I Already LIVE In Interesting Times

If nothing else, my life is interesting and I don't think I could handle if it became any more so.

My daughter and I both had doctor's appointments today so we were out most of the afternoon. Got home to find Mouse the Mighty (our Saint Bernard puppy) had busted in my bedroom door. Not tore it down in typical Beethoven style but simply hit it hard enough to release the doorknob.  So far he is the only one to be able to do it. Even though the three cats normally stay in my room, there is no problem because it is a mutual love between them.

Today wasn't a typical day though. I had left Holly, who would love every cat to be served on toast, loose in the house. Mouse comes out to meet us when get got home but at first, I didn't see Holly.

There we heard a "thump, thunk, thump, aarrooohooh" sound coming from my bathroom. Look in the bathroom, no dog. "Thump, thunk, thump." hmm, sounds like it is coming from under the tub.  It is then that I notice the tub inclosure moving.

"What the hell?"

Looking again, I realize the cabinet doors I had been leaving open to let the heat from the house get to the pipes were now closed.

"Aaroroooohoh, thump thump."

Two cats sitting around the room looking really pissed off.  On sitting on the bed staring at me as if to dare me to finish reaching for the cabinet door. I opened the cabinet door and who should be under the tub, looking out of the tiny access panel from the cabinet but Holly? Yes, all 65 lbs of big, muscled up, should have been a tank, Holly.

Let me just say that a smooth collie in fully extended pursuit is a much skinnier dog than one very ashamed, stuck under an enclosed garden tub collie. She'd poke her head out, and the cats would, "Yeowlll, grrrrlll" at her and the head would go back in.

She wanted nothing to do with the cats. Nothing to do with me. Didn't really care about the cheese bribe to come out. Her head was actually all that COULD come out.

It took some dismantling of the garden tub's enclosure, ripping of the siding that boxed in the access panel but Holly is now out and a little worse for wear because when it comes to fighting in a very small, tight space, a big collie is at a distinct disadvantage to a small, agile, pissed off cat.

Who Knew Addictions Were Contagious?

I turned 16 in 1976 and started my first "real" job on my birthday. At the time it was a dream come true. Working at a veterinary hospital that specialized in horses. For me, $3 an hour was worth the long hours after school and working every weekend. The fact I'd made more money cutting grass for the neighbors every week than I would in a month of "real" work completely escaped me.

I worked two weeks before my first paycheck and once it was in my hand, it was gone by the next day.  With it I had purchased the first of a lifelong obsession that has continued on to this day. In fact, I hate to think of how much still goes into this obsession. Simply put, the obsession was to have a collie of my very own.

I'd grown up watching Lassie, reading the stories of the Sunnybank collies and begging my parents to let me have a collie. They never were willing to foot the bill but told me, "When you can earn the money to buy it yourself, you can have it." Never believing I would ever actually do it.

My first collie was a mahogany sable and white that I named Buck. I began trying to show him but the breeder wasn't interested in being a "mentor" so while we brought home a few ribbons, I never really learned anything about grooming. Once the hip dysplasia was discovered, my show career to that point ended at 17.

For 9 years Buck was my best friend and once he died, he became the only thing I regretted leaving behind when I decided to leave my first husband. However he was not my last collie.

The next time around I found a true breeder who was more than happy to help explain show grooming, collie care, breeding, etc. In turn, this breeder introduced me to the woman who would not only take me under her wing 20 plus years ago, she also became the mentor of my children when they began their junior handling careers.

Yes, children came into the picture after I married my second husband. Over the years has has supported my collie obsession financially, emotionally, and physically. When work would allow, he would go to shows with the kids and I, work like a pack mule with never a complaint. Sit for hours while I groomed, waited for ring calls, would walk the dogs for us regardless of weather, cheer when we won and console us when we lost. Then turn around and carry all the stuff back to the car, load it up and then help unload it at home.

