Music: Start 'Em Young

 I had my great nephews over today....I'm exhausted!  I showed my older great nephew (B) the rudiments of drumming (can you imagine THAT, LOL!) and he actually had a good sense of rhythm!  I also taught how to do the C chord (the easiest one on the uke) and I sang Frere Jacques along with him while he strummed, LOL!  I have an old candlestick phone with a rotary dial that works and those kids are simply fascinated by a rotary dial phone!!!  B was so interested that I could change the batteries and clean the terminals on my poor old Lighting McQueen plastic car; he watched in utter fascination as I made it "talk" again.  I am so NOT mechanical (and it's a big family joke) but I felt like Go-Go Gadget because I could figure out how to get the sucker talking again!  I felt like a genius!  LOL! Trying to think of things to do with a 5 year that don't involve planting him in front of a TV is very challenging!  He's not a coloring book type of boy! Phew, I'm exhausted!!!!  I need a nap!

My Dad, Steve Knerly (Father's Day 2015)

Thinking of you, Fa.  I miss you.

My father loved to get dressed up; he was always very proud to wear his medals!  He always yell at us to "Hurry up, I'm WAITING!  Why in the hell am I always waiting for you all to get ready!" and he'd disappear and we'd wait for him to make an entrance He smelled like Old Spice and then Christian Dior for men.  And wool.

He'd use big words and when you'd give him the "Huh?" look he'd make you look it up in the dictionary.  (Thus our predilection for using Big Words!  He pretended he didn't speak Hungarian (his childhood in the old West Side Hungarian neighborhood was crappy) but he would listen to the Hungarian Hour on the radio and spoke it fluently.  He started most sentences with "God Damnit," when he was on the phone and then later, as we got older, in person.

He would 'conduct' classical music while driving, which used to scare me to death.  I finally figured out he was driving with his knee.  He loved convertibles! He loved music and singing especially, "I'm Glad I'm Not Young any More" from GIGI.  He loved roller coasters.

I think he lived to yell at other lawyers and I don't know how many phones he destroyed banging the receiver instead of hanging up.

His way of "fixing" things was to wack it with a hammer.  (Thus the ceiling radiator crashing to the floor and breaking his leg).

He was charming as all get out. All eyes would gravitate to him when he entered a room.

He could be very difficult and challenging to live with: his standards were very high.  He wasn't afraid to wack you if you deserved it.  But he'd go to the mat for you, taking on anyone, including the Lakewood School Board and my materanl grandmother (I don't know which was worse).

He called me My Schloukie Kid (don't ask me why) and Miachka.  He and his needs came first (typical Aries) but I know he loved us fiercely.

Your First Concert

So what was your first big band or performer you ever saw live, in person?  Your first REAL concert?

Not a movie  or video.  Not a friend's band either; doesn't count. Has to be a name people know (or knew if you're older...)

Mine was Paul Revere and the Raiders!!  Like most teeny boppers, I had a huge thing for Mark Lindsay.  This is the era of the Beatles, the Monkeys etc.  Mark Lindsay and Davy Jones were all over Teen Magazine and Tiger Beat.  I had a subscription actually.

I was...well...let's say....YOUNG!  Under 12. My brother had to go with me.  My mother made him, much to his chagrin. In retrospect, I think she was right as he would make sure nothing happened to me. Needless to say, he was not happy. I can't remember where it was, but I remember we actually had fairly decent seats and our Dad let me bring his binoculars.  They were probably from WW2 and weighted and ton.  "Don't lose them!"  It was actually very exciting and there were tons of screaming girls there.

He said as we were walking into the concert venue,  "So help me God, if you scream once, I will pinch you! Just remember what happened when I took you to see HARD DAY'S NIGHT....."

My mother also had made him take me to see the movie HARD DAY'S NIGHT at the Detroit Theater in Lakewood, Ohio. Boy, did he throw a fit about that!  He was so pissed off; he sat through the whole movie with his arms folded against his chest, pouting as only a teen-age boy can pout.  It was PACKED with screaming girls!  There were cops there.  For a movie, mind you.

