TARA

     Tara was a black Labrador Retriever who was found eating from trashcans in the north Sacramento Valley.  Labs are hunting dogs and they flush out and retrieve birds and hunt by scent.  They become alert if they sense a bird then they flush the pheasant or duck out of the brush so the hunter can shoot it in the air then they retrieve the bird for the hunter.  A nephew who found her was going to put her to sleep because she wouldn't hunt.  The truth was she was afraid of guns and we don't know why for sure but we think she may have been menaced with one.  If you brought out a hunting rifle she would tremble.  My daughter Shawn rescued her and Tara became a part of her family.  At that time Shawn was a divorced Mom and Jon was just a little guy.  Tara was the sweetest dog.

     When Shawn moved into a place where she couldn't have a dog Tara came to live with Rod when he and I were dating cross country in the 90's.  Rod, who is the pet whisperer and is loved by dogs and cats alike, taught Tara to "smile" by giving her salami treats.  Tara developed a huge "grin" but the salami gave her terrible gas which she seemed to always get when she was sleeping on the floor at the foot of the bed.  Tara was the stinkiest dog.

     Other than being afraid of guns Tara was also afraid of water which made it kinda bad if your bird landed in water.  One time we pulled the Grady White up to the country and we all boated out to a picnic area for the day.  There were several boats and the people with us had all gotten off and carried the stuff up to the picnic area and just Rod and I were left on the boat.  All you had to do is step off the back of the boat in about a foot of water but Tara just wouldn't jump off.  Rod ended up picking her up and carrying all 60-70 pounds of her off the boat and onto dry land.  It was so funny.  Tara was the goofiest dog.

     Tara was so good with tiny children.  She would let them climb all over her and pull her ears and tug her coat and Tara just reveled in the attention.  She never snapped or barked but was always loving.  She liked to have her ears scratched and she'd sidle up to you to get rubbed and give affection.  Tara was the lovingest dog.

     When Rod and I got married and went on our honeymoon Shawn was engaged to a wonderful guy and they were able to take Tara for us while we were away.  While we were gone it was over the Fourth of July weekend 1995.  Shawn and Jim and Jon took Tara and went down to the beach to play and run and watch the fireworks.  Tara heard the first rocket go off and she took off in terror.  Shawn said she thought oh, no! we've got to find Tara or Sandy will be so upset.  They did find her.  When Tara ran off she found the police station and went inside and was there when Shawn and Jim came to report her missing.  Happy ending.  Tara was the smartest dog.

     Rod and I came back from our honeymoon and they all came over to the house and brought Tara with them.  We visited and had a wonderful time and when it was time for them to leave they started walking out the door and Tara walked out with them!  She loved being with a happy loud and loving family instead of with us calm and quiet old guys.  We let her go.  Shawn was happy to have her dog back.  We were happy that Tara was happy.  Tara was the gladest dog.

     In October Shawn and Jim were married and we took Tara back with us while they were on their honeymoon.  Tara, who by this time was starting to get grey hair in her muzzle, had a wonderful few years at the end of her life.  When she got congestive heart failure and crossed over the rainbow bridge we had her earthly remains cremated and Shawn, who has the softest heart for animals still has them.  I have Tara's purple collar and the little necklace I made for her with two red string bracelets with little jade leaves.  She was the BEST dog.

     

QUIPS AND QUOTES AND THIS AND THAT

A little of this and a little of that gleaned from conversations and such the last six months.

1.  "T-minus Merlot"

2.  I finally put the down comforter on the bed last night and along with the new pillow top mattress it felt like I was going to sleep in the middle of a marshmallow.  November 2012

3.  I don't text.  I just found out today that K is text speak for an answer to a question.  Imagine that, having to shorten OK.

 4.  MUSIC     By Sandy Abold
                       A cacophony of discordant noise.
                       Oh, please no.
                       Please, yes, please
                       Sound so sweet to ease my soul

5.  "Generally...by the time you are Real..most of your hair has been loved off..and your eyes don't see as well and you get loose in the joints and very shabby.  But these things don't matter at all..because once you are Real you can't be ugly..except to people who don't understand."   The Velveteen Rabbit

6.  "FELONIOUS STUPIDITY" - don't remember where I saw this this fall but loved it.  I wish it were my original thought.

