Code Orange Hike and Torture by Poodle

I can't believe this! I am up in the middle of the night again, and I was SO tired when I went to bed. I also have my art class tomorrow and about a gazillion things to do before we leave on Friday for vacation! Oh, well, I might as well write about my day yesterday! It was VERY hot, but my friend Grace and I went to Meadowlarke gardens, a botanical garden with miles of walking paths near Vienna, VA. We had a great time shade hopping all morning and looking at different plants and flowers. Then we ate lunch at the Amphora resteraunt, and then Grace and I went to Grace's gardens at her house, which look like a miniature Meadowlarke gardens! Grace gave me a bunch of plants for my yard, and I came home, cooled off and then planted them last night. Actually, I came home and took our little poodle, Charlie, to the vets for his Bordatella (what I thought was a vaccine but was actually a spritz of medicine in his nose).
I got home in just enough time to unload the plants and pick up Charlie, with, I was hoping, his leash and halter, but they were nowhere to be quickly found, and Don was about to teach a new student and needed the driveway empty! So, I scoop Charlie up and put him in the hot car, heading out to the vets. Of course, Charlie thinks that when I am sitting, he needs to be in my lap. I finally give up and let him sit in my lap and look out my window, mainly because he is freaked out about being in the car, knowing full well that if I am in an accident and the airbag is deployed, Charlie will be a poodle puddle between me and the airbag! (Some day with our animal advocates hard at work, traveling with a poodle in your lap might be a ticketable offense...if it isn't already. It probably should be.) At the vets, which is really Pet Smart, I am feeling very uncool carrying my poodle like a baby while all of the other dogs are on leashes and being mostly well behaved.
Charlie is wiggling and wanting down, and he feels like he has sharp elbows and toenails everywhere. The lady asks what I need and tells me to put Charlie down on the scale, after he growls at her for patting his backside. Put him down? There are giant dogs everywhere, and Charlie has always thought HE was a giant dog....or at least that giant dogs shouldn't mind him sniffing them as though he was a giant dog. A little girl with a big voice approaches us and says to me, boldly, with some irritation, "I SAID CAN I PLEEEEEASE PET YOUR DOGGY?" Being a little out of practice with loud, demanding children at the moment and a little confused, because I hadn't heard her speak to me before, I kind of stared at her blankly and then bent for her to pet Charlie. A lady nearby said to me, "It was nice of her to say please."
(It depends on what the meaning of the word "nice" is.)
I am a little hesitant at the scale , and Charlie's not liking being told to sit and stay on a big metal scale when there are giant dogs around to sniff! I let the lady weigh Charlie with my hand on his back, and then we mercifully go into a private room. I can't help but notice that when the man with the giant dog tells his dog to "sit and stay" the giant dog ACTUALLY sits and stays!
In the private room, Charlie is no happier. I try to hand him a doggy treat, but he isn't interested and is noticably distressed by a faceless dog from the next room who is whining pitifully. He looks at my eyes for clues about what is about to happen to him. I smile reassuringly and speak soothing words, but he is not buying it. This is where he comes for grooming, which he hates, probably because of some of the extra stuff that goes along with grooming. This is also where he gets shots and his ears examined, and he's pretty touchy about anyone touching his ears. When the vet comes in, I ask for a muzzle, because Charlie will nip.
The vet and her assistant watch with some amusement as I try to put the muzzle on Charlie.
He won't sit still on the metal table, he's all toenails and elbows again, so I pick him up and put him under my arm and kind of chase his nose around with the muzzle. The Chinese vet says in broken English, "How you get he groomed if he bite people?" I said, "We put a muzzle on him."
She looks doubtful as I chase Charlie's nose around some more. "He doesn't bite me," I reassure her. She still looks doubtful. Finally, Charlie gives up and the muzzle is in place, and the vet and I hold Charlie down so she can squeeze a syringe of stuff into his nose. I guess enough goes in, but just about as much goes all over me and the vet. Next time someone else is bringing Charlie to the vet. On the way home, Charlie doesn't sit in my lap. He curls up on the seat with his doggie bone and goes to sleep. When we get home, I still can't park in the driveway because of Don's violin/viola students, so I carry Charlie and all of his elbows and toenails into the house myself. Grateful to be home, he curls up in a ball in his crate and goes to sleep. I feel absolutely gross with my sweaty body from all of the outside activity in the heat, from doggie hair smell and doggy breath all over me, and then from whatever was in that syringe. But I guess there's no danger of me coming down with kennel cough anytime soon! :)

God is good! Laughter is healing!

I am so happy today for so many reasons! God has been letting me know that He loves me and that He is involved in my life every day--or I'm becoming more aware of Him every day, either way the result is that I'm more content and joyful than I have ever been! I thought yesterday would be hard--my first Father's Day without my dad. I did get a little choked up a couple of times, but every time I felt sad, I could feel God's presence, like He was reminding me that my Father is with me always. I was able to focus my attention on Don all day, which was good, because none of our boys could be with him yesterday. We went to an antique car show and he really enjoyed that. I enjoyed being with Don and listening to Dixie Land music, eating an ice cream cone in the hot hot sun.....haven't done that in a long while. Then we went home and changed out of our church clothes and went to see Spiderman 3--it was awesome! We had dinner out and came home and watched Meet the Parents on TV....that was fun, too--I think it's our favorite movie that we share. Don and I love to laugh together--it's one of the best things about our marriage. We have (whatever the plural of "sense of humor" is...us senses of humor...I think that's it....) anyway, very similar ones. Don cracks me up all of the time--because he's such a serious person that if I'm not listening, I could miss it when he says something really funny. So I try to listen. I love to make him laugh, too. I can tell that, whenever he has had a stressful day, he relaxes whenever I make him laugh. If we don't make each other laugh, either we're really upset about something, or we are mad at each other. Sometimes we can get each other to laugh whenever we're mad about something silly or there is something sad going on.
A funny thing happened this weekend when I was getting ready to plant grass other things in our back yard. I have a little tiller, and I THOUGHT the ratio of gas/oil was 50-50, so I filled it up, but I couldn't get it started. I was doing it partially for exercise, so I really tried to start it myself. When I couldn't, son #3 Don C., tried and tried to get it started for me, and when he did finally start it--blue smoke was billowing from it. My faulty memory--or my wishful thinking--said this was normal. Don kept shouting over the noise of the engine, "MOM! I DON'T THINK THIS IS NORMAL! YOU'RE POLLUTING THE NEIGHBORHOOD!" Intent on tilling, I assured him that I remembered the blue smoke from last year. About 30 minutes later, and both Don C. and son #4 Nate, were standing at the back door frowning at me and waving their hands around. I waved back. Thirty minutes after that, there were three faces.....Don C, Nate and "Big" Don...hubby, who was waving an operator's manuel and telling me to "TURN OFF THE TILLER NOW!" I turned it off, and Don waved his way through the cloud of blue smoke over to me, and read, "1 part oil 24 parts gasoline!" He helped me dump the 50-50 mixture into an empty Tide bottle and helped me refill my tiller. Then, I proceeded to till up the entire backyard! I planted grass that thrives in shade, a vegetable garden and three flower beds!
If it survives us being in Myrtle Beach for a week--we should have a nice backyard....and I burned 1000 calories doing yard work two days in a row!