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!