she's just saying...

Memories of Flash

Everyone who knew Flash said he was the smartest dog they'd ever met. He knew over 30 words and a dozen hand gestures that he mostly taught himself. He knew ball vs. frisbee, various people's names, left vs. right, "back up" as well as all the usual commands. He even started to recognize spelled words so that didn't work anymore.

Being such a smart and energetic border collie and with no sheep to work, he needed lots of games and activities to keep him busy. He loved to do his trademark tricks: roll over, spin, "be a bear" (sit up on his haunches and beg), and even "crawl" (which was more like scrambling with his front paws while doing a frog kick with his back ones).

A favorite game (for him, not us) was to look for a ball under the sofa, cabinet or chair and bark and paw frantically to get someone to get it out. You'd get down on the floor and reach for the ball while he watched intently. Then, as soon as he thought you weren't looking, he'd roll it under again with his nose and start the barking pawing routine til you got it out again. He'd do this all evening if he could find a willing sucker player.

Henry and Flash also played the Table Game, explained in more detail in this post. It was ritualized tag in slow motion. Flash would walk around and under the table with his frisbee or ball as Henry would try to catch it. Again, another one he'd do for hours.

He loved balloons, especially helium ones that had begun to lose their buoyancy. He'd bop them with his nose and play volleyball with us. We'd blow up regular ones for him to hold by their knot and carry around the house. Occasionally they'd pop but it never stopped him from wanting more.

He also loved to work at stuffed dog toys, open them up and methodically remove the stuffing. One Christmas when #1 Sister was visiting, she carefully re-stuffed one and sewed it up for him to take apart again while he waited patiently. They both amused themselves with this activity for some time. 

Flash was known throughout the neighborhood as the spinny dog. Since he had an invisible fence, he'd run right up to the edge of the yard and stop to bark at passers-by. As he couldn't run into the street, he'd spin frantically in circles while barking at them. Unfortunately for him, instead of scaring people off, they usually laughed. It got so I'd describe where I lived by saying "I'm on the corner with that dog that spins" and people would immediately know which house.

So many wonderful memories of such a high-spirited and devoted dog. He had a complex personality, with clear likes and dislikes, full of doggy determination. We're not planning to get another dog in the near future. I can't imagine one without Flash's sensibility and communication skills. Just a regular dog wouldn't do.

And thank you all for the comments, hugs, notes on Facebook, remembrances and kind thoughts. Every pet owner knows this time will inevitably come, much as we try to deny it. And when it does, I hope you can each have the warm, peaceful, loving experience we had, heartbreaking as it was.

 

Photo finish

Cascade Middle School 6th grade boys XC meet, 10/21/10. First two finishers.

Afterward, Henry said: "I could have passed him at the end, but I thought it would be kinda mean 'cause he was right ahead of me the whole time."

Sweet and kind attitude. But that doesn't get you a full ride to U of O... *sigh*  I love my boy.

A fall day with Flash

I'm writing this from the floor of my living room sitting next to my old dog Flash. He's spending his last day with us, surrounded by love and calm. His liver has failed and he's stopped eating and moving much. He doesn't seem to be in pain, though it's a struggle to get up every few hours which he still does to relieve himself outside. He's eaten a little cat food and seemed to relish it, though a few licks were all he wanted. We're waiting for Monday, when his vet's office will be open and will help transition him to the end.

Yesterday was full of emergency and anxiety, trying to determine what was happening and what to do. The immediate crisis passed and we decided to wait, see how the weekend went and spend a last day together. Today has been peaceful and calm as we sit (or lie) in our customary spots surrounded by the normal sounds and sights of a weekend morning. Flash occasionally looks at me, checking in and communicating as always. The cats stay close, rubbing up against him though he ignores them. All I hope is that we get through the day and night without incident and not need to act until tomorrow.

Henry is alternately sad, confused and comforting. He asks me if I'm ready and I say I am. I say Flash is ready as well. I think this last day is helpful and hope it leaves peaceful memories and a greater understanding. I don't really know the best thing to do, but this feels right for now.

Friends and neighbors plan to stop by later. I decide what we really need is a coffeecake, and reach for my cookbooks to find the most complicated recipe I can.

Flash, October 17 2010

 

Well-preserved

Kaiser in a can

48 jars and counting...

