A Dozen Years of Chuckles

Charlie (WayToMe Midsummer Knight, HIC) is 12 years old today. It hardly seems possible that my little brown fuzzball could be a canine senior citizen. It wasn't that long ago that he was jumping four feet straight up to pull the babies off my spider plant and hanging on to Doogie's ears for free rides from room to room.



His name was Charlie long before he was even a twinkle in his sire Jamie's eye. Since Beardies are Scots dogs, I was possessed of the deeply non-original idea of naming my next puppy after Bonnie Prince Charlie. Little did I know that I'd end up with Good Time Charlie instead.

Charlie might actually be my first "slacker Beardie." Maybe that's due to the experience of having shared a household with Duncan, the Border Collie in a Beardie suit, the canine A student. Maybe it's because he's brown. (In the ancient Beardie lore, the brown Beardies are the troublemakers, the dirt-rollers, the silly ones, the ones who don't play by the rules. It's part myth, part self-fulfilling prophecy, and part spot-on description.) Anyhow, Charlie was always destined to go his own way.

I tried every activity in dogdom with Charlie, looking to find something he and I could enjoy. He enjoyed puppy-K and basic obedience classes, but more for the social aspect than for any genuine educational value. Sure, he did what he was asked and looked really cute in his POC mortarboard, but he made it clear that obedience just wasn't his thing. At the Canine Good Citizen test, he jumped on the examiners -- but passed all of the other, harder tests. He didn't want to be seen as an overachiever.

Herding was my first love as a dog sport, and Duncan lived for it. I started taking Charlie along to herding lessons. He half-heartedly moved the sheep around a little and then went off to splash around in the stock tank. Although he did earn an HIC (Herding Instinct Certificate) from the BCCA, he never really thought much of sheep. The stock he was given to work in his instinct test had been ripped on all day by at least a dozen Malinois, and it was the hottest day of the year. No way were they moving for anybody, least of all a Beardie puppy. The passing score was more or less a gift. (Not that Charlie can't herd. He's tried it since as an adult, and is good enough at it. He could just take it or leave it.)

We tried agility for a while, too. He would run the course perfectly and end up at the door. "All right, I've done this. Let's get out of here." He did enjoy flirting with the pretty Rough Collie babes, so at least agility class had a few perks. At agility trials, he'd run the course, head straight for the kiddie pool, and start splashing.

Next, we tried tracking. Charlie actually did a brilliant job and found all of the objects on his trail. He also found the swamp closest to the tracking field, plunged in, and emerged grinning, looking like The Creature from the Black Lagoon's dog. People recoiled at the sight of him.

Charlie loved many activities in his youth, however -- and he still does. He's always enjoyed hiking, and is far more obedient off-leash than he has ever been on-leash. Most of his favorite activities involve dirt, water, or a combination of both. At Beardie Bounces, the hosts always filled the pool for Charlie. He'd spend the day in it, and would invite other Beardies (preferably clean, well-trained ones) to share it. No matter the season, he'd never pass up a chance to jump into the waves on the beach and lie down to let the surf roll over his back. To this day, he's never so happy as when he's running on the sand and splashing in the surf.



He also possesses a great fondness for rolling in stinky stuff, a habit he learned from his dad Jamie. Be it big or be it small, he would never pass up a chance to roll onto -- or in -- something smelly. He'd try to roll on dead earthworms in the driveway. He'd roll in deer and fox poo on the trail. His ultimate score was the very, very dead seagull he once found on the beach. If I could have, I'd have driven the car home with my head out the window.

These days, Chuckles presides over the household as elder statesman. From the age of about 9 months, he held the post of alpha dog of the pack. Although it appears that Badger might want to take over the day-to-day operation of running the dog pack, Charlie still surveys his domain like the king he is -- even if he is King of the Slackers.

Happy Birthday, Cheeseball, and here's hoping for many more!

If It Weren't For Twitter, I'd Have No Blog at All

It seems like forever since I've taken the time to update this blog. Sorry for the long silence! If it weren't for the Twitter stream on the right side of the page, there would have been no signs of life here. Because spring is here and the show season won't be too far behind, I started by updating my other blog.

