Catching up: Christmas on the Beach

It's been forever since I posted, but it's time to catch up! We'll start with the holiday. Florian was in Switzerland with his family,

so I spent my Christmas on Dewey Beach with mine. My sister rented a big house for her family, my dad, Uncle Johnny, Aunt Nancy, my cousin and her kids, 

so I got a nice little cottage just for me and my dogs so Genghis and Fozzie didn't have to spend Christmas glaring and lunging at each other. 

What a joyful time. Up in the morning to walk along the beach 

and enjoy the sunrise, 

let the dogs sniff and roll around,

and meet a large, rusty pipe used for dredging sand, 

that for some reason Dahlia decided was the best thing she had ever seen. 

Drop off the dogs to nap at the cottage, then off to the main house to make food and hang out with my human family. 

Brussels sprouts--Johnny's favorite!

It is so relaxing to be right by the ocean. 

To look out to the horizon and take in all that space, 

let the mind relax on the vast, blue peacefulness, 

and let the waves wash over all those jagged edges left by a challenging year. 

The best pictures were of the sunrises, 

but the best moments were at night, on the balcony with Johnny and the astronomy binoculars, where he showed me the Orion Nebula. I spent the following evenings walking on the beach, dragging the dogs along long past the point where they were tired and wanted to go sleep, because I could not get enough. 

Just the feeling of being alone with them, listening to the waves, under the bright stars, walking and walking.

Then lying down one night, looking up just in time to see a shooting star. 

Magical. I'm going to just take it as a sign that 2017 is going to be better than we think, and act as though ongoing principled, peaceful engagement and activism can make a difference! 

Balmy Winter whirlwind

It's been a whirlwind few weeks here. Florian's childhood friend Thomás came from Switzerland before Christmas, and stayed for two weeks. 

Tom loves the dogs and they loved him so much it made them nice and tired. 

Like many of the Swiss I know, Tom is a whirlwind of energy and made the humans tired too.

On Christmas Eve we went ice skating. 



















Then we had everyone over for fondue in the evening. Marshal spent some of the time outside on the porch, nervously looking in at all the action, but he spent plenty of time making a giant fur ball with Dahlia, Fozzie, and his friend Sky Princess. 





Marshal sure is more confident when he has other dogs around.

Christmas Day we left most of the pups at home to give my aunt's nervous dog Charlie a break and so the humans could eat and drink irresponsibly. 

Their reward came right after Christmas, when Florian, his son Quentin, Tom and the dogs and I went on a Swiss expedition to Rehoboth to enjoy some spooky empty winter beach fun.

Love Rehoboth in the winter, when there's no one on the beach and the dogs are welcome everywhere.

It was about 70 degrees the second day 















so perfect weather for long walks and some exploration.

Cape Henlopen State Park was also pretty empty and stunning.

I'm betting this was Marshal's first time on the beach and he seemed to love it. 

He was confused and delighted by the surf crashing on his paws and happy just to be with his people and dogs.












And of course, Fozzie and Dahlia, who have already wet their paws many times in the surf of Rehoboth, were in heaven.

We rented a little cottage to stay in, and I was a bit concerned at first about having all these little monsters there especially Marshal with his monstrous play noises. Fortunately, with all that walking on the beach there was not much play in the cottage and everyone behaved very well.

What a sweet little getaway! Sometimes I love those dogs so much it just about kills me. 

Keepin' it in the Family for Foster Success

Every time I foster a dog, there's a little bit of agony along with all the joy. 

I usually have some time to get to know the adopters, and in the vast majority of cases my foster dogs have gone to what I now know are outstanding homes. 

But still there's the feeling that I'm abandoning them just when they've begun to feel some stability and confidence, and it wrenches me to say goodbye and wonder if they'll be as happy. 

With Sky, it was somehow more wrenching than usual. From that first day when she rode home in my lap, she always wanted to be glued right to me. How could I betray that love?












A solution began to take shape in my mind when Sky and my niece hit it off. 





Once I saw that, I brought Sky over to visit at my sister's house as often as possible











and my niece and I worked together to help my sister see the inevitable. 

Ultimately, we triumphed. My sister fell in love just as completely as everyone else who has come into contact with Sky. She adopted her and her name is now Princess. 

I think I'll call her Sky Princess, which sounds like a sci fi character or a constellation that spans numerous galaxies. 

Fitting for a creature with such an outsized impact.

There will be a lot more scenes like this in our future. 

Congratulations Sky Princess! I am so glad you'll be smothered with love, and that I get to participate in your continued smothering. 

Canoeing with the Dogs: Good to Try Once

Another weekend, another chance to spend time outdoors and in the water. 
Saturday was a nice relaxing day at my aunt's pool. I generally don't bring my dogs as I want my aunt to invite me back, but I have been feeling particularly in love with Dahlia lately and couldn't resist bringing her. 

She was actually really well-behaved, sitting quietly under my feet as we ate lunch then enjoying herself in the fountain. 

She only harassed my aunt's dog Charlie when we went outside, so I leashed her up and used the opportunity for some make-out time. 

