The Name Game!!

BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH!!!!

OK, It's official.... If we keep him, He's "Bru", short for his original name "Bruiser".

Siena, although it's a beautiful name and an equally beautiful city, has been renamed....

Roux. Yes, she stole it from him, but lets face facts....

She's cuter, she's definitely staying, and she looks like she's made of Fat and Flour!

It's just by far a cooler name and considering our ties to New Orleans, it's appropriate.

She's also a fine color for a roux to be.

So for now, we have Bru and Roux and always A Dash!!

The Magic Sock

Are you busy.?....., I am!! What a week it's been!! Siena, (who's name I'm rethinking), has been such a joy. Well that is if you like cleaning up puppy pee and puppy poop and then cleaning up more puppy pee and more puppy poop and then well you get the picture. I can't complain too much though, because she's so sweet. You'll get to see this picture courtesy of Miriam, because she took it. I don't often post pics of me... just not a poser. Not that I'm a photographer, I'm just more comfortable behind the camera. Right now Little Miss Sunshine is chewing on the magic sock we gave her this morning. It's magic, because it came from Docs foot..... the same place Blazes and Dash's and Turks magic socks came from. Magically it will pull all those pesky, painful and oh so sharp little puppy teeth right out. Poor little girlies gums are hurtin and Magic Sock is just what she needed. Yesterday she discovered the joys of being pulled about the house by Dash. Attaching herself to the opposite end of a toy that he was playing with guaranteed her a trip through the air. Well, Magic Sock is great for puppy fly time. Dash particularly remembers how much fun the sock was and now that He's the pilot it's even more exciting. He just needs to remember to wait till she's awake. I heard her little grumpf when she got disturbed by the puparazzi. Poor baby needs her beauty sleep I reckon. Now for the newest news. In my search for a playmate for Dash, I had looked at sites like Petfinder, Craigslist and Freecycle. I even called the Humane Society to see if they had a somewhat small sized youngish dog. Freecycle of course is pathetic and although it's a terrific place to dump anything you don't want, you can rarely find anything of real value. We did rescue Takaani/Buddy from there but he was the exception. Petfinder, at least locally, is littered (sorry for the pun) with so called rescues that want anywhere from $200 - $450 a pop for a pup. That's insane although I have an idea what it costs to maintain a decent rescue. Problem is... they're NOT decent rescues. So that left me with craigslist. There was this one ad about a 1yr old male Chihuahua, un-neutered, who needed to be rehomed for a modest fee of $100, just to ensure he went to a good home..... of course. I answered the ad thinking I would never hear back from her (the owner) and not really interested in paying someone a $100, just so I could then own their problem dog. The e-mail had been sent, the Humane Society had no good news and I figured the wait for a new pup would be a little longer. WRONG...... the very next day, even though I had been told all the dogs were large I went to the Humane Society and viola' we have Siena. Now I return home and oh no, there's a reply back from the owner of the Chihuahua. I ignored her first response and then she e-mailed again a day or so later. Long story short.... after eight e-mails (I counted), I had learned her sad life story, told her I would not pay her for a dog that she didn't want. Informed her that if she relinquished him to me, that I would most likely find him a new home. Two hours later he was in my lap as I pulled out of her sisters driveway. Not an abused dog, but fearful/timid. He had been living in a house with 2 adults, 4 kids, 3 dogs, 11 cats, 3 hamsters, several rats and a ferret..... and it wasn't a Zoo.... well not the wild kingdom kind.

Meet Bruiser who had been nicknamed Ru who we now have renamed Roux.

He's a really sweet little guy and there's a slim chance that we might keep him. I say slim because come on.... I have an 18 month old Shepherd I'm still training, and now a 10 week old Mut I'm cleaning up behind.... literally. I only took the poor little fella well,......... mostly because I can't say no..... damn-it. I stopped at our local NO KILL shelter on the way home with him and had an interview. He's a very adoptable puppy... just over a year old, so I have an appt next wed at noon.... middle of the week... middle of the day, to have him evaluated by their version of match.com!!

Interviewer: So what do you like in a companion?

Roux: Most importantly she must not be too tall.

