shaggy vs. cleanly shaven

"i like my dogs cleanly cut, just like i like my men" says my older sister jennie as she tries to convince me that ella desperately needs a haircut, as she simultaneously points out one of the differences between us. shall we have a comparison?

paul is a carpenter and in the summer time he is either working, on his boat, or in the water. This means that he doesn't really feel the need for a shower every day, or really every other day for that matter. get dirty, rinse off in the water, get dirty, rinse off again. he's got curls that make women green and have me imagining how cute his ringlets would look on a little girl (though that's another blog...). however, he has not cut those curls since about, oh, january, and even i, who love mountain men, think he could stand a trim.

about a year ago, derek decided that enough was enough and he would stop trying to deny the inevitable -- he had a severely receding hairline. So, one pleasant summer evening, out on the back deck, we brought down the razors and the buzzer and shined his head up to a glowing baldness. though a business man, d can be pretty handy himself, and has actually decided to try the stay-at-home-dad thing for awhile (check out his blog at im-not-a-manny.blogspot.com).

but this post was not meant to be about my sister's and my significant others' grooming styles, but rather, the issue of miss shaggy ella...

she just looks so damn cute when she's fluffy, but with the heat, i couldn't feel like a good owner until i did something about the layers of fur that were beginning to suffocate her. besides, jennie wanted to be able to see her "pretty girl eyes."

hence, the lesson on how to groom a schnauzer. when jennie was in hershey she went to a dog grooming course, bought an electric razor and some sheers, and voila - no more having to pay a fortune to have your dog cleanly cut. the day was fun, i got really hairy, ella got less hairy, and everyone was happy, except paul, who thinks ella looks like a the monster that comes out of the guy's stomach in alien. oh well, you can't please them all!...



paulie and i are off for 4 days and 3 nights of hiking and camping at moosebrook state park in NH and then on to boston to visit jules and to catch a red sox game. stay tuned for more somethingsomething!

step by step

well, it looks like if i want to add my picture to my profile i need to copy and paste the url link of a picture of myself that is already on the internet. the only places that i could find pictures of myself were on ofoto and on my gmail account, and apparently the url link for those pictures were more than the 68 character limit, so those wouldn't work. next step is to post a picture here from my original picture files and then copy that link. let's give that a whirl...

hoorah! it worked after about 5 different tries. but i am realizing that if you read the help info -- it really does help.

speaking of steps. i recently bought ella some. they were a cheap $10 at the christmas tree shop that took me about a half hour to put together (with p's help). they come comlete with a lovely lambswool carpeting! ella ran right up the first time onto the couch (goaded with a treat) and i laughed and hoorayed with glee. she seemed a bit surprised and hasn't really taken to them since, unless she's very very excited.

you see, ella needs stairs because she can't very well get up on the couch to lounge and relax with only 3 legs. how she lost her leg is debatable, because do dogs really have umbilical cords? and if they don't, then what could it have been that cut off the back right's circulation? it's a mystery.

a little time

phew. finally a little time to play catch up. how come there never seems to be enough time to connect with the people who really matter and my day is spent associating with people who don't matter as much?

so, a little update on me, and hopefully i'll keep this blog current enough that friends can peruse this regularly. i'm a little nervous about it. everyone blogs these days -- i'm always a little late with the times. and i always say "i'll never do that" and then i end up realizing it's cool and i do it too. like the time i vowed i would never wear "jesus shoes" and then bought myself two pairs of birkenstocks after everyone else had already been wearing them for years. and then when i bought them, i said at least i would never wear them with socks, but then eventually i did that too. my swearing off of capris only lasted so long too.

and so you find me here, writing this blog, just like everyone else seems to be doing these days. maybe not wholly original, but that doesn't mean i can't be.

noteworthy news: i just got a new laptop so hope to be doing this regularly. check back soon!