BlackPugKnits

Cesar and Ilusion Millan Foundation Photo Contest

2009-09-14T15:02:00.001-07:00

If you can, please vote for Chester! The picture I entered is the big version of the profile pic, Chester sticking out his tongue. If only you knew Chester...

Cesar and Ilusion Millan Foundation Photo Contest

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That day always comes too soon

2009-08-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

Marley and Boomer after I first got her in 2001.

Marley was euthanized today and is with Boomer at the Rainbow bridge. Marley will be cremated and her ashes will join Boomer, who was her best pal for many years -- they were always the little old couple. I no longer have someone sassing me that it's time for dinner, or breakfast, or "I would like you to carry me back upstairs again" or "I went out. I may have peed, or I might not have. Either way I went out and came in so I would like a treat." My little old lady who loved to ride motorcycles, scooters, parties and dining out is gone, and there will never be another one like her. Ever. She was cool.

This photo was taken of Marley today. She was happy to be on my lap, but that was it. Whatever took her came on quickly. She had a pleasant day at the shop yesterday, eating treats and yapping, but then she threw up. At 3am she peed on the bed (because Chester had somehow shoved her out of her bed), and when I put her in the bathroom, she threw up more and kept trying to get between the toilet and the wall, pressing her head on the wall. This morning, she was uninterested in food. For those that don't know pugs, when a pug is uninterested in food, it's a medical emergency.

I took her to the vet and left her because they were super busy, and around 2pm, the vet called and said it could be liver failure, it could be a tumor, we could do blood tests and all that. We determined it was best to let her go instead of doing all that so we scheduled for 5pm. About 15 minutes later he called again said I should come right away because she was fading, so I went and held her on my lap while she went to sleep very peacefully. Chester sniffed her a few times, and actually seemed concerned. Then he decided it was more fun to sniff the vet, but he was quite subdued on the car ride home.

I miss her. She was just a constant in my life for 8 years. I knew she was old, and decrepit, and that this day would come, but it's still very hard for me. I likely will close House of Marley -- I don't have the time, nor the motivation any more. And just who the heck is going to moan me awake every morning at the crack of dawn?

Of rescued pugs: a Wee tale

2009-08-05T19:44:00.000-07:00

The nice thing about living up the street from a small public beach is that in the evenings, the neighbors all go down for a swim. Some even bring their dogs even though it's posted "no dogs" -- it's after hoursI decided to do The Walk with the pugs (per the Dog Whisperer), and by the time we'd gone the long way around the block, I figured they were pretty warm and perhaps willing to go in the water.

This was the first time I'd taken Erwin to the beach, and it was his first time seeing a person with some of those floaty "noodle" toys emerge from the water. She was a large woman, and I watched Wee tense up,

But he didn't bark. He didn't move. Just stood there like the man and watched. When she came closer and cooed at him, then let him stand there and lick her hand, he decided everything that comes out of the lake is WONDERFUL! She had come just to see him, and after we had chatted a bit and she turned to go back out, Erwin tried to follow.

Michael Phelps he is not. He's not even Erwin Phelps. He's just the Wee, who got a little nervous and got splashy which made him more frantic. Luckily another woman in water shoes waded out and assisted him by putting a hand under his belly. Then he thought he was Michael Phelps, but got DQ'd by me reeling him in on the leash.

The poor little dude had to be practically dragged away -- he wanted to play with his mermaid. Next summer.

Treadmilling

2009-07-28T14:27:00.000-07:00

I was able to teach THIS DOG to walk on a treadmill in under 5 minutes.

And yes, that is his front leg through his collar. Don't ask me how. Ask him.

Before I go brag about how I am The Pug Whisperer, I must tell the whole story. NOTE: No one was harmed, although I have some weird bruises.

The treadmill training was brought by Cesar Milan (The Dog Whisperer) in the vain hope that if I tire Chester out he won't wander around the yard eating turds, raspberries, grass clippings, etc. To Cesar's credit, he has a disclaimer to consult a professional, but I am a DIY kind of gal.

It took me about 15 minutes total to train Chester, Bugsy and Erwin to walk on the treadmill out in the garage. Not bad. I felt very pleased and Pug Whisperer-ish. It was a little hot out so I put Erwin back in the house and went out with Bugsy. Unfortunately, Chester shot out of the house too, thinking Bugsy shouldn't get all the treats, so the three of us went into the garage.

Then I got the bright idea to show the two doggies that their pack leader also walked on the treadmill. Why? Who knows -- they were already willing to walk on it. I suspect it was a large case of smugness and showing off for a canine (read: easily amused) audience. So as I'm walking on the treadmill, Bugsy jumps on and proceeds to walk next to me. "Well, this is remarkable," I think, "We're walking together! Cool!"

Malcontent Chester decided to nip at Bugsy. This is how he asserts dominance and is his idea of foreplay. It precedes dominance mounting, so I am watching him to see if it progresses. Clearly, Chester has no clue about the laws of physics or the laws of unintended consequences. On the other hand, I do, so I try to shoo him away. Obviously, Chester does not think I am his pack leader and blissfully ignores me.

The biting caused Bugsy to lose concentration momentarily so Chester made his move and suddenly there were THREE of us on a moving treadmill with me trying to shove Chester off. As I fell, Chester shot off the back of the machine, crashing butt first into a parked motorcycle, with Bugsy close behind and me right behind him yelling, "Bugsy! DOWN! DOWN!" in the hopes he will go under the motorcycle and not get crushed between me and the bike. At the same time, I'm trying to push Bugsy under the bike and flailing at the emergency stop cord but I couldn't grab it in time.

When Chester hit, he screeched (he is a big baby) but managed to wriggle out of the way. Bugsy was trying to climb out from between the bike and the end of the treadmill, but every time I tried to move off him, the treadmill would shove me back into the bike. I kept hoping Bugs was UNDER and not between me and the bike. All I could think of to do as the belt was scraping along my butt was to do an arch with my shoulders on the unmoving side rail of the treadmill, reach over and unplug the machine.

My ponytail is intact. My pants are intact. Chester is traumatized but OK, Bugsy is OK and has motorcycle chain wax in his fur. Erwin was exhausted, since he had finished treadmilling. Marley slept through it all.

Some days I have back pain so badly I can barely move. I wonder why that could be?

The next day, Chester was back on the treadmill. Bugsy, too. No mollycoddling here. And actually, he and Bugsy do the best on the thing (SEPARATELY!). And I always have that rip cord around my wrist as I straddle the pugs. No more walking together with Bugsy on the machine! On to teaching Marley how to treadmill.

I still aspire to be The Pug Whisperer, but to date I've only made it to Crazy Pug Lady of Coeur d'Alene.

The Fruit King

2009-07-17T19:15:00.000-07:00

It's sum, sum, summertime and I should have fruits a'plenty.

But I don't. I have to buy my fruit at the store like everyone else, because I have a Chester.

Chester, King of the Fruits, eats the strawberries as soon as they emerge. They're supposed to be everbearing, for which he is grateful. Me? I have no idea. Then Ches moved on to the green blueberries, so I got bupkis there, and now he's busy in the raspberries on a daily basis. He's such a heathen, he eats the green ones, and stands there with a thoughtful expression on his face, "Mmm, piquant."

So I have no fruit. He hasn't discovered the three cute bunches of Gewurtztraminer yet. Tiny little green beads so far. Since I've never so much as given him a grocery store grape (grapes are bad for dogs in a mighty big way), I'm hoping he doesn't really know what they are. Keep your fingers crossed.

Oh, and there would be pictures, but there's no fruit to take pictures OF.

