Deep in the Hundred Acre Woods

We went on a hunny hunt this afternoon, in search of Pooh Corner, where it was rumored that a party was being held for Ashley and her husband and their soon-to-be-born son, Gabe.  It was an absolutely perfect day, weather wise.  It has been in the 70s this week (unusually cool), but today could not have been better and tomorrow it is scheduled to go back into the 100s.  The weather gods smiled on Ashley and Dave today!

Ashley is a big fan of Winnie the Pooh and all of his friends and her mother's back yard had been turned into a wonderful salute to A.A.Milne and his friends in the Hundred Acre Woods.

Each of the tables, for example had a "hunny pot" with Winnie the Pooh head first in it.  Ashley said that they figured that after Gabe was born, everyone in her family would have one of the Poohs, so he would never be without one whenever he came visiting.

The yellow thing hanging above it, by the way, is not a balloon, but a yellow lantern decorated with bees stuck into the surface of it. They hung all over the patio.

This was a swim party (though most of us didn't swim) and things were slow getting started, but the most ardent swimmer in the whole party was Oakley, who just loved the water and chasing balls tossed into the water.

(His aunt, whose name I have forgotten, is several years older.  She took a shine to Walt and pretty much slept at his feet most of the afternoon.)

I had not seen Ashley since before she was pregnant (when she stays here with the dogs, I rarely see her before or after...she has had her own key to the house for years).  She has changed just a little since I last saw her...the baby is due in the first part of August!

There was a ton of food, lots of stuff to drink (I had virgin strawberry daiquiris, which were delicious), and the boyfriend of a friend of hers was at the barbeque all afternoon cooking food that was out of this world.  I wasn't really very hungry, so only had a little, but what I had was delicious.

Lots and lots of people came and it seemed everyone had a big parcel.  We left before gift opening, but I'm sure it must have taken her well over an hour to open them all.

We didn't know most people there, but had a wonderful time sitting pool side and watching the fun there.  I loved it when I realized that the pool had adults, kids, babies and a dog all in it at the same time. 

This kid was my favorite, though.

He's 4 years old and has been taking swimming lessons.  As soon as he got there, he jumped into the pool and had been swimming about an hour when we finally left.

There was a mountain of beehive cupcakes for dessert, but we (and several other people) left before those were served.

We had been sitting around enjoying the ambience when Ashley said something about it being time for the games.  When I had been inside the house earlier, I had seen instructions for a "diaper game" and her sister was running around with a baby bottle in her hand.

I told Ashley that if there was one thing I hated it was party games.  She admitted that the only thing she hated more was opening gifts in front of everyone.

We could get away, she couldn't, so I assume she played games and then opened gifts while we got on the road home.

We had stayed 3 hours, which was far longer than I anticipated we would stay  You know me and parties like that, especially when I know almost no one.  It helped that Walt was there too...and that you didn't have to engage in conversation when there were so many cute kids and dogs to watch!

I am so thrilled for Ashley, who has wanted to be a Mom for a long time.  This baby will also be the first grandchild in the family. And I'm so thrilled that she thinks of us as close enough friends to invite to her shower.  I wouldn't have missed it for the world (but I'm glad I missed the "diaper game").

Sunday Stealing -- and More

At 3 p.m., January 31, our dear friend, and occasional dog sitter, Ashley married her David.  It was a wedding I have looked forward to ever since she announced her engagement.  It was going to be a real feel-good wedding, filled with lots of love.  Ashley has had her share of heartbreak and we are all so pleased to see her glowing these days.

The wedding was taking place at a hotel in North Tahoe, which just happens to be where the Sykes condo is.  Our plan was to drive up on Friday, and back on Sunday.

However, the gods had different plans.  On Friday, I spent so much time in the bathroom that I was nervous about getting stuck in Tahoe traffic for 3 hours or so, so suggested that we drive up Saturday morning (as it turned out, that was a wise decision).  The wedding wasn't until 3 and if we got an early start Saturday morning, we would have time to go to the house, shower and change for the wedding.

I decided to ignore that oh so familiar feeling deep down in my lungs every time I coughed.  I was not going to get sick.  Well, again, the gods had a different plan.  By nighttime my throat was raw, I was coughing like a TB ward, and had lost my voice.  I also felt terrible. In the morning I was better, but definitely not well so, sadly, I sent off a text message to Ashley and David explaining why we would not be at their wedding and how disappointed I was.

Instead, I hunkered down with Netflix, watched Season 2 of The Bletchley Circle (if you haven't seen it, do yourself a favor and do), The Chef (excellent movie) and the first season of The Fall, which Ned recommended.  By 5 p.m., I was ready to face life again and so I am writing this entry...and will soon fix dinner.  Ashley promises lots of photos and I can't wait to see them.

