How to Be the Best at Practically Everything

Okay, I admit it. I've neglected this blog like an unloved houseplant. Instead of noisily observing my "6th blogiversary" with 24 hours of tweets and a full-press publicity blitz, I... wait, what was I doing? This blog turned 6 sometime in June, and even I missed it. But hey, vote for me for something! I feel as though I'm behind in my campaigning.

Not that I don't have a huge variety of excuses to apply. Here's the short list of things that have been going on since mid-March:

• I finally healed up completely from spinal surgery and have been just fine ever since. There's a new dimple on the back of my neck, but otherwise, everything is business as usual.
• Dinah and I are working through my handling foibles and ring nerves, but we've managed to finish two APDT Rally titles: RL1X and RL2. We have one leg toward the RL2X. I'm busy scanning the horizon for local AKC trials we can enter, since we've vastly improved our honor-exercise work for RE.
• I finished up my first project at work and helped finish another one. 
• Charlie turned 14. 14!

• Greg is working on a CD of his piano improvisations.
• It feels as though I've been working 8 days a week for a while now, between the upcoming National Specialty, website clients, my day job, and training classes. Sometime I'd just like to take a long vacation (more than a week, even) and just RELAX.  I'm thinking about Hawaii next January; my birthday seems like a good time to go someplace sunny.
• The socks I've been knitting are in suspended animation until it gets cool enough again to pick them up without sticking to them.

I intend (in my mythical spare time) to send this blog to Blog Rehab and make a nicer skin for it. I'm tired of looking at this one. (hey, it was the first Blogger skin I made all my own self. It's time to move on, though.)

In the meantime, Dog Show Newbie and Shaggy Dog Stories have both been moving right along. If you'd like to enter a drawing for a Kong Squiggles dog toy, go visit Shaggy Dog Stories while this blog is in rehab.

Just Got Lucky

Just can't get this song out of my head... I laughed like crazy when they used it in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," but I've loved this song since it first came out.

Anyway, it makes a good soundtrack for all of the good news that we've had here of late.

Music News

Greg's Sax Quartet finally came out on the CD Quartet at the Crossroads by the New Hudson Sax Quartet. Here is the link to the MP3 version on Amazon, where Greg's tracks are numbers 6-9. Sadly, iTunes has misspelled the title to read "Corssroads," so no one will ever be able to find it using title search; you'll have to search on New Hudson Sax Quartet to get anywhere.

I've been blogging about this piece, and this recording, for so long that I don't know which piece to announce next. Halling has been re-orchestrated for solo cello, and will be released on CRS at some point.

Greg himself has been busy planning a few live improv concerts for the fall. There will be another performance on Meetinghouse Road, and possibly other venues as well.

Canterbury Tales

The lovely and talented Miss Dinah Moe is now... Am/Can CH Breaksea November Storm HIC CGC RL1 RN!

We almost didn't enter the rally trial where she earned the title. You see, we love doing APDT Rally so much that I focused onto entering the APDT trial the same day at All Dogs Gym. When I hesitated just a little too long and the entries filled, I decided to override my own dictum about not entering any more outdoor trials until we had trained and proofed outdoors some more. The Lakes Region Kennel Club was holding an AKC obedience/rally trial in NH with a slate of some of the nicest judges I've ever trialed under. I've stewarded for one and showed Seamus to two others. What the heck, right? Even if the Princess decided to make me Talk to the Paw, at least I'd be among friends.

Greg had always wanted to see the Canterbury Shaker Village, so he helped set up the EZ-Up and then dropped us off for the day. A few of our friends fro POC fund us and hung out under or near the EZ-Up, so we had our own little cheering section.

Since Dinah and I were entered in Novice B, we were able to watch our friend Barbara qualify with one Aussie boy in Advanced and the other in Novice B. Charlene, one of our classmates in Staci's rally class, ran in Novice A with her English Cocker and qualified. Finally, it was our turn.

We knew the judge from the BCCC Specialty in 2008, when I stewarded for him through a very long obedience/rally trial. Dinah even got to be the honor dog for that rally trial. He gave us a huge grin and said, "Let's see what that Beardie can do now." The course was a nice, clean, fairly simple design without any traps or surprises, and we managed to get through all of the stationary exercises without my being given The Paw. We were even tied for second place, but finished a few seconds after the other second-place finisher -- so we took third with a 94.

The temperature turned from Sunny and Quite Warm to Just Plain Stinkin' Hot for the afternoon as the sun moved across the sky and the shadows shrank to zero. I considered moving our base of operations to the tree line on the other side of the field, but there were too many cars parked in the little remaining shade. We huddled together under the EZ-Up and toughed it out, and Dinah snoozed on her waterbed.

Barb's Novice dog had finished his RN the day before, so both boys ran in Advanced. Charlene and Delta qualified again in Novice A, and then we took our turn in Novice B. The afternoon course, while not as simple as the morning course, contained a couple of turns in unexpected places. I worried about them while studying the map, but walking the course and talking to myself out loud usually helps engrave the movements into what little muscle memory I can acquire in ten minutes. This is where looking like a lunatic during the walk-through helps during the run -- we took third again with a score of 97 to finish Dinah's Rally Novice title.

Could it really have been that easy, after all the agony we went through for one stinkin' leg at Vacationland? Apparently it was, for Dinah. Unlike the trials at the cluster, Dinah was attentive and happy, paying attention, and moving nicely on lead. LRKC presented us with a lovely New Title medallion, which Dinah modeled all the way back to the EZ-Up. Greg picked us up eventually, and we sang Dinah's praises all the way home.

The next day, with the forecast threatening even more dire heat, we moved up to Advanced A. I was grateful to run a little bit earlier in the day, with my car right there for a getaway before the sun reached its zenith. Would Dinah tell me to Talk to the Paw in our off-lead debut? Would I end up singing opera again, as I did with Famous Seamus?

The girl managed to surprise me again! She did a good enough job -- a little sniffing here, some curious looks at the offset Figure 8 there -- but she managed to hold it together enough for us to qualify with an 83. The course was definitely an order of magnitude more challenging than the ones from the day before, and we ended up finishing in second place.

Now, we have one leg of Rally Advanced and fairly high hopes. The next trials we've entered (one APDT, one AKC) are both indoors. Maybe, with luck and a little more training, we could make a little more progress.

Epilogue and More Summer Plans

Dinah's certificates arrived from APDT this afternoon. I'll forgive the APDT office for giving Greg top billing on her certificate in spite of the fact that I'm the one who does the training, takes the classes, makes the entries, speed-dials the groomer, pays for the vet, and so on. He deserves a little bit of doggie limelight for driving the doggie taxi all over hell when I can't.

Anyway, we received quite a nice surprise in the envelope! We were expecting the RL1 certificate all right, but it turns out that Dinah also earned a Level 1 Award of Excellence (AOE-L1)! I had to go look this up. Apparently it's awarded when your first three scores in the A class are all above 190. Woohoo!

It will be several months yet before the trialing year is through and the national rankings are compiled, but this makes me happy. Our first Q in Level 2 will never make the world record for Highest Score Ever Recorded, but hey -- we did pretty well, considering we hadn't really even practiced Level 2 before going out there. Any double Q is a good double Q, but the very best ones are the ones that count toward the ARCH.

We're entered in the Lakes Region KC's AKC rally trials at the end of August. I swore we would never attempt another outdoor rally trial until we'd done enough proofing, but we just adore the judges and wanted the opportunity to trial under them. If we can do a not-too-shabby job on a rally course at an outdoor demo with some hundreds of people in the audience and some dozens of fellow POC members with better-trained dogs watching our performance, then we stand at least a chance to look good for judges we really like.

