Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
…nice to be back! (not that I was away, but I was doing the ‘Apple and Ostriches’ April Blog Challenge for the last month, and having a Saturday Letter Post to write, which I attempted to combine with the TToT, the weekend, blog-writingistically-speaking wasn’t the same. Hence today’s sub-title, a reflection upon the perception that, now that the blogchallenge is over, the writing of my TToT seems so…. easy going. I distinctly recall many a Saturday morning feeling under pressure to get the Post out before Saturday’s demands became overwhelming. Like writer’s block, I suspect that the (experience) of being under a deadline and feeling stress and pressure, these are feelings surely come from within more than without?)
Speaking of ‘relaxed on the edge of serenity’, Una starts us off at Item Number:
1) Una and the return of the ‘5 to 10 mph Friday evening walks’! The days are longer and I’m able to get home from work before dark, at least on Fridays, for our ‘walk’.
2) Speaking of Una (and being grateful for technology) I think I’ve already told the story of how we ‘found’ Una at a breeder located in the Czech Republic and negotiated the entire process using Google Translate. This is, in part, prompted by a Post from this week past that employed examples of online translations. In any event, here’s the story: after Bella died it eventually became obvious (again) that we were meant to be pack of 3. And even though we both have work that demands more time away from home than the average for, say a 1960s family. (ed. note: I will state, for the record, that when I was growing up, we ate dinner at 6:00 pm most weekday evenings! No! Really! It’s the truth and not, I’m fairly certain, the late 1960s talking.) In any event, the time came when Phylllis and I knew we had to find our missing pack member. Now, we’ve always had German Shepherds and they are not a small dog. Phyllis, practical roger that she is, suggested that maybe we should consider a smaller breed. (At the time in life when Ola or Bella got sick, they both required being lifted to go for doctor visits and such, that was what Phyllis had in mind.) Much to my dismay, I found myself agreeing, so off to the internet I went and I stumbled across the breed ‘Chodsky Pes’. Bred, at that time, only in the Czech Republic, we negotiated by email, arranged a courier and the rest is history. (hey! I went looking for some source materials about the breed and searched: ‘chodsky pes breeders‘ and I showed up! (well ‘Una-pictures-that-I-took, and a couple of the Hubs I wrote at the time…. that’s ….er cool?)
3) hey! I remembered my password to the Hubpages and look what I found! (her first trip to the beach)
4) …feeling a little hypograteful for the weather. (Yeah, that sub-title again!! how little time has passed since we were freezing in the Winter-that-would-not-End, and now it’s not warm enough! That being said, what’s interesting, at least here in the Northeast, is that the weather is almost exactly 30 days late! March in April. But the days are long and it’s light out at 7:30 pm
5) Day Light Savings time! easy one there!
6) I am grateful for my co-Challengers! Christine and Z and Kristi and Dyanne and Valerina and Michelle…. while I’ve never been overly associated with teams, team spirit, team sports, teeming masses, steam rooms or team membership, I will extend my sincere thanks and gratitude to these people for the support and inspiration and such.
7) And, of course, Our Ms. Rogers and her 10 co-hostinae for keeping the home fires (metaphorically) burning… here in TToT-ville. My experience with the gigantic bloghop last month made me appreciate more than ever the sense of home here… the familiarity and camaraderie (stop me if I get too mushy), but having gone and visited the big city, I now know that I prefer this size of community.
8) them Virgins! gots to love yourself some Guard Virgins
9) glad to see many (or a few) new participants here… that’s what makes this such a lot of fun, and a (another metaphor) dude ranch for my scottian aspect
10) 1.3 y’all New Readers? 1.3 is a much used citation from one of the coolest features of this here bloghop here, namely, the Book of Secret Rules (aka the Secret Book of Rules) While whole Posts can and have been written on this topic… the BoSR/SBoR is what makes us a bloghop that stands out among thousands of bloghops… it’s what would make us king of the the… ‘pile-of-laundry,-in-front-of-the-washer,-in-a-roughly-pyramidal-shape…kinda-sorted-out-but,-growing-larger-with-the-passing-by-of- each-family-member’. ya know?
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About clarkscottroger
F’ing frist. Yeah. That’s what I said.
(I’d better be! If I refresh and someone else beat me to it, while I’ll, I’ll…..be second!!)
hmmmm am I reeally Frist?
ha so not frist but there were no comments listed so i was right to assume…so there.
