100 F

On the drive home from Michigan yesterday the car told us it was 100oF outside.   I thought the F stood for Fahrenheit but my dad kept using another F word to describe the temperature outside.

Sam and I powered through though:

as the good dogs we are!  No fights or complaining from the back seat – at least not too much.

I even shared the backseat with my bro!

In fact, I even provided him a pillow.

When we got home the heat continued but our backyard is pretty shady thanks to all the tall trees finally popping out their leaves.  By the way, our car also was a bit more shady thanks to mom finding some awesome shades that helped cool down the car for us. Thanks Amazon Tesla people!

Did I mention this was a long weekend thanks to Memorial Day and the fact that my parents took off Friday to drive to Michigan to go to a concert with my aunt D and her bff AlG.   Sam and I were left alone with our g-parents and behaved admirably while our parents were gone.

As I was saying, when we got home, the heat was still on full throttle, but given the extended time off from work my parents did some work around the yard (and put the air conditioning on in the house).  This included mowing the backyard – the front yard has to wait as the mower died, pulling some weeds, but mostly planting annuals in their multiple pots, baskets and troughs.   I decided, through self-motivation and independence, to plant a pot myself.

I certainly hope my toys propagate and I have a bumper crop this fall.  Maybe I’ll try planting the bee in the background in our vegetable garden…if only I can figure out where that is!

The Tempest

Dental Hygiene

Many of you have probably heard that taking care of your teeth is important for long lasting health.  This includes flossing regularly.   Something Sammy has not taken to heart.  This fact may explain his current status as the “Snagletooth of Fairoaks”.

Yep.  If it isn’t obvious from these pics, my old man brother has snapped off both his lower canines…which by my calculations make him two-forths or 1/2 the man he used to be.  OK.  All three of these pics are of his lower right canine, but if the scribe was more patient he’d find the pic of his lower left canine (or he could just pick up his camera and take a new pic).

And to be clear, this is likely a result of his lack of flossing over the years.  This should not be confused with Flossy McGrews located in Denver, CO.

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This place had a ton of cool stuff (as I ascertained from viewing pics my parents took back before I was born):

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No shortage of shoes there.   Those people have definitely heard the saying:

“I have too many shoes…said NO one ever.”

Interestingly, and inexplicably, Fossy’s is not on Atlas Obscura!  Neither was Ken the computer guy who was just down the road and helped out my parents when they had a power source issue.   Luckily for them, Ken fixed the problem, Fossy inspired them and then this BBQ place satiated their appetites – boy, if only I had been there to polish off their plates and lick their fingers (if I wasn’t already full from that stuffed cat…just kidding!  I can always eat BBQ anything!).

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Not sure what this was all about, but the snow, trees, mountain side make me believe there was some great sledding opportunities I’d have loved to participate in!

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Seems I got a bit off track with all this Flossy/Denver stuff.

My point is that it is important to take care of ones teeth.  However, the little ribbons of crud you people use for floss is not going to be sufficient to clean my teeth.   Therefore, I created my own (patent pending) brand of canine floss.   I think the following video will demonstrate its utility and composition (I just hope this doesn’t end up creating prior art thus invalidating my invention!).

The Tempest

In Plain Sight

Sammy warned me about this game that my parents used to play with Montana after garbage days but I didn’t totally get how it all played out.  Today I was introduced to it (although Sam insists I already played it once since living here…but if that was true there is no way it would’ve taken me this long to locate Dad and I certainly wouldn’t have freaked when I found him).  Maybe I should just let the video speak for itself.

What you may have missed from this clip is the total kissy-kissy I gave Dad when I did find him.  He claims he was too busy trying to maintain his balance so he didn’t end up in the muck in our southwest garden room and was therefore unable to continue filming and Mom was too busy laughing/did not have her phone and therefore could not capture the action.

I probably should have cross referenced the original video/blog but I had to work on my nails.

The Tempest

ps – I have a ton more stories to tell but finding a time where the scribe is paying attention and I don’t have hygiene duties to take care means it may be a while before I can get them into blog form.

 

 

Raising Tempest

As I was reviewing the following clip of me trying to make may way out of the blanket my dad bought me on my first night with the new pack, I was reminded of a movie I may have once seen – or at least I’ve heard talk of.  What I haven’t told you (or shown you) is my new favorite game with Dad in the evenings.  Maybe soon I’ll share exactly what I mean by that but for now I am going to focus on Nicholas Cage…one of the stars of the aforementioned film.

But first a little digression to a story I recently read on one of our favorite sites on the internet: fivethirtyeight.com.  Up until recently, when for no explicable reason our daily email alerts failed, we enjoyed the stories and insights of Walt Hickey in his column Significant Digits.  However, despite being dropped from receiving the automatic witticisms of this column, we still stop by the site to see what is up.  Just the other day there was a whole article about our boy Nick and I can’t agree more that Raising Arizona – the film I’ve referred to but have not named until now – is where he shines the brightest…that and Moonstruck.  If you are interested, here is the link to the story:

The Five Types Of Nicolas Cage Movies

Interestingly enough though, the scene that got stuck in my mind tonight was not one in which Nick had any lines.  In fact, he is not in it at all:

Maybe it was the torrential downpour that we are currently experiencing, or John Goodman’a fight to work his way out of the “tunnel” to escape his 9 month captivity (or some period of incarceration approximating this duration), or the symbolism of rebirth, which he then aids his accomplice in – which, by the way, is much shorter than 9 months for us dogs…we are born, and born again much faster than you human types as we happen to be much closer to the angels (no offense).   Where was I?  Oh yeah.  This scene reminded me of tonight, or rather reviewing the video from tonight reminded me of this scene.  Here is what I endured:

On a side note, which may also have played a part in my cognitive resonance to this film tonight, is that my Uncle Stephen used to mess with Montana and call her by other state names.  His favorite:  Arizona.

So maybe this blog should really be called Raising Montana!  Come to think of it, her and I share a lot in common – hound like ears, a good nature, love of all meat products – especially from the ocean.   So could it be that she and I are 1?  Timelines (at least on a human level) suggest not, but….

The Tempest

PS: Sam and Dad were no help.  Even my furtive glances at the camera and my brother got me nothing.  A girl just sometimes (almost always?) has to do things for herself!