Orchids Again, but Wrapped in Dog

You may remember my blog from last November, when I picked a sultry warm day and repotted every durn one of my orchids, spread 'em out on the front lawn and about kilt myself bending and stretching and fetching and washing and spraying.

Normally, you shouldn't have to repot an orchid more than once a year. But I had bugs. Lotsa bugs. Tiny white bugs aswarm in the medium and awful awful Boisduval scale and mealybugs around the base of the stem and regular goopy sticky scale all over the underside of the leaves. It was verging on horrible. By the time an orchid starts to look peaked from bug damage (mostly being sucked dry by scale), you had better jump to fix it. Mine were not yet looking peaked, but I wasn't going to wait for that. See, they talk to me and tell me when it's time to intervene.

Last November, I repotted most of my plants in mixed bark medium, and therein lay the problem. Bugs just love living in that stuff. I decided to knock every single plant out of its pot and take a hard look at the situation. Sure enough, the plants in bark all had bugs, and the plants in Aussie Gold, which has diatomaceous earth in it, were virtually bug-free. OK. I had ordered enough Gold to redo almost everybody, and I went for it. Thirty-two times. Sigh. There are thirty-two of them.

There followed three days of futzing around with orchids, capped by a washing and spraying extravaganza. I won't use anything stronger than pyrethrins, which is probably why I continue to have bugs. Fine. I'll continue to have bugs, and I won't croak young.

There was orchid medium dumped everywhere, hoses and bags and trays and pots...it was ridiculous. But the weather was glorious for it all--raining and warm--and nobody got sunburned, least of all me. I just sat out there in the rain soaked to the skin and dealt with it. Enjoyed myself, in a painful, back-breaking kind of way.

The sun finally broke through, but by then everyone was potted and taken back inside.

I think the hardest part of any job is cleaning up everything you've pulled out while doing it. Blaa. You want it to be over, and then there's cleanup.

Mether, I get very tired just watching you. You are never still, do you know that? You should nap more. Look at me. I nap all the time and I think everyone would agree I am more lovable than you.

Chet Baker, what kind of thing is that to say?

Forgive me, Mether. It's just that you have been diddling with your orchid plants for three days now and you have barely done anything with me. When will you be all done?

When the last plant is washed and sprayed and potted in sterile medium, Chet Baker, that's when I'll be done. But you know I love you more than all these orchids thrown together. Don't you?

Yes, Mether. And I also know that your readers find me much more lovable than orchids. I am the whole reason they put up with your plant stories. And I would add "hamster stories" to that.

Well, all right, Chet. You've got me there.

Hamstermania

It really does not take much to win my heart. I wear it pinned on my sleeve. And where small helpless young things are concerned I probably have an overactive maternal instinct. Which, on the whole, has been a very good thing. I've raised hummingbirds and chimney swifts and phoebes and waxwings to name just a few, and two very very sweet children and sometimes I find myself daydreaming about baby knuckles with dimples instead of bumps and I know it's going to be a very long wait until Phoebe gives forth with a grandchild, but I can wait. I cherish the still-little parts of Phoebe and Liam, and I have a dog who looks like a baby, and life is very good.

My kids are getting to the age where they want pets, their OWN pets, something young and helpless they can care for, and that is a beautiful thing. Since we have the Dog to End All Dogs there are no puppies on the horizon. Liam talks about a bearded dragon and I think that's going to stay in the realm of talk. The $100 price tag on one is just the beginning of some expensive upkeep. And I dunno, lizards...we've met some very sweet ones but they're still a a little foreign and spiky, a little salmonellaey for me. We have a line on a hatchling box turtle who needs to be raised for release on our place, and it's been promised to Liam, so we'll go with that.

A while ago we met a Chinese dwarf hamster named Monster who belongs to Phoebe's cousins. I was never much for hamsters, not after my sister brought one home from the biolabs at William and Mary, and we named her Maggie, and long after she'd been in residence rocketing around her cage and throwing cedar shavings all over the place, long after she should have been the Virgin Maggie, she popped out some little red beanie babies, and proceeded to throw them against the bars of the cage and do other unspeakable things to them. She must've stored the sperm for a couple of months. It was upsetting to a nine year old who was trying to do everything right. So hamsters, ehhhh.

And then along came Monster. Monster is calm and quiet and very sweet and she doesn't bite unless your hands smell of food. She walks slowly over your hands and arms and doesn't make any sudden moves and she crawled into the crook of my arm and found a spot of sun and fell asleep on me and my heart melted clean away. So did Phoebe's. It had to do with being trusted utterly by a small helpless animal who should by all rights be afraid of me.

Right then and there I decided to try to find a Chinese dwarf hamster just like Monster for Phoebe, which proved to be harder than I thought. All the area pet stores have Russian dwarves which seem to be fast and nippy and rather nasty on the whole. I have yet to meet a pet store employee who likes them. There are regular Siberians like Maggie which I'm sure are fine, but they don't appeal to Phoebe.

Marietta doesn't have them, and Columbus doesn't have CDH's. So Phoebe went to Hoobly.com and found someone about three hours away from us, but still in Ohio, who breeds the durn things. She emailed the breeder and the breeder emailed back. Why, that's just how I met Jane, Chet's breeder! Last we heard, she was introducing a male and female CDH and lo and behold they liked each other and have been sleeping together. She said you can't tell the females are pregnant until three days before they give birth at which point they look like a furry ping pong ball. Oh, joy. So we're waiting. Maybe two, three months. It reminds me of waiting for Chet Baker to be born. I like the idea of getting a pet directly from a home breeder. It sure worked out well with Chet. I don't mind driving three hours for a good hamster. We drove eight hours to get Chet from Pups Will Travel.

I know what you're thinking. So: What about that Bacon? who is at this very moment standing with his pawdies on the edge of the kitchen table murpphing for his second bikkit of the night. Would a CDH just be another bikkit for him? Well, despite his insatiable appetite for chasing small furry rodents outdoors, The Bacon is a very good boy. He has spent a couple of hours with his jellybean nose pressed up against the bars of Monster's cage, mere inches from her, and has never tried anything. He just likes to look. He will not jump up to try to grab Monster while you're holding her and he knows in his bones that hurting her would be a bad, bad thing to do. It is probably the ultimate test of a Boston's self-restraint, but we think he's up to it. Needless to say her tank will be on a high shelf. And he will be behind closed doors when Monster goes walkabout. But we believe in The Bacon.

There's yer Chetfix. And for the hammie fans, a Hamfix. The first, but I hope not the last one.

Dispatch from Paradise, Ohio

Mether, I see you are shooting a picture of our house. Perhaps you need a stately pose from me, Chet Baker, to improve the image.

I live in paradise.

A 1978 vintage ranch house in Southern Ohio is not what most people would consider paradise, but that doesn't bother me.

Not many people really know Appalachian Ohio. Maybe they know Seattle or Ann Arbor or Great Falls or Palm Springs or Bali and they have a different definition of paradise. That's OK with me, too.

Along about this time of year I would not want to be anywhere else but right here, watching the farmers roll up their hay. To come out my driveway and see this landscape is a fine, fine thing.



We watch the light play across the rolls.



I try to catch a thunderhead. I can't, but I still try. If I take a light reading on the cloud, the land goes dark.

If I take a reading on the land, the cloud washes out. I think it is all too beautiful to capture.


It's not meant to be captured--just lived. Or, come to think of it, painted. Yes. I could do that. Maybe I will.

I watch the sun burn red into the ground.


And wait for the mist to come up out of the hollers.



I ride around with Chet, checking bluebird boxes, wondering if he finds it as beautiful as I do.



Figuring he does.

Chet and the Rat Snake

Not long ago, Bill was backing his van out of the garage in the morning when I heard him give a yell. ZICK! ZICK! It was his snake yell. I hoped it wasn’t a big black rat snake hopelessly mashed in the garage door track again. Not going to talk about that time. I also hoped it wasn't another big snarly copperhead disappearing into a tangle of garden tools.

This time, he’d apparently nicked a big female black rat snake with a tire as he backed out. She'd been under the car, and there was no way he could have known she was there. Two eggs popped out. One was crushed, and the other was fine. So, strangely enough, was the female snake. I watched her carefully and could discern no injuries. She moved normally, slithering away, leaving her two leathery white eggs for me to deal with. I cleaned up the busted one and buried the other in a flower pot with dampish soil and a mix of sun and shade. You can always hope…It was such a beautiful snow-white package with its leathery shell. I had to believe there was a snake embryo in there that might hatch. So far, not so good. It's looking stained and dented and feeling kind of hard. Probably too much rain for it to develop properly.

Still, we worried about the female snake, and Bill asked me every day if I’d seen her again after she coiled up behind a garbage can to sulk. Finally, I could say yes. She was making her way across the lawn, fine as frog’s hair, identifiable by her still-gravid belly and beautiful reddish cast.


Chet Baker played Offisa Pupp, and went into full snake alert mode, circling and circling her 4 ½’ length.



Black rat snakes are normally phlegmatic and cool, but this old girl puffed right up. It had been a rough week for her. You couldn’t blame her for feeling put upon. First, they run over me, then they let their impertinent pooch niggle away at me.



Careful, dog. I will bite you.



I know that, Mrs. Snake. I just want a sniff and a closer look.


You do not have to worry about me. I am a gentleman, a well-mannered smallish dog, and only curious.



Well, go be curious with someone else. I will swivel to face you no matter how many times you circle me.



I am so curious. I want to touch you, but I am afraid of you, too.



Go ahead. Come closer. Here are my little white teeth. If you want me to sink them into your muzzlepuffs or that shiny black jellybean nose, just keep it up.



All right, Chet Baker. It’s time to let Mama RatSnake go find a place to lay her eggs.


All right, Mether. I am a terrier, but I am only half a terrier. Since you asked, I will back off.

And she climbed the terrace wall and rested for a long time in the shade of a big purple coneflower, and for all I know she will leave the rest of her precious eggs there in the loose soil. And I was happy to know she was all right, and still had her babies inside her.

Sometime during the day on August 4, 2009, this blog had its one hundred thousandth unique visitor. I'd been keeping a desultory eye on the little counter at the bottom of the blog page as the unique visitor count crawled through the 90,000's, then forgot about it. It must have happened yesterday, because when I looked at 10:30 pm there had been 100,057 unique visitors since January 8, 2006. At 10: 37 pm there had been 100,087 visitors. Dang. That's a lot of people. I thought that was pretty cool, even if many of them are just clicking through and forgetting, to know that more than 100,000 people have been here, and 30 more in just seven minutes. And that some of you have come back again and again. And some of you have gotten Boston terriers, and some have put up bluebird boxes or tried growing orchids or identified a sleeping ball of feathers or stopped and wondered about an unknown animal dropping or just had fun you might not have had, if you hadn't been reading. Thanks, y'all. I've had fun, too. I think of the people I've come to know through this funny little medium and it makes my heart fill up and about beat through my ribs.

MidSummer ChetFix

There is something about a brisket tickle that makes Chet Baker a little crazy. The brisket is a very tender bit of the Boston terrier, probably the tastiest and most chewable. It is very lightly haired, so it’s not a big leap to imagine beginning one's carving there when dividing the dog. This is where we would start if we ever ran out of food a la The Donner Party. The brisket.

This is called Crazy Face, and you can induce it in a four-year-old male Boston terrier by vigorously tickling the brisket.



Yes, Tim, this post is for you. I am well aware that a computer screen cannot French kiss you, but it is the best we can do from here. How I wish I could give you Smell-o-Vision. Baker is lying at my feet, silently but vigorously fumigating the studio air. It might make you miss him less. I am wiping a tear from my eye, and it's not because he's so adorable. The fartfest at my feet...

When the tickling ends, a trace of the crazy smile remains.



Until someone mentions bunnehs.


Disclaimer: For those of you who are wondering, no Boston terriers were eaten in the making of this blog post.

Bluebird Boxes and Black Raspberries

Chet Baker loves to check bluebird boxes with me. He knows which locations are safe for him to get out of the car and which ones aren’t, and he waits patiently until we get to a place where he can make his rounds.

I know, Mether. I know I have to wait, because this road is too busy for me to get out and make my rounds. You can leave the door open even. I will not get out. Unless I see a cat or a squirtle. Then I might. But I would look both ways first.

Along the way, we see lots of nice things, and I always take my cameras along to record them. Here’s a common wood nymph, a big robust butterfly that comes out in June and flies through July.


Speaking of percs, here are some black raspberries. Mmm. The kids love picking them and feeding them to me as we walk.



You are not the only person who likes black raspberries, Mether. I am ready for you to drop that berry right into my smile.

If you look up Happy Dog in the dictionary, you would find this picture. He's home, he had a Marvelous Time at Camp Baker (thanks, David and Mary Jane!!), and he's on bunneh patrol again. Life is good for Chet Baker. Although sometimes I wish he'd divide down the middle like a hydra... David and Mary Jane have proposed an equal timeshare with us, kind of a way to spread his Bakerness around. Umm...can I think about that one? If that doesn't work out, they are already looking forward to having him back in September, when life gets crazy again. See and click on my new Midwest Birding Symposium ad on the right bar. We'll all be there (except Chet)--wanna come say hi?

Headed Home

Here's just a little bit of what I miss right now. Ohhhh, I miss my babies.