In my own defense, I did have some sort of flu for the past week or so, and was too busy coughing to blog about it. Greg had it first, and the two of us are still coughing some. Aside from getting tired easily, we're both over it at this point.

We did get some spring cleaning done, so to speak. Dinah went to the groomer's...



And so did Badger. Doesn't he clean up nicely?



Then Seamus and Charlie got all spiffed up...



Brief Man Update

The Man's Sax Quartet has reached the final stage of editing, and will be released shortly. We heard it last night, and it never fails to amaze me how much depth and color a piece gains when you hear it played by real instruments for the first time -- even if you know every note of the MIDI version by heart.

Likewise, we're still waiting on the release of the Water Suite and the String Quintet, but those should happen Any Day Now.

Greg isn't actually composing anything at the moment, but he's been buried deep in his study of harmony. He has also been taking on more piano students, plus one adult organ student. He's pleased to discover that he actually enjoys teaching children, and he has a small herd of kids to teach now.

And In Yarn News...

One of the red Happy Feet socks is now complete. Once I've finished the pair, they'll go to Jody (who loves red) -- just in time for flip-flop weather (timing was never my strong suit). Happy Feet is such a pleasure to knit with, and it creates a terrific fabric. I might have to knit a pair in every color!

Not content to cast on just one, I'm also working on a pair of blue, black, and white socks for my friend Lynne, who put me up on my trip south to pick up Badger. I had some Sock It To Me yarn that was looking for an excuse to get made into something, and so I'm working on cuffs as my current "idiot knitting" project.

As far as non-idiot knitting goes... I'm still taking my Wednesday morning knitting class. This time I've tackled a more complicated (but still simple) lace project, and have finally mastered it. Lace knitting requires decent light and concentration, so it's highly doubtful that I'll ever be able to do any here at home. When I do take the time to count everything correctly, though, it's fun to see the pattern emerging.

Other Stuff

Job hunt: Don't ask. I'm still trapped in a horrible inertia as far as updating my resume goes. Now that the severance has come in and I've been well and truly set adrift from Sun, I have to get working on it. Maybe I'm just having trouble working up the enthusiasm; I don't know.

It's a Sheepdog Circus!

This is just what my house looks like in the morning, only my Beardies bark more.

A Whole Miscellany of News

(as you can see, Badger has fit in perfectly here. Doesn't he clean up nicely?)

Maple Mania

Today is Maine Maple Sunday, one of my favorite times of the year. No matter how crappy the weather might be, the very fact that the sap is rising means that spring is just around the corner. Next, the daffodils will come up and the Red Sox will return to Fenway. Only then can we truly declare the winter to be past in this latitude.

Real spring in this region rarely if ever coincides with the vernal equinox; the coming of March 20 is merely a signal that we're headed in the right direction.

I just love Maple Sunday, though -- it's one of my favorite holidays in the springtime calendar. All the local sugar houses are open, and the air smells of boiling maple sap. You can sample pancakes with maple syrup, maple cream on crackers, hot dogs boiled in maple sap with maple syrup on top (hey, don't knock it till you try it), maple syrup on ice cream, maple baked beans, maple whoopie pies, maple fudge, and even maple cotton candy. Of course, the 2009 crop is also available for sale, and Greg and I usually stock up for the year.

It should be a good day for the sugar houses. The weather is beautiful, today is not Easter Sunday, and everybody has at least a touch of cabin fever. Hope that sales will be good in spite of the sucky economy. At least more people are conscious of what it means to buy local these days, and I'm hoping that helps the farmers as well.

And in Woolen News

My dad went completely bonkers for the gray Scheepjes socks. I finally finished them just before heading to Richmond, and gave them to him on the southbound trek. By the time I made it back north a few days later, he had them on his feet and was wondering whether I could make him another pair, or two, or a few. His feet get cold enough so that wool-blend socks are welcome at any time of year -- so now I have a standing order for as many men's socks as I care to knit.

Greg has hinted that a few more watch caps would not be unwelcome, too -- so I have my knitting orders for a good while.

My friend Fran and I signed up for a Wednesday-morning knitting class offered through the local school district's adult education program. The instructor is an old friend of ours from the days when Bumblebee Quilts was still open in Waterboro, so it's been like going to a reunion every week. (One of the good things about not working is that you have the time to do stuff like this.) I finished a class dishcloth project, and have been tackling a lace bookmark using leftover sock yarn.

