A New Pot and Deeper Thoughts on Giving and Selfishness

Puppy is growing...soon, very soon, I think, she will need a new pot.  I am on the lookout for her new bed, and think I will give her some volcanic soil at the same time as a special treat.  Treat your pets well, I say.

And speaking of pets...I am really wanting a puppy of the canine variety.  We found one that really "spoke to" both of us, but the breeder wanted a whopping $1450 for her.  I cannot find it in me to spend anywhere near that kind of money for a dog.  There are children starving throughout the world, there are families who are barely surviving, people who cannot afford clean water...etc., etc.  I cannot do this thing.

I have no moral or ethical objection to it, this is a personal determination to try to use my relative wealth to help someone else.  This is not to be praised, it is an obligation I feel and a choice I make to love someone else in practical ways.  It does far more for me than it does for the children I support.  For me, it reminds me that I am richly blessed.  I am grateful to be able to do this thing and to care for little one's I have never met opens my heart to the plight of various parts of the world.  To help these children, not just eat, but to receive an education that should help them become self-sufficient and able to help their families and communities in ways I cannot, is a wonderful thing.  The cost is so little, it embarrasses me.  It should cost more, I think.  It should hurt, cause me to make choices, to deny myself something.  Something worthwhile, that is, not a few cups of coffee each month, or a magazine subscription.  Ah, my heart, I fear, does not love enough for more profound sacrifice.  I wish it did.  My sin in this is a lack of love and a love of self that must be turned away from.  Lord have mercy!

Bad Ads

Puppy and I were perusing Facebook, doing some photo-editing and some schoolwork when this popped up onscreen:

There is some program (I don't know much about it,) but it grabs random pictures and places them next to ad text.  The pictures are SUPPOSED to be relevant to the ad material.

Great job, ad guys and girls.  Great jobs.

Potty Theme Song

Wait, wait, wait...you're telling me you don't have theme music for the potty?  Oh dear, I really should help you out with that.  But first, let me tell you how potty theme music began.

I was at my friends house playing India Rail.  Shortly after the game began, one of the players got up to use the restroom, which was right off the kitchen/dining area where we were playing.  I'm not kidding you, you could hear EVERYTHING!  At that moment, I remember our hosts laughing as we came in telling us all the upstairs was OFF LIMITS because it was a mess.  I can respect that, but when faced with the prospect of a bunch of people knowing your business behind the bathroom door, and no other restroom available...I had to ask, "So how long does this game usually last?"  "Oh, it can go on for HOURS."

And it did.  Now typically I am fiercely competitive, but by the end I just want the game over so I could go home to pee without half a dozen people listening in.

This is when I came up with potty theme music.  The idea is this, when you enter a restroom, theme music should begin to play as you turn on the light, thus masking the sounds of your...er...business.  I suggested to my host the following, and now it is my preferred theme music.

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

You may now make it yours.  Again, you're welcome!

What does this have to do with Puppy, you ask?  Legitimate question.  Nothing, really, except being around Puppy makes me happier, sillier, goofier.  I win.  You win.

The end.

P.S. I should patent this idea.

Just Chillin'

The Prince and the Puppy

Well…the little Prince George Alexander Louis has gone home. I’m hoping we can slowly go back to normal and let the hysteria die down. All this talk of the little royal is fine, I suppose, but I would really like to get back to important things.  Like Puppy. 

Puppy doesn’t poop. Puppy doesn’t scream; Puppy doesn’t need a car seat, and all the hysteria about whether a car seat is hooked in properly is completely moot. I just need to spray her with a mild soap solution every now and again to keep the pests away (unfortunately I didn’t start this quite soon enough, and there is a small hole in one of her leaves.)

I’m all for human procreation, don’t get me wrong, I’m just glad that for me, the equipment is…er…past its expiration date.  Grandchildren are far more fun. 

And Puppy is far less exhausting, something you don’t really think about a lot when you are twenty-something, but when you are forty-something approaching fifty, is a salient point.

 

That being said, I do think it would be fun to order the cute little receiving blankets that the little prince went home in.  Puppy would love them, come winter.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

I took Puppy home for the weekend, and at first she seemed…unhappy with it.  Her leaves drooped and I feared the worst—that I was a Puppy killer.  She is living on my deck, where she gets full sun for a few hours a day, which has really improved her coloring. Over the past few days she has grown a full inch, if not two.  I haven’t taken any pictures of her yet, hoping to allow her a good amount of time to adjust.

I have to keep a careful eye on the temps, as the blazing heat sucks the moisture right out of the ground, it seems.  Fortunately, she is in a glazed ceramic pot, so if I water enough, the pot soaks in a lot of water which is an extra source of moisture as the soil dries out.

From her new perch, Puppy gets to see barn swallows flitting about, and has visiting finches gathering about, ignoring her completely, as they go about their own business, but still, it’s something to see. A large chocolate lab lives above us, so we all get to hear her lumbering about. It’s amazing how much noise a large dog can make!

Sometimes kids come and play in the parking lot, their cheerful cries lifting on the breeze, and the sunsets have been glorious. At our elevation, I’m surprised to find that we are among gentle hills. I didn’t know that. Everything seems so relatively flat, compared to living at the base of the Rockies.

My sense of perspective is skewed, and my directional compass is a bit out of whack.

It occurs to me that Puppy will soon outgrow her current pot, and so I’m on the lookout for a larger one, keeping in mind that it will have to be portable, as Puppy will have to spend the winters indoors.  It’s supposed to take seven years before Puppy will bear fruit.  I hate to think how old that will make me, and in my most fertile imagination I cannot fathom where we will be living.

What happens to Puppy if I get to live my dream and spend a couple of years in Tierra del Fuego? Spend a season in Tuscany rebuilding an old farmhouse straight out of a Diane Lane movie? Who will make room for her in their lives and homes and care for her tenderly and faithfully?  Who will remember her when she was nothing but a dried out pit wrapped in a paper towel?  And, more importantly, will they give her back to me upon my return?

And Now We Return to Our Program...

Duh, Duh, Duuuuuuun....

Between you and me, I’m rather disturbed that Arya hasn’t appeared, while Puppy has been experiencing incredible growth. 

I hate to speculate, but it occurs to me that Puppy may have (come closer, because I need to whisper here) consumed her own sister.  

It’s a horrifying thought, but apart from digging up the ground to investigate and possibly killing Puppy in the process, it’s really only conjecture.  I’m going to keep my eye on her, though.  Any creature that would devour its own sister could do anything.

In an unrelated topic, I’ve been listening to old time radio dramas lately, “Dragnet” and “Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar”.