Variations in Life's Blogability

I've discovered something about winter: it's a lot less bloggable than other seasons.  That's not because the great outdoors in winter aren't interesting.  They most certainly are.  It's just that the daylight is so short the only times I can get out in it are during the day... when I'm generally at work.  No evening frolics in the garden with the camera for me.  Heaven forbid a weekend is so busy that I don't get time to do something outdoors because then I'm really at a loss as to what to blog about.  Like right now.

This past weekend was brutally packed and involved no outdoor adventures.  I'm buried at work, and we had other commitments scheduled back to back both days, too.

They weren't all un-fun - don't get me wrong.  I stuck in one blissfully frivolous event, life's responsibilities be damned:

We went to see the Metropolitan Opera's production of Der Rosenkavalier projected live in high definition on the big screen at our local mall on Saturday afternoon.  Very cool.  If you can even tolerate listening to opera I highly recommend seeing a live in HD projection - it's a totally different experience, and available in a lot more theaters than you might think.

If there's one person I'm a sucker for, it's lyric soprano Renée Fleming.  I love good opera, which the Met most certainly is, and love to see what productions we can on the big screen generally.  But I cannot miss a Met production if Renée Fleming is singing the lead.

Saturday's performance of Der Rosenkavalier was spectacular.  Richard Strauss operas have been the backbone of Renée Fleming's career because they bring out the absolute best in her vocally and dramatically.  She stars as the Marschallin, one of my favorite soprano roles in opera because the Marschallin, when performed well, is complex, strong, sympathetic, generous, likable, not entirely dependent on men, and doesn't die some kind of tragic death at the end.  That's a mighty rare combination in opera.  Susan Graham is a delectable mezzo-soprano and she sang the "trouser" role of Octavian, the Marshallin's lover.  She was excellent.  The sets for the Met's Der Rosenkavalier are magnificently opulent.

I'm guessing I don't necessarily have a lot of opera fans as readers, so I won't go on and on about it, but dang, what a lovely way to spend a Saturday afternoon!  We have tickets to see Renée Fleming at the Met in Rossini's Armida later this spring, and I can hardly wait.  It will be my first time at the Met, and my husband's first time in New York City.  Something to look forward to.

The point of all that was to say, while inconvenient timing, I spent the only weekend hours I could have had free for bloggably outdoorsy anything in a movie theater instead.  Worth it.  Definitely worth it.

However, after this past weekend, I'm behind in everything.  My Christmas lights are still up, along with the tree.  They really, really need to come down.  (What's the exact moment when I cross from appearing indolent to appearing weird?)  The house is a disaster.  It's amazing how fast 5 animals and 2 humans can wreck it, especially when the dogs' wintertime hobby is chewing all the kindling wood to bits all over the library, which is the central room in our house.  And, as I write this, I have a sink full of dishes and about 30 lbs of laundry to wash.

*Sigh*  Back to work.  I'm already counting down to next weekend...

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Happy Birthday Hounds!

I just realized that I completely missed the hounds' birthday.  It was Wednesday, I think.  So a belated happy birthday, kids!

(Don't they look enthusiastic?  This is one of the many reasons I don't have human kids.  They care not a jot that I forgot their birthday.)

We've never known for sure the real birth date for any of our pets since we always take in strays with who knows what history.  We adopted the hounds from the local Humane Association when they were supposedly 2 years old.  Their prior owner had surrendered them and had actually completed some paperwork about them.  The spot for birthday on the form read "January 6, 2006".  That makes them 4.  Or 28 in dog years.  They act more like 4.

It's been a rough road with these two.  It's amazing how much damage can be done in early years of mistreatment and/or neglect and an extended stint in a shelter.  But they've come a long way, and most days I find them excellent companions and friends.  Most days.  When I'm not cleaning poo off the carpet or fishing valuables out of Simon's mouth.

There is, by the way, no such thing as a dog-proof house.  A dozen baby gates and everything up high be damned - they always find a way to get into something.

I'll never adopt litter mates again, though, as it made it infinitely harder to bond with them.  For a long time we thought it would be impossible.  I really feel for the parents of twins!  Instead of turning to their humans for guidance, instruction and security, they rely almost exclusively on each other.  They are the most symbiotic and codependent creatures I have ever encountered.  They even typically sleep in identical positions, or at least mirror images of one another.

Training them?  Not easy.  For weeks in obedience school we couldn't convince them to stop paying attention to each other long enough to focus on what we were asking of them, even with bits of hot dog in our hands.  But separating them back then for an hour at a time so they could attend separate classes wasn't possible for me to endure - I could not handle the kind of panic attacks Lucy would exhibit when separated from her brother for that long.  The vet and (bless her heart) very patient trainer agreed that it couldn't be good for them to force the issue.

They have definitely come a long way, as they now have enough confidence that we can even take them to the vet separately if we have to (so long as they're each with a human and not left alone), but it was a heck of a project to get them to that point.  And the pure ecstatic joy they exhibit when they're reunited after even a few minutes apart makes me both shake my head in bewilderment and makes a little teary eyed.