I've also been working on another pair for Jody in red Happy Feet yarn. Know how there are some yarns that you just love working with? Knitting with Happy feet is just a pleasure; I enjoy the heck out of every stitch. I just like the feel of the yarn, its substance, the feel of the knitted fabric, and the fact that it doesn't split easily. I need to make at least one pair in every color.

And in Music News

You have to love technology. Last week, Greg's String Quintet was recorded over in the Czech Republic. The producer set up a laptop running Skype in the studio so Greg could see the string players and interact with everybody there. He was able to talk to them about interpretation of certain passages and other inputs, and they were able to respond. The whole session was simply amazing, and everyone went away delighted with the result.

I'll add more in a subsequent post. Blogger is having technical difficulties, and I'm afraid that if I don't push the button now, I'll lose everything in this post.

To Be Continued...

Travels with Badger Blue

Meet Badger (Breaksea Revolution)! He's handsome and sweet, he's 6 years old, and he fits into our pack as though he's always been here. He also has a fine appreciation of music, including that old Irving Berlin tune "Blue Guy's smiling at me...".

When I met up with Badge down in Virginia a couple of weeks ago, I didn't know whether I could ever help fix this poor dog. His owner had died at the end of January. He seemed sad and lost, as though his heart had been broken and he didn't belong anywhere any more. The light appeared to have gone out of him. He started to perk up a bit after a night's sleepover with my dad and sister in Massachusetts, but he refused to eat or pee, and he still seemed timid.

However, when we walked into the house here and he was introduced to the three resident Beardies, he turned and gave me the biggest, toothiest grin I've ever received from one of these shaggy buggers. He knew he was home. He simply fit into the pack and was accepted instantly -- no doggie-fraternity hazing, no discussions on pack hierarchy... none of that. Dinah loved him instantly because she never met a man she didn't like, but even the boys were romping around the dog yard with him within minutes.

I didn't fix this poor dog's broken heart -- my other dogs did. All he wanted was a pack to call his own. Now he's the Mayor of Everything, Mr. Hail-Fellow-Well-Met. Everyone loves him -- people, puppies, even a few cats here and there. I thought I would have to hard-sell Greg on the concept of a fourth dog, but Greg is as smitten with him as the rest of us are. Badger will be Greg's new running buddy.

Of course, only I could leave Maine for the South and get snowed on down there. Mother Nature laughs at me; we were visited with 10-18 inches of the horrendous white crap that i thought I'd left at home! I ended up staying an extra day in Virginia before the roads were cleared, but we made it home eventually.

Even though I could have made it to Richmond in one 11-hour stretch, it sure was nice to be able to break up the traveling into pieces and to see friends all along the way. This might be as close as I get to a vacation this year, so I'm glad I was able to mix in a little fun between rest stops.

Missions of Mercy

I would enjoy this not-working thing if only it paid better. Actually, I'm not un-employed, but under-employed -- I'm working part-time as a Web monkey for an office services company and taking on a bunch of fun Web site work. A month into my kiss-off from Sun, and I've been so busy that I haven't had the time to apply much serious effort toward looking for a full-time job. I've attended a couple of webinars (the person who invented that term ought to be slapped with a dictionary), talked with my outplacement counselor, and done some networking. My resume is still rusty and covered with cobwebs, though. That's the next task. I've just been too busy working to look for work.

This is one of those times when having a wide network of friends and acquaintances, many of whom have experienced the same situation at one time or another, will save one's sanity. I've been in touch with several friends who have experienced the same thing. They've supplied me with help, advice, leads to writing gigs, links to useful articles, and so on. One friend got me my current part-time job as a Web monkey for a virtual-office company. Dale has been more than helpful and generous, funneling a number of Web projects my way. Sue recommended that I talk to her neighbor about a site, and a whole new friendship is evolving thanks to her. If it weren't for the people I know, I probably would still be cowering under the blankets. Thanks, everybody, from the bottom of my heart.