I'm writing from Port of Spain, Trinidad, where we've been at the airport for two hours, waiting for our delayed flight to Houston, and then to Columbus. It's green season here, and there are intermittent showers and rainbows. The airport is air conditioned. Having been mostly without climate and humidity control for two weeks, that in itself is a marvelous thing.

We had the most wonderful time. If you didn't see Bill of the Birds' blog post on July 24, go check it out. I got to touch leatherback turtles and all. There's so much more. But I'm just sayin'.

Two solid weeks of tropical birding and trekking around in monsoon season is something, my friends, and I feel like I've been on the vacation of a lifetime with my big sweetie, the first trip we've taken together for fun in four years. Mmm. But I'm ready to be home, ready to see how much it rained and how my plant babies fared, ready to hold and love our kids, who have been besporting themselves in Vermont with dear friends, ready to smooch Charlie and Chet Baker, ready to sleep in my own bed and cook my own food.

I have nearly full memory cards, and if you recall that's where my fun started a couple of months ago, with an overloaded computer and a constipated camera. We shall see...I'm braced.

Chet Baker to Phoebe: Happeh Birthday!

Hello everyone. It is me, Chet Baker.


photo by Phoebe Linnea Thompson


My sister Phoebe turns 13 today, at 11:49 AM. That was the exact moment that she came into the world. When they dried her off she had a little twist of bright red hair on top of her head. Everyone was amazed. Mether had been in labor for about a day and a half at that point but she forgot it all when she saw that baby. She says that baby looked right back at her and said hello with her eyes. If I had been there I would have sniffed her all over and then washed her face for her. I would have liked to sniff her ears and toes. But I was not there. I was not even born yet.


Phoebe likes it when I put my paws like this. We call it Steamboat Round. Cats think they are the only people who can do Steamboat Round, but they are wrong. Certain dogs can do it too. Certain handsome, flexible, sleek dogs like me, Chet Baker.

Phoebe said that the thing she wanted to wake up to on her birthday morning was a kiss from me, Chet Baker. I can understand why that would be so. I give the best kisses. Mether and Daddeh took me into her room this morning and I gave her a whole bunch of kisses.

I kiss Phoebe all the time, because she is the sweetest girl I know. She is very smart and funny and she picks ticks off me and makes me do my tricks and takes me for walks where we look for bunnehs and chiptymunks. I am learning how to run alongside her when she rides her new bicycle. It is fun. I am not supposed to cut in front of her, no matter what I see. Unless it is turkehs. They are the best things to chase. We spend a lot of time together.

However she is getting very big, and last week Mether was talking to her and all of a sudden Mether walked right up and touched her nose to Phoebe's, which is something I do all the time, and then Mether gasped and said something about Phoebe being taller than she is, which she is, I had noticed it awhile ago. Mether who is five feet five inches and who wishes she were taller so her Body Mass Index would look better says it happened overnight, while everyone was sleeping. Since Phoebe has always been taller than me I did not see what the big deal was. She is thirteen now, she should be big. If she was a dog she would be in the Old Folks Home.

It seems to me that Phoebe is just going to keep getting bigger and bigger. She is probably going to keep getting more beautiful, too. I am not sure she can get any smarter but she can probably learn a lot of new tricks. I do not know what is going to become of that girl, but it is something good I am sure.

Dictating my thoughts to Mether always makes me sleepy. My eyes start closing and my head droops and I fall asleep right where I am, which is right where I want to be.


I hope that Phoebe will always let me sleep on her lap, because she is the sweetest girl I know.

Happeh Birthday, Phoebe.

Love,

Chet Baker

Fledging Day for the Wrens

When you start seeing pale feathery necks and throats, you know those babies are getting big.


Carolina wrens do not stay in the nest very long. They develop at an incredible rate, being capable of flying at only 12 days after hatching! Please pause to think about that. On Day 1, it's a squirming pink blob of protoplasm the size of your thumbnail. On Day 12, it's almost fully feathered and capable of flight. FLIGHT! What were you capable of on Day 12? Sucking, sleeping, crying and pooping, that's what.

Even I could walk on Day 12, Mether.


When you've been around baby birds a lot, you just KNOW when they're going to fledge, almost as well as their parents do. Carolina wrens give a special squirking call when they get to fledging age. These birds got real jiggy around 10:30 AM on June 23, then settled down for the rest of the day. I knew, knew, knew that 10:30 AM June 24 would be the witching hour, the day they left. And wouldn't you know it, I had an interview scheduled on WOSU Columbus for 10-11 AM on June 24. I had to be up in the tower room, blabbing on the phone about me and my book, Letters from Eden. Can I get an ARRRGH? I mean, these birds were fledging as I was speaking and there was nothing I could do about it. Well, there was something I could do about it. I could give my camera to Phoebe, and SHE could capture the moment I'd been waiting a month to see...

First baby on the rim. Mom below. Photo by Phoebe Linnea Thompson.

Not only that, but my camera battery crapped out on Phoebe as this was happening. She couldn't find my spare, so without bothering me (because my kids know when Mom's doing an interview, nobody can interrupt), she grabbed Bill's camera, put my telephoto lens on it, and resumed shooting. Fledging was not going to wait for me, she knew that. Now that, my friends, is a useful twelve-year-old girl.



She is very useful as a pillow, I know that, Mether.

If you'd like to listen to the interview with WOSU's wonderful Charlene Brown (and hear how jiggy I was, knowing the wrens were fledging right downstairs!!), listen here.

The Wren Eggs Hatch

I've mentioned before how nervous this (perhaps first-time) mama Carolina wren was. She was off her eggs as much as she was on them in the days we were home. Luckily for her, she got to do the bulk of her incubation and early brooding of the young while we were safely away in North Dakota and Montana. She had two full weeks to finish incubating and hatch out the five young. I was so excited when we came home, to peek in the nest and see what had happened to those five speckled eggs while we were gone.

Oh, sweetness!

There followed many hundreds of photos of the humdrum daily activity of a family of Carolina wrens. None of them are fantastic, being taken with a hand-held 300 mm. telephoto from the dim inside of my kitchen, with hard, contrasting light and the nest in deep shadow.

There are other extenuating factors, the main one being that I'm STILL waiting for Apple to deliver the shipping box for my sick laptop. It's supposed to arrive July 6, and I'll pack it up and give it right back to my friendly Fed-ex deliveryman, who usually has not one but three bikkits in his pocky for Chet Baker. Last time he came here he had run out so I had to slip him a few to give to Chet, because Chet Baker don't take no for an answer where deliveryman bikkits are concerned.



What does all this have to do with wren photo quality? Well, it's taken me all day to transfer my photos from the external hard drive to the Old Slow Desk iMac. That's because each photo icon in the bunch takes around 30 seconds to appear on the screen, and I had 600 of them. Once the icon finally appears, I click it, and opening it in Preview on this computer takes oh, another 20 seconds, and then there's editing, which I completely lost patience with, because you don't want to know how long it takes to edit a photo on Old Faithful. So most of these images have been spared the kind of post-production caressing that I'm so used to doing for this blog. Life is too short.

All of which is to say, !@#!#@$#@$%#$^!! I hate it when my laptop dies. Preliminary word from the technicians I've spoken with is that it needs a new video card and probably a logic board, too. If you buy a Mac: Buy the Apple Care Protection Plan. I did. It runs out in mid-September, 2009. And I am real, real glad I'm not buying a new video card and logic board for my laptop. It's bad enough to be without it for a couple of weeks. That makes two Apple Care logic boards I've gotten--one for Old Slow iMac, and now one for the laptop. You don't want to be paying for those.

I thoroughly enjoyed cranking open the window and shooting wrens, though, and they didn't mind one bit having every aspect of their family life documented. I could get a decent enough shot of the incoming parent to identify the food items they brought. This was the only de-haired forest tent caterpillar I saw them bring, so I was really happy to document that.

By far the most frequently brought prey item (and you're going to have to steel yourself here) were daddy longlegs, with the longlegs taken off.
All together now: BLEEEECCCCHHH!

So much for the urban legend about the baby who popped one in his mouth and died. These babies were practically raised on the little brown oblong protein packets that are daddy longleg bodies.


I would love to have dropped everything and quantified the prey these birds were bringing, done nothing but watched them all day dawn to dusk and figured out exactly what they were eating, but that wasn't in the cards. I had my own kids to provision and care for.

The Bacon helped greatly with my project by lying for hours at a time on the front stoop, baking his liver and lights.
This was a help to me because the wrens would pause just long enough to chew him out--pip! pip! --before going to the nest. It gave me time to grab a snapshot of the insect in their bill before they gave it to their young.

Baker was happy to be of service.


He's the hardworking doggeh.

Snakeskin Surprise

June's the time when we find snakeskins. Phoebe spotted the skin of a black rat snake deep within a crevice in our back patio. I came out and was glad to find it so fresh that it was still moist and pliable. I teased it out with a tweezers without displacing a single scale, a feat in itself, since it was hung up on the rough sandstone blocks. It was complete and perfect. The snake must undergo a hormonal surge or drop, to let loose of its skin in one go like that. They then find a snug rough-walled place, like a crack in a patio, to get it hitched and start peeling it away. It must feel wonderful to shed your skin. I'll never know. Well, I flake a bit in winter.

It was about as tall as Phoebe is: 5' 2" to her 5'4". Yikes.



We were fascinated by the way the skin had every single feature of the living snake except its mucous membranes and innards. It was inside out, the lenses of the eyes intact. Imagine shedding your eye lenses. Imagine shedding your skin. Whooo.

I turned it right side out to see the eyes and lower jaw as they would appear on the animal. I wondered how the skin shedding stopped at the lips, leaving the mucous membranes unaffected. The whole thing blows my mind. Blew the kids’ minds, too.

What my babies put up with…Despite his confident look, Liam had a harder time with donning the boa than Phoebs. He's just fakin' it here. Note stegosaur jammie pants.


But there was someone else who was wondering about this thing, too. Chet Baker don’t like snakes. He was dubious.



He thought the skins (we had found another just a few days earlier) were probably still dangerous.


Ever been bit by a dead bee? They can bitecha, just the same as the live ones.



It’s OK, Baker. Those skins won’t hurt you.



I am not so sure, Liam. I think they can still snap at me.



I am ready to jump aside or bite, whichever I need to do.

Phew, Mether, put those smelly things somewhere now. They give me the creepity creeps.

Is there a more expressive face in the Kingdom of Dog?

June's Gifts

So very many gifts in June, among them hanging baskets filled with treasured things from my greenhouse

Geranium "Frank Headley" left, "Maverick Hot Pink," right

There's the sound of running water in the pond out back


my crazy tea rose, "Rio Samba," a color-changer that goes from yellow to red over the life of the flower


the impossible bounty of the flower beds, that spills over


into container after container, all of the elevated ones filled with the things rabbits like. We are big on pedestals here.


Come evening, there may be thunderheads and storm light


and scared little boys to cuddle and comfort.



And there is always a dribble of dog.

Chet Baker, Predator

Chet Baker nabbed a chiptymunk today, the first I'm aware of in oh, about 1,000 tries this spring. Just FYI he doesn't pet them and let them go. His inner Cape Hunting Dog comes out, he gives them a quick shake and a crunch and stretches them in the grass, then trots off without a backward glance. It's the rat terrier half of him. The smooshy-wooshy sweet wad of doggeh love is his bulldog half.


Chet Baker, Predator. Bunnehs beware!

Thank the Lord he doesn't swallow them whole, as our dachshund Volks once did with a very dead squirrel. Blecch. We caught him masticating it and as we watched in horror the entire thing disappeared down his throat, like as if he wuz a snake. You want some yaller mustard for that squirrel hummmmm?

Tuesday night, as his welcome home from two weeks at Camp Baker, Chet tangled with a raccoon that was trying to raid the bird feeders. He came slinking in with three puncture wounds on his face and throat, and the reek of coon on his neck. Thank goodness he had his rabies booster in May! Chet feels so very sorry for himself when he gets hurt, rolling his eyes and slicking back his ears. He rolls over and lets me wash him up and assess the damage. And it is the time of year when I need to sweep the yard with a flashlight before letting him out for the last time, because that rat terrier half will always go in for the tussle.

Let's face it--the animals we like to cuddle and kiss are predators. Cats happen to be much, much better at it, and better equipped for it, than dogs. But even Mr. Adorable gets a chiptymunk now and then, and a couple of rabbits a year, and that's OK with me. We've got plenty chipmunks and rabbits here. We even have rabbits that climb up on 18" high concrete benches and into my planters to demolish the rare geraniums I've been propagating, reducing a year's nurturing to nubbins in a single night. Guess what part of the geranium they eat? Just the crunchy leaf stems. Not the leaves, not the beautiful flowers nor the main stems. Just the leaf stems. Oh, that's worth killing a whole plant for.

Now those rabbits are out of line. These are the times I wish Chet were a better predator.

You can bet that if Chet were offing a bird or two a day, as some cats do, he'd be an indoor dog. This is why I have a dog, and not a cat. Dogs are evolutionarily much better equipped to take correction than are cats. As in: Dogs take correction, remember it, and apply it to their behavior. Cats, well...cats do what cats do, and if what they like to do happens to be compatible with being a good pet, that's lovely for everyone.

