They Come and They Go...

Birthday + 3 days. This year was an uneventful birthday. I worked. The manager from another store was there doing displays. It was okay-not too much to change after she left. I got flowers delivered from my daughter and her family:

They're really pretty, and it was nice to get the recognition during the day. Lauren went to Champlain Chocolates and brought me a little box of chocolates. That was sweet. I left just a bit early, and drove home. Then we left to meet my sister and brother-in-law for dinner at Jeff's Restaurant in town. It's a seafood restaurant and normally really good. It was good. I had seafood stuffed salmon, salad, shared a few appetizers, and each couple shared dessert. It was freezing outside and windy, and it was cold in the restaurant. We were there about 2 hours (lots of time between courses.) Then they came back to our house for a few minutes for me to open their gift-a basked filled with chocolate (a true theme this year!) lids, vanilla and a sweatshirt. I also got a movie from my daughter, one I'm really anxious to watch, a goodie box from my daughter filled with wine, cookies, crackers and bruschetta, and a gift card to get some badly needed new shoes. I have been wearing the same pair for at least 10 years, probably more. I don't wear them all that much, but they're my everyday, winter shoes outside of work. So, maybe twice a week for a few hours if I go anywhere, until I switch to sandals. But still...10 years? I got my new ones today, and promptly threw out my old ones. These are really comfortable. 

I've not written for a long time. Fall came and went:

Early in December we had the most beautiful snow since we have been here. 18" of clingy whiteness that made it a gorgeous Winter Wonderland. It came over 4 days, and the snow highlighted every branch and twig around and I oohed and ahhed my whole way into work. It was just so beautiful:

Then Christmas came and went too:

But Christmas was pretty great because my daughter, son-in-law and this cutest of all boys were here for 2 whole weeks:

He is just the most fun! I loved having him around. We had some bad colds going around during the holidays, but we managed to still have a good time. Christmas dinner included my sister and brother-in-law, and their daughter and her family. They came from Singapore and had only gotten to Vermont 2 days before Christmas, so pretty much they slept thru Christmas because of jet lag. I'm sure, in the years to come, we'll hardly be able to remember they were here at all.
Now, we are about to turn the calendar on another month. It has been a brutal, frigid, cold winter. The last time we had a high of 32° was on January 29th. Right now it's 2°. Earlier today it was 12° and with the sun shining it actually felt mild. But, so many days were  below 0 with way below 0 wind chills. We aren't even thinking of tapping the trees. Suzee and Al are on their way back from California, and should be back home on Sunday. We have been watering their plants and using their truck with the plow while they were gone. Perhaps they'll tap next weekend if we really do get above freezing in the week to come. 

All in all, I am quite close to the next decade of my life. My health is good, my memory is ok, I get around fine, I still work and drive. But sometimes it does get scary when I stop and think about how quickly the year comes and goes...

The Kuma Bush

The Kuma Bush

Last Friday we went over to our nearby garden center and looked around for a special plant, and the plant above, by the lamppost  is what we bought. It is called a "Little Lamb Hydrangea," and it is very special to us. On Tuesday we brought home Kuma's ashes in a very nice, carved, wooden box. But we already knew what we were planning on doing with it. When our first Samoyed dog, Cody, died we bought 4 azalea bushes, and placed his ashes below the plants, which then bloomed white every spring. When we moved up to Vermont, we dug up one of the plants to bring with us, and we could still see the ashes in the ground that came with the plant. It is planted at our house here:

 The Cody Bush

It is by the rock steps that lead up to the porch door. It blooms white every spring, and we call it the Cody Bush.
Now, we also have a Kuma bush. After we got home, we decided on the spot by the lamppost because we would see it from the house, and also coming down the driveway. It will bloom with white flowers all summer, until early fall, when the blooms turn a light pink color as they begin to fall off. The blooms had already turned pink at the garden center because they will do that faster in a container. There was one white stem left, the lower one on the left side. We dug a deep hole, and placed his ashes in the bottom of it, then placed the plant on the top. It was sad, but it will be a great reminder of Kuma every summer as it blooms and greets us each time we come home, just like he did. There are still times I feel like he is around, still things I do that remind me of him, and I still miss him. We always said he had the best, goofiest personality. 

Cleveland

 A garden is a community where difference is neither exploited or excluded but celebrated as a divine gift necessary for wholeness.

I found this quote on a railing in the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. This was the first place I headed on Wednesday morning on my little walking tour of the area we are staying at. It was a great place to wander on a warm, sunny morning. Throughout the gardens they had incorporated Lego statues, like this giant one of a hummingbird and flower made completely out of regular sized Legos:

It was fun, and I really enjoyed a nice, leisurely walk. I kept thinking that my grandson would have loved walking thru it too, with lots of places to see, places to play, even a Waterfall Garden I think he would have liked to visit.

