Music, Travels, and a Busy Summer Indeed

Compared to last summer, we've just had a frenzy of activity here on the old homestead! Here's a condensed version of the latest news:

Sound the Trumpets -- er, Saxes!

Remember Greg's Sax Quartets CD, the recording that just never seemed to have any luck getting released? I'll link to the previous stories about this later, but this was the CD that just had everything going against it: one of the composers was displaced by Hurricane Katrina, the recording engineer first got sick and then was killed in a traffic accident, the label was sold to another company when the original label's owner retired... and on and on. For a while there, it looked as though this one would never get released. That would have been a sad thing, since one of Lukas Foss's last compositions (as far as I know) is one of the quartets on the recording. The New Hudsons (New Hudson Sax Quartet, that is) even set up at his home to do that recording session.

Quartet at the Crossroads will finally be released on August 31, after 4+ years in the making! Amazon has announced its availability for pre-order, and you can hear samples on the page devoted to the MP3 downloads. Greg's quartet spans Tracks 6-9.

Parma (the new record company) wastes no time, much to their credit. The tracks will probably show up on iTunes shortly.

Road Trips

The Man and I haven't taken a real road trip in years. He does get two weeks' vacation time from his job, but he rarely takes it. My primary traveling companion for all of my excursions is Dinah Moe, since almost all of my road trips involve dog shows or trials. I'll post the tale of our latest road trip to Canada to my Dog Show Newbie blog.

Because we attended so few dog events last year (largely due to our standard of living on unemployment), I've tried to make up for the lack of activity by getting out this year as often as I can. We're hoping for more good news in AKC Rally at the Lakes Region KC trials at the end of the month. In September, we'll do one day of Finish Forward's APDT trial, since we're doing CGC testing at Meet the Breeds on the other day of that weekend.

(Attention Locals: Meet the Breeds will take place on Sunday, September 19, at Tractor Supply in Scarborough. Come visit the lovely and talented Dinah Moe, Distraction Dog Extraordinaire, and members of a number of local all-breed, obedience, and rescue clubs from around our part of Maine.)

One road trip I will not be taking is the one to the National Specialty this year. I must apologize to the host club, but I'm just tired and I need a year off. My local club will be hosting the National next year, and I'll be wacky busy getting ready for that. I'm really of more use to the club by staying home and close to my broadband connection.

Yarns About Yarn and Other Adventures

As far as knitting goes, there's not that much to report. My lovely Crock-O-Dye socks (in color Grape, of course) are still in the cuff stage. Until very recently, it's just been so sticky out that the thought of holding wool in my hands just makes me sweat. I still haven't even tried on the Kureyon socks I finished ages ago. When the weather gets cooler, I'll be making up for the lack of knitting activity.

Not that there are many other adventures to report either. Pop on over to Shaggy Dog Stories to see what we've been up to there. Dinah has become an artists' model, and she doesn't even have to pose for long periods of time!

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!

Bounce!

Every year, we look forward to the BCCME Beardie Bounce & BBQ at my friend Val's house. We set the Beardies free to romp in their big fenced yard with a couple of dozen of their friends, grill up some burgers, smooch some puppies, and see friends we haven't seen in ages. When the weather is good, it's very, very good. When the weather is bad, we try to muddle through.

Last year, we not only had to contend with rain showers, but a tornado (or a facsimile of a tornado) had visited the neighborhood only a few days before, ripping up trees, wrecking fences, and smashing a hole in Val's roof. Through the herculean efforts of Val and Pat, several family members, and some hired guns, they managed to get the yard ready for a Beardie invasion... but we still couldn't fix the weather. I've decided that I just don't enjoy holding a meeting with rain running down my back.

This year, Mother Nature did us a solid by giving us a lovely sunny day — maybe one of the two or three we've had in this region since the solstice. Apart from the fact that the winds kicked up and actually bent the legs on one of the EZ-Ups (it was tied to a tarp that tried to set sail for Portugal), our weather was perfect. It wasn't too hot, it wasn't too cold, and it wasn't too wet.

We had so much junk to bring that we barely had room for Charlie (Dinah was in the crate). He had to endure a ride sandwiched between coolers and plastic storage bins, but he refused to stay behind. I only wish we'd been able to bring all four pups, but Seamus and Badge would have had to have ridden on the roof rack or in the glove box. Every cubic inch of the Subaru was already stuffed full.

In spite of the uncomfortable ride, Charlie had a fine time.



So did Greg and Dinah Moe.



The canine guests ranged in age from 15-year-old Raleigh (who proudly sported a tam o'shanter in the Royal Stewart tartan) to 9-week-old Archie (whose paws rarely touched the ground because everyone wanted to pick him up and smooch him). Sadly for Charlie, we had no kiddie pool this year — the old one sprang a leak.

Charlie and Tucker Ashworth did set up a browns-only clubhouse in the absence of a pool...



One tradition we've continued through the first three Bounce & BBQs (this is our fourth) and all other BCCME events is the offer of free lobsters for all Beardies. A few years ago, I managed to score some of the last boxes of the old PetEdge "Daily Catch" lobster toys. Little Denbigh Marshall, who was born in Ohio and who recently moved to New England, was quick to embrace our Mainiac traditions...



