A lesson with Jim which cures the broken RSS.

Yesterday, I had my agility lesson. I go maybe once a month, or lately it's once every 2 months, up to Power Paws for a lesson with the Super Cool Jim Basic.


To get there, it is a journey on a twisty highway, over a mountain, from the sea! Through the valley of San Jose, and back up a mountain. Lots and lots of people in the Bay Area and from even farther away travel for their weekly Power Paws class with Jim or his wife, Nancy Gyes. Jim and Nancy are like the King and Queen of Dog Agility around here. Is that bad to say? Well, they are. But no matter how hard I try to organize it, I can't fit in a weekly class with an hour drive each way. So I go over on any Sunday we can make it work and have a lesson with Jim.


Not only has Jim helped me with just getting better at handling my dogs, he taught me to not totally suck at Gamblers. So I have Masters Gamblers Q's now. I think most of all he's taught me how to better look at a course and get my ass to the right spot for every part of it. But he is also funny and shares my love of all things ranches, and we always have a fun lesson and catch up on ranch things. He is training his puppy right now, Nancy chronicles it in Clean Run. So we talk about our puppies. I told him maybe next time he'll be able to see Gustavo run a little. But he's not ready yet. Jim's puppy is almost ready to make his debut. Mine, not so much.


We did take Gustavo up to his house and practice measuring him. He measures right at 12". I hear all you people with the tough measuring dogs groaning. OH NO! He is way too little to be a 16" dog. Ruby ran at 16" until last year when I moved her to performance and life is better there. He can be a performance dog if I have to, there is no shame in that, but I am going to work on teaching him to be a short 12" when he sees that measuring device. He's only been practice measured by me, so I am going to teach him to stand up short before he gets his real judge measuring. We'll see. He's just not a 16" dog. I'm pretty sure he's stopped growing now, and I just have to teach him shortness.


My dogs are always good at Jim's. They run fast and get all riled up. Ruby almost caught a squirrel there one time, like at least a year ago, and spent a couple runs running out to see if it was still there. But it gets her really fast, so Jim doesn't seem to care. She hit bars, she runs there like she can run at trials. I worked on better paths to possibly help her not leaving so damn long to the jump. Jim thinks she needs glasses. Otterpop is always happy there and runs like a speed demon. We worked on some better serpentines, me staying out of their path, tighter turns, and just me being the best handler I can be.


Jim also got some meatballs out of the shed frig and I ran Ruby back and forth through the poles a few times with visible meatballs on either side. Sort of like how I do at home with tupperwares. She got pretty frenzied and fast, like how I like her, so he said keep plugging away at it. They'll come back. Many meatballs, every single day.


No matter how weird a morning you have because the internet breaks, or how much you didn't sleep the night before because your Timmy was up and pacing, it's like you go to Jim's for a dog lesson and you come out all happy. Thanks Jim!

I swear I am trying to fix the RSS feed.

Hmm. Look what some hoodlum did to all those New State Parks Signs about the leashes.


These are just gratuitous photos. Maybe my mom would like them.


She knows I have a blog. She calls it a Blah-dge. Like rhymes with Lodge. She looked at it once and saw a picture of a dog! It was on the internet! I always thought she would like to see more photos but it's hard to be the child that does not provide actual grandkids but just has a mess of dogs.


But also I took them because I got home from work and Colorado dog agility lady who also loves the Clash, Elayne, put up a picture of herself and her dogs wearing almost exactly what I wore to work yesterday. She said hers was a Crazy Dog Lady Outfit. Mine is just regular work clothes. I may have a horribly wrong sense of what is Regular.


Also, if you know about RSS Feeds and Blogger, I would love any kind of help you could offer me. I do want to have a working RSS Feed but it is woefully beyond my skill level. Thank you so much to the Agility Nerd who has been trying to help me too!

I tried to watch tv for you but then I didn't.

So, someone said to me, "Hey are you watching Top Chef?" OK, they emailed this to me. No one really talks to me. Well, they do. But not about Top Chef. Like am I going to write up little in-a-nutshell stories about it so they don't have to watch it themselves was what they were getting at. Right, because I watch tv so you don't have to.

