Cold Tuesday, Clutch, Dog ‘n’ Tree

This from today’s Chicago Tribune: “The temperature [this morning] dipped below zero overnight at O’Hare International Airport, the earliest that has happened here since 1995… The temperature fell to one degree below zero around 12:55 a.m., according to the National Weather Service. That’s the earliest subzero readings here since a low of minus 4 on Dec. 9, 1995.”

Those are two-fisted Fahrenheit readings, not any namby-pamby Celsius, either. Remember last winter, when it didn’t seem to get cold at all, with little snow? Not this time. So far. More snow is supposed to fall in the wee hours tomorrow.

Open questions: Is Clutch Cargo enjoying some kind of vogue among hipsters? Otherwise why is the Music Box Theatre, a fine revival and arts house on the North Side of Chicago, screening five episodes of the show on Friday?

Yesterday, girls decorating the Christmas tree. Today, a snap of dog and tree.

Payton+Tree

She hasn’t shown much interest in the tree, unlike certain other trees during her walks. I figure dogs have their own holidays, which somehow have something to do with epic events in the history of smell.

Ugly Sweater

Wicked winds blew threw the Midwest today. Up here in metro Chicago, we only got strong winds and heavy rains for a while, plus unusually warm air. It was like a spring storm. To the south of here, some destruction — like spring tornado season.

Dressing up the dog wasn’t my idea. Dogs should be as naked as they were in the Garden of Eden, except for collars (surely Adam and Eve had a dog). Lilly spotted this dog sweater at some big box retailer recently, and now we have it. The dog’s only worn it once so far.

The label says it’s an Ugly Sweater brand pet costume, “for pets only,” made in China. The dog is wearing size M, for dogs up to 50 lbs. Fits most breeds, it says, including cocker spaniels, border collies, beagles, French bulldogs, and standard schnauzers. And, it seems, lab-basset mixes.

The Final Roundup for Woody

Looks like peak coloration is here. Or least a lot of yellows and reds and browns and even a spot of orange. The skies have been gray much of the weekend, so that adds to the contrast.

Alas, poor Woody. The dog did a little brain surgery on him this weekend. Not sure how he got on the floor. Maybe he was trying to escape while we weren’t watching. I seem to remember some movies along those lines. But the dog seems to have been watching.

I expect we’ll have to take Woody up to Boot Hill and lay him to rest. The dog does exactly the same thing to a number of rubber ducks she’s chewed on. Goes right for the head, she does.

Dog v. Skunk

We usually let the dog out in the back yard one more time before we go to bed, and usually she isn’t very noisy. There isn’t much to stimulate her barking – nobody walking their dogs in the park behind our fence, no active squirrels or birds, no kids playing. But one recent night she cut loose and made a lot of noise.

Barking isn’t something that should come from your yard at 11 p.m. or midnight, so I went to bring her in. She was focused on the edge of the deck, snout down, pawing the ground. Something was under the deck. At first I thought the raccoon – a raccoon – had returned, since one seemed to live there for a little while a few years ago. Then I smelled skunk.

I really wanted to get her in. It wasn’t easy, but I did it. By then the reek of skunk was pretty strong. It turned out the dog hadn’t been sprayed directly, or at least the understructure of the deck caught most of it. Good thing, since the dog smells like dog and needs to smell no worse. Soon the stink wafted faintly into the house. It was gone by morning, except for the deck, which still smells of skunk, though not that much (the rest of family feels that it’s more powerful that I do, though).

About 20 minutes later, as I was in bed reading, I heard barking from elsewhere. As I’ve said, that’s fairly rare, but I think it was the dogs a couple of houses down from us, having their own encounter with the skunk.

Not Quite a Nap

Finally, a day worthy of the name summer, at least in the North. Sunny and nearly 90 F.

But regardless of the outside temps, summer’s a fine time for afternoon naps, especially if you stay up late to finish something, but don’t finish it, and then get up early the next day to finally finish it. Because it must be done.

After the task is complete, you recline on your comfy couch, not even for a real nap, but to rest your eyeballs (a phrase I learned from Festus Haggen). As lethargy takes over, a certain dog shows up on the couch and burrows her way in. You’re too tired to shoo her off. Another resident of the house, one of your offspring, takes a picture of the scene.

Dog

When it doubt, take a picture of a dog. Especially a photogenic one. Ann went on a spree of dog photo-taking recently. Included were some profiles.

Some closeups.

Many shots of the napping dog.

Of course, the dog isn’t always so peaceful. Ann also manged to catch her warding off imaginary enemies.

And greeting someone on the other side of the fence.

Her basset hound heritage is evident in this shot. The others seem to illustrate her lab side.

Summertime Samosa

Saw the streak of a firefly over my lawn this evening. First one of the year. That and twilight at about 9 p.m. mark the coming of high summer. Even so, I can feel June slipping away. Wish this sweetest of months could linger a little longer.