Chet has been taught not to chase birds. He wouldn't hurt one if it hopped up and perched on his nose. Same goes for turkles, officially Off Limits, ever since I caught him chewing on ol' Naraht when he was a puppeh. Yesterday Phoebe and I were playing with a dwarf hamster, and we wondered if we got one, whether Chet would try to give it a quick snap and a shake. Well, he might, if we neglected to tell him he couldn't. I feel confident that if we had a pet hamster, rabbit or chipmunk, we could very quickly teach Chet to leave it alone. That's the beauty of dogs. Can somebody breed trainability into cats, please?

Smart chipmunks go straight up when Chet makes the scene. Here, he's treed a chipmunk.

It's the dark little blob at the top center of the picture.

Zooming in...


You have to love the almost prehensile tail.


No, he didn't get this'n, like he doesn't get 99.9 percent of the chiptymunks around here.

But that doesn't keep him from running lightning-fast raids a couple of times an hour, all day long.


I love to chase small furry animals. It is my job, and I am very good at my job. Notice that I did not say "catch" small furry animals. I chase them, mostly.

The Chet Baker commentary that aired on NPR got tons of comments, both on the NPR website and on NPR's Facebook page. (You'll have to go to "Older Posts" to find it on the NPR Facebook page). Hundreds. The overwhelming majority that came in were supportive, from people with whom the piece struck a chord. After all, who likes to have someone come up and say something mean about their dog?

As there always are in online forums, there was a smattering of snarky comments, too, from people saying how "inbred" Chet is, how maladapted; what a jerk I am to buy a purebred dog; how I should have rescued a dog instead; how sick it is that humans have selected dogs for certain traits...including, I assume, intelligence, beauty, tractability, forward-facing googly eyes, prickety ears, slick coat, sense of humor, kissable purple lips...how awful of us! Perhaps we should all be keeping lean, lanky wolves and jackals as pets? Somehow I can't imagine a wolf sitting on the back of the couch, watching American Idol with us.

I'm sorry, cranky people, but you make me hoot out loud, because you're so predictable. There's something about a keyboard that can inspire a kind of road rage; maybe people aren't getting enough fiber, or getting up and walking around enough, but cranky commenters all sound alike after awhile. I'm with the Obamas--having a dog is a big decision, an enormous outlay of cash over the decade or more that we own it, and we have a right to select the kind of dog we really want. Maybe your urge to rescue a dog is stronger than your desire to get exactly what you want vis a vis size, coat length, personality, temperament, and that's fine. You can go rescue a dog, and someone else can go to a good breeder to buy a purebred. That's what selective breeding, and personal choice, are all about. And no matter what you do, there's always going to be a cranky person at a keyboard somewhere ready to take a shot from the sidelines at the stance you take.

I'd like to invite all the holier-than-thous over to see this lean, sleek, beautiful boy go about his doggly bidness.
But just for a few minutes, and I'm not going to bake you cookies. Those, and sloppy Chet Baker kisses, are for the nice people; i.e., the ones who agree with me.

Someone Dribbled Dog

Someone dribbled dog on my lawn.

There are puddles everywhere that I look.



Inky greasy stains on my bluegrass



Wrecking all the mowing work it took.




Then someone poured dog on my carpet



someone spilled some dog on my deck




Someone emptied dog on on my chaise lounge


Someone spilled dog on my band.




Someone dripped dog on my new chair, the Martha Stewart one I got on sale.


Someone put dog on my taxes. I almost didn't ever get them done.




Someone droozled dog on my husband



Someone dribbled dog on my head.


I do not pretend that this is good poetry. It is inconsistent, ill-conceived, written by someone who is overtired, and meant only to make you laugh.


Chet Baker's fame grows. On Wednesday, as we were flying to North Dakota, my piece, titled,
"Look at that Puppy! But be Careful What You Say!" aired on All Things Considered. I just found out about it, being in a place with more meadowlarks than Internet hookups. Give it a listen. Scroll down and read the gobs and piles of comments, especially the cranky ones, which I'm afraid I find more amusing than insulting. At the very least, I got to say, "Them things is HYPER!" three times on National Public Radio.

Party Dog

Although it appears from the buzz on the Interwebs that many people had fun at the New River Birding Festival, I doubt that many had more fun than Chet Baker.

Photo by Mary's View. Yes, he is on top of the picnic table, being petted by several people at once. To say Chet Baker was treated like a rock star at the New River Birding festival is a serious understatement. He was treated like the Doggeh Lama.

If you look up "tuckered out" in the dictionary, there will be a picture of America's favorite blog dog after the Orangutangs gig on Saturday night.

Susan was a little concerned to see the Life of the Party looking so...hangdog.


One of your little massages will help, Miss Susan. But I am too tired even for treats.

Are there any other pretteh ladies who would like to make a fuss over me?

 Chet had been interfacing with the public for three whole days. He hadn't had his usual 12-hour naps. He had places to go, people to see, interviews to grant.

To answer your question, my favorite thing about the New River Birding Festival would probably be the crowds of people saying I am cute. 

Give me that microphone. That is the last blogger interview I am going to do. Here's your sound bite.


Sometimes it is tiring being "on" all the time. Sometimes a person just wants to relax on a couch.


But there is always someone plopping down beside me, thinking I am lonely. This person thinks I need to hear some dog jokes. He is wrong.


The Boston Terrier is not called the American Gentleman for nothing. I will be aloof, but cordial. I am always polite.


I think this man they call Paco needs to take some depressants. He is too chipper for 11:30 at night.


Perhaps fame is not all it is cracked up to be. All I want to do is curl up in my fleecy bed. Mether? You probably never expected me, Chet Baker, to say this, but I am tired and I want to go home.

All right, Bacon. Sweet dreams, and jerky on your pillow.

Morning Kisses

I have shown you the all-out party at Opossum Creek. I wish I could convey how much fun it was to have most of our band there. Not to mention the fabulous Flock. Here I am with my beloved Timmo Ryan, who blogs beautifully at From the Faraway, Nearby.

We think we might be cosmic twins.

Photo by Mary's View.

The aftermath of the gig... Here's Chet, wearing the ChetCam, completely done in after partying until midnight with all the revelers.


I am sorry to say that the ChetCam, which is featured in this photo along with the lovely and talented Katdoc, has spontaneously crapped out through no fault of the photographer. I think the manufacturer is counting on the thing falling off the dog's collar and getting lost before it craps out, so tenuous is the clip. (He's shaken it off five times, and somehow we've found it each time). You'll have to put up with my lousy photography until I can get it replaced (I doubt there's much fixing it). Anybody know of a better dogcam out there? It was such a tantalizing little taste of what he could do with his new art form...

It was kind of a tight squeeze in our cabin, El Gordo. Lots of bodies, air mattresses, people strewn about. Just exactly what Chet Baker loves. He bedhopped starting at the first wood thrush song, just as light was creeping under the shades.

Andy and Clay are trying to deflate an air mattress by applying their manweight.
Enter Chet Baker.
I will kiss you and kiss you and kiss you again.

And then I will kiss you some more. There is no getting away from me, Chet Baker. I am the kissing bandit. I kiss girls, boys, children, bass players, drummers, singers, guitarists, the infirm and the elderly alike.


Now you know you have been kissed, Andy Hall. I am sorry about your glasses, but I have to roo now.

Clay donned protective gear, a stuffsack toque.

And fended Chet off with a chewbone and a mummy bag.

But Vinnie didn't seem to mind a few Baker kisses.

Just a quick poll--was there anyone who attended the New River Swinging Orangutangs party who did not get a kiss from Chet Baker? I think he hit everyone, but you never know...We can try to remedy that next year. There will be a sign-up sheet at registration.

BakerCam!

I'm sure all of you have a certain friend with a genius for coming up with the perfect gift. My friend Jen Sauter gives the perfect gift with no warning, just because. And I always squawk like a parrot when I open them, because they're...perfect.

Jen loooooves Chet Baker, and when we get together we talk in Chet Baker talk practically the whole time.How much does she love Baker? Well, when her sister needed a puppeh, Jen directed her to Chet Baker's breeder, Jane.

Some of you will remember Booker T.The last time Booker came to visit was last July. Now he towers over Chet! He was long and lean as a puppeh, promising to be a big boy.But back to the perfect gift, which Jen gave us when we were in West Virginia.

It's called Pet's Eye View. It's a tiny lightweight camera that hangs from a pet's collar and takes photos at a chosen interval (1, 15 or 30 minutes). Could there be anything more perfect than to see the world through Chet Baker's eyes? I squealed!

The following photos were taken by Chet Baker in the space of about an hour in his busy life. I'll let Chet narrate:
I wish Mether would stop drawing and let me out. I want to bake myself in the sun.


Much better. I like the sun. It has been so rainy lately that I have not had a chance to bake. I can drink out of Mether's muck bucket rainbarrel.

I have a very nice front yard. Mether's rosemary tree is getting big.


I will flop down here for awhile. Zzzzz.

But there might be a chiptymunk by the pond. I run across the patio. I almost trip on Mether's sundial every time. My jowls are getting long!



I am standing on the back deck, looking for deer and bunnehs. My soft throat folds get in the way again. Sorry about that.

Time to head down the stairs and make another chiptymunk and bunneh patrol. I am a busy dog. Mether calls me Offisa Pupp.


I am back. Now I want in again. I see my Air Dog donut, but where is Mether? There is a hole in this screen just the size of my head. I remember when that happened. I saw a deer.


Finally. Mether let me in, and I flop down on the cool tile in the foyer. It is hot outside. I took a lot of pictures of this view.


Mether is still planting things. Here are her boots, and all her seeds for the garden. I like it when she works outside. Hmm. Where is Mether?


I see her feet under her drawing table. There is a doorstop that is supposed to look like me.


And there is Mether, kneeling down to kiss me! This is not the best picture of Mether. I will try to get another one. I hope you have enjoyed seeing my world. I will take some more pictures soon.

Love,

Chet Baker

Chet Baker, Birdwatcher

Chet Baker. What are you doing standing up against the birch tree? Do you have a squirtle up there?
Mether, you know there are not nearly enough squirtles around here for me to be lucky enough to have one up this tree. There is something else up here that intrigues me.


Well, Chet, there is a goldfinch singing very loudly at the top of the birch. Is that what you're wondering about?

You say it is a goldfinch? It has a very loud song, and I am curious about it. I would like to get a closer look at it.

These are the times I wish a Boston terrier could climb. I can run and jump very well, but climbing is hard for me. I do not have the right kind of hands.


Oh, how I would like to see the bird that is making that song.


Finally! Now I see him. All that noise from such a small small bird. Hummm.


Chet Baker, now you can add American goldfinch to your life list. Just one more reason to call you Little Cat Dog.

Bill, Phoebe, Liam, Chet Baker and I got back from the New River Birding and Nature Festival in Fayetteville, WV, last evening. We had the most wonderful time. We're overflowing with love for our friends, many of whom we knew but had never hugged before! I promise to get to my photos today, to try to encapsulate the experience in something resembling a cogent blog post. For his part, Birdwatching Chet Baker stole about four dozen hearts and was treated like the rock star he is by almost everyone except Geoff Heeter, who has the audacity to talk to him as if he were an ordinary dog, or something less than a hairy demigod. More on that later.

The Well-tempered Dog

Phoebe manages to grab Mr. Smiley and again holds it over her head. There is a pattern to The Games.


He is a thing of beauty in flight.

On his last leap, he snags the toy. Victory!



You have to let me rip it up now, Phoebe. I have earned this toy.


If it belongs to anybody, it belongs to me, Chet Baker. I have worked for it. And I know you are going to take it away from me again. You are a rotten person, Phoebe, even if you are my sister.


Mether is a rotten person too, for laughing at my distress. Besides, I am not ripping Mr. Smiley up right now. I am keeping him safe.


Well, Chet Baker, I am afraid the game is over. You could choke on bits of Mr. Smiley, and it is time for you to chew a Nylabone. No matter how much you roo or how cute you are, you won't get Mr. Smiley to destroy.
What makes you think that I want that old bone?

I think you will play with it, Chet Baker, because we love you and want you to be safe.

Well, when you put it that way, I can see your point. I am too old to choke on things, but I will accept your chicken-flavored Nylabone. That was a very good game. And I love you, too.

Killing Mr. Smiley

At some point in the game, Chet had to get hold of Mr. Smiley.

Although his first instinct is to rip a much-desired toy to shreds, Chet knows he mustn't do that. So he mouths it and chews very carefully, waiting for the shoe to drop and for somebody to yell at him. And he's not above a little taunting of his own:


All right, Phoebe. It's business time.


Chet Baker, if you chew that all up, we won't be able to play with Mr. Smiley any more. Give it to me.


I am sorry, Miss Phoebe. I cannot give it to you. Because it is mine now.


I'm sorry, Chet Baker, but you MUST give it to me.


And I am going to hide it in the closet so you can't get it.

Well, that is a rotten dirty trick. Why aren't you helping me open the door?

Roo roo roo rooooo!


Perhaps I can get it myself.


And here we have the definitive photo of the Boston terrier's Catpaw maneuver, rarely employed, but quite effective. Chet Baker is right handed, like his Mether.


He succeeds in opening the door, and grabbing Mr. Smiley. The Games Go On.