I've been canning up a storm. Not really sure what got into me this year, but at least it's been productive.

So far I've put up:

• Fig/Peach Preserves
• Tomato Jam
• Figgy Plum Compote
• Peaches in Bourbon Sauce
• Vanilla Applesauce
• Spicy Peach Salsa
• Fruit and Tomato Chutney

My main challenge now is where to store it all. I'm worried that the garage gets too cold - could the jars freeze and crack? Maybe under my bed. Though it kind of creeps me out to have food, no matter how well preserved, in places not normally designated for it. I need to dig a root cellar! I'll put it on my list.

Many of the 48 jars will be holiday gifts for neighbors and co-workers (none of whom read my blog so I'm not ruining the surprise). The jars are probably more expensive than the contents, at about a dollar each, and I wouldn't mind having them returned. I'm a little unclear on the etiquette for asking for them back so that probably won't happen. Maybe a little label saying: "Return this jar to be filled with more goodies next year"?

I think the canning frenzy is almost over, especially as my special source of almost-overripe fruit is winding down (sob). I still have a couple bags of apples and pears and that should do it. My vision is a relaxed, mellow Christmas season as I pass out beautiful jars of bright gleaming fruit to the masses. It'll never happen, but at least I'm a bit closer...

 

PS: Only one comment in 12 days? Is it over between us?

Octo-boring

Sorry to be so silent, but things are pretty dull around here. In an discouraging repeat of last fall, my eye surgery recovery started off great and then suddenly not so much. Without going into detail, I'm healing too fast (?) which is conversely screwing things up. This is all too familiar.

Rather than mess around for weeks trying different approaches to fix things like last year, my man Jason is taking me back into the operating room next week to deal with it. Meanwhile, I'm supposed to lie low, I have a dull headache and my eyesight is half-way blurry due to dilating drops.

Lying around the house is really not as much fun as it sounds. Especially on the heels of that cold/sinus infection where I got my fill of nothing. Baseball is on, but I haven't latched on to a team yet so am kind of "meh" about it.

When I think of something interesting to write about, I'll check back in. In the meantime, I guess I'll keep posting cute animal pics.

badger-toed

Why should pigeons get all the glory for their foot configuration?

Eureka! (not the city)

I've taught myself how to do many things with the help of library books and Google. Minor plumbing, household repairs, computer upgrades, child-rearing (no family elders this side of the Rockies). But, I'm not much of a self-taught knitter. It tends to be too frustrating, so I rely on classes and workshops for advanced techniques. Plus they're fun.

However, while knitting a sock leg in the middle of a flight last week, I taught myself the Magic Loop. It's an approach to knitting with one circular needle for small diameter tube knitting, when the circumference of your tube is smaller than will actually fit around from point to point.

I won't describe the technique here, sparing you all. It always seemed too technical and fiddly, but while drinking the free wine from Alaska Air, I looked at my knitting and thought "what if I...?" And it worked! I wanted to shout "Eureka!" down the length of the plane, but held back and just smiled as I kept going around and around this never-ending sock...

Knitting countdown starts now

Starting tomorrow, I'm putting aside all personal knitting (sob!) and working on Christmas presents. Once again, with no money and lots of yarn, I'm setting the goal of knitting all presents for family and friends. So, no talking about what's on the needles or showing works in progress on the blog sidebar til January, assuming I hit my target dates...

So, the perennial question: would you rather ask for and receive exactly the gifts you want or would you rather be surprised by the imaginative choice of the giver? For me, this becomes the dilemma of whether to choose a pattern/yarn/color I think the recipient would like or whether to ask them beforehand, which isn't as much fun. I've thought of choosing a few options I want to knit and having them pick from those, but that's a lot of work, frankly.

It's not so hard with my sisters as I know their tastes, but for nieces/nephews, it gets tricky. Those twenty-somethings can be very choosy. Of course, I know what they really want and probably need more than any knitted item: cold hard cash.

 

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Eyeball update

Surgery was successful and easy. No pain yet, only a little blurry vision. I've spent the day sleeping, shopping online under the influence of anesthetics and wandering around the hotel lobby. I look like I've been in a bad fight, I'm moving a bit drunkenly and I'm wearing sunglasses so the staff is intrigued and whispering.