Staying at my aunt's place is so relaxing, time easily gets away from you. Fortunately, my dad was there to keep us on task so I got home right when Florian got home from teaching, and we were able to head to a nearby reservoir for a dog-free date nite on the boat. 

Really nothing better than getting out in the boat in the late afternoon, when the air is still and the sun is less intense. And yes, it's pretty amazing to have some dog-free time too.

Shhh! Did I say that?

Well don't worry, dog-free time never lasts for long around here. Sunday it was time to bring the dogs for a hike. We chose Tuckahoe State Park, not too far once you cross the Bay Bridge in Maryland. 

We took a nice trail for a while, but there was no water on the trail, the dogs were thirsty, and it was hot. Plus, we were both exhausted ...Florian has for some reason been teaching an insane number of classes lately, and I've been pulling weeds and rearranging plants and rocks with a vengeance. 

We saw that near the trail there was a lake and a place where they rented canoes. We thought, why not? 

We've been thinking a lot about boats, fantasizing about getting a boat that the dogs could go in, like a canoe or like the porta bote that our boat-savvy friend Pamela told us about.

And we learned something, namely that it would take some doing to get our dogs comfortable with riding in any boat. 


A canoe looks pretty stable from the outside, but try riding in one with two big dogs who are constantly shifting around, leaning over the edge, and occasionally humping one another. 

It was fun, but maybe not as relaxing as one might hope. 

The canoe was very unstable and responsive to changes in weight. When the dogs sat or lay down in the middle of the boat all was well, but they didn't do that often. When they shifted, they tended to shift to the same side, both at once, and I was pretty sure we were going to capsize more than once. 

So after a while I disembarked with the dogs and had a nice walk around the lake while Florian explored in the canoe.

That was more relaxing for everybody, though of course Fozzie got anxious that his people were separated.

They both relaxed once they could go in the water, especially Fozzie as he is an old pro. Dahlia usually tries to avoid deep water, as I don't think she knows that she knows how to swim. When she unexpectedly went into a deep part though, she seemed to do just fine!

Seems to me that all dogs know how to swim, they just need some practice to realize that it comes naturally to them.

Even if they are terrible at canoeing. 

How does YOUR dog do on the water?

To the Adirondacks, again

If any of you has ever cared for an aging parent, or let go of old family possessions, you know that some processes take a lot longer and are a lot more complicated than you ever expected.

I think we've done 3 or 4 7-hour drives to the Adirondacks since my Mom died, each one "the last." My dad really wanted to go, and once Florian was on board I didn't have the will to argue.

Alright then, we'll make the best of it. I knew that with the dogs in tow, there would at least be some good moments along with the challenges.

With Uncle Johnny along and Dahlia in my lap the whole way, the trip north was better than I expected. And of course, on arrival the dogs were delighted to be in nature with so much space to run around. 









The house is still in good shape, though it definitely needs someone to be living there and loving it again. Though I'd dreaded it, it was actually good to go through the rooms again and pay homage to all Mom's things

All the love that she put into that place, the care that she gave it, the dedication with which she cleaned and arranged and decorated and just lived.

It was nice to see many of her plants still thriving and in bloom

and to visit her garden with the little shed where she used to rest. As expected it was kind of sad, but it was also happy. Reassuring somehow to see that life goes on. 

That though Mom is no longer tending her garden, her garden continues to grow with the energy she imparted to it all those years.  


When I was growing up, we had no shower in the house so we used to wash up in the brook. 












So it was no real hardship that we had no running water for this weekend. When we needed to freshen up, 



we just gave the dogs a holler, they came galloping along down the hill from the house and down to the brook, 











where there's still roughly the same configuration of rocks that was there when I was a kid. 

So Florian could still wash up in the "deep pot" close to the rock bridge, 



which was where the horse-drawn carriages used to go before there was a road.  













And while he did that, I could walk along the brook surrounded by the mosses and ferns and trees that I grew up with, and the dogs could run and sniff and zoom and climb on a beaver dam and get wet and run some more. 

I love that forest. The water, the ferns, the moist forest floor covered in fragrant pine needles, 

the mushrooms and the red salamanders, the fresh woody smell, the silence.

I love the thought that we can always go back there and camp or stay in a B & B, and not have to worry about the house or the water or the memories or about being Senior Coordinator, and just enjoy the woods and the trails. 
 

What a great support network and mood elevator, to have those dogs around. 













They're not worried about old memories or family stresses, they just know that Mom would have wanted them to have a blast

 and bury Milk Bones in her gardens, and come back with a filthy nose. 

There was no TV or internet, 

but Uncle Johnny and Florian had the brilliant idea of bringing some DVDs for entertainment. 













So we even managed to have a nice, relaxing time in the evenings. 

And when there was a thunderstorm on the second night, and I was finally exhausted and relaxed after two nights of lying awake worrying about the house and my dad and what exactly I was doing bringing an 82-year-old and an 87-year-old man to a remote house with no running water and no internet or phone, 




there was nothing to do except just go cuddle up and sleep. 

Right Fozzie?