I sort of watched it. It is hard to fit in all the tv I'd like to with my busy schedule of, I dunno. Playing with the dogs. Fighting oppression by armed State Park Rangers. Work. Not plastering my office. Doodling with pens. Looking for socks and more receipts for the accountant. Like I don't even cook anything in my own kitchen, so it's sort of weird to watch others do it. I guess many people do this all the time with say, Sports. Basketball. Baseball. That is pretty much what is on our tv a lot of the time because some member of my family may be freakishly addicted to various Team Sports shows called The Important Game March Madness Pre Season F*cking Dumbass Giants. At least these are watched with the soundtrack of the stereo and not the real soundtrack. So as far as I know, basketball is always accompanied by Radiohead.

The chefs were making tacos the other night. If you have never seen Top Chef, just imagine Project Runway but they are all restaurant chefs. They are always drinking beer and they seem really jovial compared to fashion designers. It's hard for me to relate to. Project Runway, I got that. Just like art school. But cooking on a deadline? Like if you told me I had 1/2 hour to make a super fancy pants taco, I'd just give you a look and roll my eyes and slowly drive to one of the 18 taquerias within 5 minutes of my house and get you some tacos and call it a day. Right? To me, a taco is sort of a taco is a taco. I believe I do not have a developed palette. I am perfectly happy to enjoy some peanut butter on a piece of celery and dinner is served.

The the chefs had to cook something else and someone made it too salty and I was thinking, this just isn't all that interesting. Like this is just not from my world at all. They can just go to the store and get some stuff and cook it and it is something others would like to eat. And it will probably involve some ducks and pomegranates (I just had to look that up to spell it) and marscapone. Three things I would probably not think of to buy at the store. You have seen what I cook. Please review hot dog slicing and crack cakes. That's as exciting as it gets. I have advanced to sometimes making some boiled pieces of Trader Joe's frozen chicken for a big dog show treat for anyone that is really fast. I serve the leftovers in Ikeaware for teaching weave poles and running a-frames. Presentation, presentation, presentation. I'll show you that someday soon. It is a crazy thing to make for someone that doesn't eat animals. Or my sandwich making technique. I slice the tomatoes! Fascinating! I do feel that I may have some talent in the slicing department though.

We have to find a new tv show. It preferably should be shot in West Texas. Because I have this thing now where that's all I feel like watching on a screen. It will probably go away, these things always do. It's sort of how I get viruses. We are having a Marfa film festival soon at our house for all movies, all Marfa. On NPR today, they were interviewing the director of There Will Be Blood about shooting the movie and I had to sit in the feedstore parking lot to listen and get to the barn really late due to hearing about How To Burn an Oil Fire and Build Their Own Derrick, which are things you can do in West Texas. The feedstore border collie peed on my tire. I didn't care. I was too much thinking of building my own oil derrick and letting the dogs run around in the desert and eating meals from the Food Shark. And then I ran out of time to watch tv for you again.

Wave real hard when you see Timmy.

I haven't been telling you much about Timmy lately. See, some of you, my friends, are new friends and you love to hear about agility. And some of you just love me for my Project Runway. But some of you remember back, before the days of agility, when there was Timmy. And he didn't drift along in a fog, and he would likely bark at you and run around in circles and do some tricks.

That seems like it was a long time ago. When you look into his foggy eyes and you see, well, just fog, it's hard to remember the old Timmy. Not for me, but if you were to just see him shuffling along on the street, and then falling off the curb into the gutter and leaping up and starting to fly around on the end of his leash like a jacked up wolverine, you would probably never believe me how he used to be.