Of course, going to the LRKC trials means we had to give up on APDT rally at All Dogs Gym that same weekend. The choice was actually made for us when the trial filled up; I was still trying to decide what to do when the announcement came out that the waiting list was filling up. Ah, well. We snooze, we lose. Maybe in the other venue, we won't do either of those.

Rally-Roo and Other Stuff Too

Since we in the Freakin' Northland have to hibernate during the winter due to a dearth of events and crappy traveling weather, each weekend in the summer is always stacked twelve deep with events, activities, and other stuff. Of course, we want to take part in all of it. It's often hard to choose just one thing to do on a given day or weekend. Maybe it's just me, but it seems that this summer we've had more to choose from than ever, and every one a difficult choice.

The lovely and talented Dinah Moe earned her first leg in AKC Rally Novice, her APDT Level 1 (RL1) Rally title, and her first double Q (qualifying in Rally Levels 2 and 1 in the same trial)...

Photo by Jerry Bergen.

Charlie and Dinah attended the Fifth Annual BCCME Beardie Bounce and BBQ. For once, the weather was sunny (if baking hot) and Dinah didn't come into season...

Charlie on the half shell

Seamus and Charlie got their summer haircuts...

"Looking Good, my man!" (actually took this last fall)

...and Badger was immortalized by a talented painter friend of mine.

"Waiting" by Jeanne McNally, shamrockartworks.com. Copyright Shamrock Artworks.

Dinah Moe finally finished her Canadian CH, which you can read about on my Dog Show Newbie blog if you're interested...

That's Penny Cary handling The Lovely One. Photo by Walt Norris Photography.

...and we've signed up for even more events for the remainder of the summer. I'm hoping to enter a few more AKC and APDT Rally trials, and we're entered in the BCCC National Specialty next week. Wish us luck!

Greg, Dinah, and I attended the annual POC Demo at York Days...

Look, Mom! We're almost there! Photo by Greg Hall.

...and we're looking forward to getting back to Rally classes with Staci in the fall. Until then, I'm hoping we get even one summer day when we can laze around!

"...And summer's lease hath all too short a date..."

The signs have been everywhere for weeks now, and still I chose to ignore them. A splash of red leaves on a green tree here, apples ripening there, my neighbor backing his camper into the driveway in anticipation of a quick getaway... all the signs were there. Still, I've been trying to squeeze as much summer out of my current state of denial as I possibly can.

Now that we've had a couple of hard frosts and the potted flowers on neighbors' doorsteps have been exchanged for pumpkins, it's probably time to face the chilly reality. It rained all summer, so I can't help that we've been cheated out of the warmer, sunnier portion of the year.

Fall is actually my favorite season. It's just the part that comes after it that I could do quite well without. With the price of heating oil at an unconscionable level and everything else costing a heck of a lot more, I'm really not looking forward to having to endure winter this year. Couldn't we just fast-forward to spring?


Little Famous Seamus Brag


Here's the little bugger and all of his Q ribbons, plus his RL1X rosette.

I am proud to announce that Seamus is even more famous! After plugging along for almost three years to collect 10 qualifying scores, he has finally earned his APDT Rally Level 1 championship title (RL1X)! In regions where there are more trials, it doesn't take nearly so long to amass 10 Qs -- but here in New England, we've managed to have two APDT trials in a good year. (I am pleased to announce that Wag It in Lincolnville is now bringing APDT Rally to Maine, so there will be more trials in the future.)

Another quick and belated rally shout-out to Barb Rimoshytus and Tazzy, her Golden. Barb occasionally reports about the show adventures of her Papillon Rio on my Dog Show Newbie blog, but this brag is Tazzy's alone.

Tazzy earned his RN (AKC Rally Novice) title at the Golden Retriever Club of America's National Specialty in Rhode Island in September. He earned the title with three perfect scores, and Leg #3 also earned him a second-place finish. Barb mentioned that there were about 80 Goldens entered in that class, and about 65 of them showed up to compete. Woohoo and congratulations, guys!

Now I've Herd(ed) Everything!

BCCME held a herding clinic last weekend, and Charlie's breeder Terry Workman agreed to be our clinician. Everybody had a fantastic time, and quite a few people came up to me exclaiming, "Where did you get him?! He's wonderful!".



Here's a shot of Dinah working the goats.

Even if I hadn't known him for years, I'd say that Terry was a trainer after my own heart. He's a motivational trainer, whose primary approach is to understand your dog and why he does what he does. He doesn't scream or throw things (which I've always found unsettling at best), look down on non-Border Collies, or use punishment or force to get where he wants to go. When he works your dog for you, you can watch and appreciate the dance between dog, stock, and handler, and understand how everything works toward achieving balance.

Both Dinah and Seamus came to the clinic and worked the stock. The nice, tame goats in the round pen didn't really excite them much (for good or ill), but the sheep in the larger field were much more to their liking.

Seamus turned out to be the surprise entry of the two of them. He did quite a good job of staying out from the sheep, and his interest was more sustained than Dinah's. Dinah likes to herd, but she also knew that she had friends and fans watching her. Terry observed that he needed to have his confidence built up, but that he really did have some talent for the game, With enough reinforcement, he could be a halfway decent stockdog.

This Blog Post is Brought to You By the Number 4 and the Letter S

S is for Seamus

Please forgive me if I start this post with a little brag on Almost Famous Seamus. The little guy and I spent last weekend at an APDT rally trial at Monadnock Canine Academy in NH. Since we weren't crashing over out there, we had to get up at four-frickin'-thirty in the morning each morning in order to make it there by 8 AM. Seamus, being the non-fan of car rides that he is, whined the whole way up and the whole way back.

In spite of that, the Famous One managed to qualify 4 out of 4 times, with two 4th-place finished in his class. (His lucky number for the weekend must have been 4, eh?) Since the RL1X title requires 10 qualifying legs, we're still collecting the set. Last weekend's legs bring our total up to 7. One more trial and we could conceivably finish this year!

This trial was a first for Monadnock, and indeed for NH. It was the first APDT trial held north of Massachusetts. The facility was beautiful, with a huge room for the ring and great flooring. We had a separate crating room with tables and chairs for the humans, and the food was excellent. They even had shopping available! The shelter's pet supply store was open both days and carried lots of great collars, toys, food, treats, books, and even whole bean coffee.

My friend Sissy came with both her Akitas and her 16-year-old daughter in tow. Axle, the male, appears to have re-injured a knee that has already had an ACL repair. He wasn't able to compete in the trial, but Kuma, the female, did and finished her RL1 title. Sissy will probably tale her on to RL2. Kuma has an AKC RE, so she won't have any problems with going off-lead.

You can guess what our next challenge will be when we finish the RL1X, though. I hope we can conquer off-lead work without too many choruses of "Seeeeaaaaaammmmuuusssss!" echoing around the rally-roo ring.

"S" is For...

My friend Jane lives out in Encinitas, CA, so we're lucky if we get to see each other once a year at the Beardie National Specialty. She called me up recently. Turns out she's serving as chair of the nominating committee for the national club, and was wondering whether I'd be interested in taking over the spot of the corresponding secretary. The current secretary is leaving the office to take over as president.

I don't know what came over me, but I told her I'd do it. My term begins in July, and I get to serve a maximum of two terms (I think). Someone must have seen the "S" on my forehead and thought it stood for Secretary.

Now, if that isn't enough madness for one person, I was also elected to the Board of my local kennel club. I'm glad to help, really, but I wish all of the former Board members could have stayed on the Board as well.

