Eye-Rack

So, I haven't updated this in quite a while, and a lot has changed. The big thing recently is that I took a job as a government contractor with a company that supplies bomb-sniffing and other working dogs to overseas contracts. Just over two weeks ago I arrived on a one year contract as in-house veterinarian on a base in Iraq. The big reason for the jump, aside from the money and moving away from private practice, is that the experience should serve me very well when I apply to federal fellowship programs for next year.

So far it's been interesting work. The problems I've encountered have been fairly standard fare, but I'm working with a mix of American, Iraqi, and South African dog handlers, who are by and large really decent and fun people to work with. The dogs range from total sweethearts to eat-your-face-off types, but I rely on the handlers to hold the dogs so I can do my job, and I really love watching all of them work. They're just amazing and really love what they do.

I'm working on learning some Arabic, and the little I do know is already coming in handy. This evening I came out of the shower building to three Iraqi kids from a cleaning crew asking me if it was "Hospital?" After I walked them down to the clinic here on the contractor compound, which had closed for the night, I realized they must have seen me in my scrub top and thought I was the doctor. I was able to explain to them that I'm the veterinarian and that tomorrow there will be an Iraqi doctor at the clinic. By the end of this, I hope to have an additional language skill, which will also come in handy when applying to fellowships.

And aside from all of that, the desert dawns have been quite spectacular.

Snow Bunny

Yesterday I went downhill skiing for the first time in over 22 years. I turn 44 in a few weeks, so that's literally half my lifetime. The last time was in 1991, when I was a first year veterinary student. A group of us spent a weekend at Lutsen.

It was a fun enough weekend, but what I remember most is taking a lift to a second, not very developed, peak that, on the trail maps, had a blue (intermediate) main slope. On the ground, that trail turned to black diamond (advanced) about halfway down with no warning and no alternative way out. For someone who'd only been skiing two or three times as a kid, it was a bit intense. The following summer I messed up my knee, so I didn't feel particularly compelled to try again.

This season, though, David, who also hadn't skied in about 20 years, decided he wanted to try again. So last week, he went with friends of ours while I was at work. This week, my Wednesday was free for the first time in 6 months, as I've been temporarily laid off from job #2 due to the economy (a first for me). David found a midweek deal at a resort within driving distance, so we got up early and headed out.

The deal included a 2-hour lesson, equipment rentals, and a limited lift ticket, which meant we could only use one lift to a fairly short trail. Seeing as it had been so long, it was a pretty good way to get my feet metaphorically wet again. I realized pretty quickly, though, that I was better than I remembered, most likely because I wasn't struggling with a slope way beyond my skill level. I expect all the years of yoga and taiji and learning to pay attention to what my body's doing helped, too. Whatever it is, it looks like we're going to have a new winter pastime.

Sweet Boys

Deathflake Lopapeysa

It took me almost a year to finally get around to finishing this lopapeysu, but the frustrations along the way were so worth the final product. I had to redo the neck twice, and then I had to go back and completely rip out and redo the first sleeve after I realized it was too narrow. The perils of making it up as you go along, I suppose. Next time I go to Iceland, though, this is definitely going along, if nothing else so I can see what Icelanders make of the pattern. In fact, let's just get a close-up of that yoke.



That's the totally kickass Deathflake motif (Ravelry link) paired with a Viking sword motif of my own design. A more badass lopapeysu you'd be hard-pressed to find.

A Small Repair

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that a hole had opened up on one of my felted wool slippers (Haflingers - I heart them greatly).



Life being what it is, I hadn't gotten around to doing anything about it, but it was bugging me, so this morning I grabbed a ball of Shetland Spindrift and a couple of 2.0mm dpns and...



I also used the opportunity to practice knitting in reverse. I can do it almost (but not quite) as fast as I purl now and saved a little time by not needing to turn. It's a handy skill for working short rows. At any rate, felting up my little patch was a very quick affair, seeing as it's Shetland wool.



Then all it took was a tapestry needle, a length of the Spindrift, and a little whip stitch action, et voilà!

Les Bouldogues Français: Une Comedie En Trois Actes

1^ere Acte

2^eme Acte

3^eme Acte

Fin

A Cautionary Tale

I assume most folks who stop by here have heard of Tuvan throat singing, but in case you haven't, it's this:



It's a type of what's called overtone singing, where the human voice operates something like a bagpipe -simultaneously producing both a constant drone note and overtones that carry a melodic line. It's also found in some Tibetan Buddhist chant.



