Lincoln and the formal education of puppies.



This past Monday, Oscar and Felix graduated from puppy training school. They were very indifferent* since their diplomas were neither food nor underwear. On Monday, they start the intermediate dog class. The dogs are still half-jerks and we want them to be 2 non-jerks.

Now for Lincoln...

As I sat on the couch this evening, sipping my rolling rock greenlight, I caught one of those one reel wonders



on TCM. I caught it in the middle,so I don't know what the theme was though I suspect it had something to do with patriotism and history as it was a reel from the late 40s, early 50s...and quite lame might I add.

So as I'm paying attention to Oscar, I noticed that some blind guy in a hospital is talking to Abraham Lincoln (no doubt a civil war soldier...I know he was blind because he was wearing a blind fold.) He recited the first half of the Gettysburg Address, then lincoln finished off the second part. As actor Lincoln finished up the Address, I noticed that the Gettysburg Address ends thusly: "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."

Notice the familiar phrase, "nation under God." Well, I read a long article in the Atlantic about Lincoln and though he was a Christian, he was not evangelical. Then I remember learning that the Eisenhower administration had put the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. I didn't believe that Lincoln would have put that phrase in, and after 5 minutes of research, I found digitized versions of the first two drafts of the Address at the LC website. And guess what?!, no "under God" to be found. If you don't believe me, see for yourself http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/gadd/gadrft.html


*=Yes I did that on purpose, it is a joke.

Adj.

1.

cityfied - being or having the customs or manners or dress of a city person

Amen.

I guess I was feeling a little too comfortable in this rural situation. The universe needed to remind me that I'm a city girl.

Today, in a rush, I came home during a 30 minute lunch to give the dogs a mid-day break. This is usually D's job as he has a long lunch, but is currently out of town. Anyway I ran inside, kicked off my painful shoes and opened the door for the pups. I stayed inside to fix a quick lunch. Suddenly a flurry of barking drew me outside to find the dogs barking madly at a neighbor walking by. No biggie. Since I was shoeless, I had walked out into the yard by hopping from rock to rock laid out in a nice little path. I turned around to go back inside along my rocky path and looked down. This is what I saw.



I had just stepped directly over this lovely little Texas hazard. I froze, backed away out on the grass, grabbed the dogs and made a rather wide circular path back inside. Knowing my tendency to freak out, and not wanting to appear completely ignorant of snake types, (which I am) I immediately do a Google image search on rattlesnakes. Yep, I'd say that's a positive ID. To cover my bases I even checked out pictures of bull snakes just in case I was mistaken. I wasn't.

I then realized that it was time to return to work, but had just enough time to reach back out the door and snap that quick photo. Not bad for leaning way over and just hoping I'm pointing the camera in the right direction, no? Anyway rest assured, universe, I know my place. No more cute shoes out here. I've got my boots and I'll wear them with a dress if I have to.

By the way, this is now what I intend to keep just outside the back door.


All ax wielding maniacs are welcome to come by and try to chop us to bits with our own ax. Just mind the snakes.

Conspiracy Theories (Mel Gibson not included)

The Oscars.....
I just can't seem to stay away from the show that takes 4 hours of my life every year. Of course, Jon Stewart hosting made the whole thing easier to swallow. Anyway, while watching the obligatory performances of nominated songs, I figured out the answer to an oft speculated conspiracy. Get ready......this is good.

Dolly Parton is Elvis.