"S" also stands for Steward. One of the local chief stewards recruited me to help out at her local kennel club's show this year. Since I won't be entering Dinah (less than zero chance of a major there), this frees me up to work in the ring at more of the local shows. A couple of the chief stewards trained me last year and I stewarded our kennel club's fall match, but this show will be the first time I fly solo. I've been promised a ring next to an experience steward and my very own set of rocks! (A steward needs rocks to act as paperweights when stewarding outdoors on windy days. Since I've passed the initiation and been accepted into the fraternity, I will be presented with my own set of bone-shaped cut stone paperweights. Woo hoo!)

4 Trips to NYC for The Man

Any time now, the 21st Century Masterworks volume that contains Greg's Water Suite should be available. ERM had said that the collection would be out by the end of March, but they're still a few volumes behind in their release schedule. The Man should still be out on iTunes sometime this year, though.

June seems to be the big month for Greg this year. Not only is he getting two pieces played in NYC, but the recording session for the Sax Quartet finally seems to be happening, and will happen in June. Since Town Hall is no longer an option for the recording, the producer had to find a studio somewhere else in the city. One has been found, but I don't know which one just yet.

4-lorn-Looking Half-Finished Knitting Projects

With everything else that's been going on, I've been lucky to steal a minute here and two minutes there to get some knitting done. I did manage to finish the latest watch cap for Greg - this one in navy blue Bernat Softee Chunky. (I know, I know, knitting with cheap-ass Wally World yarn and all... but the cap had to be made of something lighter than wool that would stand up to abuse and hot water washloads, yet be denser than cotton yarn, yet be cooler than wool yarn... )

I started an "idiot knitting" project on the side in my negative spare time. Although knitting twisted rib watch caps is pretty close to idiot knitting, the very dark navy I used for the last one made the stitches harder to see, and reduced the project's "idiot knitting" quotient.

"S" is also for Second Life, but more on that in another post. I have to go see what's 4 Supper.

More Winter Photos 'n' Stuff

Woke up this morning to see this freaky-looking ice hand reaching down off the roof... (took the photo from the outside)



There's still more than enough winter to go around. Dinah had a nice bounce with her sweetheart Traveler this afternoon...



Meanwhile, at home, Charlie is still the King of All He Surveys...



...and Seamus still keeps trying to shovel the steps with his face.



Yup, just another weekend here in Frozen Frickin' Paradise.

Minor Successes Are Still Successes

I've always been a bit leery of knitting anything for Greg that he doesn't want. When I was learning to knit, I made him a scarf just because it was the only thing I knew how to make at that point. He's not really a scarf kind of guy, so he thanked me profusely for it... but I haven't seen it since. The nice gray Jawoll socks have likewise never seen the light of day, though he assures me that they are not lost, just waiting in the sock drawer for his next winter hike.

Well, I've finally struck knitted-gift pay dirt with The Man. I made him a watch cap out of Lion's Brand Wool-ease Chunky, and handed it to him while we were watching a movie. He removed the hat he was wearing, placed the watch cap on his head, and said that if I ever felt like knitting him more hats, he would absolutely love to have them. I'm taking him at his word, so the next project will be a regular toque out of a pine-green heathered Encore Worsted.

We're Number 4! We're Number 4!

The 2007 rankings for APDT Rally are out. Whereas Seamus was #2 in the country (out of 2 Beardies) in the rankings, this year he's #4 out of 4. That's actually okay, considering that we made it to only one weekend of APDT trials all year. This year, we need to practice, practice, practice and finish up that RL1X title. We've entered the Monadnock APDT trial at the end of March. If we qualify all four times that weekend, we'll be up to 7 Qs, and will need to qualify only three more times to finish the title!

I'm still not completely sure we'll ever go on to APDT RL2 or AKC Advanced with Seamus. Seamus is still not reliable off-lead, though little Dinah Moe is better off-lead than she is on-lead. She's coming along in rally-roo, though it'll be a while before we reach anything like military precision. We start up agility classes this week for both pups, which should make them both very happy (and tired). We all could use a chance to run around and have some fun, now that we don't have to go to shows every frickin' weekend.

Not that the wheels of the dog-show machinery haven't been turning. I spent most of yesterday afternoon with the show chair and the specialty clubs chair for my local kennel club's dog shows in May. We work well together and got quite a bit done, but the process was L-O-N-G. BCCME will have a supported entry both days of the show, and as Trophy Chair, it's my happy task to compile exhaustive lists of all of the rosettes and trophies being offered by everybody for all of the breed rings, obedience, and rally-roo (especially those prizes being offered for Bearded Collies at the show).

Man Paradise: the Return, Plus Snow and Stuff

Things have been flat-out crazy busy (again) of late, what with work deadlines, club stuff, class stuff, holiday stuff, and stuff stuff. Greg actually came home on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, but it's taken me this long to carve out enough time to just sit down and write.

Bless him, he even brought me a present: a robin's-egg blue T-shirt from Crazy Woman Mountain that says (no surprise there) Crazy Woman. He was a bit hesitant to give it to me because he wasn't sure whether I'd laugh, but I can't wait for the weather to warm up so I can wear it. If I have to go around advertising myself as a Crazy Woman, I want to do so in style.

Greg promises to go through his Wyoming photos and share a few with the blog. In the meantime, here are a few photos of the pups from the snowstorm we had last Monday. Here's Dinah enjoying the snow:





Charlie took the opportunity to survey his domain, as a good monarch should...



Taking My Act on the Road

If you've already read this in my other blog, feel free to skip this section. Anyway, a few weeks ago, I was contacted by the owner of the public relations firm that does publicity for the Bay Colony Dog Show cluster down in Boston. Turns out she reads the blog, and was wondering if I'd go down to Boston and blog about the show for a day. The Boston shows attract quite a large number of visitors, so I composed a newbie's-eye view of the goings-on and posted it to Dog Show Newbie. Eventually, I hope to supplement the first article with a first-person account of my dogless adventures at the show.

At the show, I had a chance to talk for a while with the judge who got to witness Seamus's famous premiere performance in Advanced Rally -- the one in which I sang coloratura. Bless her heart, she either has seen so many such performances she didn't remember ours as being different, or she was very gracious in saying she didn't remember. At least I'm glad (and grateful to her) that I don't have to be embarrassed to show my face around her ever again. Seamus is still mighty famous, but sometimes I get to travel incognito.

Wool Season

Now that winter has dropped out of the sky onto us and appears to have no intentions of leaving for a few months, it's definitely time to dust off the old needles and try to get some stuff done. I have long ago abandoned any pretense that I can reliably complete anything homemade in time for Christmas, but I can usually hit the same season if given a running head start.

I've been doing a lot of "idiot knitting" lately, just because I've been too burned out after chasing work deadlines to do anything that requires even the minutest shred of gray matter. I've completed a scarf for Susannah in black Berroco Bling Bling, and am about 2/3 of the way through another scarf in some lavender boucle something-or-other from my stash.

The front of my Seacolors tunic sweater also qualifies as "idiot knitting," and I've made a teensy bit of progress there, too. I brought it along with me to a couple of dog shows in November. Since this sweater is for myself, it doesn't really matter when I finish it -- though it would be nice if I did it sometime before next July.

Jody's Jawoll socks are still in process. I'm almost done with Sock #1. With a little more time and a little less stress, I should be able to dispatch the foot on that sock and get to the next one fairly quickly.

