The Story of Sadie

Of course, if you've read any of my posts here, you will know that I have dogs. Two of the sweetest, greatest, most wonderful dogs. The only bad thing about them is they lie. If you have a dog, you will know of their lying nature. Like when my husband feeds them their breakfast and then I come downstairs later and they tell me that they, in fact, have NOT gotten their breakfast. Our dog, Koty, is particularly good at this lying. He literally lays down, positioning his head, such that one ear pitifully falls into his empty food bowl! Unbelievably good liar, he is! Why am I talking like Yoda?


That's Koty on the left, Sadie on the right and my cute husband there.

Sadie, our girl, is just a sweet sweet sweetie. She is very calm except when Koty spots a squirrel or something else bark-worthy. She will "help" by barking her cute little bark that sounds nothing like a woof, but more of a "roop roop rooooo!" It's really a funny, endearing sound!

We found our Sadie on the internet, a site called petfinder.com. Lots and lots of dogs available on this website. We found her irresistible, namely because she looked so much like Koty and her name at that time was Lady; the name of our dog who had recently passed away. I think it was sort of one of those meant-to-be things.

We filled out the application online, and the people who were fostering Sadie then contacted us by email and phone. Turns out Sadie was rescued from a pet hoarder. They found 50 dogs in this house in Tennessee and Sadie was one of them. All of the dogs were taken from this place and put into foster care. Sadie ended up in Pennsylvania.

Now, Massachusetts is a weird state because it requires that any dog entering from any other state has to go through a quarantine. I think this is crazy. Like the vets who took care of her in Pennsylvania would not give her the proper shots and stuff? She's not entering MA from a third world country, for pete's sake! Jeez!

So the plan was to get her on a transport to the nearest quarantine in MA. Well, as luck would have it, she missed the transport! Instead of going to the quarantine, I made a clandestine deal with the foster mom to meet her by the side of the road and pick up Sadie! Of course, I was going to take her to our vet right away, so I'd be sure she was all up to date on her shots and things. But we basically have an illegal immigrant dog! I think she's a naturalized citizen by now, though, right?

There we were, an hour away from home, on a rainy gross day in March, by the side of the road picking up our new dog! It was really bizarre. She just hopped out of their car, came right over to us, we shrugged, and said "Okay! We'll take her!" She hopped into our car without ever looking back, and the rest, as they say, is history!

Critters everywhere!

The latest thing in the neighborhood is the appearance of so many crazy animals, I just had to write about it! Most notably, we've had a pheasant roaming around, a fox seen in our DRIVEWAY and a coyote down at the jetty where we walk the dogs!

For some of you who live in a somewhat rural landscape, these are not really all that exotic, but I live in a city. An urban metropolis! Well...not really a metropolis, but maybe a mini-metropolis! It's a proper city is what I'm saying! We have no skyscrapers, but it's a bustling city with lots of buildings and cars and such.

Now, the pheasant makes sense because our kooky neighbor down the street actually had a male and a female pheasant in this sort of strange coop he made for them. They could go in or out at will and they seemed pretty happy. They lived there for years until someone broke into his yard and opened up the coop about 2 months ago. I was very worried about them being able to find food, but apparently they're doing fine! I've seen the female down there a number of times running loose and, apparently, the male was seen on my street a few days ago!

The fox and coyote? That's not so logical.
But I guess there are plenty of prey animals in the way of rats around here. Our dog, Koty, has managed to catch a couple of them. Yick! The rats live amongst the rocks and nooks and crannies down by the ocean along all of the sea walls and jetties that have been built. I've seen dozens of them over the years.
They're totally gross! I'm generally not one who gets skeeved out by the little natures running about, but these rats are huge! Like the size of a cat, some of them. Not so cute and cuddly.

We've also got your regular urban-type animals living around here, raccoons, skunks and lots of birds. One of the coolest things I ever saw was in my back yard several years back. It was the night of the full moon and I heard the unmistakeable "hooooo hooooo" of an owl! I went to the second story of the house and was able to see this adorable, tiny owl: Well, it wasn't this EXACT owl, but it was this kind of owl - a saw-whet owl! Isn't he cute?

And, the only reason I knew what kind it was was because, at that time, I was working at a wildlife rehabilitation place and we actually had one there!

Ok. That's all I got for today. Have a good day!

