'Tis the Season

Don’t get me wrong—I truly appreciate Florida’s winter residents. I know that they boost our economy and drive our property values up, not to mention the fact that they’re the citizens of our great nation who have worked and kept things going for the past however many years.

So I smile and wave. And hold the doors and pick up dropped change and don’t cut off slow-moving carts in the grocery store.

BUT.

I would like to share a few of the things that run through my head this time of year. Things I would never say aloud. Things I feel semi-guilty for thinking. Sort of.

My Forbidden Snowbird Comments

• Oh, no—is it Thanksgiving already?
• That’s a lovely apple. So’s that one. Yes, that one, too. Wow—it’s a whole bin of great apples. Now pick one and move!
• Put the Weather Channel on—I hear it was 60 in Michigan yesterday.
• It won’t kill you to be second in line at Walgreens.
• It will kill you to pull out into a road without looking. Believe it or not, that big thing in front of you—you know, the hood, the engine, the wheels?—that actually takes up real, three-dimensional space. If you stick it into a lane of traffic, IT WILL GET HIT. Just saying.
• Cook. Dinner. At. Home. Just once in a while. Please?
• Yes, the weather’s lovely. I waited through nine months of stifling, suffocating, energy sucking, sunburning, sweating, sauna-from-heck heat to enjoy this weather. I’m so glad that you’re taking up all the space at the beach, restaurants, the farmer’s market…
• Gas on the right; brake on the left.
• Don’t glare at my kids in restaurants. Since it’s season, they waited forty minutes for this table. Besides, we live here.
• How long until Easter?

And to quote the best bumper sticker ever….If it’s snowbird season, why can’t we shoot them?

[Note: I don’t mean that. We clearly can’t shoot anyone, and I’d never advocate it. I say this all with my tongue firmly in my cheek—that way my kids can’t understand how rude I’m being.]

My Dog Bruno, Pt 2

Puppy Bruno

In Part Two, we explore the stinky side of my dog Bruno.

At his first well-puppy visit, the vet observed him a bit, listened to us, and then said, “Well, his problem is…actually, your problem is that he’s smart.”

Because there aren’t enough strong-willed, wily characters around the house!

Hit and run—Now we come to the stinky part. Yes, dogs fart. They fart a lot when they’re sleeping. It drifts over to wrap around you like a thick, downy comforter of peeyew. So, you can imagine that, when he’s curled up on our feet at night, Bruno farts…but then he runs. He’ll be gone before the smell hits us, so we’ve learned to run when he does.

The Peeing Thing—Bruno is a good doggie. Really. We trained him to stay out of the bedrooms. He stays out—even when we leave the house. (How do I know? I have absolute proof—there’s no hair in there.)

I think our fairly (immutably) regular schedule helps. He knows when we’re going to be home or out, and when HE gets to go out, like the guaranteed bedtime walk. With two youngish kids, bedtime is written in stone. They need bedtime. I need bedtime.

Recently, we stayed out past bedtime—for the first time in his life, probably. He peed. We knew the minute we walked in the door…he was slinking and skulking with capital S and another capital S. We couldn’t find it. Then we realized he’d gone into the kids’ bathroom (normally off-limits to him) and peed on the base of the toilet. Pretty bright, huh?

I didn’t know whether to be mad or grateful. Then, two days later, I was twenty minutes late for the lunch walk. (We’ve been busy lately. No, really, we have.) He’d gone into the master bathroom and peed on the base of the toilet. At that point, he’s clearly a bright dog and I’m clearly NOT finding it cute anymore.

Soup’s On—We feed Bruno before we eat. I know it’s not pack etiquette, it just works for us. But he always hesitates, checks us out, grovels a bit, and generally waits for us to give him the go-ahead. Lately, he’s gotten clever about getting my attention. He’ll toss a chew toy around flamboyantly, throwing and catching it all over the kitchen. Then, every night, Oops! It lands in the bowl. He’ll go take it out, look at me, drop it back in. Then he’ll start eating around the toy in the bowl. Every night.

Well played, Bruno—you got me!

Allergic to Water—Bruno can’t stand any form of water (doesn’t help the stinking problem). Yes, baths are an issue. When he goes out in the rain, he cringes like he’s been beaten. If the grass is dewy, he stays on the sidewalk to sniff. But the pool REALLY does him in. 

Little A. recently learned to jump in the pool. He and S. decided to make a day of it, jumping in energetically, over and over. From Bruno’s point of view…His pack is in danger! He runs to the rescue! He sees the pool! He skids to a halt! He can’t go in there!

The kids get out and, after a thorough sniff-down, he visibly sighs in relief.

Ten seconds later, they jump in again! He runs to the rescue! He sees the pool! He can't go in!

S. dressed Bruno as a Florida reindeer.

You get it. And, yes, a couple of times, a paw or two skidded out over the water. I would have felt bad for him if I hadn’t been laughing so hard.

My Dog Bruno Really Stinks

Actually, no he doesn’t really stink—at least not in the metaphorical sense. He does, occasionally, smell foul. More on that later. He’s actually a sweet, lovable, eager-to-please softy and we adore him.

The title of the blog came to be when S. reworded one of her piano pieces into a catchy little ditty. Now, whenever I think of Bruno, I hear

                My dog Bruno really stinks

                ‘Cause he chases all the skinks.

                My dog Bruno really stinks

                ‘Cause he won’t fit in the sinks.

He is just as much a quirky individual as the rest of the family, though, so he deserves his fifteen minutes of fame.

Bruno's mom--the Bassett with the Border collie dye job and extensions.