Interviewer: So you want her short like yourself.

Roux: SHORT!!! Who are you calling SHORT?

See just how wrong this whole thing could be? That's when they'll take him in and he'll cease to be ours... I'll also have his vet records by that time so he'll even be more adoptable. So now you see why there's a slim chance we might adopt him..... we have a week to have his quirky little behavior injected into our bloodstream. A whole seven days to get so used to having him around that we just can't let go.

There's a part of me that says maybe, but there's a bigger more experienced part of me that says I've done my part with this little fella. I talked him out of a crummy situation and now he has a real chance at a terrific life. Letting go of Blaze, holding him when he took his last breath, hasn't hardened me and it hasn't really injured me either.... it's left me with an open vein. From burying two of our kitties in the back yard to leaving a dog at the shelter, it still hurts, but it's part of life and when it happens the blood just flows a little faster. This is symbolism, (for you republicans... the whole pig/lipstick thing... idiots). I'm just more at ease with the tragic possibilities of life now. It's that whole new attitude thing. Go with the flow sorta guy or go away before you die.... the two sided me. I'm happy to say the latter personality is waning.

Back to Roux.... LOL!! That sounds like Astro the News Anchor!! LOL!

Today Roux's more receptive to Siena and Dash. He's still a little timid, but that's ok for now. I don't want him bossing his way through the house. From what I witnessed yesterday when I picked him up..... a little humble pie might be good for him.

Dash has been such an incredible dog. I knew it before, but his patience with Siena and his gentle behavior with Roux has magnified his outstanding qualities.

Without even knowing it and of course because they're both so short, Siena and Roux look up to Dash and I know he won't let any of us down.

There you have it. A week ago we had a quiet home with a well behaved dog and 4 not so well behaved cats. I'm not quite sure why I couldn't settle for calm and orderly.... it's just not me. Truth be told... it's Steve's fault. He's the one who convinced me to get rid of so much stuff the week he was off. But by doing so, we made so much more room in the nest.... I just had to fill it.... LOL!!! Nesting and babies and puppies and kitties.... if he hasn't figured it out by now..... oh well!! I'm positive that when I die, the animals still living with me will need to be euthanized and then cremated alongside me. They'll all have had such issues and at one time or another been labeled an outcast of society, that nobody will want them. That's fine with ME. To die knowing unconditional love my entire life..... bring it on!! I'm going to play with The Magic Sock now!!!

"So Sambo Beat the Bitch"

"Sambo Beat the Bitch", was reportedly Sarah Palins overheard comment when Our Next President, Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton in the primary. Such a trashy mouth and on such an arrogant peice of........ republican. How could she be so ... well.... ignorant? Sarah Palin a Racist? Read the full article.

Even the Polar Bears are distressed.

The Grizzlies are also thinking of moving to Canada.

If it's inappropriate for the presidential candidates to sling mud then we must do it for them, right? I believe you can give anyone enough rope and they'll eventually hang themselves. Palin and McCain scare me, because however evil the Dickmeister and the Village Idiot might be, we haven't seen evil until we allow Madame Palin to be hoisted to the throne. If she's allowed to step foot in OUR White House as VP.... this country will forever be cursed. John McCain's had his 72nd birthday. If elected, he'd be the oldest president ever inaugurated. And after months of slamming Barack Obama for "inexperience," here's who John McCain has chosen to be one heartbeat away from the presidency: a right-wing religious conservative with no foreign policy experience, who until recently was mayor of a town of 9,000 people. Huh? Who is Sarah Palin? Here's some basic background: She was elected Alaska's governor a little over a year and a half ago. Her previous office was mayor of Wasilla, a small town outside Anchorage.