My company shuts down every year between Christmas and New Year's, so (almost) all of us get the week off whether we want it or not. Although I never would have chosen that week for vacation, I've found over the years that I really look forward to having a week off to recuperate from the stresses of the holiday season, plus whatever wacky stuff I was doing at work before the holiday shutdown came around. I'd sure like to make some progress knitting during that week. I have some Encore worsted that I'd like to turn into some hats and mittens for the twins, plus I'd like to open up the thrummed mittens kit I picked up from Amy at Spunky Eclectic a while ago. A vacation week is a good time to pull apart some bits of roving for thrums and get organized.

At Least My Dogs Have Class

I make no secret of the fact that I despise winter -- the cold, the short days, the crappy weather. I'd be lying if I didn't confess that I've been looking forward to doing a little hibernating this season, though. Since Dinah and I are taking a break from dog showing between Thanksgiving and Easter, we now have a chance to go back to classes and learn some fun things.

I'm very proud of the progress Dinah is making in agility. She still is a little iffy on the weave poles, but she's been happily practicing the teeter and can bang it with the best of them. Cindy, her instructor, declared, "She OWNS that teeter!". Class is on hiatus until the new year, but I'm hoping she still owns the teeter when we get back. Seamus starts another agility class in January, too. It's been a long while for him, since we had to abandon weekend agility classes during the show season. He and I both could use the exercise.

I own a couple of jumps, some weave poles, and a brandy-new agility tunnel that I picked up at the Springfield dog shows. My friend Fran has offered me her old agility equipment, once she unearths it in her barn. Maybe in the spring, I can use some snow fencing to set up a training ring in the yard, and we can do some practicing.

Seamus has always been my "rally-roo" boy, and he's happy to be going back to our Sunday morning rally-roo class. To his credit, he hasn't forgotten much since our last class, and I haven't practiced with him very much at all. Dinah is starting in novice rally-roo. She hasn't had an obedience class in quite a while and has been hearing "Don't sit, stand" from me all show season -- so now she's learning some rally in spite of being a bit behind in the obedience department. The girlie is a pretty quick study, though, and she's beginning to understand that she needs to watch me -- if not always my eyes, then my left hand and knee. Smart girl!

Week of Parties

I have two Christmas parties this week: Thursday's POC Christmas party, and Saturday's BCCME Pre-Christmas Bounce. I've agreed to bring cookies to both -- partly because I'll remember what to bring if I bring the same thing to both parties, and because I can always cheat and buy some at the bakery if I run out of time to bake. Greg said that he wouldn't mind playing Santa at the BCCME party if I can find him a Santa suit, so all the Beardies at the party can get their pictures taken with Santa. I've missed just about every other available chance for photos with Santa this year, which probably comes as a relief to the dogs.

As far as I know, those are the only two parties on Greg's and my holiday schedule until just after Christmas. The local kennel club's holiday get-together is on the 29th. That's about as much festivity as I can handle. I love parties, but general holiday madness makes me want to go find a cave and hibernate until spring.

Harry Potter and the Air-Conditioned Chamber

Not a lot has been going on in the household of late. It's been insanely sticky out, and we've been taking refuge in one or the other of our two air-conditioned rooms. Every evening, we've been ordering take-out subs from the general store, and then holing up in front of the AC with my trusty old boom box and the CD audio edition of the seventh Harry Potter book. The dogs curl up around us, gnawing on bones or snoozing. Charlie, as alpha dog, claims the spot right in front of the fan.

It's been a good time for sock production, anyway. I finished Greg's gray Jawoll socks and one of Joyce's Tofutsies socks. It's hard to get excited about a nice pair of woolen socks during the hottest week of the year, but Greg tried his best. He tried them on, proclaimed them a perfect fit, and pulled them off as soon as he could. Come wintertime, he'll be tickled to bits to have those puppies -- and he knows it. I can live with delayed appreciation.

I snapped my very first knitting needle on Greg's socks Friday night. I was using short size #1 Brittany birch dpns, which are the approximate size and thickness of the toothpick I received in Friday night's sandwich (only without the little cellophane frou-frou on one end). I'm not an especially tight or tense knitter, but I struggled a little with one of those infernal k2tbls and snapped my needle. Grrrrrr. There's another reason why nickel-plated steel circulars rule for knitting socks. I haven't snapped an Addi yet.

The proverbial jury-of-one is still proverbially out on the Tofutsies yarn. I love the colors and the softness of the knitted product, but the yarn isn't as tightly twisted as the propaganda would have you believe -- which means that I have to knit more slowly because the stitches will split if you're not staring right at them. I'm using size 1s, and the results are lovely, but still loose enough that I'm wondering what the socks would look like if knitted on size zeroes. Heaven help me. Zeroes!

Rambo With a Spray Can

I've never been a big fan of stinging insects (although I make an exception for honeybees, which have a purpose in life -- and bumblebees because they're cute and non-aggressive). Wasps, hornets, yellowjackets... these have no reason whatsoever to live, and certainly not within my property lines. I ran afoul of these little horrors fairly often as a tree-climbing kid, and now that I'm much bigger, I try to give back a little of what I received. I'm still afraid of the little suckers, but I'm much braver when brandishing a shoe or a spray can.

A couple of days ago, I saw Dinah curiously sniffing the back of a wooden bench on our deck. I went out to see what she was up to, and she was sniffing an enormous, Boeing-757 hornet in the process of building a nest on the back of the bench, not 6 inches from the back door. I shooed the dogs away, sprinted for my industrial-sized spray can of Raid, and let 'em have it with both barrels -- actually, with just the one can. I feel a little dirty every time I spray insecticide, but covering a hornet's proto-nest with white foam gives me just a teeny bit more satisfaction than I probably deserve.

Dog Stuff

Well, I've gone and done it. I've entered The Lovely One in her very first herding events over Labor Day weekend. Wish us luck! We haven't had much chance to practice, but if the sheep are sufficiently tame, I just might be able to get us through the HT without too much problem. We've had such wild and unresponsive sheep the last times we've tried to go herding -- and if they won't come to the handler, the sheep certainly won't be much help to an inexperienced dog. We shall see. At worst, I've just paid for three very expensive lessons and a chance to look really silly in front of three judges I deeply respect.

Rally class has started up again, so Seamus and I will be resuming our Sunday morning "rally-roo" times at Judy's house. We would have gone today, but I overslept. Dinah has a play date with Angus later this morning, so I decided to stay home and get ready for that, rather than speed down to class, stay a short while, then speed back and try to get up the street with Dinah by 11:30. Sundays are not supposed to be stressful. They're supposed to involve coffee, breakfast, and newspapers.

The town's water department installed a fire hydrant on our front yard this week. I let Charlie out to have a look. He sniffed the hydrant curiously, then walked over to the closest tree and peed on that instead. Once a country boy, always a country boy.

Life in the Slow Lane

Seamus and I just returned from a weekend in Rhode Island. We entered an APDT Rally trial at Lincoln Woods State Park and came away with Qs in three out of four trials, plus a rosette for placing fourth in the second trial. Whoopity whoopity!

Since Seamus already has his RL1 title, we moved into the Level 1B category, and we're shooting for our Level 1 championship title (RL1X). We need ten Qs to make the title, and now we're 3/10 of the way there. This was an outdoor trial, so you can bet we only entered the on-leash portion of the trials. We'll shoot for an RL2 at the indoor trials, thankyouverymuch. After our first off-lead showing in AKC rally, I'm not taking any chances.