The club's chefs did themselves proud by covering a groaning board with multiple fabulous hors d'oeuvres, munchies, salads, and desserts. Oh, the desserts! I probably blew my Weight Watchers points allotment completely by indulging in a single delicious homemade strawberry cupcake, but it was sooooo worth it.

Eventually, we sent home a couple of dozen tired Beardies with their people, packed up the leftovers, and declared another successful Bounce. We're fairly sure that a good time was had by all...

"...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.

Some Days You Have to Take a Rain Check

Much as I hate to admit it, I was relieved to see and hear the rain this morning. If today had been sunny, I would have roused the canine portion of the household early for the first rally-roo class of the season, and thence headed off to a picnic with some Old English Sheepdog buddies. Even though I was really looking forward to both, I'm even more relieved that the rain has postponed both events. Some weekends you just need to recharge the old batteries, and I am burnt to a crackly crunch.

Meet the Breeds

I can't believe that I'm getting to blog about this before Dale does, but you'll want to see what she says about it -- especially if she got pictures. Yesterday was soooo busy over at my booth that my camera never even saw the outside of its case.

Every year, four local dog clubs combine forces to hold a Meet the Breeds event. It usually takes place indoors in March, but when AKC declared September to be Responsible Dog Ownership Month, changing the date to September was a no-brainer. Three of "my" clubs took part: YCKC, BCCME, and POC. Dinah and I were there to offer CGC tests.

I honestly though I'd have maybe three or four dogs all day. As I set up my EZ-Up and Dinah's crate, I thought that maybe I should call Greg and have him bring up my knitting on his way to Portland. The event ran from 10 AM to 4 PM. No way was I going to see enough action to justify sitting around there all day.

Was I wrong! The event was mobbed. Not only had the pre-event publicity machine done a terrific job, but people passing by on Route 1 saw the line of EZ-Ups and came in to investigate. We attracted our expected audience of families interested in meeting different breeds of dogs and asking about them, looking into the various rescues, and asking about training classes with the obedience clubs. Everyone wanted to pet the puppies.

I just never expected that so many people would show up wanting the CGC test! 16 -- yeah, sixteen -- dog/owner teams in all took the test, and 15 of those teams passed. I never had time to take any photos, or even to call Greg. Dinah and I worked almost non-stop all day long. We tested, delivered good news, discussed training classes and therapy dog work, posed for newspaper photos with happy recipients, and in general had ourselves a grand time. Dale and Jasmine got to participate in the "crowd scenes" for the test, and I directed everyone who asked me about therapy dog testing to the very busy POC booth.

Anyway, I was on my feet almost the entire time yesterday, and woke up this morning grateful for the chance to sleep in. We're all glad that the event was such a success, but I think we're even gladder that the rain cancelled many of today's outdoor events. I didn't have the strength in me to do very much this morning.

And There was Knitting

Jody sent me a delighted email after she received her lovely striped Jawoll socks. Not only was she just as tickled with the autumnal color scheme as I'd expected, but the socks fit her perfectly. Jody's one of those folks who will wear her favorite Birkenstocks until the snow is a foot deep outside, so these socks will keep her toes warm until it's time to pull on boots -- and afterward, too.

My sister asked me if I could knit a couple of pairs for my 82-year-old dad, who is always cold. Although most of the yarns in my stash are more what you'd call "girly" -- or maybe just "bright" -- I managed to dig up a couple of balls of a nice charcoal gray tweed Scheepjes and cast that on for him. I'm happy to be taking requests -- usually I just grab something and start working on it, and then find the socks an adoptive home after the fact.

In the meantime, all of my non-sock projects have been sitting around looking dusty and neglected. As far as I remember, I only have to frog a couple of real oldies -- but in the little time I have available to knit, I just always want to pick up the socks. At least my socks are making progress.

Minnesota Nice, Home Nicer

Well, actually, this photo was taken in Wisconsin...

Sue, Dale, and the rest of my blog buddies have probably despaired long ago of regular updates from me. I know, guys, I know. The thing is, you have to sit in one place long enough to be able to write anything. That hasn't exactly described my summer to date.

Today is Labor Day, and I've already done my labor for the day. BCCME held a Board meeting over at the Panera Bread in Biddeford. I swilled coffee and scribbled notes. That's the extent of today's effort, thankyouverymuch. The weather is lovely, Greg's practicing piano, I'm drinking wine, and the pups are eagerly awaiting the time when we fire up the grill. Business as usual tomorrow, but today is ours.

So Whatcha Been Up To?

My other blog details Dinah's and my adventures in Canada with our partners-in-crime Val and Traveler. Quick summary: We went, we saw, we kicked butt, we drove a long way, and we replaced the radiator in my car.

Although I hadn't planned it to happen that way, I spent about 12 hours at home between the last trip and the next one. This gave me just barely enough time to drop the bag with the dirty laundry, pick up the one with the clean laundry, and boogie to the airport to catch the plane to Minneapolis. I was still fairly pie-eyed from the long drive back from Gananoque by the time I left again.

