Schnauzer Land Birthdays

Levi my Mighty Schnauzer is officially a senior citizen. He’s turning twelve years old on the 21th. Miniature schnauzers have an average life span of 12 – 15 years and while he doesn’t have any health issues I do see subtle changes in his looks and health. For one thing, he up-chucks more often than he used to which wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t purposely run to the nearest carpet to do it. I learned the hard way not to try to catch him when the tell-tale retching sounds begins because he’ll vomit on the fly instead of in a neat, easier-to-clean-up pile. And he’s also developed a fast growing mole so one of his birthday presents will be a trip to the vets office to remove it (if his groomer doesn’t accidentally do it first) and I suppose they’ll want to biopsy it which seems like a waste of money because anyone with eyes can see it’s not your garden variety growth…unless you’re trying to grow mutant raspberries. Just take it off!

I did buy him two gifts already, one he doesn’t like and I didn’t expect him to and the other I knew he’d pout about giving up his old version of his new gift. Let’s be honest here. I bought the gifts for myself but his January birthday reminded me it was time to do something about a couple of dog related problems here in the Land of Levi With the Annoying Bark and the Worn Out Security Blanket.

Ever since last fall when both of my across-the-street neighbors put fences up and both adopted fast-growing litter mates, Levi has spent four times a day barking at the dogs as they run back and forth at the property line---two on one side and another one on the other side of the fence. Levi barks. He begs. He whines. He pretends he’s got urine up to his eyeballs and MUST get outside, Right this minute, Mom! He’d like nothing better than to join the action as the two dogs who live together tumble and tease the third dog as she tries to dig her way under the fence.

I’m been threatening to buy Levi an anti-barking collar, I even have one researched and saved on my Amazon Wish List. Then I got another idea. Years ago I had a window in a door that looked right into my kitchen and living room so I covered it with frosted contact paper that let the light in but you couldn’t see anything but shadows on the other side. Sure enough, they sell a modern version—static cling stuff---with dozens of choices in patterns and designs. It took me over an hour to decide what to order, then I camped out by the door for Amazon’s two day delivery. I couldn’t get that stuff applied fast enough. I’d had enough of trying to distract Levi with offers of treats and hearing myself yell “ENOUGH!” and other dog-mama commands that didn’t work for more than a few minutes. Praise the overlords for static cling decorative film! It works. Sneaky me, I put it on the glass panels alongside the front door when Levi was out of sight and I’m pretty sure he thinks he’s getting cataracts or developing a strange kind of old-man’s blindness that only effects his views to the north but not the south.

The other birthday gift I bought was a set of baby receiving blankets. Every dog I’ve ever had has had his or her own set of receiving blankets that I use to line dog beds, put on car seats or in chairs or even on the ground---any place that is an Approved-by-the-Management place for a canine to lay. I’ve also let them drag their blankets around and pick their own ‘safe place’ to park them and claim some temporary turf. And all of my four-legged babies have been wrapped in a receiving blanket when he or she was buried. Levi got his set of four blankets at twelve weeks old and he was down to his last one which recently acquired a dozen shred lines. Enter the new set and it only took him two days to put a couple of holes in one of the blankets when he tried to dig it out of his bed. I don’t blame him, I blame the cheap ass baby blankets.

The pet store always sends Levi a $5.00 coupon for his birthday and I will take him over there after his next haircut on Monday and let him pick out something so long as it’s not a cow or pig bone bigger than he is---actually, any size. When he was younger he usually picked out new stuffies but in recent years he’s been more interested in treats and, of course, they put the most disguising, gravy (and bacteria) laced cow and pig parts on the lower shelves like they do with sugary cereal at the grocery stores for little kids to grab. Afterward we’ll go to Starbucks where they’ll give him a free pupappuccino otherwise known as a cup of cream. Levi gets better birthdays than I do! No one buys me a day at the spa and while Starbucks does give me a free drink on my birthday, Levi just has to present his smiling face at Starbuck’s takeout window to get a free pupappuccino any time he wants one. ©

This is what Levi sees now. I left the top panel open so I can still see out.

Poor boy, his life changed dramatically and it only cost me $10 and a half hour.

The company's photo of their product. At night from the outside it looks like colored stained glass.

After the Storm….