When the Apprentice Surpasses the Master

2009-06-11T11:51:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, a woman who reads this blog came by my shop. She asked where Bugsy and Erwin were, and I said, "Oh, they're at home." She asked, "Loose in the house?" and I crowed, "Yes. Those two are totally good dogs, not like Chester at all."

Then I arrived home to this:

"This" is what happens when you brag about your "good" dogs. You arrive home to... something.

Before I get into the explanation of that bit of evidence, I must say: Chester has an alibi -- he was with me and Marley all day, five miles away at the shop. Nope, this was the doing of the Wee apprentice, Erwin, and his pal Bugsy who apparently took notes on Chester's parkour escapades around the house and decided to have one of their own. Bugsy is NOT blameless in all this, -- was in on it, too. Don't ask how I know.

Erwin, all 16 pounds of enthusiasm, managed (with Bugsy) to retrieve and eat almost an entire cantaloupe. Not a dinky little melon, either -- this baby was from Costco. Judging from how covered in cataloupe his face and paws were, I'm thinking Erwin was large and in charge on this one. But I don't know. Bugsy does know how to pop a tennis ball, and he did have some on his paws. He didn't look like he'd taken up residence inside the melon, like Wee did (as you can see by the photo there on the left). By weighing the leftover bit and a "sister" melon of similar size, I think they got about 3 pounds of fruit (rind and all).

The only things that I know for certain are that the floor was sticky and I had to mop it, and that Chester didn't do it (for once).

The vet said to expect diarrhea (after he stopped laughing) but luckily, it didn't happen. However, there may be canteloupes springing up in the back yard. Fertilized canteloupe, if you know what I mean. Just for grins, here are the two heathens as I attempted to get them to pose next to the sister melon. Wee wasn't buying what I was selling.

In other news of the ridiculous pugs that I call my own, Marley was outside and something bad happened to her. I was weeding and am only guilty of noting that she wasn't in distress, and SPRINTING in to the house to get the camera. Of course then I got the stink eye from her.

What happened is she was out doing her "dog stuff" which means she is sniffing around the yard. Besides sleeping and eating, sniffing around is one of her favorite activities.

When I looked up, she had her head stuck in the "bucket" and Chester was briskly trotting away.

Marley is a bit top heavy, so what I think happened was she was sniffing the bucket, and Chester decided to dominance mount her, knocking her in. Then he beat a hasty retreat. For her part, Marley just thought, "Who turned out the lights?" and started blundering around blindly while I raced for the camera. After that single picture was taken, I removed the bucket from her head (which she could have easily done herself with a shake or a paw, it was NOT stuck) and got the stink eye because she knew I took her picture. It's embarassing for an elderly, retired supermodel and official shop dog to be caught this way. Poor dear. After a treat, all was well.

Heavens, it has been a while!

2009-05-25T13:07:00.000-07:00

One guess as to who this is:

I know, I'm not keeping up. Chester has been up to no good, but then he's supremely the best dog ever, Bugsy is very very good, but has been bad, and Erwin is... Erwin. And Marley lives to go to the shop with me where she has attempted to train me, but I'm a slow learner. She walks into the kitchenette and expects a treat. She doesn't always get one, and it degenerates into the war of the wills, with her making a single "YARK!" every 2 minutes until either I cave in, or she forgets what she was talking about. We're running 50/50.

What I really wanted to post about

Rescuing a pug (or any dog, for that matter) is really fun because you get to discover things about them. Odd little behaviors, like the way Bugsy "kills" a tennis ball -- I have to put that on YouTube and I'll link it here. Or the way Chester's tail had been pulled by a little kid, so he's sensitive and one day chased his tail and caught it. Or how both of them will stand on the table at the cafe, humiliating me.

So the other day I made a discovery about Wee Erwin. It makes me doubt his claim that he is actually a pug. Either that or he's a really good pug in that he's a supreme hedonist. You see, Erwin likes a little foot massage. Seriously. He likes you to handle and gently massage his feet, and it will put him to sleep. I have a witness. I would try to video that, however I'm fairly sure it won't work. Or Wee will prove me wrong. Who knows.

When I mow the lawn, Erwin follows me around to make sure I'm OK. The other pugs just hang out, so only Wee gets greenfeet. It's hysterical.

Parkour Chester

2009-04-24T19:14:00.000-07:00

It's a long story.

It started out with a missing knitting needle point protector -- those rubber doo-dads you put on your knitting needle points to keep the stitches from slipping off during transport. Well, I found the point protector. In the yard. I have photos (people are clamoring for them).

I know to whom it belongs, and they will NOT be getting it back.

The good news is, it means Chester has digestive motility. But for how long?

I left the boy pugs home today for 5 hours. Belly bands were placed on Chester and Wee Erwin . Unfortunately, as I was at work, I recalled that I hadn't properly barricaded the chair at the dining room table. Sure enough, when I got home, Chester the Traceur had performed some sort of Parkour event that included removing all my knitting needles from the tall latte mug they were in atop a low bookcase without disturbing the mug. He managed to get on top of EVERYTHING in the living room. I can see right now how he envisioned his path -- I wish I'd had the Webcam on. There was one loss: an African violet was uprooted and flung on the floor.

Oh, and there was poo consumption. Not just ANY poo consumption, though, as in he didn't just produce or find a turd. Nope, he got at my jacket, that had the forgotten ziplock bag of poo in the pocket. The jacket was hanging on a coat rack, and I would have paid good money to see how that was done.

On to a nicer subject (and a nicer dog!)
I am quite glad I kept the Bugs. He is such a nice boy. He has his moments, because after all he is a dog, but 99 and 44/100ths of the time, he's a darling. The other day he had The Best Day Ever. We got up, had breakfast, then home for a brief nap while I worked on the computer. Then we hiked on the nature trail and went down to the lake where Bugs ambled in and stuck his head under water and came up with a rock. Wee got brave and got his toes wet, but Chester stayed back on dry land giving the "are you nuts?" look to the rest of us.

Back home we went, and then I took Bugsy with me to do errands. He got nicely blow-dried in the milk crate on the back of my scooter. Bugsy truly loves riding the scooter. I know this because, well, he showed me earlier this spring when I was trying to start the darn thing. He jumped up, sat on the seat and, um, was excited. In a boy sort of way.

During our ride, I stopped at Bella Rose for lunch, and Bugsy saved the outdoor table for us and was rewarded with a couple of Tim's potato chips (I don't like 'em) while I had a sandwich. Then it was back to the shop where he had a brief nap, then home for another walk and some dinner. Then TV time with mom because it wasn't Dog Whisperer night. On DW night (Friday), they all have to stay in their dog beds while I fantasize about actually being their pack leader. Marley laughs at me.

Sasha
She was adopted by a veterinarian in Seattle, who used to be my neighbor here. He'd had pugs. When they came to get Sash, I showed him Chester's dried-out hairball. He was mightily impressed.

Oddly, even though Sasha wasn't a bad dog or a running amok dog or anything, the dynamic (as DW would say, the energy) has changed around here and things are much more peaceful and relaxed. Well, as much as they can be with a Parkour dog who eats poop. Thank God he's not a licker. I like the low energy bunch.

Sewer saga
Runaround. Builder blames excavator. So I have no reimbursement of my $5500 I spent to have it fixed, and now I have a $450 lawyer bill because the builder wouldn't return my calls. That can be taken care of through small claims court, but not the big one as the limit is $5000.

Love life
I was pictured in the Spokane paper (the Spokesman Review) on April 12 in an article about my shop. So I decided to email the link to the guy in Florida. The guy in Florida? He was my boyfriend 26 years ago, and a while back, he contacted my mother (yikes), who gave him my sister's phone number, and my sister passed HIS number on to me. So I called him. And we talk now and then. But he's in Florida and I'm in Idaho and I have several pugs, including one Chester, plus a giant yarn-and-fiber explosion, so it's best that I not live with another human being. Not that we were having phone sex or anything but every time I talk to the guy I have stupid happy daydreams that annoy me -- he sent me a picture and he's plenty cute.