Yes, I remembered A HARD DAY'S NIGHT.  One excited squeal in the movie theater, and yes, he pinched me.  HARD!

"Why did you do that?  Everyone else is screaming?"

"And if everyone else jumped off a bridge, you'd jump too?  How stupid can you be? THEY may be jerks but no sister of MINE is gong to be a jerk.  You can clap all you want, but that's it.  You get me? Watch the stupid movie."

You have to love brothers!

A Memory I'd Rather Not Remember

Saw this on Facebook today and it reminded me of one those painful childhood memories you lock away.  Mostly because you a) grew older and b) you moved away.

One the street to the east of ours in Lakewood, Ohio lived 3 girls that I was friends with in elementary school.  I can't remember their names and it's probably best in the long run. I know where the house is, I can see parts of the interior in my mind's eye still. It was right next to the lake (Lake Erie).  I learned to ride without training wheels in the driveway next to their garage. (To the left.)

I remember they had this really cool surrey with two seats that you pedaled.  This is a more modern version of theirs, but yes, they had a striped top too!  I remember that!  Funny, I can't remember shit from yesterday....The seats were wooden.  The had really great toys, as I recall.  The best F.A.O.  Schwartz had to offer!

Anyway, I digress, as usual.  

I can remember spending nights there and vice versa. I can remember the kitchen layout and that they had a piano.  Not as big as ours and the mom wasn't a concert-level pianist who had performed at Severance Hall as a teenager.  (Insert evil grin here.)

The mom was a Southern Belle; there's no other way to put it.  She was from "Ver-gin-nee-yah" Old Money. (Yes, THAT many syllables! And yes, with a capital M.) She was very proud that she was NOT from Ohio and that her "people" had been in  "Ver-gin-nee-yah" for generations.  I'm sure her husband got transferred much to her chagrin to the "Nawth."  (I think he worked for Union Carbide.) She had a lovely accent and like my mother, always wore dresses.  This was, after all, the early 60s.  Think "Mad Men." I really liked the girls, the middle one was my age.

Now, you must remember that my dad's home office backed up to my bedroom. My dad was a lawyer. My dad swore. A lot. He usually prefaced sentences with "Goddamnit." One word, run together. And "Jesus-s-s H. Christ."  He rarely used the F word but he did say "Crap." quite a bit, and often mumbled under his breath in combo with the other two or often as a whole sentence: "Goddamnit Jesus-s H. Christ Crap!" No commas. I always wondered what the "H" was for. 

So yes, I grew up with hearing cussing and sharing a bathroom.  I saw my parents naked and on the toilet.  We were not allowed to swear (rightly so), but I never knew that "crap" was in the Swearing Lexicon. 

When you are a geeky, gawky, nonathletic, dorky-looking kid with sunglasses and a bit of a vision problem (as I was) you feel like you have to come up with something that might add to your coolness.  Being able to draw does't exactly make you cool with your peers. Most kids start, I think, with cussing.  Especially with older siblings. You heard it, of course. And if your sibs did it, it MUST be cool, right?

My mother didn't swear, maybe an occasional "damn" here and there.  Ladies just didn't.  She left the serious swearing up to my father.  Oh, she could swear; I heard her in later years let go with a blue streak of vicious, cussing invective! Mostly on the phone to Dr. Ben Schneider.  I can't blame her for cussing at Dr. Ben.  He was a cheap-skate, a pompous pain in the ass.  

Yet, I digress.

One day, when I was in second grade, I went over to my friend's house to play.  Her mother, in her shirtwaist dress and pearls, greeted me at the door. I'm sure I said something like, "Can so-and-so come out to play?"  (I seriously can't remember her name. We'll call her Susie.) 

There are few people frostier than a Southern Belle in high aristocratic honk.  I'd rather face a Boston matriarch or the Queen of England any day.  You know they're going to be a bit stiff or stuffy or formal.  But this mother had always been sweet, fun and kind to me.  Not this day. I think that's why I'm suspicious of that whole "honey", sugar-sweet routine to this very day.   