Take a moment and let this sink in.
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Mind-blowing, no? Many believe that Elvis is alive and in hiding. I just can't fathom that if Elvis is still alive that he's just laying low. What better way to stick around and maintain a music career than create an alter ego? I mean, Garth Brooks could have taken a few notes from Elvis in the mulit-persona arena. I mean what was up with that Chris guy anyway? Allow me to present a few points to ponder:

1. Dolly just turned 60, Elvis would be 71 (pretty close, and he'd want to become someone younger to be able to stick around a little longer)
2. Both are southern and proud of it.
3. Both are talented performers. Now don't get me wrong, but they do both have an inexplicable, devoted, cultish following.
4. Theme parks dedicated to both. I mean, there's no Bananarama Land, Or Depeche Mode Water Park.
5. Both have slightly bizarre and definitely unique "looks".
6. Elvis died in '77, just 2 or 3 years after Dolly started making occasional television appearances like Candid Camera.
7. Elvis could have easily recorded Dolly's early music at Graceland with little outside help.
   
8. Both starred in some memorable movies and some utterly forgettable ones. (OK, that's not exclusive to Dolly & Elvis.

Pretty convincing, no? Well, at least a new way to waste five or ten minutes of your day. Hope you enjoyed.

m

If you name your dog Rex, will he have an Oedipal complex?

I can't believe that I have become one of those people. D and I took Felix to the vet today because he has relapsed in the housetraining department. Our first thought was...."Well he's being an asshole." Then we let paranoia take over and began to wonder about possible bladder problems. Well, after 2 1/2 minutes at the vet we hear, "He's a headcase. Congratulations." How embarrassing to out your own doggie hypochondria. The vet (a huge fan of Jack Russells and has two of his own) offered some sage advice as we left his office. "Good Luck." Hey, it was free.

Great, he's not even 4 months old and we're dealing with psychological problems. Maybe I can read up on my Freud, have Felix lay down on his doggie couch and tell me how he really feels about his sudden lack of urinary control. (I think that leopard print on the couch really adds something!)

He's always been weird, but dogs just are sometimes, right? So now after six weeks of puppy school, we've learned that we have one dog that's really smart (and a headcase) and one dog that's very athletic, but not so quick on the uptake. So we've got a neurotic bedwetter and a dumb jock? OK, alright, take it easy, no big deal. We just need an artist/drama student, a hardcore ROTC cadet and an FFA member and we've got our own Dog High School population! I wonder if we could actually simulate a genuine adolescent experience with the right combination of dogs. It boggles the mind.

Anyway, here's the meat and potatoes of the blog: (that was for you, Mr. Lash. Bob's your uncle.)




























Spoiled rotten brats.....No wonder they have problems.

Hey junior campers...

Yesterday, I expressed to Mel-a-rific how I was nervous about taking the dogs camping as long as there were other dogs coming. At dog class (aka puppy kindergarten) both Oscar and Felix growl and snap and bark at the other puppies in the class and we just can't seem to figure out how to get them to be nice.

So yesterday, as Mel's e-mail as the impetus, we held our breath and let Oscar and Felix have at the ranch dogs.

As one website put it, "puppies will annoy adult dogs incessantly." You'd of thought Fritz was covered with gravy the way they kept licking his face. Fritz quickly quashed that activity simply by growling. You can see the effect it had on the puppies


Gaby was more standoffish than Fritz. She never really warmed up to the puppies as you can see here. Both Gaby and Fritz are somewhat elderly dogs so they made very half-assed attempts to chase off Oscar and Felix.




After a while, both puppies did exactly what "the literature" told us they would do. They became submissive to Fritz and laid over on their back. It was an accepted invitation for Fritz to sniff them out.



In the end, it went better than we had expected as Oscar, Felix, and Fritz became friends. Of course, my camera missed the best part of the this adventure: Fritz walked over to some bushes with Oscar following. Oscar was standing underneath Fritz and was curious as to why Fritz was lifting his leg. After his golden shower, both he and Felix got a bath.

Then we decided to get rid of them.

So for those of you bringing dogs on the camping trip, beware, because they will be annoyed incessantly by Oscar and Felix

Real quick, here are two photos given to us by the dogs previous owners taken Dec. 26, 2005, when the dogs were 5 weeks old. As you can see, they now look completely different.

Enjoy.

And I'd like to add that if you would like to meet the dogs, come camping with us on April 21-23.

The return of manners...