Yesterday, I headed to the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, and spent most of the day there because they had a show at the planetarium I thought I would go to, and that wasn't until 2:30 in the afternoon. The morning one was Big Bird's Space Journey, but I opted out of that one. Walking thru all of the exhibits, I pretty much realized that I have, during my lifetime, seen just about all of it in one museum or another-dinosaurs, minerals, rocks, stars, how the earth formed, etc.

But, every museum has something to draw people to it, and I went there to see "Lucy!"

  

Of course I had heard about her, so it was exciting to actually see it in person. They also had a moon rock there, but I know I have seen moon rocks at other museums, probably the National History Museum in DC.

Today will be my last day in Cleveland. The sun is just starting to come out, so I think I will head over to the Art Museum and journey thru there for a few hours. Nothing special is drawing me there, but the building is fabulous, so it should make for a nice morning.

First Stop...Niagara Falls, Canada

We left Monday for a business trip to Cleveland. It's not my business trip, so I am having a fun, relaxing time visiting sites around the area. Cleveland is a long, 12 hour drive from Vermont, so to break it up a bit, we decided to detour over to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, since we have never been there. The "big city" is pretty overwhelming when you haven't been accustomed to it in a long while. The traffic crossing the border was heavy, and the commercialism of Niagara Falls is ridiculous. But the site of the falls is beautiful, and the weather both the afternoon we got there, and the following morning was perfect. We stayed in a Hilton Hotel so we could have a really nice view of the falls from our room, plus Champlain College would be paying part of the bill, so it was worth the splurge. Here are a few photos:

 Here I am looking over the American Falls.

 This is the Canadian Falls, which is just up from the American Falls.

 Closer view of the American Falls from our room.

 The sun rising over the American Falls. View from our room.

 It was a great stop, and I'm really glad I was able to visit it, but it's probably not something I would go back and do again. But I guess, for just about any major tourist attraction, you have to put up with the crowds and traps that generate the money needed to keep the area functioning. 

A Little Lonely...A Little Lost

Kuma and Mishka

10 February 2011

So, although Kuma is gone, we still have our little Mishka. Mishka is 2 years older than Kuma was, and she will be 10 in December. She often limps on her back right leg, but other than that, she seems pretty healthy. She has always been a sweet, lovable dog who yearns for all the attention you could possibly give her. She is calm and fairly quiet. She and Kuma had some great playing times when they were younger. They would do tug-of-war with pull toys, dragging each other back and forth until one finally tired out and gave up. They would roll around out on our porch when it was all screened in, stretching the screens to the max. One day they were both out there, and after awhile it seemed rather quiet. I let Mishka in, then looked around the corner for Kuma. No Kuma. But a large tear was visible in the screen at the far end of the porch. Had Mishka followed her brother out the hole? No, she was a good doggie. Had she barked to let me know he was running wild? Nope, not a peep. In fact, I suspect she was rather glad to see him go, and was happy with the peace and calm for awhile. They shared toys and treats and often finished each others food when no one was looking. They sometimes slept close to each other, but other times went their own way too. But if we went for a ride in the car, they were always together in the back seat.

Now, there's only Mishka, and she still seems rather confused. She won't lay in her normal spot in the living room. She takes awhile to eat in the morning. like she's waiting for us to put Kuma's food down too. At night, when I take her out before bedtime, she lags back because Kuma always took forever to get up. But the hardest is when we have to leave the house. She comes downstairs and goes to the door of the garage like she doesn't want to be left alone in the house. She sits there looking at me as if to say, "Please don't leave me by myself. It's too lonely, I don't know what to do." We have a trip coming up, and we have debated what to do with her. We had planned to take both of them to the kennel where we always leave them and where we also take them to be groomed. We do have a neighbor who would come over to check on Mishka if we wanted to leave her at the house, but we think it will be best to take her to the kennel. She will be with other dogs and people nearly all the time because it's also a doggie daycare, and we are thinking that may be best. We don't want her to feel completely abandoned in the house. It will be hard on her and on us, and I know we will be so glad to see her when we get back.

Mishka

10 August 2014

"Bear" in Japanese

Kuma

There are some moments in life that will forever remain in our thoughts. 

This is a picture of Kuma. A big, beautiful Samoyed; goofy, funny, strong, kind, clumsy, messy, full of mischief, a chewer of all things, lovable, determined, playful, gentle. He joined our family in January of 2007, while his brother went to my daughter's house in Maryland. As a puppy, I would take him to work with me at the small gift store I worked at not far from here. He would sleep in a little pop-up kennel, and I would take him out for short walks in the nearby park. People would hear him squeaking his little toys and be surprised to see him put his paws on the counter to greet them. Sometimes we would sit on the bench in front of the store and watch the people go by. But then I changed jobs, and no longer took him to work with me. Probably a good thing because he was way too big by then. 

