Life is a Bumpy Road
Austin, Texas. Travel in Texas. Life in General. "Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light. - - -Dylan Thomas
About Me
- Name: AustiNative
- Location: Austin, Texas, United States
I am an esteemed alumni of Austin College in Sherman Texas (Class of "none of your business"). I graduated with a BA in Liberal Arts as a History Major. Subsequently, I have worked in the human services field since graduation because there aren't too many jobs out there for history majors. Except for my short incarceration in Sherman, I have always lived in Austin, Texas. That's not totally true, I was born in England and lived there approximately 18 months, but for some strange reason I don't remember living there. I travel through out Texas for my job, every week. So beware Texans, I might be coming to a town near you!! I am happily married to a wonderful guy and have 0 (zero, zilch) children. (We just forgot to have them?) I find life amusing now (I used to find it extremely depressing but that's another story). So here's to Life, which after all can be a very bumpy road!
"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." -Albert Einstein
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Monday, July 24, 2006
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Mama Dove is still there and it's TWO babies she has in her little bush nest. They all look fine. Today I prevented the exterminator from spraying around the bush and tree near Mama Dove and Family. He was a nice guy, but when I told him about my fears for the Dove Family, getting eaten by a grackle or a cat. He said, "Yeah, or a opossum, or a rat could eat them too." I didn't need that information!! Now I have even more to worry about. Really, I think it will only be one or two more days before the babies are trying to get out of the "nest". That will be such a relief when they learn to fly and can get away from that bush.
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My Dogs
We own two large mixed breed dogs. The oldest is Mylo who is seriously disturbed and the youngest (by 10 months) is Monk (who is autistic and has an eating disorder akin to Prader-Willie). They have the same mother (she was a bit of a huzzy going out and getting pregnant right after she weaned Mylo's liter) and have different fathers. Both of them are about 1/4 sharpei, but only Monk has any wrinkles to speak of. Both of them are spoiled rotten in sooo many ways. They were bad enough when we lived alone, but since we have moved in with "Grandma", my 86 year old mother, they have become even more spoiled and rotten than they were before! They enjoy sitting on top of us whenever we are watching TV in bed. They also like to sleep in the bed with us which makes for a very crowded bed. Luckily we have a king sized bed, but sometimes that isn't even big enough for all 4 of us.
My story today centers on Mylo, the oldest, so I will leave Monk out of this, as he was, for once, an innocent by stander in last night's activities. Let me give you some background information on this seriously deranged dog. Mylo, has always slept curled up at the top of the bed between us since he was a puppy. Even now at 90 pounds he is able to somehow curl up small enough to fit between our pillows, sort of. He usually sleeps with his head right above mine on my pillows. This would be alright, if he weren't such a grumpy dog and a bed hog. Heaven forbid I try to roll over during the night and accidentally wake him! He grumps and growls and stomps off the bed like I am the most inconsiderate person in the world. Of course it isn't long before he is back again, curled up above my head, breathing in my ear.
Mylo is truly borderline psychotic. He is afraid of vacuum cleaners which is understandable, but he is also afraid of: toasters, trash bags, fire crackers (also understandable), wet grass, children, smoke detector alarms, listening to the telephone, and a million other odd things that there are no explanations for.
Mylo also has a fear of nail clippers and will NOT allow anyone to clip his nails. We have tried everything to clip them, to no avail. We even tried taking him to several groomers around town to have his nails trimmed by professionals, but he is now banned from almost all the dog groomers in town because of his unruly behavior. I must take partial blame for Mylo's fear of pedicures. When he was a puppy we were trimming his nails, rather I was trimming his nails and accidentally cut too close to the quick. He was pretty upset!! Since then he has not allowed the nail clippers near him and his nails are beginning to be so long he looks like he has a French manicure.
Mylo is the only dog I have ever seen that can tippy toe through wet grass without getting his paws wet! When it's raining, he WILL NOT go outside! I guess his fear of bathes (did I mention he was afraid of bathes too?) keeps him from wanting to go out in the rain. After it stops raining, you can usually lure him outside to the patio, but it takes a lot of coaxing to get him into the yard to "do his business". Once he hits that wet grass, he immediately goes "on point" (like a ballerina, not a Pointer) and tippy toes through the grass. I won't describe what he looks like trying to "do his business", needless to say it's pretty darned funny sometimes watching him try and balance himself without touching any wet grass.
