I'm Molly!

Hey, you guys! Hi! It's me, Molly! I'm supposed to tell you ALL ABOUT ME! Yay!

I'm from the STREETS! When Suzanne's friend found me, I was wandering around in TRAFFIC! But then I got to ride in a truck, just like a construction worker!

Our friend found her in a busy intersection near the county dump, dodging traffic in a rainstorm. "I closed my eyes and waited for the thump, because I knew she was going to get hit and I couldn't watch." She made a lucky break for the median, and our friend sprang out of her truck and grabbed her. She had her Mastiff's spare collar in the truck, so she hung it loosely around Molly's neck. Having no space in the loaded cab or bed to put her, she placed her on the lock box, instructing the construction worker in the passenger seat to hang onto her through the sliding back window. She rode to safety that way, splayed flat across a slick, metal tool box.

They tried to find her family, because she was such a good dog that they were sure she must have been lost. After days of searching lost and found pages, and posting fliers at shelters and ads on Craigslist, it became apparent that nobody was looking for the little red puppy. All hope of finding her owners was gone, but they couldn't bring themselves to leave her to an uncertain fate at a shelter. "She's just too good of a dog. We have to find someplace for her."


And then that nice lady and her nice guy took me into their pack, and I got to play with a LOT of dogs! And then they brought me here, and I was really careful to do everything right when I met all of the dogs out here, so that I could be a part of this pack, too. And guess what? IT WORKED! See how I cozied up to my new best friend Winston? I'm SMART!

Over a couple of weekends, she met Winston, then Doc and The Chemist's dogs. Once we had a good feeling that everything was going to work out, we brought her in permanently. Our friends were sad to see her go. If their hands weren't already full with several foster dogs, I have a feeling that they would have kept her.

The only hitch in the handoff was that she came to us with a bum leg, the result of playing in a field and catching it on something sharp. The gashes were bad enough that they required surgery to heal. Her first two weeks here were spent with her leg wrapped up in cotton gauze, sports tape and an outer coating of duct tape. It's been a gauzy, tape-covered couple of months here at Casa Banana.


And then? I ATE the TAPE! YES!

And the Cone of Shame, too. She had that thing off in record time.

Molly is an enthusiastic, sharp young dog. It's a lot of fun watching her grow and learn. Everything we let her do is the best thing she's ever done, and everything we give her is the best thing she's ever been given. She approaches everything in her life with boundless optimism and joy. If that's not obvious in the pictures, it's because it's impossible for me to get a shot of her while she's being enthusiastic and joyful. She moves too damned fast, and I'm usually laughing to hard to take the picture. She's a good time.

I LIKE BONES!

Yes, thank you, sweetie. You like everything, don't you?

Let's see! I like bones, and Bully Sticks, and Kong toys, and Winston, and you guys, and Ernie, and eating, and my friends at the veterinary clinic, and socks, and watching the fish in the fishtank! Yep, I like EVERYTHING!"

It's not fair to compare her first few weeks here with Winston's, because she didn't have the enormous burden of learning to deal with Buddy. She's been allowed to run and tumble instead of spending countless hours on a tie-out while being taught to respect the tiny king. Winston didn't have that kind of freedom for months. I think that she's benefiting from the more casual atmosphere. Wherever she came from, however she happened to end up in that intersection, she doesn't seem to have gone through months of confinement. Winston came to us after more than six months in a kennel in Oakland. As a result, she seems to have come into her own a lot faster than he did. Who knows? Maybe none of that matters. Maybe Winston's just a more reserved dog than Molly, and that's O.K.


Yeah! So I'm teaching him to be more confident! We wrestle, and we run around the house, and we run around the back yard, and we play this game where Winston grabs one end of the rope and rolls on his back and then I drag him around on the carpet! He LIKES that game!

He does. I don't understand it. He played it with us, and now he's taught Molly to play, too. I used to try to get him to stand up and play tug with me, because dragging him around by his teeth across the carpet seemed cruel, but he'd pick up the rope and flop right back down again.

He hasn't been as successful at teaching her to play ball. I think the ball is just a little too big for her. None of these pictures do a good job of showing the size difference between the two of them. She's about forty pounds to his sixty, and not nearly as bulldog-blocky. She's definitely a mix of pit bull and something else, but everybody's guess at the "something else" is different.