Someone I know once said the ideal living situation would be a duplex. You have your half and he has his half, and when you're sick of each other, you just "go home". I kind of like that idea.

Tomorrow, Chester gets the crate.

For the love of PETE!

2009-03-11T18:46:00.000-07:00

So I'm pondering the state of affairs that is my sewer. Well not so much the sewer, as it was fixed, but the fact that I'm out a large pile of money that was supposed to go to other stuff. The builder's insurance sloughed responsibility to the backhoe guy, and his insurance which is supposedly Maryland somethingorother.

The other day, I tried to run that down and got noplace. So today, I got the bright idea of looking the guy up on the Web. There's a site called Mantra or something that has business information and there was the address for Kus Co Backhoe. I put it in Google Maps, and lo and behold, there's an actual view of the guy's decrepit garage, and a SIDE VIEW which shows a sign "Excavating, call 555-1212" and a backhoe sitting in the weeds. I decide to look the guy up on the Idaho Department of Occupational Licensing web site, and discover

HIS IDAHO LICENSE EXPIRED JANUARY 2007!

He was not a duly licensed excavator/backhoe operator when he dug the holes for my foundation and creamed the sewer line without mentioning it! FOR THE LOVE OF PETE! Insurance? I bet there isn't any.

Tomorrow, I am going to call the builder's insurance adjuster and tell her this and offer to settle for $500 more than I paid the plumbers, and I will say that will cover the cost of cleanup and fixing my irrigation and patio. Should be interesting.

In the meantime, Sasha was placed and returned. I violated my one simple rule -- never place a pug out-of-area. They were out of area, but had a rescued pug and the other rescue loved them. I checked. After a couple-hour road trip to Montana, apparently Sasha was "too hyper" and the husband needed quiet because he worked from home, so they brought her back. She dominance-mounted their pug, which alarmed them, even though the description of Sasha says that 1. she's young and 2. she wants to be dominant. I don't know what they thought all that meant. And who doesn't want to run amok after a road trip, for heaven's sake?

So Sasha came back. Bugsy was happy, as was Chester. She's their cuddle buddy. She's so very hyper she's lying in a dog bed staring at me across the room. Pretty hyper. She did the pug run yesterday, but I was chasing her around.

The more I know people, the better I like the pugs, even Admiral Barky Erwin.

This Can't Be Good, & The Saga Continues

2009-02-19T08:53:00.000-08:00

First, the Story of Mr. Bad Dog Chester

I changed the routine tonight and after I went to work, I came home, fed the pugs, then went to knit with a bunch of women for an entire hour-and-a-half.

Stupid me, I should have CRATED Chester, but no, I just put a belly band on him like I always do when I'm going out for a little bit: Friday morning coffee with friends, grocery shopping on Saturday, etc. There hasn't been a problem (after I gated off the stairs and made sure my bedroom door was shut).

I came home to a Crappapalooza. It was everywhere. From everyone's butt. All FIVE OF THEM. My first thought was, "Hey, Chester didn't eat any of these turds, what a good dog!"
Well, I soon discovered why he didn't eat any turds. He was already full. He looks like Octo-mom when she was pregnant. Chester got the lid off the dog food bin, even though it was secured (hah) by a bungee cord. The bin was tipped over, but there was still a little food in the bottom. Sasha's got a belly full, Bugsy got into the act and is slinking around like he was a bad dog looking fondly at toilets as though he could drink from them, Wee is acting self righteous and doesn't look very bloated, Marley is acting confused and the water dish is completely empty (and will stay that way because I'm not going to have a pug explode in the middle of the night).

Oh, did I mention that at some point during the baccanal Chester and Wee had a piddling contest? Yeah, the pads in the belly bands were sopping wet.

Everyone is sleeping in crates tonight. And I keep telling myself: It might be funny tomorrow. It might be funny tomorrow. It might be funny tomorrow.

It's Tomorrow and it's still not funny, but it is becoming vaguely amusing.

Pugs are stubborn. And cute. So people think this means they are stupid, which is not true. They make all kinds of connections that you wouldn't think about. The connections mine are making are that they are thirsty and there is water in the house. Shasha bashed her way in to the shower to see if there was any water on the shower floor. Bugsy keeps standing on his hind legs gazing longingly into the toilets ("If only I could reach! If only!"). Chester licks the water dribbles from the other pugs, and all three of them just STARE at me when I get a drink of water.

Speaking of Sewage (the second saga)

The builder has apparently turned the matter over to his insurance, saying his excavator must have dug it up, but then not taking responsibility for checking (even though he new they were excavating near the sewer). His excuse? The sewer pipes are so old that the excavator hit it and dug it up without even knowing it, and then the sandy soil backfilled so they didn't see a problem. I'm not totally buying it, given the length that was missing.

I course then the builder starts stringing me along about the insurance. Last week he said was supposed to speak with the adjuster Tuesday (2 days ago). Well, yesterday he says, "Oh, you haven't heard from the adjuster?" Then he starts getting pissy -- "I'm not going to ride their ass." Great. Today he's "nice" again and says he called the agent who is going to call the underwriter (which is the same line he gave me a week ago).

Normally, being the wimp that I am, I would have bought all this BS and held off on sending in a complaint to the Idaho Department of Occupational Licenses. Actually, I did hold off on sending it months ago, but it was procrastination because I had no idea where to even begin. That actually turned out to be a good thing, because I added the whole sewer chronology to the saga, and sent the complaint off on Valentine's Day. Heh. Love ya! I hope your license gets yanked! I even quoted some nitpicky bits of Idaho code that he's clearly violating.

I Met With an Attorney

2009-02-02T20:02:00.000-08:00

And I just don't have a prayer of getting my money back.
The builder is claiming he hooked in to existing pipe and had no way of knowing there was a section missing. Which to me is BS because when they excavated for the new foundation, they had to expose all that. The lawyer says that if the person digging for the foundation didn't say, "Hey, I dug up some pipe here" to the builder, the builder is off the hook.

Great, huh?

But I did make a complaint with the Idaho Department of Occupational Licenses. It seems that builderman is in violation of a couple of things in the Idaho code: not responding within the specified time frame to my certified letter asking him to complete the work, and not including his license number in his advertising, contracts, letterhead and business cards. So I made sure to point those things out in my complaint.

I swear, if I didn't have bad karma, I would have NO KARMA AT ALL. With the temps now rising above freezing, my back yard is starting to smell. That's another thrill the universe decided to throw at me.

Sewage Update

2009-01-22T18:12:00.000-08:00

So, the plumbers came back the following day. And after telling me dire things like "we will need to destroy your garage to dig down 14 feet and cap off the old sewer connection which is directly under the building" and so forth, we settled on them bringing in a Kubota to dig up my yard until they found the other end of the pipe.

Which they did. The driver of the diggy-thingy was a master! But when he made one too-big plops splattering brown, um, "mud", I fled to the shop with the five pugs. A few hours later they called and had cleaned out the pipe and hooked me up.

The insurance adjuster came out several days later, but all he saw was Kubota tracks and dirt. I faxed him the bills, which, happily, were "only" around $5500.00. I say happily because they were at $10,500 and going up. And my lawyer has sent a nasty letter to the builder, who finally emailed me back saying he wanted $10,000 before he would do any warranty work on my house! Ha! I just had to laugh at that. As IF.

