Dogs and Cats

Yes, I know, I still owe you some tall tales from France. They are fermenting in my febrile brain and need some more time (and pics from fellow travelers).

I'd thought that I would ramble for a bit about Tsingy and the dogs.

Here's a pic of Tsingy napping on my router. It is a rather warm device and she is quite the hothouse flower. She spends her mornings on the router and afternoons in the office window waiting for the sun to come around.

I have an interesting story about the dogs. Without a yard and limited by Mimi's refusal to learn a recall, I haven't done much throwing of the tennis ball. Harry's starting to get a bit too fragile to hit the stone floor at the base of the stairs in chase of a tennis ball so I stopped the ball games in the house altogether. But the other afternoon, I ran into a woman who has been taking my dog training classes (she took DOG-101 then did a full session of Rally with me). She was walking Nellie, I was walking Harry and Mimi, so of course we talked about our dogs! She told me that she was off to play ball with Nellie. I know that she doesn't let Nellie off lead in camp and that she lives in single housing like I do, so I said, oh, where are you going to do that? She said, I use the yards in the empty houses!

What a bloody brilliant idea!

When people move out (leave KSA, move to a different house, whatever), the house may sit empty for months before it is renovated and put back onto the bid list. Some of these houses have quite respectably sized back yards.

I have regular walking routes for the dogs through the neighborhoods (getting us away from the cluster housing ghetto where we live) so I knew exactly which house I would start with.

Thankfully, Harry and Mimi don't bark while playing--chasing the ball is SERIOUS WORK, as you should know--and I go at times of the day when people in the houses on either side aren't likely to be out. We begin our normal walk, then discreetly veer off the sidewalk, up the side of the house and into the back yard. I carry balls and water in a backpack so it all has the feel of an expedition.

Harry is just thrilled. He lives for his tennis ball. He doesn't get to jump up in the air and catch it anymore (he's starting to fall when he lands and I'm also worried about his knees) but he's perfectly happy snagging ground balls over and over again. And Mimi gets to run around like a normal dog! It took me almost 30 minutes to exhaust them this morning. That's a lot of ball throwing.

Emergency Immersion

Nothing like a little crisis to hone one's language skills.

 While we were in Burgundy, my mother became very ill. As it turns out, she required surgery and ended up spending 6 days in the Centre Hospitalier in Macon, France. The details are not important here. My aim with this post is to thank the army of people who helped me and Judy get through that mess.

First and foremost, I want to thank Kim. She is a doctor and was monitoring my mother's condition and she was the one who said, we need to take her to the emergency room. And Kim stuck by my side for those very long 8 hours as we began our navigation through the French health care system. Kim was professional, focused, and calm. I would have been much more stressed if she hadn't been by my side for those first two days.

To give you some feel for our experience, the staff at the hospital, most of whom had no English at all, referred to my mother as "l'Anglaise," the English woman. The fact that the usually fastidiously polite French chose this name over Madame B. told me that having a foreigner as a patient was a pretty unusual event.

I also have to thank Madame Hala and Madame Rita, the two women from whom I've taken French lessons through Aramco Community Education. I've had over 100 hours of classroom instruction and speak only the barest of French. If they hadn't drilled me over and over in class, I might not have had the confidence to keep trying even though I was perfectly aware that I was barely communicating at all. Forget articles, forget gender, I was just trying to string together the right verb with the right pronoun with something like an object. I quickly realized that as long as my pronunciation was correct, I was being allowed all sorts of egregious grammatical sins. I did learn many new words, including lots of medical terms I never planned to have to know (le vesicule bilaire and the conjugation of the verb vomir [to vomit], for example), but some of them are quite useful, such as l'attestation de paiement (receipt).

We were so lucky to have an emergency room doctor with a bit of English who called in a specialist who has, as it turns out, quite a lot of English. In fact, I met the specialist's English teacher one afternoon! Dr. O. was kind, caring, and professional. His advocacy and support were amazing.

I have to also thank the ladies in the hospital billing department who spent hours with me while I was on the phone to Judy's insurance company, translating faxed documents from English into some sort of French that made sense to them.