The Fabulous Flying Baker Brother

Brief technical note: I mentioned that I'm migrating to another server. My blog URL will stay the same, and with my fabulous Web Witch working on it, the transition should be seamless. But sometimes things go awry. Should you have any trouble accessing my blog in the next few days (let's say that you don't get a fresh post Sunday night; you just keep getting this same post into Monday), try clearing your browser cache, then delete and recreate the bookmark for my blog. I don't think there will be a problem, but it pays to be prepared. Back to The Bacon:

On a particularly rough day at school,  Phoebe came home and kind of crumpled up.

Nurse Baker has radar for crumpled people. I peeked in the living room to find him curled up with her, a protective paw on her leg.
The camera shutter (why can't they be silent?) brought Phoebe around, and Baker fixed me with a glare. Some things should be sacred, Mether. Nurse Baker is working here. Would you please?

Phoebe and Chet play like sister and brother. Even though he is a dog, the tenor of their games are very similar to those she plays with her human brother Liam. The root of most of them is: I have this, and you don't. Neener neener!

One such thing that Chet Baker set his sights upon was Mr. Smiley, a dopey inflatable, the kind of thing that can transform a kid's room from serene to junky just by its presence. Chet wanted it, bad. I would have been fine with his reducing it to smithereens, but Phoebe was sort of loosely attached to Mr. Smiley. If only to use it to tease Chet Baker.

Let the games begin!I want that thing, Miss Phoebe. I want it bad. I want to pop it with my teeth.



Well, then jump for it, Chet.


You will note that, in a concession to Chet's weak anterior cruciate ligament on his left hind leg, a leftover from having jumped off a hay roll as a puppy, we have padded the floor with a squishy bed. The dog is irrepressible. Boston terriers must boing, and boing again.


Roo roo rooo rooooo! This may be the definitive Boston terrier roo shot. He even makes his lips into an O.


This is one of those shots that you get, that when it pops up on the playback screen, makes you let out a startled squawk. Let's have a closeup.


Yes, that is his real, unShopped eye, and yes, he looks just like Steamboat Willie, the first incarnation of Mickey Mouse. Selective breeding is an amazing thing. We make dogs that look like blinkin' cartoon characters.



Obviously, Chet's been reading the same manual as Willie.

Because there are just too many fabboo Chet Baker shots to share here, I'm going to split it up. You can only take too much cuteness before there's overload, insulin shock and all that. Down, Chetfans, down. More Fabulous Flying Baker Brother on Sunday evening. That is, if the blog gremlins behave.

Chet Baker, Tax Hound

I was good this year. I did the bulk of my tax preparation in January, surprising the daylights out of myself. I knew that, as onerous as it is to organize and figure up a million flying receipts, it would be even less fun in April.

Even if you have someone prepare your taxes, for a freelancer like me, the bulk of the work has to happen on your own desk. I crunch everything down to neat figures encased in little penciled boxes, and supply that to my preparer, Jim. I like Jim, partly because I can make him laugh any time. Much of what I do for a living actually turns out to be pretty funny.

Loyal to Rea and Associates, I don't patronize Liberty Tax Preparersno matter how alluringly Miss Liberty, the Bearded Woman, waves from the corner of Acme and Greene. I'm sorry, but this is a major economic indicator right there--a grown man being willing to put on a verdigris gown and tiara and wave all day in the freezing cold. There's one guy who waves, who won't wear the starry crown. I don't blame him. Then there's this girl who jumps up and down, tirelessly. Makes you want to get a paintball gun.

Right across the street, there are people walking up and down with giant cardboard pizzas on their bellies. I wonder what it's like to be a pizza person. It could happen. It probably pays better than being a natural history essayist.

Yes, this is another Chet Baker post. No, I didn't find him a new home. I have gotten three private emails from people about my April 1st post, in which I said we'd made the difficult decision to find Chet Baker a new home. Sincere, tearful letters from people begging me to reconsider. Remember when Tweety Bird would put his hands behind his back and bat his eyes and say, "Dey don't know me vewwy well, do dey?"I have had Charlie the macaw for 22 years. In that time, he has perforated me more times than I care to recount. He is a preferential chewer, which is to say he chooses the most valuable thing in sight to destroy, with books and electronics his top picks. He screams like a maniac, lunges at Bill's feet, kicks Chet Baker out of his soft bed, and poops everywhere. And I haven't even come close to getting rid of HIM. I love him. And I cannot think of anything Chet Baker could do that could move me to give him up. If Chet Baker had a rage attack and chewed off my left arm, I'd say, "Whew! Good thing I'm right handed! Here, Baker. Want a bikkit?"

So that thing about getting rid of Chet was a joke, son, an April Fool's joke, and not a very funny one, it turns out. Chet Baker (and Charlie) are here to stay, forever in my heart and home.

Like I said, I have plenty of help with my taxes.
You have me, Mether. I, Chet Baker, am here to help organize your receipts. What are receipts? Are they like bikkits? May I have a bikkit? Or at least, can you mess with me right now? I would like to be messed with. Or to have a bikkit. Your choice. Or we could take a walk. It is not that cold outside.

Chet Baker. You are very talkative, and Mether is busy today. How did you get the idea that it would be all right to sit upon my tax papers?Well, it is the best place in the whole house to watch for chiptymunks, up here on your table. Oh. Are these receipts that I am sitting on?

Yes they are, little Cat Dog, who is so fond of sitting up high and getting in the way of progress. But I am taking a break now. I would rather watch for chiptymunks with you for a little while than do this, any day. You smell like sunshine.

So I'd written this post and I got an email from my new bloggrrl friend Murr Brewster who writes this hilarious blog called Murrmurrs. She said she shouldn't be emailing because she was supposedly "finishing up her taxes"--we all know how that generally goes. So I sent her the photo directly above, of Chet Baker keeping my receipts warm with his fanny. Oh, sorry, Brits, his bum.
I wrote, "This is what tax day looks like in Whipple, Ohio."

And Murr freaked out and sent me this photo of what tax prep day looks like in Portland, Oregon:photo by Murr Brewster

Different animal, same idea. Sit on the important stuff. Get butt all over the thing they're working on at the moment. Then they can't ignore you. Now, we all know you can't pose a cat. And I beg you to note what's on Murr's computer screen. It is he, Chet Baker, whose fame stretches all the way across this great, expensive country of ours. Happy IRS Day!

Chet Baker, Snow Bunneh

Sitting inside looking at birds crowding the feeders was fine for awhile, because the footing outside was so treacherous and exhausting--crunch, flomp, crunch, flomp, whoops! that going out wasn't a wise option. I suited up and went out twice a day to re-provision the feeders, making sure to throw seed and cracked corn under the brushpile/bower Bill made. Here, a few goldfinches enjoy the largesse. Last count of goldfinches at the feeders Feb. 16: 79! And people, they are getting some yellow feathers on their heads...and I heard a flock of robins singing yesterday...and a friend reports from  northern Virginia that a flock of konk-a-reeing red-winged blackbirds stopped by to brighten his yard. It's coming. It is.

But here on this blog, we're still snowbound. And  a guy has to get out and mark his territory, eventually. I wish I knew how many pictures I have taken of Chet peeing on things. Let's just say: Many. I am so besotted with this dog that I think his micturation rituals are worth photographing. I don't even mind when he goes and pees on my giant culinary sage plant every morning and night. I just use leaves from the top. Here, he shows some downtrodden Virginia pines who the #1 Boss is.

Since Chet has the furry protection of a naked mole rat on his underbelly, it really isn't fair to bring him out in snow without a little protection. He winds up shivering on the stoop within two minutes.


So we got out The Coat, a Woolrich creation sold by Target, far and away the best coat he's ever had. And things began looking up for Snowpuppeh.
I could do without the football helmet applique, but hey. It's got good velcro closures on the ventral surface, it doesn't restrict his movement, and it keeps his bare brisket from getting all wet and freezy. The fact that he's really cute in it (a matter of opinion, I know, KatDoc!) doesn't hurt, either. Come on. Cuteness like that is an unarguable absolute.


Chet's wondering what that bright golden orb in the sky might be. We hadn't seen it for so long we forgot it was there.

Like I was saying, cute is an absolute when you're talking Chet Baker and letter jackets. All he needs is a helmet; a little stuffed football velcroed under his arm...Anybody seen any good dog costume web sites?

I am joking, of course. Function. It's all about function, style a distant second. And cuteness trumps only by coinkydink.

InDogural Ceremony

Alone on the couch, watching. Wishing I'd kept Phoebe and Liam home from school to watch this with me, this thing as miraculous as a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis

but ever so much rarer. So rare that it has never happened before.

I was all right until Barack came down the Capitol "crypt," the long dark passageway he had to traverse before he could come out into the light and see the multimillion-soul march that had come to cheer him into office. I saw the look on his face and tears spilled out unbidden.


It was all locked up in that implacable gaze, that set jaw. No Drama Obama is well-named, but I could see it all there.

I was all right until he passed beneath the camera and I looked at his smooth head and started to pray fervently and aloud that all of us, Democrat, Republican, Independent, voter and non-voter, sane and psychotic alike will grant him the time on earth to tackle the fearsome and almost incomprehensible job before him.

Protect this man, this husband to Michelle and father to two sweet girls who is suddenly charged with lifting a nation out of the deepest pit of depression.

At this point Chet Baker decided that I probably needed a toy to play with.
I tussled with Chet and pulled myself back together for awhile until Aretha got up and sang the song that Martin Luther King predicted would one day speak to black people, too.

My Country, 'tis of Thee.It is her country now, more than it has ever been. Mine, too, more than ever. She was playing ita little safe, not going for the stratospheric high notes any more, and as a singer I understood. She is no longer young, but she was as amazing as ever, and she moved many millions of hearts. Her voice was colored with emotion.

And Chet Baker thought at that point that I probably needed someone on my lap to hug.

And kiss. Pucker up, Mether. Stop crying. Th' Bacon is here.


And although I am jaded enough to be immune to the one-of-each-color kind of multiracial grandstanding that goes on at events like this, the pairing of Israeli-American immigrant,

African-American

and Chinese American musicians playing an air around our Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts" brought me to my knees. I have had a crush on Yo-Yo Ma since he was a resident tutor at my Harvard dorm. I was too shy to so much as knock on his door, but I had pictures of him plastered all over my little cell wall. And there he was playing his carbon-fiber cello because it was too cold for his ancient treasured cello, and I saw him mouth the word, "COLD!" and laugh, and he didn't stop smiling the whole time. Bam, right back in love. And he still doesn't know.


And Barack listened and closed his eyes the better to hear the music and I knew that this man would try even in the darkest time to give the arts their due, for the first time in what seems like forever.


And then it was time for the oath and I laughed and jumped around because I couldn't sit still any more. I loved that the Chief Justice flubbed it and I loved it when Barack jumped in right where he should have, saying, "I, Barack..." and they were stepping all over each other and smiling. It was like wedding vows, almost, where everyone is way too nervous to get it right.

But getting it wrong is somehow perfect.

Bill called from Florida at that moment and said simply, "Amazing." And I wished so hard that he was home with me for this moment.

By this time I have brought the big box of Puffs Ultra to the couch and I'm grabbing them with my right hand and making a pile of crumped up ones like white roses all over the cushion to my left.

And then Barack observes that sixty years ago his father couldn't have gotten served in a restaurant in Washington, and now his son is taking the oath. And I put my face in my hands with the realization of how very far we have come in one man's lifetime.

and Chet decides it is time again for his peppermint bone that's too squishy to shred, and is very special.
It does help to have a toy to play with when you see a living carpet of happy humanity, of people who believe in this man and are here to give him their love and support. The largest crowd ever to assemble on Washington, bigger than the Million Man March, bigger by far than the march to "protect marriage"; bigger than anything anyone has ever seen.

I told you a toy would help with all your crying. I do not see anything to cry about here.

Chet Baker, these are happy tears. It's a girl thing. You wouldn't understand.

La la la la la I can't hear you. Just throw the bone and I will bring it back to you and you will soon forget all your troubles.

There. Now that you have calmed down I can do some real chewing.


Are you sure you're all right, Mether?


I'm fine, Chet. Thank you. Happy January twentieth.

Baker Goes Airborne

Keep-away is the staple of the terrier games in this house. When a Boston terrier focuses on an object of desire, be it biscuit, toy, or squirrel, there is not much that will keep him from his goal. Bill of the Birds enjoys at least one daily game of Keep-away with Chet Baker, usually right before bedtime.Give me that cat toy.
CrazyFace is when Baker's tongue sticks out and his eyes go all googly.
All right. It's on. BOTB is in real danger of getting a faceful of Boston here.
He's saying Meowmeowmeowmeowmeow.
Interlude, while Bill hides the kitty. Baker waits, eyes glowing.
You do not want to be the object of a Boston terrier's most intense focus. Look at those pursed lips.
Found it!
Phoebe joins in the laughter.
Baker is grunting rhythmically, toenails sliding on the slick floor, as he tries to pull the kitty out of Bill's grip. Unh unh unh unh unh unh... As Phoebe would say, "That's just wrong."
In every photo session there's one that you don't dare hope to get.

29th Airborne Turd-tail Assault. Here comes the faceful of terrier.
The enemy, vanquished.

Merry Christmas!

