What have I done with the real me? Obviously, I am not me. I just can’t be.

Look at my poor dog. Georgia knows that I’ve been taken over by some alien life form that is controlling my central nervous system and it makes her sad.

She is overwhelmed by the responsibility of saving me (and the rest of humanity) from a sinister force that sends out parasitic drones to pull us down into the hive mind.

Or, she’s just enjoying the remaining bits of residual butt heat from my husband’s chair.

I can’t tell.

Black Coffee sock yarn is officially finished. So mood controlling alien parasites can’t be all that bad.

Right?

It’s not like my theoretical mind controlling alien parasite is making me listen to Phil Collins or Kenny G. Or making me read Altas Shrugged, or design handbags from human skin (you know, things that are *truly* evil.)

I bought some vitamin and mineral supplement for Greta and Georgia, and because it’s liquid the dosage is doled out in teaspoons. 1 teaspoon per 10 pounds of body weight.

Because in my former life I was a bartender I know that one ounce is one shot, and a shot holds 6 teaspoons. So really each of my dogs should be getting two shooters a day, which is far easier and faster than trying to accurately measure out 12 teaspoons. Right?

I feel so clever. The only problem is that I’ve packed away the glasses somewhere and I’m not sure which box would actually contain the shotglasses. Why did I not write the contents of each box on the outside of the boxes? Cleverness gone.

On the  bright side I did find a dosage cup conveniently attached to an unopened bottle of cough syrup. I’m clever again! At least I think I’ll be clever until I need to take some cough syrup.

I also bought Greta a nice huge thigh bone at the animal supply store, she’s in heaven.

Greta deserves a treat for being my helper today. While I was sorting and storing fabrics today she kept me company, and when I felt compelled to iron she faithfully kept the cats away from the ironing  board.

Housework is always nicer when I have company.

My decision, I’ll live with it.

Now that the girls are all rather nice dogs that come when called and don’t (usually) jump up on people, know how to sit and stay nicely, and head for their chew toys when they want a nice soothing nibble I’m starting to feel confident that they can be around my little treasures without causing too much damage.

We still have a few issues though, it’s impossible to do any gentle art with a 130 lbs Great Dane on my lap, I’ve had Greta for 8+ years and have still yet to fully convince her of this point, although if I tell her to go lay on the bed she will happily comply. Georgia on the other hand is completely unconvinced that an entire queen sized bed is just as good as my lap, or that I really want to pay attention to a bunch of string or fabric instead of devoting every waking moment towards staring into her deep soulful eyes and feeding her tripe. Sadie (aka the dog formerly known as Sydney) prefers her little love seat in my bedroom so needlework isn’t much of an issue with her, for some reason the spinning wheel sets her off into a series of long and mournful howls which is then repeated in chorus (and in a different key) throughout the neighborhood; this limits my spinning to daylight hours, away from Sadie, in an undisclosed secure location with the shades drawn.

The typical view of my craft efforts includes a dog nose. A very large dog nose connected to a very large dog.

I’m not quite to the point where I feel comfortable taking my nice clothes, paintings or guitar out of the closet, but I can sneak in a little knitting and needlework if I’m careful to put it all away when I’m done.

I just want you all to know that when I decided we should take both dogs, it was not because of a flawed pop-ethology theory of doggie buddies. Obviously, the dogs had decided to lace their drool with a psycho-reactive mind control drug and used state of the art hypnotic suggestion technology on me. I was helpless to resist.

Right, so want to see the babies?

Sydney, Georgia and me on their first night

The marle (gray & black in the foreground) is Sydney, and the fawn (standing next to me) is Georgia. I decided that since they weren’t trained (at all) and didn’t recognize their original names that it would be better to give rechristen them, both are 18 months so adapting to their new identities was a fairly graceful affair. According to the original owners neither is leash trained, housebroken, or obedience trained but they are “kinda” crate trained (and I have a huge neon sign saying “Sucker” across my forehead.)

The first thing Georgia did (post-butt sniffing) was check out the kennel (which our dogs don’t use, because they have our nice comfy bed to take over in the middle of the night.) Danes are not outside dogs, and Labs really are way too social to want to sleep alone, so the kennel is more or less for the benefit of Elle, the chicken, who thinks it’s a swimmingly great vacation home when she needs a break from her coop.

Wouldn’t you know it? When we brought Sydney into the mix, and all the butts were sniffed she went right over and started checking out the kennel.

Georgia

Georgia is unconvinced that the big pillow on the floor is actually meant for her use. Because she’s such a big girl (seriously huge– even in Dane terms) at such a young age, we have to be very careful with her joints– which means convincing her that the pads and pillows around the house are for her use.

Syd and her blankie

And then there’s Syd, who is only too happy to declare that everything is hers. Sydney’s a sweety but she’s under socialized with other dogs, hates/fears leashes, distracted by every little thing, insecure and possessive. On the upside; she likes people, she’s already more confident and really digs training. I’m going to ignore the leash thing for a while and just work on her basic manners and obedience skills, I hate putting off something as important as leash training but I don’t want to traumatize her by forcing the issue.