I'm not the superstitious type, but if I had been thinking clearly, I might have realized that the bag I'd packed for Minneapolis was none other than the Notorious Lose-Me Bag. This freakin' bag has been cursed since the day I bought it in the Target in Omaha, Nebraska to carry home a bunch of stuff I'd accumulated while at the 2005 BCCA National. It got lost on that flight home, and has managed -- I kid you not -- to get sucked into the Bermuda Triangle on every single flight it's taken since. This is the bag that took the vacation to London while I went to Vancouver Island last year. It hasn't been lost in about a year, but that correlates directly with the number of times I've taken it on a plane in the past twelve months (zero).

Anyway, it was only while I stood in line at the bag check counter in Portland that I realized that I'd packed The Notorious Lose-Me Bag and was about to send it on another glorious round-the-world vacation. I mentally budgeted funds for the extra clothing and supplies I'd need while it visited Shanghai, or Auckland, or someplace I wasn't going.

To my shock, the bag actually followed me to Minneapolis, through a stop in Baltimore and a plane change in Atlanta. If I were a betting person, I would have put money on it going AWOL in Atlanta.

I visited Minnesota to help out with some 2009 BCCA National business. The show chair and a couple of the other chairs would be visiting the club president during that week, so I planned to be there at the same time (I'm the official Web monkey for the show). It only occurred to me later that I'd really have to beat it home from Canada in order to get out there in time.

We had a blast in Minnesota. We visited the host hotel, herding venue, auction/40th-anniversary banquet venue, and agility venue for the show. We pored over the various suggested fundraisers and the show trophies, designed the souvenir logo coffee mug, and had ourselves a fun and creative time. We even found time to hang out at a local brewpub downtown and enjoy the evening. We dropped by a dog show just in time to see Best of Breed in Beardies and browsed all the vendors there. We even had a fabulous chicken dinner with Jane and Sandy, who own Dinah's handsome blue half-brother Widget (Breaksea Boddy's Brew).

Cindy, the show chair, and I had planned things so we'd leave for home on the same day. Her plane left in the morning and mine in the afternoon, so I figured I could amuse myself in the airport for a few hours in the usual fashion: drinking coffee, knitting socks, and buying tacky tourist postcards to send to everybody. Sadly, MSP Airport is deeply lacking in tacky tourist stuff, and I was forced to buy actual nice postcards. They didn't even have a single crummy postcard of the statue of Mary Tyler Moore. Really, where's the fun in that?!

While I was browsing the sparse offerings in the postcard department, Murphy's Law was busy working its usual airline magic. On the day I planned to fly home, Hurricane Fay faded to a tropical storm and poured rain on the whole Southeast. Hurricane Gustav became a hurricane and bore down on Cuba. The FAA suffered a massive system failure that had the greatest effect on the two airports I'd be traveling through: Atlanta and then Baltimore. Oh, and did I mention I'd already checked the Notorious Lose-Me Bag?

The scheduled departure time for our flight was delayed, and delayed again. I did the math and realized that even if we settled on an actual departure time, there was no way in H-E-double-hockey-sticks that I would make the only evening flight from Baltimore to Portland that day. I took my place in line to discuss my options with the airline staff at the gate.

The airline rep explained to me that I had two options at that point: stay another night in Minneapolis, or get as far as Baltimore and stay there. Either way, I'd be a guest of the airline and could set things up for the very first flights out the next morning. Even if the weather and system issues forced me to miss the first flight out, at least I'd have a couple more schedules to choose from before having to miss the last flight home. I decided to opt for Minneapolis, and called my friends to let them know. The airline rep called baggage and asked them to locate my bag and bring it out to the carousel, and then she promised to meet me at the ticket counter with a hotel voucher after I retrieved my bag.

Obediently, I toddled off to the baggage carousel. I waited, and waited, and waited. No bag. No people with bags. Nobody with my bag.

After some time had passed, I met the airline rep at the ticket counter. She handed me the voucher for the hotel and the hotel's phone number. She also looked up my baggage claim check, and verified that since I'd checked my bag in early, it had been shipped off home on an earlier flight. It didn't occur to me then to ask why I couldn't have been shipped off on the same flight. At least she was readily able to verify that it was indeed in Portland, Maine -- not Portland, Oregon or Oporto, Portugal. I could pick it up when I deplaned the next day.

So there I was, with only the very casual clothes on my sweaty carcass and my single carry-on bag (containing my laptop and my knitting), headed for the Park Plaza Hotel. I didn't exactly feel appropriate for the occasion. The hotel staff, used to taking in airline orphans, provided me with a toothbrush, toothpaste, and a miniature Lady Speed Stick in addition to the usual hotel-room toiletries. I showered, took dinner to my room, and managed to feel as normal as one can without clean clothes. I knitted a sock and watched the tube, and enjoyed the high-speed broadband. Life was almost good.

The next day, I made it home without incident. I knew I'd touched down on my own Mainiac soil again the moment I heard someone else greet a relative with "Welcome to Pawtland, deah!". My bag was waiting for me exactly where it was supposed to be. If it visited any other cities on its trip home, it wasn't saying.

It's a Sock! No, It's a Milestone!

Hard to believe, but I actually finished the second of Jody's Yankee Knitter socks on this trip! They're lovely -- Jawoll yarn in autumnal-colored stripes which she'll just love -- and of course, I only remembered to take a photo of them after they'd already been shipped off in the mail.