Our boy is getting on up there in age… fifteen and half years old to be exact. and We are horribly already thinking of what dog we would want to get next. Because there is just something not right about coming home and not having a dog greet us at the door
I know what you mean… it’s one of life’s odd moments (and, also a tribute to the nature of dogs and our relationship with them that your dog would want you to think like that, if for no other reason than they know it does not make us love them in anyway less…and it’s part of that total un-conditionality of the love shared by dogs that’s so amazing)…. ya know?
Nuts, I thought I’d be frist.
I imagine Una can enjoy the beach now without a leash. I could tell she wanted to run. Oh, and my family had dinner every night at six. Now it is more like 8 and who’s cooking? Not me for awhile.
like… what heck!! what would you do with all that time after dinner… it’s like another whole half a day! I often talk about imagining what it would be like to have lived in, like, pre-colonial New England…all the distances being distancier….and how slow would be the passage of time, but your comment makes me think there is enough difference (in the passage of time) between childhood and now-time.
Una, in the picture, is clearly in alert status!
I agree there is a “completeness” to family when there is/are canines as part of one’s “pack”.
I love the beach vid. and understand the pack of three thing.
You negotiated the entire process using Google translate? Wow, you’re super patient!
I guess (and surely Jana, the breeder was as well) ( “Dear clark, I don’t know if I can include lederhosen, a dozen rabbits and a Maiden in with Una’s crate“)
lol
It’s always nice to come over and see what you’re up to. :) And though I’m busy, I always have to take a moment – at least a few times a week – to take a peek and come over.
In any case, J and I have a movie date night this evening, so I won’t be able to call in: I only get to see him on the weekends at the moment (sniff sniff) so the last few weekends have been jam packed with trying to play catch up.
Glad to see your list of thankfuls. You always make me smile!
hey ho! Cyndarita! (you know, those smart phones are cameras and…this is just an idea, but you could me (and Denise) to the movies too you know!! “Hey! you two quiet down in there or it’s off the seat back and into the popcorn tub wit ya!…. ” lol)
Trust all is going well in the new Office/Business/Refuge and SSL-central… you know what would be cool! either a totally official document for your office wall (suitably framed, of course) from the Wakefield Doctrine…. or… a needlepoint in-a-frame, wise-saying-thingie will get back to you one that!
Been wearin’ my Wakefield Doctrine sweatshirt around campus, yo!
:P
(“…pssst you sure she transferred in?!? I heard she scored so high on the entrance exams… no! really!”)
lol…excellent
As a professional translator threatened by machine translators, I still have to admit that they came a long way from their early stages. Still, I’m NOT obsolete.. I refuse to even think that I may be one day :-) Glad GT helped you to get Una!
Interesting story about your Czech dogs. Reminded me a bit of this sketch (we’ll see if it posts correctly): [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DvD4tuDZvg&w=560&h=315%5D
Only your experience worked out, of course.
But now the weather’s changed…at least here in the mid-Atlantic! Spring so slow in getting started and now it’s decided to skip the 70s altogether and get hot!
trade ya any day…. still in the 40s in the morning around here
I love the longer days to and for the same reason – dog walks. I’m also loving the marginally warmer days. It’s not quite warm enough for the Retriever to go swimming in the lake, but the Shepherd is loving the recently thawed waters of Lake Erie.
ayiiee they are exceptionally immune to the cold, no?
Do you at least roll the window down when you and Una take a walk?
I’m very proud of you for doing the A to Z Challenge! You were awesome! I loved it and am still glad it’s OVER.
thank you
(well, yeah don’t know about cats (actually I think I do and they hate car rides), but for dogs, it’s all about the scents in the air… so the point of the ‘walk’ is to let Una sample a very wide variety of scents as we drive along at 5 to 10 mph…. she spends nearly all the time on these rides with her head out the window sniffing like crazy)
Aw, Clark, look at you getting all mushy. I agree, though. There is nothing like this little group we have here at the TToT. We’ve really gotten to know each other and become family-like in the last 98 weeks.
I still can’t get over the lengths you went to in order to get Una to your home.
The longer days are marvelous. As much as it didn’t feel like it, our weather is on track for things blooming. Every single year, our iris bloom the first week of May. I know this because the kids are supposed to take flowers in to school the first Wednesday in May, and I never remember to buy any. They cut off my iris and take them every single year. Guess what they will be doing before school on Wednesday? :)
… well, only dog and all, it actually did not seem like great lengths as much as a cool involved process
only 98 weeks? lol… boy time sure flies on the internet!