Here's the part where you good dog trainers can go tsk-tsk-tsk at the kind of dog trainer I used to be. When I got Timmy, I was in the part of my life where I quit riding horses. I "Lived" in a big warehouse that was also my art studio where you weren't supposed to live. I slept on a futon on top of a packing crate in the corner, and kept some big paintings over my little corner so no one really could tell. Timmy came from the kind of animal shelter that didn't really check on stuff like you don't have a real address. And he was so sad and pathetic and afraid of people, yet high strung and barky at the same time that I think anyone that would take him was one step better than the inevitable euthanization that was just down the road. So Timmy came home with me and learned from an early age that dogs are not allowed to step in paint or eat pieces of motors or plastic flowers. And that was pretty much it for rules from me. He had his own rule that if someone comes in with a motorcycle helmet and their keys on a big fat chain, to run and hide under a table and not come out.

Timmy was a Go Everywhere dog. He went everywhere with me, and a lot of places with his old friend Toby, another dog that sort of "Lived" in the warehouse. If he wasn't with me in my studio, riding around in a milk crate on the back of my bike, or sitting in the front of my truck, he was off with Toby on adventures such as The Time the Dogs Tried to Get on the City Bus By Themselves or The Time The Dogs Crossed the Busy Street to Join a Fraternity By Themselves or The Time The Dogs Discovered That The People That Work In The Kitchen of the Coffee House Will Always Feed Them Muffins When They Show Up in The Kitchen By Themselves. Those are all true stories and Timmy lived through them all.

The only training class he took was once with this old guy, who was The Guy you went to near San Francisco to take dog classes with at the time. He tried to sell me a pinch collar and wanted me to throw a coke can with pennies inside at Timmy. Like so not the me and Timmy vibe. So I just trained him tricks like Dancing Dog and How to Look Like Princess Diana and that was pretty much it. I just took him everywhere with me at a time when I was an artist having art shows and then being a graphic designer that somehow understood What the Kids wanted, because if you were that kind of graphic designer and artist you could get away with bringing your fluffy black dog into all kinds of places. And if no dogs were allowed, say, at a casino in Reno when you were there to see Johnny Cash, well, Timmy fit neatly into a duffle bag and knew when to keep his trap shut. The most agility he ever learned was to do one jump and one tunnel then just get some treats. It wasn't really his thing.


Timmy's been with me for 15 years. Every single day of his life since he was about 6 months old, except for once when Karl took care of him and he thought he was being kidnapped and sat by the door for the whole weekend. Oh yeah, and Camille took care of him one week when I went to Paris and he barfed on her zebra rug and she gave him to Charlie and Brody. I can't really tell how much time I have left with Timmy. Maybe months, maybe years. He had his first ever accident last night. No matter how sick and frail and dementia-y he's been, I've always been able to wake up to know somehow I need to get Timmy out, even if he's not scratching on a wall that he perceives to be a door. I just seem to know. So that freaked me out. Somehow he was lucid enough to know to go pee on the bathroom rug. The only other time I remember peeing in the house was on Halloween at our old house, and the boys came in the living room in rubber Ronald Regan type masks and he peed all over Gary's wall of records, on that old red carpet with the horsehair carpet pad.


I just thought I'd give Timmy a reason to look so surprised. He just looks like that sometimes and then maybe will go crashing through the house and slam into a wall. Also because that's so Juvenile Photoshop 2.1 and guess who was laying there by my side, when I was right there with Photoshop 2.1. Putting extra arms and warts and stuff on the whole art history database when I was supposed to just color correct. Yep. That was a long time ago.

Running a-frame the haul ass way-a primer.

So yesterday you saw how I'm teaching Gustavo his dogwalk. We patch it together on real dogwalks every time we see one (like how often do you just see a dogwalk?) or on my contract trainer of a wobbly patio table thing. A-frame though, is all about Hauling Ass. So we go practice on a real one every time we can. He gets a click when he hits the yellow paint (which so far is almost Every Single Time!) and then he runs out for the reward that I either throw or is waiting in his tupperware.


I can be pretty far away already, I always run really, really fast too. It is like a race.


I have to watch careful so I don't click if he misses it. But I think he's getting it. I think I'm going to raise it a bit soon.


He's the first dog I've trained all by myself. Without really asking for much advice, or having him in a class. Just doing things the way that I want to try and that I think will work for him. This isn't neccessarily a good thing. I don't have proven results to swear by and I'm not always the most disciplined trainer. I obsess on my canopy color and whether my shoes are ugly. My dogs screw up sometimes and I have never, ever won a Steeplechase Finals. Except with Hobbes. And I didn't train him so that doesn't really count. But I just have this feeling that this is all going to work. And it's just kind of funner this way.