Today I decided to install UNIX on my old laptop in the hopes that I can use it as a server and run databases off of it at work. As I was searching for a distribution to download (FreeBSD 4.5 in case anyone was interested), I came across the following thread: http://www.computing.net/unix/wwwboard/forum/6550.html
For anyone who hates rude assholes, check this out. It will make you feel good. Don't fuck with the online tech community.

Hey there bloggers...

A new discovery in pet ownership was made this past week.



Puppies don't shed!? Eggs don't ripen?!

So what is going on? Oscar and Felix are fast becoming adolsecent dogs. No longer are they soft, sac-less, 2lb. animals. It is actually a strain to pick each of them up with one hand. And forget about holding them in one hand while they struggle against being brushed.

I wish we had photographed them against the same background every week so you could better tell that they have grown.

Below are two photographs. One taken today, the other taken the first week we had the puppies, January, 3 2006.

And here is a little factoid. From the cheapest wholesaler, it would cost $1000 to build a 7ft. tall toilet role pyramid.

3 things...

This will not be a usual dog blog post. No dogs, just talk (well, maybe just one).

1. Betty Friedan died today. As cliche it is to remember someone only after they are dead (we aren't going to see her at the Oscars), The Feminine Mystique is one of my favorite books. Sure, the second half is mostly dry sociological studies, but the first half is full of revelations. Through high school, I always had this nagging feeling that my attitude towards women was not in the mainstream, that my mom was not like other moms. But I could never quite figure out why that was. I didn't know that my mom was a minority among my friends' moms, and why I always got the bug-eyes when i told people (in the valley) that my mom was a lawyer.

The Feminine Mystique kind of codified all of what I could not figure out on my own. Of course, as a result, I saw evidence for the book everywhere. But I didn't feel the need to always point them out like some caricature from PCU. For most of you readers out there, the book won't be very compelling as Friedan's ideas have moved into the mainstream, but you should read it anyway. Think Mrs. Brown from The Hours.

2. It has been the best football year for the Alonzo family. UT won the national championship, and the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Superbowl. And it wasn't the usual bad superbowl, it was actually a good game. Not a blowout, not 3-0.

3. M is in Austin this week and I am in Albany. Pizza and dogpiss will be the rule for the week. No picking up, no cleaning. I'm only bathing to keep my job.

The Teacher Becomes the Student

So, they call it "dog school" but it's really school for people that are not smarter than their dogs. Yes, D and I are part of this category. Tonight we completed our second of eight dog classes. Fortunately, the class is only for puppies so, though Felix was the first in the class to go to the bathroom on the floor, he will not be the last. (please, please, please) It's embarrassing when your dogs leaves little presents on the floor of the classroom, but when someone else's dog vomits everywhere, well that's really funny.

It turns out that D and I have not been making ALL the common dog training mistakes, but we're certainly making plenty of them. I mean, did you know that you have to take the dogs out every day to successfully house train them?!?!?! And since when did puppies eat things that aren't good for them? I mean now we have to clean up all those puddles of antifreeze and chocolate we've got all over the house! And WHAT am I going to do with my poisonous plant collection?

No, we're actually learning a lot and now have dogs that mostly come when we call them and can even sit down for a few seconds. It's really interesting to watch the dog trainer try to peg everyone in the class. She thought she knew D & I and the dogs right off the bat. I apparently came off as the one that babies the dogs and doesn't raise my voice. HA!! She also assumed that we each had our own dog, as if one was "mine" or "his". Neither one is mine when they've just peed on the floor. Those are D's dogs! Anyway, it's interesting and gets us off the ranch for something other than work or a trip to Austin. I guess we'll keep going.....if only so Felix can learn that he's not actually 150 pounds of pure muscle ready to devour another dog on the spot. Yes, he's one of those big dogs in a tiny body. Well, I've made you read long enough. Here's what you really came for:


This is a picture at the puppies first house. We took them back to play with their mom and uncle. Once the sniffing was over, all they wanted to do was go outside.




















