The geriatric dog versus the alarm clock

by RChicken on May 18, 2012

My sweet neurotic beast is almost 10 1/2 years old.  In the past six months, he’s had several mornings where he’s ready to go outside before my alarm clock blares. And my body wants to sleep PAST the alarm clock blaring.

Liberty - the neurotic dog

Liberty, the neurotic dog

Therein lies the problem.

This morning was one of those mornings.

The timeline begins at 5:05 a.m.

scritch, scratch - Liberty’s universal signal that he wants something is to scratch on the nearest door.

He waits exactly 3 seconds. (My dog is neurotic, but very very smart)

He pads over to me.

pad..pad…pad..pad..pad..pad..pad..pad (It is exactly eight dog steps from my bedroom door to the side of my bed)

sniff…sniff…. (He sniffs to see if I’m awake — apparently I smell differently awake than asleep?)

Waits exactly 3 seconds.

He pads back to the door.

pad..pad…pad..pad..pad..pad..pad..pad

scritch, scratch

three second wait…

pad..pad…pad..pad..pad..pad..pad..pad

sniff…sniff….

This pattern repeats about three times. Each time, I pray that he’ll decide that he can wait just until the alarm goes off at 6:00.

Eventually, he lays down next to the bed, resigned to the fact that I’m not awake yet.

And then, I’ll have a hair tickling my nose, or a cold shoulder or a need for a Kleenex, and I have to move to take care of it. I spend a minute or two trying to decide if it’s worth it. One single solitary move from me will result in the dog thinking I’m one step closer to being awake and begin the pattern all over again.

Eventually, the tickling hair will win, I will move my arm to get rid of it, and the dog will immediately jump up with high hopes that now I might be roused from my slumber.

pad..pad…pad..pad..pad..pad..pad..pad

scritch, scratch

three second wait…

pad..pad…pad..pad..pad..pad..pad..pad

sniff…sniff….

I lay perfectly still.

pad..pad…pad..pad..pad..pad..pad..pad

scritch, scratch

three second wait…

pad..pad…pad..pad..pad..pad..pad..pad

sniff…sniff….

He finally gives up again and flops down (noisily) on the floor.

But now, I’m wide awake from counting his steps, counting his waiting seconds (because I’m so terribly Type A that I count such ridiculous things).

And I wonder if I should just get up.

The bed is so comfy.

The coffee isn’t ready yet.

I open one eye.

I see him waiting patiently there on the floor.

I know that he follows me everywhere.

He’s devoted and loyal and loving and sweet.

And I’m being selfish.

So, two minutes before the alarm is set to sound, I roll out of bed, stumble around for my glasses and head for the door.

He’s instantly bouncing along beside me. Yes, he still bounces even at his advanced age.

She’s awake. She’s awake! Holy cow, I can’t believe it, she’s awake!!!!

We get to the kitchen. I open the back door.

He sits down and looks at me. He doesn’t want out.

He throws a side-long glance toward his food bowl.

The bugger is HUNGRY.

Sigh. THAT could have waited two minutes.

 

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In which I have a tantrum…

by RChicken on May 16, 2012

If my subconscious is any indication, this school year needs to end — STAT!

Night before last, I had an initially disturbing dream, which with 24 hours perspective, has actually become laughable…and when something’s laughable, I usually share.

In the dream, I was in my office, but not my actual office — either one of them. I know, seems a bit odd to dream that I have yet ANOTHER office, two being quite enough already.

In this office, which had the feel of the bridge of a deep sea submarine, my desktop was piled high with unfinished projects, papers, books and office supplies. I remember feeling more and more overwhelmed and frustrated as I looked at my desk while other people were standing in my office just chit chatting about celebrity gossip and Pinterest. Yes, social media even invades my dreams.

Something brought me to my breaking point. Maybe it was the discussion of cake pops made in the shape of John Travolta’s head or perhaps it was the casual observation that we’re having marvelous weather. I don’t know. But the next thing I know, I’m having a full-blown temper tantrum complete with my right arm moving left to right across my desk and shoving every single blasted item to the floor.

There may have also been a guttural scream, hot angry tears, and a deranged look on my face.

The people in my office just turned to me, calmly, and suggested that I go to the library.  Um…okay. I just trashed my office and you want me to go where there are shelves and shelves of 19000+ books where I could conceivably do the same thing? Fine.

Then I’m in a library. Again, it’s “mine” but yet doesn’t match either of the libraries I manage in my daytime hours. As I enter the space, I see several middle aged women wearing nothing but black, gray and white lacy bras and underwear. And they were reading.

I’m a bit puzzled, but shrug my shoulders like “They must be having the same kind of nervous breakdown I am.”

So, at this point, I’ve trashed my office, wandered into a space full of middle aged lingerie models.

The dream morphed into a blogging conference on the beach. I was sitting in a beach chair, wearing a formal gown, next to a good friend from my real life . The Bloggess was speaking and my friend would not shut up. She just kept talking about the sand and her toes.

I remember looking at her and giving her the “eye” — as in SHUT UP — The Bloggess is speaking!

She looked at me like, “Who?”

And then I woke up.

After careful analysis of this dream (and I have zero dream analysis training), I can conclude the following:

I feel like I’m drowning at work.

And my subconscious thinks no one cares.

Multitudes of my middle aged female friends must be reading Fifty Shades of Grey.

And…

Need to put my piggies in the oceanI desperately want to put my little pink toes into the ocean and spend the summer writing without distraction.

Sounds like summer can’t come fast enough for me?

Anyone else counting the hours?

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Square foot gardening: planning the crops

by RChicken on May 15, 2012

The fun part of square foot gardening is when it’s time to plant!

I simply started with an assessment of what my family likes to eat then added a couple new things to try.

I would also highly recommend that you keep it simple.

Certain crops are perfect for raised bed gardens: lettuce, spinach, herbs, carrots, etc. Others are more difficult to manage in a square foot garden: pumpkins, zucchini, squash, watermelon.

Our first year, we planted all kinds of stuff and we had pumpkin and zucchini vines taking over the back yard. We did also have some wonderful pumpkin and zucchini crops to go along with all that madness, but it was a pain in the butt to mow around and made the backyard a total mess.

Some people plant a salsa garden: tomatoes, onions, jalapenos, garlic (although I have never had good luck growing garlic, but I hear it can be done).

Others like the idea of a salad garden: lettuce, carrots, beets, spinach.

I typically plant a few tomato plants, a jalapeno, some lettuce, carrots, sweet corn and then usually one or two “experimental” items — this year we’re trying Swiss chard and banana peppers.

Each type of crop has a planting pattern. I have found this site to be particularly helpful in deciding how many of each vegetable to plant per square foot.

Some key ideas:

  • plant taller things at the back so they don’t shade the smaller things in the front
  • be careful when choosing vine type vegetables — they tend to take over
  • label each square with some kind of marker (I write in Sharpie marker on a popsicle stick)
  • keep it watered thoroughly until the seedlings are well established
  • corn must be planted in such a way that it will cross-pollinate — planted in a single row, it will not develop ears

For planting ideas and timelines, do an Internet search for your local Extension office. I use a planting timeline specific to Missouri.

While my square foot garden is in a raised bed, a similar idea could be incorporated into a traditional garden. Wooden stakes and twine could be used to make the grid.

Get growing!

For other posts in this series:

Square Foot Gardening: the beginning

Square Foot Gardening: building the grid

And for a peek at what we have grown before: Garden Bounty

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