She has no foreign policy experience.1

Palin is strongly anti-choice, opposing abortion even in the case of rape or incest.2

She supported right-wing extremist Pat Buchanan for president in 2000. 3

Palin thinks creationism should be taught in public schools.4

She's doesn't think humans are the cause of climate change.5

She's solidly in line with John McCain's "Big Oil first" energy policy. She's pushed hard for more oil drilling and says renewables won't be ready for years. She also sued the Bush administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species—she was worried it would interfere with more oil drilling in Alaska.6

How closely did John McCain vet this choice? He met Sarah Palin once at a meeting. They spoke a second time when he called her about being vice-president. Then he offered her the position.7

She is really just a mayor from a small town outside Anchorage who has been a governor for only 1.5 years, and has ZERO national and international experience. I shudder to think that she could be the person taking that 3AM call on the White House hotline, and the one who could potentially be charged with leading the US in the volatile international scene that exists today. She is VERY, VERY conservative. She's a hunter and fisher woman, but votes against the environment again and again. She ran on ethics reform, but is currently under investigation for several charges involving hiring and firing of state officials. She has NO experience beyond Alaska. Palin is not a feminist, and she is not the reformer she claims to be. I think she's far too inexperienced to be in this position. I'm all for a woman in the White House, but not one who hasn't done anything to deserve it. There are far many other women who have worked their way up and have much more experience that would have been better choices. This is a patronizing decision on John McCain's part- and insulting to females everywhere that he would assume he'll get the female vote by putting "A Woman" in that position. So Governor Palin is a staunch anti-choice religious conservative. She's a global warming denier who shares John McCain's commitment to Big Oil. And she's dramatically inexperienced. In picking Sarah Palin, John McCain has made the religious right very happy. And he's made a very dangerous decision for our country. Sources:

1. "Sarah Palin," Wikipedia, Accessed August 29, 2008

2. "McCain Selects Anti-Choice Sarah Palin as Running Mate," NARAL Pro-Choice America, August 29, 2008

3. "Sarah Palin, Buchananite," The Nation, August 29, 2008

4. "'Creation science' enters the race," Anchorage Daily News, October 27, 2006

5. "Palin buys climate denial PR spin—ignores science," Huffington Post, August 29, 2008

6. "McCain VP Pick Completes Shift to Bush Energy Policy," Sierra Club, August 29, 2008

"Choice of Palin Promises Failed Energy Policies of the Past," League of Conservation Voters, August 29, 2008.

"Protecting polar bears gets in way of drilling for oil, says governor," The Times of London, May 23, 2008

7 "McCain met Palin once before yesterday," MSNBC, August 29, 2008

Please think before you vote! Your country and your family needs your help! However many Americans, are still being fooled by the Bush administration, we must impress upon them the need for a change. We need equal balance in government. For those of us overwhelmed by the current flow of ignorance out of Washington DC, Fresh air is long overdue. The Change is near, lets make it reality and no longer a dream.

Sarah Palin.... looks good in brown!

Day two.... Siena slept fine last night, but again.... I've forgotten what it was like to have a puppy. I totally spaced on the whole... "don't touch them until you're ready to take them out" practice. I half asleep reached down from the bed and rubbed her excited little head this morning and she promptly turned around and pooped. My fault completely. She'll stay leashed to me for a few days and she should be house trained by the end of the week. Just this morning she went and found the paper I put down..... On Her Own!!! What a smart little girlie!!! No, although it looks like it.... she missed the leash. Our only real problem is Dash... he forgets how big and heavy he is sometimes. He'll come crashing into the room as usual and if Siena's in the way she's pavement. Fortunately for her she has an alarm feature that scares Dash off.... LOL! I hope she doesn't grow into that noise. It's OK if she needs to use it in self defense, but on a regular basis I might have to get ear plugs. I guess she's just being a little girl! So, Day two and she's using the paper. Progress like this is awesome!! Finally I have a use for any printed Fox News.... Sarah Palin looks good in brown. Anyone have a picture of Chaney or Bush, that they want artfully smeared? LOL!! I'll photograph it!!! Clearing up some analesque confusion..... Her name is Siena... one N. Named first and foremost after the Tuscan Hill Town of Siena. I realize the color Sienna has two N's, but I don't care about some english translation of the word. There are even older versions of the name like Saena, Saenii, but since we personally know the town Siena, that's what we'll go with. Sienna is a form of clay that's only found in Italy and here in our beautiful Appalachian Mountains. Now we've brought our two favorite places together in the form of this sweet little girl..... Siena! I'm off to finish some projects today..... puppy in tow. Wish me luck.... again.

