baron in september...

which is different from the baron in september.

hyder park picnic, albuquerque

kind of black

the baron: toddler x, what kind of music do you feel like hearing?

toddler x: ummmm, harlan pepper kind of music.

the baron: miles davis it is.

it didn't go our way.

miss you, tucker.

this round to tucker

tucker's been a bit down lately, on account of a wicked case of meningoencephalitis (the baron is referring to it as brain fever).

it's been a long week for the baron and the husband (and probably longer still for tucker) as various doctors tried to sort out his diagnosis and treatment, but now, 10 days after the seizure that first indicated he might be ill, tucker is seeming better and better:  he's ambulatory, and has regained his appetite, vision, and sense of smell.  his hearing seems not to be so great, but yesterday the baron did notice tucker's ears twitch at the sound of the cookie jar lid being removed and was heartened by it.

years ago, when the baron and the husband were certain they did not want and would not have children, they mourned the life tucker would not have: he seemed the kind of dog specially bred for a little boy to roam and romp with, best friends armed with sticks and tennis balls.

things are much changed since those early days!  when toddler x was born, among his parents' first thoughts was: how lucky this boy, to have tucker!  and how lucky tucker is, to have this boy!

if things had gone a different way this week, the baron and the husband would have had a hard time putting things back together.  happily and luckily, this round goes to tucker and there will be no mourning, only celebrating.

shades of harlan pepper

all the dogs look forward to spring, but none so much as harlan pepper, he of the flinty gaze and and speckled chest.

so, because the weather has been looking up, enjoy yourself a photographic ode to harlan pepper.

february 6, 2010

poor harlan.

the big game

the baron is obviously not talking about the super bowl.  she knows what she'll be doing on sunday.

baron gets a bath

photo essay: a series of snow days II

photo essay: a series of snow days

two girls from a long time ago

the baron and the husband have spent the better part of the past week rearranging their very small house to accommodate the arrival of their very small new family member. the doing of this - the rearranging - mostly entails the cleaning and purging of the office... here forward known as the baby's room.

the cleaning out of dark spaces is always good for surprises, and reminiscences, and memories of walks down rosehill drive. see the below video, from november 9, 2003.

do androids dream of electric sheep?, or, baby's first playlist

there are big changes happening at the baron and the husband's house*, not the least of which has to do with the baby kicking forcefully enough to be felt by hands on the baron's belly. because the baron and the husband are original thinkers (wink, wink), and because the baby is at the stage where he can (supposedly) "experience" things outside the womb, they have lately been reading to him. 'shouts and murmurs' mostly, but also 'the westing game'. most recently, they've decided to introduce the baby to music; the baron fell asleep last night with a pair of huge headphones securely affixed to her big, big belly. baby's first playlist looks a little something like this:

good day sunshine (the beatles)

near wild heaven (rem)

shine a light (wolf parade)

find the river (rem)

country feedback (rem)

shine a light (the rolling stones)

dream operator (talking heads)

one fine day (david byrne & brian eno)

stay (faraway, so close) (u2)

the funeral (band of horses)

heroes (david bowie)

*other changes include a new roof, 9 new windows, a new refrigerator and stove, and a new car. it's been a busy month. also, this past weekend dumped a huge amount of snow on maryland. see photographic proof, below.

good things from the weekend

reader, the baron had another good weekend, "good" having been determined by a) the amount of hours she spent outside the house and in the world, and b) the number of times she had to use her 'emergency bag' (the plastic shopping bag that the baron has with her at all times, secreted away into her pocket, her purse, her desk drawers, and her car?).

she and the husband had a lovely and busy time: over the course of saturday and sunday, they visited a honda dealership (and test drove both the pilot and the crv), a mall (AND they ate at the food court; this, reader, does not happen to them ever - in fact, the husband's falafel and the baron's fried rice might have been their very first food court date), a bookstore (barnes & noble, no less, and mostly for gift shopping), and a series of asian grocery stores.

on the whole it was a highly satisfying weekend, one that ended with the baron and the husband, on sunday afternoon, sitting in the yard and enjoying the uncommonly fine weather. the baron took the opportunity to take this photo, "a man and (one of) his dog(s)".

new car shopping, or can the baron get a second helping of that humble pie?

last weekend, for the first time in weeks and weeks, the baron felt well enough to stand a prolonged trip out of the house. she's beginning to feel that, into her 17th week of pregnancy, things are finally looking up (well. except for the peeing thing. and the migraines.). the baron and the husband have been putting off shopping for new car, and the sudden reappearance of her health (or some semblance of it) seemed as good a time as any to start. they made a 2pm appointment at a toyota dealership for a test drive; they were interested in the highlander.

