Organic Dog Candy

We have a new favorite place to walk Angus and Baxter which has great open areas, a nice paved walkway and lots of trees and bushes for the boys to explore, sniff and of course, pee on.  Technically they aren’t supposed to be off-leash but it’s such a great place for dogs to BE off-leash that we brazenly ignore the big sign with the dog walking sedately on-leash and let them off anyway. 

We’re always watching closely so when we spy anybody else out on the pathway we can call the dogs back and leash them up before our defiance is discovered.  They’re pretty good at coming back when I shake the bag of treats, unless they spot a dog before we do.  If it’s a choice between a dog treat and sniffing another dog’s butt, the dog butt always wins out.

Once when we were walking them I didn’t notice Baxter had ranged out further than normal and headed up the only snow-free hill.  When I called him back he was covered in little sticky seeds.  And I mean covered.  This photo does not even begin to show how many seeds were stuck to his fur and beard and lips and ears and belly and paws because we'd already pulled off a bunch before I made Dean stop so I could take a picture which I can tell you did not excite him but he's gotten used to me saying, wait, I think I might want to blog this.... 

Anyway, we pulled off our mittens and began pulling off the seeds and tossing them aside but as we were tossing them, Baxter was trying to reach down and eat them while at the same time Angus was trying to eat them straight off of Baxter’s chest and neck.  We finally got them all off and even though we tried to prevent it, I think half of them ended up in Angus and Baxter’s bellies. 

A few days later we were back on the same pathway but this time we made sure Baxter kept away from that hill because even though the boys really enjoyed eating those seeds, pulling them off Baxter was not all that much fun for us.  Unfortunately, with all the warm weather we’d had the snow was almost gone so there were many more bushes exposed.  I got distracted, Baxter ranged out, and ... 

Back out came the leashes and as we were headed back toward the car Baxter spotted a wooly bear creeping across the pathway.  I was just ready to pull him back, worried he might think a wooly bear was an even better snack than the sticky seeds, when he touched his nose to it.  The wooly bear curled into a ball and Baxter jumped, straight into the air, at least a foot, maybe two.  It was like watching 90 pounds of black fur pop out of a jack-in-the-box.  At least the wooly bear is safe from being mistaken for a dog treat but the sticky seeds are too big a draw for the dogs to risk keeping them off-leash anymore.  So until winter once again comes back with a vengeance (as I know it will no matter how hard I try to convince myself we’re going to have an early spring) we will respect the leash law like the law-abiding citizens we are (mostly).

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Organic Dog Candy

I Think My Ears Are Sprouting

Guess what I’ve figured out? I have figured out why there is a weird little part on the cord of my earbuds.  I don’t know if all earbuds have this special part, but the buds I use (not to be confused with flower buds) do.  And not knowing why that little part is there has been driving me crazy.  I don’t mean I was driven to the tearing at my hair while my eyes darted around wildly and spittle dribbled from my mouth as I was moaning and shaking my fist at my computer kind of crazy.  I save that for the office.  No, I mean just the usual every day quietly mumbling at a handful of plastic-covered wire kind of crazy. 

It’s this little part.  It’s really two parts in one.  

 I could not, for the life of me, understand why it was split so one part could move up and down.  Was it meant to keep them secure?  It is pretty windy here.  I tried pushing the movable part as far as I could to one end, placing the loop over my head, cinching the part under my chin and putting the earbuds in my ears. It wasn’t very comfortable.   

There were lots of people wearing earbuds at the gym, but I never saw anybody with the cords of their earbuds cinched under their chin.  Anyway, even though I have been known to get quite a bit of speed going on that elliptical, I’d never been in any danger that the wind from my pumping legs would blow those buds out of my ears.  And I’d never seen people running outside with that special part pulled up under their chin either.

Even at work, on the days I was working so hard there should have been a tornado strong wind dust devil strong light breeze swirling around me, I’d never produced the amount of wind that would warrant tightening them down under my chin.  Okay, there was that one day when I forgot to take a Lactaid before eating a piece of whipped cream topped cake but that’s a different kind of wind which didn’t involve earbuds.  Not in the accepted manner anyway.  I suppose the people around me could have placed them carefully in their nostrils and cinched them down to prevent them from sliding further into their nasal passages but I … um … am going to move on now. 

I knew there had to be a reason for this special sliding earbud part but I had no idea what it could be.  And I didn’t want to ask because I wanted to figure it out myself.  Plus I didn’t want to put someone in the uncomfortable position of explaining the obvious while trying not to make me feel stupid. 

But all at once ― it came to me.  I know the reason for the sliding thingy on the cord of my earbuds.  Are you ready?  It’s an earlobe protector!  I know.  I can’t believe it took me this long to figure it out either.

The thing is, I only use one ear bud at work.  I do this because because when I am working at my computer, I face away from my cubicle opening and I have a heightened startle reflex.  I have actually fallen to the floor after being surprised, and even though I haven’t done that for many years, at my age, I’d just rather not risk it.  So, if I am listening to music, there is always one earbud that is just dangling. The problem is, a lot of times it gets caught on the arm of my chair, or smashed in between the arm of my chair and my keyboard table, or squashed between my chair and my leg, and if I move the “wrong” way it yanks the one I'm using to listen with right out of my ear.   

 

But no more!  This seemingly insignificant part lets me shorten the dangling part of the extraneous bud so there is no longer a risk it will yank the other one from my ear, which might then get caught on my earring, possibly ripping my earlobe in two.  

Not only that, I’ve discovered another awesome benefit.  If I use that little slidey part to keep the earbud cords short, all I have to do when I get to the gym is slide it down and I’m ready to use both of them.  I don’t have to worry anymore about losing my balance and falling off the elliptical while I’m untangling cords.   Because falling off the elliptical machine would make me look pretty stupid.  But not as stupid as I’m going to feel when I find out you all figured out the reason for that little part years ago.

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I Think My Ears Are Sprouting