Willow Tree Chicken Salad

Where the magic happens - Mom's travel cosmetics.

Well her chicken salad is all gone and even though I just spent a good half hour shucking (is that the right word?) the two lobsters in the fridge and carefully cutting up and placing the meat for lobster salad in a container -- she cannot be distracted from Willow Tree. She'll need a sandwich on the plane Wednesday afterall.

So far during Mom's visit, we've found the sink running full-on in the middle of the night, the oven blaring away and have had to put up with the blatantly rude comments like "Those mussels didn't come from near a sewage outfall or anything" (addressed to the chef) when we took her out to dinner.

Yes she's getting old and more and more like her true self I guess. She's even a little fuzzy. "What are those round white things?" she asked referring to the green olives on a tray. "Why are you putting butter in with the olives?" she asked as I cut up cheese to place on the same tray. And while talking to me she said "I'll ask Gay to take me to CVS later." Hmmm. Not sure who she thought I was. And she didn't like my joke when I asked (in regard to the olives) if she was losing her mind.

What can I say? I would love to be that loving, all-patient daughter but I'm not and am reserved to the fact that she will need care someday from a non-family member who can love her like she deserves to be loved. I find myself getting defensive at the regular, negative comments and at the PASSIVE requests to take her on errands for the many things she forgot to bring. I was going to take a photo of the table that she has taken over with her cosmetics to give you an idea but cannot find the camera. No one could keep track of that many things.

Danimal update

• At the beach a few weeks ago - the last time the sun shone for any length of time by the way - Daniel asked a group of brothers three times if they needed help digging their hole. First they said no. Then they said not yet. And on his third try they relented. Another friendship was born and his brother Matthew joined in with the pals, who all played for a good hour or more.
• Outside the library: When he saw a woman smoking Daniel said, "That lady has only 20 more years to live. Besides it's not cool and it smells. I'm glad you don't smoke." Not sure where he picked up these messages but he's right on.

• We've met more and more people on our graveyard walks and the more people i.e. DOGS we meet, Daniel will say something like "Wasn't that the greatest walk ever!?"

Toto update

• On a weekend graveyard walk with the two dogs I literally turned around and Toto was gone. After circling, searching and calling for a good half hour (my throat was hoarse), Tia looked exhausted and I thought I better take her home. As I walked home and thought the kids will kill me, no one will believe me, that's our last dog for a while, and what will Toto's foster mom say, I finally arrived home literally dragging Tia along. And who did I find inside but Toto who had been home a good half hour. Our dog of two weeks has some kind of nose or brain and I am truly surprised this scardy cat didn't get hit by a car. Now I keep a much closer eye on him and him on me.

• One graveyard walk there were two very curly dogs and I was surprised to find out they were Portuguese Water Dogs. They looked too small to me. The owner explained that was because we've seen one dragging the First Lady around. Oh.

A dog's life

What a life.

• Our lives have have been consumed with Toto for the last week. Poor Tia. She basically ignores him though a couple of times on our graveyard walks - when Toto is engaged in rough play with another dog - she intervenes, almost like she is protecting him. Tia is definitely getting less attention because Toto can hear, follows everyone around, and wags his whole body when someone awakes or walks in his general direction. Poor Tia.

• From my point of view, Toto has blended right in with the family. He is now loose in the house at night with Tia and thus far we have had no episodes. He is basically trained with the electric fence though he did run thru it when Doug had the weedwacker going. He doesn't like loud noises - who does?

• I found out Toto can make some noise when he wants to when he found a snapping turtle in the graveyard. This is the most I've heard him bark since his arrival. The turtle snapped at Tia's nose, but she escaped. Daniel touched it's shell. We left well enough alone and haven't seen that old snapper since.

• Now I realize that as an unemployed person I have limited stuff to talk about with my husband at night and with you. I talk about the graveyard walks, who we met today, and what Toto did today. (He kicks out his feet in the grass after he poops, lie a real male dog.)

• So I hope I am not boring you too. This quiet life has become quietly fasicnating. I have been taking the dogs for walks daily - sometimes with Daniel and sometimes alone. Alone I met another unemployed person named Steve Rogers. How nice to have such a simple name. He asked me a couple times - and your name is? He's an architect and said there is another laid off person who walks her dog in the graveyard named Myrna. I'm sure our paths will cross. Hi I'm Mary Smith - it would be so simple. It is good to know, in a Schadenfreude kind of way, that there are other laid off people in my little world.

