1. What movie do you love but are too embarrassed to admit you love it?

I'm far too embarrassed to tell you. Really. I will write the title on a scrap of paper and put it in a sealed envelope to be opened and blogged about when I die.  Also in the envelope will be all the photos from my awkward teenage years that my brother hasn't yet posted to facebook and an anime re-enactment of me losing my virginity.  To a cartoon squirrel. Really.

2. Ann wants to know: How far do you drive/travel to attend trials, clinics, lessons? How far is too far?

 I think Ann needs to quit whining about driving to Idaho. It's not that far geographically, just culturally…but, really, NOT FROM NEVADA. You people have BEARD GROWING BROTHERHOODS. It's illegal TO NOT SMOKE in Nevada. 

Depends on the trial and whether I will be sleeping in my car and who will be there.  It tends to be in the 8 -10 hour range. I am considering extended that to regions where I can be more anonymous when we do something unspeakably horrible.  I will need a bigger car.  Maybe a train. 

3. What is your theme song (circa Ally McBeal)?

What the 90's Era Fuck, Ally McBeal? Theme song? Listening to music prior to a run does NOT CONSTITUTE AN ALLY MCBEAL moment. HOLYJESUSONANACCESSORIZEDCROSS NO! Now I feel like I've inserted us all into a feminine hygeine commercial even bringing this topic up. 

Right now I'm kind of partial to Lady Sovereign's Love Me or Hate Me.  Or anything featuring an organ and a monkey.

4. Laura S wants to know: If you had to choose a new dog activity, one that you had never done before, what would you choose? 

 Poker. Scout would be a great card player, except the weird aversion to face cards.  Jai would make a fine dealer.  Pat would always prematurely ante and then fold.  I'd have our portrait painted.

5. What would your dog choose (or scribe, if you're Pippin)?

Who can say? I think they are pretty happy with sheep.

All this water: Undrinkable.  Jai and Pat tried a few times, tentative laps followed by vigorous head shaking.  The other cruel water trick was a hot tub at our rental house.  Pat jumped in after the chemical floater and the look on his face was pure WTF. 

People leash their dogs, big and little, to walk for miles on a mostly empty beach with the vast ocean, crashing and receding to crash bigger; wet sand reflecting the sky….almost beside the point. 

Speaking of which, I have about a week to get me and Jai's head back in the game. 

I feel like such a SHEEP DOG SLACKER lately. 

Last weekend I worked Jai one day. We worked on shedding. Sort of half heartedly, really. I used DDs entire herd of sheep and waited for a natural opening large enough to drive a barge through slowly.  Then I called Jai in and she came because I was also eating a sandwich at the time. (And drinking a beer, but I don't feel that influenced the outcome).  She drove the subgroup off until I said,
"Look Back!" with a full mouth, so it sounded like, "LOO BAAPH"

It took about three times and some flailing, where I lost a chunk of cheese from my sandwich, which Jai eyed hopefully, before she gathered the remaining flock and regrouped. 

We did this two times before I decided I wanted some chips and salsa.

Shedding makes me nervous. And hungry.  I do enjoy TALKING about it though. As long as someone else is actually DOING it at the time.  Maybe that's cooking.

Sunday we watched the finals at DDs house where my neice, the Good Katy, was housesitting; Kelsey, Susan, GK and I.  We thought of questions to pose to the commentators that would get me kicked off for sure;  Things like,

"What are you wearing?" and,

"What is the approximate area, in square meters, and French, of the drive from last fetch panel to shedding ring?"

"If you only pen half the sheep, will you get half the points?"

We laughed, but used good judgment in not posting them…mostly.

It was a GOOD TIME.  I won a DVD because Kelsey typed the answer that Susan correctly provided to a question.   

It takes a village.

I am entered in two trials, I think, coming up.  Trailing of the Sheep, NC, and Fire Ridge PN.  Both challenging courses.  Both really mere weeks away.

This weekend I'm going to the Oregon coast with my children.  Plus Jai and Pat.  

Next weekend I hope to work dogs.    I mean REALLY!

 

1. If you're not at the 2011 Sheepdog finals this weekend what are you planning to do?

I have no plans.  I'm like that. I like life to just happen to me, like my dogs.

2. One item you NEVER walk onto the trial field (any trial field, or training class will suffice) without?

Pants. AND: My dog, because, like pants, even if prone to creeping up or being too tight, they tend to cover my ass.  