The Sunday Stealing Part

Average hours of sleep:
4-6

Last thing I googled:
The Fillmore-Western Railroad (saw it on Heuell Howser) 

One place that makes me happy:
I'm always happy overlooking the ocean.

How many blankets I sleep under:
Just one, lightweight, but warm.

What are you wearing right now: 
Still in my pajamas.  Been in them all day.

Last book you read:
"The Kill Room," by Jeffrey Deaver

Favorite fictional character:
Claire Beecham Fraser (from "Outlander")

Last movie I watched in the cinema:
Into the Woods

Dream vacation:
Photo safari to Africa 

Dream wedding:
I had it, 50 years ago.

Dream pet:
I've always wanted a collie (don't tell my Chihuahua Polly!)

Dream job:
It's hard to beat the one I have now:  retired.

How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?
About 37 (I will turn 72 in 2 weeks)

Which is worse, failing or never trying?
Never trying.  I've failed a lot, but never regretted trying.

If life is so short, why do we do so many things we don’t like and like so many things we don’t do?
Guilt.  Our parents gave us a set of values and we think that we need to live up to them, even if we don't want to do them.  Either that or I blame the nuns and 12 years of Catholic school!

Ashley-911

I came out of the bathroom this morning and found Polly limping around, holding one foot in the air.  An examination showed that she had caught one of her toenails in one of the disks that attach her licenses to her collar.   Ironically, I had noticed just that morning that her nails were getting long and decided that they could probably wait until we leave for Prague, when Ashley moves in here.  Ashley is so good about taking care of the dogs, bathing them, clipping their nails. etc.

This particular nail was curled around the loop of metal in which it was caught.  I first tried removing it from the metal loop, but what with Polly's panic and pain and how deeply it was caught, that wasn't working.

I remembered that Ashley had left her doggie nail clippers here the last time she dog-sat, so I thought I could cut off the tip of the nail and that might help.  But a combination of my bad eyesight, the poor lighting, and the wiggily dog made it impossible, so I called out the heavy guns.  I called Ashley.

I figured I could hold Polly in my lap to drive over to her house, but as it turned out she was in her car on her way to garage sales, so she dropped around and not only got Polly free from her entanglement but cut her two nails to reduce the chance of that happening again.

Polly fought her, but after it was over, she seemed content to cuddle in Ashley's lap so I guess all was forgiven.

While Ashley was here, we taked about the TV show she was on last week.  Remember Joey the 2-legged Chihuahua?  This is the link to her page, if you are on Facebook. This is the link to the journal entry I wrote about her in December.

Joey was a puppy born without front legs, taken to the vet to be put to sleep.  But nobody could do it, so the SPCA was contacted.  Ashley took her in, determined to help her be all that she could be.  Ashley got her on local TV to see if she could get donations from the public to help find someone who could build Joey some sort of an orthotic to allow her to get around. 

Because of the news segment Ashley was contacted by Ortho Pets, in Denver, the only place in the country that makes orthotics for animals. They were willing to take Joey in and take care of her, build an orthotic device for her, and find her an adoptive home.

The TV show brought enough money to pay Ashley's fare to Denver and Southwest Airlines agreed to waive the fee for shipping dogs, if Ashley would allow them to film the whole thing, which they did.

Southwest has a TV show called "On the Fly," which taped Joey's story, including her arrival at OrthoPets, Ashlely's tearful goodbye, and her return to Denver a few weeks later to check on her progress and meet her new adoptive Mom (Joey is now called Giada).

During all of this, Ashley set up the Facebook web site, which began to get followers.  Then the "On the Fly" episode with Joey's story was broadcast.  There are now over 9,000 followers...the show has been rebroadcast a couple of times and each time the site gets more followers.

There is a 6 year old girl who has no arms who loves Joey, and a vet who lost a leg in Iraq who has been inspired by Joey's story.

I suggested to Ashley that someone needs to write a children's book about this puppy and apparently that project is in the works.  It is apparent that this tiny "throw-away" dog has already made a big difference in the world and there is more in store for her.

In looking for pictures for this entry on Ashley's Facebook page, I looked at all the broken limb puppies and dogs with big problems, and sick dogs and blind dogs, and other throw-away dogs and realized that when Ashley gets to heaven, she is going to have a whole herd of dogs waiting for her, tails wagging furiously, because she has a huge heart and because of the animals she has saved and given a chance at a good life.

I'm glad she is our friend (and so is Polly!).