The hotel offered a (free) breakfast this morning that I squirreled away for after the surgery and hosted a (free) wine and appetizers happy hour tonight - sweet! The new season of "The Good Wife" begins tonight that my eyebrows are happily anticipating, so life is fairly pleasant, all in all. Sure beats last time.

Thank you for all the good wishes -- really, I'm feeling guilty for having such a pleasant little get-away.

Since you don't want to look at my eye right now, I'll post a pic of the hotel lobby.

Silver Cloud Inn, Bellevue. Tell them that mysterious lady sent you.

one eye down, one to go

It's sad that I have to schedule surgery in order to get away for a few days rest.

Here I am, laying back on a king-size bed, watching a first-run movie, eating shrimp phad thai in a quiet comfortable hotel in Bellevue, Washington. I'll be here for two more days, relaxing, reading, knitting and maybe taking a walk in the park across the street.

However, one little detour first: in twelve hours I'll be lying unconscious while a surgeon threads a suture around my right iris and draws it up like a pursestring. Oh, well. Minor price to pay for a little away-time.

Meanwhile, back to the movie...

RDM: Welcome to 1980!

Warning: random rant ahead. The 35 million renovation of the Redmond-Bend airport is very snazzy - it has a second floor and an electronic arrival/departure board and everything. But what idiot forgot to include electical outlets? Here we are, huddled on the floor by the two outlets available in the vast waiting area, which don't even have seating near them. Honestly! It's infuriatingly stupid. Other airports have got it - the Seattle airport (ahem, home of Microsoft) has outlets built into each seating area, one for each seat. Plus data ports, not that anyone uses them anymore.

I have complained about the Redmond airport before, but this really points out the small-town mentality of the place. It makes me crazy to think about it anymore so I'll end this post here. Plus it's really  uncomfortable typing at floor level.

Even the logo is kinda last century.

and the season stumbles to a close...

So now that it DOESN'T MATTER, the Red Sox are creaming the Yankees in their series this weekend.The Bosox pitchers and rookies are playing great as the cool in-crowd players have to sit it out with their Ben-Gay and Ace bandages.

And meanwhile, the hapless Mariners are facing Tampa Bay, ensuring the Rays a sweep right into the playoffs.  *sigh*

I'm in a weird American League pinch, as I can't possibly root for the Yanks or Rays to win, and the Red Sox and Twins have a long-standing animosity that I can't get over. So I'm going for the Texas Rangers! Here's my rationale: they're in the West and I have some loyalty to that division (plus why would I ever root for the Central), my brother lives in Texas (not that he ever follows baseball), and most importantly: Henry was born in Texas. So that makes him Texan by birth and me Texan once-removed. Anyway, that's my story and I'm going with it. Now I just need to find out who the hell they are.

So, in doing my initial research, I've found some Rangers insider information:

Official Texas Rangers Claw and Antler Shirt 

You've seen the players wearing it, and now you can wear the Claw & Antler tee, too.

The blue and red Nike cotton t-shirt that have the claw on the front and antlers on the back will be made available to fans again in late September. These are the T-shirts the Rangers have been wearing this summer that signify their two celebratory gestures. The claw is a long-distance high-five that players give each other after doing something good during a game. It was first devised by Esteban German in the Minor Leagues and brought to the Rangers by Nelson Cruz. The "deer wave", or antlers, is given when a player does something special that requires him to utilize his speed.

Ooohhkaayy... Um, go Rangers! Yeah!

Friday frylet from someone much more creative

I'm sick and grouchy and miserable right now (the cold inevitably became a raging sinus infection) so am not fit to write other than to go on about how crummy I feel and how I get no sympathy and have to keep a house, job, child and pets all going and I know you don't want to read that.

So instead I'll point you to a blog-friend's funny and creative slide show chronicling every day of his baby's first year. It's much snappier and wittier than that just sounded and goes very fast so check this out and enjoy.

Magnus - 365 so far with 102 to go... from Chris Kryzanek on Vimeo.

Anosmia

Meaning: a lack of functioning olfaction, or in other words, an inability to perceive odors. I've been plagued with this condition for periods in my life due to sinus conditions, and let me tell you, it stinks.