Kuma was trouble. He pulled terribly while he walked you. He chewed up toys, and bones and chair legs and corners of walls. He barked loud. He never laid still to be brushed. He ate driveway stone and grass. He had to be on a leash always, and took forever to come home if he ever did get away. You could walk him up and down the driveway trying to get him to go pee, and somehow I swear he held it just to be stubborn and get an extra 5 minutes outside. 

But Kuma was fun. He loved to come up and put his big head in your lap and wait for you to rub his nose. He would roll over so you could scratch behind his ears and on his back. He played catch with his ball and loved playing fetch. He was overjoyed with every first snow. He would dive head first into the fresh snowbanks and eat as much of it as he possibly could. It took forever to walk him because he had to sample each new snow pile. He never bit or nipped, or got tired of a child being around him. He tenderly took treats from their tiny hands and never once got a finger by mistake. He loved his Sunday pancakes, and rides in the car. He was a good dog, and he is terribly missed.

Last Thursday we took him to the vet and they found 7 tumors had invaded his body. He hadn't really been eating at all for nearly 2 weeks. Only the oatmeal and chicken I would cook for him in the morning. Not enough to keep him going. There was nothing much they could do for him, and he wouldn't get better. He was so sick. And maybe in pain, but we wouldn't know. But he was weak, and getting weaker by the day. We sat by his side, and said goodbye and rubbed his ears and nose. He is everywhere I turn right now, and it will take some time to get used to his not being around. But he will always be loved. Run free Kuma.

It's the Birthday Fairy Again!

It is the eve of yet another of those birthday things! Funny how they come and go each year. Many thoughts are going thru my mind. I am working tomorrow, like a normal, regular Monday. I could have taken off if I really wanted to, but we didn't have anything special we were going to do, so it didn't make a lot of sense to take off to sit around the house for the day. Besides, I really wanted to be off on Friday so I could do what I need to get done before my daughter and her boyfriend come up here from Texas. And really, do I need to take a vacation day on my birthday? I think not. So I will work. But we will go to dinner in Burlington after I finish, and that will be nice. I would have loved for my sister and her husband to join us, but their schedules don't work out for a good dinner time. So instead they will come over here tonight to have dinner with us. We picked up some salmon this morning that is already marinated, and we will roast some asparagus, so it will be a very easy dinner. I did make some rolls:

I made these awhile ago, and they turned out yummy good, so I thought they would go well tonight. And for dessert, I ordered this cake from a very well known bakery in Burlington:

It is a Creme Brûlée cake! It is a yellow cake filled with rich vanilla custard and topped with a crunchy melted sugar topping. Doesn't it look wonderful? I can hardly wait to eat it! It'll be fun. Today has been a busy day; breakfast this morning with my sister and her husband, like normal. Came home and did 4 loads of laundry and cleaned the bathrooms and made the rolls and tended the fire in the fireplace. I almost didn't do a fire because it really is mild out. So mild that there is a hint of spring in the air. And a hint of sugar season in the air. It got up to about 43° which feels wonderful. But the heater was still coming on in the house, and it is nice to have a fire going if you are having guests over for dinner. And speaking of sugar season-we haven't tapped the trees yet, or we would surely be out collecting sap today. I'm sure it would have run. But it has just been such a frigid, cold winter, it didn't make sense to tap yet. They will do that next weekend. I only hope that it warms up a bit when my daughter comes because she is coming for sugar season and it will be a shame if nothing is flowing. But that is the way the sap drips! It is forecasted to be -2° when they get here Saturday night! They will be quite chilly considering it is 70° in Dallas today.
This morning 2 of my daughters ran a half marathon in Disneyworld. It was to commemorate one of their 30th birthday which was 2 weeks ago. I am so glad they had a lot of fun and ran it together. It sounds like they had a great time. It would have been really nice to be there, but I try to not think too much about it. I know it wouldn't have worked out for many, many reasons, but still... In the end, I'm just really glad it worked out for them.
My sister, who lived with us for several months bought a house ten days ago. I am so happy for them. It is a beautiful home and I know the,y will do a fantastic job with it. I can hardly wait to see the seasons evolve there, the setting is so pretty. I did go over for about 5 hours on my day off last Friday and helped unpack maybe 6 boxes. I feel like I should have helped so much more. I'm sure they have been overwhelmed, but it sounds like they have made some progress. I did have them eat over here on Wednesday night and then again tonight. I know its a long process, but I hope they will be really happy there. They are 8.5 miles from our house, and it takes about 15 minutes to get there. We won't see each other every day, but I know we'll see each other often. It is so nice having them close.
That's it. I think that catches up on the basics of life here in Northern Vermont. Winter is winding down, and even if the Polar Vortex does roar his angry head this way again, we know it won't be for a terribly long time. The new season brings lots to look forward to. Life is keen and cozy.