I thought I'd never finish that pair of socks. I tore out and re-knitted the heel twice on Sock #2, and then I messed up once more and ripped it all the way back to the initial slipknot. I was positive I'd have to send one sock and one ball of yarn with a little note attached saying, "Sorry. Just wind this around your other foot."

Those suckers are done and now living the good life in their new home, and I've even made a couple of inches' worth of progress on their successors: another Yankee Knitter pair in red Happy Feet yarn with terrific, subtle color variations in the red. At least for now, Happy Feet is my current favorite sock yarn. (That's because I can't quite bring myself to buy some of the Opal Harry Potter yarn while I still own 60-odd balls and skeins of various brands of sock yarn. I want it badly, though. Badly.)

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.

A Rare Day in October

...is one where I'm actually home on a Sunday morning so I can dust the cobwebs off my poor old blog.

If I were a responsible adult, I probably wouldn't be here now, either. Sunday morning is rally-roo day for Seamus and me, and we haven't been to a rally class in months due to dog shows every frickin' weekend since forever. Don't get me wrong. I love dog shows. I love rally class. It's just that sometimes, I love taking a little break even more.

Greg's cousin Dan (actually, his mother's first cousin) and his wife Nancy came to visit from BC for the weekend, and the pups and I just bade them farewell at the door with go-cups of coffee. They're headed over to the church to hear Greg play the organ at the second service, and then they're off to visit Nancy's relatives in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. They're the first of Greg's relatives whom I've met, and they're delightful people -- plus they're Golden Retriever folks, so we had plenty in common. We took them out walking on Wells Beach and to the Weathervane for a Maine clambake (using the gift certificate I won a little while back). They and Greg shared stories about the family and old photos, and Greg played piano for them. In addition to the go-cups of coffee, we sent them off with copies of the old photos (courtesy of my scanner and Photoshop) and a CD of some of Greg's more recent pieces. I meant to cook them a proper Danish breakfast, but we ended up at the Maine Diner instead.

Anyway... sloth, glorious sloth. I have to be by myself in some distant locale in order to be able to sleep later than 9 AM any more, but it's still luxurious just to be able to greet the morning at my own pace, armed with a cup of caffeine and a complete lack of an agenda. Oh sure, I have a BCCME Board meeting this afternoon, but the afternoon is still a long ways away.

My busted finger is just about healed, enough so that I've stopped wearing the irritating "buddy tape" on my right ring and pinky fingers. Both fingers are a bit creaky from lack of use, so I have to keep practicing making a fist. At least I can close my right hand now -- a while back, I couldn't even hold on to any coins I received as change unless I did so left-handed.

If You're Ever Hungry in Portland...

Greg's birthday was October 9, already ancient history by this end of the month. His birthday-dinner instructions to me were, "Pick someplace in Portland where we don't usually go." That could be most of the city; I guess we're just creatures of habit. (I should have chosen hot dogs and beer at Hadlock Field, but that would have suited me better than him.)

It's said that Portland has more restaurants per capita now than just about any other city besides San Francisco. I'm not sure whether it's true, or whether they were counting the Mickey Ds along with the fine chef-owned establishments... but no matter. It's easy to be spoiled for choice when looking for a really good restaurant in Portland these days.

We ended up at 288 Fore Street, which (surprise, surprise!) is located at exactly that address, just one block up from the ferry terminal and just outside of the Old Port. The building was a ship's chandlery back in the day, and the interior still features the beams and brick from those days. The kitchen area is situated in the main dining area, and you can enjoy the fires from the brick roasting oven and the roasting spit while you await your meal.

And what a meal it was! Greg opted for a selection of different seafood mini-entrees featuring local crab. (The restaurant makes use of as much locally-grown and raised food as possible.) I opted for the dry-rubbed, spit-roasted pork with locally-made sauerkraut. Veggies and other side dishes are a la carte, so we ordered and split a side of fresh local beets.

What a complete pleasure everything was! The place was a little on the noisy side with a capacity crowd, but it was easy just to lose yourself in the food. Greg and I stole morsels from each other's plates. I'm shocked that we even had room for dessert, but Greg's came dressed with a birthday candle -- and no one was forced to sing.

Reservations are a pretty good idea -- even on a Tuesday, the place was humming -- but the staff does set aside a certain number of tables for last-minute diners. Whether you plan ahead of time or not, just go there sometime.

Dog Stuff

I'll get to Dinah's show news on her blog when I'm done here. Let's just say there's a lot of it to catch up on.

Last Saturday BCCME held a fun match here in my yard. I like to think a good time was had by all, but I'm afraid that probably includes the yellowjackets (like the Bush family, yet another species with no real purpose on earth). Folks inundated us with all manner of treats, from cider and donuts to fresh-picked local apples to birthday cake to cookies to... you get the idea. Greg bundled up a lot of the leftovers and brought them to church the next morning. Everyone had fun at our "practice dog show," and I think we might even have inspired one of the new members to consider showing her new puppy when she gets one.

While all that was going on, Dinah was at the Beardie beauty parlor, getting ready for a show on Sunday. I had to be insane to let myself get talked into driving to New Jersey just for a one-day show, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat. That's a story for another blog, though.

