A Goodbye To Oscar The Grouch

Oscar the Grouch earned his name, because when they went to pick him out he was mean to his brothers and sisters. He pranced and strutted around the room and growled at everyone. As he grew older he acquired the nickname "Wookie" (for his fuzziness and ability to sound a bit like Chewbacca), and then "Wookie Leg" (if you made the mistake of grabbing his back leg, he would snap at you) and a reputation of not being a dog to mess with.

I met Oscar when he was 1 1/2, and promptly fell head over heels with him. At this time, he would grudgingly allow himself to be groomed, so he was really cute. Soon after we met, I had the honor of carrying him around to the backyard to go to the bathroom(he had to be carried to a fenced area, or else he would take off). He waited until I went to put him down and grabbed my finger. To this day I still have the scar.

As the years passed and I got to know him better, I realized that all of his growling, or at least most of it was his way of talking. He had different tones.

His favorite thing to do these past couple of years was to drag me around the neighborhood barking madly at the neighbors. His last walk was on Christmas Eve. It was snowing, all four of us were bundled up, Feather, Happy and I were freezing to death, but not Oscar. The cold weather seemed to invigorate him. He looked like a Yeti with his shaggy legs coated with snow. Someone had one of those huge inflatable Santa Claus decorations up and he was dead set on attacking it.

Over the past couple of months, he started to really age, then last week, got really sick. He stayed at the vet, and they did their very best. We had hoped that it was just a really bad case of pancreatitis, and then diabetes, but he was not getting better, and yesterday we had to say goodbye.

He was such a difficult dog. You could not get near him with clippers. If he was in a spot you could not move him. He was a grouch, and I am not the only one who bears the scars from his wrath.

Sometimes, it is the most difficult individuals who are the most worth knowing.

American Brain on News TV

Bryan Changed his video again. He is happier with it, but so ready to move on to something else. So here it is ... feed back is very much appreciated! Even if you do not like the video, we are interested in how it plays on different computers, phones, etc.



Here is the link to the youtube page.

http://www.youtube.com/user/myboint

Day Before Spring

Wow, it has been a while! I don't really have time to do this, but I am going to sit here and hopefully not put out completely worthless dribble. lol It is a beautiful day outside! All glorious and sunny. Tomorrow is supposed to be cold and wet maybe snow. What a great first day of Spring! So I will run outside soon to enjoy this weather while I can. Maybe my garage will get clean in the process.

I whacked a lot of my hair off the other day. I was actually planning to go get it cut. I wanted to donate to Locks of Love, but figured that if I waited to get to the salon I would chicken out, so I just gathered it into ponytails measured and snipped. It is a little ragged, but it feels a lot better. I don't think it has been this short since jr. high.

Slowly, I am getting caught up ;). Scratch is now officially a King. Feather's room is just a layer of black fur. The dogs do not shed, so this is taking some getting used to. She is probably the laziest cat that I have ever met. We did find a toy that she likes. It is one of those plastic things that has a ball that can be swatted around and around with a cardboard insert for her nails. She is always getting them stuck and we worry that she is going to hurt herself.

I have decided to just grow vegetables in pots this year after struggling futilely with our horrid ground. We have potatoes sprouting. I had cut up an old trash destined potato, planted the sections in a large pot, now we have new potato plants. Other than that, it is just cilantro for now. My basil did not make it, so I am going to throw some more seeds in the pot and see if they take. Since I did get sunflowers to grow well last year, we will do those again. We are going to try to do The Great Sunflower Project. I think that this will be a neat thing for her to help with.

So this is all for now. Bryan changed his video again, I will do a post about that next, and then I need to get outside while I can.