Saturday, August 29, 2009

Training Mr. Milton

Meet Milton (a.k.a. Mr. Milton, Milt, "The Ton"). He is our four year old Chowbrador. He weighs just under 85 pounds, loves chewing and licking rawhide bones, and hates when people talk outside our house. Milton has been, Robert and I say with all the love in our hearts, driving us crazy all day today.

My mom gave him a bag of gigantic rawhide bones a few weeks ago--a whole bag, all to himself! Before Robert and I were married, Robert had two roommates, one of whom had a fifty-pound mutt. Milton had to share. But now, now Milton gets to eat his rawhide bones in peace, without the threat of some other dog coming up and taking it away from him. But I won't hesitate to.

This afternoon, before Robert and I left to go to my sister's duplex for her birthday dinner, I walked up to Milton as he chewed on his last rawhide bone of the bag. As I came nearer to him, I noticed he hunkered down over the bone, pinned his ears back, and gave a soft growl. I don't abide growling of any sort, and particularly in cases when he's showing aggression over food or toys. One day, Robert and I will have children, and those children will want to play with the doggy while he's eating or while he's playing with his toys. They will tug on his ears, pull his toys away from him, and tease him. He will have to deal with it, and I will absolutely not tolerate any aggression toward any human family member. Every time Milton growls, these are the very thoughts that flood my mind. So this afternoon, when Milton growled at me over his rawhide bone, I decided that he had to be disciplined. I stood closer to him and told him to "drop it." He hunkered down even lower, pressing his jaw against the rawhide bone, pinned his ears until they disappeared beside his head, and growled much louder. I told him "No!" and smacked him on the rump. He growled again, not moving away from the bone. I grabbed him by the collar and told him to get up; he wriggled out of his collar and went to hunker down again, which is when I snatched the bone away from him.

Of course, I pause here to say that, with Milton specifically, I have been able to reach under him and snatch away toys or bowls of food when he becomes possessive over them. I know that doing that is not recommended generally because dogs have been known to bite their owners in those situations. I trust Milton, and I trust that he understands our relationship to one another. Sometimes he just forgets.

So I snatched the bone away from him, and I made him lay down until he calmed down. We didn't have a lot of time to spend disciplining him because we needed to get to dinner, so Robert put Milton's rawhide bone on the countertop, and we told him that he lost his toy privileges. When we got home, I thought maybe Milton had earned it again. I made him go through some exercises before I handed it over, but once I did, he ran with it and growled aggressively at one of the cats (who obviously have absolutely no interest in the damn bone). I took it away from him again and this time made him go through a much more rigorous set of exercises, including making him lay all the way down (with his nose on the floor) while I stood several feet back with the bone in my hand. Only after he got to a point where he stopped staring at the bone and relaxed his body did I return the bone to him.

I'm a cat person primarily. I love both dogs and cats, of course, but I've only ever owned cats. Disciplining cats is a lot easier than dogs--get a little water pistol and spritz them while making a scary sound (like a high-pitched squeak), and they'll stop doing what they're doing. Cats tend to keep to themselves in general and don't cause too much trouble. Disciplining cats is typically less physical and more mental. Dogs, however, seem to require a touch of some kind and physical demands (laying down, staying, etc.), which is a foreign concept to me.

I'm learning how to train Milton...and maybe in the process, I'm being trained too.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Happy birthday, Lauren! :)

Today is my sister's birthday! She turns 25, which is both very exciting (25 was one of my favorite years), but also a little bizarre. I can still look at her and see that toddler with chocolate icing smeared all over her face as we celebrated her second birthday. She may not appreciate that, haha. But I'm very happy we're going to be celebrating with the family this weekend, and I can't wait for her to see the gifts Robert and I got her.

We love you, Lauren! Enjoy 25!! :D

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Roses are red....

Our three-month anniversary was August 23rd, which was this past Sunday. I had gone to my parents' home to go shopping with my mom and sister for her bridesmaid dresses (I'm the matron of honor for her wedding), but Robert stayed home to watch the animals. While we were parted for the first time since the wedding, we realized just how much it hurts to be away from each other, and even greater--how much it hurts to be staring the end of August in the face with very little cash at hand.

Frankly, I have been having trouble recently keeping track of my dates, and while I knew our three-month anniversary was fast approaching, I forgot that it would be on the day I returned home. When I walked in the door on Sunday evening, then, I was genuinely surprised at what I saw: a beautifully cleaned house (vacuum lines in the carpet and everything) and gorgeous large red roses in full bloom in one of my old vases on the table. Robert had tied a purple ribbon around the vase to dress it up (a ribbon from one of my many spools of ribbon that are lying around the house), and had also written a beautiful letter to me which was placed beneath the vase.

He met me at the table, gave me a big hug and a kiss, and asked after my trip. I asked him about the flowers, mildly concerned for the cost and potential divot in the checking account. His response: they were from his mother's garden, whose rose bush had suddenly exploded with gigantic blooms a few days previous.



The flowers were so red, actually, that my camera (Canon S3 IS) nearly made them look like they were on fire. I de-saturated them a little in Aperture to bring out the petal details a little better.



Amid all the other bright red roses, the littlest one in the center doesn't quite look its actual shade, which is a delicate pink. My camera has a propensity toward red, I've noticed, which will occasionally affect the outcome of the photo.

I feel like the luckiest woman in the world to have such a loving, generous husband. Even in times of financial strain and sacrifice, he was able to think creatively so that he could give me the flowers he wanted to give me for our three-month anniversary. How ever did I come to deserve someone like him? :)

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Procrastination, thy name is A.Hab.