Chet's nuts roasting near an open fire

Chet's tongue lapping at your nose
Tiny turds all lined up in the snow
And dogs dressed up like Eskimos...

Everybody knows a Boston with his googly eyes
Can help to make the season bright

Little dogs with their eyes all aglow
Will find it hard to sleep tonight.
They know that toys and gifts await
To be ripped to teeny bits beneath the tree
And every Boston knows that Hollofill

Can cover rooms just like a Christmas snow.
And so I'm sending you this simple song

For readers near and readers far
Though it's been said many times many ways

Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas

Chetfans.

Thanks to Bill of the Birds for Lines 1 and 3.

Chet Baker, Stream Wader

Taking Chet Baker along to Duck Creek raises the noise level considerably. There's the splash-splash-splash of his bounding through the shallows, the crack of his biting sticks into pieces (is that a mini Sasquatch wading in the stream??)the laughter at his attempts to swim (Awwwwww!!)

and the protests when he comes right up next to someone to shake himself dry.With, I'm sure, a few exceptions, Boston terriers are not much good in the water. It's hard to keep a short little nose clear of inundation. Chet spends a lot of time dithering about whether or not a pool is over his head. Forced to swim, he makes a good effort, but wastes a lot of energy panicking. I know the feeling; I'm a rotten swimmer. I'd like to think it's because we're both so densely packed with muscle.Pretty much everything Chet Baker feels shows on that little face.He'll do anything, even swim, to stay close to his people.

More Than I Can Chew

I've been really tryin', baby
Tryin' to hold back this feeling for so long...

Running like a hamster on a wheel, trying to keep a dozen plates spinning in the air. That's how my life feels right now. I'm blogging when I should be comatose, preparing for the next 5:45 wakeup call.
Travel two days this week, practice every night I'm not on the road, lessons when there's no practice, and a gig with our band, the Swinging Orangutangs, this coming Friday. We're working up five hours' worth of songs. Stretched just a wee bit too thin, and the answer to "how do you do it all?" is "Not very well," or "All the time, thank you."

But I take this life and worry it like a favorite toy, extracting all the joy I can from its hectic warp and weave. Today, I baited a huge orb-weaving spider with a mealworm tossed into her web, and photographed her as she prepped it for lunch. It was pure natural heaven for the spider and me (I suspect the mealworm was less than thrilled), and I hold those moments of awe and discovery close to my heart, for they get me through.

When I'll have time to upload the photos and write the story, heaven only knows. And then there's the county fair...oh, it was so beautiful. I haven't even looked at my photos.

I've finally admitted to myself that the reams of images I took this summer in Utah, Colorado and Maine are probably not going to make it onto the blog. You do four states in a month, you have to let some fall by the wayside. The weeds grow over your good intentions. Other neat stuff happens and the blog-ant becomes a nutty grasshopper, frantically storing a kernel at a time, never filling the pantry.

Chet Baker is snuggled up against my thigh here in the dark living room. He rolled in some nameless but amazingly stanky poo not once, but twice today--on the way out to take a stack of paid bills to the box, and on the way back home. I found that out when I kissed his cheek and came away with a distinctive taste in my mouth. Thanks, Chet. Yet another bath for you, you little butthead. Your problem is you like baths.

No, that is YOUR problem, Mether. My life is just exactly like I want it. I think I should roll in something lovely every day, and then you should bathe me every day, then towel me off and chase me around the living room. It is all good.


Chet Baker, also biting off more than he can chew.

Dog Massage

Brookstone sells these little massagers that are tons o’ fun for sore necks and shoulders. Sometimes you can rook your kids into working on your back while they’re hanging over your shoulder waiting to use your laptop, kind of a bribe/reward/timewasting thing.

Chet Baker is into appliances. He likes to mess around, playbowing, when we’re using hairdryers, vacuum cleaners, brooms and rakes. If it makes a lot of noise, so much the better. He is bombproof. This is a dog who pops balloons and play balls for the joy of the explosion, who will grab a paper grocery bag and shake it ferociously to make his own thunder.

So Baker showed some interest when Phoebe revved up the battery-powered massager. He poked me with his toenails and wurrfed.

It would be fine for you to use that on me, Chet Baker.
Ahhhh. I did not know that Brookstone made a Boston terrier massager. That is an innovative store.

The rump is a good place to concentrate on. Dogs store a lot of tension in their bottoms. Especially when they are trying not to fart.

I hope you will massage me again soon. Thank you, Miss Phoebe.
I will now give you a dog hug. Mether calls this a Toddler Hug. She says that I am just the same size and weight as a toddler. She seems to think that is a good thing. What is a toddler, and why would Mether want one? She has you and Liam, and she has me, Chet Baker, her little black son.

I am very kissable.
As I was finishing this post, Chet wandered into the studio, leapt up on my lap, straddled the laptop and positioned himself for a good massage. Coincidence? I don't think so. He got the telepathic picture from me, two rooms away, and came to get his massage. Now there are short black hairs all over the place, keyboard, mousecracks, nuhhhhh.

Update: He is becoming a real pest about the massager. He comes up and stands with his back to you, looking back over his shoulder with a come-hither smile. And when you run the massager over him, he turns his head back and rolls his eyes, or arches his back and raises his head way up and yawns--the ultimate sign of doggy ecstasy. What have we started? And, more importantly, can I come back in my next life as Chet Baker, with a houseful of obedient flunkies waiting to massage my back? Dogs have it SO GOOD.

Dog Training, Boston Style

I'm not sure what the point is, of training a Boston terrier to shake hands and roll over. Perhaps it's just to be sure you can teach him something, when he seems to be the one who's always teaching you. I do see the value of Stay and Sit and Come and Down, but beyond that, it's pretty much parlor tricks, like teaching your two-year-old to recite the ABC's for Grandma. Oh, yeah. There's Heel. We haven't quite got that one down, because we're never on a lead...

Chet Baker puts up with Phoebe's training with dignity. As long as there's a liver treat or a piece of sharp cheddar involved, he'll go along with the act. He ain't nobody's monkey, though, and he won't perform without the treat.You had better have a treat in your hand, Miss Phoebe, or nothing doing.

He hates Roll Over (gee, wonder why?), but he'll do it, as long as you trace an arc with the liver treat that tells him where to go.
Shake has turned into something that better resembles a High Five. He'll slap his paw over yours, verra cute.
Just give me the treat, and I will go back to chasing bunnehs, which is my Real Job.
He is really good at Stay, which is probably one of the best commands for an enthusiastic Boston terrier to master. It comes in handy around cars and cows. Notice that I did not include cats in that lineup. Nothing will make him Stay around a cat.
Oh, Miss Phoebe, please do not make me wait any longer for that delicious strong smelling pellet of textured protein.
Sweetness, thou art Baker. Here you go, good boy. Now you can go back to doing dog things.
Offisa Pupp, at your service.

This is a happy birthday to my dear friend Jane, who has brought black-and-white bundles of joy to so many people, and without whom there would be no Chet Baker. Imagine!

Booker T. Comes to Visit

The post to follow is my way of thanking you for indulging me with my self-indulgent, gloaty posts about my party. We only just disassembled the groaning boards in the kitchen and living room, after scraping the dishes and trying to find their rightful owners. There was precious little left. I did spend about four hours the day of the party making a delicious vegetable chowder. But there was no room for it on the table, so it sat on the stove, where it stayed as untouched as the driven snow. By midnight, I had transferred it to giant Tupperwares, but I left it out on the counter to cool. At 3:30 AM I came in to find the lids had popped off the Tupperwares, and the chowder was oozing down the cabinet faces, having fermented. Being greenish and full of chunkage, you can imagine what it looked like. Nice. In retrospect, shucking and cutting the corn off two dozen cobs, Cuisinarting six large zucchinis and four Vidalia onions, and making a four-hour vat of chowder was kind of like being sent off to boil water when the baby's coming. It kept me occupied and not fretting, and that, I suppose, is worth something.

photo by Shila Wilson

As I think about the self-indulgence issue, though, you all go warned here. You're reading the blog of a Leo, and there's nothing Leos love more than to be queen for a day, if they swing that way. I forget who took this photo. Maybe Phoebe. But it is a perfect representation of how I felt to have Patrick playing in the garage (you can see him over my left shoulder, peeking out like Lincoln on the back of a penny), my friends hanging out grooving on the music and chowing on scallops and crabcakes, the weather smiling perfectly, and a night of revelry ahead of us.

Lights, in this picture and the food picture, by Jen, purveyor of good and beautiful things. Photo by Shila, ditto.Thank you, sweet B, for a night against which all to follow will be measured. (BOTB, here shown heading up the Orangs in his shiny shirt). Photo by Shila.

I’m sittin’ in a railway station
Got a ticket for my destination…

Yep, at it again, on the fly, and this time I was caught flat-footed by the party and guests and aftermath, such that I’m having to come up with a blog post each day. Oh, I don’t like being a grasshoppa. I have plenty of pictures but no time. But I do believe it’s time for a Chetfix, don’t you? Whoa. Take it easy, Chetfans. I can hear you yappin' all the way to Providence.

My dear friend Jen has been a fan of Chet Baker’s since day one, and when the time came for her sister to acquire a puppy, there could be only one destination: Pups Will Travel, our source for all things black-and-white and googly-eyed. There are puppeh pix of Chet on that site, under Pictures, but the susceptible among you must beware the page titled, "Pups Looking for Families."

So Jen’s sister traveled over to eastern Pennsylvania from Columbus, and picked up little Booker T., continuing the tradition both of great Boston terriers named for musicians. Let’s see. We know a Jack Black, Ella Fitzgerald (Baker’s half-sister), Otis Redding, Chet Baker, and, stretching it a bit, we know a big brindle named Oscar, who might just be named for jazz great Oscar Peterson. I don’t think it is a coincidence that we name these dogs after people, or that they seem to beg for both a first and last name. They are something more than dog, something almost human.

Booker T. is precious. He is just as cute as Chet Baker was, and that's saying something. At 11 weeks, he promises, like Chet, to be a dog of both size and substance. He’s got big paws and heavy legs and a gorgeous head. His marking are picture-perfect; he’s got the white tux, muzzle, belly, front legs and collar that people envision when they think of a Boston terrier. Time will tell if he gets spots all over his tuxedo the way Baker did. There are 38, but who’s counting? Phoebe is. At least somebody in our family has time to inventory Baker’s polka-dots.

Photo by Phoebe Linnea Thompson

Zick: Baker, stay here, you little goofball. Jen: Ow ow ow ow ow takethepictureplease.

Please note Booker's pink belly meat. This is expressly for blowing raspberries, while keeping your cheek out of danger. It's an art that we fans of male dogs learn to perfect.

So on the day of my birthday party Jen came down with Booker T. so she could hang party lights and we could watch a little dog TV. Of course we had to pose with the animals. But mostly we watched them be Bostons.

Chet was delighted to have a pup around, with the caveat that he never, ever forget who is Numba One.

For his part, Booker must have been the alpha pup in his litter, as Chet was, because he’s like Texas toilet paper—he don’t take s--- off nobody. That said, he’s utterly sweet, while being assertive. And his ears both flop the same way. (I had to learn with Chet that Boston puppies have floppy ears until the cartilage hardens, and they get the classic bat-eared look).
I would like to think that this is the definitive puppeh portrait of Booker T. If you want to know how to take a good picture of a Boston puppeh, you must get him all tuckered out first, preferably with another Boston, and then lie down on your belleh using a telephoto. Otherwise they will come romping up and lick your camera.

I was delighted that Chet enjoyed having Booker around, not least because, having lived with a Boston, I cannot imagine life without one, without the warm smell of popcorn paws and catfish breath in the morning, without the interludes of hilarity that have become necessary for me to carry on in this all-too unhilarious world. So when Chet reaches the appropriate point of dotage, I intend to call on his breeder Jane for an understudy, and this was a good test of how that scenario might pan out.

It was hilarious, and absolutely riveting, to watch Baker play with Booker. Keep-away is the Boston’s forte, and they played it tirelessly.

But Chet made it easy for Booker, deliberately passing the toy beneath the puppy’s nose, just begging him to grab it.
Here is one of Shila's photos of the pair at play. Booker has a long but straight tail, in contrast to Chet's screw tail. Lots of people ask if we have cropped Chet's ears and tail, and I tell them that he was born perfect. So was Booker.

Tomorrow, the Boston brothers will demonstrate how to destroy an indestructible dog toy.
This is your Chetfix for July 30, 2008.

The Horse Nipperer

My neighbor, Jane Augenstein, has a glorious horse named Gilly. She got him from a rescue group, which had found him starving with a bunch of other horses in a muddy paddock. His hair stood straight out from his body; his bones showed through his skin, and he was desperately trying to grow (he was just a foal) without much at all to eat.

Jane has worked with him now for five years, and he's grown up to be a splendid, strong animal. Though she'd never owned a horse before, she trained him and gentled him with the help of her neighbor, Kim, another equestrienne friend, and a lot of reading and videos from horse whisperers. Now, she rides him without a bit, and he is the light of her life, standing 16 muscle-packed hands tall. He's a mix, with some quarter horse, some Tennessee walker, and probably some draft blood somewhere back in there, to judge from the heft of his bones and the size of his feet.

