Summer Vacations I Haven't Done Yet

I was talking with a co-worker who is planning a vacation with her new husband.  They are thinking Boston.  Boston is perennially on my list of possibilities for Summer Vacations, but never quite makes the cut.  This year, I went to Disney with family.  That has happened a non-zero number of times.  And I always want to go back to New Orleans.

Over the last few years, I have crossed a few off the list.  South Dakota.  Toronto.  My employer sent me to Seattle three times, so I got over that.

But there are so many, many places I haven't been.  And so many, many excuses.  Here's my Top Ten (after Boston, I mean):

1. Yellowstone - I don't even know how to get there.  And do they have wi-fi?
2. Best Friends Animal Sanctuary - You have to fly to Vegas and then drive five hours.
3. Alaskan cruise - There are only about five good weeks to go and demand is high. $$$$
4. Gulf coast -  Every time I think about it, I get distracted by the bright shiny object called New Orleans.
5. European tour - I'm waiting for the dollar to come back.  Stop laughing.
6. Grand Canyon - If I am going to head in that direction, Best Friends comes first.
7. Mackinac - I live in Chicago.  I can always go to Mackinac.
8. Civil War road trip - Seriously, gotta narrow that one down.
9. Oregon - if I am heading in that direction, I might as well go to Alaska.
10. Ozarks - If I went to the Ozarks before New England, the Rotondi sisters might kill me.

My winter 2012 vacation is booked.  But I'd better hang on to this for next summer.

How Things Get Done in My House

Yesterday, at the doctor's office, I realized that I didn't have my phone.  I figured that I had left it on my desk at work.  This morning, it wasn't there.  I went back outside and searched my car.  Nothing.  So I called home.

My mother is in charge of the cell phones in my house.  Mostly because she wanted one about ten years before I did.  We figured out that our contract is just about up, anyway, so it wasn't a big deal to go get a new one.  And while we were at it, she wanted to add my grandfather to our contract.

He is still doing pay-as-you-go-minutes.

But before we do, she is going to go and check her car to see if my phone is there.

It was.

In ten minutes, I went from:

OMG!  MY PHONE IS GONE!

to:

Oh, cool.  Getting an iPhone.

to:

Damn!  I wanted an iPhone.

So you can guess what I did...

I ordered it.

Blankets 53 - 55

With nine days to go before the next Starbucks night, I have emptied out my fleece stash:

The above is Red Heart Super Saver in Royal.

Lion Brand Pound of Love yarn in White.

And more Red Heart Super Saver in Royal.  And now I am going to see if I have enough blue yarn left to make a scarf.

The Real Thing, by Tom Stoppard

Writers Theatre's first show of the season was The Real Thing, by Tom Stoppard.  Michael Halberstam directed and Sean Fortunato was the lead.  Natasha Lowe played his first wife, which messed me up a bit because I haven't shaken her performance in Streetcar from my head yet.

The first thing I noted - tweeted, actually - was the music playing before the show.  (Intermezzo plays at intermission..what the heck is the term for the music that plays before the show?)  Anyway, it was ABBA.  Seriously.

But it had a point.  Fortunato plays a highbrow playwright and the action is the collapse of his first marriage and the subsequent marriage to his mistress.  Music is one of the themes used to compare and contrast artistic taste, talent and temperament.  

The playwright likes pop music.

Another thing that happened was that I spent the entire first act trying to identify the accent of one of the characters.  Fortunato does voices and accents really well and he was all seamless going from his English character to his English character doing a woman to his English character doing a Scot.  But I couldn't get a handle on the other one.  Then, at intermission, the guy in front of me said that Writers had better get a new voice coach because that one was slipping in and out of an accent the entire time.

Huh.  So that wasn't on purpose?  Well, if I even noticed, then it was a problem.

In any event, I very much dig Stoppard.  I enjoyed the art imitating life imitating art.  Except for that accent issue, I appreciated the acting.  

Pretty strong kick off, I'd say.

The Last Dickens, by Matthew Pearl

Book 46


Matthew Pearl's third novel spins a mystery of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, the novel that Charles Dickens was writing upon his death.  The premise is that Dickens' U.S. publisher, a small firm in Boston, is on the brink at the time of his death and desperate to print whatever is left of the transcript.  There is a guy, a girl, drugs, murder and several red herrings. Pretty smooth.  But even so:

Pearl's novels take a lot of patience, in that they unfold very slowly.   Sometimes I enjoyed this one and sometimes lost patience.  The story jumps between two time periods and then over to India.  The latter seemed superfluous, but I went with it.  But...you know when you are reading a book and you hit what looks like the climax, but there are too many pages left?

Yeah.

I liked this better than The Poe Shadow, but not as much as The Dante Club.

Community Bark West

Almost from the day I adopted Gibbs, I have wanted to take him places.  I want him to grow up to be a well-adjusted, well-socialized dog.  It took forever before his immunizations were done, but then I started taking him to Doggie Do Rite, a day care center in Northbrook.  By the second day, he was running with the big dogs.  On the third, he was trying to make a labrador his girlfriend.


For various reasons - his surgery, illness in my house, my goofy schedule - I'm not quite where I want to be in his training.  He has no leash manners, selective hearing when he is called, and he barks.