3. Katy wants to know if you have a pre-run ritual that you observe? 

Thats me!! AND I answered that, sort of, in the previous post.  I think it's interesting how many of us have the Nervous Pee ritual.  I've toyed with the idea of Ritual Sacrifice, but that seems messy and I'm usually too busy peeing nervously to carry it out. Still…it worked for the Mayans. And GW.

4. How old were you when you had your first real kiss?

I suppose I was 15.  Technically.  It was an appallingly uncomfortable, awkward event of my own construction. Well, mine and John Travolta's.

HORRIBLY shy, yet consumed with jealousy that my best friend had seen Saturday Night Fever and I had not….I accepted a date with a guy I clumsily met at the lake.  He was 21. I told him that I was 19.  My father was out of town; my mother freaked out.  I didn't give her much time to respond; I told her as I was preparing to dash out the door. 

"I'm going on a date," I said standing at our front door, watching a pickup truck pull in.

"Really?" my mother smiled, picturing me and some boy riding bikes to the Lil Bear frosty stand in Hayden, "Who is this boy?"

"I don't know.  Some guy with a truck who is old enough to get me into an R-rated movie…."

She was still sputtering as I dashed out the door, into his truck.

"DRIVE!" I said.  He was confused but obedient.  I think his name was Terry. But I might just think this because that is a confused yet obedient name for a man.

He drove us to the Wilma Theater where we watched John Travolta's polyester crotch insinuate my tactical error for the next 2 hours.

Watching a fairly graphic movie with a strange man who kept trying to hold my hand or touch me affectionately…or sit next to me (I put our popcorn on the seat between us) I found that all I REALLY wanted, increasingly, was to BE OUT OF THERE and NOT ON A DATE.   All that onscreen DANCING!! I sweated and hid my eyes and sweated some more through the entire bad movie. 

It was excruciating.

After the movie Terry took me to a pizza place for food and beer.  This is because when asked if I wanted to go have pizza and beer, I said,

"I guess…."

instead of

"OHMYSWEETFUCKINGUNDERAGEANDOVERMYHEADJESUS NO!!!"

As he ordered, I lowered my age in hopes that this would hasten The End. That he'd take me home, to my frankly pissed off mother.  She'd be waiting by the door.  I could hardly wait to cry and tell her about the condom scene.

"I'm only 18," I said to Terry.

"So…you can't have beer..that's okay. I'll drink it."

Next he suggested that we go to the lake.

"Uh…okay," I responded, meaning, 'Sob.'

On the way I "confessed" to being only 17. 

He sounded a little alarmed but decided to kiss me anyway.  A few times. He was pretty good in retrospect. He tasted like pizza and beer, two of my eventual favorites. HOWEVER: At the time I just wanted the night to be over and I had no interest in ever seeing him again.  I blamed him for the Bee Gees and subsequently the mid-70s.

"I'm fifteen and my mother is REALLY MAD about this…" I said between being kissed and noting how his bad home perm absorbed the moonlight.  Did he have a functionally retarded sister practicing for beauty school? Or faulty electricity and metal combs?

"Fifteen," I repeated, "Really, Really mad."

This seemed to decide things.

He took me home and got my phone number as my mother glared at us through the large picture window.

My mother did not stay mad for long as I gave her the details of the night. 

Terry called a few times during the rest of the summer and I wouldn't ever take the call, forcing my mother to deal with it.

"Tell him ….that I'm really 12!"

"Tell him that I have hoof and mouth disease!"

"Tell him that your son is unavailable…"

In the end she felt sorry for Terry. 

5. Bonnie wants to know what you do for yard mud control during the winter?
Nothing.  Mud cannot be controlled; only contained.  Wait…no…that's love.  They are similar in my life, especially this time of year.

I'm in Missoula this week for work.

Important work for your government. 

(I brought Jai and Pat because I could.)

I was hoping to live the USBCHA National Finals via the 'Tweets'…such as they are/were….as I did last year.  Apparently there is no such thing? If I'm wrong, comment or email me.  Otherwise  (FOUND IT!) PLUS! I'll go entirely on speculation and rumour, which I tend to prefer anyway.

It would be FAR TOO OBVIOUS for me to be watching the entire webfeed during our Important Government Meeting…

In the meantime….