I love APDT rally for many, many reasons, but most of all for the relaxed atmosphere. By the end of the weekend, many of the dog/handler teams were old buddies. I shared a shade tree with a friend of mine from the Cape and her Akita, whom we know from AKC rally trials. On Sunday, a beautiful little Aussie mix named Amy (who had a crush on Seamus) and her mom Gale joined us under the tree. We had ourselves a fine old time. We shared treats and stories and cheered noisily for one another. Much as I like AKC trials, they could hardly be described as having a party atmosphere.

Actually, it was downright inspirational to be sharing a shade tree with Sissy (my friend with the Akita). She's managed to put an AKC RAE on her male and an RE on her female. She came away from this trial with a first-place ribbon from one of the trials, so she's further inspired to go on in APDT. Just FYI, an AKC RAE doesn't automatically entitle you to shoot to the top in APDT rally. You have to start at Level 1A like everyone else.

The inspirational part of hanging out with Sissy lay in hearing how many times she tried, and how hard, to succeed in rally and regular obedience with Akitas. I no longer feel quite so bad about having bombed out in our first attempt at Rally Advanced. Persistence does pay off. She stuck with it, and stuck with it, and entered trial after trial until they managed to get there. If she can keep trying, then I can. Thanks, Sissy. I am no longer discouraged.

All three of us took part in an interesting conversation about whether to do the best you can in rally with your chosen breed and your quirky dog, or to get yourself an "easy" breed and presumably do better, faster. The answer depends on what you like better: the sport or the breed. If you like the sport better, then good for you -- as long as you don't simply discard your dog for not performing up to your expectations. Go ahead and enjoy the sport with your "easy" breed, and have fun.

For those of us determined goofuses who are out there with non-traditional breeds, or mixed breeds, or simply with extremely quirky dogs, the road may be harder, but the rewards along the way are mighty sweet when they come. It will always take us longer to get to the big titles, but it will be worth it -- and hopefully, so will the long journey.

It's nice to be reminded that other people are taking long journeys, too -- not everyone gets to ride the expressway to the championship. We don't have to struggle in the slow lane alone -- and on this trip, it's mighty nice to have company.

Foolish April

Just as the swallows return to Capistrano every year, so do the snowbirds return to Maine every spring. Bless their recently-retired hearts, my snowbird across-the-street neighbors, their Labrador, and their leviathan-class camper returned to the neighborhood yesterday. We didn't have the nicest weather available to greet them, but the husband reported that they were glad to be home again anyway. Kodiak, the Lab, must have thought he would never see Maine again. When he clambered out of the camper into his front yard, he was so happy to see the old homestead that he ran around the yard howling for joy.

I can only imagine what went through our snowbirds' heads this morning when they awoke to their first morning back at home to see this...



...but I won't publish a transcript of what they must have said. This is a family blog, after all.

The Public Has Spoken

I don't know why it's so hard for me to realize that other people actually do read my blog, and that they even check for updates. People actually have called me to ask me if I'm okay because I haven't pubished in a while, and Dale and Sue have been sending emails, wondering what's been up.

The answer: A helluva lot. It's been Deadline Time here at the Baa & Grille, which means I've been spending so much time creating my famed immortal prose for work that the last thing I've wanted to do after work is -- you guessed it -- more writing. I'm happy to announce that after a year's worth of development, my project finally shipped yesterday. I'm taking tomorrow and Friday off to celebrate, and then it'll be time to get started on the next one.

I promise to be more chatty online now that things are a tad quieter at work. I also promise to do something about my desk! At the moment, it looks like the returns counter at Best Buy crossed with an explosion at an office-supply outlet. I have a hard disk here, a wireless print server there, another one over there... all waiting to be installed, and waiting for the piles of papers and documents atop their boxes to find other, more organized homes.

Talk about a busman's holiday -- or at least a geek's holiday: The other thing I've been trying to do in my laughable spare time is to teach myself some more about Web design and its underpinnings. I can drop photos into iWeb with the best of 'em, but my knowledge of the latest tweaks and technologies is dropping far, far behind. It's time to bring myself back from the Stone Age.

Samurai Obedience Handler

Perhaps I'm dating myself when I ask whether you remember John Belushi's old "Samurai" skits from the days when Saturday Night Live was still funny. Of course you do -- pretty much everyone who reads my blog is a baby boomer, and everyone else has DVD players and YouTube. Anyway, whenever something would go wrong and the customer would complain, John Belushi would pull out his trusty wakizashi and commit seppuku on the spot. (Don't get me started about what I think outsourced customer support ought to do!)

Anyway, I'm thinking maybe a wakizashi would make a fine addition to the equipment I take to obedience trials. After Seamus's and my last appearance at the Charles River trial, committing seppuku seemed like the only honorable way out.

The gods have punished me for my hubris. There I was, looking over the trial at the easiest rally course I've ever seen, and thinking we were going to take home all the ribbons in the rainbow. I agonized with my fellow competitors when their dogs didn't respond right away to commands, or if they started to wander, and I was sure that Seamus and I would execute our performance with a precision seen only at military drills or at performances of the Rockettes. (You pick.) When my friend Alison and her Beardie scored "only" an 87, I commiserated, hoping she wouldn't feel too bad when Seamus and I flew through the course with a near-flawless performance. I could have aced that course with my cat. I should have entered with my cat.

Fatal mistake: I forgot to consult Seamus about this. Now, we've been taking rally classes every single Sunday since last May when we completed our RN, hoping to complete our Advanced title this spring before it came time to hit the conformation road with Dinah again. We worked out our bugs at the start line. We practiced our off-lead work again and again and again. I struggled to refine my handwork, my footwork, my posture, my eye contact... everything. We were (I thought) ready.

Honestogod, I never saw it coming. When it came our turn, we lined up at the start. I removed Seamus's lead and handed it to the steward. He held his sit at my heel. His eyes never left mine. The judge, who appeared to be a nice, friendly person as well as the designer of nice, friendly courses, asked, "Are you ready?" I indicated that we indeed were.

"Forward."

Seamus took off as though shot from a circus cannon. He raced around the course, sniffing in all the corners, snarfing the food out of the bowls on the offset Figure 8, jumping on the judge, and dancing around to show all the spectators what fun rally was. He seemed to have completely forgotten all he knew about rally *obedience* -- heck, he completely forgot who I was! I must have gone to fetch him back to heel 20 times for 14 stations, and each time he'd follow me to a station and then take off again.

There are two things you're never supposed to do in the AKC rally ring -- well, three, actually. You get the big "thank you" if you touch your dog, raise your voice, or utter the f*** word even when you need to the most. Since I started my performance "career" in herding, I come from the school of thought that maintains that as long as the clock is still ticking, there's still hope of salvaging a performance on the brink of going wrong. Here's where I should have taken out the wakizashi instead and ended my misery, or at least taken Seamus by the collar and thanked the judge... but noooooo. I actually tried to salvage that performance. I sang to Seamus, and my voice reached a few operatic highs that couldn't quite be construed as raising my voice to my dog... but it sure did wonders for my budding opera career. Stubbornly, I continued around the course, trying to fetch him back to me to perform even one or two of the stations. (We did very well on the jump and the serpentine.) I muttered to myself that someday I would see this as funny. I was careful not to mutter the F word.

Maybe the judge should have given me the hook long before the finish, but she could see that I was trying, anyway. Seamus was very trying.

Finally, we reached the end, where Seamus sat proudly at the exit gate to sympathetic applause. I praised him for at least stopping correctly, gave him a pat and a treat, and then made a hasty departure. Simply disappearing into the air wouldn't have been quick enough for me at that point.

As I carried my camp chair and crate to the car, a friendly-looking woman with a Golden Retriever asked me, "Are you the owner of the Famous Seamus?" I made a motion as though slashing my wrists.

