Friday, September 29, 2006

Papers


Often when Alice reads newspapers, I want her to stop and pay attention to me. Stop reading! I sit on the newspapers. But, it doesn't work. She just pulls sections out from under me.
Same thing with packing boxes. Alice got something from EBay wrapped in newsprint paper. Here I am sitting on it. Comfy. Makes nice russling sounds as I make a nest in it.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

One Block Restriction


Here is what's been happening to me on most walks since I broke my leg: getting carried home like the dog in this painting. Once I sense Alice knows we've hit the "near-limit" I won't walk any further. I refuse to turn around and walk back. FORWARD!! To NEW places!! Those are my walking mottos. Not once down half a block and back. Not even on the other side of the street.
So instead of pulling on a "little" dog, she carries me. There it is. My way of semi-futile resistance.
Alice saw a copy of this painting by Arthur Wardle on EBay. The collie and the terrier do not look pleased. More like jealous. The one being held is thinking, "Yes, she likes me better! But I'm not going to be cuddled by them when she puts me down." Stressful.
The pink lady is just thinking how pretty her dress and hat are, and how pretty her dogs are without considering the consequences for the small dog.
I'll bet the little one is already drooling. That's what we dogs do when stressed. Alice learned that a couple of days ago from Carol whose dogs, Molly and Teddy, sent me a get well card and some biscuits weeks ago. Carol knows dogs. Lots and lots about dogs.

Monday, September 25, 2006

Frank's Jag

Here I am today with Frank's Jag. Tomorrow it is going to Hayward to be loaded on a container ship bound for the Netherlands. As long as I've been around, it's mostly been parked inside my stepsister's garage. She and her family start it up once a year or so and take it for a spin around the neighborhood.
It has a very nice and powerful sound when it starts up. A big rumble. And then, rumbly, rumbly, purrrrrrrrrr. Very nice red leather seats, red carpet, and lots of room in the trunk for food. Funny dashboard with toggles and a push button starter which the people like a lot.Pull down trays for food for those in the backseat.
Alice tells me the car took her home from the hospital right after she was born. It went several times to El Paso when Pika's female person was a tiny baby and a toddler. Both of Pika's people drove off in it from the church after they got married. A real family car.
Frank got it in 1960. The top of the line motor for a Mark II Jaguar. I think he got it after he sewed up his US Air Force/BP/Royal Dutch Shell fuels research contract. He picked it up in Coventry then drove around in it for a month with my first person and their friends Chevas and Jane Walling. They went all around England, Scotland, Ireland, then to Amsterdam, France, Switzerland, and Germany with flying side trips to the old Soviet Union and Sweden to meet fellow polymer chemists.
Frank loved to drive the car up to Yosemite. Blasting up the hills with foreign chemists in tow. He had a Grumman aluminum canoe on top many times for river trips with family members who like to canoe. Alice says the Jag drove very well with a canoe on top.
Many years before I was born, my first person started having trouble driving it since it has no power steering. So, Frank sold it to my stepsister and got a more modern car. But, Alice and her mother always liked the Jag. Trouble was, they say, it is very tough to maintain. They remember well Frank having to oil it in 12-16 places every couple of weeks even when it was young. And, once Alice had to go to a tiny car part shop in London to get new rubber window seals.
Well, it will now get to go back to Europe. Stepsister says that's the right thing to do now. After almost 20 years of having the car, she never did get around to fixing it up to be safe on San Francisco hills.... And the family buying it like to fix up Mark IIs.
Alice told my stepsister to get a digital file of the sounds of the car starting up, cruising along, idling, and going up and down hills. She can put the sounds on her cell phone as a ring tone. Everyday!!! Rumbly, RUMBLY PUUUUUUUURRRRRRRR!!!!!