Last year after we lost power for days on end in the middle of winter it scared the bejesus out of me to the point I finally got serious about lining up another place to live where I’ll not be so isolated. Thus I ended up with the down payment on a continuing care campus that won’t be ready to move into until early 2021. That means I have this winter and next to get through before I’ll be in an independent living unit where there will be backup power and someone whose job it is to do a daily wellness call and a maintenance department to fix any woes that come up including changing light bulbs. I’m hoping the maintenance man will look like Brad Pitt but I’m guessing he’ll be more like Ed Norton from the Honeymooners. I’d break stuff to get a close-up look at dimples like Mr. Pitts’. Ohmygod, I need to get out of the house more, I’m starting to sound like my teenage-self. Can’t help it, I’ve always been a sucker for dimples. My husband didn’t have them so I’ve been dimple starved since my very first, serious crush at fifteen.

Like all people who learn from their mishaps, mistakes and life experiences when I got back home after last year’s power outage that drove me to accept shelter at a friend’s house I got to work getting myself better prepared should I be without power for five days ever again. The house inside got down to 50 degrees but the worst was my cell phone ran out of power, my emergency dialer did too and it was too icy to go next door to a neighbors should I have a true, life or death issue that would have caused me to leave a blood trail across the snow. I tried charging my phone in my car but learned I needed the motor running to do that. However, I couldn’t get the garage door open to have proper ventilation to do that. I longed to sit in the car to get warm and charge my phone like I saw neighbors doing up and down the street. I was envious because I was sure as they sat in their driveways they were listening to a someone-did-me-wrong country song that made them feel better as they sang along. Misery does like company.

Since that storm I’ve had a solar powered phone charger and solar portable radio sitting in my windowsill. Not sure if they work long term and I hope never to find out. And thanks to my niece I now have a long handled tool that will reach the garage door latch that over-rides the electric garage door opener. It’s a large, heavy door that takes the strength of Hercules to lift which is another reason why I shouldn't have sent my exercise equipment to Goodwill. I also bought an Energizer flashlight that plugs in an outlet and comes on if the power goes off. I already had a couple of camping lanterns and this week I got them out when I saw the high winds and ice storm predictions and I put fresh batteries in them. Everything chargeable was put on chargers and I boiled some eggs, did the laundry, ran my dishwasher, took a shower and got out the emergency “Go Bag” I put together after last year’s storm. After checking what was inside I added a few things like medications, snacks for three days and a book. 

Then I packed a Go Bag for the dog with three days of supplies---food, treats, leash, plastic bags, dishes and water---but I couldn’t find his sweater. He’s a nudist and doesn’t like wearing a sweater for normal trips outside but during last year’s power outage I made him wear it around the clock. Where the heck did it go? I don’t usually lose things. A month or so ago I downsized his box of belongings and gave stuff to a dog rescue group including a few sweaters that no longer fit and I feared in one of my dyslexia moment I put his keeper sweater in the donation box. So off I went to buy him another before the storm hit. While I was at the pet store another woman was buying the same thing for the same reason which made me feel better not to be the only dog mama who lost a sweater. I was glad we weren't looking for the same size because I didn't want to make the nightly news for fighting over the last fricking size large in the store.

When I got back home, I pulled in the garage and before I even got the motor turned off I remembered he wore his sweater to the groomers since I donated to the rescue group and it was taken off when I dropped Levi off and the sweater was on the front seat of the car after that. I turned my motor off, leaned over to feel around between the passenger seat and the door and sure enough, the sweater had found its way down there. Apparently, when I put my purse on the seat it got pushed off….just like the set of keys got pushed off the table when I was doing the Big Paper Shredding Project last month. Now I'm wondering if maintenance men help you look for lost things because I seem to nursing a habit of carelessness in my old age. Or is it just that our brains slow down too much as we grow older? Maybe at forty, fifty even sixty we remember quicker where we last saw what we’re looking for so it only takes a few seconds to find missing stuff, hardly enough time expelled to remember the search. What's the timeline when looking for lost things registers enough to make us question our sanity? For me it seems to be after 15-20 minutes when I quit looking and it materializes like the punchline of a bad joke. Hey, lady, your brain just farted!

