The Life and Times of Olive the Pug: Another Friday Night...

It’s certainly no secret that this is what a pug loves most in the world:

But on Friday evenings, a pug will give up a nap for a chance to spend time down at the beach.  The minute the humans start to say words like “cocktails” and “golf cart” a pug can barely contain her excitement and she might even let out a scream or two in exhilaration and delight.  She just can't help it.  After all, going to the beach for cocktails on a Friday night pretty much trumps all of a pug’s favorite things.  She stands at the door wishing the slow human (that would be me) would just hurry.

Eventually, we all get there and it is a beautiful evening with a slight cool breeze and no humidity.  Lovely!

Unfortunately, none of Olive the pug’s canine friends are coming out this particular evening and she is stuck with just having humans for company.  It's a sad fact of life that humans talk too much to each other and don’t pay enough attention to a dog.  That means a dog might get into a little trouble by getting up on top of the picnic tables.  Of course, she doesn’t have a clue why the humans freak out about that because she knows it’s going to be raining cats and dogs the next day anyhow and the tables will be washed the way nature intended.

Then she spies a couple of lucky dogs whose human knows how to make his dogs feel very special.

But by then she’s pretty sure she wants to get back to that nap, so she heads for home with the humans to take up where she left off.

Celebrating Independence Day – Walker Pond Style

Yesterday was our neighborhood’s annual Fourth of July party.  We don't always  hold our big party on the actual fourth, but this year since the fourth was on a Saturday, that was the day we picked.  I heard someone say yesterday that this was the 49^th year that our neighborhood of Walker Pond here in Sturbridge has been celebrating the Fourth of July together.  I’m sure someone could verify that for me, but it sounds about right to me.

As usual, the day starts off with a Fishing Derby.  Greg used to chair that event but has turned it over to someone with more interest in fishing.  The Derby starts at 7am so I think that Greg’s interest in sleeping in a bit had something to do with it, too.  The Derby is followed by a road race at 8am.  That’s an event that neither Greg nor I have ever been witness to.  But the Parade is at 10 am and I don’t think we’ve missed it but once or twice it in the 28 years we’ve lived here.   Here are a couple of pics from this year’s parade.

Winner of Best in Show were this pack of Patriots:

We don’t have a Best Dressed Dog category, but if we did, this handsome pooch would have gotten my vote:

Olive, the pug, watched the parade closely from the comfort of our golf cart and was pretty excited about that good-looking bulldog, too, but she didn’t get to attend the party, poor girl.  She just gets too excited among all those people and smells.  And while it’s a dogs dream, people would give her far too many bites of their hot dogs than would be good for her, so she had to go home after the parade.

The day continued on with field games one of which is an egg toss.  We had a lot of participants.

This year a new event was added.  The Wellie Wanging involves standing on a half barrel and tossing a Wellington Boot as far as possible while maintaining your stance on the barrel.  Not as easy as it sounds as it turns out.

Here’s a neighbor in mid-wang (?). We were told that this Wellie Wanging is a tradition across the Pond, but I’m not completely sure I believe it.  Verification needed! 

It rained on us for a while so everyone got cozy under the tents and had a few drinks and eats.  But it turned out to be a beautiful evening and every one, including Uncle Sam, enjoyed the day.

Keeping track of time again…

We will be on the road starting tomorrow to find some warmer weather, but for now, I will finish my year in review.

July was uneventful except that our daughter Carrie had her 30^th birthday.  Where does the time go?  Otherwise, we just rambled on like usual. This photo is apropos of nothing except that Carrie and I both like butterflies and it was taken in July.

In August, Greg and I drove north through New Hampshire with a stop to drive up Mount Washington, through Maine, through New Brunswick, Canada and onto Prince Edward Island – a place I’ve wanted to go for a very long time.  Then we came home via Nova Scotia, then Campobello Island and Maine where we stayed a couple of nights with our friends Linda and Brian.  A good trip all around.

Looking out over the lake in Brian and Linda's back yard.

We got lucky with a loon siting right at golden hour.

Aside from the fact that I consider Opening Day of Baseball as the true New Year Day, my year usually really begins in September.  I get busier with meetings and such.  This year was no exception.  But we had some fun, too.  Our neighbors, the McGuires, had a great pool-warming party and that doesn’t mean we all stood in their pool and peed.  It was a beautiful, mild but cool night and a wonderful gathering of neighbors and friends.  But only the kids went in the pool.