Contact training in small spaces-a primer.

When you have a teensy space to train in, it does help to have small dogs. That is a fact I cannot deny. Team Small Dog might have included big dogs by now if we were living on a ranch with space. We patch together a driveway for the poles, make a tunnel out of a box, and have a modified contact trainer/table thing for contacts. You just do what you can do. I practice anywhere, and everywhere I can. What I would do for a big, flat yard...like one would have if one owned a ranch. A real estate story for another day.


We have dabbled in many contacts. My friends that for whatever freakish reason, don't do agility, you see, they have to run FAST over things made of wood and touch the yellow paint with their feet. Easier said than done. Ruby had a 2o/2o that I modified into a running dogwalk and a-frame, and she runs to the end of the teeter, stands for the ride down and runs off. Otterpop has a 4 on the floor that has been modified into a running dogwalk and a-frame, and she slides into a down on the end of the teeter and holds that til it hits. I'm Super Proud of Otterpop's contacts, and Ruby's do pretty good. Her dogwalk can be dicey when she's really fast. We practice it a lot. Gustavo is learning the same teeter as Otterpop, a 2o/2o dogwalk, and a pure running a-frame at speed. I would love to try teaching a Silvia Trkman dogwalk, but with no space to practice consistently, we're just going with the tried and true.


We only practice the a-frame at top speed, channeling Silvia, with it still super low to the ground. We do this not at my house, where there is just no room for a-frames. So I am like the a-frame slut. If you have an a-frame I can lower and practice on, I am there. I am shameless. As for his dogwalk, he's been over the whole thing a few times, but mostly he practices on running down from the top, or on my thing in our backyard. I want it fast, and a solid, quick set of brakes that release just as fast. I have a modified contact trainer wobbling on a patio table sort of wedged up against my house. Looks great! The game is run over there, up on the table, and down the dogwalk board and slam me a contact.


They all like to practice together. I let them do it. It might be bad agility, but it cracks me up to see them throwing out all their different contacts over and over to see if I'll toss anyone some food. Otterpop usually just shoves everyone else off the top of the dogwalk board like some crazy, drunken pirate. Gustavo is pretty serious about his contacts. He's usually like this little party dude, running around like he's on spring break in Mexico and the vodka slurpees are flowing and strippers are everywhere waving banners with his name on them and he would probably be listening to like, Justin Timberlake and texting EVERYONE! But for his dogwalk stop, he makes this great pause, hits his target, stays there for a cookie, like he is SO MATURE, until I release him off to get a stuffed squirrel or a tupperware and the party just starts all over again.

Today we review all the stuff we find when unpacking cars from dog agility.

For us dog agility ladies, our cars are important pieces of our lives. Because we have a lot of stuff to fit into cars. Dogs. And the dog accessories that make our lives soft and cushy on the weekends at the dog shows.


So in my car, Product Placement 1999 Honda CR-V, I have to fit 3-4 dogs, and all their/our stuff if we are going on an agility outing. This may include, but is not limited to: sheets because I am a freak about motel beds, frisbees, jackets for cold days, a little fan for hot days, crates, water, food, shade cloth, xpen, chair, wheely cart to drag it all around on, a blanket for the dogs, sunscreen, soccer cleats, and The Canopy.


The canopy is what kind of ruined it all for me. When I started taking Ruby to agility trials, I just took her, some treats, and a fold up crate and snuck it under a tree or the canopy of anyone that would tolerate us. People are nice. Entirely too nice when you have a Ruby in a crate who used to growl at dogs that got anywhere near her crate. And me who is alternately anti-social or yacking your head off about a piece of property I am trying to buy. Nowadays, Ruby seems to just act invisible and never comes out of her crate until it's her turn. I still have borderline personality issues that may or may not make you want to hang out with me.


