Last night after an hour of work on the north wall and a hour of Downton Abbey, I realized I should blog something. I began news surfing to add to the trove of linkable pages always waiting in the wings of the browser.
I’d barely started into the sort of article that’s normally a grabber (another scurrilous accusation against Assange and Wikileaks) when I realized I wasn’t the teeny tiniest bit interested.
Not that I’m finally cured of news junkiedom, mind you. Merely that tonight I didn’t care.
It’s summer. It’s waltzing by and I’m either working or thinking about work. Of course some of the work gets me out there in the summerness. That hour yesterday, priming the next stage of wall, was done in glorious cool sunset after a pleasant day. And before that I had walked Ava by the estuary twice. But one was work and the other a duty. Time to get out again. This time just because.
I put down the laptop and clapped for Ava to come with. In her little fenced yard we played fetch with a tennis ball (one of about 100 provided over the years by a charming friend-of-the-blog).
Just shy of 12, Ava doesn’t play as long as she used to. She’s still wild for the game and expert at catching, but after six or 10 throws she’s done. Not like in the olden days when fetch was Life Itself. But tonight she was on fire. Again and again and again she jumped and ran for it or simply caught it from a gentle sit. She didn’t want to stop. Even when she did finally say “enough,” she announced her wish to go into the house by jumping in the air like a puppy — once, twice, five times, 12. Although I didn’t think at her age she should be doing it, I loved the energy. That dog is so happy.
Or was. Until I said, “Okay, you can go in” then closed the door behind her and stayed outside. Poor Ava. She is so abused.
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The evening was on the cool side, but still shirtsleeve weather. A tiny bit buggy but not mosquitoey. The alders’ white trunks had a sunset gleam to them and their leaves rustled faintly. I have multiple wind chimes, deep-toned or woodenly clacky, all relegated to hanging together on the fence for the duration of construction. Once in a while they’d manage a momentary clatter or deep-chested bong. Couldn’t ask for a pleasanter evening.
I walked around the north and west of the house, enjoying the new walls and thinking about the challenges of putting up the trim and about colors here and there.
Someday there’s going to be a pleasant gravel-and-block patio behind the entire north wall. By early fall the porch should be completely enclosed with window screens and a door. But will I just sit and enjoy? No. Too much to do, too much to do.
I enjoy the doing. The satisfaction is boundless. I’m still glowing from my previous post and your responses to it. The sheer aesthetic pleasure of looking at the place makes me happy — for 30 seconds until my eye alights on some problem to be solved, something that’s less than optimal, something still to be done. And though I sigh, I go ahead and bite down on the problem and am thrilled when I finally solve it. The screen porch itself was my most inspired solution to a “situation” and now it’s fun to approach its little problems.
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Life eventually begins seeming shorter than the summers of our childhood. We look back and say, “I wish I had …” and the wish is always something like “spent more time with family” or “stopped and smelled the roses” or “spent more time with the kids” or “made that trip to Europe we always talked about.” For me one wish would be to have loved my dogs as much as they loved me and to have let them know it. But the truth is that if we — most of us people — had life to do over again, we’d still mostly get caught in our own little loops again. Unless something really woke us up and gave us a reality-check. Because the loops serve us. And because neither looking at a pleasant sight nor tossing a tennis ball to a dog nor playing games with small children nor hanging around doing domestic things is enough to keep the bright-minded human problem-solving, perpetually insecure human being mentally occupied for long.
But last evening was good, even if I did spend much of it thinking about whether Maple Red or Whistling Dixie (pea green) is the right color for the trim on the north wall.
You sigh… but the pleasure is in the journey, and you do seem to be pleasuring in it. Between house and painting, I suspect you have found your niche. (Though be proud of what has gone before, and where you have led many of us – however unintentionally.)
“Life eventually begins seeming shorter than the summers of our childhood. We look back and say, “I wish I had …” and the wish is always something like “spent more time with family” or “stopped and smelled the roses” or “spent more time with the kids” or “made that trip to Europe we always talked about.” For me one wish would be to have loved my dogs as much as they loved me and to have let them know it. But the truth is that if we — most of us people — had life to do over again, we’d still mostly get caught in our own little loops again. Unless something really woke us up and gave us a reality-check. Because the loops serve us. And because neither looking at a pleasant sight nor tossing a tennis ball to a dog nor playing games with small children nor hanging around doing domestic things is enough to keep the bright-minded human problem-solving, perpetually insecure human being mentally occupied for long.”
Absolutely, and well-said. We do have to keep doing; we are destined to always be looking forward, and striving for something more – or different. I think the side trips – the loops – act as sleep does to the body, giving us rest to cope with the ideas (and ideals!) that haunt, and often distract, our waking dreams.
My dog K-ci absolutely loved chasing after the tennis ball, much like your Ava! He crossed the rainbow bridge back in September 2013 at 15 years old and I still catch glimpses of him out of the corner of my eye on occasion. It’s funny how dogs stay with us like that.