This is Walker Pond, not the McGuire's pool.

October was uneventful except for the gorgeous autumn leaves.

I started physical therapy in November for a sciatica problem and though I faithfully attended all sessions and did the exercises, I didn’t get any relief that was long-lasting.  So I was feeling a bit off-centered and old in November.  But we had a very nice Thanksgiving with the kids at a local restaurant and I continue to feel very thankful for so many things in my life with the possible exception of compressed discs in my back that my doctor says is “normal aging.”  Oh, well…

Now, here we are at the end of December and the end of another year.  My mother’s health continues to decline and another good friend has been diagnosed with cancer.  News of the world does its best to try to push me into despair.  But every day, I witness human kindness, small and grand, and it gives me hope.  I’ve been watching out my kitchen window seeing the birds, squirrels and chipmunks going about their daily business.  I think that they know more than I do about the resilience of our Mother, the Earth.  And in our inevitable way, we will join the birds and squirrels and Chip and Dale in going forward into a new year to witness the wonders and splendors of the Earth, small and grand.

My hope for you all as we enter 2015 is that your joys outweigh your sorrows on every count.  Blessed be.

The Life and Times of Olive the Pug: Doggy Independence Day...

In the neighborhood where we live, we humans celebrate Independence Day each year on a day on or near the The 4^th of July.  This year, we celebrated on July 5.  It turned out to be a good call as it was pretty rainy up here on the actual 4^th thanks to Hurricane Arthur.  The 5^th turned out to be a glorious summer day.  Here comes our parade with our Grand Marshal John O’Brien leading the way.

Most of the time when we celebrate Independence Day, Olive the pug can’t do anything but watch the parade in the morning because a pug just can’t tolerate the hot weather.  But yesterday with the weather being so fine, she was able to go to the party for a while and mingle with dog and human alike.  What a day she had!

Here are some friends she met.

This beautiful little Sheltie is our neighbor’s dog.  He is actually on a leash, but because we were celebrating Independence Day, I cloned it out.  He’s a sweet little guy.  Doesn’t he look dashing in his summer haircut?!  It is my human weakness that I can’t remember his name.  I’m sure Olive remembers, but she’s not talking.

This is Freedom.  He sure has an apt name for the day.  He and Olive have been friends for all of Olive’s eight years of life.

Of course, making new friends is always good, like this beautiful seven month old Boxer pup.  We like to welcome new pups to the neighborhood.

Sometimes partying gets to be too much and a pug has to take refuge under a picnic table, but she will usually poke her head out if someone says they are willing to give up a stray piece of kielbasa or is willing to give a nice ear rub.

Olive and I are hoping all you fellow citizens of the USA have had a safe and fun Independence Day weekend!

The Life and Times of Olive the Pug: The Wait

This morning it looked like spring has finally arrived here to Massachusetts.  When I took Olive out for her morning constitutional, we decided to walk down to the pond to see if there was any ice left.  I am happy to report that all the ice is off the pond and this morning it was nice and flat.  We took a couple pictures that I will share.

This one reminds me of a picture of sound waves.

But we had to hurry home because Olive’s favorite people were coming to the house.  A few years ago when my knee was at its worst, I hired a couple of women to come and clean our downstairs.  They come every other week and mostly concentrate on doing the vacuuming and the floors.  It’s an indulgence that I haven’t given up even though my knee is much better now that it’s new.  One of the reasons I haven’t given it up is because Olive, the pug, loves these women.  I mean to say that she LOVES these women and she goes pretty crazy when she knows they are coming.  How she knows is a mystery to me, but she knows.  Here’s a video I took of her waiting for them to arrive:

If you watch the video, you can hear that I am still a bit under the weather because I sound a lot like Marge Simpson’s sister Selma and I don’t even smoke!  But every day, it gets a little better.

Spring(ish)...

No, I haven’t dropped off the edge of the earth.  After an extremely busy (for me, anyhow) week last week, I managed to pick up a nice head cold and have been rather out of it since Saturday night.  But I appear to be somewhat on the mend today, so I thought I would put out a short post.

We had a little bit of a set-back yesterday on our way to spring when we got a bit of snow overnight.  But it was gone fairly quickly and there are only a few stubborn piles lying around now.