7.  Border collies are THE smartest dogs.  I saw a test once on a TV show where they put a blanket over  a dog to see how long it would take it to find it's way out.  This was a test for intelligence.  The border collie was out immediately.  The poor basset hound never did find it's way out and had to be rescued.

8.  Too old for make up sex.  Oh dear!

FEEDING CATS

     Pumpkin has dinner with us every night.  I always take a little bit of whatever we're having and cut it up real small and put it in a saucer on the floor between me and Rod.  Pumpkin loves spaghetti with meat sauce and I always use whole wheat pasta as once the sauce is on it you can't tell it's good for you.  I think it tastes better.  He also likes steak and chicken chopped up real small because cats don't really bite and chew they tear and shred with their teeth and tongue.  Pumpkin always expects his tribute.  His regular diet is a half a can of wet cat food in the morning and in the evening  He's my only inside the house cat.

     Other than Pumpkin you all know we have five other cats I've described before.  Miss Mosby who lives on top of the water heater in the garage.  Her daughter Silver who lives outside in an old old 1980's Mercury that once belonged to my Mother-In-Law.  The driver side window is down just low enough she climbs in from the roof and has good shelter and is where she moved when she left her mother and had her one and only litter of kittens.  Spot and Skye are Silver's kittens and my big boys and live in the garage.  Skye likes to go in the attic and takes care of any varmints that might try to take up residence.  He also likes to go on the roof.  Spot is huge!!  Not fat.  HUGE!  Rod says he probably weighs fifteen pounds.  Rod's taught him to "high five".  Ruffles is our little refugee that showed up winter before last running with raccoons.  He was so little we figure when he was "abandoned" by whoever dumped him in the country the raccoons found him and nursed him with their own.  He decided he liked it here with us and Spot and Skye acted like old uncles.  Every winter there's a new stray and I haven't named this one yet (Lord, please, I don't want to be the cat lady).  We'll see what happens but I don't want him to bugger my other cats and so far he's keeping his distance.

     Okay, for feeding, this goes for the morning feed and the evening feed.  Everyone gets dry food but Pumpkin who has difficulty digesting it.  Spot, Skye, and Ruffles all my good big boys get dry food in an aluminum pie tin with five dollops of  wet food on top from the half can.  Miss Mosby and Silver get a little Pyrex bowl of dry food each with a dollop of wet on their's too.  Now that the new cat has shown up he gets the same as Mosby and Silver.

     The dollop is getting smaller and smaller but everyone gets a taste and it's their favorite and always eaten first.  That can of wet food goes a long way.  I've started thinking it's like the Bible Story of  Jesus's sermon on the mount where he feeds the multitude with three fishes.  I think maybe there has been Divine intervention.
    

Rod has taught  Spot to high five and shake hands.

   

       

UNIDENTIFIED

     In the late 1960's my Mom, Grandmother, and baby sister Kim experienced an unusual event.  I know it was after 1967 because my daughter had been born but don't exactly remember the year.  My baby sister who had been born in 1960 was under ten years old so I think it may have been 1967/1969.  It happened in the evening at my Grandmother's house on Popes Head Road in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Fifty years ago there was more than fifty acres of fallow field behind the house.

     I need to first give you the layout of the house.  It was situated on a small hill and a big curve in the road on Popes Head Road and had a driveway that came down and curved around the house and exited out on the other side of the curve.  If a car pulled into the driveway in the evening the car lights would shine in the picture window and shine through the living room into the dining room.  The dining room also had a big window with the back porch on the other side of it and looked down at the driveway behind the house where everyone parked, the end of the yard, and onto a fallow field that had been a cornfield in the 1950's.  Everyone who knew our family knew we parked behind the house and always used the back door which opened into the kitchen.  We never used the front door only to go out and sit on the front porch or go in the front yard.

     On the evening in question a light came through the picture window and my family thought someone had pulled into the driveway.  When no one came to the back door they looked out the dining room window and saw the backyard and field lit from above.  In the air was "something" they described as rotating lights hovering over the field.  At first they thought it might be a helicopter but IT MADE NO NOISE a point that alarmed them.  They did not go out on the porch only watched from the dining room window.  It hovered there for moments then sped off with whirling lights going around and around on the dish shaped edges of whatever it was.

