Happiness is a warm puppy

If anyone ever asks, the way to my heart is with a dog. You know how some people are baby crazy? I’m dog crazy.

My best friend just had a baby and he is beautiful. I met him at a week and a half and I wanted to hold him. His aunt said, “You can pick him up,” and I said, “I don’t know how.” I said that if there were a puppy, I’d be all up in its face. Which I proved earlier this week, when my coworker brought in her 2-month-old dachshund. I snatched that puppy right out of her lap.

When I see a dog on the street, even if it’s an ugly or uncharismatic creature, I shriek, “Doggie!” either out loud or in my head.

I brought Isis to work on New Year’s Eve, when I was the only one in the office. She was mostly good and we went on a great walk on top of the river dike across the street from my office. She did, however, bark like the vicious protector against evil that she is at a couple of guys in parkas outside my window and later at an older guy getting out of his truck.

There’s one other person here today, but it’s been almost as slow as it was on the last day of the year. I wish Isis were here. Or that I could at least see her on the petcam. I’m not sure there’s even been a single person outside my window that Isis would have barked at were she here, but it doesn’t really matter. I think I have to come to terms with the fact that she’s not a great office dog.

Rise of the Machines

I’ve never been one to name faceless objects, like cars. But I call my TomTom a name because I selected for her a voice that was prenamed Mandy. She talks to me, gives me directions, so when I consult her, I call her by name. Mandy.

My new iPod touch doesn’t talk to me, but I’ve grown very close to him in the week and a half since we’ve been together. I consult him for a great many things, so he deserved a name too. I need to be able to say, “What time does the movie start? I better ask So-and-so.” Or, “So-and-so told me it would rain today.” Or, “I need to record my caloric intake with So-and-so.”

I decided on John Henry. Not based on the folkloric hero John Henry, but rather the character from The Sarah Connor Chronicles that was named after the folkloric hero. He’s a cyborg.

Rob and I are really into the Terminator mythology and are quite sad that The Sarah Connor Chronicles wasn’t allowed to have a third season. We’ve just started watching Battlestar Galactica, and I think we were smart to wait until the entire series concluded, so we know we have a definitive series finale to look forward to.

And who knew, it deals with the same human vs. robot dynamic we so enjoy.

Baby brother on the way

We’re getting a baby brother for Isis in 2010. I’ve thought for a long time that we’d get another dog. The sick side of me needs a backup, because Isis won’t be around forever, and I don’t think I could stand coming home to this house without her. Also, she needs a playmate for her last remaining years. (She’s 3).

For a while, though, it seemed like another dog would be a problem, because Isis is so reactive. However, our dog trainer thinks it would be therapeutic for her. She’s still quite puppylike in her behavior (despite her advanced age of 3), and since she’s a girl, maternal instincts will kick in. If we get a boy and Isis can always be the Head Bitch in Charge (I have never used that expression before), she won’t have to compete with the new arrival.

I’m still a little worried about how she will respond initially. Will she bark at him when she first meets him? Will they ever fight?

This morning, Isis and I practiced jumping and weaving with the new agility equipment we got for Christmas. The increased mental stimulation gave her a major case of the zoomies. As she raced around the yard, I pictured what it would be like to have another dog to race alongside her, chase and be chased. I’m really excited to add to our family. We have a great yard for two dogs, and Isis will love having a playmate. Especially since I haven’t taken her to a dog park for the last year.

Our yard is fenced now, with a gate. It’s more closed off than it was when we first got Isis. We also have some flat terrace levels perfect for the agility equipment. Some grass has grown in since we threw some seeds around a few months ago. Isis has made dirt tracks in it, but I don’t mind, even if the city stormwater department might.

Rob has his heart set on getting another dog spawned from Isis’ father, which is doable with a little road trip to California. I’m torn, because I’d like to be able to rescue a shelter dog. However, I’ve been looking on Petfinder and haven’t seen any dogs that speak to me the way Isis did when I first spotted her in the kennel with all her siblings.

The Eyes Have It

I’m reading a really long book. I’m enjoying it, but worried I wouldn’t be able to finish it by the book group meeting at the end of January, which I am supposed to lead, so I also got the 40-hour audio book from the library.

Since I’m in the car an hour a day to and from work, I’m making progress even on days I can’t manage to sit down and read without falling asleep. (This isn’t a reflection of the quality of the book, just of how much I enjoy napping.) It feels a little like cheating, but it’s not the same as watching the movie instead of reading the book — the words are the same. But someone else is performing it, instead of the voices in my head.