Sad to say, Seamus's and my next APDT rally trial, scheduled for next weekend, was cancelled. There were some problems getting the judging panel in order, apparently -- but there will be more trials next year. We might even practice for them ahead of time!

Greg Stuff

I can't believe it's almost November! Greg will be leaving for his residency at Ucross in a couple of weeks. He'll be home just in time for Thanksgiving, hopefully with some good work and some inspiration. By that time, he'll need to start making plans to head to New York for the recording session for the Sax Quartet.

We're still awaiting the master copy of the CD from Prague with the Water Suite on it. Not that Greg's been idle in the meantime. He's finished The Waking (song for voice and piano), and has been messing around with There and Back Again (instrumental for winds and percussion). He also burned a CD of the premiere performance of Clayton's Runaround and sent it, along with a printed and bound copy of the manuscript, to the owner of Clayton Farm in Mabou, NS, where the piece was inspired. (You can see a photo of Greg playing the antique pump organ at the farm here on his Web site.

Knitting Stuff

There hasn't been a heckuva lot of progress to report. Since I shipped off the Tofutsies socks to my sister, I've been putting in occasional moments on the second of the Sockotta socks. I've just about finished the heel turn.

Now that it's fall and my thoughts turn to wool, I hope to get back to the old sticks and string pretty soon. I've meant well -- I've carried my knitting with me everywhere I've gone this season -- but it hasn't really seen the outside of the knitting bag for more than a minute here and a minute there.

Most of the time, my stash lives in the living room on my overstuffed easy chair. Back in the olden days, only a couple of projects lived there and the rest lived downstairs in my work room. Now that the work room is in a complete shambles, all of the knitting projects are crammed into the easy chair, and no one can sit in or anywhere near it. I had to shove everything but the "sock bucket" into the bedroom closet just so our company could sit down someplace in the house. Now that our company has departed, the migration from closet to easy chair will begin again shortly.

Still Busted

Cute photo of Seamus and Dinah...

The finger is healing nicely, thankyouverymuch. I'm still stuck in this ridiculous splint and still trying to go through life pretending I'm left-handed. In another couple of weeks, though, this splint will be history! By then, my eyes will have stopped stinging from the last time I tried to spray a can of Lysol left-handed. Pow! Right in the kisser!

If I had known what a conversation-starter a crummy old splint in an Ace bandage would be, I would have bound my hand up years ago and used it to pick up guys while I was in college. It's just amazing -- no matter where I go, I end up striking up a conversation with someone about my busted finger. The splint attracts everyone from toddlers fascinated by an adult with a "boo-boo" to outdoorsy-type guys in flannels eager to relate their own misadventures and share the pain. People still seem vaguely disappointed by my story, though, so I have resolved to not tell the truth any longer. This week I think I'll say I rescued a kitten from a fire escape on the 40th story of a burning building. Hey, do we even have any 40-story buildings north of Boston?

You Like Me! You Really, Really Like Me!

Actually, I owe it all to Dale. Back in March when we brought our respective clubs to Meet the Breeds in Saco (Dale as POC, myself as BCCME), she got to talking with the editor of Downeast Dog News. DDN, for those of you who don't live in Maine, is a monthly newspaper-format publication dedicated to all things doggy going on in the State of Maine.

Dale has a particular talent for drawing people out. After schmoozing with Holly (the editor of DDN), she determined that what Holly really needed was more writers to help with articles -- and so she recommended me. After some months of off-and-on conversations and emails and sending of links to samples and suchlike, Holly and I have finally been able to meet, talk about some topics, and get things started.

I'm pleased to say that I now am a member of the dreaded media elite, since I am a freelance writer for DDN. I now have to get some articles together and my first two are obedience-related, so Dale and Sue might be asked to grant interviews one of these days. If I bring a camera, can I be referred to as "paparazzi" too??

And This Day in Yarn...

I finally finished Joyce's Tofutsies socks and shipped them off to her. She loves them, and doesn't care that they're fraternal twins instead of identical ones. That will still bother me until approximately forever, though. Joyce, however, loves the heck out of them. That makes the effort worthwhile.

As for the Sockotta socks, Sock #2 is still a cuff, but I'm about an inch away from the heel turn. I can't knit too quickly, but I can still knit -- so I'm making progress.

Since I've been lusting after some sweater patterns I've been seeing in the catalogs of late, I thought it would be a mighty good idea to at least finish the one I have in progress. I picked it up and tried to knit, but quit after about a row and a half. Since my hand is still in a splint, I can't hold heavy needles properly, and the three working fingers all feel strained from trying to adapt. This might not spell good news for sweater production, but I've been working on socks like crazy. They're light, and I can hold them without too much stress on the fingers.

Maybe it's seasonal and maybe it's not, but with the coming of fall, I find myself even more consumed by yarn lust and the desire for some new knitting projects. I've had to go on a yarn diet simply because I have no place to fit any more yarn -- so in order to acquire anything new, I need to keep on knitting until there's a visible hole in the current stash pile. I half-satisfied my need for Something by pulling out a skein of Mountain Colors Soxie (in the Caribbean colorway, which more reminds me of the colors on a peacock) and winding that into a ball. I placed it on the top of the yarns in my sock queue, partly for inspiration and partly because I really, really want to work on something I haven't been looking at for months on end. Maybe I'll fool myself by pulling out all of the other yarns in queue and replacing them with different sock yarns from the stash. Then, everything will look all shiny and new, and I'll be inspired to knit a wide swath through the collection. Sounds good, huh?

