Elizabeth Loupas

If I thought the book looked real when I got the page proofs (which are finished, yay!) (well, finished but for one last pass which I’ll do this weekend, but still yay!), imagine how I felt when this box arrived:

Advance Reader Copies!

As I was swooning with delight, Boo inspected the box thoroughly and declared “Aroo roo rooooo arooo roo roo.” I think that means, “Whoo-hoo, Mama, you did good, now what’s for dinner?”

Watch this space for information on how to win one for your very own! (The book, not the beagle.)

The other night the beagles treed a possum (well, “fenced” it would be more accurate, as it was teetering along the top of the back fence as all the possums and squirrels seem to love to do) and it hissed at them just like a cat. I wish I could have taken a picture but it was dark and I was already juggling a flashlight and the doggie-treat bucket. (Shaking the treat bucket is what we call “the nuclear option” in coaxing the dogs to come inside.)

The scary and sad thing is that so many of the wild critters we have around here (possums, raccoons, polecats, squirrels and even sometimes armadillos) carry rabies. I was terrified that the possum was going to fall off the fence into the dogs’ slavering jaws and get in a few good bites before it went to possum heaven. Much to the my relief (and the dogs’ disappointment) it escaped safely. The treat bucket provided consolation prizes.

Having recently made the acquaintance (figuratively speaking) of the charming Dr. Fritz de Quervain (who not only had radial styloid tenosynovitis named after him, but introduced iodized table salt), I have been on the lookout for ways to avoid grasping and twisting my wrist at the same time. As an historical aside, de Quervain’s tenosynovitis was once know as “Washerwoman’s Wrists” because women who did washing for a living did a lot of simultaneous grasping and twisting with their hands. But I digress.

I realized that walking the doggies every day with Flexis was probably one of the worst things I could be doing—manipulating the thumb button while the dog pulls one’s wrist in every direction. So I dug around on the web a bit and came up with these:

Bun-Gee-Pup-EEs! (No, I’m not kidding.) Despite the silly name, they are great for anyone with fragile wrists and/or hands. They have padded wrist straps and braided bungee cords, so the dog kind of boings along on the end of the leash whenever it pulls. Much softer impact on wrists, and complete rest for the thumbs.

As you can see by the hanging tongues, the dogs had a good time too.

Remember last January when I wrote about the two new rose bushes we’d ordered? Well, after some uncertain moments during our cold, wet spring, little “Scentimental” has come through with flying colors. Here’s its very first bloom:

Incredibly fragrant, as one would expect from its name. Heh. Of course I couldn’t help expecting the scent of peppermint, but what it is, for me at least, is an intense, classic old-fashioned “rose” scent. Heavenly.

And I will end this series of back-yard adventures with this:

…because whenever one is in our back yard, there’s always a beagle observing!

Today is the Broadcasting Legend™’s and my anniversary. At our wedding ceremony I carried a glorious bouquet of Peace roses from the bush in our own back yard, and so of course every spring the new blooms seem to be saying, “Hello again! Happy anniversary!”

We described our wedding day as “Babies, Beagles and Roses.” Well, the babies have grown up and sadly one of the beagles, my dearest Raffles, is gone—but the roses continue to bloom. May that particular Peace bush thrive for many more years!

An unnaturally quiet day today—both dogs are at the vet’s for minor surgeries. No claws clicking on the quarry tile! No liquid dark eyes following every bite of food from plate to mouth! All will not be right with the world (as dear Mr. Browning’s Pippa would say) until the dogs are in the house again.

ETA: Dogs are home safely. Boo looks like a fighter who’s been in one too many fights (two skin tags removed from his face, so shaved patches and scabs), and Cressie looks like a Frankenstein-dog, with two BIG shaved patches and stitched-up incisions, one on the left side of her neck and the other on the right side of her shoulder. Everything was benign, thank goodness. Now to fight the battle of “No, Cressie, no scratching!” I wonder if there’s such a thing as a backwards Elizabethan collar that fits around a dog’s waist, to keep it from scratching with its back legs. Heh.

Today is the first day of Spring, tra-la. We woke up to this—an extremely unseasonable blanket of snow. Brrr! Boudin, a sensible Cajun doggie, refused to go out in the nasty cold wet stuff. Cressie, on the other hand, with her Canadian heritage, bounded out happily. Here you see her sniffing those special snow-enhanced smells. (We did eventually coax Mr. Boo out for a brief pit stop.)

On the far right, note the white tubs we put over our tender new rose plants to protect them from this outrage. At the top leftish-center, see the little chartreuse balsa-wood birdhouse the house wrens love so dearly, heaped with snow on top. Poor shivery wrens. Ah, the joys of spring at Casa Loupas.

Our pear trees have been denuded of their blossoms and look so sad I couldn’t even bear to take a picture of them. Who knows if they will have the heart to bloom again this year?

And the living room goes quiet as Boudin Loupas attempts—holy cow, ladies and gentlemen, this is a first—it’s the full Sphinx-Frog position—and he’s doing it while he’s half asleep! And he sticks the landing! <Audience goes wild.>

…we don’t get a walk today, Mama? I mean, it’s just a little snow. We like snow! Really! There are lots of good smells to smell under the snow. We won’t be cold. We have fur coats! Please, Mama? Please, just one little short walk? Pleeeeeeeaaseeeee….?

…is Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl!

It’s Duncan the Beagle for MVP (Most Valuable Puppy, of course) in Puppy Bowl VI, beginning at 3:00pm eastern time on Sunday. What Saints? What Colts?