The Lamb of God, or Dog Park Antics!

OK. I had a wild weekend at Mr M's. You don't need to know about it. It just involves the fact that I have Sciatica and Mr M gave me some drugs to combat it.

OK. That's over.

The day after all the pain, I knew I had to come back home and do Paw Duty and get ready for the week, which entailed big hulking bags of trash and all, but like I said, that wasn't a factor in this story.

But I knew when I left Mr M's for home and Paw Duty, first I had to take Milo to the dog park.

Milo loves the dog park. And I do, too, I love watching him run around and trying to make friends, and when he doesn't make friends, Mr M says it's my fault because I've turned Milo into a sissy and no dogs want to play with him.

And I'm prepared for that, I tell you!

But today!

Today, Milo and I (but not Mr M, the poo-pooer) went to the dog park to play. But I wasn't quite prepared for what transpired.

For, my dear blogees and readers, Milo became a sheep.

It's true!

I'm not sure about how it happened, or the metaphysics of it, but my dear, sweet boy became a sheep.

And here's the story.

I let Milo off his leash immediately, and he ran and romped and scrambled around trees and benches. He met people and got petted and was a decidedly happy doggie. And I was happy watching him. There were at least three other doggies his size he enjoyed communing with.

And then!

Then about 3 minutes into his foray into the dog park, he became a sheep. And like I said, I know not how it happened.

See, there was this other dog. A dog only an inch higher than Milo, but a dog who was black and slim-coated and who had a shepherd's face.

And in that 3 minutes, for some strange reason, that dog decided that Milo (fluffy though he is) was a sheep and that Milo was his sheep!

I'll give you the punch-line first. Milo was totally oblivious to him (well, except for the fact that Mr Shepherd didn't want to play with him, but Milo's used to that), and just loped along doing his thing. He ran around trees and hiked. He found little doggies to sniff on. He roamed and found his way to the water bucket and the "Poo Drop Off" station.

All the while, this little shepherd dog had drawn a bead on him. He tracked Milo. He followed, with his eyes, every move Milo made.

If Milo loped to trees or dogs, this dog followed him, watching intently, shifting this way and that, and hanging a few steps behind.

If Milo decided to take off and run, this shepherd dog chased him, right on his hip, guiding him whichever way he thought he should go.

At one point, Milo decided (obliviously, of course) to go to the shepherd's owner and say "Hi." When this happened, the shepherd nipped Milo's nose as if to say, "No! You don't do that!"

Milo was totally that dog's sheep. (or bitch, decide.) It was only still so sweet because Milo had no idea what what was going on.

But the people did, and for 45 minutes at the dog park, Milo and that shepherd were stars. Everyone was getting it. I pulled out the Flip camera at one point, but realized it was now too late to catch all the good antics.

When Milo finally wound down and I decided to take him home, we left, and found out that the shepherd was also leaving - and he was parked in the van beside ours!

I told his owners to hang on, that if their doggie realized this, he'd grab the wheel and follow Milo home.

But he didn't. Milo panted a lot, then fell asleep and we made it back home.

But it was a magnificent doggie park day.

That's what I long for on dog park days, you know.

Happy Anniversary, Baby

I'm gearing up for the first of the two big weekends of my summer. This weekend it's - well, it's no Hackensaw Boys on Friday. I nixed that because logistically it made my brain hurt. I couldn't work out driving there and back, finding Milo accommodations, then still being halfway fresh on Saturday.

I have to be halfway fresh on Saturday because I have to be in R'noke at 1pm, and it's over 2 hours away. My clarinet buddy Mary and I are heading that way to meet with the lovely and extremely talented Cara. Cara plays piano.

Now, if I may slightly (or seriously) digress here, I don't think I've told you about the recital this weekend. My buddy Mr M came up with a wild idea some time ago. And it's a great idea, though I told him it wouldn't work. And so he's set out to prove me wrong, and gone ahead and organized this recital. It's called "Two to Nine," and features clarinets in ensembles of two, three, four, five, all the way up to nine players. The big finale will be a beautiful but complicated piece called "Monochrome III" by Peter Schickele, who some of you may know as PDQ Bach. Schickele also composes as himself, and as I like to say, for a man who made his fame and fortune writing comedy music, the really funny stuff he writes is the "serious" stuff he does as himself. Only the jokes are on the players of the music, not the audience. He just writes some really weird stuff, but I love it, and this piece is no exception.