Marc and Karen, the owners of Le Nid, threw open their house, their computer, and their internet connection to me, gave me a cell phone when mine was out of money on a Sunday, and even a couple of supportive hugs. They went far above the normal call of hosting guests at Le Nid.

Judy and her husband Dave's neighbors Karen and Greg deserve a mention too. Because Dave didn't have an email account of his own, I got their email addys and flooded their inboxes with flight reservations and other information that Dave needed to get to France.

Dave also gets a nod because I called when Judy was in surgery, waking him up and giving him about 30 hours notice of his departure for France. He managed to pull everything together and arrived in Macon more or less on schedule. Not a feat to be dismissed.

And I want to thank all of my friends who were with me in France. They shadowed me for almost three days before I was able to give them the slip (by getting up and leaving before they were up!). They came to visit Judy in the hospital the afternoon she was out of surgery when tubes were coming out of her in all directions! Now that is a group of good friends! These same friends also handed me glasses of wine in the evenings and even offered to play more Uno (not sure if they actually liked the game by then or if they were just being nice).

I barely remember sitting in the McDonald's in Macon using the free Wifi on my iPad to look for a hotel near the hospital while Duwain and Kim were struggling to get their locked devices to surf on the 'net. I know they were frustrated and jonesing for their email. Still, everyone kept a decently good perspective on the situation.

And Duwain, bless him, said, there has to be a silver lining to this mess: it may result in Judy being able to put a chronic health problem behind her entirely. And that is indeed how things are looking now. Oh, there are a few arguments still to be had with the insurance company. And my mother is still mending, by no means back to full health. But she is at home and doing well.

I am very lucky to have such good friends, both new and old.

Burgundy in March

View of a small village in the area around Le Nid, located WSW of Cluny in central Burgundy, France.

I'm back from another adventure in France. We made a good sized group: Julie from Nashville; Kim, Duwain, and Barb from Austin; Kelly, Kim's sister, who now lives in Italy; and my mother Judy from Virginia. Duwain is a very brave man to spend nine days with all of these opinionated women.

Our first night in Le Nid. Kelly hadn't joined us yet.

And what did we all have in common? Really, it was me and dogs! I know Julie from our love of smooth fox terriers (and our trip to Paris in 2002 and our co-ownership of Jack and our interest in conformation and of course Jack and Jen's litter from which came Mimi and the ever awesome Gracie), and Kim, Duwain, and Barb from Dogz Rule! flyball (I know Kim from agility too), and of course my mother Judy who gracefully took my sweet pea Dyna and young Bhumi into her home as two more rescues in need of some TLC.

I was pretty amused that everyone kept asking me, what are you going to write on your blog? It only took a few hours for me to figure out that traveling with a group presents very different dynamics than traveling with just one other person. So some things that happened in Burgundy are going to have to remain in Burgundy...but there are plenty of tales left to tell.

Le Nid, located in a tiny speck of a village outside Cluny in central Burgundy, is a fabulous place to stay. It is surrounded by lush green fields dotted with white Charolais cows, sheep, and goats. One of the interesting features of this area is the use of bocage, or natural hedges, to enclose and divide the fields.

Utterly pastoral.

 Every view was its own postcard. And Marc and Karen were welcoming, thoughtful hosts. They have created a wonderful house that feels like home as soon as you walk in.

One of the bedrooms in Le Nid. Julie took this room. I thought it was particularly pretty with the afternoon sun streaming in.

View of the former stables at Le Nid. We rented the entire main house, which is behind me. View to the northeast. You can see the bell tower of the old church on the hill in the background.

We spent most of our time in the kitchen/dining room, a large open space with a small wood burning stove. If there were any themes of this particular trip, they would be drinking wine and eating cheese and bread--which we did nearly every single night! We were very lucky to also have an abundance of good cooks. We didn't eat an evening meal out even once!

Julie and Barb preparing bread and the evening's cheese platter.

Cluny is located in the middle of Burgundy. Northern Burgundy is known for its heavy, full bodied reds. And south Burgundy is Beaujolais country. But tucked in between, right in the middle, is an area where white grapes, mainly Chardonnay varieties, are grown. In fact, the reds from this white grape area are terrible! Our group unanimously dismissed one of them, not even finishing the bottle. All of us were amazed at how inexpensive the wines were in the store. And while we did do a winery tour, we got most of our wine at the local grocery store in Cluny (we regularly descended like locusts on the Intermarche).

