Blog Challenge Day 11 - Confessions

I feel like I've already written about this, although perhaps it was prior to this writing challenge.  Short term memory isn't always my strong suit.

There isn't much that embarrasses me, which doesn't give me a whole lot to confess.  As anyone who knows me well or has read my blog for a while knows, I am very open about my life.  Personal relationships stay personal, but that's about it.  I attempt not to over-share, but am not always successful.

Hmm.  Okay.  Here goes my attempt at confessing things that don't bother me at all, but may bother others.  Does that count?  Hope so, because it's going to have to.

- Even if Fox hadn't gotten sick with cancer, I had no plans whatsoever to neuter him.  He didn't have papers and wasn't show dog material even if he was; he absolutely had field potential and that is what he was bred for.  Elhew through and through.  I am an extremely responsible dog owner and he had very, very few undesirable behaviors that seem to be expected of intact male.  I put the time and effort into training him, which included manners in the house, with my dogs, and with dogs in public.  His only negative trait is that he was very dominant toward males dogs (especially intact males, for obvious reasons) visiting our house and if he was challenged he would initiate a fight.  In public he had no interest in intact males or any other dogs.  He was all about meeting people and getting as much attention & love as possible.  Fox was a total love sponge.  Also, balls don't bother me.  Even when a dog has gigantic like his that probably made some human males feel unendowed.  Not my problem, dudes.

- One time I spilled some cold coffee on Gatsby's head and never bothered to clean it up.  Does this make me a terrible dog owner?  It's not like you could see it on his solid liver head anyway.

I can't really think of anything else, so this will have to suffice.

Onto Day 12's topic!

The Garnet and Yvonne Blog Challenge Day 1: NEW!

My friend and fellow writer Yvonne have embarked on a 31 day blogging challenge.  Each day, a new topic.  Today's topic is "new."

"New" is not the word I would use to describe the beginning of any of the past few years.  They felt more like a continuation of the same pattern than anything resembling a glimpse of horizon or the crack of a new door.

This year is different.  It didn't dramatically click into a higher gear at midnight on the 31st, of course.  Most changes brew and steep for so long that we don't notice them until they've arrived and smack us in the face.  Of course some changes just up and smack you in the face, but that's a topic for another day.

I began 2013 with two dogs.  I spent nearly all of 2013 with three dogs.  I began 2014, again, with two dogs.  Through the third dog, Foxtrot, I built new friendships with women I may not have otherwise gotten to know.

Fox brought a lot of newness into my life from the day I met him at the airport in Las Cruces, NM.  He was also covered in diarrhea, but I digress...

Fox wasn't an "easy" dog.  He was like an adult human who was raised by wolves.  Or a adult dog  who was raised by alligators and needed to be sent back to puppy school.

At first we didn't always understand each other and became easily frustrated by one another's incomprehensible behaviour.  I've said to many people that Fox's "saving grace" was his exceptionally good temperament even when his manners bordered on barbaric.

The relationship that we shared was a very special one and for the first time in my life a dog taught me more about people than he did about dogs.

You don't have to understand someone or why they do what they do to love them.

Judging a dog harshly for doing something that doesn't make sense to you is pointless.  So is judging a person on the same grounds.

Most of the time when someone does something that bothers you or doesn't do something that you wish/think they should... it's not about you.

Sometimes I'm a hermit.  It's my way of limiting the stress in my life so that I can be healthier and as a result happier.  It isn't a personal slight.

Sometimes Fox would do something like dig a hole into the yard next door to chase a stray cat at 3am and then get too scared to come back though the hole he'd just dug and pace around whining pathetically.  At 3am.  Even though I had to climb onto my shed, over the fence, drag something next to the fence on the other side so I climb onto it and boost his lead butt back into our yard, and then climb back over the fence myself.  At 3am.

I was extremely irritated, beyond tired, and the entire situation was so frustrating I wanted to cry.

But you know what?  It wasn't about me.

Foxtrot stole my Kindle.