Saturday, September 23, 2006

River Otters

Today, Alice lost an auction on EBay for a tiny bronze sculpture of two river otters. I sat on the floor and began eating a Greenie during that procedure. I could have told her through dog ESP that someone in Spain wanted it more than she did. I then tried to tell her the original otters which inspired the artist were actually more important. She seemed to have gotten the message and downloaded a copy of the "lost" sculpture.
Real otters.... She got on this otter idea after she saw for the first time real live river otters on San Juan Island in Washington state last July. At sunset, a pair, most likely bachelors, came up on a dock as she watched with her friend, Leslie. The pair bounced around, shaking water off themselves many times nose-to-back-to-tail just like I do. They smelled and deposited on their favorite spraint sites at cleats where a boat is tied up. Groomed each other, nuzzed each other. Talking and laughing, scratching their backs on the dock planks and the finally, after a long look at the sunset together standing on their hind legs with their backs to Leslie and Alice, one of them sniffed over its shoulder at the two ladies, and then they slipped into the water to finish their evening patrol before cosy-ing into their den on the shore. I'm sure the sculptor of these bronze otters saw two real ones playing together. Long ago in Vienna. Perhaps at the local zoo or maybe at a nearby river. His name was Bergman, but he signed his pieces "Namgreb". I'm sure he liked animals. He obviously worked from live ones, not dead pelts. Lifelike and very charming. But not as lifelike as a real memory of live otters. Or of me, sitting below her now finishing that Greenie.

Friday, September 22, 2006

Deep Thoughts

Dozing with dappled sunlight and a belly full of liver, rice and carrots. My mind rambles. What do I love? What do I want? Need? To do? To have? What really matters in life?
I love morning massages when my person does not need to race off early in the day. Early lights out. My person to be with me. Giving me 100% attention. Looooooong walks. Getting to investigate nose to nose any dogs who walk by. Or listen to as they bark from as far as a block away.
Like yesterday. My person noticed I was riveted listening to Patches, the young King Charles Cavalier dog a few doors away. Patches was barking at one of his people who was coming home. My person took me for an immediate short walk to get nose to nose with Patches. He, like me, broke his leg. He fell off a bed when very young. His leg is all fixed now.
Oh, how I love fresh roast chicken or liver with deglazed sauce to make everything in the bowl taste great. Cold water on a hot day.
I think I'd die if I never could bask in the sun again.
Belly full. Sun on the fur. A person nearby who cares for me. That's what I love and need.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

In 'n Out

So... the burger joints...
For special treats I get to go to a drive-through burger joint. First one is still the best to me: In 'n Out. The meat is great. No sniff test needed before chomping it down.One meat patty, no salt, with my own carton. Some water and then a quick walk on around the parking lot. Bliss.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

The Fuzzy Bunny Hop

I'm still under a One Block Only restriction on walks. The other day near the limit, Alice took this picture of me doing the Fuzzy Bunny Hop. You see, I'd gotten last week a new orange bandage which went above my elbow. So, I preferred to hop rather than try to bend that elbow. Today, I got a new purple bandage since I was starting to slip out of the long orange one. Still doing the Bunny Hop to go fast.....
BTW: The corner where the photo was taken has an empty lot. Empty for way more than a year now! Great place for dog mail.

Monday, September 18, 2006

Patience


Here I am waiting - patiently - for Alice to finish preparing food for me. Beef and barley today. One hopes for something better like chicken later.
Word from stepsister today is the new Whole Foods opened in Los Altos. Two levels of underground parking. Elevators. Food hall ten times the size of the one in Palo Alto. Targeting all the Silicon Valley young things who don't know how to cook? Or don't want to cook? But.... how is their chicken? And liver
Me, I've never been allowed to cook for myself. If I could it would be saute meats everyday (too hard to wait for roasted meats), some fresh cooked whole rice or barley and nice totally pureed veg. Lots of purchased roast chicken.... Lots of liver.... Hmmmmmm.....

Friday, September 15, 2006

11:50 am PST


I'm still restricted to One Block Only walks thanks to the broken bone. Did that this morning. Got carried back so I could go farther. Wanted to go into the local elementary school yard this morning, but Alice said, "No dice" since kids were there. Dogs are not allowed there when children are there.
After breakfast a check for sunspots in the backyard. None. rats. Ate part of a Greenie and now I'm exhausted. Didn't get much snooze time yesterday. Way too much real estating including a drive to a client's house past midnight for paper signing.
So, special privilege (to which I intend to be accoustumed) noon nap on The Bed.
Alice says this is no way to break the static poses which predominate this Website.
ZZZZZZZZ.
Y, hoy, Viva Mexico! Y Viva los perros Mexicanos!!! (Ya, Pika, tambien.)