Above is Cookie (mom) with Felix. He seemed to recognize her right away, though Oscar didn't ever really warm up.

Left is Oscar with Uncle Squirrel. They're almost the same size as each other. It's pretty funny since Squirrel is from the same litter as Cookie, who actually grew.




Another shot of them on the couch with me. There seem to be a lot of these. Maybe I should get outside more often.......Nah.

The Chihuahua-nator

Well, in our infinite wisdom, D and I decided to go our separate ways this past weekend. He went to San Antonio to help an old professor run for president of ALA and I went to Austin to spend one last weekend with my sis before she moves to Chicago. We decided not to just leave them in the yard with a thawing steak and hope for the best......so I took them with me. Yes Kelly, I came to town with puppies and didn't tell you. This trip was all about Mel. And housetraining. And making sure Charlie (family dog) didn't eat the pups for lunch. I mean if your dog could channel the Terminator, you would worry a little too. Can anyone say "deadlights"?




So we had to introduce them in neutral territory and keep a pretty close eye on them all weekend. Charlie did a decent job of ignoring them when he could, but when two furry balls of energy come running at you full speed, ignoring gets a little difficult. But he did well for his first time. Somewhere in the dog afterlife my Aunt's dog watched this all happen and laughed. Once Charlie was the eager puppy and she was the grouchy old dog not willing to play. How the tables have turned, Charlie.

After some initial sniffing in places and barking, they all seemed to settle down and just tolerate each other.




He still has those evil eyes.........

We also discovered that on cold days at home Oscar & Felix happily sit in front of our space heater for as long as we'll let them.





You've managed to avoid the dog sweaters so far boys, but look out! There will be many more winters in your futures.

Sweaters.....they'll be back.

Ahhh! We fed them after midnight!





But seriously, I have been wanting to try this out for a while and this first effort seemed to go fairly well. Next time I'll use a tripod. Enjoy!

Kindergarten Masters

Hi all. Guess I'll put in my little bit since my Glamour mag is not available at the moment. Well, this puppy thing has sealed the deal. NO KIDS, EVER! If two dogs are this much work, how does anyone raise a human being?!?

Nah, it's not all that bad. The pups are getting the hang of house training and we haven't had anything major destroyed by puppy teeth yet. I am going to take them to Austin soon. THAT should be interesting. My sis is moving to big Chicago so we have to hang out one last time, puppies or no puppies.

Never have D or I been greeted so warmly upon coming home from work or waking up in the morning. It's a bit of an ego boost to stumble out of bed at 6 am with dragon breath, oily hair and big bags under your eyes and still get such a warm reception right off the bat. Yes, they mostly have to pee, but I'll take what I can get.

We all start puppy kindergarten next week. Yes, as a matter of fact, I did tattoo "SUCKER" across my forehead recently. As D & I are both amateurs at this dog thing, we thought we'd take the pups to dog school just for kicks (and a small fee). It should be quite interesting to see whose dog pees on the floor first and if one attacks another puppy in the class. I must confess, as I read the description of the class, I said to D "We are so going to kick all those other dog's asses." That's right! We got this training thing down! Look out Petstar, here we come!

Ah, I do love delusions of grandeur. I'm sure we'll get what's coming to us. At least puppy kindergarten will be great fodder for future posts. Wish the little guys luck!

Today is Sunday. As you can see below, I'm catching up on some reading. Who battled cancer, what kind of lip gloss won't glue my lips together, and how can I give the WWW the finger in a very very subtle way.

Its also mid-lame month and we still have yet to take down the holiday lights. M is currently running around the house trying to get the dogs to chase her. Sometimes they chase, and sometimes they do that ass-rubbing-the-floor run.

Anyway, without further .... blah blah...here are some more pictures:

Felix

The dogs doing their best Elizabeth Taylor

Oscar: Pooping, or climbing the couch?