Spring has finally sprung and it was a beautiful day here today.  The pond isn’t completely thawed yet, but it’s just a matter of time.

The rest of the week looks like a quiet one for me so I intend to use it to catch up with the blogging world and to get rid of my stuffed up nose.

Hope you all are doing well!

The Art of Random Clicking…

I remember when we got our first desktop computer.  It happened to be a Gateway computer.  Do you remember those?  It arrived at the door in a box with black and white cow-spots on it.  It was awesome!  Greg got it set up after a long and frustrating night and we were in business.  We weren’t on line yet, but we could play games and do word processing.  The world was our oyster.

A Christmas soon after we got the computer, Greg bought us the game Myst.  He and I were so caught up in it that we worked together to finish it off in a week or so spending many nights up to the wee hours.  I haven’t enjoyed a computer game so much since.  I remember though when I got frustrated with it, I would just click on the screen randomly until something or other happened.  And sometimes that opened the gateway to the next level.

These days, four or five computers later, I’m a little more precise with my clicks although I know I don’t really need to be.  I mean, I know that the random clicks I do aren’t going to erase anything or mess anything up that can’t be fixed.  I’ve even figured out how to retrieve an SD card full of pictures that I’ve accidently deleted when I’ve made the wrong click, which I’ve done on more than one occasion.  But even though I know how to do it, there is always that momentary second of sheer panic before I settle down and do what I need to get my stuff back.  Let’s face it, I still kind of sit in awe of the Machine and don’t try to test my limits with it too often.

However, I do get very frustrated when I can’t figure random stuff out.  Like when I couldn’t figure out how to answer people’s comments in an email.  So I am grateful for all of the advice I get from my Blogger friends.  Thanks!  I’ve got it going now.  Actually, it was a pretty simple fix.  And it is entirely possible that I could have figured it out myself if I had been practicing the art of random clicking.  But here’s the point, it would have been random and I probably wouldn’t have recalled what I did to make it act that way and sometimes that’s just as frustrating as not knowing.

Here's how I felt before yesterday:

Here's how I feel today:

Random 5 Friday...

1)  Yesterday was the first anniversary of my new left knee.  It seems that around the three month mark after the surgery, I went to sleep with an achy knee and when I woke up the knee no longer ached too much.  The healing was mostly done and it no longer felt like I had a foreigner living in my body.  These days, there are times when I say that my new knee is the only joint I have that isn’t hurting.  I say that only partly in jest because some days are a true challenge.  Such is the nature of arthritis unfortunately.  The fact is, I am much better off with my new knee and am very happy that the temporary suffering from the surgery was well worth the end results.  I probably wouldn’t have gone out to take these shots last year prior to the surgery on my two aching knees, but am willing to move around more with only one aching knee.

2)  So I’m on Day 123 of my Flickr 365.  I say that with trepidation because I discovered earlier this week that I had mis-numbered my days.  I tend to do this with numbers:  24, 25, 26, 27, 26, 25, 26, 62, 63, 64, 65…  So that I’m never quite sure whether or not I’m coming or going.  As far as my 365 is concerned, I thought I could keep this from happening by keeping a running list of my days written in a notebook.  Well, lo and behold, I did the same thing on my running list in the notebook that I did on Flickr only on a different day.  So I had two mistakes that needed to be corrected.  It took me about an hour to put things right.  Now I’ve discovered that in my 365 set, I have 122 pics but I’m on Day 123.  I know I haven’t missed a day.  Can you hear me screaming?   I just don’t get along with numbers.  Well, I’ll think about that later.  Here’s my latest entry.

3)  I remembered that I promised you a look at my creations from last week’s Craft Night.  Here’s a collage of what I came up with.  The rose print is made from the end of a celery stalk.  Otherwise, I was feeling pretty geometric.

4)  The Titmice have been at the peanuts on our peanut feeder like there’s no tomorrow.  They are so cute.  It’s hard to begrudge them anything.

5)  Well, the Red Sox and the Cardinals are even up after last night.  We have this evening off from the tension of the World Series as the teams travel to St. Louis.  I think these teams are pretty evenly matched and who will win is anybody’s guess.  But I have to say that we had such an enjoyable baseball summer watching the Sox that, win or lose, I am happy with them.  Still it reminds me that baseball season is winding to an end.  Halloween is upon us, followed closely by Thanksgiving.  Soon it will be 2014.