It is with great sadness

And not a lot of suprise: my homeowners won't cover the loss. I got the letter yesterday. However, it includes the sentence the "loss involves improper installation of waste to sewer line." So that will help against the builder. I actually got ahold of him and he is trying to blame the plumber and the city. Whatever. He was the general. Wee here gives the builder the stinkeye for me.

Meanwhile, I have some Chester stories. Unfortunately, I was not able to get video, but I will keep trying. He has figured out how to get the lid off the dog food container (the large one). Last night, as I was a mere 4 feet away, he put on his invisibility cloak and put his mouth on the bottom corner of the bin's lid. Then he pried it up and knocked it off, and then stood on his hind legs (who thought his trick, "Twirl, ballerina, twirl!" was a good thing to teach him?) and tipped the bin over. The bin is nearly empty; when full, he can't tip it. Of course when it fell over, I grabbed it and yelled, "De-NIED!" and put it all back together. He was shocked that his invisibility cloak didn't seem to work. Later, he gave two halfhearted attempts to knock it over again, but you could tell his heart wasn't in his work. Here he is that evening he was so cold. He's in my sweater and you can see the top of his bean peeking out.

Today, Chester decided he didn't want to come to the shop. I knew what he was thinking: 1. it's too cold to go to the car and 2. I can wreak havoc in the house and 3. that includes that dog food bin that's now full!

So I put a belly band on him in case he pees, and put the bungee cord on the dog food bin. He did not get put in "dog jail" with Wee and Sasha, though. They love dog jail. In the morning, I say, "It's time for dog jail!" and they run into the laundry room. Something about a heated floor, I think...

Marley is quite incontinent these days. She has to potty at least every three hours, and often she will pee while asleep. So she sleeps with towels, doggie pants, whatever, and I do a lot of laundry and sink-bathing. Poor dear. Then tonight, her jerk mom just gave her kibble without water in it, and she choked and keeled over on the floor requiring mom to do doggie Heimlich. Afterwards, she was right as rain, and bad mom put water in her food, vowing never to forget again. Poor little dear.

Once again, Wee expresses how I feel these days: exhausted. Actually, he is completely blissed out, but for me it expresses TIREDNESS! No one is going to adopt that guy. It's too bad -- he's super cute. And widdly, and licky and barky.

The Latest in a Crappy Saga.

2009-01-12T19:16:00.000-08:00

There is no amount of chocolate in the world that will help me feel better about what happened today. For fans of Chester, it did not involve him, for once.

Yesterday I went outside to find a sort of sinkhole by the corner of the foundation of my house. I thought that since we had a lot of snow, runoff was coming down and pooling by the foundation, so I dug a better path through the icy nasty snow for the water. As I was doing this, I stepped on what looked to be solid ground and slurped into the sinkhole up to my knee.

Luckily, my shoe stayed on, and I was wearing handknit wool socks, which insulate even when wet! And they do! Of course that ruined my plans for the day, so I went in and did laundry. Later, I went back out and smelled detergent outside. I checked my basement and there was a leak, but no broken pipe -- it just looked like a fitting had cracked or something. So today (Monday) I called the plumbers, thinking it was just a bad connection in my basement.

I was so... very... wrong...

Backstory (scroll down to skip)
Once upon a time, I was interested in a property. I had it inspected, and the inspection was OK. It turns out the boilerplate in the inspection contract says the inspector is "not an expert", (so why even hire one), but I digress. The "foundation" had 8 feet entirely missing, and even intact was not enough to support what was there (it was merely what they call a sill). So the shack had to be torn down and a house built, by a duly licensed and insured, recommended, contractor. And so it was.

After my apartment lease was up the end of March, the builder said I could move in. Then he disappeared to Boise (on a bender, I found later). So I moved in. Four days later as I was in the yard scooping pug turds, a city inspector came by and asked what I was doing there. After telling him I was "Scooping pug turds, duh?" he said I couldn't be there. I said in true Idaho fashion, "Um, this is MY property. You get off it!" The next day, Mr. CDA Code Enforcement came and said, "I have to evict you, and I can arrest you if you don't go."

It turns out the builder never got an occupancy permit. In fact, much of the things weren't even inspected! So Mr. CDA Code Enforcement interceded for me because the builder would not answer my calls. He threatened builderman with a revoking of his license, which got builderman's attention. So I packed up Chester and Marley and moved into a hotel, despite builderman's offer (made to Code Enforcement) for me to come live with him out in the sticks (shudder).

Slowly, the things that stopped the permit were corrected, albeit poorly and after 2 weeks of hotel life, the house was pronounced occupy-able. During my hotel stay, I discovered that Chester thinks "hotel" equates to "shacking up with Marley" with shameless humping upon her in the lobby and elevator and God-knows-where else -- every six feet he'd be on her grunting like a giant tortoise in rut.

Eventually I moved back to my house and noticed things like some of the wood trim isn't, um, varnished, and the dishwasher is installed wrong, so if you leave dishes in it, they grow mold. There's no master bathroom (it was a master powder room), and the niche for my TV doesn't fit with my actual TV, and the fireplace isn't finished and the door handles are upside down, the pocket doors are missing parts and on and on. Stuff from minor to major to completely idiotic: light blue touch up paint used to touch up WHITE walls. Oh, but the touch up guy had a warrant for his arrest, so he wasn't able to come back and fix it.

Today
NOTE: Blogger uploaded the first picture sideways. Inconceivable.

These days, the builder REALLY isn't answering my calls. I was able to "hide" my number and he'd pick up, but even that doesn't seem to work any more. So I go about living my life until the sinkhole incident yesterday.

Today, the plumbers came and inspected, and called in more plumbers and said to me, "Uh oh!" and explained to me that: my house is connected to the 4-inch pipe that ostensibly goes to the elderly clay sewer pipe, which goes to the sewer. In reality, my house IS connected to the 4" pipe, which then runs along the side of my house for 5 feet and then... stops. It's broken there.

Now, most insurance companies would say, "Oh, the pipe's broken. That's normal wear and tear. It's old. We're not covering it. It could be Tree Roots."

Being the drama queen that I am, my situation is more... dramatic. You see, in my case, there is NO OTHER END OF THE PIPE! There is no pipe in my yard! It was probably annihilated during construction of my garage/shop, or the house, but the trench was filled back in WITHOUT ATTACHING TO THE SEWER! That I have been paying for, BTW.

So the upshot is that yesterday I was sucked down in a SINKHOLE OF ICY SEWAGE! Of my own making! The thrill of a lifetime! Less immediately bad, but dreadful nonetheless is that I have unknowingly sent sewage out into the side yard for 9 months. Oh, joy of joys. It's now a fertile place, I am sure.

The plumbers want 10 grand to trench through my back yard and connect me to the sewer, AND cap off where the old house was connected. They assure me they know what they're doing, have done this A Lot and will do it right, for $10,000 US.

Meanwhile, my lawyer has been contacted and a homeowner's claim has been filed. My lawyer gave me some interesting tips, so Mr. CDA Code Enforcement dude will be phoned tomorrow, because he is actually part of the CDA police. I'm of the opinion that this is CRIMINAL. At the very least, it's pretty shitty. I'm sure Code Enforcer will remember me. Hah.

You know what? When you can't use the pot, you really, really need to go. The plumber did say, "Oh, go ahead and do laundry -- it will just go out into the hole." Same with showering. He didn't want me sending crap into the hole, though. Happily, my sister is/was a real 1960's hippy, and she once told me, "If it's yellow, let it mellow," so that's all kinds of helpful! (If it's brown, flush it down won't be happnin'). AND -- the other good thing is that the basement is unfinished, and I HAVE a basement, otherwise I may have come into my kitchen to find the sink backed up and full of sewage. But I didn't! I just stepped in it! UP TO MY KNEE! And my wool sock still kept my foot warm! And my shoe wasn't lost! And no pugs fell in!

