Becoming ba-ba-ba-ba-Bobbye Sue

My mom has certain idiosyncrasies that I noticed at a very young age. I remember sitting in the back seat of our Datsun and watching my mom twirl her hair around and around while waiting for the light to turn green. I also remember her sitting at the kitchen table at my grandparent's house resting her chin in her hand atop a phone book and with the other hand, she'd take the corner of the book and run her fingers along the corner from bottom to top making a "grrrtttttttttttt" sound. These are things that, no matter where I am or who is actually doing them, remind me of her.

These are also things that I didn't do in my first quarter century of life. Even the beginning of my second quarter century. But just in the last week, I have caught myself doing both!

One night last week I was snuggled up in bed reading my book (which is Eat, Pray, Love....so good!), when all of the sudden I realized that I was twirling my hair, and I had been doing it for a while! This might not seem like such a big deal, except that I really have never had the twirling habit and it's one of my mom's signature moves.

Then just a minute ago, as I was reading a complicated bid from a printer, I heard the familiar "grrrtttttttt" sound. My first thought was "what's she doing at my office?" but I looked down and I was the one grrrtttttttting the pages of my notebook.

I guess we really do turn into our mothers. I'm glad I get to be Bobbye Sue...she's pretty swell. :)

The garden's in!

We FINALLY got our summer garden in! We had to hold off because Miss Scout liked to dig, so we are actually late to the game, but we got it done! And we've got the sore muscles and sunburns to prove it.

Here it is before. Try not to judge.

yuck

digging wonderland for our backyard guest

And here it is now.

ahhhh yeah!

We've got two cherry tomatoes, one celebrity tomato, three types of peppers (who likes jalapeno jelly?), one cilantro, one basil and one curly-leaf parsley for the butterflies. We'll add some onions and I'd like to add some New Guinea impatiens for some color, and also for the butterflies.

In other backyard notes, we were able to save the chinese wisteria that Scout decided to use as a chew toy. So we've got that goin for us, which is nice...kinda like Carl Spackler and the Dalai Lama.

We'll keep you posted on the veggies. Hopefully we'll have a bountiful crop this year!

Sweet Scout

I can't believe it's been over a month since my last post! Well, we have been out of town on the weekends and have been super busy during the week, so the blog has gotten neglected. A major source of busy-ness has been our sweet foster doggie, Scout.

Scout followed a neighbor, Cherie, home two and a half weeks ago as she was walking her dog, Louie. Not having a ton of extra room, Cherie called Myla, the neighborhood dog rescuer. This is where we come in. Knowing that we are dog lovers and rescuers ourselves, Myla sent Scout's story and photos to us. What she did not know, but scored big time from, is that I am physically/mentally/molecularly unable to say no to people who ask favors of me. I am flat missing that chip. (Note to self...must work on that before I end up with more stray dogs than the cast of that "Hotel for Dogs" movie.) So we met the little miss, introduced her to Jack and Fiona, and she came to stay that night. We named her Scout the next day.

The next day we called our vet, also a neighbor, the wonderful Dr. Effie, to set up an appointment to have her examined, scanned for a microchip, and vaccinated. However, since Dr. Effie had been out on vacation, she was very booked and we couldn't get in to have Scout looked at until today. In the meantime, we had learned more of her personality-sweet above all else, vibrant, loyal, good natured and smart as a whip. We taught her to first wear a collar, then to awkwardly walk on a leash, then walk on an extendable leash, and now she can even run on a leash. We taught her to fetch a tennis ball (she retrieves and even drops!), and sit. We worked with her on her already burgeoning "pee pee outside" skills, which seem to be very solid now. All-in-all she is an outstanding dog and we've really grown to love her--even the little doggies. But not a fraction as much as she loves them.

Of course, we have had our "Marley" moments, too. There was the time that little miss chomped branches of our prized chinese wisteria, almost to the point of killing it altogether. It was less than awesome when she was left outside too long, got bored, and decided to push two of my 3 pots off the porch, breaking one into lots of pieces. It was downright scary when she discovered the black electrical wire that comes out of the timer on the landscaping lights...she bit right through and hit the copper. It's a wonder she didn't hurt herself. I had to build a make-shift fence out of dining room chairs around the wisteria (before work, mind you!), and tomato cages and a raccoon trap are moonlighting as a baracade to keep Scout away from the electrical wiring and box, and the last of my porch pots is resting safely on the ground, where it cannot be pushed off and shattered. Needless to say, one glimpse of our back yard right now will have you humming the theme of "Sandford and Son" for the rest of the day.

Over the next two weeks, I sent Scout's story and photos to EVERYONE I know, knew, or even heard of through email, facebook, twitter, you name it. I was pimping out this dog's info like nobody's business because she is just so special and deserving of a wonderful forever family. We signed up with petfinder.com through Companion Animal Network, and several other rescue sites. So far I had gotten two very interested applicants and was even scheduled to have her meet one of them on Sunday. But, that wasn't going to be in the cards.

Zac took Scout (if you are my close personal homie, you know that is not what we actually call her by now. If you must know, her name to me is "scout it, 'bout it, 'bout it" and Zac and I both now pronounce it "skee-outtt." Sheesh.) to the vet this morning and they made a discovery...she has been microchipped! Our feelings about this are bittersweet: on one hand, she was apparently cared for enough to get spayed and microchipped, but on the other, she was allowed to escape from home, sans a collar or leash skills, which puts her in danger of escaping and getting hit by a car and means that she's not getting walked. But, Zac spoke with the owner and he does want her back. So, there's really nothing we can do. Due to the man working until midnight, we can't reunite them until the morning. It's our last night with Scout.

My eyes welled up just typing that. I'm going to be a hot mess tomorrow.