THANKFUL FRIDAY

Tuesday morning, I peeled my tired ‘don’t wanna’ ass out of bed and then pulled on some clothes. I opened my closet and reached in for my walking shoes and Josephine nearly lost her mind. Josephine does not have a big enough body for containing joy. When she sees my walking shoes, she knows we’re going for a walk and her joy explodes from her body in a couple of ways. She will parkour herself all around my bedroom and grab the nearest toy to flip around in the air. Then she will throw her little body at me in a demand to tie my shoes faster. Once she is harnessed and leashed, she will grab a section of the leash and pull me towards the front door. This is her reaction every time, not just because it’s been a few months since our last walk.

Michael and I are and will continue to be busy with various things over the next few months. Michael has several after school meetings and play rehearsals. I get home late on Tuesdays because I teach an evening yoga class. This makes me feel bad for Josephine because she has no one to pet her all day or play a game of tug-o-war. It is a long day for all of us. The weather is tolerable this week, so I was determined to at least do this Tuesday morning walk. I woke up before my alarm (not unusual) and looked at the clock. My whole body groaned. I was a little bit sore form the previous day’s yoga experience. My eyes were crusty. It was cold in the house and staying in bed, even though I would not get any real sleep, felt soooooo much easier than getting out of bed.

But I didn’t stay in bed.

I rolled to one side and peeled myself up to a seated position. Then I firmly placed all four corners of the bottom of my feet into the floor. I said to myself “get up.” even though I still didn’t want to, but once I was dressed and walking, my body changed it’s mind about the ‘don’t wanna’. Our way to the park felt slower than normal, mostly because Josephine had to stop and investigate all of the things along the way. Side note: Josephine is part pig. She grunts and snorts with her nose to the ground for 95% of the walk. At one point, she sniffed a spot on the ground, took five steps before shaking her head in surprise and circling back for another sniff. We saw two raccoons slink their way across the street (blocks from our house) and heard one owl claiming the area has his. We were the only ones in the park or out in the neighborhood. There was only the faintest of light to the East as we walked the last block back to the house.

I know that not to far from now, there will be more than just a faint bit of light as we make our way home from our walks.

Why is it so hard to get started? What happens to my body during these months that makes it impossible to want to move?!? It’s like my blood thickens to maple syrup but it doesn’t make me warmer. I am never warm. My hands are so cold that if I were to touch you, you would think you had been touched by death. I starting writing this entry thinking that I would immediately post this because I figured that getting up to walk the dog would only happen on Tuesday, but Wednesday morning there I was bundled up and walking Josephine through the neighborhood. Then I did it again on Thursday and Friday. By Thursday, this was starting feel like a gratitude post and I delayed posting. I’ve also been a little bit lazy about my writing, spending my “free time” playing The Bee or doing the NYTimes crossword. I recognize that winter is far from over and that I should expect at least two more miserably cold with possible snow events before the end of March. I also know that today a large rodent made some predictions about the weather for the next few weeks. But today, right now, I am not focused on the future or the what ifs to come.

I am grateful for a week that contained buckets of sunshine every day and temperatures that allowed us to thaw before the next cold front comes along.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DOG!

Old man Josephine

"Old man Josephine"

Josephine is officially a year old today. At least I think it's today. I looked at her paper work and I can't tell if that's a five or an eight. Since I missed the fifth, I'm going with eight. I bought her a Kong on Saturday and I think she likes it. I've seen her chewing on it even without the peanut butter smeared inside it. We determined that she was using the old logs propped next to the fence as a diving board for flying over the fence. Michael moved them and Josephine was still in the yard when I got home yesterday. So, fingers crossed. Michael wants to change her name to Henri with the French pronunciation. She is still so much puppy. She wants to obey, but it's so hard for her to sit still. Chewing and tearing up things is the most fun and Michael's room is best room for finding pens and candy wrappers and socks. I let her have run of the house last Friday as a test. She and the cat broke into Michael's room and Josephine destroyed the blinds in one window. They were crap blinds anyway. 