Speaking of logistics, which I was above (no Hackensaws), the logistics of getting a recital of nine clarinets together is difficult, nay, I say impossible. We've yet to have a rehearsal with all nine players. A couple of them won't be in town until Sunday, the day of the recital. One of them was the principal clarinetist with the Richmond Symphony, so I'm not so worried about him, but.... But, well, he's going to be the concertmaster of the nine-player piece, so none of has practiced with him. The afternoon of the recital, we'll all head to that one golden rehearsal, try to figure out what the hell we're doing, and let the good times roll.

Anyway, let's get back to me being halfway fresh. As part of the "two" in the "Two to Nine" recital, Mary and I are going to recreate our duet from the Community Band's spring concert, only with a pianist. A pianist we've yet to meet with, until we find the lovely and extremely talented Cara on Saturday for one practice session. Then, well, as I said, let the good times roll.

(An aside here - we've been doing rehearsals for this thing for about 6 weeks or more, that's two trips to B'burg a week, folks, and Mary and I have been through pianist hell. In fact, the lovely and extremely talented Cara was a lifesaver to step in when she did. She fit us into an incredibly busy schedule.)

So. If I live through this weekend, and the jury's still out, I have two things I must do. The first is to go ahead and admit to Mr M that his brilliant but harebrained idea did in fact work, and that I was horribly wrong. And the second is to prepare myself for the next weekend.

The weekend after this one the Sauerkraut Band is going to play that hippie festival of music, happiness, and love, Floydfest. We've wanted to do this for years, and they've wanted us for some of those years, and it's finally going to happen this year.

Thing is, having never been there, I have no idea what to expect. I do know this - it's going to be hella hot and I'm going to be wearing a dirndl. And our entrance doesn't include parking, so I'll be schlepping all my SKB gear around on a shuttle bus. And the devil himself did the scheduling, because Saturday the Sauerkrauts are playing at the same damn fuckin' time as the Hackensaw Boys!

But no matter. I'm going to go with nothing more than a good time in mind. Then the next day, thanks to my Sauerkraut Band buddy Susan, I'll have a free pass for Sunday as well. Where our band is not playing and the Hackensaws are. So I'll get my 'Boys fix then.

Then I'm going to collapse for a while.

The Sunday of the recital, the 18th, is my dad's 80th birthday. As you may remember, our family has a long-standing tradition of not celebrating peoples' birthdays on their actual birthday, which is really good this time round.

And the Saturday before that, the 17th for those of you keeping score at home, is my mom and dad's anniversary. They will have been married 55 years, just count them, I know you won't. 55 years of complete wedded bliss and devotion, which is certainly mind-blowing in this day and age.

But it's another anniversary as well. It just happens to be the first anniversary of me and Milo.

Yep, it was July 17th of last year when I picked the little fella up at the shelter and brought him to his new home. I was so damn nervous. I was elated I'd found the dog for me, but I was nervous too. I hadn't had a puppy in a long time. Hell, I hadn't had a dog in some 15 years, and The Petster was about 12 when she died. That's a lot of time removed from puppydom.

Here's what I remember from that first day. Milo peed on me with anxiety when he was handed over to me at the pound. He had horribly unhealthy fur and a gnarled-up tail. I gave him a bath. He stole a piece of pizza off my plate and ran away with it. He cried for about 15 minutes when I went to bed, then was as quiet as a lamb.

By Sunday, he was already going to the door when he wanted out. In the next week, he was fetching.

And in the year that followed he got haircuts and combings and lots of love, and soon developed a beautiful coat and tail. He graduated from the Hi D Ho School for Dogs, probably by his cuteness more than any great obedience ability, but he still has that diploma. He's made people friends and doggie friends, and every mile I've logged to B'burg and back in the last year, he's been right beside me logging them too. He likes to watch TV with me, he's chewed his way through a hundred dog toys - but nary a shoe or piece of furniture. He's swallowed two footies and subsequently thrown them up, and I once had to pull a paper towel he'd eaten out of his ass.

We've been on many walks, though not nearly enough, we've cuddled in the chair nightly, and he's (reluctantly) let me take his picture in bandanas, hats, and a Snuggie. He's starred in a Comfy Chair movie.

And in what may be his biggest coup, after about six months, he totally won over my dad, who immediately disliked Milo because he was so against the idea of my having another dog. Now when I go over to visit, all Paw wants is to sit and pet Milo.

I've had a smarter dog, and a purely sweeter dog, but I've never had a happier, more adaptable dog. Milo has the perfect disposition.