One afternoon, Jane and Kim (on Lacey, her lovely, gentle Appaloosa) came to visit. Baker found them first. This is not as I would have wanted it, since Baker's never been around a horse. But he raced out the driveway, barking, and circled around them.

At first, he just stood them off, barking. This is the biggest animal he'd ever been up close to.
Thank goodness, both Lacey and Gilley are well-used to dogs, and seemed bemused by Chet's excitement.
Chet sniffed and sniffed. He couldn't get enough of that good horsey smell, and the feel of that velvet muzzle. When horses meet, they touch nostrils, and exchange breath, breathing each other's exhalations. It's a nice way to greet a horse, to breathe the warm, grassy breath of their lungs, to touch that plushy skin with your nose.
Baker trembled with excitement, fear, playfulness, and not knowing what to do with it all. Gilly was patient. For whatever reason, Chet's entire focus was Gilly; he barely sniffed at Lacey, perhaps because Lacey ignored him; perhaps because Gilly returned his interest. Chet's always hoping someone will want to play with him. I think he and Gilly are brothers from another mother.
When Gilly would raise his head, Chet would leap up, trying to touch noses, and twice he nipped Gilly's nose. Bad idea, Chet Baker. At the first nip, Gilly jerked his head up and looked down on Chet with surprise. At the second, he laid down the law. He snorted loudly and planted one enormous hoof right next to Chet--STOMP! The message was clear. Try that again and I'll turn you into a spot of grease on your driveway, kid. I was glad for Chet to learn a little bit about horses, though I think he's a long way from wise about them. His devil-may-care terrier half comes through loud and clear. Note that his tail antenna is straight out. I think he got the transmission. I love this picture, even though I missed the actual stomp.

This post makes me miss Chet Baker something awful. I have been Bakerless for 9 days, and I have another 8 to go. We're home for less than 24 hours. Baker remains happily ensconced with our friends David and Mary Jane. This morning's report has him helping with gardening and on constant chipmunk patrol in the yard and woods. He is also eating well, getting enough kisses, enjoying two hikes a day and rides in the car. Sigh. I need a Chetfix, but it would only confuse him and make me want to smuggle him in my carryon to Utah. And I wouldn't do that to any dog, much less the Tennessee Turd-Tail. If I could just bury my nose between his shoulder blades and fall asleep holding him, I think everything would be right with the world.

Our homeward bound experience with JetBlue was not as bad as the outbound; we just idled on the dark runway, stacked up behind 15 other jets, breathing hot diesel, for an hour and 45 minutes at JFK, and then they misplaced my suitcases. We got to Pittsburgh around midnight last night, and were just too tired to drive the 2 1/2 hours home, so we sighed and quietly coughed up another $180 to stay at the airport hotel. Bill and I put the kids in a hot tub and went downstairs to have a drink and get some chicken wings to take back up to the room for our midnight dinner.

When we travel anymore I feel like Scrooge McDuck, watching his precious $100 bills flapping little wings as they fly up toward heaven. You'd think, as expensive as flying is, that you might expect to reach your destination feeling a little better than roadkill, but I now understand that expecting to reach your destination when promised, or to reach your destination at all, is really expecting a bit too much. I hope they get my suitcases here before we leave for Utah. That would be nice. They have 19 hours to do it. But again, probably expecting too much. Flying in the age of fuel shortages is all about having contingency plans, and waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop right onto your fold-out tray, spilling your plastic tumbler of warm tomato juice all over the only outfit you have.

Having said that, Hog Island was terrific, and we showed 29 people a fine time. The kids were a delight to be with, and seeing the two of them sitting together on a boulder, watching the solstice high tide come rushing in, was a beautiful sight. Time to rustle lunch and mow before it rains. More horses and dogs tomorrow!

In the Tower

When Bill and I decided to build a tower on our house, our contractor and friend Dan Harrison was bemused. Thrilled, too, because he'd never built one. But he sat us down and said he was bound to warn us that, when people are looking for a home, they don't exactly look for homes with birdwatching towers on top of them. They look for nice kitchens and nice bathrooms. He said it might not positively affect the resale value of the house. (read: it might be a foolish thing to do, expensive, not exactly a sound investment) Bill and I looked at each other and laughed. "We're not going anywhere," I said.

And it's been nine years, and we haven't gone anywhere, and we're no closer to trying to sell our house than we were then. But I do think that a house with a tower on top of it has an extraordinary value, one that can't be measured by any realtor's parameter.

On snowy days when the kids are home from school for the thirteenth consecutive day (but who's counting?), the tower is worth every penny we poured into it. It's my writer's cabin. I go up there, close the heavy trap door, and settle into Bookspace. I'm almost halfway through writing my second book. Words just tumble out of me as I sit, swaddled in Polarfleece and bathed in natural light, in a folding camp chair. A little space heater at my feet augments what's coming out of the duct. The room's 10 x 10, just big enough for two chairs and a little square table. It's got four big windows, a phone jack and an outlet and that's about it. Perfect.

I believe in having dedicated spaces in one's house, free of clutter, that are meant for one thing. I also believe in having a place where a person can get away from it all, even if it's a 10 x 10' cell. As cells go, this is a dandy. It's all glass. So I can see birds whenever I look up. Yesterday, I was tapping away, writing about prairie chickens, of all things, when I heard a blue jay yell, a surprised sort of yell. My head whipped up, just in time to see an adult male northern harrier go sailing by to the south at eye level. I grabbed the camera, which, through Murphy's Law, had the short portrait lens on it, and snapped a couple of shots. Even through glass, you can tell this is a male harrier by those ink-tipped white underwings, and that shining white rump. Here's a cropped view:Northern harrier, male, January 2, 2008, in our orchard.

This isn't harrier habitat by any stretch, but we get a handful of chance records on our land every year. He's on his way somewhere, and he cruised through the yard when he noticed all the birds at the feeder. Like all raptors, harriers are opportunists. I'll never forget seeing one go coursing through the horse pasture behind my Connecticut cabin. That was a clearing in an immense woods, and it wasn't harrier habitat either, but it was close to the coast where there was a lot of salt marsh. There was a tufted titmouse on the very end of a maple branch, scolding that harrier like crazy. And as the harrier went by, it flipped on its side, threw out an impossibly long, slender leg, and just picked that titmouse right off the branch. Yeak yeak yeak yeak and the harrier and titmouse disappeared over the trees, the little bird yelling all the way. Tough way to go, good thing to see.

We've gotten another inch of fine powder last night, atop five or so from yesterday, which almost certainly means there will be another snow day tomorrow. Laugh if you must, Trixie, but you know how it is in southern Ohio. It's all ruled by the gravel roads out here, and they can be truly horrible for days on end with just a little snow, because there's no money to do anything about it, I guess. I'm sure there are a lot of moms who'd contribute personal income to get those roads cleared by now. Phoebe and Liam are pretty darn good, and they get out to sled and play and burn off some energy without being asked. I spy on them from my tower retreat.I'm gonna get you, sucka. Liam: Squeeeeee!They like to come up and visit, and Phoebe comes up and gets me to drill her on spelling bee words, but there's nothing much they can do in a 10 x 10' room, so after we visit for awhile I don't have to ask them to leave. I've never shut myself off from my kids, even when I'm painting, because I think it just makes them insecure, which makes them need to bug you more.

There is one person who is welcome in the tower at all times. He never gets bored. In fact, he gets all excited when he sees me making tea and grabbing my laptop, binocs and camera. He dances with joy and runs up the stairs ahead of me. You get one guess who does that.It is Chet Baker, Companion Dog. Aside from taking a walk with me, Chet loves going to the tower room the best. There are always things to watch from his perch on the barstool by the window. Such a little catdog. He clears his throat and whuffs to ask me to steady it for him, then leaps up with feline grace. Note favorite stainless steel Target tea mug. Miso love my Migo mug. It keep tea hot rong time.Besides the barstool, Chet has a dedicated chair right across from me, which is draped in a sleeping bag. It can be a bit chilly up there with all that glass, so I make sure he is adequately swaddled. You can never swaddle a Boston terrier too much in January.

The perfect writer's companion--silent, sweet-smelling, softly snoring, always ready with a cuddle and a kiss, asking nothing but giving everything.

Candy Wrapper Games

Autumnal evenings are when we come out to play. Liam has taken a great shine to Charlie lately, and it's mutual. I'm awfully proud of my boy for having the courage to pet a macaw, and of Charlie for being a gentleman and being affectionate with both Liam and Phoebe. It can so easily be otherwise with older parrots...they'll decide that they love but one person in a household, and nobody else can have much to do with them.

For both Charlie and Chet, anything can become a toy. All you have to do is hold it up high, over your head, and it immediately becomes an object of great desire, whether it's a stick, a tennis ball, a wadded up Kleenex, or a candy wrapper. In this case, it was a Gushers wrapper. Once Chet saw Charlie with the wrapper, he had to have it. There ensued a game of keep-away that kept us amused until well after sundown.
I should lead off by stating for the record that it's generally a bad idea to let dogs play with parrots. It's a rare situation where a dog is trustworthy enough to keep from squishing the parrot. The converse is also true: a macaw's beak can crack a Brazil nut, and you can imagine what it could do to a muzzlepuff. In Charlie's case, we think he got a good nose-nip in on a very curious Chet when Chet was very young. Chet's inquisitive air changed overnight to one of great respect. This established a dominance hierarchy that persists to this day. Chet is playful but extremely respectful of the vise-like grip of Charlie's beak.
The other factor operating is microbiological. Dogs have bacteria in their mouths that aren't found in birds' digestive tracts, and they can cause trouble. It's rare that Chet and Charlie trade saliva; once Chet got the wrapper from Charles, we didn't give it back to the macaw. For now, though, let the Candy Wrapper Games begin! Chet studied Charlie, trying to figure out how best to grab the coveted Gushers wrapper. They both love things that crackle when chewed.Go ahead, you hairy little Mama's boy. Make my day.

Finally, Baker decided a quick grab would net the best results. Do not ask how I got this picture. It just happened.Baker immediately set out on a victory lap. Note t-tail position--straight out. High excitement. A Boston's favorite game is keep-away. They get to show off their blazing speed and agility. Premise: simple. One animal has wrapper, the other tries to get it back. Liam tries to tempt Chet with a chewy stick 0n Charlie's behalf, but Chet's not having it. Baker keeps a wary eye on all of us while gloating over his new toy. He takes stubborn new places. Note Charlie, watching from his perch on my lap.Speaking sternly to Baker just sets off another victory lap. Charlie is crowing like a rooster at this point, thoroughly enjoying the scene of Chet taunting the kids with the coveted wrapper just out of reach.That bird does not need this toy. I need it. And speaking in a stern voice to me won't get you anywhere. You will just have to chase me some more. That's right. Try to catch me.and my favorite shot of the evening:

Oh, just keep it, Baker. It's all slobbery anyway. We'll play with something else until night falls. The heavy steel finial from the chaise lounge should do fine.

It's the little things that are the best.photo by Bill Thompson III

Chet's Baby

Chet Baker is really tough on stuffed toys. It usually takes him anywhere from ten to forty seconds to open a seam, remove the squeaker, and strew Hollofil from one end of the house to the other.
But he feels differently about stuffed Boston terriers.
I bought this puppy-two of them, actually, in December 2004 at a Toys R Us when Chet was still just a bunch of puppy pictures pasted into emails from his breeder, Jane Streett. Christmas was coming, and the kids knew they were getting a puppy, but, having been born on December 12, he wouldn't be ready to leave his mama until (gulp) February 2005. The kids were so anxious to hold him in their arms that I had to do something, so I got them each a stuffed Boston terrier. It helped.

Naturally, since they've got Baker to hug now, the stuffed versions have fallen into disuse. This is how Chet comes by most of his stuffed toys.

When Chet was first introduced to this toy, he treated it exactly as he would a real puppy. He sniffed inside its ears and under its tail.
He licked its face.
Sniffed its ears again. The more he licks it, the more it smells like a real puppeh.
When we pick it up and hold it, he watches us intently, as if he's worried we'll drop it or mistreat it. It's Chet's baby.He knows to go find it when we ask, "Where's your baby?"
But we have to watch him, because he licks its face so much, and sometimes sneaks in just the tiniest nibble on its eye or ear or nose.
I called him the other night to come in and keep me company while I read--Jane Goodall's new biography, signed to me!!--thanks, Lisa and Taryn! -- a terrific, utterly absorbing book. Normally, this is an invitation I don't have to extend twice. He didn't come. I peeked into the living room.
Chet was grooming his baby. He tries to get all the long fibers off its ears, and of course more follow those, and those have to be nibbled off. He gets a little weird about it. He overgrooms it, while pretending he's taking care of it. You said it was my babeh, Mether. Leave us alone. Ah'm being a parent.

I have to limit his access to his baby. I put it up on a high shelf when I think he's had enough time with it.
No you do not have to do that. I would never hurt my baby. He likes it when I suck his ears.

But you might lick a hole in him, or nibble his nose, eyes or ears off, and then what would you do?
I would take his stuffing out for good measure. The eye socket is a good place to start.
Exactly my point.

Mether's note: Since this post was written, antblogger style, Chet Baker has in fact removed his baby's left eye, and now is allowed only supervised visitation. Good thing he had a nutectomy. Some dad he'd make.