Greta seems to have taken over the potty training for the young’uns– so there haven’t been any accidents in the house. I never trained her to keep an eye on other dogs, but for some reason she’s taken it upon herself to alert us when someone needs to go outside and to reward them when they are done with a barrage of head nuzzles and licks. There is no doubt, Greta is the most awesome dog– ever.

We tried using the squeaky ball to imitate the grunting of an enraged wounded boar. Using a squeaky ball turns out to be a poor way to tap into primal energy.

We finally had to resort to gravity. (Greta is such a ham.)

Ah that’s better, it even gives her the cropped ear look.

(If you could just turn your monitor upside down, you’ll experience the terror that a wounded boar must have felt.)

Labs were also developed for hunting. Sunny knows this and taps into her primal side rather well.

There. Right there. That’s the kind of dog face that makes squeaky balls quake and squeal in terror. Yes. Very nice.

Now time to kiss Greta.

Awww.

I guess it’s obvious from the pics that we were taking advantage of the nice weather. I dread the end of spring break, come Monday I’m back to the books– and playing with the girls is so much more fun.

She’s also a little tuckered out at the moment.

Sunny is a leash puller, which (seeing as how she’s a hundred pounds of motivation) can be problematic, so I put her on the leash and we played stop and go game in the fenced portion of the yard. She’s catching on.

As I’m on spring break from my studies, I figure I have plenty of time to work with Sunnie on this part of being a nice dog. She’s already house broken, knows the basic commands, doesn’t bark, and is very polite so I have no doubt that she’ll understand that the leash is not meant to drag her humans around by the end of the week. (For, as Greta will tell you, the leash serves as a reminder to keep humans from running out into the street after ice-cream trucks and squirrels, it shouldn’t be used for discipline or as a control– a properly trained human respects the leash.)

Greta thinks Sunnie is the bomb, and after one good butt sniff she was delighted and acted as if Sunnie has always been her best friend– even though she did not approve of Sunnie laying on her couch, even best friends must have some boundaries. Sunnie now has her own pillow and Greta seems content to let the violation of the couch slide as a newbie mistake.

It couldn’t all be my mess could it? It is. Worse still, my family eats at this table. So everything has to be picked up and put away for each meal, each day.

Greta is my full time buddy and companion. When no one else can stand me, Greta is there with her big heart, full of encouragement.

When I started cleaning up today she gave me this look like “F— this, I’m outta here.” and took her squeaky toy to the back porch. She must have figured this for an all day project because she came back into the house and retrieved her ham bone before heading back outside.

Fine.

It took 17 gallon-sized freezer bags, a few jars, a couple cups of coffee and a pin cushion to get it to this point.

Not bad, at least there’s a table and a swept floor under it.

20 minutes later (less than an hour from when I started) and the table is clean, the floor swept and mopped.

10 minutes after dinner and the cycle will begin again.

Staying up until the wee hours with a Great Dane has it’s advantages though, I finished my Brooke’s Column of Leaves Scarf, which I think is going to end up being my sister’s for Christmas if I can get my ducks in a row. You’ll have to wait until I block it for pictures, it’s really a lovely pattern though and really fun to knit. I definitely want to make a second one (for me, because unlike Greta I’m selfish.)

In moving things off the floor I found the work bag that has Josey’s blanket in it, so I’m working on that now. The funny thing is (and I’m sure this is related to the fact that it’s Lion Brand “Homespun”) I didn’t even realize I’d lost it. Okay, maybe I did but did not really care so much because the idea of knitting something for him in wool would be much more fun.

The house (other than the one leak) is totally fine, even if it does flood a bit in the yard and the shop (the water is just a puddly thing and doesn’t seem to be getting any deeper so I’m not going to stress out about it.) So really the only thing to do is to keep myself entertained and wait for the dog pillow to come out of the wash and dry.

I wanted to show off a spindle that I turned because it’s really awesome and I love it, but didn’t want it to be “Oooh my spindle is at eBay, go buy it.” It sold right away so I’m hoping that it’s cool that I share it now, and I’m not coming off as someone that blogs merely to promote my own commercial interests. Usually Matt turns the whorls and I turn the shafts and make the hooks then we share in finishing duties. Greta does the supervising from her shop pillow.

This spindle is one of the few where I did everything but the fit up and gluing, I turned and finished both the shaft and the whorl.

There’s this perception with spinners that if you have a woodturner of your own or are a woodturner that somehow it interprets to being a happier spinner with a personal plethora of spindles. My personal spindles are the very first spindles Matt and I ever made, and one that Matt made me for Mother’s day a few years ago. I think if anything, being a woodturner made me a more conservative spindler, I know I really don’t need a collection of spindles to keep me busy, I know my style of spinning and have the spindles that fit me.I think that spinners should stand in front of a lathe least once in their lives and actually turn something (even if it’s not spinning related) just to see what woodturners put up with. Even with protective gear we get thwaps, pinches, splinters and burns, we inhale kerf and dust, we put up with bits of wood going horribly wrong and flying at chest or face at high velocity, and it takes a lot of physical endurance for the most part– 99% of the time we manage to make lovely items, that makes the physical suffering and potential hazards worth it all. Most of the time things go right, I don’t want to make it sound as if turners are taking their lives into their hands everytime they set up with a skew or gauge but we have to be careful, and sometimes– no matter how good you are– some chunks of wood are just evil.