I have enjoyed many audio books, but this is the first one I have been able to compare directly to the experience of reading. I’m finding that I would much rather be reading with my eyes. I’m actually getting a little bored with parts, especially when I am driving home from work. I am less bored driving to work. My mind wanders more than it usually does when I’m listening to a book. I don’t think I would keep listening to it, if I weren’t already enjoying the printed book.

The speaker is British and he performs the characters in varying British accents. The voices in my head aren’t British, and it surprises me that I don’t prefer having the accents supplied to me. One of the first audio books I listened to in this manner was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and the skilled performance of distinct voices was one of my favorite parts.

The only other book I have both listened to and read is Atlas Shrugged. I read the book several years ago and adored it. To me it’s a perfect book, because although it is so long, every sentence has meaning and reason for being there. The ending is satisfying, and on top of everything else, there is a real point of view behind the whole novel. I started listening to it a few years ago and got irritated with it. Maybe because I am at a different time in my life, or maybe I was just uncomfortable with the comparison to some real-life events at the time, such as discussion of a Windfall Profits Tax, which sounded straight out of Ayn Rand’s head.

I’m not worried that I won’t have time to finish Pillars of the Earth, because I have enough time to listen to it, but I am looking forward to upcoming plane rides that will carve out some time for me to read with my eyes.

Click it and trick it

I’m reading a book on clicker training called Reaching the Animal Mind. I’m ambivalent and have skipped entire sections dealing with the training of dolphins at Sea World-type establishments. I don’t doubt that dolphins can be trained to do marvelous tricks, but I’m uncomfortable with it because I am opposed to marine theme parks.

A section about using a clicker on an autistic child intrigued and sort of horrified me. Why does a child with a disability need to be trained like a dog? Later, however, I was fascinated by a chapter about TAGteaching, which essentially is clicker training for humans. It’s used by gymnastics coaches and golf instructors.

Isis and I have been working with a clicker for almost a year with a good amount of success in correcting some behavior problems. I have failed, however, to teach her any tricks. Not one. It never seemed particularly important that my dog be able to “shake” or “roll over.” These are not useful skills to her, merely a means of entertaining me. I can see how it’s very rewarding for a dog to learn a trick that brings great joy to its owners. Witness the enthusiasm on Isis’ face when she wears a reindeer costume. You could call it abuse — dogs don’t like to wear outfits. But she clearly is overjoyed to be making me happy.

Frequently when someone meets Isis for the first time, they ask if she can shake. Like this is as fundamental a skill as sit or stay. And I feel sort of dimwitted because I haven’t bothered to teach her this. After reading the chapter on “shaping” I tried to shape lifting her paw, the first step toward shaking. She would sit and look at me happily, waiting. When I did nothing, she lifted a foot as though she were about to lie down. I’d click at that moment and she’d stop what she was doing, and take the treat. I don’t know that she “got” that I was rewarding her for lifting her paw. Eventually she’d just lie down anyway.

What I have for lunch

I have been eating soup every day this week, because there is a drive-through soup place and I like their tomato bisque. I don’t want tomato bisque today, I want Pho, but there’s no place to get Pho in this county, best I can tell.

Am reminded why I do not frequent the drive-thru teriyaki place: the lady thinks “tofu” sounds like “chicken” and “shrimp” sounds like “beef.” Good thing I checked. Unfortunately, my yakisoba is drowned in sauce. Might as well be soup.

I really like going out to eat. I think we’ve been spending more money on eating out since this whole recession thing started.

It’s like, life’s hard, we should treat ourselves to a nice meal here and there.

We’ve always been big take-out eaters, and I don’t do too much cooking. But I’d rather spend $20 on something decent than $12 on fast food.

Old School

Last night we discussed Old School in my book group. My friend and I had so many insightful remarks that the leader asked us if we’d lead the discussion in January of Pillars of the Earth.

Spoiler: Old School is about a prep school boy trying to win a literary contest so he can meet Robert Frost, Ayn Rand or Ernest Hemingway. The three authors are characters in the book as they visit the school. I found the portrayal of Ayn Rand to be quite unfair, as did many of her followers on Ayn Rand websites.

The group leader played us a video of Mike Wallace’s interview with Ayn Rand from a billion years ago, as if to prove that her portrayal in the book was accurate. I argued that, while she has very strong opinions, she is kind in explaining her point of view to Mike Wallace, whereas in the book, she is nasty and condescending to the school boys who have not memorized her books and philosophy.