I am sitting in the room that Smitty and I spent the better part of nine months inside of, while we studied for comps...and devolved into giddy life-forms that could hardly speak a coherent word if it were not concerning our subject material. This is Grad Study Nirvana. Named by Smitty and me during a night of utter punchiness. It is located on the third floor of the university library, in a room that had previously belonged to library staff for their offices. On the glass doors lining the entrance is written the sign, "Faculty/Graduate Study Room. Individual Study Only." To Smitty and me, it reads, "Undergrads Keep Out. Others Abandon All Hope." It's strange to be in this room alone, but I will strive to exert some self-control and work on my dissertation's prospectus.

By writing a blog entry, apparently.

My goal this week is to compose a working first draft that I can conceivably submit to my dissertation director by early next week. We'll see if I'll allow myself that opportunity. You see, my dissertation and I are in a bit of an existential crisis. I have been wondering when I changed my sights from teaching at a small liberal arts college (similar to the one from which I graduated with my B.A. in 2004) to teaching at a large research university while advancing my own status as a Shakespearean scholar. I've been considering this conundrum for most of this summer, and frankly it has offered little (if any at all) motivation to write word one on the prospectus. Those of my readers who may be blissfully unaware of graduate school lingo (thank your lucky stars) should know that a prospectus is the in-between phase that separates a student from doctoral exams and the beginning of an approved dissertation. First, the student must write a summary of the dissertation to come...before the dissertation exists. I find this daunting, particularly as a writer who rarely writes her introductions first. If I had my druthers, I wouldn't write the prospectus until half of the dissertation were complete. What this has to do with my existential crisis is that I find myself wallowing in panic, wondering, "What's the point?"

Perhaps I'm looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps I should be seeing it as another hoop; one that, once I've jumped through it, it will be mostly forgotten. Perhaps this prospectus is supposed to be a crappier version of the brilliant dissertation I'm bound to write. (Ha....) I am sadly incapable of knowing the future.

I tell my students every semester: I am getting my PhD in Shakespeare, not mind-reading. Oh, if only the latter were an option. I'm sure I'd be an excellent mind-reader.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Exhaustion is making a home

I feel I should preface this entry with a small note to explain, perhaps, my late sad mood. My best friend, we'll call her Smitty on the blog, made a decision earlier this summer that she would not be returning to the university to complete her dissertation. Rather, she'll be "dissertating" remotely in her hometown in New York state, which means it will be much more difficult to see her and hang out with her. She was my first friend I made as an adult, and I know she'll be one of those friends who will always be a part of my life. I have known about this decision since Robert and I returned from the honeymoon (or shortly thereafter), but I did not actually deal with the reality of the consequences until the Thursday night before the Saturday she moved. After Robert fell asleep, I fell to pieces--he awoke to my near hyperventilating. When he told me to draw a full breath (after "threatening" to get a paper bag for me to breathe in), I literally dissolved; I babbled incoherently about how I was trying not to cry but if I breathed properly then I was going to cry and I didn't want to cry because then my face would be all puffy and I was supposed to see the movie tomorrow with my sister and Smitty and etc. etc. etc. Poor Robert was awoken from sleep to a wife who could only blubber in his ear. He held me and comforted me and told me very sweet things, and finally ended with, "You know Smitty would never let you hear the end of it if she knew you were crying this hard over her." This time I dissolved into giggles and nearly started hyperventilating again. When Smitty and I said our tearful goodbyes on Friday night, I drove away feeling like a boulder sat on my chest. I went home to my husband's encircling arms and cried some more in his shirt. Smitty and I aren't going to be able to write our dissertations together, as we had originally imagined for ourselves, in the graduate study room in the library...or in our very favorite coffee shop. But we'll be okay, and I support Smitty in this move. I know she will flourish in this environment much more so than she ever could have done in this one. I'm proud of her...and a little jealous. Sometimes a girl wants a change in scenery from the same university (especially as she approaches her sixth year in the same place).

That had nothing to do with my subject, but I felt it was necessary. I've been down and not in the mood to write for a few days, so there's the explanation.

So, exhaustion is making a home.

I think any of my readers who have moved into a new home would agree with that statement with no further explanation. Making a home, and really making a home (not merely a place to crash in the evening), is an exhausting exercise. I am currently in the intersession between semesters--I wrapped up a class last Wednesday, and look forward to a new semester with new students beginning next Tuesday. I had decided a few weeks back that I would make a more concerted effort to unpack all of these boxes during the intersession. Yesterday, I tackled the dining area and some of the kitchen. It's still sort of messy, but that's mostly because we ran out of cabinet space and needed to assemble new shelves. I think we should have bought a few more shelving units, ha! Today, I worked in the guest bedroom. When I woke up this morning (and when Robert left for his orientation this morning), the bedroom was slammed with boxes. Basically, all of the boxes we didn't know what to do with (and didn't feel like dealing with) had just been stuffed in there as best as they could fit. I emptied the closet of all its contents, constructed a bookcase, loaded the bookcase with the contents of the closet, and reorganized the closet with whatever could fit in it out of those boxes. Now the bed has been uncovered, and there is actual walking room--a guest could conceivably (and comfortably!) stay in there now. I feel good.

Probably the best part of the day was Robert's reaction. After he walked in the door to find me still in my knock-around clothes from this morning, I took him back to the guest bedroom. He immediately gasped and said, "Whoa! Holy crap, baby!" I couldn't stop grinning--if I had had a tail, it would have been wagging. He was so proud of me, and couldn't stop hugging me--it was thrilling, truly. To work so hard for so many hours of the day, and to be so bone tired, of course such bursting pride would be a thrill. :)

So, yes, making a home is pure and utter exhaustion.

But, in a sick way, it's also enjoyable. I do like building our little nest day by day, waiting in anticipation for my husband's reaction when he walks in the door to see the latest improvement.