Meet Siena!!

Meet Siena!! She's the latest addition to our family. Yesterday I called Berkeley County Humane Society just to see if they had any small sized dogs and was told they had nothing but big bigger and freakin huge. Well today I stopped in on a whim just to see all the poor little doggies abandoned by humans not responsible enough to own a sponge. The lady I had spoken to was correct. There were some GINORMOUS Dogs in there, but there was also this little girl. She and her brother who was a lot lighter in color, had been dropped off right before closing yesterday. They estimated her to be around 8 - 10 wks old, and although she looks older and I totally thought she was older, she's still gettin her puppy teeth and still has all the puppy clumsiness. There really is no way to tell exactly what she is without DNA testing and we're just not going to worry about it. I put "cute" in the breed box when I dropped her off to be bathed. She's more than likely a cross between two of four possibilities...... Jack Russell, Beagle, Chihuahua, and Miniature Pinscher. We're going more with Jack Russell and it's possible she's all Jack Russell. We'll find out eventually or we won't. I don't care. Her breed for now is "Cute" and I'm sure one day we'll add "Smart" to that!!! Whatever the cross is it really doesn't matter because she's ours now and she's a cool little girl. Dash was a little concerned when we first brought her in and I'd have to say so was she, but it's been several hours now and she simply blows by the cats, thinks Dash is a giant furry pillow and has attached herself to my leg. She so much tinier than any dog we've ever had.... kinda hard to get used to. Steve says Dash was this tiny when he came home, but I've looked at the pictures.... NOT!! So, Siena has arrived. We named her Siena because today is Sept 8th. Today was the birthday of St Bernardino of Siena. Not that I care about St Bernardino, but Siena was one of our favorite cities that we visited while in Italy and Siena is the color of her fur. St Bernardino just happened to be a Franciscan Missionary around the early 1400's, that preached the evils of sodomy. He preached it everywhere.... he was famous for his hatred of sodomy.... Me thinks he protested too much. Anyhow, we're so happy to have our new little girl with us. Siena hopefully will grow to be as cool and relaxed as Dash. I swear if she starts doing the Jack Russell bounce I'm gonna make her a velcro suit and velcro strip a door frame!!

I need to sharpen my Axe

It's amazing the amount of space that can be recovered with just a few trips to the dump!!! There's so much room in our basement now, we can park our bikes down there... WOOHOO!!! I spent the better part of two days with a few trips up and down the ladder and I finally managed to finish my new counter. I used all scrap lumber and some other pieces/parts and didn't buy a single new thing. I even used some screws from my Dads collection. Now I have the perfect place to set up my sewing machine and boy do I need to set it up. The downstairs is going to be so nice this winter. We've got two work stations, we're moving the tv down there and the fireplace will be a new feature this year!!! It's just gonna be darn cozy!! On one of our bike trips we rode to the end of Potomac Street. Now for those of you who don't know the area.... Potomac street is only paved just pass the train station, then it's all gravel dirt or mud depending on the recent weather. We cruised it all the way to Bakerton road and back, stopping at the old inlet to the canal along the way. Add to it our trip out to the 340 bridge and we did a whole 4+ miles. Hey that ain't so bad concidering we just started riding again. Oh and If I hear one more person say how they rode the stationary bike at the gym more than 4 miles..... LOL... try it with rocks and bumps and mud and briar's, then get back to me!! We stopped several times during our ride and at one particularly awesome place... (I have to keep it a secret for fear that it be claimed as someone elses secret place), we saw like a 100 or so earthworms mating or doing something in a pooled area of a stream. It was pretty gross at first because I thought they were all dead, but then I got a closer look and they were squirming around one another. Sex in the woods..... what a "novel" idea... LOL!! This really was a beautiful spot and we plan on going there again... with bug spray! We must have passed through some sort of portal to get there because it even made Steve appear innocent and trust me when I say that would take a time portal!!!

