Honda Mileage - Another Missed Milestone

I've been watching the odometer in my 2005 Honda Pilot for this particular set of zeros to come around.

Not that there's anything significant about 260,000 miles other than the fact that I missed seeing 250,000 miles roll in.

So, of course, today this happened:

At least it got warmer.

Summer in Liverpool, 1992

 

We buy a lot of used books. Part of the fun is finding annotations, abandoned bookmarks, and in the case of this copy of "The Complete Ripping Yarns," an inscription on the inside front cover.

I can't make out the signatures, but the text says:

To Lillian,

A bit of very British humour from a very funny T.V. series written by two of the Monty Python team.

Hope you enjoy it!

Happy Birthday.

Summer in Liverpool 1992

With love from (illegible names)

All of this for only $7.

A Dog for All Seasons: A Reflection

Note: This is less of a review, more of a personal reflection.

“Oh. That book,” my wife said when she saw me holding our copy of “A Dog for All Seasons” by Patti Sherlock. “You do know the dog dies at the end?”

Sorry for the spoiler. But as it’s a book about a dog, we all pretty much know how it ends. Because that’s pretty much how every book about a dog – or any animal – ends. Sure, not “Rascal,” by Sterling North. But damn few else.

And, in the end, we all know Rascal died too.

Thus is the nature of living, whether with animals or humans. Life passes. And we’re rarely prepared for the end of it. Dogs, who live in the moment, maybe have the better point of view, at least in the realm of mortality.

Once immortal, maybe we can learn things from each other.

Our own dog Dottie, now sixteen years old herself, gave us a scare last week, tumbling down a flight of stairs to end up in a shaking, crying heap at the bottom.

I’m not sure I liked how I reacted, yelling chastisement at the dog for not waiting for me to pick her up before she went pell-mell down the stairs, because picking her up is just what we do now when any amount of stairs are involved. She won’t ascend the four wooden steps on the back porch and balks usually at going down them, so I have no idea why the fourteen carpeted steps to the basement were so appealing that day.

So I was mad. Surely she didn’t understand the words, but knew the tone, and that is not what she needed. Chastisement in the moment rarely helps when all we really need is comfort.

Madder still it happened after hours, when no vets were open to see her. Madder still she woke crying during the night and I sacrificed sleep to hold her in my arms as we both fitfully tried to get some rest, waiting for the sun to crawl over the horizon.

Our vet was booked, so we took her to a vet we’d used previously until our emergency backup dog, Daisy, quailed at the ride there, knowing each time she was riding to her doom. We picked a vet closer to home so the anxiety of the trip was as short as the several-block trip.

The vet gave Dottie some pain meds and a cautious bill of health, and for the most part she’s been fine since. But I still don’t like that I yelled.

It didn’t help that at the bottom of the stairs Dasy was too fixated on getting her nightly rawhide to bother with her injured sister, and that I hurled the treat bag at our oldest, asking for help in a less-than-nice voice.

So when George kicked Duncan, the dog in Sherlock’s book, I felt a wince of regret. Never mind I’d stayed up that night cradling that little idiot dog in my arms after the fall. I’d hollered at her. Not what she nor our oldest needed at the time.

But that’s what pets do. They bring joy and laughter, sadness and pain. It’s what all creatures do. I can imagine God wanting to pick up our shaking forms at the bottom of a metaphorical staircase we’ve just tumbled down, irritated that the help that was forthcoming was ignored or the counsel given was forgotten, even momentarily.

“For those of us who have been loved by a great dog, who have, in turn, loved the dog back, we can say, and this is not too large a statement, we have known Glory in our lives,” Sherlock writes at the conclusion of her story.

Glory, indeed.

And maybe, when inevitably the dog passes and is with us no longer, a little bit of grace as well.

The Last Battle

It's been a while since I read a good World War II history, and when I saw this title by Cornelius Ryan on the shelf, I knew I had to have it. I really enjoyed his "A Bridge Too Far," and expected this book would be in a similar vein, with looks from both on high and on the ground for the battle of Berlin.

It did not disappoint.

I'm stunned at the amount of access he appeared to have to documents, photos, and people from all sorts of walks of life and alliances as he complied this book. I suppose that's a great sign of an excellent journalist and researcher.

Some of it was hard reading. Not because of the prose, but because of the subject matter. I appreciate this is war and that ugliness happens, but damn some of what he wrote about was terrible stuff. He did concentrate the worst of it into one section of the book, which made it easier to bleep over when things got too nasty.

Ring Out, Our Savior's Love

We sang this hymn as an opener at church today, and I love it. The message and the tune are so sweet and simple. Though I enjoy a challenging song, it's often very nice to slip into a hymn that fits as nice as the cream-colored sweater I've had for years and have to be pried out of it almost every Sunday.

