Mambo Taxi

Rover, age 4 months, taken just before Halloween 2002.  In Elora Gorge, if I'm not mistaken.  On a day with weather much like it was earlier today- warm enough, but most definitely Autumn.

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* Stop talking about politics for a moment or two.
* Post a reasonably-sized picture in your LJ, NOT under a cut tag, of something pleasant, such as an adorable kitten, or a fluffy white cloud, or a bottle of booze. Something that has NOTHING TO DO WITH POLITICS.
* Include these instructions, and share the love.

We never taught roverthedog that when I go for my wallet, she's getting a walk. (In contrast, she ignores my ipod: sometimes she gets a walk, sometimes I'm washing dishes.)

We certainly never taught her that when we're sitting on the couch with her, if we yawn or stretch, she must get off the couch. She's fine-tuned: when I put down the paper, before I even start stretching, she'll wake up and hop down. It seems that when we yawn or stretch at other times, she pays no attention: it isn't that she thinks a yawn/stretch are a sign she's doing something wrong. And sometimes even a small yawn will get her off the couch. (Then she comes back and puts her head on the cushion and looks up at me until I pat the back of her head and she jumps back up.)

roverthedog is acting strangely- clingy, won't stay settled, panting a bit, occasionally whining. At the same time, she's not listless; she jumped up when we offered a walk. And ran around like her usual lunatic self on the walk. But now, laying on my office floor, definitely not happy.

I'm 75% expecting she's OK till the morning before I call the vet; but it's that 25% that wants to call the emergency number...

(giggle).

...yesterday a LGA food-stand sold me a Bloom-County branded bottle of tea, made by Honest Tea. I wish I could say it was tasty, but... it was weirdly peach flavoured. But the label's cute. "This Fair Trade oolong tea is halfway between a black and green tea; like Opus is halfway between a chicken and a doorman." Yeah.

I'm very glad to be home.

Today, d. and I took advantage of the 14-degree weather (!) to take R for a long walk in the Guelph arboretum, where our little bundle of fur got herself turned into a bundle of swamp-mud and twigs. Conveniently, they had a clean-water pond on-site which we could send her through before heading back to the car.

Tomorrow's the first day at my new job! Yay. Paperwork and more paperwork, most likely. I'll be sure to get photos of my new office some time this week.

Oh, and this about "Welsh Dragon Sausages" running afoul of the UK label laws, for their sausage name having "Dragon" instead of "Pork"... is really funny.

I'm catching up through Sunday, which was a pretty nifty end to our weekend in Boston.

The high-points to the morning for me were:

Seeing Wendy after Quaker Meeting. She's a writer, reaching retirement age, half of a lesbian couple who we met through Queer Quaker circles, and we got to know them much better while we lived in Boston. Wendy's partner, Polly, is trying to finish her PhD and both dan and I had tons of empathy with the both of them. Wendy's the sort of person who lights up a room, and it was great to have twenty minutes with her.

Walking in Harvard Square before Meeting was quite peaceful. Since it was early on a Sunday, traffic was quiet, so my predominant impressions were tree-lined streets, birds chirping, insects buzzing, very old brick buildings, and lots of cobblestone.

This led me to mostly thinking about privilege and obligation during Meeting. I'll keep thinking about it, and try to come up with something coherent and interesting to write. :)

Subjective time is funny. Dan says that during Meeting there were no breaks between people talking that were longer than two minutes, sometimes no more than 30 seconds. I've got no reason to doubt that, since his time sense is- honestly- much more accurate than mine. But I had a different perception, that some messages were separated by lots of silence, during which time I digested the message and went back to considering what I was meditating on. That silence changed the entire meeting for me. I agreed with him afterward that there were far too many messages, but I thought the overall meeting was "Ok".

We missed seeing Sharon and Mark, who we'd hoped would come to Meeting. Mark is Dan's nephew, who just turned nine; we last saw them when they came to visit us a year ago. But making the connection was going to be difficult, as they were in the 'burbs and apparently had a full weekend as well.

After Meeting and catching up with Polly, we had leftover-dinner for lunch, and spent a little while book-shopping at the Harvard Book Store. They get points for noticing and telling me that a $10 book I was buying (as a Christmas present) was in remainders as hardcover for $6. Bonus!

Back on the green line to our hotel, to meet up with Malia and Amy. Dan had mused that he wished we had their phone number, since there were bound to be a better place to meet them. At the other end of the subway car... were Malia and Amy!

We got off at the Common, and spent the afternoon sitting above the Frog Pond catching up with the both of them. They're great folks; both in their mid-thirties and they've been together three years longer than we have. When I first met them, it was probably about two years into our relationship and I was impressed that they'd been together for a whole *five years*. Heh.

As for that afternoon, we lazed around until about 5:30, then caught our respective trains and d. and I made our way to the airport, getting home late to *roverthedog* already *home*. (It's really great having a neighbour watch the dog for us. We *so* owe them a dinner).