Bless her heart, she went on: "I just want you to know that we've all been there. My first attempt at off-leash handling went pretty much the same way. It will get better."

Then she went on: "But no one will ever forget Famous Seamus. I sure won't."

Neither will I. I've pulled our entries from the two other trials we would have entered this spring, and we're going back to class to do three things to improve our performance: train, train, train.

Mother Nature is a B***h Sometimes

Dinah enjoying the nice muddy ground on Thursday, just before the last snow. Look at those feet!

Oh, I am soooooo annoyed. Seamus and I were pumped to try for our first Rally Advanced leg yesterday at the Collie Club of Maine show. We ended up getting dumped with snow yesterday morning -- enough so getting on the road to Portland would have been a bad idea, since this town seems to feel that plowed roads are for sissies -- and so we had to stay home. Eating the entry fee was a pain, but not as much as knowing that we would have shown under a good obedience/rally judge, with all our friends and our instructor there to cheer us on. Seamus and I got our first Rally Novice leg at that show last year, and I was beginning to like the tradition. Now I have to find other trials to enter that aren't happening at the same time as conformation shows. BAH.



Make-Your-Own Yarn Stash

I'm planning to take Dinah to the National Capital Bearded Collie Club show next month. I got to chatting about that with an old Beardie buddy in the area who came up to the SPA Knit & Spin event a couple of weekends ago. She's offered to give me a spinning wheel she picked up in a trade a while ago -- she's bringing it to the dog show and tucking it into my vehicle for the drive home. Guess this means I'll be learning to spin next. (Pam is coming out to visit in June sometime. Although we'll probably spend a lot of the time on the road in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, I'm hoping she'll give me a lesson or two on the spinning wheel before we leave town.)

If All Else Fails, Knit

There's really only one thing to do when the weather cramps your style as badly as yesterday's storm did to me: pull out the needles and knit. I picked up a couple of skeins of lovely handspun, undyed wool in a brown-sugar shade for Sue's mittens. Because it's a handspun, the yarn varies in thickness quite a bit, so the knitted fabric is not perfectly even -- but I think it's really attractive, and I love the texture. Sue will like the fact that she can wear them to the barn without having to wash them every single day. (By the way, if you go to visit Sue's blog, you'll see not only some really great photos of the landscape and of her latest quilt, but also the beginning cuff of her first pair of mittens!) It took a bit of searching to find undyed yarn that wasn't white, but when I found some, I had a great time looking at all of the natural shades out there. I really wanted the black tweed Jacob yarn, but there wasn't enough of it to make a pair of mittens... so I went for the brown-sugar yarn instead. Later on, I'll dig the label out of my knitting bag and report back as to the breed of sheep that produced it.

Mitten #1 is almost done. It needs only a thumb (actually, half a thumb) to become complete. With a little luck, I should be well into the second mitten by the time the weekend's over.

Socks are coming along as well. Sock #2 of my blue-and-purple Sockotta pair needs a foot and a toe, and then that pair's done. (With regard to my embarrassingly large sock yarn stash, that's one pair down and 77 to go.) I've even cast on the cuff for a pair of socks for Greg in charcoal-gray Wildfoote yarn. The Trekking socks are still in the bag someplace -- one sock done, one ripped out and needing re-starting. That yarn is so pretty that I can't ignore those socks for too long.

I shipped off the Manos cotton ribbed scarf to Susannah, who is madly in love with it. She says she's put a box in the mail to us, and I wouldn't cry if I doscovered a few more skeins of Manos cotton in there to make her more stuff. The yarn is pure pleasure to work with, and the knitted fabric is so soft you just want to cuddle up with it.

I'd knit Susannah anything she wanted at this point, anyway -- she bought me one of these as a belated birthday present. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll see what I mean. There's plenty of room in one of those bags to hold many, many skeins of Manos cotton.

Happiness Is a Busy Man (And Other Stuff)

Greg is wildly busy these days. The Holyoke Symphony has requested his orchestral piece Arkadia to perform this season. Up until now he's been self-publishing, but it's time to get a bigger company to handle the process of cranking out all those parts (50-80 at a time).

He's also working on the CD of sax quartets with four other composers and the New Hudson Sax Quartet from New York. They'll record it sometime this summer at Town Hall in NYC, and it'll probably be on the market early next year.

He also has other performances of his pieces coming up, and I've lost count as to what is being done where. He took a leave of absence from BU this semester so he could get all the work done, plus finish up a brass quintet and another piece that have ensembles waiting to play it. The brass quintet will be premiered at Carnegie Recital Hall -- I forget when.

Shout Out!

A shout out to Sarah and Storm, who came by to visit the blog this week. Storm is one of Dinah Moe's buddies on Dogster. He and Sarah were lucky to find each other after Storm was left homeless by Hurricane Katrina. They romp together out in San Berdoo, CA, where there are no hurricanes to scare poor innocent Beardies.

Wish Us Luck!

Geez, it seemed like such a long ways away, but... Seamus and I are shooting for our very first Rally Advanced leg at the Collie Club of Maine's trial this coming Friday. Advanced is performed all off-lead, which makes it a particular challenge after doing Novice all on-lead. I'm hoping very hard that our cross-training in agility helps us with this part, and that the judge might accidentally forget to put an offset figure 8 on the course. Keep your fingers crossed for us, won't you?

Congratulations to Sampson and his mom Dale for persevering through the CGC course and passing the test!

Mitten-O-Mania Continues

Shortly after I posted about my newfound fascination with mittens, Sue dropped by the blog. One thing led to another, and now not only am I about to start making a pair of mittens from natural undyed wool for Sue, but she herself has taken up mitten knittin'. Way to go, Sue -- we want pictures of your first finished pair!

I Couldn't Go to the Tropics, So...

...the tropics came to me!

Anybody who believes that our climate isn't changing should come to Maine right about now. Here it is the freakin' 12th day of Christmas, and it's sunny and 66 degrees out! Not that I'm complaining -- I loathe winter -- but it just isn't right for this time of year. By rights, I should be taking turns shivering and shoveling -- but I spent much of this afternoon driving around with the windows down and Charlie grinning out the window. I had been feeling a little bummed out because I haven't the time or money to take myself off to someplace warm for a vacation. If this keeps up, I won't have to go anyplace.

Isn't She Lovely?



Dinah after her makeover from Dog In Sight magazine. Photo by Mike Wiggin. Thanks to Mike and to Helen at the Dog Wash in York Beach for offering the contest!

Lately it's been a blast to bring in the mail, because almost every day's delivery has contained something nice from one or another of our adventures. Of course, you've heard all about Dinah winning the free "day at the spa" from Dog In Sight. The January issue has just been published, so locals can start looking for it at grooming and pet supply shops around NH and southern ME.

Not only that, but the City Puppies book has been published. Dinah's on page 30. Various of our Dogster friends and acquaintances appear in the book, too.

Doesn't Nick do a terrific job?



There's The Lovely One, as she appears in the book. Photo by Nick Diana of City Puppies. I wish I'd taken a little more time with Dinah's hairstyling, but so it goes.

The Lovely One is entered in the Fitchburg shows on the 13th and 14th. There's a good-sized entry in bitches, though not enough for a major. I hope Dinah does well -- it sure would be nice to pick up some more points. This will probably be our last show till April -- although if this weather keeps up, I'll probably wish there were more shows and trials we could do in the wintertime.