But as I started adding on dogs, I started adding on accessories. An xpen, so the dogs could have a little more space. A folding chair, that I use to put stuff on. Just like my non folding chairs at home. A cooler, so I could bring better treats and healthy vegetables to forget to eat and champagne for special events. A cover for the xpen in case one of the dogs is Gustavo who used to want to escape. Although has stopped escaping, thanks to the additional accessory of little clamps that make the cover even more jail-like. A giant purse to put stuff like the frisbees and soccer shoes and hat and extra shirts and snacks in.


So that didn't just fit under most people's canopies, who already had multiple border collies and xpens to fit. People still tried to squeeze me and my small dogs in, thanks Jim and Roxy! But I had to one day, get my own tent thing. You know them. How you spot Dog Agility Trial from the road. Just look for the sea of blue Product Placement EZ Ups and Quik Shades. Ugly, gangling, portable canopies that take up a lot of room in a car. That you breathe a sigh of relief when you have a good one that goes up and down in a flash. And you have your own hammer to pound the stakes in that keep it from blowing off into whatever cow pasture or garbage dump or Lowe's parking lot is next door to the dog agility. And then that whole ugly business needs hanging panels of shade to keep the dogs cool. Functional, but almost so gut burstingly, heinously, horribly ugly that anyone who Takes Design Seriously has almost quit dog agility over them. Right? Like you can barely go back to your tent to get a dog after gating or running or whatever because the blue tent top and hanging shade panels that make your dogs so cool almost make you fall down weeping right then and there.

And then, just to pound that nail down harder into the coffin, you need the Wheels to drag this repellant pile around which are also heavy and ugly and cost you money on your Product Placement Visa Card and take a lot of space in the car. It goes on and on. My set up is minimal, compared to a lot of people that bring little tables. Misting systems. Dog pools. Giant floor placemats to keep all feet from touching grass. Reclining astronaut chairs. I don't know what else. Mine used to all match at least, some crossover from my life as one of the horsey set and the world of horse show tackroom setups. All things were dark red but that just sort of faded away as dogs got added and I'm left with a visual that will someday get worked out, but for now leaves a blotch in the design of my life.

In this episode, we go to CPE on our own home turf.

I didn't even tell you we were going to a dog show on Easter. It was CPE. Low key. A fast drive away. Maybe you were eating chocolate. Maybe you were at some other Easter Dog show. Why are there dog shows on Easter? Sundays are just Sundays are just Sundays.

At CPE, I am not attached. I run better, because I just don't care. I believe I am sloppy sometimes, I chit chat outside the ring right before a run and I don't always focus so fierce. But I think I am not so uptight as at USDAA. I guess. I don't really FEEL uptight at USDAA, but I do feel like the competiton is So Good, all those World Teamie Types, and I always want to measure up, look ship shape. Like a big girl. CPE is sort of like you are wearing your jammies and ugg boots at Safeway, pushing the shopping cart around in the ice cream aisle and it's just ok to do that sometimes. There are no ugg boots and jammies at USDAA. Just matching track suits and Dita shoes all around.


Ruby, you were a star. I took any weave pole pressure off. I let you run right out of the ring in Standard after you did the poles so nice and just didn't want you to have to finish that course. I have no problem doing the sacrificial Q's in CPE. Sometimes just run out and party on, Garth. You did not hit any bars WHATSOEVER all weekend. And a couple runs you blew me away with your insane speed and border collie-esque styling. You were so DAMN fun to run that I thought, that's right. This is agility. This is the craziest, funnest thing you can do and this is why we do this. I think you got a bunch of Q's. I didn't ever check the scores. I just didn't care. I wanted you fast and clean and no pressure at poles and that's what we did and it worked. Your first class of the morning, Jackpot, was nuts and I could barely handle you but I ran out of the ring screaming for you to come over to the table to stop the clock because you were heading somewhere else, just insane to be on the course. I love that. It's bad agility, but I love it.