Julie and me in the Intermarche in Cluny.

I am not sure if anyone did a final cork count but this is a shot of the dishwasher after one evening's festivities in Le Nid.

The remnants of our first night. Despite the evidence, I assure you that there were only six of us!

We arrived to stupendous sunny weather which we enjoyed for almost a week before the clouds and light rain rolled in. It was warm enough during the days for short sleeves but as the sun set, the temperature quickly dropped to 2 or 3 degrees C and the fire in the kitchen/dining room was always a welcome addition.

Le Nid is located in the center of the photograph. View to the south.

As usual, I don't have that many pictures (this time I can claim as an excuse having to always drive when we were out and about; at least DSL was driving half the time we were in Limousin last winter). I'm waiting for the rest of the group to post their pictures on Flickr or Picasa (hint hint....HINT HINT) so I can steal their best ones for the blog. The pics I've posted here are only a taste of what is to come!

Brief Update

A quick note to let you all know that all is well here in KSA. Hmm, well, to be honest, it's not that great but we don't have open violence in the streets.


I am planning a trip OOK in a few days--I was going to come and go through Bahrain. After the events of yesterday, I scrapped my original itinerary and simply bought a new ticket that takes me in and out of Dammam in Saudi Arabia instead.

Like you, we all must wait and see how all of these terrible events across the world will play out.

The Magic Dresser

Dogs are so smart, yet at the end of the day they are just dogs. Mimi can get her three neurons whirling around and accomplish some amazing feats but she still does things that leave me shaking my head.

When she started deliberately destroying a toy, I would take it away from her and put it on top of my dresser. After a few days, I would take it down and let her play with it again. When the destruction started up again, I'd repeat the process.

The unfortunate result of what started out as a logical solution to a problem is the creation of an entirely new problem: Mimi has become obsessed with the dresser. If I say "let's play some baby!" she will run upstairs and start boinging in front of it--even if there is no toy on top! She will completely ignore the array of perfectly good toys at her feet. I can't entice her to play with a toy from the floor. No, only a toy from the top of the dresser will do.

I tried ignoring her and would play with Harry instead. Mimi would whine and fuss and literally insert herself between me and Harry, trying to get my attention to shift to the dresser.

In the end, the only solution is for me to pick up a toy from the floor and set it on top of the dresser for a second or two, maybe wiggle it around a bit. It doesn't seem to matter that she can see me put the toy from the floor on the dresser--she excitedly boings the whole time. It doesn't even matter which toy I choose. As long as it has been on top of the magic dresser, that's the toy she wants and that's the toy she will play with.

Whine, Whine, Whine

So you recall that yummy bottle of whine that I thought was mine? It wasn't mine. It was a gift someone brought me. It turns out that my oenological efforts produced 24 bottles of vinegar. Thin, sour, barely any alcohol--vinegar.

Nothing to do but start over.

The fatal flaw was that I didn't add any sugar. I know, I know, the yeast need sugar to do their thing. But I thought there would have been enough sugar in the grape juice itself. Turns out that was incorrect.

After more thought, I decided that my fermenting setup may have let too much oxygen in, yet another fairly fatal weakness in the process (fermenting in the presence of oxygen is how you make vinegar on purpose). So I constructed a new fermenting container out of a 20-liter Coleman cooler, some rubber tubing, and of course duct tape.

High tech. The only reason it is on the bucket is so I don't have to bend down so far to pick it up.

This time I added 6 cups of white sugar and 2 cups of brown sugar to 12 liters of red grape juice. And I used a different brand of grape juice, one that was recommended to me by several successful vintners here on camp.

Why brown sugar? I have no idea what prompted me to do that. It was a whim. The brown sugar was sitting next to the white sugar in the cabinet. I like brown sugar--I thought, why not? It's all sugar, right?

After letting the yeast run to the end (about 10-14 days depending on which threshold is reached first, lack of sugar or too much alcohol; you aim for the latter, not the former), I decanted the whine off into another container. Before I capped it off, I added a pint of fresh, crushed blackberries.