"Ay-yam sorry, honey, but Susie caint play with you," in that sweet, smooth as silk, all-words-run-together upper crust Virginia debutante tone. 

 I'm pretty sure I asked if she was sick. 

"No, she is naught allowed to play-ee with you any-ee moor. Now-ah, ya'all go on hawm."  

My stomach lurched, I felt light-headed. I remember that feeling.  I'm sure I was equally astonished when she (very politely) shut the door in my face.  Naturally, I ran home to my mother, in gulping tears.  She was comforting and she said that she'd see what that was all about but for the meantime, if that's the way they were going to be, I didn't need them, now did I? (Good life lesson.) I felt pretty sure that Mrs. Ver-gin-nee-yah was NO match for Mary Louise.  I still believe that.  It would have been Lady-like Behavior She-Cats at 20 paces and I'd always put my money on Weez.

I questioned Mom later on as Susie had been avoiding me at school.  Not the nasty, pariah avoidance behavior, just more of a shying away.  She wasn't a bad kid, not by any stretch of the imagination.  But in those days, if your parents told you do something or avoid someone, you just did it.  Plus sneaking around wasn't an option. Everybody knew you and you'd get caught. I do recall going over to their house a few months later and Mrs. Ver-gin-nee-yah finally yielded said I should ask my mother and she just didn't want her daughter "associatin' with me."  OK, that's much more harsh then Susie Can't Play.  

When Mom finally leveled with me, I'm sure in retrospect, she must have been humiliated and embarrassed.  Apparently, my cussing with my friends got back to the parents and I was considered (for the first and probably ONLY time in my life) to be a Bad Influence. The Bad Words in question that Mom cited was "Crap" and "Damn." I think my mother felt bad in a wide variety of ways, for me and for herself too. She was honest but not in a nasty way, as I recall and I'm not romantizing it. I can see the room, remember the partly-sunny weather, see the air conditioner in the window, see the tree branches moving in the breeze outside the window, see the open closet door. 

I think that was the beginning of growing up. When you get that slap that makes you realize that you have to learn to play the game of life. You have to gauge your audience and watch yourself; filter and censor yourself if you want to have any chance of meshing and mixing with others. It was my first acting lesson. It's not a bad thing to know.  A Life Lesson.

A few years later, I went back to that house.  We were moving and I wanted to say goodbye. I also wanted to see how uncomfortable I could make Mrs. Ver-gin-nee-yah.  She and I played the Dance of Cordiality and Manners.  I was 12 or so and I had started to learn the life lessons that still have stood me in good stead to this day. That day was a minor triumph for a pre-teen still-gawky girl because she apologized to me for being "unkind" to me.  In that insincere Southern Belle way.  I hope it stuck in her friggin' craw. Susie and I did spend some time together but it was never the same.  It rarely is, trying to resurrect a friendship like that. The unsaid reason for its demise is always there, whispering in the background.  She knew, I knew and she knew that I knew.  Unspoken.  Stilted. 

I am pretty sure about one thing. Somehow my mother, while agreeing with her (probably very correct) veto of my mouth,  got Mrs. Ver-gin-nee-yah back socially.  Weez was very, very good at that game. And we Clevelanders had an aversion to folks thinking just because your name is Hungarian, Italian, German you are Less Than.  Unlike the rarefied air of upper crust Ver-gin-nee-yah, we were a city of immigrants.  Besides that, Mom's pedigree was probably as good if not better than Mrs. Ver-gin-nee-yah. Just without the Old Money part.

The only GREAT thing I can see about getting older is I rarely need that filter.  Truly.  Come on, I'm 58 f---g years old.  Yes, there are certain people I need to watch my mouth around: little kids, people older than I by 15-20 years, people from other lands.  Other than that, I only need the filter of kindness and remembering to take a breath and think. Trust me, I won't embarrass you at the Embassy Ball. Or meeting the Queen! 

This old fox still knows how to play The Game.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, Happy Yule and have a fabulous New Year!

Here's the short version of what's up! We're both on Facebook so do friend us if you haven't already!

