Category Archives: dogs

Sleeping with Dogs (For Last on the Card)

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Click on Photos to Enlarge

Can you find three dogs in this jumble of sheets and pillows? Barely room for one human to join them and it takes a bit of pushing and relocating. Now it is 6:30 a.m. and soon they’ll all be off like a shot for a walk with Oscar. It’s the first day of the celebration of the Virgin of Guadalupe, so we’ve all been up since 6 when the cohetes (bottle rockets) started going off. The actual celebration is Dec. 9-12, but San Juan Cosala likes to stretch the occasion out from Dec. 1-12.

There will be shrines set up in front of buildings all over town.  Yolanda will switch my candles to a position in front of the Virgin statue on my divider between the dining room and kitchen and “native sons”—men who have gone to work in the States—will send money for huge displays of flowers in the church. On the 12th, the 92-year-old statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe will be paraded through the streets and there will be a huge procession with many of the people being led blindfolded behind her statue. In former years, many would crawl on their knees in the procession, but I’m not sure if this happens now. Always a celebration being held somewhere in surrounding villages.

Ajijic is still celebrating the San Andreas Festival, with booths and carnival rides being set up all over town. Earlier, San Juan celebrated for San Juan, then Day of the Dead, now the Virgin, then Xmas. In Jan., Tres Reyes and February Candlemas, then Carnival leading up to lent and depictions of the crucifixion. I’ll stop there as I could go on month-by-month throughout the year.

Oscar just arrived and the dogs are off like a shot, my body being no big obstruction—they all just ran over or leaped over.  Coco always returns for one brief cuddle as Oscar puts the leashes on the others, then bounds out a second time when it is her turn. I’ll know they are home when I hear their food dishes rattling as he doles out their breakfast. It is 6:54. So go mornings on M-W-F in this house.

 

For Bushboy’s Last on the Card prompt

The Arms Race (Becoming Grandma) for Wordle 627, Nov 5, 2023

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When I look in the mirror, I sometimes feel like I’m becoming my mother, but when I look at my arms, it is also revealed that I am becoming my grandmother.  By the time she passed away at age 96, any effort to assist her in rising or sitting up by grasping her lower arms could result in the skin actually tearing off in pieces like tissue paper, and although not quite at this stage,  At 76, I have grown fragile. My skin has become translucent, showing off deep blue or purple bruises from below  given birth to by slight bumps or scrapings against even smooth surfaces—the edge of a table or a door. Small beads of blood flow out from tears of skin caught in a cat’s claw or a dog’s questing paw, and the skin of my lower arms is dappled with these signs of affection left by even the most furtive advances of the smallest of my dogs.

At night, in bed, I am a highway for dogs jumping into bed to snuggle down for the night and likewise for the same dogs springing from the bed to investigate the slightest noise in the backyard or the street.  One bound, using me as trampoline, propels them to the floor, and one more, in a flash, shoots them out the door. Any stray possum or other late night intruder into their domain not driven off by their initial loud growls and following barks is dealt with in a snap of the jaw. No furtive ingress into my nighttime garden goes unnoticed. Then, the intruders dealt with, back into bed they bound, usually landing on one arm or the other, leaving yet another mark of their affection. They are my protective angels, these small warriors of the night, but I fear they are loving me to pieces, as one glimpse of my arms will attest to.

The words for Sunday Whirl Wordle 627 are: caught pieces snap flash angel stray furtive dappled flow skin translucent blue

Barrier for One Word Sunday

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Click on photos to enlarge.

For One Word Sunday: Barrier

Roof Dogs

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For the fifteen or more years Frida lived with me, this is where she was most of the time, checking out the neighborhood and occasionally barking at someone who didn’t belong there.
When Frida died, I had a sculpture of her installed on the roof dome.
And Frida’s ashes went into this effigy which we concreted in place on her favorite place on the dome, to watch for as long as I have any say in the matter.
Keep a watch for us, girl .
And then, across the street on the corner of Ilie Nastase and Wm. Tilden, these puppy-sized sculptures appeared.
As new real puppies joined the family, I installed a gate to keep less experienced little feet off the dome, but inevitably, guests or Pasiano would leave the gate on the stairs up to the casita whose terrace adjoined the dome.
Neighbors snapped this photo, then called to advise me that Frida had visitors.
A year or so later, another member of the pack appeared right across from me on Wm. Tilden
Help Frida keep watch, boy!
(Frida as a puppy.)

It all started with Frida, who I first met as she trotted down the carretera traveling west as I walked with my friend Joe, going east.  She was so tiny that I thought she was a big rat at first, but as she drew nearer, I realized it was a tiny puppy who, when she got up to me, immediately stopped and looked up at me with those eyes that indicated that we already belonged to each other.  When she got older, for the next 15 years or so, she spent most of her days up on the dome of my house supervising the neighborhood, and when she passed away, it didn’t take long for me to figure out how she should be memorialized. It took me some months to find a terracotta sculpture that looked like her and to find men to concrete it securely in place.  Inside are Frida’s ashes.  There she has resided for years, surveying all who pass as she did during her life.

As new dogs arrived in my life, they took to occasionally visiting her on the roof, and then a strange thing happened.  In the house kitty-corner across from me, two smaller terracotta dogs appeared, on the post beside the entry gate, Frida directly in their line of vision a story above them on my dome.

