PlazaJen: Passion Knit

OK, first off, I'm going to show you the cake I made last weekend for Momma Linda's birthday:


It's a Peach Upside-Down Cake, from AllRecipes (I love that site). The cake is from scratch and it's deeee-licious!



I love to garnish.

Now, here's how Tripper looks when I'm giving all the dogs some treats. I realize it's blurry, but you get the tractor-beam stare, nonetheless.


We give them treats in order of pack status, so we say their names, and then toss them whatever they're getting. (It goes, "Suzy!", "Polly!" "Tripper!") What's funny is that the other two dogs sit and remain utterly fixated, watching your hand. Tripper, however, does this in-place bouncing, keeping his back legs grounded, but lifting his front paws off the floor in this sort of horse-rearing-back motion. He does it quite enthusiastically (to each dog's name), and it usually results in his ears flopping completely inside-out, but he continues to perk them up. And it makes me laugh, and laugh, and laugh! I had to stage these ear pics, but you get the idea.


I like that his lips look a little caught, too. Doofus.

OK OK, you've had your fun..... now knock it off, Lady.

Last, but not least...
Grammar Update!

So, it really is good to know someone. And I used to work with the guy who's now a designer at one Ace Hardware's agencies. I didn't want him to get thrown under the bus, in case it was his work, so I sent him the photo of the egregious shelf-talker. Turns out it was done corporately - and nationwide. And he reassured me that they'd have to reprint them all. (He's on a one-man mission to eliminate bad letter kerning. He understands.) And, the Wendy's boards have been fixed! To say I had a triumphant week in the war on bad grammar and spelling would be an understatement. Never underestimate your own power to change the world!!!

Labels: advertising, cooking, dogs, w00t

We've established a few things that really set Tripper off. Turns out, the list is growing. Daily.

1. Cowboys. We know it's either cowboys, or Josh Brolin. Fortunately, we don't get a lot of cowboys through our south siiiide neighborhood, nor do we watch a lot of westerns. And as far as I know, Josh Brolin doesn't cruise by regularly.

2. Stranger Danger. This is not unusual, and all three dogs have this trigger.

3. Spacial Distance of One Single Story. If Tripper's in his crate, and I have to run upstairs or go downstairs to the basement? He, simply put, loses his shit. Bizzonkers with barking. No matter how much I yell at him or return to provide negative stimulus. He used to be afraid of stairs, and now he's just beside himself with crazy if he can't go with you.

4. Large Yellow Trash Bags. Specifically, large yellow trash bags, full of trash, put out the night before. Normally, we put our trash out in the morning ("we" is "JWo") because otherwise you might end up with critters strewing it all over the yard. But if there's no food stuffs or scraps in the bags, James will put them out the night before - and he'd done a fair amount of cleaning up outside, and we had several bags of trash that he put out front. Tripper? DOES NOT APPROVE. He barked at them every time he saw them through the breezeway door.

5. This last one - and surely, it will not BE the last, but it's the last one for today - is Tripper himself. After James left for work, I was getting ready to put on my makeup, and in a bold and sudden move, Tripper put his paws up on the bathroom counter and stood up, right next to me. My mouth was open in shock, and before I had a moment to react (and yell, and push him down), he caught sight of himself in the large mirror. Oh. Mah. God. He was SO PISSED. And I couldn't stop laughing, and so we had this crazy mix of bad behavior not getting corrected and of course, after I shooed him down, I let him do it again just for the laughs (though I took his paws off the counter and put them on my arm, like I used to do with my dog when I was a kid.) And then he showed an inordinate interest in my makeup, so perhaps he wants to be a little drag queen. He was barking because he wanted to be pretty!

Labels: dogs

....But this week, his balls are coming off.

We've planned to neuter Tripper since we decided we were his forever home, and just haven't gotten around to doing it. It seemed to drop on the to-do list once he stopped attempting to hump Polly or Suzy, and it's just sort of been "out there" on my radar of things I need to get to.