     Mom was not the type to get hysterical or have an hysterical response to things as she was very level headed.  She told me about this incident when she returned to California the next week as she had been visiting Grandmother in Virginia.  She also told me that it was reported that the Vienna or Falls Church police (I can't remember now which she said and Mom passed  in 1998) chased something in the sky that night.  This they had heard on the nightly news.  She never talked about the incident after that and never brought it up at parties or family gatherings.  Grandmother and Kim never talked about it either.  Recently I asked Kim who is thirteen years younger than me what her memory is and she says she's not sure now what she heard or what she saw or what she was told as she was young and declined to discuss it.

 I accepted Mom's story and never questioned it and only discussed it with a very few people because it does sound crazy.  UFOS.  I suppose the part about the police following something in the night sky back then could be researched.  I tried doing a Google search but only the 1950 something Washington DC  UFO event seems to be recorded.  I'll always wonder.

   

THE CHRISTMAS PRESENT

Evie and Ginny

     It was Rod's and my year to spend Christmas in Virginia with my daughter and her family.  Rod and I had been Christmas shopping and I probably bought books, my favorite gift, for my granddaughters who were six and four years old.  We were in Toys-R-Us and Rod spotted this 2.5 to 3 foot tall Tyrannosaurus Rex and he wanted to buy it.  I kinda looked sideways thinking these are little girls they're not going to want a big ole dinosaur...that's a boy's toy.  He bought it anyway and I tied a bow around it's neck and put it under the tree with their presents Christmas Eve after they'd gone to bed.

Photo taken by Ginny

Ally and Jerome

     Our room was on the bottom floor of Rick's and Robin's three story home.  It was a grand room that had at one time been Rick's home office and we had our own bathroom and we slept on an airbed with a big warm down comforter over us and one under us.  Christmas morning we were awakened when Ginny and Evie came bouncing down the stairs all excited that Santa had come.  "...and there's a DINOSAUR!!"  they both cried out all excited for us to wake up and come upstairs.  My "heart grew three sizes that day".  It was a wonderful Christmas.

     I learned my lesson that year about what a child's heart will love.  That dinosaur has been a guest at tea parties held on the kitchen floor with a tea towel thrown over an upside down basket along with dollies and stuffed animals.

     This fall Rod found the same dinosaur at Toys-R-Us here in California and it now belongs to our thirteen year old granddaughter Ally.  Ally's dinosaur is named Jerome.  Merry Christmas.

 Love, Sandy

LAST WEEKEND November 9 - 13, 2012

BIRTHDAY GIRL EVIE  AND BIG SISTER GINNY

BATTLE ROYAL IN THE BOUNCY RING

PARENTS ENJOYING THEMSELVES

EVIE ON ONE OF THE SLIDES

Well, we're home again home again giggity gig.  My dad always said that as he pulled into the driveway.  It's from an old children's rhyme "To market to market to buy a fat pig.  Home again home again giggity gig."  We were in Virginia last weekend for our youngest granddaughter Evie's sixth birthday at The House of Bounce.

Started off Friday by getting up at 3AM in the morning so we could catch a 5AM flight out of our little northern California town of Chico.  If you don't get the early flight out the next flight isn't till noon and you miss most of the flights to the east coast out of San Francisco and we fly space available as retired United employees.  So, guess what I did?  We pulled up to the front of the tiny Chico Airport to unload our bags and I go "Where's my purse?"  You guessed it, I walked out with all kinds of stuff to load in the car and left my purse with my IDENTIFICATION at the house.  The TSA's (security) at the airport have a procedure to clear you for travel if you've lost your ID but even if they did that I had no ID to get me back to California so we went home getting back to the house about 6AM and Rod re-listed us for
the noontime flight out of Chico to connect with a flight that would get us into Washington Dulles at midnight so we went back to bed till 9AM.  We had no problems getting out of Chico on the noon flight and good luck getting on the first of the two chances to get out of San Francisco.  My daughter Robin was good enough to pick us up in the middle of the night.