Anyway, it's neat stuff, and while I don't speak the languages nor do I know the exact technique, it is fun to try to play around with the concept. I can usually get a little bit of a harmonic going, too, though nothing approaching the high, whistling overtones the Tuvans can belt out.

So this evening while making dinner, I was singing to the dogs and generally being silly, and once I was done with my prep work, I decided to sit on the floor to serenade them. I'd been trying to sing a song - I don't remember which - in a low bass, but on the low note I kept ending up well sharp of where I needed to be. The dogs seemed particularly interested by the low notes, though, so I decided to start in with a low drone and tried adding in some overtones.

Theo got in close, but then jumped back, not quite sure what to make of it. Chauce stood and watched me for a bit, but all of a sudden he decided he couldn't hold in his excitement and sprang forward, the top of his head slamming into my upper lip and driving it against the edge of my teeth.

There wasn't as much blood as I feared there would be, but it stung when I taste tested the stew I was cooking, it stung when I was eating, and because it's still rubbing against the edge of my teeth, it stings right now. If I wake up tomorrow with a noticeably swollen lip, I'm telling everyone that David came home drunk and slapped me around.

Which will make anyone who knows David pee their pants laughing.

Post-Rhinebeck Post

I took no photos during the festival this year. Actually, I take that back. I took this one for Carol, who wasn't able to make it this year.



And then the ever-adorable Stephen West stopped by to dance under the disco ball in his knit hotpants.



As always, it was a good show, and great getting to see all the people that we only seem to see once a year. Also, buying wonderful things. I came home with a gorgeous black Icelandic fleece, which I'll be taking off for processing so that I'll actually be able to knit something with it in my lifetime. I also found a perfect contrast yarn to make Julia Farwell Clay's Queequeg (which I'll be modifying to eliminate the boob shaping, and possibly with rolled hems). And in case you didn't know, Edie Eckman's latest book made its debut at Rhinebeck.



Maybe I'll show up next year with granny hex hotpants in lieu of the kilt.

Now We Are Six (Months)

We also got neutered 9 days ago and started obedience school 4 days ago, but we're managing both pretty well.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Turns out, graduate school takes up a lot of time. A really, really lot of time. Which means I don't have time for much else. Which means that blogging has gone right out the window. As if you hadn't noticed.

So anyway, here's the short, short version of my summer. We went to South Dakota to visit the in-laws.


N.B. - These are not the in-laws, but I did take the photo in South Dakota.

Part of that trip required that we publicly embarrass ourselves.

Then I had a super busy July at work. Of which I have no readily available photos. And then I managed to be away for most of the month of August. First I went to San Diego for a conference. For funsies one afternoon, I took the trolley down to the border and spent a few hours in Tijuana.



It was dirty and sad and pretty much what I expected, and now that I've been there I don't have to go back. Perhaps someday I can visit a nicer part of Mexico (by which I do not mean Cancún). At any rate, I got back from that trip and was only home for a week before we left for...

...

...

...

...

ICELAND! AGAIN!



This time my parents went with us, and we were there for nearly two weeks and had an absolute blast.



That's sheep! By the ocean! On a fjord! And even though you can't really tell, those are seals out on a shoal behind them! And I have a whole huge whack of photos from the trip here. All I can say is that the trip totally refueled my desire to live there, even if it's only for a year. Or three. Or maybe a decade. Or longer. Meantime, a lot of wool came home with me, and there has been knitting.

Now, though, it's time for bed.

Puppy Windup

Chauce is always excited to get home from work so he can see little brother Theo. David's glad when Chauce gets home so somebody else can deal with all the puppy energy.

So, yeah.

That last post? The question was more or less rhetorical.

No name, as yet, but hopefully within the next couple of days. We got to meet both parents, and they were very nice dogs. Out of the 5 (!!) pups in his litter, he seemed to be the most easygoing, and he gives sweet puppy kisses. He still has quite a bit of puppy energy, though, and I expect the next few months will be interesting.

Chauce has been very good, but he's made it clear that he is Alpha. Fortunately, the pup knows to pay attention, though I can already see him testing to see just where his limits lie. Did I mention the next few months are going to be interesting?

Should We?