I'm motivated to write this today because this latest cold has killed my sense of smell again.  And with that, the ability to taste anything subtler than thai chili paste. I was making a chicken dish last night and snipped some tarragon to add to it. I chewed on a few leaves and thought: my tarragon is a dud! What happened? It was like I was eating a piece of grass. I asked my resident taster, Henry, to chew on some and tell me what he thought. He was at a loss to describe it but definitely tasted something. ("Not really  mint, but green, kind of like that other green stuff [basil] but not really. More weird. Kind of bitter, but a little sweet...")

So, tarragon is gone. As is chocolate and vanilla and any other pleasurable flavor, really.

I went through almost a year of no smell a few years ago and actually got pretty depressed. There's no good season for it: you miss spring lilacs, summer grass mowing, fall cider and Christmas trees. Unfortunately I didn't lose weight, as I kept on eating trying in vain to capture some hint of flavor. I found I gravitated toward fried food as there was at least some satisfaction in the "fatty mouth feel" as we used to say in the snack biz.  I think the worst was eating a brownie: absolutely nothing.

This is how I test my sense of smell: I open a bottle of rubbing alcohol and sniff. If I get nothing, no good. The only good news that I've found is that the world actually smells more bad than nice and you skip those odors as well. It was a good time to be at the diaper stage, for one thing. And when my smeller comes back, it's always a surprise how many things smell. Dishwashing liquid, hand cream, the garbage bin, office supplies, Henry's laundry hamper, cat food - I'm bombarded with a cacaphony of scent.

As an anosmiac,  you get no sympathy. If you lose any other sense (hearing, vision, touch) it's taken seriously, but losing your sense of smell is seen as kind of a joke. Or at least trivial. There's a web forum for folks like me (of course) where we console each other and discuss possible treatments and the inconvenience of it all. It has the tone of nobody knows the troubles we've seen: really, it's a disability! It's dangerous! You could miss a gas leak! a fire! or poison yourself with sour milk!

Anyway, I'm hopeful that this time it's a temporary cold-related differently abledness. I'll let you know. Meanwhile, if I faint, don't bother with the smelling salts.

totally sick

I'm sick. Really sick. It's supposedly just a cold, but I've never had one this bad. I'm suspicious that it may even be the flu, though no one supports me on that. I've got it all:

• headache
• sneezing
• congestion
• runny nose
• sore throat
• body ache
• fatigue
• fever

And it's gotten worse at the week has gone on. Poor me. And poor Henry! The first thing to go was my patience, unfortunately. I won't go on about how hard it is to be a single mom when you're sick - it's too whiny and pitiful. But it's hard. Anyway, no posting til I feel better. And no photos, as piles of tissues are hard to shoot.

 

 

Got one!

"Hand knitted." Good, huh?

C'mon, readers.  #1Sister and I are throwing down here. Whatcha got?

I hope this means what I think it does.

Retronyms

No more canning recipes, I promise. This is more of an amuse-bouche. 'Cause we love that stuff.

I stole this from Schott's Vocab Blog:

Free Parking, Fresh Air and Other Retronyms

"Retronyms?

Yes, retronyms – terms that have been created to clarify an existing word rendered ambiguous by evolutions in technology or social practice.

For example, the term “acoustic guitar” was only coined when the electric guitar was invented, similarly “free parking” only emerged when car-parks and parking meters were introduced.

“Black and white photography” would have been a bizarre tautology until color film, and if you had said “free range eggs” two hundred years ago, you would have been stared at.

Other retronyms include: unsafe sex, fresh air, dial-up Internet … you get the idea."

So, Schott asked his readers to send in theirs. His winners:

"All who participated will be sent whole milk by snail mail, but the following will also receive organic (heirloom) vegetables":

“Paper money.”

“Genuine leather.” 

“Natural flavor.”

“Straight marriage.” 

“Landline phones.” 

“Hairy legs.” 

“Paper edition (for newspapers).”

"Brick-and-mortar company, hand crafted."

"Dumb phone" (As in: I have a dumb phone – it only makes phone calls.)

“Birth mother.”

“Propeller planes, silent movies, conventional weapons, natural grass.”

 

So, readers? Add your own - you can beat the NYT folks fo' sho'!

As per demand: Peach Salsa

Didn't I once say I wouldn't publish recipes because they're so boring to read? This one is by request for Dani.

Last year when I had a huge amount of peaches to can I started experimenting beyond jam. Jam isn't that interesting to make and it's kind of a ho-hum gift. I needed an interesting recipe that was unique. I love mango salsa on fish and chicken, so late one canning night decided to go with a peach version.