Got Nothing But Time -- Oh, Don't Have That, Either

Spinoza knew what he was talking about when he coined the famous phrase "Nature abhors a vacuum" -- and he wasn't talking about our crappy old Electrolux, either. The very second I lost my job, dozens of tasks rushed in to fill the space where work used to be. How did I ever work 8+ hours a day and take care of all of the things that needed taking care of? Oh, yeah, that's right. I juggled. I juggled then as I do now, only twice as much and twice as crazily.

A couple of weeks ago, Dale and I were having a breakfast meeting at her favorite local hangout (the cafe at the local airport). That place serves up a pretty mean breakfast for not too much money, plus you get to watch planes come and go. Can't hate that! Anyway, while we were sitting there, I received a message on my Blackberry from Dinah's breeder in the UK saying that a mutual friend of ours had died in January. He owned a Breaksea dog (Dinah's uncle Badger), and did I know anyone who could help with the dog?

A few texts, some emails, and a bunch of phone calls later, and all was set: I would go to Virginia to pick up Badger and bring him here. I knew Badger back when he was living in the Old Country, and he became one of my best buddies when I went over to bring Dinah home. If I didn't have Dinah's dad Danny on my lap, I had her uncle Badger (Danny's half-brother).

Sure, Badger could have found a home in the area. The National Capital Bearded Collie Club has a crack network of rescue volunteers, and a number of people offered homes when they heard that our friend had died. I admit to being selfish about this one, though: I love Badger and didn't want him to go anyplace else. Greg will probably take us all to the animal shelter when he realizes that Badger isn't just here temporarily (if I can help it), but he's actually been fine with the idea thus far.

Since I'm technically out of work, I have the opportunity to make a mini-vacation out of the trip. I could just drive the 11-12 hours straight, pick Badger up, and beat it home, but why rush? I can visit people along the way -- stop in to see my dad in Massachusetts and give my sister some time off, crash overnight near Baltimore with a Beardie friend and go to a huge local craft fair, visit another friend's new house in the DC suburbs, and enjoy my time in Richmond seeing old friends. If Mother Nature cooperates, it could be a fine little excursion. Badger's a good traveler and gets along well with everybody -- we could celebrate our first road trip together.

That's the thing about being laid off -- the first instinct is to berate oneself for not getting a new job right away, coupled with the fear of what happens if you don't find one before the severance package runs out. It takes some time before you can look past that fear to the opportunities beyond. Having time is a vastly underrated opportunity. I can't say as I've used it all wisely in this first month, but at least I understand that my time is now mine to make use of, or to squander, as I decide.

More On the Time Thing

Although I haven't realized my dream of going straight back to art school as soon as I became newly unemployed, I did sign up for a daytime knitting class with a friend of mine. It's nice to be able to get out of the house and concentrate on nothing but knitting for a couple of hours. The instructor is a mutual friend of ours who once worked at our late lamented local yarn shop, and who has been teaching multiple knitting and crochet classes for the local adult education department since then.

I've taken the opportunity to learn lace knitting. Sure, I can do yarnovers with the best of them, but I've been averse to taking on projects that involve much counting just because I am constantly interrupted here. Any time I have to set down my work mid-row to answer the phone/answer Greg/let the dogs out/go to the door/change channels on the TV, I'm lost. This explains why I've had a simple basketweave throw sitting in a bag in the Frog Pond since the 2004 World Series -- being able to concentrate on anything here for more and a minute at a time is impossible. If I were smart, I'd just frog the poor thing and take it with me to class.

Anyway, the prospect of doing some dedicated lace knitting is exciting. I'll be making something tiny like a bookmark, but no matter. The important thing is that I get to devote two hours to nothing but lace knitting.

Bittersweet Man News

Greg says that he's almost finished with the editing of the recordings for the Sax Quartets CD. He took on the editing tasks for his piece and that of his former professor at BU, Lukas Foss. This past week, we got word that Lukas had died on February 1. We had known he'd been in declining health for a while, and the New Hudson Sax Quartet had to record his piece at Lukas's apartment in New York because he wasn't able to go to them. Still, it's sad news. I never met Lukas, though I answered the phone a couple of times when he called looking for Greg. Sad to think that Lukas won't be around when this CD comes out.