One of the themes of the book that spoke to me was literature as a shared experience. Early on, the author explains why he and his classmates have such high esteem for English teachers in particular:

Say you’ve just read Faulkner’s “Barn Burning.” Like the son in the story, you’ve sensed the faults in your father’s character. Thinking about them makes you uncomfortable; left alone, you’d probably close the book and move on to other thoughts. But instead you are taken in hand by a tall, brooding man with a distinguished limp who involves you and a roomful of other boys in the consideration of what it means to be a son.

Much later, that brooding man with the limp is described:

He’d been a reader since childhood, and the habit had deepened during his years of travel for the Forbes-Farragut shipping line, but until he began teaching he’d rarely had occasion to talk about what he read. He could read a story like “The Minister’s Black Veil” and both shrink from and relish the soul-chill it worked on him without having to fix that response in words, or explain how Hawthorne had produced it. Teaching made him accountable for his thoughts, as as he became accountable for them he had more of them, and they became sharper and deeper.

After he leaves the school, the experience of reading is changed for the teacher:

For thirty years he had lived in conversation with boys, answerable to their own sense of how things worked, to their skepticism, and, most gravely, to their trust. Even when alone he had read and thought in their imagined presence, made responsible by it, enlivened and honed by it. Now he read in solitude and hardly felt himself to be alive.

The Cure

I was listening to New Moon on the drive to San Diego Thanksgiving Day. Rob was asleep. Traffic was slow.

I was bored. Turned it off.

We went to see the movie. It was boring.

I’m cured.

No need to finish listening to New Moon or to get the next two books on CD. I will, however, see the next two movies because:

  • Despite the boringness and insipid dialogue, they set up an interesting dilemma at the end of the film.
  • I like seeing Taylor Lautner without his shirt.
  • I enjoyed every scene with a wolf in it. (Sadly, these were too few and too short).

The movies might actually be superior to the novels

I can’t possibly be the first person to critique the Twilight novels on their literary worth. I can’t imagine that these are original ideas. I discussed earlier what the appeal is, allow me now to tell you what is wrong with the writing. It’s so wrong, I can’t imagine there wasn’t an editor who said, Hey, Stephenie Meyer, there is a fundamental flaw with your novel.

My first issue, which I know isn’t universally agreed upon, is that I think vampires should have fangs. My second complaint is that there is no vampire action! I’m only midway through New Moon, so perhaps there is some action yet to come. However, take the first novel (spoiler): there is exactly one vampire fight/bite scene, and it happens while the first person narrator is unconscious. The movie is superior in this regard: at least we see the vampire action.

Could this possibly be an attempt at leaving something to our imagination, because what we imagine is scarier than anything the writer can describe? Because to me, it reads like inexpert writing.

There’s slightly more werewolf action by the midway point of New Moon. The wolves themselves are described, as are their transformations. But so far, there’s been one werewolf-on-vampire confrontation, and it happened off camera…or, rather, off page! I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I hope this too we get to see onscreen.

In defense of quitting

I’m not really quitting…just postponing, delaying, failing to meet a deadline. (Have I ever missed a deadline before? I don’t think so).

The last time I wrote anything in my Nanowrimo novel was Nov. 11. I had about 9,000 words. So I’m not going to write 41,000 more between now and a week from Monday.

It’s OK. When I’ve done this before, I raced to throw in enough to meet the deadline, but both books required so much rewriting that after Nov. 30, I didn’t touch them again. Better, I think, to do what I did with my first novel, which was write it over a period of a year or two. Toward the end there, I worked on it each Sunday until I was done. It’s much more complete.

I think this one has potential, and it’s not autobiographical. It’s about a female mixed martial arts fighter. I’ll say it’s Whip It meets Million Dollar Baby. (meets something with a more troubled protagonist). So you can see how I’ll be able to draw from things in my own experience, without writing about myself.

There seems to be more going on this November than in previous Novembers. Granted, I started a dog class two years ago in November as well, but our current dog class has a lot of actual written homework. Sure, I don’t really have to do it, but I’m pretty accustomed to doing well in school. Not being very successful in dog classes has taken a toll on my self-esteem, so it feels good to shine in dog class.

I’ve also been reading a book for my book club (Old School) and socializing more than usual. So, I decided it was better for my well-being not to force myself to sit at my desk when I have other things to do.