BigBoy

So we're three weeks into the new dog, and he's pretty much fit seamlessly into our lives. His name did turn out to be a bit of a sticking point, though. Personally, I was fine with Chaucer. It's a good literary name. David didn't care for it, though, and he was still feeling pretty burnt over the situation with the puppy-who-wasn't-to-be. Naming is a serious business around here.

So after a bit of *ahem* gentle discussion, we finally decided on a truncated version of his existing name that wouldn't land us in divorce court. Of course, I've been spelling it Chauce, and David's spelling it Choss, so it's just as well the dog himself can't spell. Maybe we should go with a phonetic alphabet and spell it चॉस्. Half the time I call him BigBoy, anyway.

All debates aside, he's settled in phenomenally quickly. He loves to walk the neighborhood loop, loves to ride in the car, and gets excited when he sees the harness for either or those. He gets along well with the kitties, gets excited when I come home from work, loves to be cuddled, wants to sleep between us when we watch TV in the evening, and loves having his teeth brushed before bed (poultry-flavored toothpaste - YUM!). In short, he's decided we belong to him, and vice versa.

"A Fascinatingly Disturbing Thought"

In Rome (of all places) I was approached by a young American evangelist who was, apparently, trying to convert all those Roman heathens to Jesus lovers. I told him that I didn't believe in a Creator and explained that being part of this universe was special in its own right, that the fact that we exist at all is beautiful and awe inspiring in itself. The only response he had was, "I just feel like there HAS to be something." What he didn't realize is that there IS something, and it's called quantum physics.

Our New Bundle of Joy

There is one, but not the one we thought we were going to be getting. It's a long, sordid tale, but the super brief version is that the co-owner of that pup, who had been raising him, decided on Tuesday, the day before we were to get the pup, that she couldn't give him up. We found out later that she had been blindsided and railroaded into the whole situation, so as much as we had become emotionally invested in the idea of having him, we certainly understand her feelings and wish her and the pup the best.

Anyway, since we were back at square one, we went back to some of the other leads we had. I had filled out a very extensive (and novel, and very impressive) online screening questionnaire at one breeder's website but had not heard back, so I e-mailed them and briefly explained our situation. Not too long after I got a very nice e-mail back telling me that they had an adult male, a champion show dog they'd recently retired from their breeding program. They thought they'd found a home for him, but that situation fell through at the last minute, also on Tuesday.

David and I decided that we wanted to meet him, so after a bit of e-mail exchange, we drove down to the same venue where David had met the other pup to meet the breeder, who was showing that day. We had a wonderful conversation with him and met the dogs he was showing, then agreed to meet elsewhere that afternoon to meet Chaucer, the boy they were trying to place. We also learned more of the back story regarding the situation with the other pup David had met. Suffice to say, it left us less impressed than we already were with the other breeders.

At any rate, he went home with the other dogs, retrieved Chaucer, and we met up in Connecticut to see Chaucer for the first time. He clearly knew SOMETHING BIG was going on and was a bit keyed up, but he was a sweet boy and asked me to pick him up right off the bat. So after spending another hour or so with him and the breeder, we decided to bring him home with us.

He was a bit wound up about the kitties, but he's been super good with them. He also has an incredible level of energy and loves to run and play, though he's perfectly calm and content to flop down and sleep when he's indoors. He's also extremely intelligent and willing to learn the rules of the house.

He is, of course, not Tuck. No dog could be. That said, the synchronicity that brought him to us could not have been more perfect. He has integrated into our household so seamlessly that, just as with Tuck, I can't imagine we'd have been able to find a better dog for us at this time. I don't really believe in much, but I do believe that some things are meant to be. This is clearly one of those things.

On Loss, and New Beginnings

T.S. Eliot got it wrong. This year, at least, March was the cruelest month. A really, really horrid month. On the 10th, we lost Sylvie, whom David had adopted as a pound kitty back in 1995. She had lost some ground from apparent inflammatory bowel issues, but we seemed to be making headway dealing with that. Within a 4 week period from February to March, though, she developed a liver tumor, most likely a biliary adenocarcinoma, and deteriorated quickly.

Sylvie was the Jan Brady of our little blended family, always complaining that her adopted siblings were stealing away her attention. In her younger years, she had been something of a teenage runaway, once escaping and getting trapped in a nearly inaccessible space between two apartment buildings in New Jersey.