Before adopting our dog, I wouldn’t have guessed how important windows were to her. She’s a tall dog when she stands on her hind legs, and can see out of some of our windows – and spends a lot of time doing just that. One of the windows she fancies is easy to see from the driveway, and sometimes as I pass that window in my car, headed for the garage, I see the glint of two canine eyes.

Impulse purchase of the week (of the month?): Regal Chowk’s Punjabi Samosa, which seems to be made by an entity called Anarkali in Pakistan. Basic searches tell of a folk heroine from Lahore called Anarkali, who’s appeared in books, plays and movies made on the subcontinent, but I’m too lazy to look into that any further right now.

Anyway, these samosa are in the frozen foods section of your neighborhood grocery store, or at least one of my nearby grocery stores, since there’s a fairly large population here in the northwest suburbs who are from, or whose parents are from, South Asia. The first place I ever had samosa was on Devon Ave. in Chicago years ago, as an appetizer, and I’ve enjoyed them now and then ever since. Fresh is going to be hard to beat, but I thought I’d give these a try. Might be surprised.

Dog vs. Vacuum

Some rain lately, and nighttime thunderstorms, but not as much as in April. Grass and bushes and flowers are luxuriating. It’s a good way to approach the real start of summer, which is around June 1.

I had another idea to elaborate on Dogs from Space today as our dog was attacking the vacuum cleaner. Dogs have famously testy relations with vacuums, and ours does her bit by barking at the thing while it’s running, and trying to bite the front end. Dogs might be smart, but not smart enough to attack the real source of their enemy’s power, the electric cord. I would discourage that in harsh terms anyway, but so far it isn’t an issue. Maybe she believes she’s won when the machine is turned off.

What are the mortal enemies of the intelligent dogs from the Sirius system like? Noisy, metallic creatures that suck up their environment looking for food.

Of course, a very simple Google search reveals that Hollywood had a go at the dogs as space aliens 10 years ago in a movie that doesn’t seem to have made much of an impact. Probably because it was bad, though that isn’t necessarily an obstacle to box office success.

Dogs From Space

Back again after Memorial Day, which falls three days before Decoration Day this year. Another example of an earlier occasion within a later one, such as Armistice Day within Veterans Day, or to take it back further, the various pagan holidays bundled up within Halloween and Christmas.

Lilly threw a tennis ball in the air not long ago, intending for the dog to chase after it. To everyone’s astonishment, the ball stuck in the back-yard tree. Not in a thicket of branches, but jammed between two small branches that aren’t budding yet, and in fact might be part of a dead branch. You’d have to throw a ball I don’t know how many times to get a result like that. This isn’t the first time Lilly has managed to toss something with astonishing results.

We’ve been expecting the wind to bring it down, but so far – it’s been roughly two days – the ball has stayed in its arboreal home.

Also not long ago, we were out in the back yard with the dog when she took a sudden, inexplicable interest in the sky, running around, looking up, barking a little. I thought she might have spotted a bird, which happens sometimes, sending her off on a vain ground-based chase of airborne creatures. We couldn’t see any birds, or even distant airplanes, which she occasionally looks up at (baffled, maybe).

“She’s getting ready for dogs from space to rescue her,” I suggested. No one was impressed. “No, really, an intelligent race of dogs are on their way from a planet around Sirius to free their brother dogs. Sister dog, in her case. Earth dogs have been waiting for thousands of years for their freedom. One day, they’ll come.”

Again, no one was impressed. I don’t think I made that idea up, but I can’t remember where I heard it.

Dog Chew

The dog’s got some canine habits, for sure. Such as chewing things. Pictured below is a stuffed figure I don’t ever remember getting, and which no one in the house has paid much attention to for years. The hound found it recently and did some damage. Was Mr. Sluggo to its Mr. Bill. Reminds me of the young days of Katie, my mother’s dog, who destroyed (among other things) most of the pine-cone elves acquired in Germany in the ’50s that we used to hang as Christmas decorations.

A few months ago I picked up a hardback book at Big Lots. That retailer isn’t generally known for its books, but it had a bin of landfill-destined titles that I had to rummage through. I found A Fiery Peace in a Cold War (2009) by Neil Sheehan, whom I know as the author of A Bright Shining Lie, which I read some years ago, and remembered liking.

The progression of pricing was from $32 on the dust jacket to $7 at Bargain Books, which I could tell from a partially obscured price tag, to $4 at Big Lots. For that price, I would take a long look at Mr. Sheehan’s latest.

The book promised a biography of the man more responsible for the creation of the U.S. ICBM arsenal than anyone else: Air Force Gen. Bennie Schriever (1910-2005). I’d never heard of him. I started reading it the other day, and it’s good so far. I was interested to learn that Schriever mostly grew up in San Antonio. The early chapters contain a number of references to places that I would know 50 years later.