Marty rode 1100 miles this year on his bike.... with his 2 knee replacements! He did his first Century (100 miles) ride in Findlay, Ohio too. He plans on doing his first Fundo next year! Amazing! He rode Pedal to the Point's 2 day event in torrential rain and the Harmonie Hundred too. He's been doing contract work in IT, which he seems to like as it's not long term! Get your pickle orders in early, folks, for 2012!

On the entertainment front: Marty ran lights for 3 shows at Western Reserve Theater and I got to play 2 characters (finally I got to do my Lena La Mont impression) at WRT in "Be My Baby." I was the straight man for some LEAP puppet shows and have been doing a fair amount of singing with pianist Leo, specializing in 40s and 50s standards. I hope to be doing a ton more of that in 2012!

I fell and really hurt my hand in April (tons of PT) but finally was able to ride my bike in my first baby Tour in early September (33.5 miles) and walk a half marathon and 10 mile race in November. Hoping for a lot more events in 2012!

I visited with my niece Alexandra in Chicago in November and I did not embarrass myself by falling off any bar stools! We are so happy that my other niece Dani and her husband Bryan and great nephew, Bryan aka The Chop are now local to us all! So we get to see them a lot! We have our 2 grandkids in PA, Mason (1 year old) and Aidan (4 in January). We're hoping to se a lot more of them in 2012.

Megan will be completing her LPN schooling in April, 2012 -- So very proud of what she's doing and how she's turning her life into something splendid and useful. She has been acing her classes and rocking her clinicals....patients love her! She will be VERY good at this nursing thing! Adopted "daughter", Jamie, completed her Masters in Geology from U. of Michigan and just snagged her first teaching job!! Sweet!

Two of our dogs passed this year: our darling boy Winger, age almost 12 in Feb. and dear Jesse Ann, our pack leader for 10 years in August. We still have our cute Schoomby-do, Elke Louise! who is smart as a whip!! She picks up almost any object now and is learning to enjoy walking with her Pibble Dog Friends on weekend hikes through the woods.

Our cat Rufus, is less than amused with his cat cousins (Dink and Envy) being here but we're working on that. He is a most demanding critter, very vocal!

I have been doing a ton of volunteering for our local Humane Society of Greater Akron (which is how we got Rufus last year) doing a lot of tours, educational programs, dog bite prevention programs and Breed Advocacy. I recently testified to the Ohio Senate Judiciary Committee on behalf of HB14, a bill that will help all dogs, no matter what their breed or type, to get a fair shake. Remember: Breed Specific Legislation Hurts Everyone! Pretty terrifying, to say the least! I have my script if anyone wants to see it!

Another benefit is all the friends we've made as a result of my volunteer work. We had a much need "Vay-cay" (vacation) up in NY state and I think it's the first vacation EVER that we've taken that wasn't tied in with family stuff or an event. Thanks to Gayle, Ray and Oreo for that one! We needed it and we need to do it more often! So relaxing!

Who would have thought that in December a purebred Australian Cattledog puppy would come into our shelter, but he did and now he's ours! He is my seventh one (including fosters), Presenting....

He became officially ours yesterday, the 22nd. Marty named him the fist time he saw him. We love the TV show Warehouse 13! and Artie (Arthur) is a character on the show. Many thanks to Humane Officer Shannon who rescued him and Dog Trainer Extraordinary Jen for fostering him and enabling he and Elke to meet and like each other!
They play and cuddle and have spats but all in all it's great.

I think she really missed Winger and especially Jesse who was a great leader dog! We are all learning by leaps and bounds but a puppy is a ton of work, especially one that requires positive reinforcement.

He is 4 months old...so you can see I've been a little busy these last few weeks! Ironically, if you do the math, he was probably born right around the time that Jesse went to the Rainbow Bridge.....Coincidence? Or was he sent from the Doggie Angels who are waiting for us? Hmmm...makes you wonder....

Love to you all and we hope your New Year is Happy, Healthy, Peaceful and Abundant!!