Comedy and Tragedy

Today we finally had the goodbye party for Ashley. I just love Petco. They essentially gave us half the store to set up for the food from Dos Coyotes.

Ashley's mother, who recently relocated to Davis, was there and I finally, after all these years, got to meet her.

This was Buttercup's first week at Petco and she was a big hit. People carried her around instead of leaving her in the cage.

(But no takers for Buttercup or for Polly or Shiloh.)

I did give Ashley the draft copies of the pages of the book, so people got to look at it and get a feeling for what it is going to be like (also after my complaints, CVS gave me a 20% discount on it, which was nice).

There was food and fun and cake and laughs and everybody had a great time. The best thing about the going away party was that the guest of honor isn't really going anywhere, so it wasn't a "goodbye forever" sort of event.

Later in the evening, I was going through Facebook messages and found a strange one from a friend, which said simply "I can't find everyone's numbers...very bad news. call me." There were 30 replies to the message, each one somewhat veiled, but seeming to offer condolences.

I had a terrible feeling. I've known her for several years. During that brief period when gay people were permitted to marry, she married her wife. I haven't seen much of the two of them, but we see them at theatrical events and I have never seen my friend when she wasn't glowing, the two of them looking so incredibly happy together.

Several months ago, the wife lost her job, due to a financial down-sizing. I have been following the saga through her Facebook status updates and knew how frustrated she's been with one unsuccessful interview after another. I've watched the messages between the two of them when Kym was interviewing far away and how happy they were to be reunited, and then the next unsuccessful interview.

When I read my friend's message, I sent a note to a mutual friend, who confirmed my fears that the wife had taken her own life. My heart just aches for my friend and their family and the many, many friends they had here in town.

CVS Photo

I have been hinting at my "big project" for a couple of days now. I didn't go into detail because it's a gift for Ashley (who reads this journal). But I desperately need to write about it, so I've asked Ashley not to read my journal until after tomorrow.

Here's the deal: Ashley is leaving the SPCA. She's not exactly going anywhere, and she is still going to help us by house sitting and dog care, but she's giving up the frustration of doing the 40 bazillion other things she has been doing for the group. The proof of her importance to the SPCA is in the fact that nobody knows yet who is going to do x, y and z (and probably a-x as well!) I'm sure we'll all survive, but it's going to be a big transition.

Anyway, Kim, who heads up the SPCA, said she was going to put together some sort of a book for Ashley and did I have a few photos I could contribute. Well...that's like asking Scrooge McDuck he has a couple of bucks in his vault.

I volunteered to take on the task of putting together the book. I did this because I know that you can have hard bound copies of books printed at CVS Photo, which is in the same parking lot as Petco, and I also know that, unlike companies like Snapfish, CVS can guarantee a 1-2 hour turnaround time. I thought a printed books with a hard cover would be much nicer than just a scrapbook. I'm also quite expert at putting together these sorts of books, after doing them for about five years now. I had just never worked with CVS before, but the books looked identical to the books I get from Snapfish.

So we sent out a note asking people to contribute pictures of their dogs. I also had the fabulous photos that have been taken by professional photographer Ron Pluth for several years. The most difficult part of having access to Ron's photos is choosing from among them because they are almost all winners. Look at this wonderful photo of Shiloh, for example. (Doesn't he look worried that I won't come back for him?)

So anyway, I started working on Ashley's book on Monday. As I worked, I tried to edit photos to get rid of red eye and white-eye from camera flashes, and adjust the exposure of pictures that were too dark. I knew the book would exceed the 20 pages that is standard, but I also knew I could add pages as I needed them. I worked three days on the design of the book, using CVS's templates. My only disappointment was that there are fewer template choices with CVS than with Snapfish, which gave me less flexibility. But that's OK--I could get the book printed in a day, and that was worth making a few sacrifices.

I finally got the book all designed and was going to submit it when I got home from the dentist yesterday. Now understand that I had spoken with two CVS clerks at two CVS locations, each of which assured me that the books could be printed in a day. When I spoke to the last clerk, and mentioned that the book was now 75 pages, there was a discussion about whether or not the cover would hold that many (in truth, that's less than 40 sheets of paper, and the clerk assured me it would be no problem at all.)

So I got home, did one final check of everything and started to complete the order when I saw the note that if you choose to pick your book up in the store, it will take 5-7 days to be delivered. What????

I called the guy I had just spoken with and he told me that only books created in the store could be printed in the same day. A little thing that neither clerk I'd spoken had thought to mention. (They have just added the feature that you can pick up a book in an hour at your local CVS store, but it hasn't reached the web site designer yet, so it's not yet available for the general public.) After a lot of groaning and head holding, I realized that it wasn't the end of the world. It would be a huge pain in the butt, but I would just re-do the book at the store. It would just take being organized.

