Week one was a success. The morning strolls were perfect. I even got hubby to tag along. Waffles met Rascal, a poodle mix his size, who belongs to a neighbor. They’ve played together a few times in the park. Then Sunday morning, not only Rascal was at the park, but also a dog the same size named Ku’uipo, which means sweetheart in Hawaiian. Waffles had so much fun, he was grinning from ear to ear.
Waffles tilts his head when he wants to tell me something.
You know what else was a blessing this week? Waffles began to sleep through the night! Yay! Also, I saw my first baby quail of the year!
The week was so beautiful. I have to share a few photos I took in the neighborhood:
Palo Verde in bloom.
A Jumping Cholla with blooms. You want to keep your distance from this cactus!
Fairy Duster plant in our front yard.
A neighbor’s Aloe plant with beautiful yellow blossoms. We have Aloe, but none have flowers.
Now for a special treat for Waffles:
Waffles gets a treat, a carrot, but doesn’t know how to eat it.
I’m babysitting my grand dog as my daughter is off to Paris and a destination wedding for a bestie in Portugal. (What’s up with all these destination weddings? A topic for another day.) She flew from SF to Phoenix to drop off the pup. Plus, we got to spend two days together.
I was looking forward to walking Waffles around the neighborhood. I miss walking a dog. But as life would have it, my daughter called me a few weeks ago and said Waffles was limping She waited to see if it would go away, but when it didn’t, the vet diagnosed Waff with a soft tissue shoulder injury. He’s taking meds for inflammation and his activity is curtailed.
FYI, my daughter has a soft tissue shoulder injury due to her career as a distance swimmer in college. My husband has the same issue with his shoulders from his school years playing football and wrestling. My daughter said she’s convinced with our family history, Waffles injury is genetic.
How I worked around Waffles shoulder injury.
I ordered a cheap pet stroller from Amazon! I’m now pushing 20 pounds of Waffles and a few pounds of stroller for two or three miles a day. I’m feeling it in my forearms, triceps and butt. It’s my sort of rucking.
If my husband was embarrassed about being seen by neighbors with his rucksack that I wrote about HERE, you should have seen his face when I unveiled the stroller with Waffles inside! We are walking separately FYI.
To be fair, hubby is walking at 5:30 a.m. and I’m going at 7 a.m. because Waffles wakes me up at midnight and 4 a.m. to go outside. I’m trading Waffles nights with hubby from now on.
Waffles seems to like it and he sits quietly taking in the sights. I let him out in the park so he can sniff, mark trees and do the rest of his business. He can spend 20 minutes with his nose buried in the grass sniffing dogs, bunnies and birds who were there before.
After Waffles leaves, do I continue with my rucking and put weights in the stroller, or will the neighbor think I’m nuts?
How do you think Olive the cat will react if I take her in the stroller for a walk?
Or, will the Waffles smells end any chance?
What do you think makes waking with dogs more enjoyable than walking alone?
I have a work in progress and felt my plot had some gaping holes in it. So in January, I took a writing class on plots. One of the assignments was outlining along a very constructive plot point path. I used my WIP and found that the assignment helped. Then I got feedback from the instructor with further suggestions.
It took me until late March to mull over the suggestions and get to work on rewriting and revising.
After spending countless hours sitting at my laptop, I decided to mix in some simple exercises. (My former writing mentor Gerald Petievich once told me that writers need buns of steel.)
I began leg exercises for strength and balance. They are from my PT when I had knee surgery post ski accident. I’ve been reading that falling when we get older is not a good thing. Once elderly start falling, they usually don’t last long. So why wait? I break up my writing with those exercises.
Then I decided to do something about my flabby arms. I started with three pounds weights and now I’m at five. But I have a sharp pain in my neck and shoulders. I was on the phone with my daughter yesterday and she said, “You’re not doing the exercises correctly.”
“How do you know?” I asked. After all she isn’t here.
She said, “Because you sit with your shoulders around your ears. You aren’t engaging the correct muscles.”
I explained that my husband (her dad) showed me how to do them. She insists he doesn’t know how, either. Well, she is coming by for a short visit, dropping off Waffles the Pug while she goes to a destination wedding in Portugal. Maybe I can get some private instructions from her.
In the meantime, I’ve got a pain in the neck and shoulders. Maybe I should stick to legs?
Do you find you need to get up and move after sitting at the computer?
It was Waffles the Pug’s seventh birthday over the weekend. Since I’m in a low mood due to health issues in my family and I can’t focus, I decided photos of Waffles were in order to make me smile — and you, too. Who doesn’t like cute puppy pictures?
Seven years ago we got Waffles as a Christmas present for our daughter. Waffles became an unofficial mascot for her Utah swim team and they allowed him to come to swim practice. The sports marketing team posed him for social media posts. He’s been a joy to everyone, especially my daughter.
Waffles is a love bug, but does have one annoying habit. He puts whatever he can into his mouth. He’s uncontrollable like a two-year-old. Consequently, he’s given us plenty of scares. Once he found an adderall on the floor at a friend of my daughter’s. That was a night in the ER. Then he ate poisonous berries in our backyard. Trip to ER. The worst though was when he swallowed a piece of wood that got lodged in his small intestine. Surgery. Good thing my daughter has dog insurance!