From the Hess Household aka The Nut House
Marty and Mia Hess
Elke, Rufus and Artie
Step-cats Dink and Envy

I Love My Brother

It's my birthday (the 24th of May) and I'm on the phone with my brother.

Him: "How old are you now?" I tell him. "How is it possible that you are now older than me?"

Me: "I don't know how that happened. Does this mean that I'm older than Our Sister too?"

Him: "Yes, yes, (pause) I guess it does."

Me: "Well if I'm older than you guys that means finally that you have to listen to what I say. I'm your Elder now."

Him: "Well....(dramatic pause).....  You know (sigh), it's so different today.  Kids today, they don't respect their elders anymore.  So, that would be.....no."

(Sh*t, he's been doing The Law thing way too long.)

I love my brother.

"Honey, Please Label The Bag With Today's Date..."

I married a smart-a**

A Musical Mom Memory

Click here: Baby Mine

My mom was many things, some of them pretty damn crazy.  And some not very nice. However....

One of her best traits was she was a snuggler.  She loved to snuggle.  From the time I could remember, she would sit on a rocking chair, hold me on her lap and sing to me.  She sang mostly "Winken, Blinken and Nod" by Eugene Field using a melody I still remember but I've almost never, ever heard it sung that way.

"Now, Winken and Blinken are two little eyes
And Nod is a little head
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
is a wee one's trundle bed...."

I searched YouTube and other sources and cannot find the melody Mom sang.  i guess I'll have to record it myself so there is some kind of record of it.  I wonder if she heard it somewhere, maybe from her mother, as the poem is from the 19th century.  Of course, that being what I heard, that is my favorite version. Naturally.  She also would sing "Tender Shepherd" from Peter Pan and Brahm's Lullaby and other soft, sleepy songs.

It was very soothing, and honestly I'm not sure you ever outgrow it. I recall being in my twenties, absolutely crushed and shattered about something or someone.  She sat in the rocking chair in her bedroom and patted her lap.

"Aw,geez, come on, Ma, I'm going the break the damn chair or you if I sit there, for Christ's sake!"

"Sit down!" ordered my mother.  I gingerly sat on my mother's lap, now taller than her by six inches and she rocked me and sang "Baby Mine" from DUMBO.  Of course, I cried.  She had a beautiful voice, higher and purer than mine. It was very consoling, even at my advanced age, to be rocked and sung to.

".....if they knew sweet little you
They'd end up loving you too...."

How could we not be musical (or at least appreciative of it) surrounded as we were with music?  Mom always sang and we had music parties.  Dad sang as well and they loved hanging around the piano while Bob Schwartz (a friend of theirs) who played by ear hammered out tunes on the Steinway and everyone sang.  My cousins and I sang while we did dishes after a family party.

"Inchworm, inchworm...measuring the marigold...."

Nowadays we all listen to music.  Heck, practically everyone, from 8 to 80, has an iPod or some kind of MP3 player.  I think my Mom would have LOVED the capacity of listening to and obtaining music that the Internet can provide.  I have learned so much musically from being connected.

What Mom's generation possessed, I think, was more musical ability.  From recollections of hers, everyone she knew at least SANG if not played one or multiple instruments.  My mother-in-law says the same thing.  People went out, went dancing, went to people's houses and listened to the radio or sang and danced.  Someone in their group could read music and bang it out on the piano.  They didn't have TV or computers. Almost all men danced. What a concept! I'm kind of sorry I never met Marty's dad as it seems his musical tastes ran the gamut from Jeannette MacDonald to Beethoven to "Wooly Bully!" I'm still trying to wrap my head around this very mechanical man banging away at a carburetor to "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life."

 Nowadays, it seems we listen but we don't participate.  We're not as musically involved as our parents were! Some might put on a CD of baby songs, lullabies but I kind of wonder how many parents read a book and then a tuck-in with a a lullaby.  I know Marty read and sang to Megan.  He still can recite "Green Eggs and Ham" totally from memory....very impressive!  I know my sister rocked and sang to my niece ("Goodnight Moon!").  I hope my niece passing it along!

