{"id":949,"date":"2015-06-05T06:00:02","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T13:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/?p=949"},"modified":"2015-06-04T08:50:09","modified_gmt":"2015-06-04T15:50:09","slug":"window-on-my-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/2015\/06\/05\/window-on-my-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Window on My World"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bella<\/p>\n

I consider this blog a window on my world, a way of letting people know that writers lives in general and this writer\u2019s life in particular don\u2019t amount to toiling away in an attic in utter solitude and silence. So here are some of the things I\u2019ve learned this week, in outline form. I am NOT using Roman Numerals because I have a terminal fear of Roman Numerals which accounts for why I don\u2019t outline my books.<\/span><\/p>\n

1. \u00a0It is almost impossible to get out of a chair with a sleeping puppy in your lap. This is true for two reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n

a. \u00a0Holding sleeping puppies is NICE.<\/span><\/p>\n

b. \u00a0Standing up with a flailing puppy in one hand is a lot like trying to get up when you\u2019re very pregnant. \u00a0(By the way, when I used the term \u201cvery pregnant\u201d in a book, a number of people wrote to say that there\u2019s no such thing as \u201cvery pregnant.\u201d \u00a0 \u00a0You either are or you aren\u2019t. \u00a0All the people who made that comment\u00a0were men.)<\/span><\/p>\n

2. \u00a0Things puppies learn in a hurry.<\/span><\/p>\n

a. \u00a0How to operate the doggy door.<\/span><\/p>\n

b. \u00a0How to win your heart.<\/span><\/p>\n

c. \u00a0How to dribble kibble into their water dishes no matter how far away the food dish is placed from the water dish.<\/span><\/p>\n

d. \u00a0How to grab the orange pull tabs on the PetsMart pee pads and turn them into toys, thus making them utterly useless for their intended purpose.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

3. \u00a0Things puppies do NOT learn in a hurry.<\/span><\/p>\n

a. \u00a0Not to bite the hand that feeds them.<\/span><\/p>\n

b. \u00a0Where they should \u201cget busy\u201d and where they shouldn\u2019t.<\/span><\/p>\n

c. \u00a0That it\u2019s a very bad idea to try to steal the senior dog\u2019s food. Bella, the senior dog in question, a rescue of indeterminate age, has had more than a few\u00a0teeth removed, but she still has enough to deliver a corrective nip when the occasion requires it.<\/span><\/p>\n

4. \u00a0Things I have learned about Dachshund puppies.<\/span><\/p>\n

a. \u00a0They are very low to the ground.<\/span><\/p>\n

b. \u00a0They are very quick and hard to catch, a lot like the rodents they\u2019re bred to eliminate.<\/span><\/p>\n

c. \u00a0The have minds of their own.<\/span><\/p>\n

5. \u00a0Things I have learned about PADD\u2014Puppy Attention Deficit Disorder and things that make it impossible for Jojo to \u201cget busy\u201d where she\u2019s supposed to.<\/span><\/p>\n

a. \u00a0Rain.<\/span><\/p>\n

b. \u00a0Sirens.<\/span><\/p>\n

c. \u00a0Pile driving equipment pounding pilings.<\/span><\/p>\n

d. Leaves.<\/span><\/p>\n

e. Moss.<\/span><\/p>\n

f. \u00a0Any loud noise, especially Bella barking.<\/span><\/p>\n

g. Wearing a collar.<\/span><\/p>\n

6. \u00a0Why Bella and Jojo are not allowed out in the yard on their own and why I carry a 5 pound rock when I\u2019m walking my 10,000 steps. By the way, this photo\u00a0 was taken at high noon on the patio of the house next door, which is just across our driveway. \u00a0The bobcat wasn\u2019t the least bit scared, either.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"BobCat\"<\/a><\/p>\n

7. \u00a0What I\u2019ve seen and learned in the yard this year while walking my 10,000 steps. My daily average for two months is 9273, so getting a puppy dropped my score for a couple of days.<\/span><\/p>\n

a. \u00a0I now love Ceanothus. When I saw those wonderful blue flowers I had to learn the name of the plant.<\/span><\/p>\n

b. \u00a0I loved watching the lavender Wisteria come on and then seeing the blossoms drift away only to be replaced by bright green leaves.<\/span><\/p>\n

c. \u00a0I loved watching the little Hosta sprouts, standing clumped together like so many little green and white tin soldiers, gradually grow into magnificent clumps of\u00a0green and white leaves.<\/span><\/p>\n

d. \u00a0I\u2019ve loved seeing how sun-light shines through new growth Photinia leaves creating one of the most intense reds I\u2019ve ever encountered.<\/span><\/p>\n

e. \u00a0I loved watching the fish gradually come out of hibernation in the pond. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

8. \u00a0What I\u2019ve learned about herons.<\/span><\/p>\n

a. \u00a0The nerf gun I received for Mother\u2019s Day is capable of firing sponge bullets from our back porch all the way to the fish pond. \u00a0If I aim over the pool house, the\u00a0bullets land on the same patch of grass as the heron. The bullets whistle in the air. The heron was surprised and hasn\u2019t been back.<\/span><\/p>\n

b. \u00a0According to KIRO News some people in Ballard, people WITHOUT fish ponds, were celebrating the \u201cbirthday\u201d of seventy heron hatchlings. I have it on\u00a0good authority that herons are HATCHED not BORN. I wonder if any of my \u201cvery pregnant\u201d commenters above notified KIRO News about this\u00a0 error. No doubt some of those hatchlings will turn up in our yard next year, looking for a handout.<\/span><\/p>\n

9. \u00a0What I\u2019ve learned about walking 10,000 steps every day.<\/span><\/p>\n

a. It takes time<\/span><\/p>\n

b. If I use pennies or pebbles to count the laps, I can think about something else rather than compulsively counting.<\/span><\/p>\n

c. \u00a0When I walk and don\u2019t count laps, I can think about writing. If I can\u2019t think about what to put in the next chapter, (In this case Chapter 7 of the next Ali book) I think about\u00a0writing the blog. \u00a0Which is what I\u2019ve just done. (Yes, grammar checker, I am well aware that is a sentence fragment. I did it that way for emphasis.)\u00a0Tomorrow it\u2019s back to Chapter 7.<\/span><\/p>\n

Have a great weekend!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I consider this blog a window on my world, a way of letting people know that writers lives in general and this writer\u2019s life in particular don\u2019t amount to toiling away in an attic in utter solitude and silence. So here are some of the things I\u2019ve learned this week, in outline form. I am […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[76],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pets"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-fj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=949"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":956,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/949\/revisions\/956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}