Another action shot.

They get their 2nd round of shots on Wednesday, including meds to rid them of tapeworm, which they got by eating the fleas that they had when they lived with their mom. We'd leave the tapeworms in, but we aren't raising models.

In Archives news, there was a very good article in this quarter's American Archivist. In about 40 pages, it told me to stop living in a fantasy world and start putting whatever information I had on unprocessed collections on the website. The thesis being that I will never have enough time to completely process them all, as long as I am taking in new acquisitions. So with all of that out of the way, I can get new shelving. Yea for me. I never thought that shelving could excite me so. It would excite me more if it was that kind that is made of arched bars instead of solid metal.

So today is Friday the 13th, but its in the lamest month of the year, January. So how lame is January? Two holidays, New Year's and MLK Day. One obviously travels, the other is subject to non-observation depending on your job and your geographic locale. Here in Albany, MLK Day is sacrificed so that the school can shut down when the Stock Show comes to town. Why should they, there are no blacks here...is the reason one will get when asked why MLK Day is not observed. The true meaning of MLK Day seems to be completely lost here.

So again, January is lame. Its a cold, slow march from the drunken bliss of the holidays to the brief and commercial facade that is Valentines Day. Pass the marzipan! From then on, its gets better. There is the March of Easter (for my family, an excuse to get together and barbecue), the April Birthdays (about 12 of them), and on to the Friday of the months, May, usually marked by good weather and summer vacation planning. And then it will be summer again, with the blistering heat that I call normal. By then, the dogs will be fully grown and trained enough so that we can dump them off on my sister while we fly off to someplace for vacation. Likely California.

So when most of you are enjoying your Monday off (as I get every Monday, mofos), remember Megan as it will be business as usual.

BTW, I told you all that it would be hard to keep up with this and raise the puppies at the same time.

Hey Bloggers,

No pictuers at this juncture. The dogs are more or less the same. Since the last tiime, we have only had two incidence of fecal espionage. Unfortunately, we have had countless accidents with the number one, but luckily it doesn’t stain and the carpet is tan anyway. We do believe they are catching on though, but for them to catch on, I have say, in a very high voice, “Do you have to go potty?” I have to say this evertime I think they may have to go, and everytime we go out. This is easy for Megan, she has a high voice. I just sound like a chode.

I also found out that I am going to go to ALA midwinter in San Antonio, but just for the opening weekend. I’m going just to campaign for Dr. Roy, who as you all may or may not know is running for ALA president in March. I’m going to stay with my old firend Diego, who is a pharmacist, and we all know what kind of month he has been having. I always thought that sometimes he could be a bit callous, but callousness is a necessity now with angry seniors getting screwed by the transition from Medicaid to Medicare Plan D.

Despite the long drive, I have hope that it’ll be a good time, plus I’ll get to try my salesman skills on a different group of people. At the archives conference, I usually sell raffle tickets, now I’ll try my best at selling Dr. Roy. Who wants to come with me?

Happy New Year!

If you are wondering where we have been the answer is puppies. True "puppies" is not a real answer, or even gramatically correct, or sensical, but it is succinct. We got Felix and Oscar on Tuesday and they really are like children. They wake up at 7:20 a.m., take five naps a day and pee every hour or so.

Luckily, they haven't done much peeing inside, and only two sneaky logs in the bathroom. Megan is doing a great job training them this week while she is off. Megan is the alpha dog, which means I am of the status of Felix and Oscar. Well, not quite.

I scared the crap out of them last night while I, like the rest of Austin was jumping and yelling. I could barely contain my excitement. I have been waiting for 8 years (though some had to wait 36) for this win and for it to have been the greatest game i've seen all year was, like the booger, the icing on the cake. For those of you who missed the game or "don't care," even you would have to admit that the Rose Bowl was a great game...had you seen it.