Otterpop you tried the hardest you have tried in a long time. You gave me 2 very, very fast runs. You had a couple slow ones with fast endings. But you never, ever thought about melting down and doing damage out there. You decided you would try hard to hold it together and hold it together you did. I was shocked in your Jackpot run at how fast you were, and made you easy, fun courses after that, screw the point value. Your snookers sucked speedwise, but you seemed surprised at my handling and went with it. I used a new technique called Feel The Love Otterpop. I thought, what if I was Otterpop. No one really likes her. She's mean, and she's funny looking. She is the weird kid at school that everyone hates and there's rumors about how her hair stinks and she has spiders in her underpants. I am her only friend and she will feel the love of dog agility with me. So I chatted it up with you on the course, against all things we know about Using Just the Facts, Ma'am. And it felt a little weird but I just kept you close every step and you decided that you would not commune with zombies and you had this one STELLAR teeter, in standard, and I just sat there with you laying there on the down contact, as it hit the ground, telling you how fabulous it was. People were like, um, that clock is ticking but I just wanted you to Feel the Love, Otterpop. And you just went Q, Q, Q for the love of it.

So yeah. It was Groovy. Feel the Love. No Pressure. Go for the Joy. It was like a hippie inspirational poster with a seagull. A saying you could engrave on a rock and give it to someone when you can't think of what to get them for Christmas. We can't always run like that. I hate seagulls and I hate those rocks. Someday it will click, Otterpop. I looked up Ruby's records and she is very close to a C-ATCH, the big championship of CPE. I think I am going to just put that folder up on a shelf and ignore it and look at it later so we can have these enjoyable CPE's of no pressure and just big fun. Like I should with USDAA. Someday. When I get the stick out of the butt of my matching track suit I guess.

Gardening tips to make your Easter dirtier.

My 4 dogs have different dysfunctional relationships with each other. Ruby and Otterpop are inseperable, but have also had ugly loca girl fights with teeth and fingernail scratching before. Timmy and Ruby were once a unit, but now Timmy drifts alone in some sort of fog we don't understand. When I got Gustavo, I didn't know who he would pick. I tied him to Otterpop for a while when we were out somewhere and he had no recall because she doesn't leave my site. Ruby is pretty aloof, but Otterpop only likes about 6 dogs and people in the whole universe.


Gustavo picked her. My bad girl dog. The one who is the a unibomber manifesto writing, fast motorcycle driving, too much and crooked lipstick with thick liquid eyeliner wearing, word slurring, screaming Tanya Harding of a dog. The leader of doing things naughty. Who makes the others run for cover, so I am sure to know who was the dog who just dug the hole. One dog doesn't run for cover though, in fact eggs her on. Is unafraid of her tyrannical rule. Steals the massive chunk of wood from right inside her mouth. Shoves her right off the chair that no one else dare share. In fact never got the memo that she is to be feared and revered, and in fact just runs circles around the little beast.

I like to think that the toothless, shirtless old guy that ran out in the street in front of my car yesterday evening, weilding a machete and wearing a greasy old hat on his stringy old hair, was wishing me Happy Easter in his own way. Sort of like Otterpop might.

A useful thing for Guns and Roses.

A nice thing to do, if you're on the way to work, and today there was no time to run the dogs, or let the puppy practice weave poles, let alone take him to practice his lowered running a-frame, is just get in the car, with the windows down, and play some Guns and Roses really loud. Maybe you would like Welcome to the Jungle. For a few minutes, you won't have that hateful feeling that all this would be possible if the ranch was just at your own house. And it will erase all the weird dreams you had in the night.

Time Management for the well oiled dog agility team-a primer.

Lest I led you to believe the other day that I live a life of leisure, having all the time in the world to chase pitbulls down the street with boards, and run around after rangers like a paparazzi obsessed with their assault rifles, I thought I should take you behind the scenes to the life that is Team Small Dog. A well oiled machine. Maybe the kind that is weirdly oiled with perhaps the wrong kind of oil. But it is the oil that is like the weak spit activated paste that holds the dog agility team together to make dog agility function as super as it does for my team. Otterpop who barks at judges. Ruby who knocks rails. Gustavo who just runs fast yet screams like a monkey and plots escape from the xpen. Someday maybe could be a whole DAM team! Damn Team will be their name.