Oh, and because of my needle felting, I'm up on my tetanus, so any bad tetanus-causing bugs in the sinkhole will be sent packing by my happy immune system.

Ironically, the pugs can still use their potty. In the yard.

I hope you all are now saying, "Wow, my life is certainly a lot better than hers!" and are feeling good. If so, I will feel like I have done a service.

Next post: Pug CSI again. The dishwasher caper. And maybe a photo of Chester helping me blog. He is completely IN my buttoned-up cardigan snoring away like some 8-week-old puppy.

I can't resist! Here is Pensive Wee:

Merry Christmas to ME!

2008-12-25T13:07:00.000-08:00

I was awakened by Chester. Chester barfing. All I could say was, "Dude, it's CHRISTMAS!" but he didn't stop. Luckily it was just, just spit? And on his blanket, not mine.

Gaseous Emissions
Yesterday, I kept Chester crated at home all day, the poor guy. But I was SO HAPPY when I got home because I knew he hadn’t eaten a turd! So overjoyed, you just don’t know. What a thing to take joy out of, but such is my life with him. Anyhow, I proceeded to let everyone outside to go potty, and Chester wanders over on top of the deep snow to take a dump. And then he turns around and GRABS A LOG! And he ate it as I was screaming, “NO! STOP!” and trying to throw snowballs at him. I managed to leap into the knee deep snow and grab his neck before he ate all of it, but still. My joy bubble was burst in one fell swoop.

I took comfort in the fact that Wednesday was a new day. And so did Chester – Marley dropped a turd in the kitchen and guess who cleaned it up? Well, it wasn’t me.

That explains his gas.

Seriously.

Sunday I thought, “I have got to call the vet – Chester really stinks”. Then I found the mark on the floor where he’d cleaned. He was exuding the smell of crap from every fiber of his being.

So – not only is tomorrow a new day, but a whole NEW YEAR! Chester Fecal NONConsumption is my resolution. CFNc
“So what New Year’s Resolution did you make for 2009?”
“To stop my dog from eating shit.”

A Sasha story

2008-12-24T08:03:00.001-08:00

When the snow lets up, sometime this spring, I think Sasha may have a great home. I hope. In the meantime, here's a little story about the Diva-to-rival-Marley.

This morning, Wee flung himself on me to wake me up. This is always funny because he's so... so... Wee that he gets high centered and teeters on my side (I was lying on my side). Once he sees my eyes open, the tongue comes out. Wee is definitely juicy. He has a lot of spit and wants to use it to wash my face.

After several seconds of slurping, I got up. Four pugs came with me; a headcount revealed that Sasha was missing. Living with the Marvelous Vanishing Marley has taught me that black pugs can disappear in the most amazing ways. Marley's latest vanishing act is to stand quietly directly behind you. Sasha can disappear into a dark leather club chair with ease, and that was where I looked, but she wasn't there.

So the fantastic four went outside to potty in the frozen yard while I called for Sasha with no luck. Then I got a brilliant idea! I got a little scoop of kibble, and her dish. I stood where I could see most of my downstairs and poured the food from a height into the metal dish so it would clink, and lo and behold, there on my bed was a fast moving lump; Sasha. She stuck her head out from under the covers with the most hilarious expression on her face that I had to laugh. I hadn't noticed that lump because the rest of the comforter was lumpy. Miss Diva did not want to go out in the cold and potty, but she was going to get up for breakfast!

Girl's club:
Sometimes, you just want a warm body, and if it's your protege, well, so much the better. These two lie together fairly often (as I type, they're on the memory foam bed). I was surprised to find them in the crate together. I love how Marley holds her back feet. She is feeling very good lately, probably due to the Adequan arthritis shot. She gets another one this weekend.

They all have various ways of keeping warm. Wee has to sit on me, Chester ambles around licking the floor -- no, wait! That's something else! I am thinking of knitting him a ski mask. And tips on pattern sources (except that one from 1960 with the clowns, which is just horrifying) please let me know!

Bugsy has his own way of keeping warm. Do not try this at home, folks. Bugsy is a trained heat-seeking professional who sleeps on the fireplace hearth while the fireplace is on. Here he is completely misusing a heating pad. And worse, I'm letting him do it, but that's because I'm supervising.

Knitting
I'm currently working on a shop project that I'm going to make into kits. Hopefully this hat will be on display at the shop, but it may be displayed around town on my head. I like it. It's the Midnight Sun Tam. I love color knitting as it's easy, but not as mindless as stockinette.

2008-12-18T12:07:00.000-08:00

My horrifying discovery regarding the non-removable sofa cushions was proceeded by Chester projectile vomiting on the leather couch. And it ran down the arm, but I thought it would be OK as I could simply remove the seat and clean and disinfect.

Nope.

While I was mopping, I was phoning the vet (gotta love any phone that isn't attached to a wall!).

Out in the snowstorm we went, and made it to the vet by taking main surface streets, and maxing out at 25mph in four wheel drive. My weird dog immediately perked up when he got to the vets, so I had to convince them that he really was sick. It's Chester's home away from home I guess, and he loves everyone that works there. I keep saying, "Well, wanna take him home overnight? Huh? Huh?"

So the vet says perhaps Chester is having motility issues -- his stomach has stretched out so much from the giant hairball that it's not squeezing things out the bottom properly. We talked about that for a bit, and I asked, "I wondered about his big stomach -- I'm thinking he doesn't feel full after he eats." The vet agreed. Chester's stomach is like a balloon that's been overfilled and then deflated, so it hasn't shrunk back to normal size. He has a broken tummy! A pug with stomach atrophy is totally pathetic.

Chester is now getting Regulan (metaclopromide), which hopefully will help move things right along. In fact, the vet said he was up himself all night vomiting, so perhaps he would take a Regulan as well. LOL! Gotta love the vets. I also found out that the vet that did the surgery is off the rest of the week, and Chester's regular vet will be in, so if Chester has another problem, I will know to bring the hairball with me.

Yeah, his regular vet missed out on the hairball. I know he'll want to see it for real.

On the way home, I managed to get the pickup stuck 2 doors from my house. I high centered on a pile of snow, so Chester was forced to slog home in his blue sweater. At least he's smart enough that he followed my tracks, but I had to SHOVE him into house. I then gathered my snow shovel and with the help of some neighbors, dug my car out. Of course this means I'll be stuck here for a while, but I'm within walking distance of a grocery store, so I'm not terribly worried.

Horrifying Discovery

2008-12-18T11:59:00.000-08:00

I just made a horrifying discovery. The seat cushions on my sofa are not removable.

More on that later. I have a pug story about someone else for now.

Many people tell me they want to be reincarnated as one of my pugs. I am very flattered that everyone thinks my pugs have it so good, but the other day, something happened and I feel I should publicly warn people NOT to come back as one of mine.

I was vacuuming for the second time that day -- it was Monday, my day off, and Chester was coming home, so I really wanted to make sure there wasn't any pug hair on the floor. My efforts are essentially futile, even vacuuming twice in one day.

Anyhow, I was using just the tube to suck up some dust bunnies from under the sofa. The vacuum was running, and I was standing there moving furniture with one hand when I heard that sound that means you've sucked up the rug fringe or the draperies or something. I wasn't near either thing, so I stood there for a moment. I looked down, and there was something stuck in the vacuum -- Marley's ear. She was standing below me and I must have been waving the hose around. Poor little thing -- she didn't yelp or anything, just stood there like this was an everyday occurance. I immediately shut the vacuum off and gave her a cookie, but it's things like this that make me want to warn people away!

Meanwhile today has not been going so well. Over the past 24 hours we have had record snowfall, and so I've been mopping puddles and shoveling pathways all day. And then there's Chester, but that story is getting more elaborate, so it will be a separate post. And I'll have snow photos.