the test drive was fine, but the car was not. it sat a little low for the baron's liking, and the console was so busy that the baron was immediately put off by all the extraneous knobs and buttons. also? the speedometer and the tachometer were very deeply recessed into the dash; the baron felt she was looking at them through tubes. this annoyed her. and, to her dismay, the baron learned from the salesman that cars are pretty much no longer manufactured with manual doors and windows; everything is electric and push-of-a-button (and, she thinks, totally more vulnerable to a bum battery or loose wire*).

the baron and the husband had pinned all of their hopes on two cars: the toyota highlander and the honda cr-v. that the highlander would be functionally ugly did not occur to them, and - having definitively crossed the highlander off their list - they decided to visit a honda dealership on the way home (the baron would like to interject that their trip actually started with a trip to target, then on to the toyota dealership, then honda... the baron felt VERY VIRTUOUS for spending so much of her saturday outside the house). they pulled into the honda parking lot, fortuitously into a space right next to a cr-v.

sigh.

it turns out, reader, that the cr-v is rather smaller than the baron would like. she's fairly sure that she'd only be able to fit one of the two bigger dogs into the very back of the car; ideally, the new car they select will fit all four dogs, three humans and chester the cat.

the husband then spotted something called the honda pilot, a car the baron had never even seen before. it's the honda version of the toyota highlander, and reader? its console and dash are not ugly, but are simple and normal looking. the pilot has three rows of seats, the last of which can be pushed down to make room for, say, two big dogs and even maybe a cat carrier. the middle row has plenty of room for a car seat and a least one, say, 30 pound black dog and maybe even a 17 pound dachshund and a suitcase.

the only problem with the pilot, actually, is that it's not the kind of car the baron can see herself driving. before this pregnancy, the baron was sure her next car would be a prius; she was very, very excited to join the green vanguard. her concession to pregnancy and their expanding family was the cr-v, which seemed smallish and manageable, something not too embarrassing in terms of size, but alas. damn the cr-v's lack of canine cargo space!

sigh.

instead, the baron will evidently be driving a honda pilot. she's trying to talk herself into it, into the idea that it's not too big a car, that it's not too much car, that they (the collective 'they', the eight of them - four dogs, one cat, and three people) need a car of that size. and, reader, they probably do. that sound though, the loud jarring one? it's the sound of the baron's ideal version of herself crashing into fragments around her feet, the version that had: no husband, per se, but instead a man she'd refer to as life partner; no children but lots of dogs and no cats; a rented row house in the city rather than a mortgage in the suburbs; just one small car that played second fiddle to public transport.

that woman, whoever she is, will never be the baron, and the baron is thinking she should do away with her aspirations to become that woman. because, reader? the baron's life is pretty sweet - dogs, cats, pregnancy, husband, mortgages, morning sickness, and all the rest. it's pretty sweet indeed.


*these opinions of hers - this distrust of cars outfitted with electric everything - were formed a long time ago, with with one of the very first cars the baron every owned: a 1995 ford mustang. it's a long story, reader, one that ends in flames on the side of the 60 freeway. xtina? remember that afternoon?

a word about pee

lately, whenever harlan awoke from a nap, a long one or a brief one, his right front leg seemed as though it had fallen asleep or was very, very stiff. the baron gingerly massaged this leg, from harlan's shoulder to his foot, testing to see if there were any obvious spots that pained him.

there were not, and yet, the right front leg lameness continued.

the baron was able to get a vet appointment on short notice, and on tuesday of this week she and harlan went to see about his leg. the baron explained about her ginger massages, about how his leg seemed to be asleep, about how once he warmed up everything seemed fine. the doctor performed her exam ("what clean teeth you have, harlan!") and her own ginger massage on his right front leg, with lots and LOTS of stretching. she determined that there was no fracture, that it was most likely a soft tissue injury (read: sprain or bad bruise), that she felt a little arthritis in his wrist, and that she wanted to observe him walking to see just how much he favored his left leg over his right one.

the vet tech removed harlan from the exam table, placed him on the floor, and walked him out of the exam room and to the end of the lobby, for a distance of about 25 feet. the doctor squatted at the other end of the lobby and called harlan, who worked up a pretty good trot to return to her.

but.

he stopped mid-trip to lift his leg against the wall. of the lobby. the baron was embarrassed and surprised, considering that harlan had very recently lifted his leg in the vet's office parking garage, against numerous trees on the way to the vet's office, on the stairs leading to the vet's office front door, and finally on one of the large planters that flanks the vet's office front door. really, thought the baron, how can he have any left?

----------------

a long time ago - three summers, actually - when the baron and the husband had just returned to maryland, their friend laura came to visit. (actually, laura had gamely agreed to accompany the baron and dexter, harlan and tucker on the drive from phoenix to college park, so... less a visit, and more a working vacation.) the baron can't exactly remember the details of the day (was it morning? evening? afternoon?) or the circumstances (had they just arrived from their journey? what day of the week was it?), but she does remember this:

she and laura, standing at the sliding glass door of the in-law apartment they were temporarily renting, watched dexter, harlan and tucker race across the lawn, happy, no doubt, to be out of the car and back onto grass.

at some point, tucker drew their attention. he sidled up to a bush and lifted his leg to pee. he peed. and peed. and peed. and peed. and peed. and laura looked at the baron and said, "no way." tucker was still peeing.