He's #2, and He Sure Does Try Harder

The national rankings are out for APDT rally obedience for 2006. Imagine my surprise to see Seamus's name in the listings! Mind you, we only finished an RL1 title this past year, so we didn't come anywhere near the Top 20... but there we are, planted solidly in the middle of the pack. Turns out that Seamus is also the #2 Beardie in the country. Disclaimer: the #1 Beardie has about 10 times as many ranking points as we do, not to mention an ARCHX -- but we're still #2 out of 6. How about that?!

Not that we have the time to lie around basking in our own collective glow. Classes have started again, and Seamus is taking two sessions of agility in addition to our Sunday rally class. We were lucky enough to secure a spot in Anne Andrle's intermediate agility class at Happy Tails, but we're also doing a Saturday morning class. We love, love, love working with Jim (our Saturday instructor). He's helpful and perceptive, and gives excellent advice to each handler about how to improve each performance. I've known a bunch of people who have taken (or are taking) classes with Jim, and they all adore him. The best part about this class is that I know nearly everybody in the class already, including a friend I haven't seen since her Lab Chester and our Charlie were puppies (9 years ago!). I'm also really looking forward to Anne's class, which starts next week. More on that after we get there.

I'm hoping that taking the two classes will help us solidify our teamwork and get us into synch as an agility team. I'm not in a huge rush to get us into trials, but it's definitely in the plan for someday. Let's conquer AKC Rally Advanced first.

Hey, Look What I Made!

I've been helping my friend Fran and her business partner Betsy with the Web site for their new business, BorderCollics Anonymous. Go on over and have a look! Even though the templates I've been working with don't offer me as much freedom to tweak the design as I'd like, I think it came out pretty decently.

And On the Needles...

It's probably a good thing that I was just too beat on New Year's Day (plus the weather was horrible) to head up to Patternworks' annual New Year's Day blowout. I honestly don't have room for any more yarn, but when has that ever stopped me before? Dale and I went last year, and we had too good a time.

Fran and I managed to get into enough trouble just cruising up to Rosemary's Yarn Shop last week. Rosemary keeps a whole big "bargain room" of yarn, and I managed to scarf up enough balls of Brown Sheep Naturespun (at Wicked Bargain prices) to knit my next couple of sweaters. (Both are Yankee Knitter patterns. One is a sheep cardigan, and the other is a simple guernsey.) There's a whole shelf of Big Kureyon at the shop that keeps giving me come-hither looks whenever I'm left alone in the bargain room with it. My resolve is weakening... and the hayloft in the barn is still empty... so there's room for yarn after all!

I'm almost finished with the back of the Seacolors tunic sweater. The sweater itself is dirt-simple -- roll hem, roll neck, set-in sleeves -- and the hand-dyed heather colors (thistle and teal) are so gorgeous you just want to put whipped cream and a cherry on top and eat them for dessert. I really should be farther along with it, but those pesky Fortissima socks keep calling to me to work on them instead. I have the first one almost done, and I need to decide soon whose feet these should fit. I have a waiting list for socks (which actually makes me happy), and this color scheme would please my sister almost as much as it pleases me.

Busier 'n a One-Armed Paper Hanger (again)

Dinah graduated from Basic Obedience this past week. She was just beginning to get the difference between walking with me (if not in a perfect heel) versus gaiting around the show ring. She's also not inclined to remain with four on the floor during the "polite greeting" exercise. Although we did in fact graduate, I'll probably repeat Basic or move to Advanced Basic. Something tells me she's not quite ready for the CGC test just yet.

We have more Dinah news from the shows over in my other blog. She now has 3 points toward her championship.

I've entered Seamus in a couple of AKC rally trials in March and April, so our mission there is clear: Practice, practice, practice. We have to do the Advanced courses off-lead, and we have to be prepared to navigate the evil Offset Figure 8 with the two food bowls and to perform an honor exercise in the ring while the next dog in the order does the course. Seamus has never been one to stick with a down after his mind starts to wander, so we have work to do there as well.

These are the visitors from next door who had Charlie in such a state a while back...



Knitting Stuff

Yes, at last there's been some. Here's the long-ago-promised photo of the Oakley shawl in Berroco Suede:


My current "idiot knitting" project is a scarf for my nephew in camouflage yarn. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I'm voluntarily knitting with Red Heart yarn, but my 6-year-old nephew is deeply into G.I. Joes, and all he cares about is that it's camo. His parents will be thrilled that it can be thrown into the washer. All the same, if I ever run across a "nice" yarn in camo, I'll give the kid an upgrade.

I've finished the red scarf in Debbie Bliss SoHo that was my last "idiot" project, and have made a few rows' worth of progress on the Seacolors sweater. I also took a sock cuff along to the dog shows in Springfield a couple of weeks ago, and added a round or two there.

In general, I'm not a big fan of winter. I don't like the cold, the weather, or the fact that I'm stuck inside against my will, burning $10 bills to keep warm because it's cheaper than refilling the frickin' oil tank. After spending so many weekends at dog shows this year, though, I'm really looking forward to having to stay home and knit some more.

Last Good Day of the Year

At this time of the year, the one song that keeps running through my mind is "Last Good Day of the Year," by a British one-hit-wonder band named Cousteau. (Great song -- they sound even more like Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach than Elvis and Burt did.) With the screaming winds driving the rain sideways and the shift to Standard Time happening this weekend, Friday might actually have been the last good day of the year.

Mother Says: Keep Your Blog Clean 'Cause You Never Know Who Might Visit

As a rule, I don't get a whole lot of comments or links on my blogs -- so it's always an occasion when I hear from people who have been reading these posts. Yesterday I heard from a friend I haven't seen since her wedding back in the '80s. (Hey Rachel -- drop me a line. Susannah will want to say hi too.)



Susannah came out to visit a couple of summers ago. Here she is with Charlie, who has a mutual admiration society thing going with her.

A belated shout out goes to Dave, aka citizentwain, keeper of the Too Stupid to be President Web site. He recently ran across this reference to his site from back in February, and sounded pleased that I named TSTBP among my favorite sites to visit. (It is! Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from screaming -- which explains why we watch Comedy Central almost all the time.)

Also from the Whodathunkit files: Back in this post I made a passing reference to our Mosquito Magnet. Next thing I knew, a nice man named Andrew from the marketing department at American Biophysics gave me a call to ask me what I thought of the Magnet, since I'd mentioned it on my blog. We happen to love the thing, since it keeps the Maine State Birds (mosquitoes) from carrying us off in mid-barbecue. Anyway, one discussion led to another, and just the other day I received a big package from Andrew with a free package of octenol attractant, a propane tank cover, a couple of Mosquito Magnet baseball caps, a matching tote bag, and a couple of marker pens. Hey, Andrew, if you're out there... Thanks!!

Lots of Rally News

It's been so long since I was able to sit down and write a post that I have even more news to catch up on. Back at the beginning of October, our local Beardie club held a Rally Fun Day in Saco. Judy, our wonderful instructor, gave a brief explanation of the novice exercises, and then let everybody try.



Seamus got to be a demo dog when he wasn't sitting on Uncle Pat's lap. (Uncle Pat is our friend Traveler's dad.)

I have to brag on my little guy. Last weekend we headed to Littleton, MA to the APDT rally trial at Gemini Dog Training. Seamus broke his down in the morning trial, so we NQ-ed for the very first time in our lives. However, in the afternoon, we were able to restore the family honor with a second-place finish and a score of 206 out of a possible 210. This finishes Seamus's RL1 (Rally level 1) title, making him Sheiling Angelic Ties, HIC, RN, RL1.