Chester's Surgery quickie

2008-12-12T14:03:00.000-08:00

As of 1pm Pacific Standard Time, Chester was done with surgery and had come through it quite well. A new record was set: he gave birth to a 1.5lb (.68kg) hairball. The tech was completely grossed out. Photos will be forthcoming after I go and take pictures of the thing later today.

Apparently it was fully stuck to his stomach. And it was so large that when they started making the incision, his stomach started coming up and out right away.

Poor Chester. The other day when he was in for a pre-op exam, they weighed him at 19 pounds. Normally he's 23 pounds. So he now weighs 17.5 pounds and his stomach is completely empty and stretched out like a worn out balloon. That makes him only 2.5 pounds heavier than Wee (Erwin). When the drugs wear off, Chester's going to be HUNGRY! Good thing he's going to be hospitalized, so that I have time to clear the decks of dust bunnies.

UPDATE:
Animals are completely remarkable. Really. I stopped by the vet to visit the hairball, and they thought I meant Chester. Well, he was apparently OUT going potty a mere five hours after his surgery. While I was standing there waiting for them to bring me the actual hairball, guess who walked by? Yes. Chester. How incredible is that? Then he nearly fell over. Good drugs.

So, this hairball was similar to the first one, but not as flat. It had a smashed in area, which was unusual. Still, you could completely make out where it was clogging his pyloric valve (the exit valve, which is that protrusion at the bottom). The arrow in the picture below points to a piece of celery. That piece of celery is TWO WEEKS OLD, and was in some turkey soup I made for him. Cooked celery, not raw; a normal dog would have digested it. You can see other pieces of celery here and there as well. There's also a piece of red yarn, but it doesn't show in the photo. The vet told me this hairball was completely stuck to the inside of Chester's stomach, and he had to pry the stomach away. I asked if he ever videotaped things like this and he said he didn't but if he'd only known, he would have. Darn. I should have said something. I will start Chester on Laxatone(?) or mineral oil as a regular daily part of his diet now that his stomach is blissfully empty and clean. Hopefully it will grease the skids, as it were, so nothing sticks.

I also had 10" of my hair cut off. Maybe that will help, but who knows, the vast majority of the hairball was compressed pug hair.

The vet brought out some cage muzzles to show me and I just laughed at him. Those won't fit on a pug. Since I'm completely at my wits end about this, I will be looking for a pet psychic or something to find out why Chester does this and to communicate to him how bad it is. Yeah, I'm grasping at straws.

OK, now for the grossness. Squeamish? How can you be, if you're reading this, you probably have pugs or some kind of canine! Come on, just look at the pictures! You know you want to. There are two photos. One of the hairball, and another with part of it pulled apart so you can see that it's all compacted hair. The vet suggested I put a Christmas bow on the hairball and leave it at my ex-'s place with a note, "Merry Christmas, miss ya, love ya!" Ha! My vet is awesome.

Hairball II, the Sequel

2008-12-06T11:31:00.000-08:00

Chester has been trying to throw up for the past few days, so I made a vet appointment, using my quantity discount: Wee Man/Erwin got a microchip, Marley got some adequan for her arthritis which is really acting up, and Chester got an x-ray.

Poor dude only weighs 19 pounds. He usually weighs in over 20 pounds because he's big. He has 2 separate hairballs this time, so for $700 I can have them removed next Friday. Sigh.

Meanwhile, Erwin topped the scales at around 15 pounds, and Marley just sat there hunched over in pain. I want every pug in the WORLD to weigh just 15 pounds. It's the best size EVER! Bugsy outweighs the little dude by 10 pounds, at 25 pounds.

I had an idea! To defray his vet expenses, Chester has a kidney for sale.

It's not Christmas until someone craps in the mall.

2008-12-01T20:11:00.000-08:00

My sister emails me that her boyfriend has told her to "pack for three days, the weather is like it is here at home." She's being taken on a surprise trip. One of my best friends emails me from New York City's garment district, the tease. I, on the other hand, am spending the holidays cleaning up pug turds.

No, it's not really like that! I mean, it is true—Marley did poop in the mall, but the old lady was quite het up after her visit with Santa.

Yes, I took five pugs to sit on Santa's lap. Thank heavens for my BF, who brought her little pug and her husband, which meant extra hands. I told Santa three of mine had been good dogs (Marley, Bugsy and Sasha) and two were very bad (Erwin, and Chester). I also told him Erwin and Sasha wanted forever homes for Christmas.

Erwin and Marley, being the eldest got Santa's lap. Erwin is a lap sitting FOOL, and Marley is a practiced hand at this, so they both settled in. Chester acted up, refusing to sit, and Sasha just froze because she's a good little girl. Bugsy looked a little grumpy, probably because he had to wear a sweater, but he stayed put as I took all leashes except Sasha's. Santa held her leash because I am officially too old to engage in a merry chase through the mall after a wild thing. Been there, done that in my 20's, thankyouverymuch.

My photo setup technique is to dive on the floor under the camera. This year, I did something with Chester that served me well—I've been making him wait for his dog food, and I say "Look at me!" and when he does, he can eat. So guess who looks at me when I say "Look at me!" It was amazing. The other pugs look when I say their names, except Marley who feigns complete deafness. But when Marley accidentally looks, I cry out, "Takethepicturetakethepicturetakethepicture!" and the camera gal was on top of it. After five tries we got it, but boy, Bugsy just looks angry, doesn't he? Santa looks awfully serious, too!

Santa said that the pugs were better behaved than most of the kids he sees. Hah. I had to pry Wee Man and Marley off his lap—they were pretty happy up there. Marley was so overcome by the thrill of it all that she pooped as we made our way out of the mall. After 21 years of mall pooping after Santa by SOMEONE, I know to wear pants with pockets, and have a baggie in my pocket. Yes! I now have pug photos with Santa for every year since 1987.

New Wee video
Admiral Barky, AKA YapMaster Slim, AKA Wee Man is still barking at nothing. Well, it's something to him—he particularly enjoys barking at his shadow or the TV or whatever suits his fancy at the time. Right now, he's barking at me, thinking that I will let him sit on my lap. He has learned about the steps up to the bed, and I caught him in mid-leg-hike on my new pillow. I screamed, "What the HELL ARE YOU THINKING?" which stopped anything from coming out, and now my room is baby-gated off. It's good, because if he didn't pee on the bed, he would just lie there and bark, which means, "Come back to bed!" or "That shadow is out to get me!" or "I forgot how to get off the bed, Ma!"

I digress. The other day at the shop, Wee Man's previous owners came to "visit" him. Apparently they were driving by and saw him sunning himself. So they wanted to bring the son by to say goodbye to Erwin. Not that they cared about what Erwin thought, the poor dear. So he was feeling a little out of sorts and disappeared into the back room.

Homemade soup
None of the pugs are settling down like they normally do, probably because I am making turkey soup out of the Thanskgiving carcass. Bugsy has assumed a position (looking much like the position in the photo with Santa) under the stove. And he just belched. Lovely. High class. Erudite.

Admiral Barky

2008-11-12T12:31:00.001-08:00

I'm fostering a pug for Second Chance Pet Rescue. His name is Erwin, but who names a pug ERWIN? I can never remember it, so I usually call him Emmett, or Admiral Barky, since he is a watchdog extraordinaire. In fact, he barks at his own shadow sometimes. AB does something funny, so I made a little video of it, as I've never seen a pug do this exact thing (oh, and the snoring in the background is Marley herself):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBUy4Zdt_F8

Admiral Barky is often confined to the brig, because he's still a marker. The other boys, giants by comparision, are disgusted by the presence of the small man. Actually, Bugsy wants to play with him, but there's the little matter of the surgery AB had, so he's not really feeling like he wants to play.