Thursday, Steve gets home from work and tells me, "Venus has a big knot on her back" Long story short, she'd been bitten either by a non venomous snake or another cat. Seeing how we've "re homed" every other stray that happened into our live trap, we went with snake. The bite had gotten infected and abscessed. When I got to it, it just oozed this big glob of puss and blood almost causing me to vomit. We cleaned her up (shaved her) disinfected the wound and put some antibiotics on it.... Watched her for a few hours, determined she would be fine until morning and went to bed.

Friday morning Venus and Dash (our most handsome puppy :) ) both had vet appts. We're having all our little critters chipped. When we almost lost Bette to animal control we quickly realized we didn't want to live always wondering what might have happened to a kitty that never returned home. We know that chipping isn't 100% positive that we'll always know if something happened to one of them, but it's better than nothing. There's always the chance they might get picked up by dragons or consumed by flesh eating slugs.

Dash got his chip and his booster shots and was clearly upset that all that wasn't followed by a puppy treat. Then it was Venus's turn..... poor kitty got chipped, vaccinated for leukemia, boosters and a shot of penicillin. Her wound, which is difficult to determine how or what she got it from, looked pretty good, but would still take a few days to heal. I returned them both home and went back out to grocery shop. I got back here just an hour or so later to find Venus suffering a major allergic reaction to one of her shots. She was having difficulty breathing, her ears were bleeding from scratching, there was vomit everywhere and she continued to vomit. I rushed her back to the vet where they gave her another needle... this time benadryl and re hydrated her with some kind of injected saline solution. Poor poor girly..... She slept all the way home and for several hours afterwards. Today she's healing well, over the allergy issue and annoying us to let her back outside!!

All of this animal drama took place on the 9 month anniversary of Blazes departure from this world. I guess the odds are pretty great that there'll always be SOMETHING happening on the 5th of each month, but damn. .... I need a break from animal stress for awhile. Believing we were going to lose Venus just a few weeks after burying two of our other kitties, I was quickly approaching mess status. I'm glad she survived... I'm more than glad.....and after what it cost... she better live a long and happy life. Hopefully she learned a lesson somewhere in all this. Now to find the cat that bit her and move him or her to another planet. Blaze must have enough company wherever he is because he watched over Venus and got her to us in time to heal her injury. Thanks Boy!! It's really turning into a great "end of summer" for us. So many projects completed and so many more on the table.

We've got a few relatively local outings coming up..... a trip to Philly.... a trip to Germany.... gotta go see my Mom...... working on the windows still.... and the usual gettin ready for winter type stuff. That reminds me... I need to sharpen my axe.