Through all the fun and the drama, I can’t figure out where seven years disappeared.
Waffles in the sweater I bought him for cold Utah winters.
Waffles in one of his Ute posts.
Waffles in Carpinteria celebrating his first birthday at the beach.
Waffles in his puppy glory.
Waffles with his momma when we met him.
Waffles hanging out with our daughter in our backyard.
My daughter and Waffles. Graduation from college.
What do you think is more adorable — puppies or kittens and why?
I read that naming pets after food is a trend in 2023. I guess my daughter was ahead of her time?
I’m back home and I feel so much better mentally than when I left. I was wallowing in grief after my mom’s sudden death. I found myself aimlessly wandering through our house, alternating between tears and shock.
The six days with my kids was like a healing balm or salve that my heart needed.
What did we do? I was busy with my son, making his pour-over coffee, overnight oats, grocery shopping at my favorite Berkeley Bowl. I walked Waffles, played Scrabble, went to lunch and shopped with my daughter on Fourth Street, enjoyed time with my son’s fiancee and family. They lost their father several years ago and I felt their empathy and understanding.
The mushroom aisle at Berkeley Bowl, my favorite grocery store.
I was busy most of the time, I felt needed, and I felt my mom is in a better place.
We watched good movies including Metropolitan and Nausciaa of the Valley of the Wind. The voice of the Princess in Nausicaa was done by Alison Lohman, who is a local Palm Springs girl. She was in my ballet class more than 25 years ago. I’m always interested in watching her movies.
The food in the Bay Area is so much better than in Scottsdale. We ordered in most nights because of the storm. We had Japanese, Korean, Mexican and take out from Berkeley Bowl.
My son’s charcuterie with cheeses, salami, prosciutto, blackberries, grapes, crackers and comb honey.
If you find yourself in a funk — not necessarily grief like I’ve been experiencing — how do you get out of it?
We boarded Olive the cat for our vacation in Palm Springs. I got a call from the boarding place three days into our trip. Olive wasn’t drinking, eating, peeing or pooping.
It’s the first time she’s been at this boarding place, because the one we went to before closed. I was impressed with this new outfit. It was spanking brand new, had huge two and three level kitty suites complete with climbing towers and TVs! Cats can climb up and down through the suite through large holes cut in the platform levels.
I had left Olive with her Rx laxative, kitty soup and dry Friskies. She even had an old smelly t-shirt of my husband’s to make her comfortable. After a few phone calls, the boarding place said they’d take Olive to the vet if she didn’t settle down. They also put her in an empty bathroom, where she’d be all alone.
Our Olive isn’t exactly neurotic, but she’s a loner and trembles and gets frightened of new people and places. You’d think having a friend take care of her in our house would be the ideal situation rather than boarding her. But no, you’d be wrong. As long as my friend’s daughter took care of Olive she was fine when we lived in Palm Springs. The friend’s daughter got scared of Marco — our homeless guy who believed our house was his — so her dad took over Olive duty.
Olive doesn’t like strangers, but really doesn’t like men. The end result of the father taking care of Olive was a urinary tract infection — plus me purchasing two new comforters, sheets and mattress toppers.
I got a call five days into our trip that Olive was doing fine.
Now for the embarrassing part.
On our way home we stopped at the boarding place to pick up Olive.
They gave me her meds, foods and handed me her soft carrier. I insisted it was not the right one. Hers was black, I swore — and the one they tried to pawn off on my was gray with blue piping.
I had four frantic employees opening up every cupboard shelf searching for the black-sided carrier.
Finally, 25 minutes later, we came to the agreement that I’d take Olive home in their hard cased carrier and they’d deliver Olive’s carrier to our house once they figured out what happened to it. Maybe it went home with the wrong cat? Maybe the manager who was trying out new spaces to make Olive comfortable had placed it in a safe place?
Once home I decided to check on Amazon for my purchase of the carrier. This is what I discovered:
I had bought a gray carrier with light blue piping. Not black. I bit the bullet and called and apologized for being totally insane and a pain in the behind. Then I had to drive over there and exchange carriers and apologize profusely.
I realized my error. Waffles the pug and his carrier I bought six years ago. This is what I thought Olive the cat had too. She doesn’t get out much and Waffles get in his carrier daily.
Waffles the pug in 2016 with his black carrier.
Here’s to a New Year and sanity! What are your hopes for 2023?
This photo is from this date in 2016. We bought this little guy Waffles for our daughter. She took him home after Christmas break. I picked out his ugly sweater.
Back home after a long weekend in Mexico, I’m feeling overwhelmed. After our morning walk my husband said he wanted to sit down and go over our calendar.
“I have to sit down and write my to do list,” I insisted. “I have so much stuff running through my head I have to write it out.”
My list keeps growing and growing. On my list is writing and addressing Holiday cards for my husband’s business, including packaging and mailing out Frangos. That’s the big project. Then there’s dozens of small one off items to do.
I love going out of town to relax, but why does it seem like I have so much to do — before we leave — and after we get home?
Do you find that too? Or are you able to stay calm and steady around days of vacation?
Our Christmas crew a few years ago at our Palm Springs home. We’re a family of four and our son’s girlfriend’s family has seven siblings — plus Waffles the pug. We’ll be together again this Christmas week.