Mether's second postscript: Now both eyes are gone. Chet's babeh is blind!

The Peace of Pets

photo by Bill Thompson III
Bill calls this photo, "The Crazy Pet Lady of Whipple." OK, call me crazy, but I know what I need.


Ever wonder what you would do, or who you might be, without a beloved pet? I do, all the time. They save me sometimes. We've all heard about the studies where researchers hook people up with a blood pressure cuff, take a baseline reading, and then let the person's pet into the room. A couple of caresses or strokes down the pet's back, and the blood pressure falls. I feel it acutely, and I look forward to those quiet times of day and evening when I can turn to my pets for comfort and slowing down. A little Shiraz doesn't hurt, either. That is a Baker noseprint on the lens, by the way. photo by Bill Thompson III
I'm showcasing the photography skills of Phoebe Linnea in the next few pictures. She's the creator of my new profile pic, and these were in the same series. Sure, Mom's setting it up and coaching her, but I hardly need to say much anymore. "Come in closer." "Now just the heads." That kind of thing. And she does the rest. I would have liked to wield a Canon EOS at age 11, but never so much as touched a real camera until I was about 21. Photography is just another of those things that she'll have grown up doing, lucky little thing. She'll have grown up with the instant gratification and education of looking at her picture within seconds of making it. I sent my film away for years, waiting a week or two to see what I'd done. She doesn't know how good she's got it. I love it when she reviews her work and comments, "That's a keeper."photo by Phoebe Linnea Thompson
I think about what it is that's so comforting about animals. For starters, I don't think I'll ever stop marveling at the fact that one can bond so strongly with another life form, one that can't talk or hold a verbal conversation, one with a completely different set of social signals and foreign yet deciperhable body language. Yet both of us reach out and we manage to bridge those gaps with ease. We understand what they're telling us, and they understand us. And here's this psittacid on my shoulder, serenely preening his feathers, and here's this canid on my lap, watching for lagomorphs in the yard, and I get to pet them and talk to them and accept the comfort and companionship they lavish on me. Charlie throws in dermabrasion as a bonus.photo by Phoebe Linnea Thompson
Here's the second thing about animals that I think sets us at ease. Aside from food, water, and shelter, their demands on us and estimation of us are pretty simple, and change very little. Our children are constantlly growing and evolving, and their demands on us change radically with each passing year. The bald squirming little grub that needed to be nursed every hour, needed its diapers changed, now needs a ride to and from basketball practice, needs to have friends spend the night, needs a grilled cheese and ham sandwich, but doesn't like tuna. The people we love all go through changes, walk through doors in life, and sometimes we can't come along. Through all the evolution and changes swirling around me, I'm pretty sure that Chet will be just as excited to see me come through the door when he's 13 as he is at 2 1/2, sure that the idea of a walk in the woods with me will always be the best thing he can imagine, now and forever. That, my friends is something.
And so there is a special peace and uncomplicated simplicity to being with our pets that often eludes us in the company of family and friends. You hear the phrase "unconditional love" bandied about; that we wish we could be the kind of person our dog thinks we are. We know our pets will always love us and want to be with us, no matter what. No wonder they bring us peace.
photo by Phoebe Linnea Thompson. New glasses. Whaddya think?

Gremlin's Gold, Revisited

Is it the weekend already? Yes, it is. Phenomenon noted: Weeks go by much faster when Bill is home. Weeks draaaag when he is in Peru, looking at fabulous birds and not hugging me.

I will leave you for the weekend with a post about Baker, because after all it is time for a Chetfix. (Not the same thing as Chexmix, which you eat in your living room around Christmas time).

Chet Baker. You know you are not allowed to have this teddy bear. photo by Phoebe Thompson

I am not Chet Baker. I am The Gremlin. And I defy you. Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

The first winter of my bloglife, I posted about a game Phoebe, Chet and I play every night without fail. It's called Gremlin's Gold. (Worth checking out. Phoebe looks so little and so does Chet! And I got one comment, from Rondeau Ric, aka Old Faithful, thank you.)

Chet stands, ears flat back, watching Phoebe go through her bedtime routine. Just as I'm tucking her in for the fourth and last time; just as I'm ready to turn out the light and think about what I want to do with what's left of the evening, Chet Baker vanishes. He drops to his belly and crawls under the bed, dresser or desk, then glares balefully out at us. This is the equivalent of going into a phone booth and coming out as Superman. Only Chet undergoes a reverse transformation; he becomes an Evil One. We aren't sure why he does this, but we're glad he does. It's an essential part of bedtime stalling for Phoebe, and sometimes it's the best laugh I get all day.

Anyone passing by (say, a little man walking innocently on two fingers) usually gets grabbed and dragged into the Gremlin's Lair. There are many kinds of gremlins, and we determine which kind we've got with this little finger-man test. For instance, there are Licking Gremlins, Barking Gremlins, and Biting Gremlins. The Biting Gremlin is most common, and one of the worst of the lot. Worse yet is the Biting, Stealing Gremlin.

What the Gremlin is waiting for is some gold. The best Gremlin's Gold is something the gremlin knows he is not supposed to have. In this case, it is a pink plaid teddy bear Phoebe got for her birthday. He is really not supposed to be chewing something like that. Chet Baker knows that, but the Gremlin ignores convention, grabs the nearest Gold, and drags it into his lair. Chet Baker never growls or bites. That is the evil work of the Gremlin. I don't know if there was a radioactive spider involved, but our dog mysteriously disappears every night around 9 p.m. And then we find the Gremlin. His eyes have an evil glow, otherworldly. I am not chewing it. I am just holding it.
I will take it to the couch and open a seam, something that milquetoast Chet Baker would never dare to do.
You may tug on it all you want. You will not get it back. By the way, your fingers are in extreme danger.Sometimes the Gremlin relocates to a place where he will not be so vulnerable.Sometimes the game goes too far and the Gremlin has to be chastised. Some of the chastisible offenses include: Growling too realistically, biting too hard, and opening teddy bear seams. It is worth noting that the gremlin will chew vigorously on Mether, but only licks Phoebe. We can switch our hands as cleverly as you please, but he can always tell which hand to lick and which one to chew on.
Why are you using the name of that sissy dog? Why do you use an angry tone with me? Where is your sense of humor? Did you lose it along with your sewing kit? Because you are going to need both.

Mudpuppeh

Chetfans, I think you're going to like this one. Thanks for all the wonderful comments on the autumn melancholia post. How is it that shorter days cause us to reflect on our lives in their entirety, set up such a restlessness and a wondering? I think I have it figured out, in part, but that's another post.

Bill and I don’t walk much in the summer woods. Any time past early May, the understory growth is so heavy, the briars so thick, that, coupled with the heat and steep slopes, walking doesn’t constitute fun.

But we got a wild hair and decided to see what Beechy Crash might look like in early September, on a 90-degree day, no less. We needed to get into the woods. Chet Baker could hardly believe it. He was overjoyed. To have a woods walk in growing season, and to have Daddeh along? Oh!
We came to the log he always traverses, a good ten-foot drop beneath it onto a rocky stream bed. “Chet! Do you want to walk the log?” Since I almost always walk here alone, Bill had never seen him in log-balancing action.
Without a moment's hesitation, Baker dropped what he was doing, sprang up onto it and trotted back and forth twice with an aplomb that said, “I come by this grace naturally.” Little CatDog.
As we worked our way back up the steepest slope to home, though, Chet vanished. It was the kind of gone that didn’t feel good. No jingling tags, just silence. We began to call, and call.
After what seemed like a very long time, I heard him panting. I heard him breathing long before I could hear him moving through the leaves. Clearly, he’d found something good to chase, in 90-degree heat, too. I’m thinking it was the black and white cat he treed last winter, which doesn’t seem to get how much we dislike it hanging around our sanctuary. But at length, he came back.

Overdoing it in hot, humid conditions isn’t good for any dog, but the brachycephalic (smashy-faced) dogs suffer more, and have a harder time getting their body temperature back down, because they don’t have nice long nasal passages to cool incoming air.

He struggled up the hill, panting like a steam engine. We walked slowly along the oil well access road until we came to a tire rut full of muddy water.
And Chet Baker decided to cool himself down.This is a fastidious dog. Normally he’d never deign to step in water like this. But he needed to get his body temperature down fast, and he flopped down like a pig in a waller. Good boy. That's thinking.Like a hog in mud.

This feels good. I think I will rub my head in the mud. Ahhh.While I am at it I will drink some of this icky water. I am just too hot to refuse it. I prefer the reverse-osmosis, quintuple-filtered, carbon-polished water Mether gives me at home. But after all I am a dog, and dogs drink from puddles.Blecch. Maybe I will leave out that part of being a dog.
Bill was shooting me, shooting Chet. Jane calls Boston terriers "canine antidepressants."

All the rear views are Bill’s; the front views are mine. I have to say he got the definitive doggy ‘tock shots.

This would be my favorite. Hello, Cute Overload? He looks like a George Booth cartoon dog in this picture, ears canted back, cranky even from behind.When he rose, the muddy water poured off him in sheets. His panting slowed and we walked back the rest of the way to the house. Although he’s normally afraid of the hose, I set it on a gentle stream, called him to me and rubbed him down under the cool water. Oh, he loved that. And so did I.

An Audience with the Pup

If the wedding was fun, the reception was even better. I don't have many pictures because we were too busy dancing. There aren't many occasions when I get to dance with my brother and sister, nieces and nephews, kids and husband, and fetch wine for my mom. I don't often get to see my nephew Eric chatting Liam up. They get along like a house afire, and can always be found off in a corner somewhere, yakking about guy matters. The morning after, we had breakfast at the historic Hotel Utica. At this point, we're 12 hours from home, and hoping to hit the road early enough to pull into the driveway by about 11 p.m. Liam got to show off his brand new mad two-wheeler skilz for the whole clan. He'd just pulled the trigger on that the afternoon before, with a lot of help from BOTB. He's a cautious little thing, and doesn't like to try anything new until he's sure he's got it perfect. Waited until he was 21 months old to walk, then just stood up and walked. Pretty much the same story for biking. Cousin Evan looks like he's about ready to leap out and catch wobbly Liam. Phoebe's praying he won't crash in front of everyone. It was a cool morning, and we parked in the shade of the building. Chet Baker waited in the car for his Big Moment, the one we'd promised him the entire trip. He'd get to meet my whole family. It wasn't quite like showing everybody your new baby, but it was a lot of fun, anyway. My lucky niece Karen got that gig. Here's Will, mangeing on one of Gramma Barb's famous cinnamon scones (he had to fight my kids for it).Doesn't look a thing like his momma, does he? A total cutie.
Will was delighted with Baker, almost as delighted as Phoebe was to present her precious pup. He wanted to see if Chet could spin around if given a push (something all Will's adult admirers are happy to do for him).Chet is sending me a telepathic message at this point. Mether! Come in, Mether. What am I supposed to be doing here?Baker's theme when close to a baby's face: Wash it. Wash it good.

Sister Nancy remarks on how much Baker's calmed down since he was a puppy. They look good together. Yes, I am calm, but you will notice that I am just as cute as I was then. I still retain my little white glove and my slightly spotty tuxedo shirt.Chet Baker went into cute doggie overdrive when my nephew Eric finally got hold of him. Unbeknownst to me, Eric's been suffering from Boston terrier acquisitive disorder for a couple of years. I think Chet might have something to do with that.Eric's fiance, Tera, wasn't so sure about Eric's obsession at first, until her personal Audience with the Pup. She had always had this notion, not having met one, that Boston terriers were kind of big, drooly, and muscle-bound, and was pleasantly surprised to find that Chet was none of those. Why, he's a little American gentleman! Look at that cute little face! And he's so playful!I will take this leash from you and chew it to shreds, because although I am cute, I am also very bad sometimes. Rrrrrrrrrrr! Umph! Umph! I know exactly what I am supposed to be doing in this situation. I am going to pour on the cuteness now, and help this poor young couple with their affliction. Everyone needs a Boston terrier, because there can't be too much love or too many kisses in this sad old world.

Anyone afflicted with a severe case of Boston terrier acquistive disorder after reading this post should give me a holla. By a series of flukes, Chet Baker's breeder has two gorgeous male pups ready and looking for homes--one ten weeks, one ten months, both sweet and adorable.

Watchful Chet Baker

It's been a busy week. I wasn't planning to post at all this week, but when I fired up the laptop in our rented Chautauqua condo, boom! there were a couple of different unguarded wireless networks to choose from. Bless those folks who pay through the nose and don't guard their networks with a password. Anyone who came to Indigo Hill could sit at our picnic table and poach, that'd be fine with us. Nobody comes around to do it, but still...that's how I rationalize poaching off our neighbors here.

Chet Baker is in a constant froth at Chautauqua. For one thing, there are designer dogs at the end of every leash, and a lot of them. He gets to touch noses with Portuguese water dogs and goldendoodles and soft-coated wheaten teriers and a whole lotta French poodles. Yesterday, a Catahoula leopard dog. Weeee-oooh. He's matured quite a bit and he hasn't picked any fights so far this year. He did lock lips with a little dustmop dog at the Farmer's Market this summer, but so far so good in New York. I keep him on a tight lead, because despite having had a ballectomy, he's all man.