To prepare for re-doing the book, I copied the draft pictures of each page in the book so that I could print off a list so that I could easily and quickly redesign the pages. Because I had the photos as .jpg files, I made a web site for anybody who is interested in seeing the book. You can find it here.

In addition to printing off every single page, I also made a separate text file of everything that is printed in the book, some photo captions, some notes from people to Ashley (unfortunately the draft pages are too small to allow you to read those).

Then I took on the task of copying every one of the 176 photos onto a disk, and renaming them so that instead of being named "Polly.jpg," for example, it would now be "1.jpg" and so on. When I put the disk in the machine at CVS, there would be no need to search for photos because they would all be in the order that they appeared in the book. It took me about 8 hours to get all the organization done, but by God, I was organized and ready for CVS.

Late last night, two days after the deadline, I received more photos and a note for Ashley, which made me a bit testy, since the book was all designed already, but I decided that one of the perks about re-doing the book was that I could, in fact, include the new photos and the new note.

This morning I headed off to CVS, my sheaf of papers and photo disk in hand, to start the re-creation project. When I got to the photo counter, I groaned again. The machines were not computers. They had no keyboards. They were designed for people who want a bunch of photos printed, not for someone who had a 75 page book, with a moderate amount of text. Everything is done with a touch screen and I could just IMAGINE how long it was going to take to type up some of the longer comments in the book.

But OK. It's not the end of the world. I gritted my teeth and put in the disk that has all photos and I started loading them into the machine so I could start the design process. That's when the message popped: "Maximum number of photos, 72." 72??? I had 175. NOW what? I had essentially wasted an ENTIRE DAY organizing things so I could re-create the book in the store, and now it wasn't possible. Again, nobody had told me there would be a photo limit. The clerk tried something different and he managed to get a maximum number of 154 photos, but that was still 20 photos too short.

I'm screwed. I'm totally screwed. There is no way to have this book in hand to give to Ashley tomorrow, so I'm going to give her the draft pages in an envelope and let her decide if she wants to look at them or wait for the book to arrive. The book will get here probaby next week--maybe it will be here waiting for us when we get home from our trip to Washington, D.C. (we're going to Walt's cousin's daughter's wedding). Heck, Ashley will be living here while we're gone and if they call she can go and pick it up herself.

But I feel just awful about it. I wanted this book to be so good for Ashley and I so wanted to be able to give it to her while everyone was around at Petco tomorrow, but there just is absolutely no way, now, that can happen. At least when it is finally finished it will, I think, be a book that will give her lots of fond memories.

The Return of Shiloh

It was almost noon. Bella and Buttercup were having their last cuddle, though neither of them knew it.

I took a few more last pictures of Bella before it was time to leave.

When it was time, I loaded Bella in the car, which was a comedy of errors. I'm so used to all the dogs being so good at the front door, but today when I opened it, Lizzie and Polly raced out and down the street, in the middle of the street. I got Bella in the car and ran after the other two dogs. Fortunately, Polly was already on her way back, and I got her into the house, then like a stupid idiot started shouting about treats to Lizzie, who thinks with her stomach and, after a momentary hesitation, followed me back into the house for the promised treat.

Bella and I went up to Petco, which, because of the holiday weekend wasn't having the usual SPCA adoption day, but just meeting people who had asked about specific animals. I traded Bella for Shiloh, who seemed happy to see me.

There was none of the usual "adjustment period" when I brought Shiloh back. I didn't have to be as careful of him as I did before. His collar is gone and he is starting to put weight on his broken leg. It wasn't long before the three little dogs were playing.

With two dogs her own size, Buttercup quickly became one of the gang. She's going to be such a big dog that I know that she will soon be bigger than her older playmates.

When dinnertime rolled around, I fixed a special bowl of puppy food kibble and puppy canned food and mixed it up for Buttercup and locked her in the cage. She ate it all. Obviously there was not going to be any problem with nutrition after losing her mom.

She whined a bit and wanted to be picked up. I cuddled her until she decided to teethe on my chin, and then I put her down. But she seems to have adjusted effortlessly. She's made the big leap to the big guys.

As for Polly, she has been sharing my lap with Bella, and not really happy about it, but she and Shiloh settled into their old positions in my lap and Polly even rested her head on Shiloh's back.

So it seems that our new situation is good.

But it's a bittersweet day, because it ended with the news of Ashley's leaving the SPCA, for good, personal reasons, which I applaud. But she has been our rock and I just don't know if things will be the same without her.