Ponder this:

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Random thoughts on a Sunday afternoon

It's a lazy day on the hill today. Cloudy, cool, a 30% chance of a thunderstorm. When the sun isn't shining I don't move much . . . in contrast to my hyperactivity yesterday when it was a sunny seventy-something and I went from task to task. I cleaned the edges of cabinet doors, for heaven's sake!

A few weeks ago, little Max poodle developed an abscess on his face. It turned out to be from an infected carnassial tooth.
A couple of years ago, I decided that the poodle boyz were getting too old and infirm to have the sedation necessary for dental cleanings. That was an uninformed decision. Apparently it is entirely possible to sedate the little guys just enough to get the job done without endangering their aged hearts and kidneys. We know this is true because Max is now nearly toofless. He has his four fangs; no other teeth remain in his head. Max has a new personality as well. I can only conclude that his bad temper (for a long, long time) was due to oral discomfort. Bad dog mom. But all's well that ends well. 
Now if only we could keep Angus' ear hair under control.
Poodles are smart, cute little dogs. But they have odd physical [never mind the personality] traits. 
Poodle hair is more like human hair than like other dogs' hair (that's why they don't shed and why they are hypoallergenic), and it keeps growing until it's cut off. The necessary haircuts result in poodles always looking like goofy little jerks with their foo-foo tails, etc. Besides that, they grow hair inside their ears that needs to be pulled out, or it holds the moisture in and they get ear infections. Max doesn't have much of a problem with that; Angus does. Angus grows as much hair in his ear canals as he does on his back, like an old man. Angus often has ear infections. He's not letting me touch his head these days: time to hie him off to the groomer for some ear-plucking.

Another character for the cast at work...
A young man who spoke as if he were living in the 19th century.
"I surely thank you very kindly, ma'am, I do."
He fascinated me. He's a local, told me he does farm work for his neighbor. "We aren't family or anything . . . well . . . I guess we are cousins." 
"Of course you are," I thought. Everybody in this county is related to everybody else. You have to be careful what you say about anyone because you'll find out that the person you're talking to is married to the third cousin of the subject of your conversation.
I've heard stories of a [perhaps apocryphal] place, way up in the Adirondacks, called Allentown. Supposedly every mailbox is marked "Allen." 
The whole place is one big family. The county in which I live is like that.
Sort of like European royalty, except quite a bit more backwoodsy, if you get my drift.
His last name is the same as the township where I live. 
"Did they name the town after your family?" I asked.
"Noooooo. Well, maybe. My family's been here a looonnng time."
"Bingo!" I thought.

A week ago I planted a variety of annuals: dianthus, lobelia in many colors, cockscomb, petunias, gazania. I check them all twice a day to see if they're bushy yet. Husband keeps telling me that one day I'll just notice that they've grown into fluffy fat plants. I am impatient. They're all blooming, so it will come, I guess. But . . . I am impatient.
Oh yes, I planted impatiens too.

I'm reading a Brian Haig novel, Man in the Middle. I have enjoyed several of Mr. Haig's other novels and the recurring protagonist, Sean Drummond, charms me. This one is all about Sean's efforts to thwart the bad guys of al-Qaeda, and I'm having a hard time maintaining my interest. It's too much like current events for my taste, not the escape for which I read. 
Yesterday afternoon Man in the Middle was upstairs and, too lazy to go up and retrieve it, I pulled A Plague of Secrets off the shelf. I think somebody gave it to me, or it was part of a haul from the used book store. I'm five pages into it and I want to read it instead of finishing Man in the Middle. I so much cannot believe that I'm not enjoying a Haig novel, though, that I have to keep going. Maybe it'll end up being worthwhile.

As I sit here, the bobolinks are singing their crazy techno-music song, and the red-winged blackbirds are chack-ing and pot-pourri-ing from the tops of trees. 

Hummingbirds buzz by on their way to the feeders. They showed up late this year. Smart birds: they waited until it was something like spring. For years I have wondered what bird it was that called a particular call. This year I learned what it is. It's a chickadee! For cryin' in the sink, it's probably The Most Common Bird, winter and summer, and I never knew its call: Heyyyy Sweetie! Heyyyy Sweetie! 
It's all lovely background music, and it's making me drowsy. As I said at the beginning, it's a lazy day on the hill.

8 comments:

Autumn Mist said...

This is quite fascinating about the poodles, I didn't really know about the hair, although I know they don't moult which is why we have so many labradoodles here now (what a silly name for a dog breed, at first I thought it was a joke.) I totally know what you mean about so many people being related in a town. It's like that where my husband works. Nearly everyone in the company is the cousin/brother/uncle of someone else. If something happens at work, all the wives know about it before the men get home!

SmitoniusAndSonata said...

Our pre-schoolers are all like that .... at one stage two had identical grandmothers ...... as in the grannies were identical twins . Every family is related , even the "newcomers" whose fathers always turn out to have been born round the corner , too .
Max has my sympathy . Toothache ( or , in my case , teething pains ) tend to make the sunniest character grouchy .
Poodles having ear hair problems , though , is very odd . I thought they were originally bred for retrieving water fowl for hunters ?

June said...

S&S, the standard poodles are water dogs . . . Max and Angus are miniature poodles. On the downsizing trip, a lot of things got mucked up. You don't see standard poodles with tear stains either. Some minis have tear ducts that are too small to carry the tears out of their eyes...
It's kind of a sad story, really.

Friko said...

Lovely ramble, very generous again.

When you do that, ramble on about all sorts of things, I feel that I am getting to you know. Your lazy Sunday sounds just the kind of day I like. And often treat myself to, although it's hard at the moment, what with gardening and such. I've got a few boxes of annuals still to go into the ground. It's not till the beginning of June that we can risk planting them.

As for everybody being related to everybody else: you should come to the countryside round here.

Linda Myers said...

Glad you're indoors writing!

Pauline said...

I loved your lazy ramble about your lazy day. I had the same sort of day, except I am the one with the tooth misery at the moment. I haven't got a poodle...

Tom said...

Reminds me of the time we went to Prince Edward Island for vacation. We had reservations at a B&B. The directions were to turn right on Stewart Rd. and look for the MacDonald mailbox, down about two miles on the right.

We turned right on Stewart Rd. We saw the very first mailbox was MacDonald. That couldn't be it. A quarter mile later, the next mailbox was MacDonald. And the one after that. We stopped at three MacDonalds before we finally got to the right one.

Not everyone on PEI is named MacDonald. But a lot of them sure are!

threecollie said...

It took me a while to learn the chickadees' summer call too and YEARS yes, years!!! to learn that darned Peoo peoo of the summer tufted titmouse. How can such a tiny bird be so loud!?