Then exactly two weeks later came the cruelest blow of all. We had to say goodbye to our dear, sweet Tuck. As happens with his type of condition, his lungs had fibrosed to a point that they simply couldn't sustain him anymore. After a week of back-and-forth between home and the clinic to put him in oxygen, we finally had to face the reality of the situation and the fact that it just wasn't fair to him anymore. I always tell my clients that quality of life for a pet means they can eat, drink, pee, poop, and sleep reasonably comfortably. When all was said and done, Tuck could only sleep relatively comfortably, so he spent his last hour and a half lying on a bed between David and me, with his head resting in my hand and equal measures of tears and kisses.

And I'm realizing now why it's taken me two weeks to write this. As much as I know that it was the right thing for him, I miss my littledog so very, very much. The funny thing about grief, though, is that it's not linear.  Sometimes it sneaks up and grabs you by the short hairs when you least expect it. 

And although there will never, ever be another Tuck, his absence left a hole in our lives, so it didn't take long for us to start looking. I thought about a border collie, partly because it seemed like less of a cheat, I suppose. David, however, would have none of that. He wanted another frenchie, and really, I did, too. There's a lot of personality in a very compact, but decidedly non-froofy package - all the things I love in a dog.

So I started by looking at the rescue listings and none seemed appropriate for our household, so then I moved on to breeders. We agreed that a younger, healthy dog was what we wanted this time. Losing Tuck so soon was a heartbreak like no other, and we don't want to go through that again for a good long while. And after a bit of communication back and forth with a few breeders, David ended up driving to Springfield, MA, early this morning to meet a juvenile male, 9 months old today, whom the breeders had decided to cut from their show line. It was, apparently, love at first sight. Having such a young dog will be a change for us, but it sounds like the reason they decided to end his show career was that he was more about snuggles and lovin' than about prancing in the show ring. And that's just fine by us.

We don't even know yet what his registered name is - most likely Campcovo Bella Luna's {insert pop song title} - but we won't be keeping his kennel/call name. David informed me that it's his turn to name this one, though, so I guess we all get to wait to learn what he'll be called in this house. Hopefully he'll be coming to live in this house within the next week, so fingers crossed David hurries up.

Deathyoke

So I missed my 6th blogiversary a couple of weeks ago. A lot's been going on - much of it very stressful and for another day when I feel up to writing about it. School, so far, is going well, though I'm still not as into a groove as I probably should be. Again, a story for another day.

On the knitting front, I've been working on a top-down lopapeysa with Álafoss plötulopi I brought home last year. I decided I wanted to work a yoke with the Deathflake motif and fashioned a sword motif to go in between the repeats to keep the floats from being too long. I love the way it's turning out, though I'm going to have to snip out the neck and redo that - my shoulders are too wide for the pattern section, so the neck bunches up at present. Since I can't rip out from the neckline, I'll have to cut somewhere just above the pattern section & pick up stitches as I pick out a round. Then I should be able to do a quicker reduction in stitches and make a new, somewhat wider neck.



It's a look that suits me well, I think.

Ste. Brigid's Day

I'm not sure if anyone is still doing this out there, but I like the bloggy tradition of Ste. Brigid's Day poetry, even though I've not always been consistent about it. At any rate, I thought that this year I'd share one from a poet I actually know.

Dream: Intruder

by Mark Wunderlich

A storm boiled the ocean.
The room's heavy timbers shifted
as the wind pushed the town.

Beside you, I dreamed I saw a ghost.
Blond and ageless, he mocked me
with large teeth, slipped his arm

around your tan shoulder
and cradled your neck
with what once was his hand.

I cursed him
for stepping through the membrane
of his world into mine,

for pressing to you
his T-shirt and faded jeans
which he must have worn in life

and were now a bitter shroud.
Like a ship's hold, the room swayed
as I fixed him with narrowed eyes

and pointed with one finger,
forbidding him to ever come again.
You remained sleeping

unaware that he had found us
or that the draft that tarnished the room
blew from the other side.

Photo flagrantly lifted from here (and lightly photoshopped).

Startitis Lopapeysum

I decided that I needed some quick-ish gratification, so after a bit of swatching and some calculating over the past few nights, I cast on this evening for a new lopapeysu made með tvöfaldum plötulopa að ofan I'd been trying to decide what to do with for months. That it was going to become a sweater for me was never in question, but I hadn't decided on the form.

Truth be told, I'm not entirely certain even now about all the fine details, but I have design inspiration and a motif I've been wanting to use for a while. And, I hope, enough wool to pull it off.