Sometimes we practice being CALM and MATURE! Here's me and my new best friend Winston being GOOD QUIET DOGS!

This is a new one for Winston. Buddy wouldn't often cuddle with him, maybe only a handful of times in their lives together, and his other canine friends don't do much of it, either. He doesn't quite know what to do with her when she sidles up to him. He likes it, but he's not quite sure how he's supposed to respond.


Oh! And I like drinking a bunch of water and then running around until I throw up on the carpet! And sometimes on my new best friend Winston's feet! He should learn to dodge better! Love, Molly! By the way, that's me! I'm Molly! Hi!

Le Pacte Des Loupes

Until I can knit again - still some weeks off, if my friends, coworkers and well-meaning strangers are to be believed - I might as well pass the time by catching up on some earlier finished work. This lovely short scarf is...

Domina?

Yes, Bernini's David?

Domina, there are things afoot in the villa about which I, as your steadfast champion, need to be informed.

For example?

For example, what has happened to your lovely hands? What has damaged them so badly that you can no longer craft beautiful adornments for The David? Where you attacked by the pack of wolves?

Wolves? What are you talking about? David, there aren't any wolves here.

Aren't any wolves..oh, fairest lady! How I have failed you! Not only has that scoundrel of a husband allowed wolves to overrun the grounds while I remained anchored on this hateful pedestal, but the trauma has wiped the horror from your mind. Would that I could have stood between you and their slavering jaws. I turn from you in defeat and shame.


Have you gone insane, my stationary friend? I broke my finger in a motorcycle accident. You know that. I mean, yeah, I was on some powerful pain medicine after the surgery, but I'm pretty sure there weren't wolves roaming about the place.

But they were everywhere! Did you not...oh, accursed sound! I hear their diabolical howls. Hide! I beg you! Take shelter behind my muscular frame. I shall hold them off while you flee.

David, that's just Molly, whining and throwing her food bowl around because she's up in her kennel. Molly. You've met, remember? She drinks at the water di...majestic pool at your feet fifteen times a day.

Good lord! You have NAMED the beast?




Details
Pattern
Wisp from Knitty Summer 2007

Yarn
Artyarns Pearl Rhapsody (kind of like Silk Rhapsody, but better) in color 2268...I think. Molly ate the skein wrapper. I think it was 260 yards, and I have about a yard left.

Daisy bought this yarn on her cross-country trek home to Maine and sent it out to me. It languished in a basket for several months, and was at risk of being a Too Special to Ever Become Anything yarn. Readers, you know how I feel about TSEBA yarns. Something had to be done before it got any closer to the dreaded garage bin Vortex of Indecision. Yarns go in, and they never make it back out again. I went into my queue, picked the closest thing I could find, yardage-wise, and just started knitting.

Needles
Brittany Birch, size 8. In retrospect, this project would have been a lot easier with lace needles, or even the pointier tips of the Boye interchangeables, but the BBs weren't too bad. The yarn felt better on wooden needles, so I stuck with it.

Time
It was my lunchtime knitting, so I didn't really keep track. I finished it about two months ago, and I started it right after finishing the crochet throw.

Modifications
Only because I screwed up at the beginning and didn't do the setup rows right. The ends don't match, because one end has the support for the buttons and the other doesn't.

Conclusions
I liked this pattern. I think I'd like it a lot more if I were to knit it again with pointier needles. The finished scarflette/wrap/whatever is shorter than I usually like regular scarves to be, but then again, it's not supposed to be a full-length scarf.

I can see wearing it as a cowl once I find the right buttons for it. It'll look stylish and sophisticated while I'm driving down the road in the follow car, trailing behind all of my motorcycling loved ones. But that is a story for another day, when I can stand to type for a bit longer. My left hand is about to give out, and I can feel the pins moving around under the dressing on my pinkie. It's creepy, actually. I'm going to wrap this up and stop moving for a while.


Yes, Domina! Be still, in the name of all that is holy! There is danger in the wind. Can you not detect its menacing miasma?

David, for God's sake, there aren't wolves in the house. That's the smell of the pan from last night's dinner. It's garlic. We're perfectly safe.

Hush, noble lady. They are watching...

The Shepherd's Hook

On Trying New Things

Text message to Doc: I am riding a motorcycle! :-)

Many people I know ride motorcycles. Big Guy and his lady friend, several of our neighbors on the cul-de-sac, many people at work, and Doc and The Chemist are all avid riders. Most importantly, Accountant Boy used to ride, and wants to start again.