K-ci came into my family’s lives having survived tragedy. Some heartless ghoul dumped him, his mother and fellow pups on the side of the busy road that’s near where I live. A neighbor was following behind a pickup truck that hit the mother and one of the pups and kept on going, didn’t even stop! Our neighbor witnessed this all and gathered up the mother and pup that were hit and K-ci and surviving pups and immediately drove them to the vet. Unfortunately the mother’s and pup’s injuries were so serious that the vet put them to sleep. My neighbor, who already had two dogs, now had 3 puppies on her hands and she had to find good homes for them.
Later that day when I came home from work, I noticed a lot of activity in my townhouse when walking up the sidewalk to it. Upon walking though the front door, I was immediately met by my 3 kids imploring me “Can we keep him, dad, can we keep him?”. I couldn’t say no. 🙂 K-ci was barely bigger than my hand and as you can imagine, a very cute puppy. The mother was a beagle and the vet thought, judging from the appearance of the puppies, that the father was probably a dachshund. He hadn’t been weaned yet, so we had to bottle feed him until he was able to eat regular food.
When he finally grew up, he resembled a “sawed off” Golden Retriever 🙂 , so his father must have been a long-haired dachshund. My kids were younger then and K-ci loved playing with them and also chasing the tennis ball. In his younger days, he was quite the athlete and would leap up and catch the ball in mid flight with his mouth.
As he got older, as can be expected, K-ci slowed down and got arthritis in his legs. By the last year of his life, although he wanted to chase the ball, his legs wouldn’t let him do it and he could barely make it to the woods out in back of our place on his walks. We gave him pain meds, sticking the pill into a hot dog slice and that helped ease his pain. At the end, K-ci stopped eating and lost weight and wouldn’t even eat his hot dog slices with the pain pill in it, so he wasn’t getting his meds either. He was so devoted to us that he would have kept on living just to be with us, even though he was in such pain. I made the call to take him to the vet and have the vet put K-ci to sleep. I agonized over it because K-ci did not like going to the vet. I was hoping he would die in his sleep at home, but that wasn’t to be. We called the kids to let them know and two out of three went with us to the vet. My younger son had just moved to Colorado, but he was with us in spirit. We were with K-ci all the way to the end and he went peacefully. Such a sad time though and we all still miss K-ci.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7-Qa92Rzbk
I find myself more & more turning off the news and listening to more music, oh btw thanks larryarnold.
Yes I’m there too, the loops might not be the same but there would still be loops if it was done over, It’s either the long walks or just setting out with Bones & the wife, being that he so big some of the things I toss for him might be the size of a small animal, he seems to like to just run back & forth mainly, God we love that dog.
I have a friend that is in France right now, a dream come true for them ( wouldn’t be me for sure) but I was thinking my dream come true is just playing with the pouch & talking to the wife, simple it is.
But I don’t know; Maple Red?
Mentally moving on to the next task is part of enjoying the finished task you’re currently celebrating. But taking a moment to celebrate the finished task is part of what makes moving on to the next task enjoyable. 🙂
“And though I sigh, I go ahead and bite down on the problem and am thrilled when I finally solve it.”
Yup… I know this process. I guess something in me likes to complain about having to break my brain over these challenges over and over… but dang is it satisfying when the ol’ brain comes through with another wave of ingenuity.
Your house transformation is looking fabulous. Talk about satisfying.
Oh… and I loves me some Downton Abbey. Has anyone started a thread on the show over at the Cabal? Might have to do that myself if not. ;^D
“Oh… and I loves me some Downton Abbey. Has anyone started a thread on the show over at the Cabal? Might have to do that myself if not. ;^D”
Nope, nobody has! I’m not sure how many Friends of Downton Abbey there are at the Cabal. But I’ll join in! I’ve got only three more episodes to go before I reach the end of the end. I may have to start over from the beginning — though there are still extras on the discs to explore.
Two Hippies sitting by a creek in south Florida, dangling their feet in the water. “Dang! A gator just bit my foot off!” “Which one?” “Dunno. You seen one gator, you seen ’em all.”
You see or read about an Antifa riot, what’s “new news” about the next one? Seen one, seen ’em all. You read of some financial shenanigan, what’s new? IOW, same-old same-old; only the names have been changed to protect the guilty.
Much of what’s being written about our modern times is merely updating of what’s already been said.
So live your own life, doing what you enjoy. Keep in touch with friends. Do what prepping you can for an uncertain future, but don’t worry about that future–’cause it will eventually arrive.
I still browse around the Inet, but I spend less and less time following up on URLs. More time reading on Kindle or re-reading some of the couple of thousand old friends on my bookshelves.
Face it: At 83 I’m a wee tad past the half-way point. So what? I betcha I haven’t run out of “Hold my beer and watch this!” 😀
“So live your own life, doing what you enjoy. Keep in touch with friends. Do what prepping you can for an uncertain future, but don’t worry about that future–’cause it will eventually arrive.”
+1