Thursday, September 14, 2006

Squirrels

Last week while driving to a Labor Day BBQ, Alice noticed this furry animal on her windshield. It moved its head and blinked an eye. She was very surprised. I could care less. I knew it was a squirrel. They live outside and often make messes. I've never bothered to bark at any of them. Not the ones pulling apart pine cones in my backyard nor the ones running on the fencetop highways.
Alice thinks they are cute. She got very worried about this one because she thinks it fell on her car from one of the big squirrel nests in the sycamore in front of our house. Probably did. Lots of nesting material was loose on her soft car roof.
Alice tried calling the City animal services, but they only respond to domestic pet emergencies after normal business hours.
Luckily for her a neighbor at Sta. Rita, Annette, knew just what to do, even after 5PM on a Sunday. Call Wildlife Rescue. Annette got a call back quickly from someone who deals with the local "squirrel people" to tell her what to do.
Alice's Dad picked up the squirrel by the scruff of its neck. The people all noticed the squirrel thrust out his legs very stiffly so it would seem it broke no legs. Lucky for the squirrel! Just stunned perhaps.
Annette and her family took care of the young squirrel overnight with a shoe box, a dishcloth from my stepsister's house, some pecans and water. Squirrel was dropped off the next morning on Labor Day itself at the local Wildlife Rescue operation at Cubberly School. It will have a nice home while it recovers and gets bigger. I try to care about it, but I just don't. Maybe that's because my relatives never saw many squirrels in Tibet?
PS Got rid of the pink bandage. Knocked it almost completely off while Alice was out flying a mission somewhere. Have an orange one now.

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

The Most Spoiled Dog?

Got a new splint and bandage this week. Alice tells me it's bright pink. Wouldn't know. Dogs are "colorblind", no? I truly like the concrete patio at Sta. Rita. Easy to move between the hot patio and the cool of the covered patio.
Went today to a favorite restaurant of my first person. The Village Pub. Look! They brought me water in a perfect bowl, complete with linen napkin and underbowl. What service!! The half hamburger patty was great, too. So too was being admired and sympathized with by many of the staff who came outside to say hello to me and see my new pink bandage. I wagged at all of them. Hope to go back there soon.
Maybe Pika would like it. There is enough food there for both of us.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Greenies, Tea and Serbia


Last Friday, Pele and Pasty came to my house with their Jane. We had a nice time in my backyard while Jane and Alice had tea. Jane just got back from a vacation in Serbia. She found this lovely mug there and filled it with flowers from Pele and Patsy's garden. Isn't it nice to think of something so pretty from a place most people just think of as flattened by war after war? Some of Jane's family comes from a village which was completely flattened by heavy artillery after the most recent war was "over". One of her relatives is finishing rebuilding his house. A warm ray of hope, no?
Also, good news, it seems people in some mountainous areas where Jane hiked in the Balkans think dogs with "double" eyebrows or eyes thanks to different colored fur over or around their eyes are considered very lucky. She said I have those kinds of eyes.

The Pelt

Here I am doing "The Pelt" as my people call it. I like to spread out like this after a long Sun soak outside or a long curl on a couch. You can see my new orange bandage. The color may change in two days when the stitches will be removed.
Meanwhile, Alice went to the San Francisco Caledonian Club's Highland Games the other day. She stopped by the MacIntosch clan tent to take a picture of the wildcat pelt a clan member got a hunting permit to take in California.The clan badge -- just like the Clan Chattan's badge -- has a wildcat and this motto: Touch not the Cat bot [sic] with a Glove. I don't know why I've never liked cats. Seems many in the clans don't either.
In the photo with the wildcat pelt you can see two kinds of MacIntosch tartan. The red one is the modern one with bright analine dyes. The pale green one is the "Ancient Hunting" one mimicking natural dye colors.