But today I learned -- and I love learning about the writers and tunesmiths used in the hymnal -- that "Our Savior's Love," the tune, was composed by Crawford Gates, the same guy responsible for the LDS tune to "Ring Out Wild Bells," which at best incites a lot of controversy in the church and at worst is loathed by many members to the point they simply don't sing it.

Now for me, I love the tune to "Ring Out, Wild Bells" to the same degree that I love the tune to "Our Savior's Love," so the connection between the two songs is fun.

Oddly enough, it's hard to find a YouTube video of the song as Gates composed it. The most popular ones by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir use a different, much less interesting tune.

But thank heaven for the Crofts Family:

It's a challenging song to sing, and one that's typically a miss when we sing it. It's Like "That Little Light of Mine," meant to be a gospel spiritual, not one sung by a staid choir or congregation. But that song, just like Gates' version of "Ring Out Wild Bells," is beautiful and touching in the right setting.

Progress for both Bathroom and Dog

I really need to get this bathroom remodel done because in my Facebook memories I'm starting to see one-year anniversaries of past prep work in the bathroom, including the $1,600 job I had to farm out to the professionals.

That's a long time to be without a basement bathroom, though we do have three others to choose from.

Good news is another few courses of tile and I'll have that wall done and can move on to finishing the tub enclosure. Then it'll be a lot of cleanup and setting the sink and toilet in place.

I'm a little irked that the pedestal sink doesn't meet the wall at a 90 degree angle, but in researching the problem online, it seems that's not an uncommon problem. Part of it might be due to the fact the sink is one we found at a thrift store and the bowl may have been attached crookedly to begin with. So I'll keep experimenting with that and seeing what I can do to make things right.

I had hoped to get more done, but I also had to spend some time babysitting/sitting with Dottie, who hopefully has a better night tonight than she did last night, where she woke us all up at 1:30 am crying. Poor little thing.

Crash and Burn

Last night, our weenie dog Dottie crashed and burned going down the stairs.

Had she waited five seconds, I would have had her in my arms to carry her down the stairs as we always do, but no, Dad was taking too long.

Hit the landing and started crying. Picked up the shattered remains and she didn't want to be touched and tried to bite me.

Nevertheless we manhandled her, got a compression bandage and a splint on her right front leg, and prepared to have a long night with her before we could get her to the vet in the morning.

That meant, of course, Dad sleeping on the couch with her in his lap because that's what you do. Dressed in your plaid shirt and jeans, belt and all.

She slept peacefully.

At 4 am, I took the dogs outside to use the potty. The bandage and splint came off during the night - it's ridiculously hard to bandage and splint a wiry weenie dog.

She's a little gimpy - slightly more gimpy than usual - but doesn't seem to be seriously hurt, even after a thorough poking of both front legs by our daughter at about 7:30 am.

Napping now because that's what she does every morning.

I may need a nap myself. That took a lot out of me.

Update: Vet gave Dottie a good bill of health, considering. He said her motor function looks good, and she was moving around a lot more while there, partly due to the adrenaline. But she's on doggie painkillers now, and hopefully on the mend.

Geniuses in Charge

The Idaho state legislature loves making noise about "unfunded mandates" whether they come from the federal government or from ballot initiatives approved by voters.

It seems, though, they have no problem with such things if they create them.

Peep at this from the Idaho Capital Sun, regarding legislative mandates to cut budgets because in part the state cut taxes to make the rich folks happy:

Saving $210,000 but having to spend $3.5 million as a result of the savings? Genius move by the legislature.

Into the Abyss . . .

 

First policeman: Is he all right?

Second policeman: Says the Ty-d-Bol is irritating his buttocks.

First policeman: Hang up.

The little notes help me remember what I forget.

The humor helps me retain the tattered remains of my sanity.

"They're not the Lunatics, it's Us."

 

I hear a lot these days that if I agree with something, I must, naturally, completely disagree with the things that is diametrically opposite of what I agree with.

Maybe in some cases that's true.

But in the vast majority of cases, it's not.

I like to think I have an open mind. I'll listen to others and try to understand their point of view. Because while I may be certain of some things, I readily concede I'm ignorant of others. And there's a good chance on many things that the lunatic in the situation is me.

But of the many things I'm certain of, I do know this: It doesn't have to be us vs. them.

Because that's what Satan wants. Division. He doesn't really care what we're divided about, as long as we're divided. And the more things he can find that divide us, the happier he is because he wants us to be miserable like unto himself.

And while I'm coming into this from a Christian point of view, I refuse to believe that other religions and non-religions don't teach the same thing: That we as people on this planet have far more in common than what divides us, and if we can find common ground and agree to get along and understand the differences between ourselves and look at those differences as differences, not gulfs, we'd all be a lot better off.

So in the vast majority of the culture wars we see these days, I refuse to participate, because at the foundation of it all, I know who wants me to choose a side in arguments that don't really matter.