As usual I don't measure so this is approximate. Go with your taste buds. Remember that hot food can mask a lot more sweetness than cold, so under-sweeten.

If you're going to can this, try not to cook more than a few minutes as it will cook further in the hot water bath. I'm not going to go into how to can as it's too tedious to type out. There are a million sources for that info if you need it. I love reading the State Extension Service websites, myself. Reminds me of home ec class in the sixties. Those were nice simple innocent times.

If you're only eating this fresh, you don't even need to cook it, I suppose. Never tried it that way.

Peach Salsa approximately

• 1 chopped red onion (red for color - any kind will do)
• chopped red bell pepper (eww! eww! I only add for authenticity here)
• 1-3 jalapeno peppers, minced, depending on your heat preference
• 1/4 cup white or cider vinegar
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 6-7 peaches, peeled and chopped
• 1-2 tomatoes, peeled and seeded (surprise ingredient!)
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• Grated lime zest from a whole lime, then squeeze it and add juice
• half a bunch of chopped cilantro - maybe 1/3 cup
• salt and pepper

I like to start the onion, garlic, peppers and vinegar on very low heat for awhile to soften and lose their rawness. Whoo that's pungent! Then add sugar, peaches and tomatoes and let it simmer for a few minutes or longer. Add the last ingredients, cook a minute longer and can. Or cool and serve.

Advanced add-on: depending on the juiciness of the peaches: before adding the last four ingred., dump this into a strainer and press lightly to extract the watery juice. Then boil that down to a syrup and add back. Warning! If you forget to watch it, it can caramelize and burn quickly. Ask me how I know.

This sounds disgusting.

 

When comments go bad

I've been very fortunate as a blogger in that most commenters are agreeable, or at least agree to respectfully disagree. I've gotten only a handful of negative comments overall. This is probably because I steer away from controversial subjects for the most part so the random cantankerous reader has little to object to. The cranky will always find something though.

Those few have rankled (great word, by the way - sounds exactly like it feels). These commenters have no problem criticizing or belittling a complete stranger. Or actually, I guess they kind of enjoy it. Clearly that's the price you occasionally pay for sticking your personal thoughts out there in the blogosphere for anyone to judge. 

Who are these people and why do they take the time to respond to my silly blatherings? Can't say, as none of them have blogs I can stalk and harass back. Not that I would of course. Happy thoughts or none at all is my motto. Luckily most of you feel the same way. I appreciate that.

Moving on. Next, peach salsa!

Yes, we can!

Even though I'm known to jump on the trend train, I hate it when something I've done forever suddenly becomes the latest cool thing and I seem like just one of the nouveau crowd. Knitting was one example, except I love that there are new hip young dedicated knitters (a la Ravelry, the knitting social site, that I'm addicted to). So that's not really an example. Never mind.

What I'm referring to here is canning food. I've canned food since my twenties, when I had a weird episode making ketchup, which (ketchup) stayed around seemingly for years. It was delicious, actually - more like tomato relish/chutney with a ketchup texture. But how much ketchup does one need?  We ended up ditching it in the middle of the night in the garbage. I've regularly made peach jam and tomato sauce over the years - good for Christmas gifts and makes me feel like a traditional and practical farmer's wife from the midwest, none of which I am.

So this year is no exception. Adam calls me when he has tomatoes and peaches that are no longer saleable so I have a direct pipeline to the raw foodstuffs. I've been canning the usual suspects and have branched out to the peach salsa and tomato jam shown above as variations on the theme.

"Apparently canning and preserving are back big time," Lynne Rossetto Caspar is saying, as I type this, on "The Splendid Table." How annoying, seriously.

So far I haven't sickened anyone with botulism, yet. I use the hot-water-bath method, both for the jars and myself, and that seems to work. I haven't graduated to a pressure cooker and probably won't, being one more random appliance to store. (We do have a cousin who collects them as yet another example of our family's weird collecting fetish. Though I suppose they're more useful than some of the things we hoard enjoy...)

You do have to buy some equipment as shown here, but it's a small investment for the great feeling of pride and accomplishment you get as you realize you can provide for your family in the face of the upcoming apocalypse. You'll all be scrounging for scraps, and we'll be full of tomato jam and feeling smug.

The accoutrements of canning