Oh, he's stubborn. And I'm stubborn, and sometimes we lock horns. But we always make up within minutes.

He's such a great dog I often think he should have ended up with someone else. I often tell him that, while I'm ignoring him making a movie or running around late for work. "Milo, how did I ever get so lucky to find you? You are such a good dog you deserve a better person than me."

But there's a part of me that doesn't believe that for a minute. Someone else might have given him a bigger place to run, and more expensive dog toys, but no one could love him more. No one else would have composed The Milo Song to sing to him when he's anxious.

No, Milo and I are a match. If only we could make it 55 years.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* And now, it's time to take Milo out.

A Little Comfy Chair Love

Hello, friends.

The poor Comfy Chair Cinema. I bet you thought I'd forgotten all about it, didn't you? I mean, hell, I seem to have forgotten Betland, why wouldn't I?

Well, turns out, I haven't forgotten about it. I think of it often. I think of how much I need to make a movie and update the damn thing.

And the sad part is that, though I'd been blaming Milo for my lack of moviemaking, I had in fact made two movies in earnest, and had two more of music, and I've just been very lazy getting them posted to you. Not posted to Facebook, a fact for which I'm incredibly embarrassed, because not all of you are on Facebook, but their uploading is simpler and I don't have to make pithy introductions there.

I know, I'm a cad.

But tonight I decided to by-God put some stuff on the Comfy Chair. And so I uploaded four, yes, four, dammit, videos to the site.

The first, though it will appear as the last as you're scrolling down the Comfy Chair screen, is my 2010 Easter Extravaganza, "Peep Opp Ork Ah-Ah." With that title, you can probably guess exactly where it's going, but there you go.

The second is a clip of my dear Hackensaw Boys from a concert May 2 in the little burg of Floyd, VA. They're out in the crowd giving it all they've got. Lovely boys.

The third is my participation in the solo/duet piece with my clarinet friend Mary at the Blacksburg Community Band's spring concert. We're playing Mendelssohn's Concertpiece 2. This is in fact the band solo you heard me whine, bitch, and moan about here for months.

And the final is the movie I finished only this weekend starring no less a doggie than Milo himself. You won't want to miss this one, I promise.

So there you go. If you haven't seen those yet, head over the Comfy Chair Cinema and give them a try.

Pictures!

OK, I'm sure you're all on pins and needles waiting to hear how the Milo Trim went.

Well, wait no longer - it was great!

Well, the results were great. It took two hours, Milo got really restless (until I started using Pupperonis to keep him occupied), and I had to sweep up enough dog hair to make a good-sized wig.

Here we go. A boy and my dog.

























And a second one, which I used "animal red-eye removal" on, but it made Milo look like some sort of wild jungle creature. Sorry about that.

























In the end, The Nephew did a terrific job. I got the haircut I've been asking for at the groomer's forever and never got. His head and tail have never looked better. And though it took two hours, if we keep on top of it, it won't in subsequent trims.

And thanks, Duke, we took your suggestion of starting on the back legs and measuring everything after from that.

Whew. Glad it's over.

Friday Blog!

Hey, how about a rarity? A quick Friday blog.

I'm sitting here using Lunch Hour to make a packing list for my Hackensaw Boys trip to Morgantown this weekend. But I thought I'd also tell you a little something about what I've discovered recently.

I've discovered that my little Milo has a sense of humor. Yes, I have a jokester on my hands.

Wednesday night I made it home after the long trip to band practice. It was about midnight. I'm always a little hinky for a few seconds coming home at midnight to a dark house. It doesn't last long.

I came in, Milo in tow, and put my band stuff in the floor. Milo wandered around and ended up nosing around his food bowl. I wandered around and ended up in the bathroom for a short, well, pee.

The only light I had on at that point was in the kitchen. And I was sitting there in the bathroom, eyes half closed, tired, sleepy. The door was open.

Well, I didn't realize that Mr HaHa had crawled up to the doorway on his belly, commando-style, and all of a sudden he let out a bark that made me scream. When I did that, he knew he'd gotten me, and he just jumped around and barked, butt in the air, tail wagging. He was so funny.

Then I got to thinking about another thing Milo's been doing lately.

My house, the Poderosa, from the living room to kitchen to hallway, is kind of a circle. You can get to the hallway and back of the house by way of kitchen or living room. I normally use the kitchen. And Milo used to follow right behind me, glued to my heels.