Despite this some people treat woodturners as if they are just monkeys with chisels, or they think that woodturners simply make a master and then do all the work by duplicator. Then some a-hole woodturner on eBay supports this concept by saying “most spindle makers use duplicators to make spindles..blah blah blah.” No, we’re just better turners. I don’t own a duplicator– they are expensive, require a bed extention that isn’t made for my preferred lathe (Shopfox), and they tear the cr@p out of the wood.

I seriously don’t know the guy or his eBay username but I really want him to get a visit from the clue fairy, if he took a few minutes to do his research then he wouldn’t be such a liar. Or maybe he is a liar on purpose and just doesn’t care.

The other part that really crawls under my skin is when I do spiral work, again, it is something that might be done by machines with a g’zillion dollars and a huge shop. I do spirals when I feel like they are needed, and when I’m in the mood. I use a pencil, ruler, protractor and scratch paper to design them and then pencils, pocket knife, maybe some small files, and lots of sandpaper and time to render spirals.

You can tell the difference between spirals done by hand and those done with machines, at least I can, a handmade spiral is actually more perfect than a machine spiral (because a machine can’t feel when the density of a wood changes), there’s no trick to spirals done by hand, you do the layout, you cut wood, you do the work; the only purpose the lathe serves at that point is to act as a holder for the piece, motor turned off and unplugged.

Of all woodworking you’ll find that turners are equal opportunity, delicate wallflowers can be hella’ turners just as much as the big hairy burly manly men. Typically male and female turners treat each other as people and fellow craftsmen– it’s a long standing tradition unique to turning. Another woman woodturner told me how when she took turning classes in the mid-60s as part of an occupational program how the instructor pulled her and some ‘skinny fellas’ aside and asked that they do extra turning after classes so they could build some extra muscle needed for production turning, and that was the most attention paid to her as far as being female, given the times that’s pretty darned progressive.

It bugs me that other skilled crafts haven’t caught up with the times in that way, there are women that really freak out when they see a male knitter or men that totally lose it when they meet a female woodworker. It bothers me when people impose this artificial definition of gender on creativity, it’s just wrong and stupid for so many reasons.

I have to go now before I start ranting incoherently. I think I’ll go chop up some wood and then paint something pink.

ETA, December 12, 2006 (2:06 am): I wrote all of this myself under the influence of cough syrup.? (Just thought you should know, sorry.)

Sorry folks, I love you but after timing out and waiting until the cows come home, I just don’t want to comment that badly– besides, the one out of the three that the comments did load– I forgot what I was going to say.

Sadly, I have DSL so if your blog takes over three minutes to load, you might want to consider the options– think of those poor folks missing out on your brilliance because they are limited to dial up.

Speaking of brilliance, I’m cleaning the house today and spinning more of the Shetland. I know, you haven’t even seen the yak yarn I was spinning, because I’m not finished with it, I promise I’ll take update pictures soon.

Actually cleaning is not quite accurate. It started as cleaning, and then mutated into full blown purging. I can’t believe how much stuff there is here that is just simply in the way, taking up real estate, and crowding everyone out. Part of it was that when my Dad was staying with us he brought his whole house full of stuff, and when he left, he left most of his stuff. It’s brutal because I don’t really know what he wants to keep and what he wants to toss, and getting him to come back out here to pick anything up has not been terribly successful. I have to consider the possibility that Dad just doesn’t want to deal with it; so I considered the possibility and after careful consideration concluded that it’s a high probability he simply doesn’t want to deal with it.

Also on the high probability scale is that all this crap will drive me over the edge into some psychotic episode that will end badly for everyone. Well fine, I’ll deal with it then. If he doesn’t like the way I deal with it, I don’t really care at the moment: I don’t really like the way I can’t put my stuff where it belongs because his stuff is in the way. I do however like the calm peaceful feeling of my home when it’s tidy and organized.

Greta thinks all this cleaning is awesome. Especially we start with the fridge, this is where she really shines. So far today her favorites have been slightly dried out hot dogs, left over french fries, and a bit of ham and savory. Freezer burn on the chicken? No problem for Greta, just a little ketsup and cook that baby right in the microwave. Frankly, Greta makes cleaning the fridge completely worthwhile– how did I ever manage before her?

Not that it needed to be disposed of immediately, but we also broke into a jar of pickled hot cherry peppers. I had mine over water crackers, Greta prefers gently tossed in the air. I’ve never seen a dog that likes such spicy food, it must have it’s benefits for her though, because she doesn’t ever have flea or worm problems even when the other dogs in the neighborhood do, so maybe it makes her too spicy for parasites.