Dogging It

Honeymoon phase is over. I have a (bleep) dog! Don't get me wrong, he's a sweet heart, and Henry's on-and-off girlfriend now has the vampire love marks on her arm to prove it. Nothing says, "Trust me with your children for a play date" quite like a biting dog.

Professional help has been summoned. The whisperers are coming next week for an interview... of the dog, not the owners. I am clearly not a real pet person, because this concept of interviewing the dog means nothing to me. I can't even imagine what a pet person might imagine this could possibly mean.

I think, overall, Lucky is a good dog. He just goes into John Rambo mode (in "First Blood", not the later sucky movies) sometimes in unpredictable ways. I want to go all Brian Dennehy on his little terrier derriere, but Katie is calling in Richard Crenna, so we'll see how that goes.

Meanwhile, Henry is in a pitched battle with the dog for lowest spot on the totem pole. Nothing makes a fight more bitter than really low stakes (see also, rivalries in academia for the right to publish on esoteric topics that will be read by exactly four people ever).

Being Young Ain't What It Used to Be

Being young feels older than it did 10 years ago.

I have more sadness about losing my hair than I thought I would.  I always told myself that if I were to lose my hair, I would just let it go.  Now I yell for everyone to quiet down when the Rogain add comes on.  The real problem is that I am losing it in such a way that there is no graceful adjustment period.

And I have to stretch before I exercise.  What's that all about?  And after hiking in the Wadi, as we did this morning with Lucky, my knees are killing me.

The Wadi

My back hurts.

My high school friends are posting wedding photos on Facebook...their kids' weddings.

Watching a classic Christmas movie with the kids a few weeks ago, I fielded this devastating question: Dad, why does the phone have that string attached to it?

Now I Have a Dog _AND_ a Wife

Marriage is great. You give up some things but gain others. On the one hand you give up control of your time and money. On the other hand you gain someone pointing out all your mistakes. So you take the good with the bad.

We got a dog a little over a week ago. Now I also have a dog pointing out all my parenting mistakes. Turns out, he's super effective at it because he reveals the errors. Can't reward bad behavior in a dog. Crate training. Can't let him out of the crate until he stops whining, never when he begins whining. Then, Maddie complains about such-and-such, I don't want to deal with it, so I tell her to go grab some Pringles, knowing this will bring me peace. See how I did that?

Lucky the Dog. Best parenting manual I've encountered so far.

Not only that, but my house is super clean since getting a dog. Kids don't want to leave anything out for him to chew on and we've learned that it's easier to quickly clear the table and rinse the dishes than it is to train him to stay off the table. He enforces discipline.

Not only that, but we are walking around the neighborhood a lot more now that we have a dog, which is good exercise and good to finally see what's around the corner.


On the other hand, he goes bonko for about 15 minutes every night around bed time, snarling and sprinting, and trying to chew on every imaginable thing. So we're working on that.

The Thing That Happened While Riding Horses

We went horseback riding with friends the weekend before Christmas.  I had been to the pyramids already with Caleb for a class field trip but, shamefully after 6 months in Egypt, this was the first time taking the whole family.  We followed our friends who had invited us to ride horses with them and I was surprised when, almost at the pyramids, they took an unfamiliar turn south, away from the pyramids (away from the Giza ones anyway).

We followed one of the many Nile canals (when I say canal, what you should think of is the trash compactor from Star Wars) and followed it until arriving at some lovely stables between the Sakkara and Giza pyramids.

At length, everyone was on a horse and riding through the sand.  Given that there were many novice riders, the professional guide-to-horse ratio was low.  Early on, Katie's horse tangled with Hilary's horse (Hilary is Maddie's friend and daughter of friends who invited us for the ride) and a double de-horsing was narrowly avoided.  But all calmed down and we enjoyed a sand blown ride through the desert.

The horses, some of them less trained and fit than others, tired as we neared the end, however.  We were all quite spread out by then when I heard a commotion from Caleb's and Henry's horses.  I turned in time to see a buck, causing separation of hands from reign, then a shimmy, sending the loosened Caleb careening face first off his six-foot perch.

His face broke his fall, so that was good.  I guess the other good thing is that it happened in the desert, the sand making for a reasonably soft landing.  I, a novice rider myself, struggled to get my horse to stop as I yelled after his welfare.  He bounced up fast, but did not speak.  I believe he had his wind knocked out.  Meanwhile, Henry's horse, seeing the confusion, chose the moment to lay down and attempt to roll over on top of Henry.  Fortunately, he is short and his legs were not stuck under the horse.  He scampered away without incident.

By now I was off my horse and approaching Caleb who, but for spitting out a mouthful of sand, appeared uninjured.  Katie, who had been a quarter mile ahead, was running toward us.  I am very proud to report that she was yelling, "Get back on that horse!"  No quitters allowed in Katie-land.  I like it.

And to their credit, both Caleb and Henry, free of harm, were eager to get back on the horse.  Caleb even subsequently decided he wanted to take riding lessons, the perfect response to being thrown, in my humble opinion.

Indulgent Christmas Home Movie (in which I experiment with iMovie tricks!)