"Just" A Dog

Peter Llewelyn Davies: This is absurd. It's just a dog.

J.M. Barrie: Just a dog? *Just*?

[to Porthos]

J.M. Barrie: Porthos, don't listen!

[to Peter]

J.M. Barrie: Porthos dreams of being a bear, and you want to shatter those dreams by saying he's *just* a dog? What a horrible candle-snuffing word. That's like saying, "He can't climb that mountain, he's just a man", or "That's not a diamond, it's just a rock." Just.

         -Finding Neverland

Each time I watch the movie, "Finding Neverland," I am struck by this exchange between the characters of J.M. Barrie and Peter.  I love the way that he discounts the word "just," and because Porthos is the subject in question, it also reminds me of my Scout.

Scout has been a part of our family for nearly four years now.  She was a part of the family before Adam and I were even engaged.  She loves her bed, loves to cuddle, loves going on walks especially when both of us take her, knows a few tricks, and is always there to welcome us home.  Here are ten random fun facts about Scout.

1. Scout is named after the character of Scout in Harper Lee's book, "To Kill a Mockingbird."  That's why she is a girl named Scout...even in spite of the fact that all people who meet her assume she is a boy.

2. Scout is a "Tennessee Brown Dog."  She's a rescue dog and we aren't quite sure what kind of dog/dogs make up her heritage.  Therefore, she is a brown dog and is from Tennessee, a.k.a. Tennessee brown dog.

3. Scout howls.  Mostly, on the command "Smokey."  That shows that she is also, in fact, a UT fan.  The very first day I had her she howled at an ambulance.  She didn't bark for nearly a year, but she howled almost immediately.

4. Scout is a recovering separation anxiety rescue dog.  When I first got her, I couldn't leave the room without her panicking.  We've come incredibly far with it and now, most of the time, you'd never know.

5. Scout loves monkey grass.  Seriously, she will seek it out to do her business.  It's hard to keep her from exploring every single bit of it we come in contact with in our apartment complex.  If you've seen our complex, you know how much monkey grass we pass during each walk.

6. Scout has a dog nemesis.  She's fairly hypocritical in her choice; it's a brown dog that's our neighbor.  I don't know why or how they became nemeses, but it happened.  If we see that dog coming, we go the other way.  She gets extremely upset, complete with barking and "raptor fur"...which brings me to #7...

7. Scout gets what we lovingly refer to as "Raptor fur" whenever she feels any emotion strongly; excitement, happiness, anger, protectiveness.  It's a bit of a turn off for people who don't know her, but it doesn't mean she's upset or going to be mean.  Raptor fur is when the fur just along her spine stands on edge.  

8. When Scout is very happy, she gets circle tail.  She wags her tail in a complete circle until she calms down. It's her third stage of excitement, but doesn't take all that much because Scout loves all people and wants to be their best friend, preferably with no personal space.

9.  Scout can make some interesting choices.  When we go in a new place, she needs to be shown where she can go.  Sometimes, when she eats, she eats all of one color kibble before starting on the other color.  She lays by her bowl with her head touching it for at least a few minutes before she starts to eat, every time.  She has licked the wall...for no reason.  She attempts to roll in deer business, and anything else that has a less than desirable smell.  She barks at inanimate objects, but only when they're outside, like a snowman or frisbee.  She doesn't love interruptions to her routine.  After eating, she always, always rubs her face in the carpet, no matter what she ate and in spite of the fact that she doesn't get anything on her face.

10. Scout has become protective during my pregnancy.  The dog who rarely ever barked, especially not at people, has decided that she likes to let me know whenever people are near our door and stays right by my side.  Scout may be a dog, but she knows exactly what's going on and is doing her best to keep me safe while I do my best to keep the baby safe.

So, there you go, 10 things about Scout, in the style of "Because of Winn-Dixie."  I know that she is a dog.  I won't shame J.M. Barrie and use the word "just" in that sentence, but I do know that she is a dog.  However, she is a dog to whom I am very attached.  Life is about to change for me, for Adam, for Scout, and for everyone else in our lives, what with our new addition's arrival in the coming weeks.  Scout may or may not have a rough time with accepting the baby; either way, she'll have to adjust her routine and that isn't easy for her (see #9).  I'm going in to this situation with my eyes open.  It's not going to be easy to bring a baby home to a one-bedroom apartment, especially one with a dog.  

Near the beginning of my pregnancy, lots of people told me we'd have to get rid of Scout.  At this point, I disagree.  If things change, they change, but right now I have faith in her and we continue to love her.  I was once told something that has stuck with me throughout the pregnancy; I have enough love to go around.  That's the amazing thing about new people, things, and experiences that we bring into our lives; they don't take away from what's already there.  There is more than enough love to go around.  

Channeling an Inner Ted Mosby

Again, those of you who have children may shake your head at me or laugh thinking about how much I have to learn in the next six and a half weeks before baby girl makes her arrival, but right now, it sometimes feels like everything Adam and I do has to do with the baby.  When we're home we're working on things to prepare for her and when we're out, we're usually doing something that's somehow related to her arrival.  No worries; we are loving it!  However, this is a story of something that actually doesn't have to do with baby...well, not completely.

Yesterday, Adam and I had the opportunity to take maternity photos.  This was not an activity that I picked out or honestly, to which I was even looking forward.  However, we got the sitting and the digital prints as a baby shower gift and it was undeniably too good to pass up.  So, I pretended that I wasn't like other pregnant women; I'm not too self-conscious, I said, it doesn't matter to me exactly what I look like at 33 weeks pregnant.  Sure, we'll take some photos!  It's a new time in our lives and one that should be commemorated!

