MissMeliss: Escribition

I have a long memory that is at some times vague and at others very specific.

My earliest specific memory is from when I was two or younger, and involves my grandmother’s back door, with the gauzy translucent curtain that veiled (but did not completely obstruct) the view through the heavy glass of the door, and their black dog, Misty. There are no details, beyond the presence of the dog, the fact that the door was closed. I think she may have wanted to go out, but I was far too little to even reach the doorknob.

It is somehow appropriate that I remember this dog in soft focus, as she was to fade from life before I really had memories of interaction before.

I wonder if I was born a “dog person” or made one, later. I’ve always responded more to canine pets, even before cats began to make me sneeze.

So, I’ve been playing with this very cool mobile router for about a week, and I’m totally in love with it. It’s smaller than the regular router wired into our Uverse connection, and in most of the house the signal is actually stronger, which is pretty impressive when you consider that the signal is coming from a two-year-old wifi card. Thankfully, I’ve got an unlimited data plan on the card (it must cost a fortune to use cellular routers without such a plan), so I can use it forever without killing my cell phone bill, but I do have to be careful because the card tends to run hot. It ran hot in my laptop, as well, so I suspect it’s just the nature of cell cards.

While I have to admit that I’m not entirely new to the concept of cellular routers, I am seriously impressed by how easy this was to set up (plug in card, plug in power, load software that I didn’t even need to muck with because it came pre-configured), and how compact it is.

Also, Kevin at PowerfulSignal.com is the nicest guy ever, and really patient when it comes to answering questions, especially from people like me who know just enough to be dangerous.

When Fuzzy gets home from Hong Kong, he’ll be playing with it as well, and we’ll eventually be posting a full review here in my blog.

Stay tuned.

P.S. Not a flickr fan? You can also check this video out on YouTube:

As most of my friends and readers know, I’m not a fan of animation in any form, but as a chihuahua owner, I may have to make an exception for the upcoming Disney film Beverly Hills Chihuahua, just because.

Don’t know what I mean? Here. Watch the trailer:

Changing sheets at 2 AM is never fun, and it’s especially not fun when you’re doing it because your dog just had a mild seizure and voided his bladder on the bed, soaking a comforter, bedspread, quilt, two layers of sheets and the mattress cover, but not (thankfully) the mattress itself.

He hasn’t had a seizure since 2002, and I suspect this one was connected, not to his epilepsy, but to his heart condition, because he started coughing just before it happened, and I didn’t catch him in time.

Note to self: From now on assume coughing means his bladder is full and take him out.

Dogs in Yard

Originally uploaded by MissMelysse.

Even though I walk our dogs most days, most of the time when I’m home, the back door is open wide enough for them to go in and out, so they can chase birds, sniff things, attempt to catch geckos, and generally hang out and indulge in serious doggie Zen.

This is fine, except that our back yard hosts the cable drop for much of the network, which means we often have workers traipsing in without bothering to tell us first, and while our dogs are relatively harmless, an open gate is a ticket to exploration, even for a chihuahua.

When I was given the opportunity to review one of these cool from beware of dog signs from DogInYard.com, then, how could I refuse? Their products are so much nicer than those cheap plastic-laminate black and orange things from the grocery store, after all, and come in fashion colors, with the right hardware for your fence (screws for our wood fence, cable ties for folks with link fences).

Not only that, but I had a response within five minutes of my order, stating that they’d received it, and confirming my address, and that they invoice - invoice! Can you believe it? - and that mine would reflect a zero balance (it being a review product and all) - the regular price is under $20, however, and these signs are totally worth it - they even offer a choice of DOG or DOGS in the lettering.

DogInYard.com ships before you pay, and ships quickly. I don’t think it even took a week for my sign to arrive, and the only reason it’s not actually ON the gate already is that Fuzzy came home from Hong Kong with a badly sprained ankle, and I’m afraid of our drill. Their invoice reminds you that fast payment is good Karma, and these folks are so nice, I really hope ALL their customers pay on time.

In any case, the sign is lovely, and I’ll feel better about leaving Zorro and Cleo out there on the odd afternoon, once it’s up.

We just got back from our tour of the neighborhood, in which Zorro marked every tree and Miss Cleo, in her unerring clumsiness, managed to tromp through every fire ant mound in the mile-circuit we generally take. This was the shorter of our two mid-length routes: around the corner, through the park, across the street, around another corner, and down the long block home. I’m not sure what messages the dogs got this morning, but I noticed a few things:

• - The neighbors who share our back fence, and thus face the park, were in their driveway (all four of them) staring at their SUV and their boat, as if there was a telekinetic element to hitching the former to the latter. I noticed they have a shiny new (unstained) fence around the boat, separating it from the rest of the back yard. Of course, they hired someone to build the fence. I’m thinking they should have hired someone to teach them how to hitch up a trailer. I’m a city girl and even I know how to do this.
• - The neighborhood teens are being sloppy. The bench at the far end of the park had a pile of Dr. Pepper cans sitting on it. I realize the only trash can is at the play area, on “our” end, but still, we’re talking a length of maybe half a block. (Of course, we really should have trash cans at both ends.)
• - The people at the opposite end of the part from our back-fence neighbors have added one of those fire-pit tables to their front courtyard. It’s not a porch - our neighborhood doesn’t have them - but they’ve made a lovely outdoor courtyard in front of their main window. It’s a little too chi-chi even for me, though, with the gnomes and the fake parrot and such, but, whatever. It’s nice to see people sitting outside in lawn chairs on balmy evenings, and not in laz-e-boy recliners in the garage, which will forever strike me as tacky and weird.
• - The people with the cement dog that Miss Cleo barks at have new flowers - they look like Gerberas but they’re so perfect I suspect they’re fakes. We didn’t cross their lawn to confirm.
• - The people a few doors down from us who are trying to sell their house had some lovely wine racks in their always-open, apparently unattended garage. They also had something that looks like a lemonade stand sitting on the driveway. It was red.
  It made me want lemonade.
• - Our peach tree is still peaching. We lost some peachlets in the storm the other night, but the birds and bugs are feasting on those, and I think we’ll have a decent amount of peaches. I think they’ll be about ripe when my parents arrive in 2.5 weeks, but it might take a little longer. Also, the flowers in front of our main window? Are cheery and bright, and I’m glad we planted them.

And on that note, time to make coffee. and maybe a mushroom and dill havarti omelet.

The problem with allowing your dogs to sleep in the bed with you, especially if they’re terrier-esque, is that they tend to dig in the covers. The first time, it’s cute. The second time, less cute, but a bit annoying. After that? You tend to imagine that you can hear their little claws picking apart the sheets and comforter thread by thread.

It is, therefore, no surprise that I look at comforter sets and sheets sets in every store we enter that carries such things, though I rarely buy them. Sheets and quilts are surprisingly expensive, and I’m picky. 100% cotton is a given, but high thread counts, pretty colors, nice patterns. Our bedroom is really my second (third?) office, and I need the space to reflect that.

I tend to do for nautical stripes, blues and crisp reds, more than sweet floral things (to Fuzzy’s delight) but lately I’ve been straying on the pink side, if for no other reason than I wouldn’t have to worry about my hair staining the pillow cases.

I wonder if my froufrou taste in bed linens encourages the dogs.