Tails of Good Karma

Between Meet the Breeds in Saco back in March and yesterday's event in Portland, BCCME has done its share of community service/education for the year 2007.

For those of you not familiar with Portland, Paws is one of the main fundraisers for the Animal Refuge League of Greater Portland. They hold their "walkathon" event in Deering Oaks Park in downtown Portland, and they invite dog rescues and dog-related businesses from all over the state to set up meet-and-greet tables.

Pat (the VP for BCCME) and I and our designated BCCME "show and tell" dog, Dinah, set up in the park yesterday morning. We came armed with the Beardie Rescue banner, information about Beardie Rescue and about BCCME, a DVD of Beardie photos, and Pat's portable DVD player. We set the EZ-Up up, parked the table and chairs, got Dinah settled in a crate, and prepared to schmooze our crowd.

We actually met some Beardie people -- one woman with a Beardie mix whose front half was Beardie and whose back half was Collie (I'm not kidding!), another couple who lost a Beardie and were interested in getting to know some Beardie people (maybe)... and even the daughter-in-law of Dinah's uncle Badger Burfitt's owner in Virginia! We shook hands, kissed babies, and visited with members of other rescues. Dinah enjoyed being the subject of much admiration, though I had to tell a few people that she was for "show and tell" only, and not up for adoption. The Eastern Maine Agility Club set up next to us, and Dinah was eyeing the A-frame for a long while -- but by the time we were free to run their course, she was just too tired from entertaining all day.

It was a lovely day for a dog walk in the park -- especially one that came with free Starbucks coffee. We were all pretty much worn out from entertaining by the time things ended, though. Back at Val and Pat's house, Dinah got to see Her Trav and bounce around with him. Trav did his pirate impression for me ("arrrrrrr") and nibbled my nose. Of course, their other Beardies, Maddie and Mac, thought I came to see them. Don't tell them that I went to see Val!

Like I Needed Another Time-Sink

Honestly, I don't know what possessed me. I could have gone for the rest of my entire life without creating a Facebook page... but I did it just for chuckles, and now I'm finding out what a great time-sucker it can be. Don't even ask me what it's like to be a middle-aged denizen of a social network. I don't often feel old, but on Facebook, I might as well paste an AARP membership card to my forehead and bleach my hair white.

Just because I can't stand to waste time all on my own, I suckered poor Dale in, too.

Greg has had a MySpace page for a while, but he doesn't use it very often. (Go there to hear his music tracks!)

Speaking of Greg, the recording session for his Water suite went smoothly. He spoke with the conductor a couple of times and they swapped emails -- and all of a sudden, he received a flurry of very complimentary notes from the conductor and from ERM saying that the session was done and went smoothly, and that the orchestra really enjoyed doing the suite. Those folks waste very little time! If I heard Greg correctly, the email from ERM said that he could have a "proof" copy in his hands within the next couple of weeks!

The Czech Philharmonic isn't the only one making good use of time. Greg's been working on a song (for voice and chamber ensemble?) that began life as a class assignment from his time studying composition at BU with Lukas Foss. This one is entitled Waking, and I believe the words come from a poem by Theodore Roethke.

Oh, and back to the subject of time sinks... The audio version of the seventh Harry Potter book landed on our doorstep this morning, courtesy of Amazon -- whom I thought was shipping pre-ordered books out last Saturday! Silly me. Anywho, absolutely nothing is going to get done in this household for the next several evenings. We have 17 hours' worth of Harry Potter to get through. Let the unwatched programs pile up in the TiVo and the dishes in the sink -- we've been waiting ages for this! We went to see the movie a couple of weeks ago, and that just whetted our appetites for the latest story.

(Our neighbor just called to let us know that the town's water district will be working on the mains on our street starting tomorrow, and that we probably won't have water for a couple of days. Looks like the dishes aren't getting done anyway, so it's paper-plate time.)

Dog Stuff

Last weekend BCCME had its second annual Beardie Bounce and BBQ at the club president's house. Greg and I usually bring Charlie to dog parties because he plays well with others and hangs out by the kiddie pool most of the time (instead of, say, the food tables). This time, we brought Dinah, and she had a fine time for her little pretty self.



She romped, she flirted with her best buddy Traveler (and all the boys), she hung out by the pool with all the cool grrrrls, and she slept very, very well on the way home. She'll make a fine party animal.

Now that the Great Hunt for Majors is on, Dinah and I haven't been entering as many shows as we have in the past. Unfortunately, sometimes we take a gamble and enter a show in the hopes that there will be enough dogs for a major, and we still lose. We're eating the entry for the August 4 show in Greenfield, MA because Dinah ended up being the only class bitch entered. Even if she went BOB over the four specials, she still wouldn't be able to get a major -- so we're saving gas and hotel money and simply eating the $25 or $27 or so it cost to enter. BAH. (The good news is that I now don't have to leave town while Dale and Val are at the lake. They're going to be seeing a lot more of me that week!)

