More about Lala

I am so tired--after poor Lala's incident yesterday and the garage sale cleanup. So, my husband I I took her for a long walk and she behaved very well. Another dog lunged at her at Starbucks, and she dealt with it--basically ignored that dog. We have had her on the leash inside and out. A lady who walks and trains dogs in the neighborhood came over today and worked with her for a while and confirmed what I had been thinking. The dog is smart--she is well trained--and is traumatized. She thinks that it may take her 6 months to get over her transport from Ohio and the loss of her former family . So, in the meantime, she is staying in the crate and chilling out. She did enjoy a treat of a Frosty Paw--and loved it.

Garage Sale and New Dog

Friday and Saturday were tied up in my yard sale. To may surprise, I did well. I was selling a lot of stuff, mainly old clothing and various things that I cleaned out of my attic and crawl space. I sold all my shoes and handbags, all the silk flowers, many baskets, all the Halloween stuff and most of the kitchen gadgets. I decided to go cheap. Most of the stuff was under $1.00. As a wrap up, my husband and I cleaned up the garage today. Boy, it was a mess, but now it is organized.
On Friday, in addition to the garage sale, we got a new dog. Not a permanent dog, we volunteered to take a rescue dog and foster it until a permanent home was located. Now this dog was presented as a German Shepard, but I don't think that it is. It it one of the smartest dogs I have met, but also one of the slyest. Her name was Priscilla, and she came from eastern Ohio. She was going to be euthanized, so we volunteered to take her, and possibly adopt her. She arrived just after I closed the sale down on Friday. She is a very pretty dog, and seemed friendly to us, but not to Alma, our German Shepard. We had already decided to keep her in her crate when we weren't around, but it became obvious, that we couldn't allow the new dog to be any where near Alma. We decided that she would be in her crate most of the time.
Priscilla didn't seem to know her name, and on Saturday, we decided to call her Lala--short for Lalapalooza--the whole deal. She certainly has lived up to that name. She jumped our fence twice on Saturday, once in front of my husband and our next door neighbor. Later, she tried to jump the fence when she was on the leash. We have a four foot chain link fence. She is a very friendly dog to humans, but a terror to other dogs. We found that out today.
On Sunday morning, we took her for a long walk to Kenilworth Beach. Then, she went back to her crate. Later in the day, we had her in the back yard on her leash. We felt sorry for her, so we got out the ball, threw it to her, which she seemed to enjoy, and then she dropped the ball and jumped over the fence into the alley. We ran after her, and by the time we got to the next street, she had attacked a dog being walked by a young boy. She was running around one of our neighbors yards, barking at their lab. Then she saw a rabbit, and took off after it. She jumped another fence into a back yard. Fortunately, we were able to corner her, and leash her up, and once we were at home, into the crate she went. Now, she has a horrible reputation in the neighborhood, and she has been here only since Friday afternoon! One of the neighbors told us that she had to kick her to get her off the dog she attacked.
I don't think that we will be adopting her. She is so crafty and we don't feel that we can trust her at all. I think that it will take months for anybody to establish trust with her. She will have to be crated most of the time, and when she is out of the crate, she will have to be leashed, both inside the house and out. I also think that whoever adopts her will have to put an electric fence in their yard.
My husband and I have had dogs for 28 years, and we have never seen anything like this.

Garage Sale and Other Events

partially demolished--ready for the contractor

Yes, I am having a garage sale. I've been thinking about it all summer, and now that summer is over, I really have to do something about it. I have a basement full of things, one half of a garage full of stuff and my guest bedroom--now warehouse crammed with merchandise. I almost decided not to have it, but after looking at all the stuff, I realized that I have to do it. Time--Friday and Saturday, Sept 25 and 26, 9 am -2pm.

The kitchen remodeling is moving--the plastic wall is down, the cabinets are about finished. On Monday, the counter guy is coming to measure. The painter is coming on Tuesday to prepare the walls for the tile guy to install the backsplash. We have the floor tile, so everything we need is in place. The sink, faucet and light fixtures are in the basement. However, we have no working cookt0p, the microwave is on the dining room floor, all the dishes are on the dining room table, covered with a sheet. The fridge is in the dining room too. Everything is discombobulated. We've been eating out or getting carry-out for the last 2 weeks. Fun, but not fun. Maybe in about 2-3 weeks, everything will be finished.

Roadside and My Kitchen

I've been working on the Roadside Flower Show at the Chicago Botanic Garden for the past few weeks. It takes lot of time. But, this week, we started on our kitchen remodeling. Lots of mess, lots of dust. Thankfully, I've been out a Roadside most of the day. Yesterday I was at school all day. Tomorrow, school again. My husband is home supervising. Lucky him. Hopefully I will have a few pictures soon.

Thoughts on Obama's speech to school kids and education in general

The hub bub has died down about Obama's speech to school children. Some of the remarks made by parents were astounding--one said that he didn't raise his child to be a community organizer--another stated that she didn't want her child to be indoctrinated by Obama's socialist agenda. In my town, the speech was going to be presented at recess because so many parents raised a fuss about their children watching it.
So as a former social studies teacher and parent, I want to add my two cents into the mix. In my 32 years in the classroom, one major theme and objective was to expose students to many points of view. Most of our resources and textbooks tried to present both sides of most every issue. We even had a series of books entitled "Opposing Viewpoints." So, what is the problem with allowing students to hear a short speech from the president which may or may not agree with your beliefs? I would hope that as a parents, people would have enough confidence in their children to allow them to hear something that is not the "party line" and that the children be able to draw their own conclusions. Nobody said that the children had to agree with everything the president said. Isn't that the purpose of education? How can people consider themselves enlightened if they read and/or hear only one side of the story?
Now, as a parent, my belief was that I was raising a child to become an independent person--one who would be capable of making good choices and decisions on his own. The older he was, the more choices he had to make. I did not see my role as a parent to be one of producing a clone or robot--who would parrot everything I programmed him to say. One other point I would like to make is that if parents try to instill a system of values in their children, one short speech by the president, no matter how persuasive a speaker he may be, should not shake those core values. In other words, I find it hard to believe that Obama could convince a child of conservative parents to adopt his "agenda" after a 10 minute speech. The President may be a good speaker, but he isn't the Pied Piper of Hamlin. And what is wrong with hearing the President's agenda? He was elected by a majority of the voters. Isn't it good to know what the "other side" is trying to do?
In the end, the speech contained little or nothing controversial. It's too bad that so many children missed an opportunity to hear the President address them directly.

The joys of pay per view

Finally I saw two of the films nominated for best picture of 2008. I saw the others a few months ago. I have to say, both the Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire were ok, but not of the quality I expected. At 3 hours long, I was glad to be at home when I watched Benjamin Button. It seemed like a short story was stretched and stretched until there was nothing much left. I'm happy that we didn't pay full price a t the theater for this one.
Slumdog Millionaire wasn't much better--at least it moved at a faster pace, but again, there was not much to it. So to recap, the joys of pay per view are many. We get to see some excellent films, and some popular films and some not so great ones too.