A New Attitude

What a great week it's been and tomorrow when the alarm goes off it might mean back to work for Steve, but it'll never be the same here again. Not after the what we've accomplished around here. Living in Harpers Ferry has always been sort of a sweet defeat for me. The majestic mountains, the meandering river, the change in seasons, I could go on and on, but only to sadly realize how enjoying these things that nature has given us is so often hindered or just made bitter by the local resident attitude. It's a shame really.... HF has so much potential. One day, even if it's in my own head, I will live in a town where individual egos aren't the basis of friendships, and encounters with neighbors or strangers on the street won't result in some sort of vitriolic dialogue. Now I'm sure you're wondering where I'm going with this.... well Steve and I had a revelation this past week. First of all we managed to work side by side and not once ... well not for long, did we ever get on each others nerves!!! LOL!!! It dawned on us, well at least it dawned on me.... maybe Steve saw it all along, That we don't have to live like the rest of the world THINKS we should live. Our home is OUR HOME and it's unique placement and design is unlike any other in town. How we choose to enjoy and share our home is also up to us. We're not the normal HF couple. We're unique in our own right and we're going to take full advantage of that. All that being said and of course realized, we've reached a turn in the road so to say and although it's been a fun and exciting adventure so far... it's going to get better!! We've been "cleaning out" and I mean CLEANING OUT this past week. At least 3/4 of a ton of stuff has left our home... not to mention the soul cleansing that's taken place as well. We're going to start living inside our home. Before we were living outside it... meaning, our furniture was too big... there was too much of it. We were living like most Americans have been fooled into thinking is the norm. Bigger... Grander... better than the Jone's. No longer.... we want our space back. We no longer care to be "like" anyone else we know. Room to move and room to "maybe" entertain. Less is more if you get my drift, in all aspects!! Part of the cleansing started weeks ago actually. In our maiden attempt to become more social creatures I believe we allowed a standard we hadn't realized existed, to be compromised. We thought it was a given that most adults socialize with mutual respect and free of egotistical immaturity. We were wrong in that assumption and have since altered our willingness to open our home to just anyone. Lulled into a sense of false satisfaction, we abandoned a necessary standard for maintaining sanity........ Tolerance!!! Not any more.... Of course there's no such thing as zero tolerance, but I'm as close to it as I can be. We've sifted through so many memories this past week. We've let go of things we aren't even sure why we saved in the first place. We've sharpened the skill to be more selective in decorating as well as sharing our home. One of the weeks finds was an appearance Poster for Don Knotts. Steve designed this poster when he was at USA (University of South Alabama). So when Mr Knotts arrived... Steve got his signature!! That's right.... Don Knotts signature... How Cool. We're not sure if we'll have it framed or just auction it somewhere. For now it's fun to look at and it's definitely a conversation piece. Saturday we went to see our friends Jon and Vic and there other friends who had gathered for an early Oktoberfest!! I've known Vic since 1990 and he never seems to get any older.... it must be his youthful attitude. I love their place.... it's so serene and beautiful. I could just walk for hours through the yard... there's always something new and interesting around each corner or behind a bush. Sunday we went back with some goodies to drop off and stayed for a delicious dinner of corn pone, red cabbage and deer bbq. while sitting on the front porch, we were treated to an aerial display by swarms of hummingbirds. Sometimes coming so close to us we could almost touch them. Their little wings moving so rapidly they created this deep resonating humm. Duh... I guess that's where they got the name.!! Anyhow, I seriously doubt many of you have ever seen as many hummingbirds in one place for as long as we watched. I tried to capture one or two on camera, but all I had with me was my phone, so all I got was video. Their gardens are definitely gardens to covet. I'm always admiring them while at the same time wondering how I could airlift them across the river to our own backyard. :) Well we finished our wonderful dinner, said our goodbyes and returned home. This was the evening we were to take our bikes out for their first public appearance. Steve had been working on and off all week on his latest Geek inspired project. We now have light sensors on our bike spokes. Powered by rechargeable batteries and water proof, these continuous motion lights create an image when the wheel spins. Almost any image can be directly uploaded to the bike and currently both our bikes have the Obama 08 logo. We took our test run out Shenandoah Street just in case there were any last minute issues to correct. All worked well, so we headed over to Potomac Street to the bike shop where we had our bikes restored last week. The sidewalks and outside restaurants were full of tourists. We didn't realize our audience would be so big and after riding to the end of the street we now had quite a few adoring fans. Shouts of OBAMA could be heard from every terraced level of the lower town. People were stopping us to find out WHERE we got the cool lights and where could they get theirs!! I was pretty amazed at the great reception we got. Not one McCain fan in the group... if there was they stayed quiet like they should have. My guess is McCain supporters don't hang out in quaint little historic neighborhoods like HF. It's too American for all that foreign money. Our original intention was to show the lights to Ron the bike shop owner. He of course fell in love with not only the lights but the logo as well. Apparently we're his number one neighbors now... LOL. The light/logo display on the bikes morphed into a small frenzy of activity for awhile. It wasn't pride that we felt but Steve and I definitely experienced some sort of community bonding. It's sort of like seeing a hot air balloon as a kid. You're super excited to see it and then it drifts away out of sight, but the feeling it created still swells inside you and remains for sometime. That's what America was once upon a time and that's what Harpers Ferry could have. I believe we tapped into something last night. We touched a vein or a nerve or maybe even a soul or two.

We witnessed an exhilaration... people got excited..... they hollered out their support for Obama. On a dark night on a side street somewhere in small town America, a community had a moment that brought them all together. I'm glad I was part of it. There are many reasons why this past week has been such an eye-opener, but I guess all I really need to say is, "I have a new attitude"

GO OBAMA!!!