Saturday, February 24, 2007

whingeing mostly

Ugh. I am getting sick. Raging sore throat, and a stomachy thing. I ignored it upon waking this morning, and went to dog training with Crick, who did splendidly. I think I had a breakthrough this morning, a way to handle his anxiety-prey drive-hyperfocus issue; on our walk to class (I go to Mililani early and walk him a mile or so before class to get him in a working zone) I gave him a toy to distract himself, a squishy green ball. He carried it for a mile, mouthing it gently. Voila! No barking, no crying and jumping through the entire walk and through the class. For this, I have Cesar Millan to thank. Not because Cesar has used this trick, to my knowledge, but because I've been watching him try novel ways of moving dogs through their fears and obsessions, and I think it's increasing my repetoire a little.

After class, I tried the Jamba Juice (Coldbuster with a protein boost) cure, to no avail. I came back home and slept. Up to the ringing of my cel phone; a delicious conversation with Hawkheart, and various homemade concoctions involving ginger, lemons, honey and cayenne. She listened to my lamenting, prescribed the use of a neti pot to avoid such infections altogether, and we caught up on each others' lives. Now it's dark, rainy, Saturday has trickled away in the dusk, and I'm still ill, and filled with the crazy need to clean my house, because, well, who wants to be home in all this filth? I think I'll settle for the kitchen and the bathroom.

I am such a baby, particularly when there's no other human around to ply me with chicken soup and gingerale. I wish the Oscars were on tonight...but I do have some tivo'd episodes of "House", "Lost" and "Survivor" that I haven't watched, so I may live. There's always that Firefly complete season dvd for the real self-medication.

Non-sequitur; it is raining REALLY hard right now. Yikes. Part of the dirt in the house is mud, tracked in by my canine friends.

In honor of Project Spectrum (too lazy to link, here) I am trying to see this month's featured colors, blue, gray in a new way. It ocurred to me that those mudtrackers are perfect Project Spectrum dogs. Ella is a color known as "silver", born black and graying at a very early age. She is the darkest of her siblings, others are a very pale, platinum gray. Cricket, who looks quite black, is actually "blue", a brownish black that will gray out over time. His undercoat is a dusty gray, and his face and paws are turning brown.




Going to wash dishes now. G'night everyone.

5 comments:

Chelsea said...

*sending cold-cure thoughts your way*

Acornbud said...

Okay what did Cricket dig up? Is he an archaeologist? I hope you get over this bug fast so you can feel good during your temporary bachelorette-dom.

Reya Mellicker said...

If I were there I'd brew up some Jewish chicken soup, get you a box of the softest kleenexes, plump up your pillows, put a cool hand on your forehead.

I hate being sick! Hope you're soon back to your standards of excellence!

Anonymous said...

I cannot believe anyone would deliberately pour salt water through their nose. If it works for you then I'm glad and wish you a speedy recovery. But neti pots are freaky. Says the girl who never did cocaine either, partly because putting something up my nose completely squicked me out. ~LA

Opal said...

Hawaii weather is so freaky. My valley barely got a drop of rain this weekend. I was so sad. I love the canine pictures! I hope you feel better in time for Aloha Knitters this week.