Saturday morning was fun with Rick, Robin, Ginny, and Evie as Rod unpacked all the stuff we brought...a couple of different jars of olives (pimento, almond stuffed, garlic stuffed, big unpitted queens) and olive oil from the Olive Pit in Corning,  four big pomegranates we got from our nephew Robbie who had access to an orchard full  (checked at Giant Foods and they were $3.00 a piece), dry salami and two loaves of fresh sour dough french bread, and something my son-in-law Rick and my two granddaughters covet, a jar of pomegranate jelly made by my sister-in-law Barbara.  The Best!  With Tillamook cheddar cheese and Triscuits lunch Saturday was a feast!  Oh, I almost forgot,  Rod also brought with us a case of beer he got from the Sierra Nevada Brewery in Chico.  Tumbler, Rick liked it when they visited us last August.  The rest of Saturday was used to visit and get over jet lag since there's a three hour time difference between California and Virginia.

 On Sunday it's off to The House of Bounce for Evie's sixth birthday party.  This is the greatest place.  They have four huge blowup slides and a blowup bouncy ring in a huge wharehouse like facility.  They even have comfy couches and coffee and sodas for the parents who come.  It was fun to see Kelly and her son Ian who is about four days older than Evie, Sally and her son James and daughter Charlie, and Evie's kindergarten friends and old friends from Chesterbrooke Academy.  They serve pizza and sodas and birthday cake at the end and the birthday child sits on a throne while opening presents.  The kids sing Happy Birthday and always end the song with Cha Cha Cha.  Sunday evening we drove to Old Town Alexandria and parked by the Potomac for a great dinner at Rick and Robin's favorite restaurant the Fish Market .  I had shrimp and Rod had grilled sea bass.  Yum!

 I always love to go to Rick and Robin's because they have great computer service that's FAST!  No waiting and waiting for something to come up and I even got to see YouTube stuff I never get to see at home because dial up is so slow and the only thing we can get in the middle of nowhere.  Rick says I only come to see them to use their fast computer service.  Of course that's not true but I do go through withdrawal when we get back home.

Tuesday morning it's up again at 3AM to catch a 6AM flight out of Washington Dulles back to San Francisco.  We got to the airport at 4:15AM only to find that the first flight had cancelled.  We stood by for the next two flights, remember we're space available retired employees, but finally got on a flight that arrived in San Francisco about noontime.  We were happy to have exit row seats together with extra leg room.  It's rare to get first class anymore.  There wasn't another flight to Chico till almost 5PM so we had a long wait at San Francisco and we passed the time having a dinner and Rod got on the computer and I played Scrabble on my IPad and caught up on the FB news.  We were lucky to get on that 5PM flight and finally got home around 7PM.  EXHAUSTED!  3:00AM East Coast time is midnight California time so collapsing in bed at 8PM  I slept till 8AM this morning.

   

   



     

SOME THOUGHTS AND A QUOTE

How many of us grew up in a little town or village built on a railroad line, not built on a busy highway or heavily traveled road, but a two lane road that leads off into the heartland.....mountains, hills, flatland or by a river or stream... where our hearts and our memories yearn for and come back to us in dreams of home.

"All things share the same breath...the beast, the tree, the man, the air shares it's spirit with all the life it supports."  Chief of Seattle

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  WOW!  That was a lesson for me from the 1970's when I moved to San Francisco and found beauty comes in many forms....not just the Anglo idea of beauty I grew up with in Virginia.  Huge lush lips...asses the size of hams, skin color in every range from milk white to ebony or freckled, hair both curly curly or pin straight, eyes small to large, thick lashes/fine lashes.  OMG my husband as a young man was gorgeous in no way I was attracted to as a girl....thin, thin rock star thin with cruel eyes protecting a heart of gold.  Eye colors not blue or brown but green or the color of root beer Popsicles.  An artist like a photographer looks for the soul of the subject and the soul isn't always in the eyes.

When I think of those handwritten papers done in no. 2 pencil in grade school with my left had dragging across what I'd written and the perpetual pencil carbon smudge on my left hand and in the eighth grade finding out if I turned my paper the other way and wrote backhanded the smudge didn't happen anymore and my paper stayed clean.  Eighth grade when I developed my own cursive flair that has lasted till today although expediency and age has caused me to abandon some of my most flourishy capitals but the signature is still the same.  All because of my right sided brain.

I never questioned or thought of Mayberry and Andy Griffith's character Sheriff Andy Taylor as anyone or anything or anywhere that was false or made up or different because that was my childhood.  Mayberry was just a little further south than Fairfax, Virginia.