• Steve's dog was the first dog I've seen Toto really play with and he held his ground. He didn't roll over on his back like I thought he would. He proved to me he's a regular pup with other young dogs. You see at home, Tia basically ignores him, so I didn't know.

• Today, Daniel made his usual beeline for any sightings of humans/dogs and we met a new dog and owner. No names exchanged yet. This dog was rescued by a friend of hers from a listing on Craigslist. This beautiful Golden was left in a crate all day barking and going crazy. The owner said something about submissively urinating but I'm not sure what that means. Anyway this dog went from being crazed and afraid of almost anything - clouds for example, to a well behaved, friendly, gorgeous dog. Another reminder that people who really don't want or plan to take care of a dog, shouldn't get one. This gal Sadie was an Xmas present for the kids. Poor thing. Toto was running circles in the graveyard with Sadie and Tia joined in. Daniel loved watching his action.

• Good thing I'm still home unemployed (I start work July 1) because the strawberries are in and that involves daily picking. One pie, desserts with Cool Whip, frozen berries in the freezer awaiting something, and a giant bowlful on the counter awaiting perhaps another pie. Unlike store-bought berries, decisions about these berries' fate must be made within a day. Makes you wonder what do they gas the berries in the store with? Or soak them in?

• Mom comes for a visit on Wednesday and SOON Doug and I will be making daily trips to the Belmont Market for Willow Tree Chicken Salad. She's addicted to it and Doug was wondering how big a container he could buy. She'll eat a contractors bucketful in the week. More on this next time.

Toto has arrived!

What are you lookin' at?

After a week of anticipation, Toto finally arrived with much trepidation. He was truly scared when he was unloaded from the transport trailer. After a few days he's perked right up. We are training him on the electric fence and taking him for walks. Right after I got the choke collar, he was much improved on the leash. Cars scare him. Barking dogs scare him. The goats and pedestrians scare him. He easily could have died on walk one by being hit by a car - luckily his collar was on tight enough so he couldn't slip out.

Barbara, who we meeet on our graveyard walks, said "Who do you look at all day? They are both so cute - meaning Daniel and Toto." She also said (like everyone) "He is so cute" and "You must have fallen in love."

We all have, not so much because of the cuteness factor but because he is so darn affectionate. Though after this mornings walk he downright smells - unfortunately like feces. Perhaps it's time for his first bath, here.

All in all he's settled right in and hasn't peed or pooped in the house once. The only issue is the night time. On night one he cried so much in his crate that after 5 minutes I let him out and slept on the couch. On night two I put the crate in the basement and slept like a baby. On night three my son Matt woke me up to say Toto was crying. Yes he was and loud - even though the crate far away. He seemed fine in the morning and his foster mom said he cried for her too the first few nights. She brought the crate in her bedroom but I don't think that would go over too well here.

I am so tempted to just let him loose in the house at night and see what happens but his foster mom recommended NO.

Doug says the dog is very lucky but if you met him you would say we all are.

Toto is not my favorite name, but he responds to it

The garden is planted and the household projects I want to do for now are done. There really is an endless amount of things to do. I can think of a few off the top of my head – the interior window frames need painting, the trim outside looks like it needs painting (I don’t want to get on a ladder anyway), the dining room table needs stripping and finishing. But I think I’ve fallen in my old pattern of always needing to do something. Besides there’s plenty of regular maintenance work to do around here like washing, shopping, cooking and the like. And besides that we have a new dog coming tomorrow.

His name right now is Toto. It all happened quite suddenly. You see I spied him on-line and he had the right kind of hair that needs to be clipped (Doug is allergic). And he wasn’t too big. He weighs 28 pounds right now. To make a short story even shorter, I quickly applied and was quickly approved to adopt him. Unfortunately we’ve had to wait over a week for his arrival. But he’s coming tomorrow!

I am already anticipating all the effort that will have to go into his arrival and training. Mostly I need to train him on our electric fence and get him adjusted to our wake up schedule and his sleeping new arrangements. I plan to use a crate at first until we all get used to each other. It will be a bit of an effort to get him trained (or is this negative thinking?) to the fence. You see we can’t just let him out initially like we do with our dog Tia. The first person up will have to take him out on a leash for the first week or so and that will likely have to be me.