I, on the other hand, haven't ever had a desire to ride a motorcycle. The whole idea of being exposed and vulnerable out on the road, and all of the work involved in even the most basic maneuvers put me off of them before I'd even sat on one. Let me reiterate. I had never sat on a motorcycle and gripped the handlebars in my life. I rode on the back of Big Guy's bike once, when I was in high school.

To be honest, I haven't even enjoyed riding a bicycle in the last twenty-four years. Once I learned to drive a car, there was not turning back. I tried to pick it up again at UCSB, because biking to school was so much more convenient than walking, and I lived too close - embarrassingly close - to drive. It didn't stick, though. Once we graduated, I got rid of my Roadmaster. We bought mountain bikes a few years later, but we've only ridden them twice in the last dozen years. For me, four wheels make more sense than two.

Everyone told me that I should at least try riding a motorcycle. "Take the beginning rider course, and just see if you like it. If you don't, no big deal. How will you know if you don't try?" After months of hearing this from every rider I know, it started to make sense. Was I resistant to riding simply because I'd never done it? Was it the same resistance that held me, paralyzed with fear, at the top of the high dive when I was ten years old? Would it be fun, the fear an amusing memory, once I'd done it? Was it that Santa Claus situation, wanting to do something so badly but being terrified of it at the same time?

Whatever the case, I kept telling people that I just didn't want to ride. Although I appreciated their confidence in me and my ability to be a rider, I did not have this confidence in myself. I was even willing to entertain the idea of being a passenger. However, I spent so much time thinking about it, and had so many conversations with riders about it, that I convinced myself that I was in the wrong.

I agreed to take the beginning course, and went with my very eager friends and an equally eager Accountant Boy to CycleGear, where I bought gloves, boots and riding jeans. I'm not going to pretend that shopping for gear wasn't fun, and that I didn't get too caught up in it to listen to my inner voice, which was still trying to tell me to not ride. That's exactly what happened. I quelled my inner voice by shouting over it. "But look at this beautiful Dainese jacket!".

We bought our helmets at another store, really nice, full-face helmets. Big Guy told me that I should get a skid lid, but I told him that I loved my chin too much for that. "All your gear, all the time. That's how I'm going to roll, Big Guy." He chuckled.


Text message to Doc: I am in the emergency room. :-(

Four and a half hours into the first day of the riding course, I went down while turning a corner. I think, based on the scuffs in my new boots and the gouges in my helmet, that I hit a patch of gravel as I was turning. My head bounced off the tarmac, followed in close succession by my shoulder, my knee, and, apparently, my hand. It happened so quickly that I was back up and cursing before anyone noticed that I'd hit the ground. "Stupid! I can't believe I did that. God, I am so pissed off right now."

The instructor picked up my bike and told me to get my gear back on and keep riding. I held up my helmet, which was now not entirely intact. He played around with it for a few seconds, then handed it back to me. "Mount up!" He walked away before I could tell him that my knee hurt, and my hand felt like I'd slapped it pretty hard on the ground. Therefore, I felt like a sissy for complaining about it. What should I, as a rider, do after falling like that? Clearly, dust myself off and get back on the bike. That's what I was expected to do.

My helmet had other, more prudent ideas, and fell apart once more as I tried to pull it back on. I couldn't get the instructor's attention again, and A.B. was concentrating on his turn in the emergency braking exercise, so I killed the engine on my bike and stepped away to figure it out on my own. A man from the sidelines, there to watch his young daughter get her license, trotted over to help me. "I don't think I can fix this," he said. "You shouldn't wear it." He paused for a second and looked at me. "Hey, are you O.K.?"

"Well, my hand does kind of hurt." I pulled my gloves off, right one first and then the left. "It's redder than normal, but I did slam it pretty hard when I fell." Having only been told to check on my helmet, not knowing that I'd dropped the bike, A.B. rode up just as I exclaimed, "Oh! I don't think I'm supposed to be able to press on it that way and make it move!"

"O.K. We're going to go to the emergency room and get that looked at," A.B. said in the most measured tone he could muster, given that I was injured and that he was not a little grossed out by my dislocated and rapidly bruising finger.