I have a new question for Laura of Crooks and Crazies… and her followers:

Do you have a pre-run ritual that you observe?

I have some friends/people whom I admire as handlers who listen to particular music before their run or during potentially stressful training sessions. These handlers do very well.

I haven't tried this with sheepdog work myself, though music is important to me outside of that world. I love music.  I have no original taste in music, but my children, and friends, have excellent taste and provide me with my itunes library.  I can be having a shitty day and the right song will take me away from that.  And really good music you can appreciate mentally, but physically FEEL.  Like love and beer and a perfect sentence.  It makes sense that it could help prepare one mentally for a good run.

What would be your pre-run music choices?

I'm considering listening to something prior to my next run… or during.

(HINT: NOT the theme to 2001 Space Odyssey during the outrun or that chicken dance song for when I make a panel).

Sadly, this could backfire.  End Times Sheep Carnage after listening to Cypress Hill. Massive crazy WHERETHEFUCKARETHEYGOING? overflanking after any Carlos Santana. I won't be capable of slowing Jai down with Kings of Leon 'Holy Roller Novacaine' still in my head…

I could just listen to polka music…or bring my own accordian, which I've long thought made sense for my runs anyway…but I am trying to change that.  It's a brave new world. 

I'm open to suggestions.  5 Days a week, from 9 – 5.

1. What is the biggest thing that grossed you out over the past week?

Nothing has grossed me out lately, really.  Jai is in flaming heat, licking herself constantly while staring at the frankly disinterested neutered aussie, Zeke.  Pat is in Crate-Lockdown; insane with lust, his crate rocks and rattles and reeks of pee and misplaced optimism.  When I let him out he rushes around like he's late for an appointment, but he's not sure where.  I rush after him, try to shuffle him outside before he pees on something inside…Jai occasionally will glance at Pat in passing, but…almost as if to gauge whether hell really might freeze over, and instead she humps Annie, my inherited birddog.  Pat, too, humps Annie. Annie is getting a LOT of action. She takes it like a job. Most of this is happening in my backyard.  With me narrating details and hypothesis to my 19 year old son,

"Pats licking all the pee spots on the lawn….here come Annie…some chin-on-shoulder thumping action…Pat has to beat up on his lady a little…now he's ready for the hump…but no…Annie has to poop…that's got Jen's attention…I may have to switch Jen's food…to one that features shit…" 

The neighbors might have a different take on gross.

2. What do you feed your dogs? 

Currently its the Before Grain, Buffalo.  Raw chicken. Yogurt. I mix it up alot.  My dogs eat much better than I do, in general…Jen's unique tastes aside.

3. If you could move anywhere where would you live?

This is the first time in my adult life when this question has any real relevance and I've thought a lot about it lately.  I don't know.  My ideal was Coeur d'Alene, Idaho in the 1970s. 

4. What is the funniest thought that occurred to you (or thing that happened to you) this week?

I cannot think of a single thing that was especially funny.  I'll have to get back to this one.  Maybe it's been an especially dry week.

5. If you couldn't have your breed of choice what would be next on your list?

Not a bird dog, although I'm the only one in this house who feels that way.

1. What five things can’t you live without?

Beer, my running shoes, books, dogs, and my towel …

2. How do you transport your dogs? This question suggested by several peeps, including Mara.

Crates in a car or truck, or in my friend’s dog trailer depending on what’s convenient.  Sometimes in my head I transport them around the obstacles at a trial and past the gripping off/thank you point.  Crates seem more reliable.

3. What role does obedience play in your training or running of your dog(s)?

Dianne says that my ears must be painted on or that I need to be crated more.  Just kidding!  I think that some level of obedience is important, but it is important, too, to trust your dog and what he brings to the partnership.  I want my dogs to know when I mean something absolutely, and I want them to have the confidence to make their own decisions when its in our best interest.

4. At what point do you start putting commands on your dogs?

When I can remember them.  ‘Lie Down’ seems to be a good one.  ‘Shit’ is NOT A COMMAND, but it’s taken me awhile to undo that learning. It was once my favorite command.

5. Do you talk to strangers in elevators? Question posted by Laura #1

Depends what they are wearing and how many cups of coffee I’ve had... Oh. Wait…Elevator? No. Only on a plane.  I take the stairs every where that requires a change in elevation that can be measured in floors.