Dover's friends

Dover has lots of friends. Tennis balls seem to be one uniting factor, but sometimes it is just closeness or a good swim Dover likes to share. His first friend was Jonah, whom he adored, but that friendship was a bit one way.

There is the neighborhood schnauzer, and even thought their sizes reversed with time, they still travel in the same circles.




There are Easter guests and school pals,

and the neighborhood Corgi, who likes a good game of "Ha-ha I have your tennis ball and you don't."

Finally, there is the elite TBFC (Tennis Ball Fanatics Club); they play many games - which could go on all day, every day, 24/7. These are expert dogs that Dover can learn from!

The Train to Minnesota

I took the train to Minnesota over spring break. One of our excursions was to visit the Minnesota Museum of Science, a place to spend quality time with kids and science. One of the museum's trademarks is a set of stairs that dings musical notes when walked upon. The video part is lousy quality, but the audio is fine.

When we came home, the kids made a model of King Tut's tomb out of a little figure of King Tut (he's in the box inside a box inside a tomb) and assorted goods found on any active dining room table such as fool's gold, boxes, assorted stones, erasers, etc..

Solo puzzle completion

Today, after burning the last year's palms at church for use on Ash Wednesday, my granddaughter Bridget came over and completed a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle in four hours, while eating lunch, many, many Girl Scout thin mints, and a coke. I recently found this puzzle stashed on a high shelf, a puzzle her father and aunt did as kids. She did it solo, although at the end, Dover tried to pretend that he was the one who put in the last piece.

Five birthdays and two anniversaries

Today is Dover's third birthday, so I made him a poached egg on kibble when we came back from our 2 mile walk on pretty much rock solid sidewalk ice. He is a grown-up now, and to mark this transition he is busy taking a post-breakfast snooze on the couch.

This week started out with my daughter-in-law's birthday, and as the week progressed there were three birthdays of friends to celebrate and the anniversary of the death of Mungo (one of Dover's predecessors); the week will end with the adoption day anniversary of one of Dover's friends.

My daughter-in-law threw out the seed for the daisies in the bank by the sea; the first time I saw them in bloom was a breathtaking moment. So now, when I think of my daughter-in-law, I think "daisies,"  which also happens to be my favorite flower. This same d-in-l is a stained glass artist, and this past summer she made this seaside display case for my Minnesota family to take home to remind them of a couple of warm weeks spent at the beach to get them through the rigors of the Minnesota winter.


We celebrated the three friends' birthday with an elegant dinner prepared by another friend; he loves to cook and presents his food offerings gracefully and thoughtfully.

Skipper, the seventeen year old resident wonder cat spent most of his time enjoying the celebration from his perch on the sidelines, in the company of his giant rat.

Three years ago this week, Mungo died prematurely of spleen cancer at age 5. He was a loving, affectionate and idiosyncratic dog, and he had what I am convinced was a bona fide eating disorder. He came from a litter of 2, and was so enamored of his mother's breakfast, elevenses, lunch, snack and supper largesse that his people took him off his mother at 4 weeks so his sib could get a little nourishment. Once he came to our house, he ate everything in sight, pens, sponges, lemon tarts, lobster ravioli, and most distressing of all, sandwiches and snacks of unsuspecting children who held their food a little too low - just at snout level.

Dover was born the next day, although of course we did not know that, in fact, we hadn't even begun to negotiate for him at the time of Mungo's surprisng death. But negotiate we did, and 8 weeks later we hazarded the narrow, windy, pot-holed New Hampshire back roads, miraculously found Dover's birth place, signed lots of forms, and brought him home. He instantly fell in love with Jonah, our older dog who was very ill with cirrhosis of the liver; Jonah lived long enough to help bring Dover up and teach him to leap off the porch and bring in the morning paper.

This week of important days ends with the eleventh anniversary of Dover's friend's home-coming. Dottie was born on Christmas Day and so she gets to celebrate all notable events that touch her life.

Focus into Action

Dover's dream comes true! Through intense fccus and his hynotic stare and the passage of several months, the tennis ball is transformed into a Santa Claus in a train and . . . moves!

The Dogs Wish You the Best for the Christmas Season and the New Year!

For some reason, the scanner converted blues to gray! So imagine light blue where you see gray in the drawings. Click a drawing see it fuller scale.

A trip and a half on Amtrak

I go by train whenever I travel across land. I love the slow pace of train travel, and I also like watching the country- and citysides go by, from the scenic vistas of marshes and plains to the graffiti artwork on abandoned buildings in urban areas.

I have just returned from a visit to Washington, DC, where I stayed three nights, two whole days and two half days with two cats and a friend. The trains were on time, user friendly, crowded, and, seemingly, uneventful. On the way south, once the sun rose and we moved from darkness to light (not that I saw the sun, just the light of day) the view from the window provided a bare and monotone landscape - we were riding through an old fashioned sepia drawing. Mostly, I read.

Likewise went the return journey. I had a new book and nicely silent and otherwise occupied seat mates. I had brought a sandwich so I didn’t even make my usual trip to the café car. No excitement. Six sevenths of the way home, the train emptied out, as usual, but, not as usual, hordes of grownups and children spanning all ages boarded. Noisily. They were sporting Santa hats and wearing big round pins with pictures of train engines with flashing red lights. Kids were excited; babies cried; one grown-up was scared when the train began to move; parents exclaimed to their children how exciting this first train trip was. They took pictures - it is like a lightening storm in the car. One kid lost his button but luckily only his parent seemed to care.

The conductor came by and said softly to each of the rest of us plain old passengers: "Folks - they are going to be singing Christmas carols but there is room in the next car up. You can move, stay and listen, or stay and join in. Your choice.” I stayed, as did my silent seat mate, engrossed in his computer work. A woman handed out packets of Christmas songs. One kid wanted to know “Where's Santa?” Apparently promises had been made. Another started to cry. And then – there was Santa, doing his thing with a bag of engineer hats for each of the kids. A man with a white, curly beard, a fake conductor suit ,and a lovely voice whipped out a mike and led the car’s inhabitants in an assortment of Christmas songs – I won’t call them carols as they were of the secular Santa-focused variety.

At a break, Santa started in on a long sermon on being good and kind. A little boy went up to him and told him that his brother was mean to him, he hit him and gave him nougies. Santa frowned and the brother was identified and stepped forward in his engineer cap, a sweet little guy with an innocent smile, who owned up with to his actions with a huge grin.

The train came into the station and we all got off, anxious to get home, including Santa. He disappeared down the fairly decrepit station steps with his pack on his back, muttering about elves.