Oh, how he barks.  


The ladies at Doggie Do Rite are fairly sure the problem is simply that he doesn't know enough people yet.  How, I wondered, do I manage to socialize a dog that refuses to behave in public?

Community Bark West.


Glenview's Dog Park is run by the Park District.  It is large, clean, fenced in and has running water for the dogs to drink.  It has walking paths and plenty of doggie waste bags and cans so as to clean up after your pet.


The rules are extensive, and one of them is that your dog has to be at least six months old.  Gibbs cleared that on Saturday.  We had a pass on Monday and went over tonight.


He was a bit barky at first, but as soon as the other dogs came over to greet him, Gibbs was all in the game.  He ran and ran and ran.  When I wanted to check out the walking paths, he followed me.  He greeted other dogs as they came around.  When I called him, he came to me.  Yeah, he jumped on people, but he barely barked again. 


And now, he is asleep. 


We love this place.  How awesome is Glenview to have built this?


The Park District charges a fee of $50 per year for a pass ($100 for non-residents).  You can find the application here.


We hope to see you over there.


Also posted on Glenview Patch

At Six Months

We almost have Gibbs into a routine.  He is going to camp three days a week, which means that three days a week he is too tired to cause any trouble at all.  He is still barking too much for me to be comfortable taking him out in public for real, and he has no leash manners.  But I just picked up a pass to Glenview's dog park, the Community Bark West.

I didn't name it, folks.

I know that he is perfectly socialized with other dogs, and am hoping that he will start to get used to seeing strangers, while he is playing with the other dogs.

He still isn't used to the football thing.  This is where he spent half of the first quarter:

I wasn't about to tell him not to soak up the sun while he still can.  He doesn't know what winter is yet.

Besides that, Game Day is a great big danger zone for the potty accidents.  Because he still isn't very good at telling me that he needs to go outside.  And I can't stop to ask him every ten minutes.   Not when Matt Forte could light it up on any given play.

No accidents yesterday.  Although Gibbs slobbered up half a bowl of water and promptly vomited up his lunch.

Puppies.  When do they outgrow that nonsense?

Parrot Week

It is Parrot Week at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary.  They have posted bunches of stories and videos.  This is a particular favorite of mine, since Baby does the exact opposite of what Kiwi the Grey does - I hang the toys and Kiwi tears them down.  Eventually.  When she feels like it.

About Trio and Vitriol

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the Trio Animal Foundation, a group that raises funds to help homeless animals get the medical care they need.   A week or so thereafter, I received a rather scathing comment about how terrible they are, how I should research before endorsing such a group, and it is a sad day when Trio gets such support.  The comment referenced Trio exaggerating the circumstances under which a dog was taken into the program – a situation which Trio has already addressed on its Facebook page.  It is pretty detailed, so I won’t copy it here, but the entry is dated August 26 and it is good enough for me.

Also, the commenter wanted to “educate” me on how animals can be fearful.

Seriously.

The rest of the complaints seemed to me like the petty political things that sometimes happen in/between/among rescue groups.  Or any non-profit.  Or business.  Or neighborhood barbecue..when everyone has a better idea of how things should be done.

I considered responding.  I thought it over for a couple of days and decided against it for a few reasons:

First, there were no facts and references.  There weren’t even allegations that the group wasn’t spending the donations received on the care for the animals – which is what I care about most. 

Second, it was mean spirited.  I wasn’t about to debate with someone engaging in what seemed to be a personal attack.  I am not a representative of Trio – I simply posted on my personal blog that I like their work.

Finally, it was Anonymous.

At the same time, I didn’t want a mean-spirited comment sitting on my blog, so I deleted it.

So you can guess what happened:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Trio Animal Foundation": 

wow, so you think if you delete my comment it will not matter, just more proving you are not intellectual or wanting to help animals. do the research, trio has sponsered a dog name geiger who the president of trio adopeted but not long ago the same asked for extra donations to get help for the dog even when it was a dog in her care. Frank, it is neyond shafy you keep this post up on the mist questionable animal "non profit" agency in chicago. Your opinion should come with a warning about not being helpful just like trio's. Seriously do actual resarch before you give horrible organixations like this adverisement 

So here is my response:

Dear Anonymous:

Your opinion should come with your name.   And spell check.

P.S.  I have set up a project on Crowdrise to support Trio's work.  Here is the link.

Heartland Animal Shelter

Heartland Animal Shelter in Northbrook was featured on WGNTV yesterday.  I can't seem to embed the clip, but you can find it here.  And this is one of the puppies featured:

As if I need to be seeing any more Border Collie puppies.  I popped over to their website to check out the November 5 fundraiser and found that October is Adopt-a-Shelter Dog month - according to somebody.  I say that every month is Adopt-a-Shelter-Dog month, but whatever.  Here is how Heartland is celebrating it:

"To help promote adoption of Heartland's dogs, we are offering either a Carson Pirie Scott Dog Bed, a Dog Crate, or a Collar with Leash with each dog adopted (while supplies last).  Also, with each dog adopted, receive a raffle ticket for free admission for 2 to Heartland's Golden Paw Gala on November 5th (worth $150)!  Drawing will be on Oct. 31st.  

Click for more information about The Golden Paw Gala!"