You can ask Adam how well and how long that mindset lasted...it was about until I started picking out clothes for our photos.  Thankfully for me, that isn't the point of this post, and so, we'll skip over my whining during that whole process and go right to the photo shoot.

Yesterday was an overwhelmingly beautiful day here.  It was the perfect weather for an Easter weekend.  As an aside, let me throw in that I absolutely adore it when the weather is beautiful for Easter.  Easter is always beautiful in and of itself, but when the outdoors match our joy inside, it's even better.  Ok, forgive yet another tangent and I'll get back to the story.  So, we made the trek out to a rustic and gorgeous farm on the edge of Mt. Juliet.  This is a well run operation; there were quite a few other customers participating in various photo shoots and several photographers working with different clients all at once.  We met our photographer and got right down to the pictures.  She was wonderful about putting us at ease and giving us enough direction for the awkwardness to fade.  I even found myself enjoying it.  We took pictures in a couple different outfits and settings around the farm.

The first "round" went uneventfully.  We took pictures, smiled, and channeled out inner Derek Zoolander.  Then, we changed our outfits (I may not have been able to pick just one for the photo shoot) and started on round two.  At one point, during this set, the photographer set us up as though we were going on a picnic.  We sat on a blanket amidst candles and a wicker picnic basket, as the camera clicked.  The next direction came.  "Ok, now look in the basket and pretend you're getting out sandwiches or something."  I didn't think a thing about it.  Aware of the camera, I continued to smile.  I reached out to open the basket, with Adam at my elbow.  I opened the basket and discovered that instead on an empty prop, it contained something for me.

It was an envelope, that was labelled "My Katy" in Adam's handwriting.  My first thought was to assume that it was something the photographer used as a ploy to get real emotion.  Maybe she had him write a note to me or a joke or something to earn a true smile, one not just pasted on for the camera.  I opened the envelope, still out of the loop.  Inside was a very cute, simple greeting card.  As I opened the card, I realized that this gift was anything but simple.

I began reading and immediately noticed that the words were all lyrics...all from songs by the same band...my favorite band...Nickel Creek.  It was then that I allowed my eyes to drift to the other side of the card.  There were two tickets there, to a sold-out Nickel Creek show at the Ryman Auditorium...for last night.  All I could say was, "how did you do this?"  I may have continued saying that a few times....but I was floored and overwhelmed.  We had originally tried our very best to get tickets the day that they went on sale, but were thwarted by scalpers.  I had eventually pretended to get over my disappointment and tried to forget about the concert.  During the entirety of my tongue-tied wonderment, Adam had a huge smile on his face and the camera continued to click away.

He was absolutely thrilled that he had surprised me.  For some reason, I felt myself fighting back tears (we'll blame it on the hormones) and then was able to hear the rest of the story.  Adam had been able to find tickets a few days before and hatched this plan in coercion with our photographer in order to make it a huge surprise.  It definitely worked.  He had given me no hint and I was shocked.  It was wonderful!  I absolutely love surprises.

The rest of our photo shoot flew by and soon enough, we were on our way to the album tour that I, like many other Nickel Creek fans, had been waiting for for years.  They were amazing; exactly the same as they were eight or so years ago when I last saw them perform.  This particular concert may have jumped up to my top spot of all time.  The discomforts of being hugely pregnant weren't even able to distract me during the two hours while they played.  It was a romantic, beautiful, heartfelt surprise from a husband who was definitely channeling his inner Ted Mosby.  I couldn't be more thankful!  I know he'll appreciate that it was the perfect beginning to "birthday month" (I was told I have permission to call it that just this year since it's a big birthday).

MLB Opening Week

"The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time."

- "Field of Dreams": Adapted from Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella

The 2014 Major League Baseball season began this week, and a season of hope sprung for 30 franchises chasing the dream of playing a summer game on a cold October night for the World Series Championship.

This is the one sporting time of year that our house is divided...me being a St. Louis Cardinals fan and Katy being an Atlanta Braves fan. It helps our relationship that our teams play in different divisions, but it can make for a tricky week or 2 at points during the season, especially if our teams make the playoffs. Soon, we will have another member of our family...will she choose the Braves, the Cardinals, another team or no team at all?

As I write this, there are 156 games to go in this regular season.

I love baseball for many reasons: memories of St. Louis, keeping a scorecard, ice cream in mini-helmets, the smell of a grass field, the anticipation of action before a pitch, hot dogs, playing catch, the crack of a bat, statistics, family; but mainly I love it because perfection in baseball is borne out of struggle.

Consider this...the 20 best hitters in the history of a game that pre-dates the Civil War succeeded only in 1/3 of their plate appearances. In any other sport an average success rate near 30% passing, shooting or scoring would be unacceptable, at least, and cause for never playing the game again. However, hitting in baseball is arguably the most difficult feat in sport.

The history of the game is littered with stories of trial, error and ultimately success. Imagine playing your entire life as a pitcher, earning a roster sport on a major league team, earning an 11-7 record in your first full season, and following that up with one of the worst performances ever in baseball. This is the story of Rick Ankiel, but it doesn't end there. He would reform his career in baseball as an outfielder, and play for 6 more seasons in the big leagues.

The seasons come and go. Seasons have begun to leave indelible marks on my life as the seasons roll on. Fans fill ballparks and witness all of the outs until 1 champion is crowned.

Who knows what the 2014 season holds? Not me...but I know that I will watch it.