One of my crystalline teenage memories is a lazy August evening, walking through Oak Bluffs, a historic town on Martha's Vineyard.  There was a large band stand, enough to sit about a hundred people.  They handed you a piece of paper with song lyrics and had a good old fashioned sing-a-long.  All ages sang.  Even little kids could sing some of the songs. It was like a scene from an old movie! Where the hell can you go to do that nowadays?  When I do a gig and get the audience to sing along with me, even if they can't remember all the words, I know it's a memory for them that we are sharing! It takes us all back.

When i hear "Baby Mine" and the message that it shares, I think of the best of my mother, the best of our parents.  And yes, it makes me wish for a soft place to land, if only for a moment and be cherished, held, rocked and sung to.

Few Things Are Cooler...

...than a laughing Baby! And yes, the idiot making all the funny noises is Yours Truly! I'm trying to load the video......ah, technology!

The Great "Chop" and Amazement

Today was the second time I've had a chance to see my new Great Nephew, Baby B aka "lambchop" aka "The Chop" via Skype. My, how he has grown! It was really nifty see him and I can't wait to see him in "real life!"

My sister Tthe Grandmother aka "Grammie") was such a Coo-Meister that I wondered, "Who are you and what have you done with my sister!?" Inquiring minds want to know!

It is a crazy, wonderful world in which we can see each other live and talk. You don't have to wait for a movie to be sent but you see it in real time anywhere in the world you can get an Internet connection. Amazing! I remember watching the Moon landings and hearing the astronauts talk to us folk back here on Mother Earth. Now I can talk and see Dani and Bryan and "The Chop" any old time we can hook up. And now, as if that weren't amazing ENOUGH, you can get a cell phone with the capability to Skype!

Another amazing thing is what a natural my niece is at this whole Mother thing. I (who have never hatched) never felt I would have been a natural at it; one of the many reasons I didn't. I m a good aunt (nay, a Great one) and a good Grandmother (albeit a Step, but still....). That whole Mother thing. Amazing! It is very strange to see someone YOU diapered, changing her own kid.

A new year begins and "Timely" musings

Christmas at our house was good and very enjoyable. I was and am spoiled.

Now our new year has begun with Marty having back surgery. On January 8th, they inserted rods and screws. What I'd call "Rack and Pinion Steering." He looked like ten kinds of awful that afternoon when I did get to see him in Recovery, but by the next day, even with tubes, shunts and a (eeu!) catheter, he looked tons better.

It's Monday the 11th now and he is sitting up, and walking around, looking a big raggedy but really quite good. The doctors are amazed. He is one tough bugger that's for sure! I am amazed at his strength and it's probably due to sheer cussedness!

I am hoping that he continues along this path, with no set-backs at all. That would make me one happy camper. Hopefully, he'll be going home tomorrow, if not it'll be Wednesday.

I'd like to be home for his sake and for the dogs' sake. People have been really great about offering to help with them. If Winger and Jesse were younger, I probably would have bitten the bullet and kenneled them all. But they are getting older and with them both being on meds, it's tougher. And more expensive. I hate to be a cheap bee-yatch but kennels charge way more per dog for giving meds.

Alas, Miss M has proven yet again that her timing (or lack thereof) sucks. This other-worldliness when it comes to time and being on time, or even a facsimile of sort of being on time is getting irritating. She even laughs about it.

"I have NO concept of time." As though it were a quaint characteristic. A little quirkiness.

"Well, perhaps that is something you need to develop?"

Duh.

I truly think she thinks it's not that big a deal; that it's not rude or inconvenient. I am not saying you have to be a Time Nazi and beat the Tardy Ones into the next hemisphere. " A little late" is a few minutes. "Chronically late" is a half and hour or so consistently. Ridiculously late is hours and hours. And hours.

I am far from perfect but I know that people's time is precious. So when I can get someone to take me someplace, I try not to waste their time. She dawdles.

I almost think it's some kind of weird rebellion or a very passive-aggressive way of control or power play. It IS a joke among family and friends but it really shouldn't be. I am afraid that it has cost her in the past and may seriously cost her in the future. Somebody should really nail her butt to the wall. If I were her boss and she were that late, I'd fire her.