Check out Yvonne's Day One - "New" post here!

Hooray!  Dani, my sister in awesome rapid biopolar illness had joined the challenge!
Read her Day One - "New/Nude?" post here! 

Morning Rituals

Summertime in the Sonoran Desert for a lot of people means getting up at the crack of dawn (or earlier).  We've been having a remarkably cool summer thus far (knock on wood), so I've usually been getting up around 5am.  The past two summers I've gotten out of bed around 4am to get as much work done as possible before the heat turns on full blast.

Like most people my mornings follow a pretty predictable pattern.  Fox jumps into bed to cuddle, whine, and roll upside down.  Gats runs outside to find doves (and dig holes).  Lola starts dancing around demanding breakfast.  I haul myself out of bed, take my mood stabilizer and allergy pills.  Put the kettle on and feed the dogs their breakfast.  Give Lola her morning dose of Benadryl; if her allergies are flared up she'll get prednisone and cortisone anti-itch cream wherever she has been scratching (lately it's been her armpits).  Sweep the living room and kitchen.  Go outside and fill in Gatsby's recently dug holes, if there are any.  Make coffee or tea, then sit on my back steps relishing to cool air and early morning quiet.  Watch Gatsby run around like a maniac playing with his rope or empty laundry detergent jug (his two favourite toys).  Meditate (while still on the back steps).  Take Lola & Gatsby for a run, if I feel like it.  Make myself breakfast.  Depending on the time I may read a bit before checking the news (BBC, NY Times, and Al Jazeera English).  I then groan, sigh dramatically, and check my email.  Sometimes check Facebook (although I've been mostly avoiding that lately; it's too stressful).  Then dig into whatever I have on my To Do list for that day (sending out resumes, returning emails/phone calls (ugh), working on whatever projects I have going on, working on blog posts whether I actually finish them or not, housework/yard work, etc.).

My morning in photos:

 *I don't actually eat three breakfasts; these are just examples of typical breakfast meals.

Meet My Dogs!

I've had a few new readers express interest in my dogs' backgrounds, how I got them, etc.

Ask and you shall receive!  (At least in this instance; clearly this does not always apply.)

Because my dogs are such a integral part of my life and are basically my surrogate children, I have given them their own biographical page here on the blog.

You can check out their page here: http://www.garnetscarabin.com/p/about-my-dogs.html

Don't forget to stay tuned for future updates detailing their nutty escapades!

Gatsby, enjoying a green smoothie from Whole Foods.

A Few Of My Favourite Things

Root Vegetables

Left to Right: carrots, parsnips, yams, & red potatoes.

My dog Foxtrot, in the Sun

Vintage Pyrex

Nancy Drew

Ausperitea

My favourite: British Invasion Duchess of Pearl Princess Grey black tea

Tin Mugs (and Homemade Smoothies)

Homemade (although not by me) Walnut Baklava

Best.Baklava.Ever at Zayna's Mediterranean.

Quiet Possibly the World's Worst Update

While I should be cleaning my glorified dog kennel (aka, my house), here I sit attempting to write something substantial enough to be worthy of my friend Cheryl's plug on Facebook.  "Read Garnet's blog!  She hardly ever writes a post because she's too busy rescuing dogs, eating organic sprouts, having vegan tea parties or watching Foyle's War on Netflix!"

Crap.

To same time and words, here is a photo:  (I am now going to look through recently uploaded iPhone photos to select something suitably attention garnerning.)

Okay, here we go.  This was an AWESOME dinner created by the contents of our Sunizona FarmBox (organic CSA from Willcox, AZ which is about an hour & a half from where I live in Tucson) and the contents of our (me, my friend S. & her mom) pantries.  Brown rice with ginger peanut sauce and mushrooms, carrots, red peppers, green onions, cilantro, crushed cashews, and sriracha.  Possibly a few other things.  It was tasty!  Not only is sharing a CSA box easy on our pocketbooks, but it is so nice to cook a family dinner together and have a real family meal.  Makes my heart happy and is just as good for my depression as my meds, if not more so.