Just because they can endure separation for brief stints when necessary, don't think they aren't still ridiculously symbiotic.  By way of example, Lucy's never gotten the hang of asking to go outside when she needs to go, and now Simon consistently asks to go out when it's really Lucy who has to go.  (Thank you, Simon.  You have no idea how much I appreciate that little trick).

They spend their days locked in the same crate together because if you put them in separate crates Lucy tries to dig her way out obsessively until her paws bleed.  After spending all that time stuck touching each other, they burst out of the crate and rip around the house and yard, playing like maniacs.  If I spent 8 hours a day physically touching somebody I'd want to spend a few hours on my own afterward, that's for sure, no matter how much I liked the person.  They then collapse in a heap to rest.  On top of one another.

They occasionally do get on each other's nerves - usually for short bursts that last less than 15 seconds.  Lucy generally wins the spats, for what it's worth.  I don't think they'd survive long without one another, and I try not to think about how we'll cope when one dies before the other. Hopefully it will be a long time before we have to cross that particular bridge.  After all, they're young 'uns, right?

Well, anyway, despite all the torment you've dished out, my fine canine friends, I'm mighty glad your birthday happened, and that you wormed your wrinkly, droopy, stubborn, codependent ways into my house and heart.

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Obsession

I've noticed something about having snowshoes:  they are making me obsessive about how much snow we have on the ground. 

When I went for my snowshoeing jaunt on Sunday morning we had 17" of über-fluffy snow on the ground.  Despite its having snowed for days straight, and my having shoveled about 10 more inches out of my driveway over the course of the last 4 days, my sophisticated snow-o-meter now reads... (drumroll please)...

17". 

Sigh.

It did get up above 21" at one point.  I shouldn't complain because I'm sure having it compact itself like that is going to make it much easier for me to snowshoe come Saturday morning.  And at least Syracuse is now in the lead in the competition for the golden snowball, coming in at 51.7", easily trumping Buffalo's 44.2". 

Some people around here follow Syracuse University Basketball.  I follow the snowfall, cheering on the gray clouds when they give me the good white stuff and sulking when we get behind in the golden snowball competition.  But then, I've always known I don't quite run with the rest of the herd.

Then again, it looks like I'm not alone.  On the golden snowball site appears the following post, dated January 4th:

Defending Snow Champ Syracuse Sleds into The Lead

Da Cuse is in the Igloo, err house. Syracuse has finally for the first time this season taken the lead in the Golden Snowball contest. You know it's a good snow race when Syracuse was near the bottom most of the season and at the bottom at one point. Can they hold on to the top spot til the finish. Nah! Not the way the season has been going so far. I expect several more lead changes :)

...

GO CUSE!!!!
 
Looks like I have some company.  :)

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Ooops... thud!

I love this picture:

(I found it, and the other photos in this post, at http://actinglikeanimals.com/)

In fact, I think I might want a print of it up on my office wall.  First of all, it's outstanding wildlife photography. Mad props to whoever captured this moment.  But secondly, the poor fox's overt lack of coordination makes me feel like I am not alone.  Not everyone can be graceful all the time.  In fact, some of us experience lots of these moments. 

The question I am left with is, do foxes feel embarrassment?  My dogs do not appear to, but they're complete idiots.  Our old dog used to act embarrassed every spring when we gave him a haircut, as if he felt naked.  He'd hide for about 24 hours afterward, even from my father who was just about his most favorite person ever.  Thankfully he'd get over it.  My cats certainly seem to get embarrassed when they, say, fall off a shelf and land in the dogs' water bowl. 

Well, I take that back - one of my cats is too dense and loopy to exhibit any sign of embarrassment, ever.  She's just Not Quite Right.  By way of example, a couple of nights ago I shouted frantically down the stairs to my husband that it smelled like something had caught on fire.  He replied calmly that, no, no one was on fire, but Sneakers had casually rested her tail against the glass on the wood stove door for a few moments and what I smelled was her singed fur.

Apparently Sneakers never appeared to notice anything was wrong, and casually wandered off with her usual vacuous expression.  Her tail was sort of crunchy at the tip for a day or so, but didn't appear to be painful, which is good.  But dang, what part of 300+ degrees radiating off its surface failed to communicate "too hot to touch" to that silly cat?  My cousin's response to that story was "Some animals never really get it.  In nature, they call it survival of the fittest."  That about sums up Sneakers.  She's a competitor for the feline Darwin Awards.

Anyway, she's the one who falls off things all the time and never, ever demonstrates an iota of embarrassment. 

So, to summarize, my limited experience leads me to guess that perhaps some foxes - like some cats, dogs, and humans - get embarrassed, while some are just too dense (or gracious) to exhibit embarrassment.  Perhaps the photographer could tell us which category this fellow "fell" into (pardon the pun).

That web site, by the way, has other wonderfully humorous animal photos.  A few of my favorites:

Awesome.

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