There are many, many, many nice things about APDT rally. We like AKC rally and do well in it, but APDT trials are so relaxed, and everybody's so friendly. We fell in with a really nice couple from New Jersey and Millie, their Portuguese Water Dog. Another friend of theirs from NJ came up with a Field Spaniel and a Standard Poodle (what a pair!).

Other Dog-Type News

Dinah got her very first point at the Bangor shows a couple of weeks ago! One down, fourteen to go. Photos and details are on Dog Show Newbie, as always. This show was the last one she could enter in the 9-12-month Puppy Class, and we made a nice finish. On to 12-18-month class!

The little princess celebrates her first birthday next week (November 3), the day after Seamus turns 4 (November 2, which was also Duncan's birthday). Somehow, she's started going through an energy spurt instead of just a growth spurt, and she just plain requires more exercise now than she has before. She's just not happy unless someone is throwing the ball for her (me) or chasing her at top flat-out speed (Charlie). She can jump five feet straight up, from a standstill. The boys are energetic enough, but if I could hook Dinah up to a generator, I could kiss Central Maine Power goodbye.

Charlie had minor surgery a couple of weeks ago to remove some fibroid growths from the skin on his back. He was already knocked out for a dental cleaning, so the vet removed the lumps and stitched him up. He had his sutures removed, so he no longer gets to be Frankenbeardie for Hallowe'en. At least the rest of his coat mostly covers the shaved spots. When he first came home, he looked as though he'd lost a fight with a weed wacker.

One more Whodathunkit: You can't swing last month's copy of Wired magazine without hitting some mention of MySpace and/or social networking sites on the Internet. It amazes me that so few articles mention social networking for dogs -- but the phenomenon is out there. Now, I'm not one of those people who dresses my dogs up like Disney characters and carries them around in a purse (66-pound Charlie would require the biggest American Tourister out there), but I'm not above sending the occasional goofy email from my dogs to their dog friends. I draw the line at baby talk, however.

Anyway, I've just ended up on Dogster. In one day, my dogs have amassed more friendly emails, virtual gifts and goodies, and shout-outs from fellow online canines than I ever did after a couple of years on AOL. I will never see another of those awful eHarmony or match.com commercials on TV without wishing they would do one for Dogster instead. "We discovered we have lots in common, like rolling in dead stuff on the beach and sniffing every single tree on the street before we pee."

We ended up there thanks to a question on the CityPuppies registration form. The dog's biography portion asked what our Dogster ID was. I answered that we already had two blogs and a Web site, and then went off with Dinah for our photo session for the book. While we were waiting for our turn in front of the camera, we ended up visiting with quite a few other local dogs and their owners who were active on Dogster. Intrigued, I signed us up as soon as we came back home. It's only been a day, and already my two neutered males get more email from the girls than a lot of high school kids!

More Music News Than You Can Shake a Baton At

Greg's had a busy season of it, and it only looks to get busier. He's been writing CD reviews for a classmate at Curtis who runs a CD label, and he's been having a good time of it. They make him return the CDs when he's done reviewing, though -- so I haven't heard more than a minute or two's worth of music from any of them. One composer whose CD he really liked is Myron Fink. Greg raved about his music to me, and presumably he did so in the CD review as well.

This season, Greg has so many performances lined up that it's a wonder if I can remember them all. This coming week we're going to listen to the viol consort (Long and Away -- at least I think that's the title) played in Medford by the string quartet from the Longy School. The next day, Greg goes to BU to hear the orchestral version of Arkadia read for the first time. (Arkadia has been played before in a chamber-orchestra arrangement, but Greg recently expanded it for full orchestra.) If I haven't misremembered, I think his four-part choral piece April will also be performed at BU this semester.

He'll have another performance at the ACA Festival of American Music, and he just had to go through the submission process for next June's concerts. If the New Hudson guys are available and if there are other pieces for sax quartet on the program, they'll perform his Sax Quartet. If not, he'd like to have Clayton Runaround, the Cape Breton-esque piece for solo violin, performed.

The ACA concerts have turned out to be much more than just great places to have New York City premieres of new compositions. At least year's concert, Greg not only met the New Hudson guys, but he also got to meet Richard Brooks (a fellow composer and president of Capstone Records). Greg and Richard are currently working out plans to record their sax quartets, plus one by Lukas Foss and maybe another composer or two, on a Capstone CD with the New Hudson guys as performers. Everyone's schedules are fairly packed at the moment, so it might take a while to get this effort coordinated -- but it will make for a terrific recording when it comes together. It'll even be available at amazon.com someday!

Knitting Progress

One thing I'll say for this crummy weather is that it provides a great incentive to stay inside and knit, instead of grabbing the closest available dog and going for a romp in the leaves. I finally finished the Oakley wrap for Susannah. The picture's still on my camera; I'll upload it soon. It took me a while to make my peace with Berroco Suede, but with patience and the right needles, it actually turned out to be pretty fun to knit with.

Because the UFO pile abhors a vacuum, I've picked up a couple of balls of red Debbie Bliss SoHo, and am whipping up a simple 1x1 rib scarf for my friend Caryll in London. I promised her last January that I'd knit her something, so I'm long overdue to make good on that particular promise.

Almost Famous Seamus and Other Stories

I just found out today that Dinah and I got into the Collie Club of Maine's herding clinic in Appleton on November 4th. I'm taking Dinah Moe to have a first look at ducks, just to see what she'll do. (Her first birthday is November 3, and I thought she deserved a nice present.)

Seamus is almost famous -- almost. We went to the York Days obedience demo back in August along with the rest of our obedience club. We heeled around the ring, did some simple Novice exercises, let some spectators pet him, and that was that.

Well, come to find out that Dog In Sight magazine was there. They interviewed other members and took pictures of the freestyle and flyball demos and stuff, so I didn't think anything of it. In their recent issue, they mention a Bearded Collie among the breeds that were there. It's only a quick breed spotting, but Seamus was the only Beardie there.

Wish us luck tomorrow -- Seamus is hoping to be famous at the APDT rally trial this weekend. If we qualify, we'll finish his RL1 title.

One More Post for the Road

The lovely and talented Dinah Moe Burfitt and I depart tomorrow for Gananoque, Ontario, and the Bearded Collie Club of Canada National Specialty show. Wish us luck! I'll post any news on Dog Show Newbie.

In other dog news, Seamus and I got to practice rally obedience twice this week and did really well both days. The place where we train had a special session of run-throughs, and we were able to do the Novice course once and the Advanced course twice before Seamus started asking to go home. Seamus seems to be going through a stage now where he's especially trainable, if that makes any sense. If we continue to do good work, we might progress to the next level.

Our fledgling Beardie club plans to hold a Rally Fun Day sometime this fall. Judy Kay, our fantastic instructor, has agreed to take on the task of introducing rally to our club members and their Beardies. Since she's had Seamus and my friend Maryann's Brechin in her classes, Judy has acquired a great fondness and respect for the breed, and she was tickled as anything to be asked to introduce more Beardies to the sport.

Musical Interlude

Greg heard back from the New Hudson Sax Quartet. They love the piece and have started working it up to include in one of their concert programs in the fairly-near future. It's a long piece; Greg offered them the choice of breaking it up and just playing a movement or two, but it sounds as though they want to perform it in its entirety when they can program it.

We've Got #@$%&ing Socks on a Plane!

(with a bow toward the most hotly-anticipated bad movie of all time -- the Rocky Horror Picture Show of this decade)

I never forget a promise. It just takes me a while to catch up to it to fulfill it sometimes. At some point between the time I started this post and this sentence, Blogger has stopped uploading photos (again). I'll post the pictures of the socks made from Lisa's yarn and the other socks in separate posts.