"I'm just not going to look at it, because it didn't hurt until I looked at it."

"Let's just get to the car."

"Wait! My helmet! Get all of the pieces. And could you carry it for me? Because I don't want to take my right hand away from my pinkie..."

"Yeah, I've got it. C'mon, honey. Let's GET GOING."


Now, it might be hard to tell, if you don't spend much time looking at my fingers - and why would you, because that might be considered weird and intrusive - that there's much wrong with my pinkie. I, however, spend a lot of time looking at my fingers, because I love my hands. I think they're beautiful, as hands go. I spend a lot of time looking at them when I'm not busy typing. Is that vain? Maybe. The takeaway here is that I love my hands, both for their form and their function, and I know exactly how each finger should look.

This one? Wrong. The last joint isn't bending the right way, and it's missing its characteristic lateral wrinkles. Also, the knuckle is all screwed up. I've broken off half of the piece that would hold the first and second phalanges together, and now the joint isn't stable. They tried to pull it back into place in the ER, but it wouldn't stay, because there's nothing to anchor it. The little piece is now floating around where my knuckle should be.


And now, two hours prior to the surgery, I'm rushing to get in one last blog post before beginning what will probably be eight weeks with my hand in a cast. Eight weeks of showering with my arm wrapped in a grocery bag. Eight weeks of having to plan where I park my car, because it's not easy to back out of a parking space with your right hand on the wheel, especially after a quarter of a century of doing it the other way. Eight weeks without knitting, without (easily) typing, without being able to walk my dogs...yes, there are two dogs now, and I haven't even had a chance to tell anyone about the second one. Weeks, and then more weeks of physical therapy to try to make it work right again.

I'm able to write this now because my finger is only in a splint. This is the first day since the accident that it's felt good enough to use it. I've suddenly rediscovered the muse and feel like writing again. Of course there's a second half to even this lengthy story.

And I have so much to say about riding and knitting and work and summertime and dogs and...I'm out of time. We're heading off to the surgery center.

A Conversation via Text Message

Doc: Looks like Volvo driver decided to go thru insurance. May need some statement/claim help.

Me: We'll happily give it, once we figure out how to make the steam cleaner work. Winston is unsettled at the moment, and now I am, too, b/c I can't clean up the evidence of his unsettled lower digestive tract. Hoping A.B. didn't want to do Insanity workout tonight. It will not be pleasant.

Doc: Oh no! Is it a bissel? I have a little experience with them. Sorry about the digestive unsettling - hope things dry up quickly. We have a gallon of natures miracle if you need any. ;-)

Me: YES! Oh, that would be wonderful. As it stands, I'm pouring solution directly on the floor and sucking it up with the hand tool attachment. Funny, but not effective.

(Forty minutes later)

Me: Accountant Boy is on the case. it's only a matter of time, now. I'm enjoying a frosty Boddingtons while I watch.

(Twenty minutes later)

Me: We were trying to figure out where the last of the smell was coming from, and then...


Me: ..yes, right on - and in - A.B.'s running shoes. You can't tell me that's not some kind of message.

Doc: Yikes - sorry I failed with the callback. Glad u got backup! I'm at cooking group @ work, will be joining The Chemist for a hoppy beverage around 9pm when he's back from company dinner. Hope Winston's belly is feeling better soon.

Me: Might we join you for a refreshing beverage, or is it a couples thing?

Me: "In my SHOE!"

Doc: I think I laughed, and then threw up in my mouth. Or maybe it was the other way around. Oh god. What a catastrophe. Betcha ten bucks Buddy wouldve given him two paws up.

Doc: Of course - time-to-be-firmed-up. Can call when on the way if u like?

Me: We'll already be there, because...Jesus. How do you get the picture out of your head? The horror...the horror.

* * *

Still knitting, still trying to make time to catch up on blogging, etc. And I was going to do just that tonight, but when I walked into the house and smelled that specific, evocative odor, I knew it wasn't going to happen exactly as planned. Winston eats a high quality food, which makes his feces especially fragrant. From a distance, it's not unlike walking into a kitchen where a beef stew has been simmering for several hours. Up close, it's not so pleasant. The point is, you know what's up with him the minute you open the front door, and exactly how much work is going to have to go into making it right. So, while I'd love to talk about the things I've made and the things I'm doing, that will have to wait for another day.

I'm going out for a beer.