Have no fear for givin' in.
Have no fear for giving over.
You better know that in the end
It's better to say too much, than never to say what you need to say again.
(John Mayer)
***
I went for a long hike this morning. The temps are supposed to stay out of the triple digits today and it wasn't so terribly hot this morning.
You know how it is? When the dog you think you want isn't the dog you find out that you need? Like, maybe the dog you need has been right under your proverbial nose for the last nearly five years and you just somehow failed to notice?
While I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere, what I'm trying to say is that I'm really happy with Fraction.
I wouldn't have chosen a rat terrier as my personal hiking companion. (I would of course have chosen a mastiff. Possibly, you know, a wolf. 'Cause I like live in fear and stuff.) And at first I had my serious doubts about Fraction.
She's always been really... tightly wound. Anxious, prone to panic, low canine self-esteem. I swear, I spent the first month of hiking providing her with constant affirmations. ("You're a good dog, Fraction. A smart dog, Fraction. A brave dog, Fraction. And dammit, people LIKE you.") It really kind of got on my nerves, having to provide so much positive feedback to her, especially since the purpose of my morning hike (besides the ocd rock thing), is to kind of provide MYSELF with positive affirmations. ("You're a good person, Circe. A smart person, Circe. A brave person, Circe. And dammit, your dogs LIKE you.")
But now! She's the nearly perfect dog! Smart, confident, strong, happy! She wades into the lake, she runs up and down cliffs, she's on constant Squirrel Patrol ('cause you know how it is: the squirrels you have at home are never as much fun as other people's squirrels).
We both used to panic when we encountered other people and dogs on the trail, because I thought she'd flip out and fear-bite someone, but now, as soon as she hears someone approaching, she comes back and heels right beside me. (Technically, she's heeling on the wrong side, but you gotta give her credit because at last she has... wait for it... the Courage to Heel.)
What I'm saying, is how happy I am with Fraction. She used to be terrified to get in the car, terrified to come when I called her, terrified of her leash, terrified of almost everything, and now she's a completely different dog. It's amazing. And I enjoy her company so much on our hikes. My three miles has got to be six for her, because she's always doubling back to check on me. And she's in complete tune with me, it's amazing. It's like we're totally synchronized on our hikes. She even understands what I'm doing when I migrate off the trail a little bit in search of rocks.
So I just thought I'd throw that in there.
***
I'm officially done with two classes. I did the Final for the Soci class yesterday. The funny thing is that I didn't really need to. I'd done all the extra credit in the class, plus, you know, done extremely well on all the assignments and the midterm, so even without the Final I had an 89 in the class. I thought about just answering a couple questions on the Final, just enough to waft my grade into the 90s... but I couldn't not do the whole thing. I couldn't keep myself from applying myself to the entire Final. Heh.
I turned in my lengthy PowerPoint final project to my WS studies class yesterday and I'm kind of anxious to see how I do. I haven't got my grade back in that class for my Zenzele essay either.
I turned in my ten-page thesis, my annotated bibliography, my PowerPoint, my self-assessment, my summary of dialogues, my... there was probably more... to my English class and now all I have to do is review five of my classmates' projects... Not as easy as it sounds. I reviewed two yesterday, the two from the only two people in the class that I like, and that was relatively painless, but this morning I was trying to wade through another student's project and apparently I was making some kind of noise as I was doing it, and Rainy's all, "What, Mama! What's wrong!" Heh.
Anyway, I have to review three more by midnight tomorrow and I'm officially done with the summer semester.
It's been a good summer. A very good summer. I'm not going to let the one issue, the one issue of which I will write about in a little while in my handy-dandy password-protected site, wreck an extremely good summer.
I was thinking on my hike this morning, wondering how long it's been since me and the kids had a summer this good, and I have to say that it hasn't been since 1998.
(1998! Geez. I get one good summer every TEN YEARS?)
In 98 me and the kids had just moved out to our place in De**n(i*so&n. Fran was working in I think Austin, doing contract computer work and probably crack, but he was gone and he was sending home a really good paycheck and... Hang on. I've gotta drive Trin somewhere...