Seven little-known things about me

Corrine Neissner pinged me to do this.
1. I have a master's degree in software engineering
2. I have terrible spatial relations ability, so it's hard for me to sew because I just can not see how the pattern shapes should go together.
3. I had guinea pigs growing up because my dad wasn't allergic to them.
4. I like boy dogs better, and Marley is my first girl dog.
5. I can play the piano (not very well, though).
6. I am afraid of heights.
7. Black olives are disgusting to me -- they taste metallic.

Shop dog Bugsy.

Bugsy's Road Trip, One thing Chester is Not Allergic To, Marley's Big Day

2008-10-27T18:44:00.001-07:00

I'm not blogging much. This is because just prior to the economy going blooey (well, so says the news), I decided to open up a yarn shop (www.cdayarnandfiber.com).

Opening a retail store, I've discovered, is a huge undertaking. There are lots of things you have to think about from how to lay out your store so people have a good experience and don't take things out without paying, to what kind of shopping bags you'll have and everything in between. Not to mention, what sort of yarn will you carry? Oh, and what kind of Internet connection, and machinery will you have.

So, in the yarn display department, I took a trip to Seattle to go to IKEA. Of course I packed all the pugs in the car, which was easier going than it was coming back. I bought a lot of stuff at IKEA -- my pal and I were there all day, and three IKEA guys loaded up my pickup. I thought I'd have to strap the pugs to the roof, but luckily I put their dog beds on top of everything in the back and they had a perfect perch. Of course Marley didn't care, she had to be on my lap the entire time. But I got pictures just by holding the camera up facing backwards, and some of them even turned out!

When we got back, I did a little rearranging of the living room to expose the lovely unfinished fireplace. I was cold so I turned the gas on, and Bugsy came and sat next to me. So began Bugsy's winter career as a fire lizard. That dog loves the warm. In fact, I told him he was going to catch is fur on fire one day, but he just laughed and sprayed me with snot. Sometimes, I can find him up there when the fireplace isn't even on -- he's ever hopeful, like all pugs.

Chester is Not Allergic To:

Bee stings. How amazing is that? He was with me one evening at the shop and all of a sudden he had some sort of spaz attack like pugs do. I didn't think anything about it, because of the way he roots around in plastic bags and stuff. As I was working, I looked at him, sitting with his back to the wall looking rather droopy. He was doing that pug meditation thing where he was physically there but he wasn't present. Or so I thought.

After a bit, I was finished and said, "Let's go home!" Well, he trots to the door and I see one of his lips is swollen. He tried to eat a half-dead hornet that was on the windowsill (I found it in the middle of the floor). So that explained the spaz attack and the meditations. Ever the good pug mother, of course I immediately got the camera and took his picture (I'll post it later), then drove him to the grocery store nearby and bought some Benadryl and cheese and gave him one there in the car. A few hours later, I gave him another and he slept through the night and was fine the next day. He likes the idea of cheese in the car, but that's another post.

Having had a pug go into anaphylactic shock not once but twice from his shots, I know what that looks like, and I am totally stunned and amazed that it didn't happen to Chester. A bit of good karma for him, I suppose.

Bugsy Announcement, Doggie Dip, What to Call +2 Pugs, and A Bit of Irony

2008-08-27T15:10:00.000-07:00

First off, apparently because of Chester, my vets are in-the-know about the dangers of Xylitol for dogs. He's doing his part for dogs in the area, I guess. If your dog eats sugarless gum, you have to take them to the vet right away.

Bugsy's Big Announcement

Bugsy has lost 8 pounds since he came here to the pug spa. Bugsy is a a whole different dog, and it's funny to see his personality emerge.

He has also found a home.

Doggie Dip

So the boy pugs got weighed at the vets when I took Bugsy in for his shots, which were overlooked during his neutering. During the visit, I made them weigh Chester, who at 24 pounds weighs only one pound less than Bugsy. It's all in his turgid stomach.

Everyone had to be current on their shots to go to the Doggie Dip -- the Spokane area outdoor city pools are closing for the season, so they let dogs go swimming. I brought Boomer's life jacket, which was novel for one and all -- they'd never seen such a thing. It came in handy, though, because I put Bugsy in the pool at about the third step down, and he froze, just like Boomer. He would have sunk straight to the bottom except the life jacket kept him floating, and he just floated there, bobbing like a cork for a couple of seconds, utterly confused.

When he regained his wits, he turned and swam the 18" back to the steps and high-tailed it out of the pool. He spent the rest of the time with a tennis ball someone had brought. That's part of the joys of adopting a rescued pug: little things like this emerge. Bugsy is a fiend for tennis balls.

Mr. Manly Chester, on the other hand, freaked out completely, and swam immediately to the railing where he managed to wedge himself between it and the side of the pool. Like some furry limpet, he desperately clung to the side of the pool, and the lifeguard and I had to pry the pathetic animal loose with the handy grab-handle on his life jacket.

I have a pair of large pug wimps.

Marley got set onto the second step so only her legs got wet, and she was had none of that, thank you very much. She promptly hopped out and said to me, "You said this was a pool party, not swimming lessons! There are no cabana boys! Where's my fluffy towel? Ugh!" I'm just lucky she didn't pee in the pool in disgust. Later, she wanted to know where the cocktail weenies were, and how a girl was supposed to get an appletini around there. I told her she was having no appletini, and the cocktail weenies were fawn and lived with her. She stomped off to flirt with the male lifeguard.

What to Call More than Two Pugs

How about a "party of pugs"? I think that's appropriate, because when I haul the three around, it's like I've brought the party. I think that phrase suits groups of pugs very well. You heard it here first, folks. (Stephen Colbert, eat your heart out).

Speaking of which, maybe for rescue, I'll have a pug Halloween Party here at the house. The theme of course will be politics. That's pretty scary!

Marley

She is currently getting shots once a week of adequan. This is because she had blood in her urine, and a UTI that didn't clear up. She had an ultrasound (complete with a Brazilian), and it showed some thickening of her bladder wall. I have to give the shots, and I stick her right in her bacon area. She doesn't mind because I put her on the kitchen counter with an open bag of treats, so she spends all her time trying to put her face in the bag and hardly flinches.

The treatment is adequan, which happens to be an arthritis drug. So guess who is feeling fine? Yep, she is peppy and actually chewed on a bone the other day. I took a video of her chomping it, but she thinks she's not glamourous so I'll have to sneak it on to YouTube when she's not looking.

Irony

I love it when something is ironic. For instance, in 2007, a bunch of Anarchists crashed Spokane's Fourth of July celebration and protested various things and scuffled with the police. The definition of anarchy! This year, they applied for a permit to protest at the celebration. An anarchist, applying for a permit? Oh, how ironic.

So my sister went to Denver. She reports back to me that protesters at the Democratic National Convention had to also apply for permits, and were assigned specific protest locations. Some protesters got there a day early, and spent the night in a fenced-off area under sodium arc lights. The area was ironically nicknamed... "The Freedom Cage."

Oh brother.

Darn Goats in the House! and Retirement Announcement

2008-08-09T09:26:00.000-07:00

(Yes, he lies like this a lot. Not the full pugfrog, but a Chester version)

On Friday the 8th, I brought the mail in and happily noticed the new issue of Interweave Knits had arrived. Mother Nature called right then, so I went in to the "reading room" and found a seat. Before I could even open my magazine, Marley started barking her tattle bark. I hung up with Mother Nature and went to see what was going on in the living room, thinking perhaps she just wanted me to lift her down from the sofa.