I seem to be thinking about all the work and training and not simply about the joy of a new dog. He sounds like a great dog from talking to his foster mom. AND perhaps if I just think things will go swimmingly they will.

More like this: He came home and it was like he has always been living here. I didn’t even have to use the crate because he slept on Tia’s bed with her right away. He didn’t pee in the house EVER and with the fence training flags out around the yard (he had an electric fence at his foster mom’s house) he knew he had to stay in the yard right away. He didn’t chew on thing. I never worried about leaving him alone – not once and he didn’t either because he had Tia’s company. What a good boy. He was definitely meant to be part of our family. If only babies were so easy.

The deck is all decked out

This deck was dirty about 5 minutes after painting

I know many of you have been waiting in great anticipation for my next update about painting the deck. Well today is your lucky day except for one small detail - Doug took the camera and I don't want to go rummaging thru Matthew's things to find his camera - so there will be no photo of the finished product until next time. I know you may be disappointed but you will have something to look forward to - a photo of the freshly painted, gray deck.

After all my cleaning (I didn't rent the power washer afterall), the sun finally came out about 10 days later and I painted it. The next day I touched up some spots and painted the top of the railing. Why only the top? That was about all the paint (it's actually stain) that I had left.

Well this deck is kind of like the story of my life these days. When I try to make something pretty, pristine, nice - it gets messed up almost immediately. Almost immediately after I thoroughly cleaned the deck, I noticed a huge muddy blob in the middle. Well in the process of all that washing, which involves water, the dirt under the deck became one giant mudhole and Tia the dog couldn't help herself. I know, I know - this is supposed to make me a flexible person and this is life. Just once, I would like to plant a garden, paint a wall, vacuum my car and have it stay clean and nice for a day. Just a day.

Shortly after painting the deck, I found Tia's muddy paw prints circling the deck. Somehow she had eluded the barrier I erected. Oh well.

With dogs, boys, and one man(husband) around I realize my dreams of pristine are almost impossible. A friend who has obviously done more reading about children than I have said, "Boys always want to change their environment." (Dogs might fit in there too.) In other words, boys want to alter everything almost all the time. Case in point, Daniel found a chicken egg on our walk this morning. A nearby chicken or goose must have laid it in the graveyard. Well, what would you want to do with an egg if you were a boy? Smash it of course. So that he did right on someone's headstone. The vibrant yellow yolk dripping down the grains of granite.

Change, change, change. If there is a new car that is freshly vacuumed a boy will get it filthy in a matter of seconds after soccer practice. (By the way, Matt told me cars get dirty and I'd have to get over it. I told him I wasn't there yet, but almost. )If there's a sand castle on the beach, a boy will smash it almost immediately. If there are toys orderly organized in the garage cubbies, a boy will scatter them all over the yard. If there is a mud puddle, a boy will smear the mud all over the pavement. If there is bare, flat ground - a boy will dig a hole. You get the idea.

Speaking of holes, this is a classic. I took Matt and Daniel to the beach on Memorial Day after the chorus of 'there's nothing to do' resulted in the idea for a beach trip. After playing with his brother for a while and starved for human companionship other than the familiar, Daniel came up with the classic pick up line. Upon spying a grandpa and boy digging a hole, he went up to them and said, "Excuse me, but do you need some help digging that hole?" He proceeded to pick up one of their shovels and join right in. I can't help but think he will so bold as to approach bikini-clad women when he's older with a similar line. "Excuse me, but you look like you could use some help with that lotion."

I will wind down this entry today with my AWESOME news, not necessarily in any particular order. We are getting a new dog!! and I got a great job. I just come right out and say it: It's $55K and I work out of my home dealing with small water and wastewater systems. It just felt like it was meant to be and I feel completely grateful to the universe. There wasn't even a job interview - it was a conversation over lunch. My boss had wine.

I am determined to enjoy this job and do a great job. Wish me luck. I start July 1 but still get my 2 weeks at the beach in August!! I am also determined to keep my sanity and keep up with writing the blog. Thanks for reading.

Next time: Toto arrives and how it all came to pass.