Britta Update

Don asked about Britta, so here’s a quick update and some photos.

She seems to have stopped growing at about 56 pounds. Small for a retriever, I’d say. Not quite miniature, but she certainly looks small after the 70+ pounders we’re accustomed to around here. That’s a sofa pillow she’s laying on. She’s not so small that you’d think she could fit on it, but dogs are remarkably shrinkable, as you may know.

She’s an incredibly fast learner, mastering most commands after just a few repetitions. She reverts to old behaviors almost as quickly if you don’t work with her, though, so it’s a constant refresher course. Which is fine.

She’s become very social, frequently seeking out the humans in the house to see what they’re up to, and announcing her presence with a gentle but firm nudge with her snout. She’s less gentle with doors. If you go to take a nap behind a closed door, don’t fall asleep too quickly, ’cause there will soon be the sound of a bang at the door. Just one, but it’s quite a bang.

This morning it was a little cold, so we sent her outside with Louis and waited for them to return to the sliding glass door. Britta didn’t realize it was closed. Thank goodness she came at it from an angle, or we’d be dividing our day between the new door store and the veterinary ER. She left a nice smear of dog snot. I’ll try to get you a picture.

We’re having quite a time raising her, and she’s showing great promise.

Golden Stare Down

Don Smith, over at Idle Minutes, has a Welsh Corgi named Rosie. She sounds like a great dog. Animated, full of personality, and well-loved by her family.

It’s funny to me how dogs have such distinct personalities, but threads run through them all. Another family’s dog is to them exactly what yours is to you. I guess that’s not at all profound, but it always strikes me. It reminds me that none of us is as unique as we like to think sometimes, and we have more in common than we know.

Anyhow, Rosie reminded me recently of Louis, our 12-year-old border collie mix, in a back-scratching wriggle.

But today, she reminds me of Carla, our late, loved Golden Retriever. Not for the context, this time, but for the pose. Rosie’s at a pause in her play. Carla was just making a new friend. Hop over to Don’s place. The pose is nearly identical.

The dogs. They speak. What a great image, Don.

Disabling The Rich Text Editor in WordPress

There’s a checkbox under “Users,” then, “your profile.” It’s near the top right and it’s called, “Use the visual rich editor when writing.” Uncheck that and you can post what you meant to post. Paragraph breaks included.

Why is this not on the “Write Post” page? Or the “Options” page? “Your profile” seems an odd place for something like this.

Anyhow, it’s off. Hooray!

Things That Suck: “rich text” editors in HTML textareas

WordPress has added a “rich text editor” for posts. It’s so rich that it quietly removes linebreaks from posts, without asking. So, every time you go back to fix a typo, you have to reinsert all of your linebreaks, or your post ends up as one big paragraph. It does this even if you use the “code” version, where you’re supposed to be able to type stuff without it getting all smarty-pants on you. Like it was before. I try not to be a snob, but if I can’t have my paragraph breaks where I want them, I will not stay here long. Please fix this, WordPress people!Please?  (I didn’t do that on purpose. The post above was three paragraphs when I wrote it. This is very annoying. I wonder if this will be its own paragraph or not, now. It is in the “rich text” editor.)

Wow. This is awful. 

Never Eat Shredded Wheat - a public service announcement.

Recent search leading here (and only one of several on the same topic): “HOW TO KNOW THE DIRECTION LIKE EAST,WES”. Wes doesn’t live here, but I’ll help you out with my favorite mnemonic:

Never Eat Shredded Wheat.

Start with North (you’ll just have to remember that “north” is “up” - I can’t do it all for you) and go clockwise. North, East, South, West. Magic.

You may prefer “Never Eat Soggy Wheaties,” if you have a thing for shredded wheat. Though, I suspect that if you’re the kind of person who has a thing for shredded wheat, you may not be the kind who needs this advice.
Call me presumptuous.

Also - Google informs me that the Maryland public schools use the “soggy wheaties” version in the third week of September for third graders.

In a nod to the potential benefits of shredded wheat, they use “We Eat Shredded Wheat” the week before to remember that Earth rotates West to East. I won’t point out that using a word that starts with a ‘W’ both before and after the ‘E’ may not be the best of all choices, here.

Snow!

There’s two inches of snow on the ground this morning!

Britta is out there playing. It’s fun to watch a puppy in her first snow - they all do some of the same things. They bury their snouts in it, sniff, then sneeze, then run to a new place to do it again.

Britta keeps her nose down while running to the new place, so she’s a kind of narrow, ineffective snow plow. 

Humbugishness

Meme-ery from Jim - who renamed it from “Stuff I Hate About the Holidays” and, for reasons undisclosed, removed number four, which I’ve reinstated.

1) dessert/cookie/family food: Hmm. A food I hate. A holiday food I hate… I’ll have to get back to you, on this one.

2) beverage (seasonal beer, eggnog w/ way too much egg and not enough nog, etc…). I’ll second the crime of fruity beers. Ugh.

3) tradition (church, family, other). Shopping.

4) Decoration: Anything inflatable.

5) gift (received or given). Socks. Plain white gym socks. (Without making it out to be more than it was, my mom wanted to be sure we had lots of stuff to open, so sometimes we’d get things under the tree that we’d normally get in the laundry basket. She’s sweet that way.)

BONUS: SONG/CD that makes you want to tell the elves where to stick it.. EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM! by halfway through the month. It’s the month for books on CD in the car. Though, I gotta say I love feliz navidad. Not for the song so much as for hearing someone say, “prospero año,” which I wish we’d say instead of “happy new year.” It sounds so much better.