Pedigree—Well, he has one…we just don’t know what it might be. A friend found his mom, pregnant, at a gas station, took her home, and found homes for the puppies. Mama dog is clearly a Bassett hound/Border collie mix. In fact, she looks as if someone draped a Border collie suit over a Bassett hound. Theories on the dad include German shepherd, corgi, Labrador, and Chihuahua. Just kidding on the Chihuahua—I think.

He’s definitely tri-color, though. He has hair to contrast with every color clothing!

Auspicious Beginnings—Being the studious people we are, we researched puppies thoroughly, and read Cesar Millan’s book on the topic. We knew that, for some very important reason, we needed to figure out if he’s driven by sight or by smell.

He is.

On the one hand, he subjects us each to a thorough smell-down when we come in the house. I sometimes feel like I’m permanently living in a military checkpoint with a bomb/ drug/ fast food-sniffing dog. We walk him a mile morning and night, and he’d happily do the whole thing with his nose to the ground.

But he points! We walk in the dark before dawn most days and he’ll freeze, paw up, eyes fixed on something a block away. Something I can't see. This makes a great excuse for him to spook, jump, and pull humans down when he sees…anything.

Dr. Bassett and Mr. Collie—I wanted a dog that could be described as “a furry carpet with a heartbeat.” You know, low energy, tolerant, and submissive. That’s exactly what I got…when the Bassett half rules. When the Border collie kicks in—holy moly.

When the Bassett hound rules...

On the bright side, he’ll throw his own toys and then catch them. We’ve found the missed ones on top of the tables, the counters, the tv…and the six-foot bookshelves. He’s also been known to leap over small children. Who are standing upright. And, yes, he chases the skinks like a pro. He chases them right off the porch and into the house.

Now you know about the skinks. Tomorrow, in Part Two, we'll get to the stinks.

In Memoriam

In memory of Severn P. C. Duvall, who introduced me to these words—and so much more. If I am a poet at all, you taught me the way toward it. 

Your words echo thus, in my mind.

 

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither the arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

From Burnt Norton by T.S. Eliot

Gems from Little A.

Most of my FB friends will know how tickled I was when Little A. raced to bathroom shouting, “Gotta take off my Cars underpants—time for the World Grand Pee!”

And then there was the night when his dad proudly gave him a homemade miniature braciole on his plate: “It looks like a poop!”

As long as he’s been talking, A. has recognized two orientations: upside-down and "upside-up." Much like when his sister used the term “lellow” for the color between orange and red, I cannot bear to correct him.

Last week, we stopped by the Girl Scout cookie booth briefly, and A. hid under the table. While S. and a friend waited on a sweet retired couple, A. decided to blow the biggest raspberry of his life. The gentleman at the booth had NO idea he was there, and kindly responded to the girls’ blushes and giggles by saying, “Don’t worry. At least we know you girls are healthy!”

It occurs to me that three of these four stories involve bathroom humor. I guess he really is a four-year-old boy.

Bike Styles

We have a new “bikestyle.” The whole family has come to love our Saturday morning bike rides. This week I couldn’t help thinking how very much our bikes and our riding styles reflect our personalities.

The Firecracker

Someone painted “Misty” on S.’s bike at the factory, but that emphatically does not match her riding style. Her brother got training wheels, and she didn’t, so when they started learning to ride, we worried that she’d get frustrated and give up. I’ve never seen her more determined in my life. Falls, spills, skinned knees and all, she stuck to it. In two days, she went from novice to speed demon. She simply must be first in line when we ride, but not in a greedy or competitive way. It’s more like a deep biological compulsion. She was born to “take point.” She loves the speed, and the occasional off-road jaunt.

The Designer Dad

Not only did we have “value engineering” to consider when we bought bikes, my husband also had certain functions in mind—hand brakes, but no gears. (Really, who needs them for family rides in Florida?) Somehow, he managed to find a bike that meets those specs AND looks really cool. Seriously, some arty French cartoonist probably draws bikes like this—totally streamlined and mostly black, but with a red tire/yellow rim on the front and yellow tire/red rim on the back. The ultimate architect’s bike—form follows function.

Major Damage

Little A. does not have a reputation for caution in the first place, so the name painted on his bike—“Major Damage”—fits disturbingly well. Early on, he discovered the joy of bumping his front tire into S.’s back tire and hanging her up. He stops hard, without notice—loads of fun for the aging reflexes of the slow adult behind him. And he often involuntarily off-roads while checking out the scenery. Luckily, it’s the dry season here, so most of the ditches he ends up in are just grassy depressions, but that kid has gotten up close and personal with his cross bar so often that I seriously wonder if we’ll have grandkids.

Earth Mother Lite

I’m the grown up version of the hippy theater chick or New Age girl. Riding last, I keep an eye on everyone, comforting Little A. during aforementioned spills. I love the feel of the wind in my hair as I pedal my retro-styled turquoise and cream cruiser in my funky t-shirt and full-length skirt. Why the Lite? Well, I didn’t actually dig up a vintage bike—mine was probably made in China for a big-box store. I wear leather shoes. You know-I’m not perfectly crunchy.

Best of...Valentine Outtakes

We usually try to email a picture of the kids to our family on Valentine's Day. Sometimes the outtakes are better than the real pictures. So here are my faves from past years, and a few of this year's best/worst. Feel free to vote for 2012's Best/Worst.

Best/Worst of 2008

This is the weirdest sign I've seen in the three months I've lived!

Best/Worst of 2009

Mom! He's eating it!

Best/Worst of 2010

Get off of me!

Best/Worst of 2011

No, turn it around. No, the other way!

And the 2012 Nominees are....

A: So you want me to...what? S: I said, stop talking so she can take the picture.

A: The monkey is where? S: Mom. You had to know that wouldn't work.

We're TRY-ing!

That's the last one, right? Right?

On reflection, they're getting kind of civilized. Oh, no--this doesn't mean they're growing up, does it???