That doesn't mean that The Lovely One hasn't had anything else to do all summer. She's been doing Beginning Agility at Happy Tails on Wednesday nights, and she should be getting some herding lessons as soon as we, Fran, and good weather are all in the same place at the same time. I'd love to enter her for HT in the Labor Day trials in CT, but we haven't been practicing very much.

Summertime Knitting

It's been so sticky out of late that about the only thing I can stand to knit is socks -- mainly because they're too small to stick to my sweaty epidermis while I'm working on them. If this weather trend continues, I might be able to keep up with all of the promises I've made to various people to knit them some socks.

Greg's gray Jawoll socks are proceeding nicely. Working on the second sock feels much better, and is going more smoothly, than work on the first sock. I'm getting more used to the feel of working socks on dpns (though I'm still a circular-needle kind of gal). I'm about a third of the way down the leg of the second sock, so The Man might have a new pair of socks relatively soon.

Because I've been steaming along on Greg's socks, I haven't been working as much on Joyce's Tofutsies socks -- but they're the easy ones, since I'm doing them on a circular. I've turned the heel and am proceeding down the foot on the first sock. Since Joyce has tiny feet (at least compared to my size-niners), it shouldn't take me too long to reach the toe.

Also in the knitting bag: one completed Sockotta sock for myself and half a skein left to knit, and two skeins of Wildfoote in colors Jody would like.

It Figures

My friend Susannah always says "There's never a 2 without a 3." Usually she's referring to the deaths of celebrities, or any other event that happens in threes. If I've counted correctly, though, things have been happening in fours around here.

First, the bottom dropped out of our rear storm door. We've been meaning to replace it with a wooden storm door and an installed doggie door, but the metal door was good enough until now.

Next, our coffee maker started acting as though it were possessed by a decaf demon. It would shut itself off at random intervals during the brewing process, and I'd have to go back into the kitchen to turn it back on. Yesterday, it kept shutting off within seconds of being restarted, and the timer/clock started to flash insanely.

The lack of coffee in this household could rightly be construed as an emergency. Fortunately, we had an emergency backup coffee maker in the garage. I set it up and turned it on, only to discover that the built-in grinder didn't work. I had to pour the beans back into my small Krups grinder, and then place the ground coffee into the filter.

Oh, and then I went out the front door this morning to put the mail out in the box, and the front screen door started dragging suspiciously over the doormat. Don't tell me... let me guess...

My Dogs Are Barkin'!

...and I'm not talking about the Beardies!

As Sue mentioned in her blog, this past weekend was the York County Kennel Club show. As usual, I ended up wearing several proverbial hats at once: obedience chair for the show, one of the hosts for the BCCME Supported Entry, exhibitor, trash picker... you name it. I swear I've been on my feet for two weeks straight.

The crack squad of stewards from POC made sure that the obedience and rally trials ran smoothly, and they were most forgiving of a first-time obedience chair whose duties hadn't been explained before the fact. I hope we all get to work together next year just to show them how much I've learned.

The Beardie club held its first supported entry at the show and lived to tell the tale...



We ate, we drank, we showed, we shopped, and we all went out for lobster after Saturday's show was over. People appeared to have a pretty good time.

Dinah got dumped in the ring both days, as I'll discuss in my other blog later on. That's the biggest bummer about conformation showing: there can only be one winner, and everybody else has to lose. In performance events, everyone can qualify at a trial (at least in theory), so you don't have to go home empty-handed if you didn't get High in Trial.

Like I Needed Another Hobby

The spinning wheel is here! My friend Barbara kindly and graciously drove it all the way to Maine from Maryland when it was obvious that there was no room for it in (or on) my Subaru. She even carefully buckled it into the rear passenger seat so it could safely enjoy the ride.

Pictures are coming, Sue, I promise! The wheel is a vertical type with a single pedal, and it's been painted a soft blue-green. the friend who gave it to me also threw in a baggie full of the loveliest, most perfect roving to get started with.

Sometimes the Smallest Things are Luxury Enough

I've been a total miscreant this past week. Except for my Saturday morning agility class with Seamus, I cut all my classes just to have more time to myself. Don't get me wrong -- I love my classes -- but the one thing I really wanted more than anything was just to sleep late, slowly reviving myself over a nice big steaming mug of coffee, and reveling in the relative quiet.

Greg's hiking Mt. Abbot in the snow and ice this afternoon. I have my giant mug of coffee, and all the pups are napping. Ahhhhhhh.

Wednesday was my 50th birthday, and I can't quite tell whether I'm more relieved or disappointed that it wasn't a very big deal. I got more mail from AARP than anybody else. When I turned 40, I was so horrified at the 40th-birthday parties some of my friends were throwing with Depends and Dentu-Creme as gifts that I couldn't wait to get out of Dodge. I spent that birthday on a business trip to Sarasota, driving around Longboat Key in a co-worker's rented Mustang convertible.

If I'd had the time and the available funds, I probably would have hied myself off to someplace warm, where I could sit on the beach with an umbrella drink in one hand and a book in the other, and with no interruptions. Greg says he has no interest in going to Hawaii or any other such place, but I remember his having said that about New Orleans once, too -- and now I think he wants to get back there worse than I do.

The Dogs of Winter

Now that we're experiencing actual winter in this latitude, it's mostly been too frickin' cold to snow. We did get about 5 inches earlier in the week, though, and the puppies couldn't wait to get out and play in it...