Josephine is my dog. Michael would probably cook her up and make puppy stew if given the chance. Or so he says. I've seen him laugh at her ridiculous puppy ways and the way he places his hand on her head when she plops down against his leg. Mostly though, she's laying in my lap or following me around the house. Josephine has been waking me up around midnight like she needs to go out. I let her out and when she comes back inside she just curls up at the foot of the bed and I let her. I've never had a dog that slept in my bed. I guess Odie did before he was banished to the outside. Hooper never had any interest in it. He always preferred the floor or his own bed. That time we had the ice storm that took out everyone's power for weeks and weeks, I spent that first night alone in our rent house in OKC. Chris was babysitting Quinn. He called me just as the power went out and said he'd come get me, but I told him to wait until morning when it was a little safer. I grabbed every blanket and hunkered down for the night. I tried to get Hooper to lay down next to me, but as soon as I stopped petting him, he was off the bed and sprawled out on the floor. 

Josephine doesn't snuggle up next to me at night, but instead has her spot at the end of the bed. She loves the wool blanket I brought back from Ireland and she snuggles down into. As much as I'd like to be all strict and say "NO DOGS IN THE BED", I find that I cannot be. She is a comfort and warms my feet. She doesn't walk all over me or hog the bed. Sometimes she snores, but she did that in her crate too. In the mornings, she'll get up when I get up and stretch into down dog, followed with up dog and I rub her belly. Then I open the door and the cat is usually sitting there and Josephine jumps down to bite his ear or neck or leg. The two of them follow me to the kitchen for food. By the time I'm done with my shower and pull back the shower curtain, Josephine will be laying on the bathmat with one of her toys and Albus will be sitting on the sink. That's where the three of us hang out in the mornings. 

Josephine is a crazy messy hilarious little dog. She's smart and loving. She reminds me of my Pepaw. I look back on when we got her and she was so dang tiny. So tiny. She's still small, but only in size. Her personality is huge and when I look at her she makes my smile huge. She'll get an extra scoop of peanut butter tonight in celebration and maybe a bath. Happy Birthday Josephine Boisdechene Clofullia!

THE ANIMALS ARE WINNING

White cat/black dog

"White cat/black dog"

Josephine is ornery. I mean, not all the time, but I spent most of Sunday picking up pieces of shredded Kleenex, moping up leftover tomato soup and explaining how we do not pull garbage out of the trash can. I know she ate at least half of a bagel because she came in with the other half, hunting around for a hiding place. She has discovered that she is just tall enough to pull trash out of a full trash can. She spent diligent time practicing this skill even after Michael chased her with the trash can while banging it around with the hopes of making the trash can into the scariest thing. Now, the trash can is a little scary, but not scary enough for her to keep her from stealing delicious treats off the top. When she wasn't stealing garbage, she was in the backyard shredding the seat off of one of chairs in the backyard or trying to drag the cat around by his hind leg. I don't know what her deal was, but she had a definite bee up her butt. 

In about three weeks, Josephine will be one years old. She is still very much a puppy. I have taught her sit, down and off and for the most part, she's pretty good with those things. Coming when she's called works most of the time unless she has something in her mouth she knows she's not supposed to have. Yesterday, that object happened to be one of my slippers. We did a hostage style trade with her toy turtle. At least he squeaks; the slipper is just soft. She's not a bad dog. I'm making it sound like she's a holy terror. Most of the time she just wants to chew on a toy while you pet her. Lately she's been waking me up around 4 AM to go outside and when she comes back in I just let her stay out of the crate. She curls herself into a ball at the foot of the bed and keeps my feet warm. She is a lovable crazy hot mess of a dog. 

One of my goals for the new year is to spend some time doing some serious obedience training with her. I have the know how. It's just been a hundred years since I've had to use that know how. In the meantime, we will be investing in a new trash can with a lid and maybe some puzzle treat toys. Now if I could only train the cat. This morning I walked into the kitchen to find worm parts and guts smeared all over the kitchen floor. This evening I came home to a cat who looked like he had rolled around in a mud puddle. I'm not sure what to do about that since Michael and I value our skin too much to attempt bathing him.