Now when I start through the kitchen, Milo high-tails it through the living room and tries to beat me into the hallway. He stands there waiting for me, hopping around like, "Beat you! Beat you!"

I don't know, it makes me laugh. The vet was right when he said Milo was full of personality.

Whew!

Boy, what a day. If our year really is seven years of a dog's life, I think Milo and I are entering the Terrible Twos.

When I came home for lunch, we immediately went outside, of course, and did our usual 100 laps around the house, all across the gravel lot beside my house, then what seems to be Milo's favorite activity, sitting on the walkway watching cars go by. I told the girls at work I think he's actually an old man in a dog suit. All he wants to do is amble around the yard and then watch cars go by.

Then this evening was to be a big event, because Milo was going to meet Uncle Taylor. Uncle Taylor was coming to mow. But first, right after work I had to run a few car errands, so I picked Milo up and took him with me. He was quite good, but when he got a Milk Bone at the drive-thru at the bank, he took that as a sign he was to say "thank you" by climbing through the little slide-out window and personally licking the teller in the face. Boy, is he strong.

Then we got home and I sat at the computer a while waiting for Uncle Taylor. I'd forgotten, however, that my car keys were in my pocket, and I must have shifted wrong, and my security alarm constant horn-blowing thing went off. Milo went ballistic, barked and barked and lunged at the door. I got it turned off and we had to go outside so he could look at the car 72 or so times and pick up rocks in the driveway.

We went back inside, and we heard a car pull up. Milo started getting antsy, so we went to the door to find not Uncle Taylor, but Uncle Brother-in-Law. You'd have thought Milo had never seen a man in his life, for he got all excited and did a nervous pee, slightly missing Uncle Brother-in-Law's foot. They communed while B-in-L told me he'd come over to do some yard work too, cutting some tree limbs in the back yard and such, for which I was very grateful. Milo proceeded to pull me everywhere Uncle B-in-L went, but when the first shovel strike went into the yard, again, ballistic. Barking, lunging - it was a sight. I finally had to pick him up and walk to the stoop, where we sat and had a long talk about the rudeness of barking at family, especially family who was doing us a favor, and a calmer Milo kept an eye on his new acquaintance the whole time. One more lap around the house and a bit of car-watching and we went back inside, where for the first time Milo chewed on something he wasn't supposed to, one of my emergency slip-on shoes I keep by the door. I extracted it, moved it to higher ground, and substituted a toy.

Finally, Uncle Taylor showed up. Milo was a completely different doggie. He loped up to Taylor, greeted him, wanted to be petted, and seemed to be just fine. So I don't know, maybe he wasn't so much averse to Uncle Brother-in-Law as he was to watching someone do some hard work. Lord knows he hasn't seen much from me.

After Uncle Taylor was done with his chores, we went back outside to say goodbye, and walked over to Uncle B-in-L to sniff around, but Uncle B-in-L was now using a dirt and leaf blower, and this scared Milo, to the point where I knew if I lead him to the side of the yard he'd have a nice pee, and I was right. Scared the pee right out of him. Then after the B-in-L finished up we stayed outside and talked a while, and Milo kept trying to chew on large-sized rocks.

Oh, and while all the outside work was going on, I was working inside, where Milo attacked the leg of my wet blue jeans and had a small pee on the carpet while he was about six inches out of my eyeline.

I've come to the conclusion that Milo now understands he's got the gig, he's not on audition, and so he's really feeling his oats. Now I have to start being Alpha Dog. I mean, it almost makes me smile sometimes how he tests me.

But we're getting along. It's just that after all that in meeting two new people, on Thursday we're having a family dinner for my dad, whose birthday was this past weekend. Milo was cordially invited. I can't even imagine.

I guess he'll be OK just as long as nobody does any hard work.

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Acrowinners, we have acrowinners. So, who wouldn't want to kick cancer's ass?
- Runner-Up goes to Marla (marlamarlamarla), with her "Children Hating Dickheads. Rotten Wankers!"
- Honorable Mention goes to Michelle the dishy, with her "Charlton Heston doesn't really wanna." (Which I loved dearly, but....)
- And this week's winner is LilyG, with her, "Cancer. He's doing really well." That's about as perfect an answer as I can think of.
- Thanks to all who played, you've all done very well.
* And remember, the Hucklebug podcast still needs pledges for the podcastathon. Please go to the Hucklebug site to read all about how to join us to kick cancer's ass this weekend. It's easy and for a good cause!