The other thing that spins Chet's top is the preponderance of gray squirrels. This morning, he had twin bubbles of drool at the corner of each jowl. They were the size of gumballs, and remarkably, mucilaginously persistent. I wanted to photograph them, but he was pulling so hard at the leash I couldn't manage both him and the camera. I don't know when I'll ever see that again.
But I have wanted to use the word "mucilaginously" for a long time. Ahhh.

He's always watching for squirrels and chipmunks.Such fun to photograph, this little doggie, with his clear eyes and white shirtfront.

Here squirrly, squirrly. Please come down. I don't want to hurt you. I just want to pet you.

Boston jowls grow as the dog ages, just like people jowls do. I can age Chet in old photographs by how droopy or un-droopy his jowls are. He can probably age me, too. Just more to smooch, right, Chet?

And so I leave you for the weekend with a little Chet Baker fluff that requires no pondering. But do try to use the word mucilaginous at least once before Monday. Ta!

Bakerball

About the best $2.50 we spend is for those big plastic play balls that sit, two for $5, in towering bins in the big discount stores which we frequent when we need something like a big plastic play ball or a good belly laugh.
If you haven't figured it out from previous posts, play balls push Baker's buttons in a big way. The leather basketball he guarded so ferociously (see Uppity Puppy) started mysteriously losing air, wouldn't bounce, and is now his property. We don't think he's at fault... He lugs it all over the yard, and has pulled its stem out as a handle. You can try to kick it a little ways but nobody is about to try to get it away from him. It takes a little pressure off Phoebe and Liam when they're playing basketball for Chet to have his own now, so it's all good.

Giant plastic play balls light up a whole 'nother section of Chet's switchboard. They make him krazy. He runs at warp speed around the house pushing the ball before him with his conveniently flat nose. Rowf!
The object of any game involving inflatable balls, of course, is to pop the thing.
So Chet runs the ball into a tree, shrub, or clump of blooming salvia and tries to get a purchase on the slick surface so he can sink a canine into it and hear that satisfying pop and wheeze of escaping air. Then he can shake the remaining life out of it.Of course, we try as best we can to prolong the ball's term on earth by intervening, and throwing it for him. The game starts with a play-bow and a bunch of barkin'. Or, in Chet's case, rroo roo roo-in'.Baker lifts off the ground, catching a whole lot of air, trying to connect with the ball. Oh, he's a fine sight. When I was thinking about what breed of dog might fit our lifestyle, I had to turn away from pugs and French bulldogs, which I absolutely adore, because I wanted a smashy-faced dog that could also leap and run and hike for miles. We needed something with legs. After a winter when his left hind knee had a strained ligament, Baker's beautifully sound now, but we try not to overdo the leaping, especially on concrete. Cue theme from Jaws:Such a beautiful little animal. I will never tire of watching him, photographing him, and just running my hands over that sleek little bod.
Chet connects, and knocks the ball up and out of Bill's hands, boom!
Back to earth for my flying puppeh. That's yer Chetfix for the week, served up hot, hold the onions.

Smiles of a Summer Night

A warm golden evening, four people and a small plastic disc. Who'd think that you could get so much fun out of those simple elements? We found a nice soft Frisbee at a Scheel's store in North Dakota. Soft Frisbees don't hurt little hands even when they're thrown hard.

In any athletic pursuit, Will has a nonchalant ease.Phoebe is enthusiastic and pretty darn good at it now.Liam is still getting the hang of throwing the disc on the level. Like his mother, he tends to cant it upward, making an embarrassingly steep arc that never gets much of anywhere. But even I can throw this little yellow one. I'll spare you any photos. Nobody's lining up to photograph me at an athletic pursuit, anyway. Not when there are little fauns like Liam to ogle. We've finally broken Chet Baker of grabbing errant discs. His teeth rip up the edges and the hard pointy bits hurt when you throw a dog-chewed disc. So most of our past Frisbee games were marked by loud shouts of BAKER NO! when he'd romp in and grab the disc. Now he retreats to a lawn chair to watch, a slightly crestfallen look on his face. Don't worry, he has plenty of toys we throw just for him. Supposedly durable dog Frisbees are chewed to smithereens in minutes.

This dog. We love him. Somehow we've all grown together over the two and a half short years we've enjoyed his company. Liam cannot walk past him without giving him a kiss and a hug. Neither can Phoebe, nor I. He smells good, he feels good, he's smart and pretty and he makes us laugh. What more could you ask for in a 23-pound package?

Uppity Puppy

major chetfix comin' up
In Chet Baker lingo, Uppiteh Puppeh. Every once in awhile you read about a dog that "snaps," that becomes something Other for a fleeting moment or a lifetime. Now, Phoebe and I have seen the Other in Chet. We finally got a half-inch of rain last Thursday, and everyone was feeling revived. Birds were zipping all over the place, bathing in the Spa, feeding, singing, playing...Phoebe got frisky and got her basketball out to play. Chet loves basketballs. He really, really loves the leather one. Too much, he loves that ball.It was clear that Chet had plans for Phoebe's basketball. She held it up, not daring to bounce it, because if she did, Chet would have it in the blink of an eye.Finally she tried to dribble it. Big mistake. Chet wanted to puncture that basketball so badly. He set upon it, snarling, trying to dig a canine tooth into it. Oh, how he loves to pop balls. It's a bad habit he picked up as a puppy--remember Scooby? The deflated basketball he carried all the way around The Loop? I posted about it back in January 2006, back when a Chet Baker post brought one comment if I was lucky. Check it out, there's such a cute puppy picture of him...He has a Thing for Basketballs.

While I was there, I dug around in the archives and found Gremlin's Gold. One of my favorite posts. No comments. How times have changed. You young whippersnapper bloggers who come to this thing with a built-in audience, gettin' comments right off the bat...why, we used to have to walk through thigh-deep snow for a year or more to get a comment, right, Birdchick? But I digress. Back to the Changeling:

Chet planted his feet on the ball and barked defiantly. My ball. Mine, mine, mine, mine. He barked so loudly and so sharply that Bill, who was out at the end of our quarter-mile long driveway, called us on his cellphone to see what was wrong. He thought it sounded like Chet, but then again it didn't. Well, it wasn't quite Chet Baker. It was the wolf in him, out for an airing. Baooooooow!Chet successfully held me and Phoebe off for several minutes. Every time he tried to puncture the ball we scolded him, but we couldn't get it away from him. His terrier half was all the way out. He was just this side of being out of control. There was a weird light in his eyes that told me not to touch him. So I pulled out Darth Vader. The voice that the kids fear; the voice that puts a stop to anything they might be doing immediately. Above all else, Boston terriers are sensitive to tone of voice, and this is a tone I don't use very often. Maybe once or twice a year.
He stopped barking. I got the ball.
I demanded to know what he could possibly have been thinking. And he deflated, visibly. I wasn't thinking, Mether. I wanted the basketball. I wanted to pop it. I still want to pop it, and I think you are a party pooper. If I had my own room I would go in it and slam the door.
photo by Phoebe Thompson

Well, you aren't going to pop it. And you are a naughty dog. A very naughty dog.
Take your AirDog dumbbell, and chew that up.I am still so mad at you. But all right. I will.
And for good measure I am going to disembowel my new cat. And you can clean it up, because I think you are mean.Don't forget your ABC's, young man. A is for Alpha. And you are not Alpha.

But I love you very much, and you are the best doggie in the land.

the real Chet Baker

I love you, too, Mether.

Dogie Stogie

,I've been corresponding with a bunch of friends lately, both new and old, and as it happens all of them need a great big old Chet fix right now, for very different reasons. Jane, Lisa, Wendi, Fiona, Jen, Mary, Shila and especially Chris, this one's for you.A good cigar, a sunny evening. Dog gone it, I think I left my matches in my other tux. I'll check.

Not there. A nice stogie, and I have nothing to light it with. Wait. Here comes a gentleman. Perhaps he will help me. I hope he will not notice that I am beginning to drool. I am not ordinarily a drooly person, but this is a meaty cigar.Excuse me! I hate to bother you, but...would you be able to give a light to an American gentleman?I just so happen to have my lighter with me. Happy to oblige.Ahhhh. At last. Puparillo Supreme. Finest Cuban. Puff, puff, puff.A little bit harsh, I must say. My humidor must be malfunctioning. Ack! Gack! Don't worry, Mether. It is only kennel cough.The afterglow lasts. Anyone for tennis?
It is a good life I lead.

Thanks to Bill of the Birds for the light (for Chet's stogie and the inspiration for this post)

Chet Baker, Action Hero

Yes, it's time to break out the acoustic clothes dryer.

I tried to work today, I really did. But the sun was hot, the air pellucid, and the garden was shouting to me. I could feel the weeds growing. I had to get out there and do it. See, it's past time to plant peas in southern Ohio; the thrasher's been in for two weeks and I haven't gotten them planted yet. So I cranked all day, forking and weeding, then burning. I'm all stove up now. Peas still aren't planted but they will be soon.
Afterward, I collapsed in a newly-hauled-out lawnchair and shot photos of Phoebe and Liam playing with Chet. Gotta love Phoebe's Daisy Mae outfit. I can't tell you how much fun I had, leading him with the camera, letting ISO 200 freeze him in his tracks. The background's a bit blurry when I'm panning, but that adds to the excitement of the shot.
Sometimes the stars align and you get everything in focus. When he's coming right at me, I can brace myself and not have to pan... I think this is my favorite of the bunch. I crowed like a rooster when I saw this one.
The kids were running back and forth across the lawn to see what I'd gotten, and Chet was in his element: the center of attention, leaping, running, growling, play-bowing. I never tire of watching him play with the kids. They tussle like brothers and sisters. Chet is much sassier with them than he dares to be with me; they holler and plead with him, but I have only to say his name in a warning tone and the ears flatten and the googly eyes cut over my way. It's pretty clear who the alpha beyotch is in this pack.
What a joy a well-bred, healthy young dog is. A joy to look at, to touch and to be with. Chet kept me company all day out under the sun, and was ready to rock when the kids got home.
Yesterday the Fed-ex driver, the one who always gives Chet two Milk Bones to bury, asked me how much a Boston terrier should cost. I got a big old grin. He's not the first person who's gotten to know Baker and then thought seriously about adding a Tennessee Turd-tail to his family. I laughed and told him my hidden agenda is to cover the earth in well-bred Bostons, and to let me know when he was serious about it. Mr. Milk-Bone, If you do get a puppeh, will you bring it by here, please? I would like to look it over, and perhaps sniff inside of its ears.
Just so you know: By posting about Chet Baker, I am in no way caving to pressure from Non Birding Bill, JaneyMS or any of his or her minions. It was time to post about Chet Baker. My artistic integrity emerges unpunctured.

Boston Terrier Breed Standard

At long last, a day that got as warm as 40, brilliant sunshine, a rinsed blue sky. I woke up at 3:55 AM with the moonlight streaming in through the blinds, and knew I was not going to go back to sleep. My mind revved up and I couldn't stop it. I knew I'd have to start working on my book proposal. So I got up and went to get my laptop. When I came back Chet was already snoring softly under the covers, making sure the air was perfumed the unique atmospheric enhancement he offers. It was nice to have company.
You can get a whole lot done when you start at 4 AM. I suspect that, like many women my age, I will become conversant with the small hours, as I was when the kids were babies. It's different now, though, because I'm not having the life blood sucked out of me every couple of hours. I don't want to be awake at 4, but I don't seem to have much choice in the matter, so I might as well use it to my advantage.
I worked on the proposal without looking up until 2:30 p.m., and it felt good to focus like that. 31 pages later, it's ready to rock.
The light crept in the windows and it was time to get the kids up and ready for school. I got up and looked out the window. Two fawns were walking in the meadow, looking like solid bits of goldenrod. The snow fell yesterday, 2", just enough to make the road really treacherous for my drive to Athens to record four commentaries. It took me almost 2 hours to get there, and thanks to some technical difficulties getting the hookup to Washington established, I had only 20 minutes to record all four. Since each one runs about three minutes long, it was going to be one take or nothing. There is a zone you get into when you have to get it right, no stumbles. I would imagine professional newscasters are in that zone all the time. So I'm sitting there with headphones on and I can hear my editor in DC coaching me through, asking for different emphasis on this word or that. When we wrapped the last piece, the line went dead and suddenly Susan Stamberg was doing a live interview with a musician in my headphones! Weird! That's how tight studio time is at the Washington NPR studio. You can't be late. And you have to be ready to jump at a moment's notice. But back to bed...
Phoebe came in to get her morning face wash from Baker. It's a ritual. I have a theory that he thinks he needs to clean her up for the new day.
Missed a spot.
Full coverage. My other theory is that Boston terriers are bred primarily for kissability. Perhaps Chet's breeder can corroborate this in the Comments section. I for one am concerned about the extremely short muzzles on show Bostons. This eliminates one vital smooching spot--the stop between forehead and muzzle. I do not approve of stopless Bostons. I also believe that Bostons should weigh about 25 pounds, the size of a good ol' honkin' 10-month-old baby. My personal breed standards are firmly based in the desires of a perimenopausal woman with occasional bouts of inexplicable baby fever. I am content to play with other people's babies. Problem is, there just aren't enough of them around. So Baker has lots of good work to do.His day started at 3:55 AM, too.And he is a hard-working doggie.