For these and many other reasons I won't go into here, we truly think Mylo needs some serious psychiatric care. We just can't afford it right now. We have emergency doggy valium to give him if he really gets out of hand, but it takes a while to take effect. Sometimes when he gets really scared, he will climb up (all 90 pounds of him) into my 86 year old mother's lap! This is not a good thing. He is gonna squish her one of these days! I am thinking we need an elephant tranquilizer dart gun for him!
This is also the dog that we think is a pedophile. He has had "crushes" on several male puppies through out his adulthood. Pining at the fence for them and making this obnoxious high pitched whining sound.
Anyway, back to last night. Mylo was EXTREMELY agitated last night. He kept waking me up all night long, nosing me with his cold nose several times, crawling up on the bed and trying to sit ON my head, and then clawing me with his paw in my back. The final straw was when he pushed all the stuff on my nightstand off on to the floor. Apparently something scared him last night and he was determined that I should share in his misery. ARGH!! He was not satisfied until I got up out of bed and walked through the entire house (at 3AM mind you) to check it out. He slunk along behind me, the big "guard dog" that he is, waiting for me to take on any "boogey men" who might be lurking in the house. Once we had checked the entire house, he was satisfied and happily crawled off to bed. My bed! While I was now wide awake and spent the next 45 minutes trying to get back to sleep. After nights like last night, I sometimes wonder why I have dogs. Tonight I am seriously considering locking him out of the bedroom. The only problem with that is he will scratch on the door incessantly until we let him in the bedroom OR he will go into my mother's room squish her!
I just added this after I published this. so here they are from july 15.
Well one of the baby doves has taken flight and is sitting up in a branch with mama dove about 15 feet above the nest. Unfortunately the other baby is still sitting in the bush nest and doesn't seem the least bit interested in taking flight. mama is keeping a watchful eye on him, however she seems dubious that baby number 2 is ever gonna get going. I wonder if he wasn't hurt when the nest was moved (if it was moved, I really don't know how it got to be in the bush). It did seem like one of the babies was always a little more advanced than the other. I guess we shall see. I took pix of them with my cell phone yesterday when they were still in the nest which I will try to post here whenever the uploading issue with blogger and me is resolved. We have named mama dove Audrey after Audrey Hepburn. The babies don't have names yet.
Friday, July 14, 2006
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Blogging Tribute
Wish me luck...I don't know how good I will be at this, but I am gonna give it a try..because...I guess, because of Jeff.
To all those who knew and loved Jeff, I am so sorry. I just hope there comes a time when your hearts don't ache so much and your thoughts can find some kind of peace. Until then, you know there are a lot of people trying to carry as much of the load for you as they can, until you're all ready to do it yourselves.
Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.
A. Sachs
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Tour de France Is On
It's that time of year again. The Tour is on. Without Lance there seems to be less hype about the race in the mainstream news. That's too bad. I am rooting for George Hincape of the Discovery Team who looks to be a likely candidate. Discovery Team Director Johan Bruyneel said he has confidence in the team to be headed by George Hincapie. "I am confident that with the team we are bringing that we can have at least one of our riders finish in a top placing in Paris. The road to the Champs Élysées is difficult and many things can happen. Our guys are ready for the challenge."
George did wear the yellow jersey on day 2 which makes him only the 4th American Cyclist in history to wear the yellow jersey. And he is currently just five seconds behind Tom Boonen of Belgium leaving him in third place overall. According to Reuter's report Five-times Tour de France winner Bernard Hinault thinks Hincapie has good chance. He said of Hincapie: “He does not lose ground in the time trials. He does well in the mountains and knows how to deal with the leader status.” Reuter's also noted that the withdrawal of Alejandro Valverde, one of the favorites in the Tour, will increase Hincapie’s chances.
Team Discovery Channel
George Hincapie
Yaroslav Popovych
Paolo Savoldelli
Jose Azevedo
Egoi Martinez
Pavel Padrnos
Viatcheslav Ekimov
Benjamin Noval
Jose Luis Rubiera
Reserves
Vladimir Gusev
Michael Barry
OLN is the place to go to get the latest news on the race.