Back to puppies. Felix is mellow, inquisitive, and smart. Oscar is active, needy, and an instigator. Together they form chode-dog. Like all children they are monkey-see, monkey-do(or funky-see, funky-do); if one is playing with a toy, the other immediately wants to play with it; they fight constantly...bite eachother's wiener thinking its a teet...

And now, here are the most recent pictures, 7 weeks.

Sleeping dogs lie (boo).

That is a carrot



This is Megan doing her best stiff arm.

Self explanatory

The End

One Last Visit

Well since it's almost Christmas, and we're getting out of town as soon as possible after work, this was our last visit with the pups until we bring them home. I'm sure it will never actually occur to me that these are the last few peaceful days we'll have at home before our new arrivals. Ah well....

For the first time, the little guys actually look like real dogs! No more guinea pig babies! Their eyes, ears and legs for the most part are working. We've even heard a few barks and growls. Now if I can just get D to stop encouraging them to bark. D, I can growl too, you know.

Here's a few pics of our big boy dogs.
















O.K. Just one picture.....

Oops,
I started this blog more than a week ago fully intending to finish it before Christmas....so much for those peaceful days. The holidays snuck up on us. Suddenly we were packing to leave town! Anyway, we promise to get back on this blogging thing after New Year's. Then we'll be able to update even more because the dogs will live with us!

Hope everyone got some good loot and safely made it home.

Happy New Year.

Sick Again....

I don't get sick often, and when I do, I don't usually mind that much...the sickness that is. What always kills me is the insomnia that comes with sickness. Anyway, so here I am on my sore ass at home watching Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (mendacity!) watching Burl Ives acting very unlike Frosty the Snowman...and during the holidays!

I don't usually have much interest in other people (its my way of refraining from judging), but I couldn't help checking to see if there were any other blogs out of Albany. Just one. Some chode kid no doubt. That led me to look at all the blogs in Texas. I got 7 down when I found http://angeboo.blogspot.com. I only read the first page, but this 18 year old girl from Irving is fascinating. She is like mass consumerism to the extreme mixed with a well-read sarcastic and erudite intellectual. Her posts are so dry that I can't really tell what is tongue-in-cheek and what is in earnest. It pleased me that there are 18 year olds that can actually form a coherent sentence.

It is now nap time. More puppies and party pictures from this non-drinking (sigh) weekend in Austin.

I got two shots there earlier today. No H, just antibiotics.

Its been one month since the puppies were born. Now they can walk, run-kind of, growl and bark. They also have little baby teeth that are very sharp, but their jaws aren't very strong. This week we have puppy-only pics...no people.

Notice in two shots, there are small puddles on the floor. We hope to avoid this in the future. If you happen to drive by our house the first week of January, you are bound to see M holding a confused and guilt-ridden puppy while running out to the yard. She will be training them to "do their business" as the blue hairs call it.




Pictured here are Oscar and Felix looking slightly embarassed. We can already tell they will be great friends, or fiends. See first post...Pinky and the Brain. They have already started ass-grabbing with each other. And when one barks or growls, the other one has to chime in.



You can see my finger there right on the edge. They seemed very interested until they realized my finger was not a nipple. Then they started grab-assing again. The book said that we would be able to tell when they are about to go, but they just kept peeing with no warning. I hope it is because they are still too young. One last photo. Still look like a guinea pig? Please say no!

---

This has nothing to do with puppies, but that will happen from time to time. A couple of weeks ago M and I (ooh, context clue as to who is typing!) went to a gallery opening at work (see The Old Jail Art Center) M has reminded me that it was also the 25th anniversary of my museum, so it was called the Silver Ball. Anyway, the photographer, who is a cool dude, took pictures the whole night and took one of M and I all dressed up in front of a most telling piece of modern art. In full view, the art is quite odd, its called "The bag I take to work with me everyday." Here is the photo, see if you can figure out why is it a "telling" piece. To see a larger version, just click on it.

If no one can figure it out, don't worry, I'll post a comment in a couple of days.