And then Saturday happened. James was running an errand, and I was bustling around the house, engaged in one of those never-ending unfolding projects where you start with cleaning off and organizing one small section and then that leads to X....and Y....and the small section still isn't done so you circle around and then you see, oh, hey, the counter is still cluttered with the 12 cans of sliced beets James bought for you to pickle, and so you start mentally calculating that project into your day, and you go back to the bedroom to ....wha? There's something wet on the floor. But not much. It seems to be right by the Pillow of Power, and that seems to be a little wet, but again, we've had accidents in the house and this looked like a little slosh, not an outright - ooooooooh fuck, as my eyes went UPWARD on the side of the bed and saw a large circle of wetness on my comforter hanging off the end of the bed. There's only two mammals in the house who can aim their pee, and one of them wasn't home. That left only one culprit, and I cursed his furry ball sacs as I stomped down to the washing machine.

And that is how Tripper's Balls moved to the top of my to-do list. The appointment has been made.

Labels: dogs

This is puppy. We sorta call him Tripper. As in Jack Tripper, yes. He's a boy puppy. He's chilling with two lady dogs and Three's Company!

But is it? Polly is having the worst 24 hours of her life.

Backing up - we went to the MWA West Side chapter's banquet on Saturday night. I had high hopes of winning the raffle for a $1,000 - sadly, I did not. Anyway, this great dog breeder & trainer always donates a puppy for their fundraiser, and because WE always BID on the puppies, we had several conversations prior to Saturday night about how we did not need another dog right now, that it's better to get a puppy in the Springtime, that we definitely would not get a male dog, and we wanted to pick our own puppy from a litter.

So then I'm thinking about all of that at 10:32 p.m. as I'm driving home with a puppy on the front seat. It wasn't lack of stamina or willpower! But it was an audience of people who wouldn't bid on the puppy until it went to $100. Now, keep in mind - this dog is out of field trial champions, AKC purebred, hips & eyes guaranteed, all the things Polly was/is, and you normally don't purchase a dog like that for less than $500. So James stepped in and bid on the dog so we could find it a proper hunting home and hopefully someone who saw the value in the pup as well. (We're not trying to make money, we'll donate the money back to MWA.) The man who brought the pup for the breeder actually has his litter mate & paid over $700 for his dog. So it was making us feel sick inside, that we had this amazing dog and nobody really wanted him!



He's an amazing little dude. He hasn't had a single accident, he's 4 months old, he has almost curly fur, has huge paws, and feels like crushed velvet.



In less than one day, he's already picking up on "Sit" and "Here". He's going to be one hell of a retriever!



If nobody buys him, we're keeping him, of course. I'm doing an excellent job of not falling in love, maybe because we'd gone through allll the reasons not to get a puppy right now & I had already walked down memory lane the night before on how much WORK it takes to raise and train a puppy. That's why I said "sorta" calling him Tripper, because it just doesn't feel "right" or complete. I think his forever home is someone who wants to maybe run field trials in addition to duck and goose hunting. He's got that much genetic stuff packed into his stocky little self, loose skin and all, and if I can see it, it's there.

But my poor dog. Oh lord. Tripper dude got a few of her not-played-with-in-forever toys? And the green-eyed monster was OUT. Every time he lost interest, she snuck in to steal the toy back. I have yelled "PILLOW" more times today than I have in three months. Suzy? She is perturbed but sort of pretending this situation will resolve itself, preferably while she's asleep so she can wake up and Normal will have returned. But Polly is jealous, and upset that I'm doting on him and petting him, and is all sorts of put out. She needs to mellow another year or two before a puppy comes to live with us for good, because right now it's like a grounded 21 year old who isn't allowed to do anything fun, but the foreign exchange student can run off and do whatever he wants. With her car. And ropey.



He IS darn cute.

Labels: dogs