A Hint of Spring

Ah, the tortures of late February and early March! This is the time of year that it should be spring and isn't. Today's weather is a perfect example of the divine cruelty of the season. A teaser, a taste, a tantalizing carrot waving in front of us of the promise of spring... no doubt destined to be snatched away within the next 36 to 48 hours, if it lasts that long.

I'm in my usual state of itchiness and impatience that this in-between season brings. I'm drawing sketches of the layout of my vegetable garden, wandering lustfully through the new displays of hoses and garden gloves that are blossoming in Target and Walmart. On Saturday I was overcome by an excess of springtime enthusiasm and went out and actually WASHED MY CAR. Possibly it was just an excuse to use the hose and be outside, smelling wet earth. But as I was putting the hose away I found several green shoots of daffodils poking up through the wet leaves that are still choking my front flowerbeds. Oh the zing of those first green things coming up! I got down and cleared the leaves from around them -- like tucking in a baby for his nap -- and felt all zippy. There's hope for us, yet, I tell you. Spring is coming!

Of course, it's still way too early to go out and start turning shovels of earth, but the day is coming soon when I'll be able to get digging. I have a plan for my new vegetable garden. This year I will dig with extra enthusiasm for having missed planting last spring when we were living in the apartment.

Ironically, the morning after I washed the car and discovered the daffodils, we had a perfect little blizzard. Valentine's Day morning the snow arrived around 8:30 and kept on coming until 10:30 or so. Big wet flakes, and plenty of them! Within half an hour the ground was covered. But by 12:30 the sun had come out and it was all gone. Very strange. That's the sort of thing you get this time of year. It could happen again. I have to put my dreams of gardening on hold for a little while longer.

Why I'm tempted to kill Roxy

Okay, have I mentioned that Roxy is really sweet dog? Really sweet. She's not aggressive, doesn't pee in the house, and loves me and my boy. Okay. Did I say that? Good.

She's. Driving. Me. NUTS.

Sunday night I actually MADE DINNER for Grayson. This is news. I made dinner from real ingredients. I cooked up some nice tilapia fillets, steamed some broccoli, and made some nice brown rice. I put Grayson's plate on the table and called him to dinner, turned around to pick up my own plate, and when I turned back around...
Grayson's plate was empty.

No, not quite EMPTY. She'd left the broccoli. But in under 20 seconds she had caused an entire tilapia fillet AND a piece of bread with butter completely disappear. The top of my head flew off and I began speaking in tongues. I was obliged to scramble an egg to feed my son, while my own dinner grew cold (I had used red pepper on my own tilapia, so it was too spicy for G, or I would naturally have just surrendered my own fillet to him).

Then last night, at about 2:30 in the morning, we had ourselves a dog fight.

I had purchased rawhide bones for the dogs, there being a shortage on cow hooves. (See earlier post here.) Rawhides are less desirable because for some reason Kobi and Roxy will not always actually chew them up, but often just walk around guarding them, or, in Kobi's case, "burying" them in the sofa or behind the bed. At bedtime I had taken one of the remaining rawhides away from Kobi so she wouldn't stay up all night watching it. But apparently Roxy still had one hidden somewhere.

At 2:30 Roxy came in asking to go outside, and when I stirred, Kobi jumped down from the bed. Moments later.... all hell broke loose.

In the dark hallway, sudden escalating growls and barks, snarling and then repeated high pitched cries from Kobi as she proceeded to get her butt chewed. I lept out of bed and threw myself into the fray, grabbing Roxy's collar where she had Kobi pinned to the floor and hauling her away. I scooped up Kobi, expecting to find her ears dangling by a thread and blood dripping from wounds all over her, but no. Thank god, it was all sound and fury. Apparently in the dark Kobi had made a grab for Roxy's rawhide... and Roxy wasn't having it. Okay, I understand, but seriously! It scared the living bejeezus out of Grayson and me both!

I'm tired of it. I'm tired of the occasional fights, the food theft, the refusal to go outside (which is now infecting Flower, as well), the door charging, the constant barking, the clawing of doors and window frames and the chewing up of socks, washcloths, toys and anything ball-shaped. I've had it, I tell you. Had it.

But then I go home and she tucks those ears back and gives me that look. Sigh. Okay. She can stay. ONE more day. One more day....

Bird sightings and funny things people do

I must be hyper aware of birds for some reason this week. I keep noticing whole flocks of robins in the yards across the street from me. They are all puffed up, foraging for food as I drive to work in the morning.

This morning I drove under a tree full of crows on Chautauqua. They glared at me, cockeyed, the way crows do, then shrugged me off.

Most spectacularly, however, was the red-tailed hawk that swooped right down over traffic on Boyd Street yesterday as I was driving home. It glided about six feet over the tops of the cars for a couple of blocks and then pulled up and perched atop a telephone pole, bold as brass. Can't imagine what it was scoping for in 5:00 traffic.

This morning, on a completely different note, I noticed a big black dog running down the sidewalk alongside the museum. It was a Belgian shepherd: a huge, beautiful animal, half again as tall as a regular German shepherd, and running full-out. It came around the front of the building just as I was waiting at the light going into the parking lot and I remember saying "You shouldn't be running out here, big guy."

About this time, a woman in a huge SUV pulls into the lot ahead of me and stops. The dog stops, too, panting on the grass. The woman waves me and another car around her and then turns around. I thought "aha! She's chasing her dog." But she drives back out onto Chautauqua, and the dog takes off as well, running alongside the car on the sidewalk. I watched her turn left onto a side-street, dog loping along, and out of sight.

I mentioned it to the museum guards and they said "Oh, yeah, she does that every day." Guess it's her way of walking her dog.

People are funny.