hank is on a diet...

October 09, 2018 in family, hank, pet

hank is on a diet. we took him to the vet a few weeks ago because he had a weird boo boo on his lip and the vet told me he should have a waist. he was thirty-two pounds. i WAS wondering how big he ought to be because his dad is only twenty-six pounds. six pounds more on someone the size of a breadbox does seem like a lot, but i HATE diets. the vet asked me how much i was feeding him and i replied, “3/4 cup of kibble with water and a spoonful of wet food twice a day, like the breeder told me to do.” (i didn’t mention all the treats and extras that i gIve him throughout the day… just like when you fill out those forms at the doctor’s and they ask you how frequently and how many glasses of wine you drink…who is ever truly honest then?) “yes,” said the vet, “but that was when he was a puppy. now that he is over a year, he is a regular dog and that’s too much.” i still consider hank a puppy - his first birthday was just in september. also, it doesn’t really make sense to me that as he gets bigger, he should have less food. i feed my kids way more food now that they are eight and twelve, than i did when they were babies… bigger kids, bigger portions. i guess that’s not how it works with dogs. and it never occurred to me to alter how much i feed hank because i am a rule follower. the breeder gave me a big binder with all kinds of instructions about how to take care of hank and i have been following it (mostly) to a tee.

harvest season

September 20, 2018 in family, garden, hank, quilts, recipe

i don’t know what factors came together to produce such an enormous bounty of fruit on my farm (i.e. my backyard) but the output has been tremendous. i decided to have a couple of neighborhood harvest parties so that i could get some help picking all the apples and then the plums that ripened a few weeks later. i thought i could pull off a tom sawyer “painting the fence” caper and make my friends think it would be FUN to harvest with me. i would provide snacks and drinks and my neighbors could do the labor. i was imagining something like the barn raising parties they used to have on little house on the prairie. pa would be out there entertaining everyone on his fiddle (i could play macklemore on my sonos), ma would would lay out cornbread, fresh, grilled deer meat and homemade pies (i made a run to trader joes), the children would be running around (i have a couple of those) and the grown ups would build a barn (the neighbors would pick my apple tree and plum bush clean) so i wouldn’t have to gather up any more rotten fruit or worry about the bears coming into my yard and leaving giant poops or mauling us.

climb up my apple tree

August 14, 2018 in family, hank, garden

"say, say, oh playmate,

come out and play with me

and bring your dollies three

climb up my apple tree

slide down my rain barrel

into my cellar door

and we'll be jolly friends

forever more, 1-2-3-4"

when i was little, i was desperate for an apple tree like the one in my favorite hand clapping song. i also wanted a rain barrel, although i wasn’t really sure what that was. forty years later, i do have a great, big, sweeping apple tree in my backyard. my tree has a beautiful, twisted, architectural trunk with a hole the perfect size for hiding easter eggs, it makes lots of shade (crucial for a fair-skinned mama living in a town that bumps up against the sun,) in the winter, the way the snow lands on the branches is right out of fairy tale, it’s covered in lacy, white blossoms in the spring, and every other year or so, my tree grows apples in the late summer.

magpie

August 07, 2018 in family, hank

noun

either of two corvine birds, Pica pica (black-billed magpie), of Eurasia and North America, or P. nuttalli (yellow-billed magpie), of California, having long, graduated tails, black-and-white plumage, and noisy, mischievous habits.
a person who collects or hoards things, especially indiscriminately.

(from dictionary.com)

hank can be pretty cheeky… he gets away with it because he is outrageously cute, but sometimes i am astounded by how forgiving i am of his behavior. if my kids did any one of the naughty or disgusting things he does, i think i would sell them on ebay. somehow, when i discover one of hank’s bad acts, i just end up giving him kisses. (my children HAVE started to notice the inequity in how i discipline - or don’t, rather - hank vs. the time outs and revoked desserts and phones and TV time that they suffer. i figure i am providing them with important material to discuss with their therapists in their forties.)

south side

July 12, 2018 in hank, family, pet, travel

i grew up on the north side of berkeley, right near the little tunnel that runs under the marin circle and off a shopping street full of restaurants and quirky boutiques called solano. my friends all lived very close by… mostly because i got lost so easily and could only have friends whose houses i could find. this was in the days before mothers drove you all around the world for playdates. i can still distinctly picture the map my friend cynthia’s mother drew for me so i could get to their house. at the time we were in a rental behind the library and i had to walk three long blocks past the firehouse (she made a perfect circle that i marveled at, to indicate the station, as berkeley’s no. 4 is cyclindrical - designed in 1960 by ratcliff architecture) and turn right on los angeles for half a block. i carried that map with me for months (yes - i am a SLOW geographic learner) when i was going to her house.

jelly bean

July 05, 2018 in hank, travel, family, pet

the first time it happened, the kids had taken hank over to their father’s house. i got an excited phone call AND photos. i had really hoped that we would never have to deal with this because hank is so mellow, but there it was, a glossy, hot pink protrusion coming out of hank’s nether regions. i have to say, if you didn’t think about what it was, it was really quite pretty… so shiny and my favorite hue of pink. it is rumored that someone touched it (before really understanding what it was) but that has not been confirmed.

chapstick

May 15, 2018 in family, hank, residential interior

a few weeks ago, hank ate a cherry chapstick. he didn’t eat the plastic part, but all the waxy stuff inside. we are all still getting used to having a puppy and taking care not to leave things out that aren’t good for him. at the time, i was annoyed at the kids and fascinated by the new sweetness of his breath, but was not overly concerned. i should have been. at 4:30 am the next morning i woke to the sounds of loud slurping. when i managed to get my eyes open, i saw that hank was licking something off my duvet (YES… he has started sleeping in my bed. one night i just meant to have a cuddle with him and i fell asleep before putting him back in the crate and now his new spot seems established.) i couldn’t understand what he was eating and then i came to the horrifying realization that he was re-ingesting his own VOMIT! i am not great with bodily stuff and it was all i could do not to throw up myself. i scooped him up and took him outside for some fresh air. then i brushed his little teeth and had him drink some water. he seemed okay and i thought it was a “one off” situation like my children sometimes had as babies. we went back upstairs, i replaced the blanket and we both went back to sleep. and then at 6 am he did it AGAIN! this time, i was much swifter. i picked him up before he could eat it and quarantined him in the bathtub. he was not best pleased with this situation, but i could not let him roam around my house barfing. i was already faced with laundering two duvets and their covers. luckily, the vet opened at 7 am so hank didn’t have to stay in the tub too long. the doctors were a bit surprised that i brought him in… apparently dogs eat weird things and throw up all the time, but i have never had one before and was worried he would get dehydrated… he is such a little guy. we both went home to rest and do laundry - you wouldn’t believe all the feathers flying around my drier from the duvets! hank spent most of the day sleeping and i thought it was over. unfortunately, i had a date that night with someone new and i could not get a single sentence out without yawning (so rude!) because i was so tired. it didn’t really matter as it turned out this guy had THREE cats. that was definitely a deal breaker… i am now a dog person, even a barfing dog person.