  What the heck?  Where does it go?

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RANDOM 5 FRIDAY!

Fun with fall and other random things…

1)  I am sure enjoying falling into autumn.  We are a far way from peak here where we live but the trees are turning and it is just beautiful.  I love it and the little fall tidbits.

2)  One morning when I had to get up early, I walked Olive the pug down to the pond.  The air was pretty chilly but the pond water was still warmish.  So the result was a nice mist rising off the pond.

  Just beautiful!

3)  Can you believe it?  I signed up with Twitter again.  I swore I wouldn’t do it but one night I wanted to respond to something while we were watching a Red Sox game and I couldn’t because I wasn’t on Twitter.  Now, I can tweet baseball to my heart’s content but I haven’t felt strongly enough about anything to tweet about it.  Another of life’s lost opportunities…

4)  I’ve been going to water aerobics at the Y with a friend this week.  The jury is out as to whether or not I will become a water aerobics fan.  For one thing, it starts too darn early in the morning and for another thing, you have to get into the water.  I have to admit, though, that it feels kind of good while I’m in there, but the minute I leave the pool I feel like I’ve gained 85 pounds.

5)  Olive is still in the running on the TripAdvisor Facebook thing.  Here’s the link if you want to stop by:  https://www.facebook.com/TripAdvisor?v=app_448952861833126&rest=1  No pressure from either Olive or me.  Voting ends on the 30^th.  This link takes you to the home page for this contest.  If you click on "View Entries" and then click on the drop down menu "Sort by," you'll see "total votes."   Once you go there, you will see the running pug in all her glory.

LINKING TO A RURAL JOURNAL'S

RANDOM 5 FRIDAY!

Simple reflections....

Earlier this week while it was still really hot out, Olive the pug and I walked down to the pond early in the morning.  I like the pond in the morning.  Often it is very flat and  therefore gives good reflections.  We were rewarded that morning and got a few nice photos.  The one that I am posting here was one of my favorites of the day.  It is a section of Wells State Park across the pond that has a circular aspect to it.  Why the trees have grown like this, I'm not sure, but I like it a lot and I often stop to look at it.  It is a little world reflected upon itself like a nice phrase stuck between parentheses.

Today, I am linking up to Simple Things Sunday.  Stop by there if you have the time.

A Flat Pond Evening and five random questions…

Blueberry Island amid the pollen.

1)  What’s up with people putting stuffed animals in the back windows of their cars?  I don’t see that every day, but I see it enough to wonder if it’s a “thing” that I am just unaware of. 

2)  Here’s something I’ve been pondering lately.   Where do people stay when they travel long distances with horses?  We saw someone tooling down the road this week with a horse in tow and an Alabama license plate.  We live in Massachusetts.  That’s a pretty long way away from home if you are from Alabama.  I wonder where they would stop for the night along the way.  Some motels/hotels charge a fair amount to let you bring your dog along.  How much would they charge for a horse?  Of course, the horse wouldn’t be staying in the room but still…  What happens at night with the horse?  Inquiring minds want to know.

  And I know that someone out there knows the answer.

3)  How many of you are on Flickr and what do you think of the “new” Flickr?  While a terabyte of free space is something I can’t even fathom, it sounds like a good deal to me. Hey, I bet Walmart doesn’t even have that kind of deal.  I think that I’ll continue on as I have on Flickr and just try figure the new system out.  I actually like the looks of it.

4)  I want to know why sides have to be taken in the dog and cat debate.  Does loving one keep you from loving the other?  I think there are many of you out there like me who pretty much love them equally.  I think we should unite and put an end to the dog person/cat person argument.

5)  Have you ever read anything by Kate Atkinson?  I am a big fan.  I have read all her books (except for her short stories.  I don’t like short stories.   I’m not sure why.)  And I’m about half way through her latest book Life After Life.  This unusual book follows the life of Ursula Todd as she is born, dies, comes back to life and dies again in different ways…sort of like a British “Ground Hog Day” on a grander scale.  I am enjoying it a lot and would recommend it and her other books as well.  And, if you are a fan of the BBC, a few of her books have been made into a series call Case Histories.  Also, very good.

LINKING TO A RURAL JOURNAL'S {RANDOM 5 FRIDAY}