Daffy for Daffodils

After a very nice walk today with the dogs, wherein Koty went for his first official swim of the year, I did me a nice power walk! I'm on a roll over here with the exercising again. Feels really great. Plus we've had the most delicious springtime weather. It's been very cheery and bright and the sky is blue blue blue.

It's really quite miraculous the difference in everyone's mood when the weather gets like this. Mostly, as is widely known, New Englanders are sort of a surly bunch. Impatient, impolite complainers. Seriously, we bitch and bitch about the endlessly long winter, and then we bitch that spring doesn't last long enough, and then - God help us - SUMMER comes. Oh, you do not want to be here when we are all hot and cranky. It's not pretty. And then fall comes, and our mood eases a bit, and then we complain that winter is coming, and then the cycle repeats. Wash, rinse, repeat.

This is why they call us Massholes and the word "wicked" can mean something is actually good! Things are wicked good or wicked bad depending on your weather. Or the parking situation. Parking is a VERY sore subject in these parts. Oh, my the nastiness that ensues when someone is not a good parker. My lovely neighbor calls them Parking Pigs and she will leave notes on cars! Really funny!

I totally understand, 15 years ago used to live on one of the side streets here with no driveway, which is very common. There are signs EVERYWHERE telling people that these streets are Resident Parking Only and that they will be towed if they park there illegally. Well, a certain car in front of our house, with New York plates was parked there for 3 months. ANNND, to make matters worse, they were taking up 2 entire parking spots because they parked all hooey. All of us would leave notes on the car and call the police to complain, they would ticket the car, but refused to tow it. Oh, man, we were all livid! Someone who shall remain nameless got a bit tipsy one evening and from a second story window, threw eggs all over the car. Miraculously, the car disappeared the next day! I do not condone vandalism, but really? Three months?

See? I mean to do a post about daffodils and what do I do instead? Complain. Nice.


I bought daffodils at the grocery store today and they are so happy and cheerful! Maybe they will help me to stop complaining tomorrow...Doubt it!! : )

Happy Thursday!

Let's continue talking about the neighbors, shall we?

In a previous post, here, I started talking a bit about my very colorful neighborhood. We've got the vampires over there, the biker dude over here and the crazy, hermit, cat-lady down yonder.

Then it occurred to me that I was just getting started, really!

There is my good friend down the street who lives with her husband and her two adorable golden retrievers. I was reminded of this the other day when my husband asked her "Did Guppy make an appearance?" Guppy is the husband's alter-ego when he has had a sufficient amount of alcoholic beverages and he does this funny thing with his lips that make him look...well, like a guppy! She and her husband had just attended a wedding, and she did, in fact, confirm that Guppy made an appearance! Ha!

Down the street further is an adorable, old, retired man who creates the most whimsical animals and doo-dads using anything metal - saws, shovels, nails, horseshoes, you name it. He solders them all together to make funny animals and things. Here is a "bird" that I bought for our garden:
Isn't it cute? Made out of a horseshoe and big, giant nail!

Then, going the other direction is this kooky guy who has tattoos all over his face - spider webs, tears - weird sh*t! He calls himself "Wind" and ALWAYS wears a cape and top hat. Biiiizzzaaaarrrrrooooooo!

Then a bit over from there is the poet laureate, Frank, who we think is having an affair with a tree at this jetty where we walk the dogs. He loves this tree. We've seen him pet the tree, hug the tree, sit under the tree, sit IN the tree. I think he pretty much goes down there and visits that tree every day. I guess we all need to love something - why not a tree?

Another colorful neighbor is our former upstairs neighbor. The sweetest, kindest, gentlest man on the planet. Our dogs melt when he would visit! He is a male witch and practices Wicca and is an artist! Sort of a hermit, he really kept to himself most of the time and was quiet as a mouse save for the days when he was playing with his adorable little chihuahua mix, Frida, and she would bark bark bark at him with glee as he would throw her toys for her to catch! He still lives in the neighborhood a few streets away.

Then there is the whole cast of characters at a local watering hole. You can literally go in there any time of the day or night and at least 3 of the 6 regular regulars are there. There is the one guy who writes poetry and drinks wine, the postman who is an AVID Red Sox fan, the strange little guy there on the end with the big moustache, the one guy with the glasses, who never, in all of the years I've been going there, has ever ever said hello, the black guy who is very friendly, and then Danny, the most regular of the regulars who divides his time between this establishment and the VFW up the street!

Our little neighborhood is not boring, that's for sure!