Obligatory dog photo.  My beloved German shorthaired pointer, Gatsby, on the left and my supposed-to-be-foster-dog-but-probably-my-dog Foxtrot the Elhew English pointer on the right.

I will be undertaking a unique adventure this evening, that has ties to Lola Lulu's puppyhood.  The best part is that my friend is one his way and I haven't swept the floors, washed (or hidden) any dirty dishes OR taken a shower.  Yay!

Stay tuned for a poignant post (with photos) later tonight.

The Tale of Four Testicles, Part One (and Recap)

This should probably be the third installment of the saga of how having two intact male dogs in a small house isn't much fun, but I had hoped the situation wouldn't develop into a several days long epic.

Lola Lulu (black dog) meeting Valentine (red dog).

Summary of events, thus far:

- Two days ago I rescued an elderly purebred Hungarian Vizsla from the Pima county shelter.  Yes, I forgot to ask if he was neutered (entirely my fault)... I was distracted by his severely atrophied right rear hip and leg.  He was old, very sweet, and could only walk on three legs, so of course I took him home and named him Valentine.

- Initial introductions in the yard with all four dogs went smoothly.  Foxtrot (my foster English pointer, a 7 year old intact male) got kinda stiff & stared at him, but I intervened and he let it go... until we got into the house and he jumped Valentine.  Thankfully he was just being nasty/threatening (read: loud and snarly, but didn't bite down or break skin), but the dogs were separated which meant Foxtrot went into his crate in the bedroom.

Foxtrot meeting Valentine; notice the fully upright, tense tail and stiff posture. 

- To set the stage for these events, I live in a small one bedroom cottage style house.  In Arizona we call them "casitas."  There are no doors to separate the rooms, with the exception of the bathroom.  The only other doors belonging to the closet, the kitchen (leads to the backyard), and the living room (leads to the outside world).  Other than using crates/kennels there isn't any way to keep the dogs separated except outside in the yard (which is separated into two yards if you shut the gate).  Valentine FREAKS OUT in a crate: panting, drooling, trying to "dig" out of it, and he actually got his lower jaw stuck between the bars and I had to help him get un-stuck before he hurt himself.

- I tried reintroducing them in the yard twice yesterday (without my two dogs) and the first went very poorly, while the second was not too bad.

- Overnight Valentine has free reign of the living room and kitchen.  I use the sofa to block off my bedroom doorway (my dogs can easily jump over, but Valentine can't) and I'll let Foxtrot get up on the bed (with a slip lead on, so he doesn't bolt over the sofa and pounce on Valentine) to cuddle before bed.  He is still sleeping in his crate overnight.

- The daily routine involves rotating the dogs in and out of the house (which does mean either putting Valentine in the back yard by himself and giving Foxtrot house/front yard freedom or putting Valentine temporarily in a crate so that I can let Foxtrot out into the yard.

Just typing this all up is exhausting...

Fast forward to this morning:  Valentine is in the backyard, Lola & Gatsby are in the front yard and I brought Foxtrot out on a slip lead.  He didn't posture or behave nastily toward Valentine at the fence, so I opened the gate.  Foxtrot mostly ignored him and paid complete attention to me (being somewhat of a nuisance, but I'm letting that slide for now).  Only the smallest incident occurred when Valentine sniffed Foxtrot's rear and Foxtrot stiffened up & whipped his head around... I said his name and he swung his head back around toward me, relaxed instantly, and I praised him.  He then happily followed me into the house and I shut the door behind us, wanting to end this "exercise" on a good note.  We also had some cuddle time on the couch and he got to hang out with me in the kitchen while I got breakfast started, before he went back into his crate and I let the other dogs into the house.

Babysteps!

We'll try again this afternoon and see how that goes.  Foxtrot's intense bond with me is working toward a positive end.  His choice is basically between getting love & attention from me or fighting with Valentine and this morning he chose positive attention from me instead of the latter.

Progress!