Then, less that a year ago, the house directly across the street from me sold, and a few days ago, when Yolanda mentioned my neighbors putting dogs on their roof, I corrected her that they were on a pedestal by their front gate, but she said, no–on the roof–and directed me down the street to look back at the house of the new neighbors.  There, securely affixed to their chimney stack, almost obscured by the trees, was another Frida!

That is how “In the doghouse” came to be a non-derogatory term in my neighborhood. In fact, I am now just waiting for the next roof dog to show up!!

“Hot Air” Ajijic Globos Festival, 2023

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Kids, bouncer balloons,
dogs
Moms and dads and grandmas. . .
all watched balloons being filled with air,
and, fires ignited,
balloons lifting off the ground,
Higher and higher they went
until they vanished out of sight.
How many balloons can you see? Can you see five?
Lucky were the ones that survived this long,
for too many turned sideways, ignite,d
and came hurtling to earth
to fall on canopies,
trees, high line wires
Everyone watched, trying to figure out what this one was.
Finally, a unicorn was fully born
and lucky that this little girl captured a shot,
for soon after this picuture was taken, it toppled over, caught fire, and never rose higher than this into the air. Sad. ,
But thers survived
to rise
and rise
and rise.
More air filled more balloons
as dad’s lauched little boys up for a better look
Giggles
Again, as many failed as those that lauched.
There were marriage proposals,
declarations of love,
and advertisements,
and more advertisements.
There were fancy shapes,
and colors
and patterns
as well as plain ones.
Everyone watched and ate and talked and drank.
and some, worn out, gave in to sleep.

Click on photos to enlarge and read captions.

(If you’re not exhausted after wading through these, you can find a bunch more photos from last year’s event HERE.)

Busy Day All Around!

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When I tried to get in a little quiet time in the hot tub before a very busy day, the doggies joined me. Morrie tried to join in but then deserted for a little Zen time of his own.

The Rest of the (Second) Story

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Click on photos to enlarge.

When I sent my neighbor David a thank-you for sending me the photos of Coco and Zoe on the roof—naughty kids—because their mom and Yolanda forgot to shut the gate up the stairs, he shot back this answer, which I didn’t receive until this morning:

“HECK, WAIT!  There’s more. . . . and then there’s Morrie! With some prodding, he got the nerve, too . . .  and joined the rooftop party!

Above are the photos I had missed last night as they hadn’t yet downloaded. If you missed yesterday’s post, HERE are the photos of Coco and Zoe he’d sent.

 

The Evidence

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What happens when you leave an unprotected bag of Cheetos lying around at my house? 

Before:

After:

If you want a hint of how that turned-inside-out and licked clean  (but formerly half-full) Cheetos bag might have wound up in the pool, check out the post linked below:

State of Zoe: Zoe’s Latest!!!!

 

And here is evidence of previous infractions:

 

Holy Tearer (For Forgottenman, who requested another Zoe post)

Bad Zoey!!!! (Traviesa)

And, for a survey course in Zoe terrorism, check out this last blog:

Zoe, My Teenage Terror

 

Finally found my glasses!

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Click on photos to enlarge.

Photogray, progressive lenses. So far my little darling Zoe has destroyed $1200 worth of glasses. Found these hanging on a bush. I’ve been looking for them for two weeks.

Life with Dogs, Déjà Vu for Sunday Whirl Wordle 589

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Déjà vu. For some reason these prompt words for the Sunday Whirl Wordle 589 led me into a restatement of a blog I wrote 14 hours ago in what felt like the late hours of yesterday but what were really the early hours of today. It was to me as though I’d only thought it before and not written it down. It was only after I’d written this and reread the earlier blog that I realized I’d told the same story twice in different words. These are the prompt words you’ll find repeated below in the story:  lockdown watch danger hunt challenge glass flesh gathering disrupt murder craft cut

Life with Dogs

Well after lockdown, my sentinels are watchful for any signs of danger. Even after their eyes close and their flesh surrenders to sleep, their ears hunt for signs of murder, mayhem or possums. I am fully awake minutes after their last return from a wild charge out the space left by the sliding glass door which I have left open the width of the security bars so they can exit as needed, not to meet the challenge of intruders, but rather to execute those calls of nature which I am most sympathetic with, being of that age when at the least one or two calls of nature disrupt my sleep nightly.

Darkness gathers me into its arms as I close my eyes once more and finally find a position comfortable enough to remain in for the remainder of the night when once again, Zoe’s loud high sliding crescendo of a bark cuts through the darkness, her claws cutting into my stomach as she uses it for a launching pad off the bed and out the door. These are the movements of a gymnast performing her high leaps with seemingly no effort—more an art than a craft—and my ears strain to hear any noise of combat, any running feet or crashing through the bushes and over the wall. Instead I hear one high keening scream, quickly cut off. It is a sound I’ve never heard before and I imagine some small creature giving voice to its death protest or a possum giving a squeal of warning , but the dog is back again so quickly that I can’t imagine any combat has occurred.

Another past-midnight mystery of life with dogs. I roll over on my left side to reach over the side of the bed and lift Zoe up for the third time this evening, and when I do, Coco crawls into the warm spot I have left. Rolling back to the right again, I push hard against her to reclaim my space and Zoe moves into the space that I make on the left side as I do so, then walks with no guilt over my breast an stomach to settle herself into the cleft between my legs. I move them apart slightly to settle some of her weight onto the mattress and try to settle myself back to sleep.