Seeking Shadow

Yes, I'm writing about the dog again.

Shadow seems to really love our home. Nevertheless, he has run away approximately six times now.

Last week was one of those occasions. I was in the backyard (cleaning up dog poop, what else?) when one of the kids opened the back door, and Shadow bolted out like greased lightning.

Knowing I had no chance of simply catching him, I went in the house and gathered my supplies: a leash to lead him home, a hot dog to lure him, and a knife to cut the hot dog into toss-able pieces. I grabbed the first sharp knife I saw, which was a Cutco steak knife.

So, there I was walking around the neighborhood with a leash, a hot dog, and a steak knife . . . but no dog. After ten minutes without a sign of him, I loaded the kids and the supplies into the van so we could drive around and look for him. Half an hour later, we sadly returned home having seen neither hide nor hair of Shadow.

Naturally, as we pulled up to the house, Shadow came bounding around the corner onto our street and happily returned inside the house. The kids were ecstatic.

Later that afternoon, Josh was trying to find the leash to take the dog back out. I told him I had probably left it in the van.

He came in with the leash and a very concerned look on his face and asked, "Mom, why do you have a steak knife in the van?"

"Oh, I forgot about it. I took it in case I needed to cut up hot dog pieces to lure Shadow to me."

Relief literally washed over the face of my son, who like Eeyore, who has the ability to anticipate the worst-possible outcome to every scenario.

"Whew! I thought it was because if you found Shadow hurt, you might have to kill him."

Yes, son, I was going to put the dog out of his misery . . . with a six-inch steak knife.

Happy Anniversary, my love

This is a poem David wrote for me while we were dating. Just one of the many reasons I fell in love with him. Happy anniversary, my love. Now you're a published poet.

Take Five

My life in five quick takes:

1.
For those of you who have asked, Ethan is doing very well. He feels just fine and seems to be suffering no ill effects from the accident. I told a friend tonight that I'm amazed at how active he can be without riding a bike, running, jumping, or climbing trees. He spends a lot of time in the creek catching crawdads.

2.
The kids set up a stand on the sidewalk last week to sell their crawdads. They made signs that said, "Crayfish: 2 for 25 cents." When they informed me of this plan, I told them not to get their hopes up because no one was going to buy their crayfish.

Boy was I wrong. They sold 8 of them. They also added lemonade to their inventory and managed to make almost $25. (This was split between my kids and the neighbors who were also involved in this joint venture.)

3.
I would LOVE to show you pictures of said crayfish/lemonade stand, but I am having a problem with my SD card. For some reason, my computer cannot find any data on it even though when it's in my camera, the pictures appear just fine.

I am about as literate in computers as I am in Swahili, so the information I'm finding on my google searches is less than helpful. Something about drivers, but I don't think they are referring to cars or golf clubs.

4.
I am officially retiring from my 13 month volleyball career tonight. For the sake of myself and my fellow players, I am done. This has mostly to do with the fact that I'm pretty irrelevant to most of the plays, but my swansong happened to coincide with jamming or breaking or stoving my left index finger.

Are you familiar with the term stove as a verb? Meaning sprain? Me either.

Someone wrote this to me in a text a few months ago ("I stoved my wrist"), and I figured it was a typo. Then tonight David kept saying I stoved my finger. Huh?

5.
Have I mentioned that I'm in physical therapy for my back? It's been getting worse and worse for the past few months, and now that I'm in physical therapy, it's getting even worse.

Yay.

Since my first appointment, my PT has diagnosed me with a rotated vertebra, a degenerative disc, and a hypermobile sacro-iliac joint. All at different appointments.

I'm not sure if she keeps finding new things or if she was just wrong on all the first counts. Oh well, at least she's helping my pain get worse, so I'm getting something for my money, right?

Catch Up

I've sat down to play catch up on my blog about five times in the past week, but I never quite make it all the way to there. I'm not sure how much of it is being too busy to write and how much is just not really having much to say. (I know, very un-Beck-like.)

Speaking of un-Beck-like, last night I was lying in bed talking to David, and I kept being unable to retrieve from my brain the words I needed. We were talking about Trinitarianism and baptism (no, this is not normal fare for our late night conversing). I had a thought in my head, but I kept mangling it as I tried to put it into words. Fortunately, David is smart enough that he only needs minor prompts and can figure the rest out himself, so he put into words exactly what I was trying to say. (See why I married him?)

I then started to tell him something else, but it just seemed like too much trouble.

I said, "That's it; I've run out of words for today."

He was shocked and, I dare say, a little pleased.

With any luck, a little sleep should have refueled my word-tank, so let me tell you about the biggest change in our household in the past few weeks.

W got a dog.

Yes, you read that right. If you've been reading my blog for a long time, you may remember the Hearsay fiasco. Suffice it to say, our last attempt at becoming dog-owners proved short-lived.

But since I'm a slow learner, I thought we'd try it again.

The new dog's name is Shadow, but I'm thinking we should have named him Greased Lightning. He's fast.

He sees a crack in the baby gate blocking the stairs, and he bolts like lightning. He sees a sock lying unprotected in a corner, and he's as hard to catch as a greased pig. Heaven help you if you drop a stuffed animal or a pair of underwear from the laundry basket.

I assume he needs to chew simply because he's a puppy. I choose to believe this because it means a.) he will grow out of it someday and b.) he will grow out of it someday. He will grow out of it someday, right?

How sad is it that I found myself trying to outwit him this morning. He had chewed up all of his rawhides and was completely uninterested in his rope toy, so when I was at the grocery store I picked up a couple more rawhides and a new rubber toy.

But I'm no fool.

I know he has no interest in toys that he's allowed to have, toys made for dogs. He wants Lauren's baby dolls and Josh's G.I. Joes and my curtains. So, instead of giving him the new rubber toy, I nonchalantly knocked it off the counter, and then when he started to pick it up, I took it from him and acted like he wasn't supposed to have it.

I know, I know, this will probably undermine efforts to train him, but I was desperate. I really needed to unload my dishwasher.

So, after I took it from him a few times I threw it into the living room, and he darted after it and chewed on it for more than ten minutes.

My name is Becky, and I am smarter than a dog.