Sunday, the morning after our milder-than-predicted storm passed the sun was on the other side of the tree row behind my house and the ice on its branches sparkled like the diamond cliché everyone uses to describe such natural beauty. It wasn’t thick ice that took our trees and our power lines down and for that I am grateful. But I’m leaving the Go Bags packed...  ©

January: The Month we Diet our Brains Out

I’m determined to write a blog that doesn’t mention the “D” word that seems to dominate my life. That would be ‘downsizing’ if you’re new here and haven’t been following my saga of months and months of downsizing posts which collectively I've come to think of as my Barfing up my Life Story One Collection at a Time series. Of course, its January so it’s safe to assume some people thought the “D” word I’m talking about is ‘dieting’ and I’ve got plenty of past January blogs to prove that would have been an excellent guess. And since I brought it up, January 1^st I did start my annual pilgrimage toward healthier eating and trying to lose the weight I gained between Halloween and New Years Eve.

It’s only ten days into the new year and I’ve already lost my end-of-the-year gain which shocked the heck out of me when I got on the scales this morning. And we’re talking six pounds---no small feat to (gain or) lose that much in such a short time! Praise my Fitbit Tracker, Atkins Dark Chocolate Royale Protein Shakes, dandelion tea and Yakult Probiotics for that. I wish I could keep that going but I know how I am. When February takes over my life I’ll quit letting Fitbit tell me how many calories I can still eat on any given day---that bossy bitch gets too demanding after a while. “No, you can’t have a Drumstick lil’Drum for 110 calories unless you want to go run around a couple of blocks first. Five carrots sticks is all you can have until morning.” She wants too much. Ten minutes to every hour when I’m on the computer she nags me into getting up and walking however many steps I need to take to get 250 steps in before the next hour begins. I hate that when I’m on a writing roll! Anyone with a Fitbit knows, of course, she’s not like Alexa. She doesn’t actually speak the words out loud but like any woman who has her bossy hat on, all you have to do is look at Fitbit’s dashboard and you can read what’s on her mind.

Before the end of February I’ll also quite choking down the disgusting dandelion tea and sometime around Valentine’s Day one of those small, heart shaped boxes of chocolates with a Snoopy on the top will appear in my grocery cart and off I’ll go again, chasing the sugar train like a dog with a huge ego who thinks he can actually over take it. Unfortunately, that sugar train makes a brief stop so I can hop on and I’ll crawl right inside a boxcar full of cane sugar and I'll mainline myself all the way through to the end of they year when the cycle begins again.  

My dad's family used to make tea with actual dandelion roots when he was growing up. Now, I’d be afraid of all the chemicals we have in the ground water and soil to do that. I wonder if it tasted any better than the organic teas available now that are supposedly sourced in European mountain valleys from free-ranch dandelions…or am I getting my organic herbal tea mixed up with chickens that are allowed to roam the ranch? The brand I bought has licorice root, fennel and peppermint in it too but all I can taste is the ‘yuck’ while I dutifully drink it down, all the while wondering why my dad, in his old age, wanted to try making it again. Is loving that tea an acquired taste or was his memory playing tricks on him? He also wanted to brew up a batch of anchovies cracker dip so you know his taste buds had to be warped. I’ve only smelled a batch of that god-awful dip cooking once in my life and that was enough to send my nose down inside a bottle of Downy April Fresh Fabric Softener. 

I don’t smoke. Never did. I don’t drink except for two or three times a year when I’ll have a hard cider or glass of wine with dinner. But somehow society seems to be more forgiving/accepting of people who over indulge in those habits where the fat girls are thought to be less ‘valuable’ in the grand scheme of things because our lack of will power goes directly to our hips. Heck, at one time smokers and drinkers were celebrated. You were thought to be cool if you could blow smoke rings like James Dean or drink a martini with your pinky finger pointed out like a vintage movie star wearing a silly hat with a veil that brushed her high cheek bones. Watch a couple of Mad Man episodes and you’ll see how much smoking and drinking played a part in my early, work years life…not me personally but all around me people had their acceptable vices. A fist full of cake was not one of them. 

I’ve got to quit writing about food before I talk myself into catching an early train to Chocolate Town. I need a shower; it’s grocery shopping day and I plan to buy myself some meat. Good. Red. Meat. Meat that I can grill to medium rare because Dr. Atkins and I are in full agreement that it’s an acceptable alternative to buying ½ gallon of Traverse City Cherry Fudge Ice Cream. ©

NOTE: We have high winds and an ice storm predicted with power outages possible. If you leave a comment and I don't publish it in a timely manner, you'll know why. Cross your fingers for me and Levi!!!!!!!!!!!