Home Depot and my eye

I had the pleasure of going to the Home Depot yesterday afternoon. You may think I jest in finding pleasure in a visit to Home Depot, but I do not jest! I absolutely love being in hardware stores and garden centers! Home Depot has BOTH! I just love all the gadgets and gee-gaws in there. And the plants! Orchids all over the place and many many spring and summer tuberous plants.

What do you think I did when I saw those bags of tubers? I bought me some, of course! Now, they had tons of different varieties - Canna, Dahlia, Gladiolus. I do not like any of those. But what else they DID have? Lily-of-the-Valley!! They are only my most most most favorite flower on this here planet.

LOVE Lily-of-the-Valley!

Who could not love the cute little bells all in a row, gracefully arching up through the pretty, green foliage? And don't even get me started on their fragrance! My most favorite smell of all! Lilacs run a close second, in my book, though. Deeeelish!

Sort of unrelated, but at least I was gardening when it happened, I hurt myself. I am not what you would call a careful, delicate type female. I love hardware stores, right? Nothing delicate about that! Anyway, while I was cleaning out our yard the other day, I managed to poke myself in the eye with a yew branch.

OUCH! Man, it really hurt at the time, but I didn't give it another thought and went on my merry way picking up leaves and cleaning. After coming in and taking a shower, I finally took a gander at my face and BAM! There was this red spot on the white of my eye about the size of a pencil eraser! YICK! Now, a couple of days later the blood has started to diffuse all over the white of my eye around the original spot. It looks disgusting, but I've read up on it and it will disappear in like a week or so. Until then, I have to run around all self-concious looking like a diseased alien. Icky.

Springy spring spring!

There are a couple quick things today. Yesterday in my feverish attempt to get a coherent post on the Oscars for my insistent mother (Hi Mom!), I totally forgot that it was Sadie's 2 year anniversary of being in our family!! Isn't that great? Our little munchkin has been with us for a long time, now!

In her time with us she has earned a few nicknames:

The World's Most Comfortable Dog (see exhibit a and b, below!):


Heavens to mergatroid, look at how comfortable she looks. She always looks all snuggly and SO relaxed!

We also call her Joanie Groanie, because she groan groan groans all the time when she's happy!

I also call her Shooshie shooshie. I have no idea why.

The good news is that Koty and Sadie are now friends and occasionally hang out together:


This scene was not at all in our perview when we first brought Sadie home, as Koty wanted to eat her face off!

The other thing I needed to discuss is the fact that MY CROCUSES ARE BLOOMING!!!! I have two patches in the side garden that look like this:

OHHHH, the JOY!!! I am SO very ready for warm temperatures and for my lilacs to bloom and for my job to start up again!

Happy Tuesday! (Bye, Mom!)

Academy Awards Review

We watched The Hurt Locker yesterday right before the Academy Awards show began. Great movie. Deserving of best picture, that's fo sho!

And we love love loved Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin as the hosts this year! Hilarious!

Also, could George Clooney possibly get any better looking?

Now, onto the most important subject, the dresses. Holy mother of big-time no-nos! Holy ugliness! Seriously, it was as if someone decided to play a joke on the rest of the world and told all the actresses to wear the most hideous, gross, get-up they could find, and then they'd all laugh and laugh and have a fun night knowing they played a really funny joke on us.

Wowzer with the terrible dresses. AND bad makeup. Who is responsible for Sandra Bullock's terrible makeup job? And why did Sarah Jessica Parker look as though she had not slept in like three years? MAN!

It was hard to pick the absolute worst dress of them all. Maggie Gyllenhaal? Tie-dye? REALLY?

Meryl Streep and Sigourney Weaver continue to pick such dowdy, sad dresses. Would someone PLEASE help these two wonderful actresses?

Diane Kruger? What on EARTH?

And, beautiful, petite Zoe Saldana? Oy. How do I even start to ask about this thing you're wearing? Words cannot express the sheer ickiness of this number.

And gorgeous, gorgeous Charlize Theron? Shall we call you Helga and wait for you to sing some Viking song with horns on your head? WHO told you that looked good? WHO? Because they need to be fired. Right away!Ohmygodlookathatdress! All I can see are swirly boobies.

And lovely Vera Farmiga. Oy vay with the ruffles! You looked like a giant, red potato chip.

Best of the evening? Demi Moore. Holy COW that woman is in good shape.

Rachel McAdams also looked smashing.

Far and above our most favorite of all was Penelope Cruz. Stunning!