So you should probably know I have a horse business and I do not have my own ranch. Someday, you will hear THAT whole story. I believe it is actually called writing a book to tell that story. But I currently lease a very nice, large horse ranch that is 45 minutes away from my house to run my training program at. In case you are worried, I am a way better horse and rider trainer than dog agility trainer. Lots better. Dog agility is more hobby that the accountant has figured out how to write off for me. Actually, I do love teaching it too. But I have a little, teensy ways to go with that whole career.

So to get me and the dogs out of the house to work, is the whole oily part. Typically I am gone away from my house, and Timmy, from early in the morning til night time. And now with the whole armed Rangers in the park wanting to ticket me scenario, I need to get the dogs out to run either real early or to the beach on the way. And same thing on the way home. And if it is an especially good day, I could even go to practice with the dogs on the way to work. That part has to be the very oiliest machine of them all. So, come with me on a short tutorial of good time management tips that maybe can make Your Life As Smooth and Oily as mine.


Coffee is important. Actually, is the most important part. If there is no coffee, there is no team small dog. Getting out of the door is not even a remote possibility.


This is where the magic happens. That has to happen like early before running away from rangers, but after the first round of coffee. The magic used to happen in a special room called an office but that was before Roofers and Rain and No Time to Replaster. You all like it that the magic happens every morning, right? Time management, baby.


Packing a lunch. If it is a typical day, my husband brought us home pizza to eat for dinner at like 10pm or whatever ungodly hour we usually eat dinner at. And it makes a super lunch.


We also have weird food items in the house due to the no grocery shopping issue. My dad sent me a giant box of grapefruit hand picked from his tree! I have the nicest dad ever! I eat a lot of grapefruit right now! And the dogs can eat the string cheese which is a good thing to buy TONS of at Trader Joes. I ALWAYS make sure to at least buy stuff for the dogs. I am nice like that.


OK. Lunch packed. Time for dog pills for our Timmy.


Where is Timmy? Here's these ones. They are always milling about and howling and causing trouble but Timmy tends to wander and he could be anywhere, including stuck in a corner in a closet. Or under piece of furniture. Never, ever, lose Timmy.


Found him. Give him pills. He had a nice shuffle around the block and he is ready for his day as a stay at home dog. Don't worry. My husband works like 5 minutes away and comes to visit him at lunch. He is nice like that. I do worry horribly about Timmy every day and I hate leaving him alone so much but he is too old and demented to come to work.


Next phase begins known as looking for the keys. Every day we do this. Sometimes looking for Timmy at the same time if I've lost him again in the backyard.


In a door. Bad place to leave keys.


Dogs need to get in the car.


Get in the crate now Otterpop!


Mayhem in the car ensues as everyone is trying to get in everyone's crates and it is like Crate Games Susan Garrett! In my car and I just want to leave and they are jumping into crates like mayhem!


Have keys. Have lunch. Timmy secured. Cannot get down driveway because I have forgotten it is garbage day. It is just a tiny driveway and most of it is filled with weave poles. Which we did not have time to practice this morning, due to all of the above.


This kind of day, I need my special ipod soothing music. Like a playlist that is a mixture of Christmas songs by Andy Williams and Willy Nelson songs about cowboys. Works better than X or old David Bowie even for smoothing crinky nerves. Thank you for always being there for me, Ipod. Not like our new friend Bluetooth that needs to be recharged.

We finally made it out. I even had time to practice with the dogs. I did manage to forget all their leashes and they had to be tied up with dog toys and random pieces of string. We don't have down stays by two thirds of the team if one third of the team is practicing. We just do tying to the fence. But I didn't pack a piece of fruit. I forgot to email a lot of people and didn't pay any bills or register my truck yet or plaster my office. I have a backup of paperwork. But I did some crazy fast running super lowered a-frames with Gustavo and some fast little sequences based on turning Tight! with the other ones. And made it to work not too late although maybe forgot to pull someone's stitches and call someone's mom back. So actually. My time management might need a little improvement. Because we need time to practice those weave poles next time. Priorities.