worked well over forty hours by that time.  A full work week.  So this "off" time really is not a present or a prize, it's the hours *I* missed during the week, of sleep or of personal time, which everyone else has had by this point.  The schedule is nice, but the Monday through Thursday part isn't just like everyone else's work week.  I'm in by seven-fifteen, and it's not rare that I don't leave until six or even afterward.  When Penelope was still in a difficult puppy/adjustment period, at a tender age when she needed lots of attention - she spent all that time by herself in a cage every day, and even now that she is showing so much progress and confidence, I still have to wonder whether it's really the best gig for a baby animal.  Eleven hours alone, four days in a row, every day.  Poor kid.

So today, after some weeks of Fridays being occupied by appointments and accomplishments and this and that - I came home and, dammit, I took a nap.  My Gossy curled up behind my knees, my Penelope guarded us a few feet from the couch.

Oh, sure, first I poked around in Publisher, reworking the Stewardship document for my church (second year I'm on the committee, second year it's been a tiny bit of a crunch *smile*).  I'll send that tonight.

But, mostly, my Friday afternoon has been "really" just off.  Me and the nicest, snuggliest cat in the world.  Me and the sweetest, dearest little girl pup.  No talking in the house; a wonderful silence.

This evening, I set to some pleasing little accomplishments.  Two charms, whose post earring backs are long since broken and gone away - the first "dangly" earrings I ever remember my mom owning, and a pair I still find very beautiful - now have french hooks.  I'll be able to wear these vintage pretties for their first time in thirty years or so.  Lovely.

A charm bracelet from which two charms had fallen off.  I put on two new jump rings, secured them - now I have a nice silver bracelet with all its little chicklet baubles.  Cute.

Another earring, a long sort of hippie design, actually antique Persian enamel, on which one joint had come open.  Closed.  Wearable.  Exotic and beautiful, now wearable again.

Two lengths of black, double-linked chain, left over from surgery on a very very very long necklace - are now bracelets to match that necklace.  Couple of lobster claws, couple of jump rings.  Woo.

All this jewelry in less than half an hour.  If I'd had proper rhinestone glue, I'd have gotten to those pink earrings and that one earring with a dropped (but not lost) stone.  Another day.

And for the rest of my evening's entertainment, I'll fix the hole along the seam of that one great sweater.  Remove the inexplicable lining from the Little Black Dress, so it will hang correctly.  I may even doctor the neckline on that one.  Feeling feisty.  I'm going to take up the shoulders on the pink top I feel is too low cut to be really comfortable (and presentable for work ...).  And fix the shoulder strap on one of my every-summer-day camisoles.  If I get really bumptious, I'll fuse the hole Penny tore in my favorite old popcorn chenille bedspread, too.  It could happen, you just watch.

I like time OFF.  I can get so much pleasurable, really not strictly practical work done.  It's nice.

My Pets Are So Mean

That little bastard of a cat – he refused for five days straight to make me any hot chocolate, even though I stopped on the way home on the day I got sick, and bought myself milk (I did not touch the cashier …).  He kept whining that he only *weighs* like ten pounds to start with and has these tiny little one-inch thumbless paws.  Mean old cat.  Just because the milk weighs more than he does and he might burn his jellybean peds.  So selfish.

The dog, for her part, refuses flatly to punch me in the back.  It’s like that boyfriend of mine, the guy I was good friends with and very briefly dated, who simply would not hit me, even when I had the most hideous flu and was loaded with chest congestion and needed it knocked loose (don’t laugh; my dad needed this done after bypass surgery and it’s recommended to whack someone in the back).  Sure, sure, your momma taught you not to hit a girl.  But I wasn’t askin’ for a paddlin’ – and, Penelope, my dear, neither would you be, if you’d just ball up your forefeet and give my lungs what-fer.  Really!

Mean old pets.  One won’t burn himself to flinders for me, and the other won’t beat me up, even with a free pass.

Meanwhile, I went in to work today.  I made it, but heck if I could breathe with my mouth closed all day.  Nothing so fun as appearing the slack-jawed yokel, but the only remedy for it is to burn my sinuses out one at a time, painfully, as the congestion shifts left to right all day long.  Slackjawed yokel it is, then.  Of course, the thing about preserving the sinuses from the burn is that the air still has to go in and out – so it just burns your throat a bit less than the nose.  Take that across the space of a good ten hours in air conditioning that makes my home climate control seem wimpy, and incorporate all the coughing fits and half-coughing fits you try to suppress in that many hours – and what you get is a chest that hurts so much it kind of makes you want to beat up on your pets since they won’t beat up on you.  Mean old pets.

To be fair, this rather nasty bronchial infection does actually seem to have done its worst by now.  As much pain as today held, it wasn’t half as miserable as the past three (non-combined …), and for that I am grateful.  Honestly, by the time a pipe burst in my house yesterday (oh yeah – everyone out there jealous of my week yet??), and the plumber stood outside in a rather beautiful soft summer rain, looking up and saying, “It’s just one cloud, right over your house!”, the litany of fresh hell really did become just a comedy routine.  I’m fortunate to have a home, even if bits of it must malfunction; I’m thankful this illness is on the petering-out end rather than its building-up period; I even like those darn pets, but don’t tell ‘em.  And pain, schmain – the truth is, I don’t even notice it compared to the way I felt Saturday through yesterday.  The humidity is fierce stuff – but it’s somewhere I can *breathe* comfortably, even if it does make me sweat.  I may be the one person in this region grateful for muggy air (and it is muggy to the tune of 3-digit heat indices).

Some other people I know?  Facing much harder things than a regimen on antibiotics.  Facing much greater pain.  Me, I’m just a comedy routine.

With stingy, rotten, mean old pets.  WAH!

I have hope tonight I will be able to sleep with my mouth closed.  Simple, comfortable - bliss ...

Life Goes On

... and, for that matter, sometimes life lies at your feet and has a gurgling little tum on a quiet day.

Also, it does this:

Aww.

(If you click on the top one - get a load of the muscles on that "little" puppy I adopted!  Sheesh!)