Except for few differences, this past weekend in Starkville, Mississppi was the same. Nasty weather to load in with what turned into a 10 hr drive to the show site. Got there less than 30 minutes before they were going to lock the doors and if any of you readers are middle-aged women who have had children, you will understand the first thing on my mind when we pulled in was NOT unloading anything but myself and finding the closest restroom, leaving 4 dogs, an Expedition and a trailer to my long suffering husband to deal with. And deal with it he did.

I had collie friends there who had already scoped us out a grooming area. Dave started loading the dolly with crates, tables, and all the other stuff before I ever got back from the restroom. I finally joined him and we pushed/pulled/manhandled the dolly across the boggy, uneven ground of a horse arena. After working, he had to settle for a fast food dinner and then unloading our personal stuff in the hotel room. Then the poor man was walking dogs in a parking lot that had one lonely tree and a 4'x30' strip of grass that earlier show folks had already scoped out for x-pens.

I know this all sounds like typical show experience, so what made it different than any other show?

First off, we were making a show together withOUT any of our kids. Traveling out of state without chaperones? Unheard of!

Second, we were set up with friends of mine who have no inhibitions about what we discuss. Imagine one middle aged man in a group of 5  outgoing, talkative women. Some men's idea of hell, my husband joined in and laughed with us.

The last and most important difference of this weekend is that my obsession/addiction has now corrupted my dear husband. A few months ago I had gotten him a St. Bernard show puppy and for the first time, the puppy "Mouse" and my ever supportive but inexperienced in the ring husband, went into the ring as a team.

I was so very proud of both of them. Each having had only one (the same) handling class and each giving it their best in the ring. It would have been so easy for Dave to hand the lead off to someone else who knew what they were doing in the ring. God knows I've done it often enough when I wasn't sure about being able to physically run the ring. While Saturday he let Mouse's breeder take him in the class, Dave then got up and took him in to try for Reserve Winners. On Sunday, he did it all himself.

So what is the point of this longwinded post? Simply that dog show addictions are contagious. One person does it then sucks in another and another and then the entire family and their circle of friends are addicted. My husband is already looking forward to our next show…and the next…and so on.

Just Write!

A few years ago, writing was almost all I did but then life got in the way and waiting on checks from articles was no longer an option. Writing and submitting daily turned into writing on weekends, then an occasional evening and eventually nothing at all. 

As a reporter for a community newspaper in Houston, Texas, a published author with articles and essays in print and online,  and as a publisher of a growing e-zine that dealt with rape and all forms of abuse, I took pride in my work. There was a special feeling to being able to answer the "What do you do?" question with, "I write." 

I've missed that feeling but every time I would open a page to try, I'd stare at that blank page with my mind in a jumble but it occurs to me my friend Lynda Cox was right when she told me the other day to "Just write." So for the first time in almost 9 years I'm going to do just that. 

Nine years, it doesn't seem possible. Such a short period of time to have gone through so many changes in our lives. Why "nine years?" 

That is when my husband had been seriously injured in a refinery accident and could no longer do the work he loved. Instead of terminating employment, the company decided to retrain him and due to that, we now find ourselves living in a small, Mayberry type of town. In fact, almost every change in our lives over these past nine years is a result of that single July day. 

So taking Lynda's advice to heart, there will be no set subject for my blog other than life in general, and it is a very disorganized life at that. I'm a wife, a mother, a grandmother. I have passed the half-century mark and am living proof you can teach an old dog new tricks. I have rough and smooth collies that I have started showing in conformation (aka the breed ring). That in itself is an entire world of creative fodder. <grin> 

I've also started my own business by making polymer clay beads for dog show leads, jewelry, macrame, and any other item a bead could be added to. I'd never touched polymer clay until another friend, Sarah Garrison, suggested it in a typical 3 AM conversation between two insomniacs. It began with her telling me, "You know, you are crafty. Why don't you try…"  and so Wyld Things was born. 

I hope dear reader you will check back for more "Life in the Wyld" and that you will take the occasional walk on the wyld side.