And what prompted me to do that? Yet another whim. I've talked to vintners who say they add herbs, fruit, and sometimes even preserves and jam to the whine at this stage. Since we don't ferment directly from the grapes themselves, we don't get the complex flavors that come from the mold on the grapes, the skins of the grapes, etc. All of our contortions are attempts to add fruity complexity to our whine. (You should be laughing now.) So I decided those fresh, juicy blackberries might be just the thing.

I let the whine and the blackberries sit for about 3 weeks. Then I decanted off into bottles.

Some folks on camp say you can't drink whine until it sits for months and months. But when I asked a vintner that I know who makes awesome red whines when he first drinks his whines after bottling, he told me "immediately."

So after filling the bottles and cleaning up all of my equipment, I took a deep breath and poured out a glass of my latest effort.

The result? I made port. That's right, port. Deep, hearty, fortified whine with a hint of fruit. The stuff has so much alcohol in it that your nose hairs will singe if you sniff too deep. But the flavor is fantastic. Well, fantastic for whine. It's all relative, of course.

In light of my apparent success, I've decided that I should create a label for my bottles. And the choice of a name for my whinery was obvious: Bonjour, Gendarmerie!

This guy will make a lovely label.

I mixed up a new batch last night (using 2 liters of sour cherry juice along with the grape juice) so I have a few weeks to get my labels printed and ready.

It Burns! It Burns!

 The dogs have to be on lead whenever they are out of the house (an Aramco rule) so I recycled the red harnesses that I used for DogzRule! flyball (sniff, sniff, I miss you guys!!) to be their primary steppin' out gear.

And because I don't have a yard, the dogs get taken for walks in their harnesses several times a day. I have a procedure to get us ready, of course. I gather all the gear--hat, sunglasses, shoes, socks, leashes, harnesses, into a pile. First I put on all of my stuff, then I turn to the dogs. Harry, always compliant about these sorts of things, steps right up to me so I can put his harness on. 

But Mimi...she's another story altogether. For a solid year, I've been trying to get her to come to me so I can put her harness on. She wants to go for a walk and excitedly flits around as I make the gear pile. But as soon as I pick up her harness, she hides behind furniture, she goes upstairs, she feigns exhaustion--and when she does at last start moving towards me, she takes one slow step after another, pausing sometimes for seconds between each, one foot lifted trembling in the air, dragging it out as long as she possibly can. I tried clicker and treats, I tried changing the recall word, I tried praise and petting, I tried every training trick in the book, and nothing altered this behavior. You'd think after a year that she would have given up because the outcome is always the same: she always ends up with her harness on.

It was even worse, though, because she would flinch whenever the harness touched her. It was exactly the scene from Lord of the Rings (Two Towers, I believe) where Sam and Frodo bind Gollum up in the elven ropes and he starts shrieking, "It burns! It burns!" I even started whispering that under my breath as I put her harness on. She acted like I was beating her with the stupid thing.

Then came the miracle of the Halti head halter. I have quite a few dogs in my classes whose owners need some safe way to control their dogs so they can get them into a learning space and decided that Haltis were the best solution. Like most animal supplies, they are not available here so I've been shipping them over from the US. In the first shipment, I got a small one to fit Mimi. If I was going to recommend them to students, I needed to understand how they worked, how they fit, and how to use them effectively. Harry hardly needs that sort of thing so Mimi was the perfect guinea pig.

Of course, the first few times I used it, she did the same long, drawn out walk of fear towards me as before. Then one morning I looked up from Harry to see Mimi standing just a couple of feet away! I could barely get out the recall (her recall is in French now: Mimi, venez!) before she was almost standing on my feet, pushing her head up so I could slide the Halti on! And that has repeated over and over again, every day, for almost a month. No more delay tactics, no more chasing my dog down in my shitty apartment, no more stress when we are getting ready for a walk.

Truly, it's a miracle. I have no explanation. The only change is the switch from the harness to the head halter. Maybe she likes having opportunities to wear her spiffy new collars outside the house (I had some super cool collars made for me by Kyra at moddog.com) since the Halti has an extra safety clip that attaches to a regular collar.

To be honest, it's a bit frustrating that I wasn't able to solve the problem with training. But no matter what, walk times are far more enjoyable for all.