In the approximately 60 seconds I was in the bathroom, Chester had gotten into my purse. Stupid me, answering nature instead of putting my purse up on some high shelf somewhere. He ate the brand new package of sugarless gum. Again. I grabbed him and hauled him upstairs to force feed him hydrogen peroxide, which is said to make dogs throw up. (I have since learned that about a teaspoon of table salt will work much better)

As George Bernard Shaw said, "...never wrestle with a pig. You get dirty and besides, the pig likes it." In this case, both of us got dirty and neither of us liked it much. It was also unsuccessful. I don't think goats throw up during daytime hours. Only at 2am on the bed.

Off to the emergency vet we went (ca-ching!), where they injected Ches with something that worked to make him barf. A hapless vet tech got to sort through the vomit, and said to me, "Was it fruit flavored gum?" I told her I thought it was, but didn't really know since I didn't get any! Chester got to spend the night, and Marley was worried when I came home without him. The next morning hen I retrieved the goatpug, he was still angry with me about the hydrogen peroxide, but 24 hours cured that. Both Bugsy and Marley checked him out carefully at the door.
About that gum
I was at the store where they were starting to display Halloween goods! So at the checkstand, I saw this new flavor of Orbit called "Fresca Sangria". I wondered why it wasn't with the Halloween goods, since is one of those unfortunately named products: "fresh bleeding". Like trying to sell Chevy Novas in Mexico, where "Nova" translated to "no va" which means no go.

Apparently the gum is quite good (according to you-know-who), and so are the wrappers. I can't comment, not having had any.

And why did this happen?
I went to Friday knitting and a friend of mine was there. Her son and Chester have some sort of psychic link whereby the kid is at the ER the same time Chester is at the ER vet. It's really, really weird. So we were sitting there and I asked her, "So how's your son?" Well, the son was just fine and so was Chester. I was relieved. It was Marley's turn to run up the vet bill, then Bugsy again, and then Chester.

The world is now slightly off kilter because Chester changed the order of things. Marley's big vet expense is coming next week when she has to have an ultrasound because she's showing a little blood in her urine, and it's not a UTI.

I text-messaged my friend from the waiting room at the ER vet and wrote: WATCH YOUR KID!

Guess what? Within 5 days, her little boy tripped, fell and gashed open his chin resulting in at trip to the ER and 3 stitches. Apparently, she had not mentioned my text message to her husband, who was with Chester's little buddy at the time of the injury. I told her to let him in on this next time.

Announcing a Retirement
Marley has retired. She will no longer be modeling for her fashion house. It's the end of an era. It was a shocker to me, but on August 14, she was in a dog fashion show and would NOT sashay down the dogwalk! Instead, she stood there and said, “No. In fact, HELL no. It’s hot out here! You didn’t pay me enough for this gig! There are no M&Ms in a Kosta Boda Crystal dish in my dressing room and where's the ice water. I’m so mad I may throw a cell phone at you!” She stalled for so long she was ignominiously snatched up by the event organizer while I laughed and Tux wondered what the heck was going on. You just have to laugh when you have pugs. So she has retired. I realized at the fashion show signups that neither Chester nor Bugsy would fit the Hawaiian shirt I'd brought so I had even paired her with Tuxie, the cutest little gray-faced black pug rescue belonging to JL, thinking they'd be a shoo in as crowd favorite. Unfortunately, Marley just had to put her foot down. And not lift it again, and move forward for the photographer who was lying in the middle of the street. Maybe she had a flashback to the fashion show in California, which was similar heat and dressing room-wise.

This means several things for the House of Marley:
1. I will have to use a mannequin. That sucks totally.
2. I will have to use Chester and Bugsy. One of them will have to be a cross-dresser (Boomer was so good for this, I still miss that kid.)
3. The clothes will be getting larger. If I have to fit Chester and Bugsy, they’d better. I can call it "Bugs' Big and Tall."

Knitting
I finished a sweater for my sister. She loved it, and went on and on about how fantastic it was until I had to interrupt to ask, "But does it FIT?" Yes, it does, so she won't be sending it back to me. The sweater is for her trip to Europe because she was telling me what clothes she was bringing and the words "gray" and "black" were mentioned far too often. I asked her if she knew of this thing called "color"? Apparently she didn't. The sweater is a pink that will go with gray and black, and can be worn alone or over other things. It's made from Rowan Purelife Cotton, which is a really neat yarn. It's dyed with a natural dye: Brazilwood.

Note: the sweater isn't striped. I got the photo from my Flickr pictures, and it seems to have gotten a bit of a moire pattern on the bottom. It's not really like that.

I'm participating in the Ravelympics on Ravelry. I may have bitten off more than I can chew there, though. I'm still grumpy about Chester's vet trip and sad about Marley's retirement and it's going to be really hot, and I don't feel like knitting. I should be happy, though, because I finally sold the bathtub that was sitting in my bedroom, and the crummy flooring in the garage. Whee. I guess that money goes to... Chester's vet!

Arbor of DOOM!

2008-07-24T19:17:00.000-07:00

A little over one week ago, I was setting this up and dropped the entire thing, fully assembled, on my left ankle.

My left ankle is my "bad" ankle, having crashed while motorcycling on the left side and sliding along the pavement with my bike lying on top of my ankle as I tried to shove it off with my right foot (yes, I actually had the presence of mind to do that while sliding along!)

I didn't think I needed to see a doctor, because even if it's broken, it's not "broken" -- it's just a stress fracture, so they'll take x-rays and tell me to stay off it. Why pay for something so obvious.

But -- it still hurts and swells up (if I don't stay off of it). I can't spend weeks sitting on the sofa, even knitting -- I will go bonkers. So I'm at a loss.

Of course that makes the next harrowing adventure tale even MORE harrowing!

Chester Learns to Ride The Scooter
I got the bright idea to cheer Chester up (from his depression over the Interloper) by taking Chester to lunch. Unfortunately, I didn't want to walk there with my bad ankle. The most comfortable vehicle for me and my ankle is my scooter, since it's automatic transmission, so I decided it was time for Big C to learn to ride.

Right off the bat, I figured out Chester can't sit on my lap. In order to have a big enough lap to accomodate his round rump, I'd have to scoot back on the seat, and then I can't get my feet around the fenders and down to the ground. That's a problem. So Chester had to ride on the seat behind me.

Chester wears a harness and has a heavy-duty leather leash, so I harnessed him up and actually tied him to my waist. I told him to SIT, which he did, for about 100 feet and then there was weight at my side and Chester was dangling from his harness, looking completely nonplussed about the fact that he wasn't on the seat any more. His hind feet were on the floorboards, and we were going "test ride" slow, so he wasn't in danger.

I came to a complete stop and hoisted him back onto the seat while telling him, "THAT is why we STAY PUT!" After that, he did and we rode the remaining 7 blocks to Le Piastre, a lovely little bistro on the east end of town.

Chester is a delightful luncheon companion, listening to all my tales of the day and never interjecting boring stories about his life. He watches me raptly the entire time.

For that, he got a scrambled egg and I had a yummy crab melt sandwich. The trip home was uneventful except for numerous onlookers squealing about Chester and his pugmanly cuteness.

Bugsy report
Bugsy is pugmanly cute as well. And so polite and nice, I just can not believe no one has applied to adopt him. I think he and Chester are starting to like each other, but we're still having dominance wars. Chester's idea of playing is to give love bites all over his playmate. He still hasn't figured out this really does not make anyone want to play with him, so it falls to me to chase Chester in the yard (not so easy now that I have a bum ankle).

But I digress. Today, I put Bugsy on the second! notch of his collar! When I got him, we could hardly get the collar on. I was happy when the collar went on easily, and totally stoked that I got to tighten it a whole notch!