To Dinah, the world is her snow cone...



Charlie has always enjoyed romping in the snow...



And Seamus, our little Canadian guy, is pretty happy in this weather... eh?



Music News (Such As There Is)

Greg's been so busy coordinating the various people, pieces, and papers associated with the upcoming CD that he hasn't really had much time to do extensive work on his own pieces. Now that the initial work is done, he's been able to go back and do some work on his own compositions.

Following in Bach's tradition, he borrowed one of his own themes (the brass chorale from Niagara) and expanded it into a theme and variations for brass quintet. A friend of mine plays with a few different bands around the Portland area, and one of the groups was interested in playing it when Greg's ready for a performance. My friend listened to it and said that it was beyond the abilities of most of the folks she plays with, but that the first trumpet in the band that requested the piece could certainly find brass players who were up to the challenge.

It's a big, full, colorful piece with many shifting moods -- I'm really looking forward to hearing the finished piece.

I'm a sucker for big brass sounds, anyway. No matter how many times I hear it, Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man still gives me the chills. (I had it as a ringtone for my phone a while ago, but got tired of people saying, "Oh, the Olympics!" I now have the Blues Brothers' rendition of Curtis Mayfield's "I Can't Turn You Loose" -- come to think of it, that piece is another brass showcase. If you're a fan of the movie, this is the song they play during the big cop-car-chase scene.)

Who, Me?

I'm not usually the kind of person who gets singled out for recognition, which is why I've never been a big one for awards. It's nice to be able to do stuff with my dogs that earns them recognition, but their achievements are theirs. In general, when it's time for the glory to be given out, I'm not the one people generally see.

Imagine my complete surprise, then, when the rest of the BCCME Board presented me with a certificate naming me Member of the Year 2006, plus an accompanying gift certificate for one of the local restaurants. I was so surprised I almost looked behind me to see who else might be standing there. That was just so nice of them, and so unexpected -- plus it's a rare pleasure to be that surprised. All I can say is, "Wow!"

Falling in Love Again

Since my PC committed seppuku, I've been forced to spend more time getting re-acquainted with my Mac -- and I must tell you, this computer makes me wonder where I've been all these years. I seriously LOVE this machine. Every day I find another nifty built-in function of OS X that I hadn't taken the time to discover before, each one makes me want to create something. I'm happiest when I'm creating, so this little machine has just been a complete delight since I started really using it. It's so nicely integrated, and everything talks to everything else. It just makes me want to MAKE STUFF all day long.

Dedicated Windows types generally regard Macophiles as belonging to some sort of cult. How can anyone be THAT crazy about a frickin' computer? I used to take that kind of abuse from the bigger Windows types at my former job (though the UNIX folks were pretty cool) -- but I was the first one they came to see when their PCs couldn't read one another's file formats. I use Windows, UNIX, and MacOS every day -- and I just don't get that fired up about Windows. I don't hate it, I don't regard it as the enemy, but there's just nothing about it that I can find compelling. Not so the Mac. I could play with this thing all day -- and it even has UNIX, so I can play with that too if I really want to.

Greg bought me a copy of Parallels Desktop for my birthday. I know the real gearheads out there are all talking about VMWare, but Parallels is pretty damn cool. It allows me to bring up a Windows XP window using my XP Boot Camp partition while running Mac OS. Like most virtual machines, it's not exactly high-performance. If I want to run Photoshop or another resource hog, I still need to boot into Windows for real -- but now I can easily find stuff on my other partition without having to drop everything I'm doing on this one.

My latest find is MacGourmet. How much freakin' fun can you have?! It not only functions as a recipe database that helps you figure out what you can cook with what you have, but it converts from metric to US and back, clips recipes from Web sites and emails, and even enables you to publish your recipe collection on iWeb so you can share it with other MacGourmet users and access it yourself. (Anyone who has ever saved piles of stuff cut out from the daily newspaper will appreciate this feature. Web pages never get yellow and brittle with age.)

Best of all, the company is located in Lewiston, Maine. Maybe it's because I've had to spend my entire career working out of state, but it never fails to delight me to hear that other folks are actually doing high tech in Maine. You go, guys!

Just a Little Knitting

I haven't really had much time to take up the needles of late, but I'm working on a few things. Susannah bought a couple of skeins of Manos cotton yarn in a sweet shade of lavender, and I'm knitting a simple-but-satisfying 1x1 rib scarf for her. This yarn is so soft and so nice to handle that I might just be sad to be finished with it.

The Seacolors sweater has progressed to the point where the back is done, and I've started a few rows of the front. This is my current favorite "dumb knitting" project, since I have to put out about 29" of simple stockinette before I really have to pay attention to what I'm supposed to be doing. Works for me. I have a lot of TiVo to catch up on.

This coming Friday, Fran and I are taking a mitten class at Rosemary's. I can probably figure out how to make them on my own, but it's good for the soul to spend an afternoon over there with Fran and some other folks, working with our local Peace Fleece yarn and having a good old time. It's just plain nice to get out of the routine sometimes. Even if it's not a real trip to someplace warm, it's a mini-vacation where I get to go someplace and make something warm. Close enough.

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.