----------------

the baron's mother has a box tortoise, a lovely one, called mr. ninja. the baron, in childhood, thought reptiles were bloodless and personality-less creatures... something about their black eyes and lack of fur.

but.

mr. ninja is awesome. when the baron and the husband would bring the dogs to visit the baron's mother, mr. ninja followed tucker around the baackyard, making his version of tortoise play: nipping at tucker's feet. the game proceeded thusly: tucker jumped up, moved to a comparably comfortable spot, and stretched out on the grass. mr.ninja approached him as stealthily as possible, angling for tucker's feet; once close enough, he reached out for tuft of tucker's foot hair, only to be foiled when tucker spotted him and jumped up. play on repeat.

mr. ninja's dearest dream is to come into the baron's mother's house. if the screen door to the backyard is left open, odds are good that you can find mr. ninja pulling himself up over the threshold and into the kitchen. it's actually quite a sight, since to do so he has to overcome a six-inch step.

once, while visiting, the baron thought she'd help mr. ninja along.

[the brother told her from the outset it was a bad idea, something like, "hey. you better not do that. he'll pee." the baron couldn't see how a tortoise the approximate size of a cereal box could hold that much pee. she waived off his warnings.]

she lifted him into the kitchen, ready to see him tear across the linoleum. instead, he made his slow, steady way about 8 feet into the room and peed. and peed. and peed. and peed.

for a small animal, he let loose what seemed to be a gallon of pee. the liquid radiated out from mr. ninja in a larger and larger and larger puddle, until the baron was roused out of shock to move him back outside.

the brother was vindicated, and could be heard to say, "i told you."

the baron was surprised by the enormity of the puddle... and went to get paper towels.

-----------------

the baron is thinking about pee this morning because, frankly reader, she's having a hard time doing it. going pee, that is.

she lately has been waking up once or twice a night with what feels like an unbearably full bladder. in response, obviously, she moves toward the bathroom, but alas! mere splashes fall into the toilet. where, she wonders, is the rest of the pee? because, reader, when she gets up again? gets up from the toilet after having just finished her business? she still feels that her bladder is full.

this troubles her, this issue with peeing. the baron will readily admit that she's not VERY good at VERY many things, but peeing she pretty much mastered around her first birthday.

she's decided that pregnancy is like a gauntlet, and that all these things - the peeing, the nausea, the weight gain, the lost vanity, the gained flatulence, the indigestion, the sleeplessness, the migraines, and the whatever else is coming - are specific and mean hurdles that have to be overcome, unfair and extremely annoying physicalities to bear.

the baron, never one for gauntlets, is just trying to make it through. day to day.

today's word? endure.

five is the right number, or, an open letter from the baron

dear readers (and by "readers", i really mean "mother" and anyone else who thinks that five is not the right number),

i was recently gifted the book "flawed dogs" by the husband. it's the story of sam the lion, a perfectly bred prize dachshund who has had a rather unfortunate life. over the course of the book, he sees the inside of a dog-fighting ring, the inside of an animal testing facility, a dog shelter, and the westminster kennel club dog show. the book's pages, meant for the eyes of teenaged readers, are populated by all sorts of dogs, most of them shelter-bound cast offs.

i read this book in one sitting, in, oh, two hours maybe, crying most of the way. why would the husband give a highly emotional pregnant woman who is already inclined to collect stray dogs a book about a stray dog whose flaw is that he is UNLOVED? why would he do that? i can only conclude that - despite his protestations - he, too, believes five to be the right number.

so. carry on, and i will too.
-the baron

christmas in july, if only

the action around the baron's house last saturday night:

-i'm making harlan pepper sit outside on the front porch.

-he's on the porch right now, sitting? why? he was bad?

-yes. he didn't come when i called, so i think he should have to wait on the front porch and watch all of us inside. he should have to watch all of us inside eating christmas dinner, like tiny tim.

-i think that doesn't actually work, because tiny tim was good, and also, i think tiny tim got to eat the dinner. so.

-oh. well. harlan's the bad tiny tim.

that time they went to new orleans, or, that time they thought they were moving to new orleans

once upon a time, the baron and the husband thought they'd be moving to new orleans. the husband went out first, for work. he wasn't able to find a house or an apartment right away, so he and the dogs moved into the westin new orleans....


where they adapted to the lifestyle quite nicely.



then they moved into a house...




and the husband was assaulted on the street just outside the french quarter. strangely enough, after that, they decided new orleans was not the right place for them. they packed up their stuff and drove back to arizona.