Have no fear for giving over.
You better know that in the end
It's better to say too much, than never to say what you need to say again.
(John Mayer)
***
I went for a long hike this morning. The temps are supposed to stay out of the triple digits today and it wasn't so terribly hot this morning.
You know how it is? When the dog you think you want isn't the dog you find out that you need? Like, maybe the dog you need has been right under your proverbial nose for the last nearly five years and you just somehow failed to notice?
While I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere, what I'm trying to say is that I'm really happy with Fraction.
I wouldn't have chosen a rat terrier as my personal hiking companion. (I would of course have chosen a mastiff. Possibly, you know, a wolf. 'Cause I like live in fear and stuff.) And at first I had my serious doubts about Fraction.
She's always been really... tightly wound. Anxious, prone to panic, low canine self-esteem. I swear, I spent the first month of hiking providing her with constant affirmations. ("You're a good dog, Fraction. A smart dog, Fraction. A brave dog, Fraction. And dammit, people LIKE you.") It really kind of got on my nerves, having to provide so much positive feedback to her, especially since the purpose of my morning hike (besides the ocd rock thing), is to kind of provide MYSELF with positive affirmations. ("You're a good person, Circe. A smart person, Circe. A brave person, Circe. And dammit, your dogs LIKE you.")
But now! She's the nearly perfect dog! Smart, confident, strong, happy! She wades into the lake, she runs up and down cliffs, she's on constant Squirrel Patrol ('cause you know how it is: the squirrels you have at home are never as much fun as other people's squirrels).
We both used to panic when we encountered other people and dogs on the trail, because I thought she'd flip out and fear-bite someone, but now, as soon as she hears someone approaching, she comes back and heels right beside me. (Technically, she's heeling on the wrong side, but you gotta give her credit because at last she has... wait for it... the Courage to Heel.)
What I'm saying, is how happy I am with Fraction. She used to be terrified to get in the car, terrified to come when I called her, terrified of her leash, terrified of almost everything, and now she's a completely different dog. It's amazing. And I enjoy her company so much on our hikes. My three miles has got to be six for her, because she's always doubling back to check on me. And she's in complete tune with me, it's amazing. It's like we're totally synchronized on our hikes. She even understands what I'm doing when I migrate off the trail a little bit in search of rocks.
So I just thought I'd throw that in there.
***
I'm officially done with two classes. I did the Final for the Soci class yesterday. The funny thing is that I didn't really need to. I'd done all the extra credit in the class, plus, you know, done extremely well on all the assignments and the midterm, so even without the Final I had an 89 in the class. I thought about just answering a couple questions on the Final, just enough to waft my grade into the 90s... but I couldn't not do the whole thing. I couldn't keep myself from applying myself to the entire Final. Heh.
I turned in my lengthy PowerPoint final project to my WS studies class yesterday and I'm kind of anxious to see how I do. I haven't got my grade back in that class for my Zenzele essay either.
I turned in my ten-page thesis, my annotated bibliography, my PowerPoint, my self-assessment, my summary of dialogues, my... there was probably more... to my English class and now all I have to do is review five of my classmates' projects... Not as easy as it sounds. I reviewed two yesterday, the two from the only two people in the class that I like, and that was relatively painless, but this morning I was trying to wade through another student's project and apparently I was making some kind of noise as I was doing it, and Rainy's all, "What, Mama! What's wrong!" Heh.
Anyway, I have to review three more by midnight tomorrow and I'm officially done with the summer semester.
It's been a good summer. A very good summer. I'm not going to let the one issue, the one issue of which I will write about in a little while in my handy-dandy password-protected site, wreck an extremely good summer.
I was thinking on my hike this morning, wondering how long it's been since me and the kids had a summer this good, and I have to say that it hasn't been since 1998.
(1998! Geez. I get one good summer every TEN YEARS?)
In 98 me and the kids had just moved out to our place in De**n(i*so&n. Fran was working in I think Austin, doing contract computer work and probably crack, but he was gone and he was sending home a really good paycheck and... Hang on. I've gotta drive Trin somewhere...
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