Maybe it's a youth thing ("I have all the time in the world") and I'm suffering from the "Time is precious" state of mind thing. So it may be a viewpoint differential. But I don't think that's it, really. I'd call it a Character Defect but one that is so easily fixed.

Anyway, I digress into crap I can't do much of anything about. The main concern is Marty. I guess I just feel it should be hers as well. If it were her mother in the hospital she'd be turning her butt inside out to be at the hospital AND take care of the animals. Sleep would be irrelevant.

I was somewhat shattered (but not terribly surprised) to discover at a relatively young age that the world does not revolve around me. I have to take care of myself and nurture myself and love myself, yes. That the cosmos and I are as one Being. Yes. get that. But time as it relates to others does not mean the world revolves around me. I also have learned that my actions (or inaction) can affect other people too. That is not to say that you should live your life solely for others, no. But it is a sense of consideration and thoughtfulness.

Right now, my energies are focused on caring for myself, Marty and the doggies. My brother and both nieces are next in my sphere. And I do need to not get my knickers in a twist over a rude, self-serving, immature, selfish brat who needs a swift kick in the arse. So many more things are crucial. I only have so much energy and like all energy, it needs to be expended wisely.

Sheesh, I should like SUCH a bitch.

I am so grateful for how well Marty is doing. It is amazing. He absolutely blows my mind. Even when I want to smack him around! I am also so grateful for friends who really stepped up to help or even offered to help. Mollie, Mary, Robin, Bini and Rob --- wow!

The Glorpheads

Introducing The three Glorpheads!

I guess you're wondering what a Glorphead is. Glorp is my Spousal Unit's name for the mishmash of food we give them. It's usually dry dog food (Purina One), moist dog food (always BilJac) and yogurt along with a special garlic powder to repell insects and parasites. Yes, they have garlic breath in the summer but it does go away. Better garlic than fleas!
We have had Wingie and Jesse Ann since springtime 2001, the year we got married. Elke came to us rather unexpectedly in early November 2008.
As of this writing, Winger is 10 1/2 years old and we guess Jesse Ann is about 11 or 12. No one knows as she came to us from a Cattledog Rescue Org here in Ohio (with way too many dogs!)
She was, as an old friend of mine would put it, "rescued from the lahni", a really far too nice way of saying she was in a crate on a side porch.
Jesse Ann always has been really quite good since Day One. I took her home on Valentine's Day 2001 and have rarely regretted having her. She is very quiet and quite obedient, although she does it on HER time, as opposed to lickety-split time. She is The Princess and still bosses around the other dogs.
Winger was gifted to me by his breeder and when he came to us, he was a 'Fraidy Cat! He would not go near most people, especially men. It took years for him to warm up to some men. Now, when you come to visit he will lick you to death . He'd turn himself inside out to please you and is the most obedient dog we have. The ONLY reason I never did any Ring Obedience with him is that he panics and gets freaked out easily.
Elke is a whole 'nother story! In every way!
What makes me a little sad is to see Jesse Ann slowing down a great deal. She doesn't have the greatest hips or back knees in the world and the heat affects her. But she still wants to play ball; you have to monitor how much she gets to play.
People say they are good dogs and yes, they are, pretty much. But we work with them and I try to see they get enough exercise!
We love them!

And so the Musings Continue.....

Welcome to my world. The dogs are nutty and the summer wind blows. A perfect summer day. A perfect summer evening. The kind you dream of in late January, when it's dreary and cold.

And yet, my heart does grieve for my darling brother and niece, who must figure out why the earth keeps spinning when part of their lives, their essence, is not of this world any more. My sister (in law), Kaya, died two weeks ago and a huge part of me is still reeling.

But I digress, as is my wont. Life is good. Life is good because there are people who love me, animals who love me and Kaya loved me and most likely still does. I can see her her sideways glance, sharing an unspoken joke. It's in my dreams and I did dream of her two days after she left her body here and went to the sun, to her home. She is still with me. So it must be a thousand times, a zillion times more so for my brother and my niece.