The same label that is issuing the Sax Quartets recording is also recording and releasing Greg's String Quintet. You might remember this piece from my post about "The Ugly Quintet." Anyway, in its new and beautiful form as a piece for strings, the Quintet will be recorded in the Czech Republic sometime soon (if it hasn't already), and will be released at some point. I have no idea whether the piece will be included in another collection, released on its own, or whether it will be part of an all-Greg CD. The label has a whole spiderweb of distribution agreements with Naxos Records, iTunes, and a gazillion other musical outlets. I've been promising that all these CDs in the works will be released Any Time Now, so I'm not going to make any more announcements until I have a copy in one hand and am typing into this blog with the other.

Diary of a Bad Housewife

It's been a week since my job of 11+ years and I parted ways, and it's been one of the strangest, busiest weeks I've endured in a very long time. I wish I could tell you that things were falling into place, and that I'm adjusting to my new status as an economic statistic, but I just haven't made it that far yet. There's still so much to do, and organize, and think through -- and I haven't even had a spare moment to compile a to-do list or four.

The first few days have been somewhere beyond weird. My head's been spinning with all of the strange and unfamiliar tasks I've had to do, plus I've experienced a different emotion every five minutes. I'm told this is a normal part of the process, but it doesn't please me or comfort me much that I'm having to go through it in the first place.

One of the weirder tasks involved having to pack up all of the company-owned equipment here in my home office and drive it down to the office building, then surrender it (along with my badge, my access card, and my Amex corporate card) to one of the security guards. The guards were very sweet to me; it's just that I realized that I was now a guest in the building, and not allowed beyond the front lobby any more. I'm somewhat glad that I didn't run into anyone I know. That would have made for more awkwardness that I think I could have handled.

The Universe does provide, though. When word got out that I was out of work, I was deluged with offers of Web site work -- so many that I need another to-do list just to keep them all organized. In a way, you might say that I got my wish. At one point, I was working on one Web site or another and thinking, "I LOVE this stuff. I wish I could do this for a living." At least for now, that's what I'm doing. The going rate for such work is approximately half what I was making, though -- so I'm afraid that Web work will always have to be part-time for me. I'll have to find another full-time gig doing what I was doing. In the meantime, I have as much "fun work" ahead of me as I can possibly handle. (Thanks to Sue and Dale for getting things started. I am grateful.)

Another thing I caught myself saying was, "If I only had a little time off, I could REALLY straighten up this house." That hasn't happened yet, either. I've been so taken up with all of the crazy details of work (new and old) that I've only been able to keep up with the bare minimum of routine tasks, let alone tackle any of the real messes.

At least cooking is fun again. While I've been working, much of the day-to-day meal prep has fallen to Greg. He can cook better than he thinks he can, but his big meal is breakfast. There are two camps of cooks: those who eat to live, and those who live to eat. Greg is an Eat-to-Live. I'm a Live-to-Eat. In my version of Hell, you get served microwaved spaghetti topped with Ragu every single night. At least this whole new spare-time phenomenon means that I can get to the fish market before it closes, so we've been eating more salmon and less pasta.

My youngest sister sent me a call for help this past week that will result in some more cooking -- only not for us. She lives with my dad, and as his health issues get more complicated, she has had to assume more of his day-to-day care: food preparation, getting him to appointments, listening to the doctors, coping with the increasing number of emergencies, and so on. She asked me to drive down there and take Dad out to lunch a couple of times a month so she can have a respite and some time to herself, and also to make some food that agrees with his diet, freeze it, and bring that. It isn't really so much to ask, aside from the 300-mile round trip drive. My siblings have been helping some, and it's just my turn.

At Least the Knitting Statistics Are Showing an Upward Trend

Thus far, I haven't indulged my very small-but-sweet fantasy of spending an entire day just knitting. I did manage to finish another scarf for Susannah out of some pretty reddish-bronze ribbon yarn in my stash, and I've shipped it off to her. I've pulled some skinny chenille yarn from the same stash and have cast it on for the next scarf (I loathe chenille yarn, but the colors were irresistible). I've also turned the heel on the second of my dad's Scheepjes socks and am making my way slowly down the foot. At the rate I'm going, he might actually be able to wear them before the vernal equinox.

Greg mentioned how much he loves watch caps. At least now I know what I can knit for him that he actually would wear. Now, if only I could find where my Denise needles got off to...