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I thought this video was just too funny to not share. This is a very well trained dog, and I love how she's got that goofy golden retriever grin the whole time, and you can see her tail just wagging! Thanks to Daisy, I'm totally smitten with goldens now.
Via BoingBoing.
30
As Freya and I were sitting and eating dinner with friends here at home tonight, there was a knock on the door. It was a young woman explaining that her company was starting up a business in town and wanted to offer me a free carpet cleaning for one area in the house. As I've mentioned before, our carpet is a grotesquetrie, and so I said okay. She said the guy who'd clean it would be by about an hour later. That sort of seemed odd.
So sure enough, an hour later here comes this nice young Ukranian man with a Kirby vacuum in a box. I thought, "Ah, the Kirby people." But I'm mighty good at resisting a sales pitch, and lord knows the carpet needs all the attention it can get.
He started vacuuming and stopped almost immediately. He showed me a filter from the machine that looked like a big dog-fur hamburger. It had already picked up that much crud. I was impressed, and he went on along, sucking up Pomeranian-sized wads of hair and dirt. Then he started the sales pitch. He claimed the retail price of the vacuum was $2800, but since they were trying to start a business in town, he'd sell it to me (tonight only!) for $1800. And guess what? They offered easy financing!
I tried to look interested, and encouraged him to keep vacuuming. When he asked what payment option I'd be looking at, I told him we're going to Hawaii this spring and that I was saving my money for that. He went on with some middling-hard sell tactics, but I resisted. What finally convinced him to pack up and leave was how I kept trying to get him to vacuum and shampoo more parts of the carpet. He said, "I don't want to waste anyone's time here," and I replied, "You're not wasting mine--you're cleaning my carpet." He said, "Maybe I'm wasting my time."
Heh heh.
I decided to do some researching tonight, and a quick glance at Wikipedia tells me all I need to know. No matter how good the vacuum is, the sales practices appear to be so shady that I don't want any kind of relationship with that outfit.
Isn't that typical of so many multi-level marketing groups?
In the meantime, it sure is nice to have all that dog hair out of the carpet. I should have tried to get him to just run the vacuum over Daisy a bunch of times--that would have eliminated a lot of the middle steps.
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As I mentioned last week, we spent three nights at Hilltop Hideaway, a Forest Service rental cabin on the Umatilla National Forest, outside of Baker City, Oregon*. We set the reservation up last March or April, I think, figuring that Freya was going to be off school this past week and we might as well go do something fun. None of us had ever been there before--we pretty much picked it blind off of Recreation.gov because it was affordable, had hot and cold running water and electricity. (Why rough it?) We were also able to have the dogs there, which was a big deal, especially for the dogs.
The best things about the cabin were those that occurred outside it, though. We discovered a big patch of ripe huckleberries behind it, and spent quite a bit of time picking and eating. We also found that Freya has an astonishing aptitude for catching the little white butterflies that were flitting around in the meadow below the cabin. She'd catch one, name it (Scooby, Daphne and Edie were among the names she selected), then turn it loose to be caught again minutes later. To my dying day, I'll never forget the sight of her running around in the grass, chasing those butterflies. It was beautiful.
While she was occupied with the lepidopterae, Matt and I took time to just sit in lawn chairs, read and relax. The weather was perfect and we had a good stock of adult beverages to sip. Freya would check back in to deliver snuggles as she felt appropriate.
We visited nearby Olive Lake and Matt got to do some fishing, and the dogs fetched sticks ad nauseum. We drove to Desolation Butte Look-Out and saw some pretty spectacular views, and we visited the town of Ukiah, which pretty much was a sucky place. Nice location, but there were junked cars and metal scrap heaps everywhere, hardly any businesses to speak of, and it just struck me as a place that kids probably couldn't wait to get out of--and for good reason.
We saw salmon spawning in the North Fork of the John Day River, we saw deer grazing in the meadow below the cabin in the evenings, and we made some great memories. I hope you all had a good week, too.
*This is in no way a paid endorsement. As if the government would ever pay anyone to talk up one of their rental cabins.
28
There's been a hint of fall in the air the last few days, and it has put me into full autumn mode. It seems like every year when I feel the temperature drop a bit, I start to bunker down for winter. Since I've been home from our Oregon trip (about which I'll write later) and still have a few days off, I've started with the projects.
I painted the master bedroom, for starters. We'd been talking about doing it for a while, and I seized the initiative on Thursday and got started. I was able to peel the last of the masking tape off the trim this morning. I'll show you pictures of the finished product once I've got the bed assembled (and since I haven't found the needed box springs yet, it could be a while), but here's a shot of the first few strokes of paint.
It ended up being what I call "plum chocolate," in that it is a definite brown color, but there are hints of purple to it. It's really pretty, and the room looks awesome, especially with the contrasting white in the trim and on my furniture.
Today's project has been home-made spaghetti sauce. I picked up a case of tomatoes from the farm we have the CSA with, and was able to get most of the other ingredients from a nearby farm-stand. This year I decided to grill the tomatoes before stewing them with everything else. I think it should turn out great. I've got about three gallons cooking now, and will hopefully make at least another four or five gallons tomorrow.
Want to know my secret ingredient for the sauce? Cinnamon. It's hard for me to say what measurement, since I don't measure anything, but I'd guess about a tablespoon of cinnamon per two gallons. It adds a great depth to the flavor.
The best part of the sauce project is that we don't eat all the sauce ourselves; I trade lots of it off to coworkers. I'm usually able to get a pound of elk steak or burger per quart of sauce. Alternately, I've often got a quart of frozen cherries or peaches in exchange.
Next week I'm roasting anaheim peppers and will make up a bunch of chili relleno casseroles for the freezer. Woot!
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I'm heading out for a few days, kiddos. We won't have internet service, so I won't be updating until Thursday or Friday.
Where are we going, you ask. We have rented a Forest Service cabin in eastern Oregon and will be spending a few nights there. It's our first trip with Daisy, though Grover is an old hand (paw?) at traveling around. We're hoping Daisy isn't the type to take off like a jet plane the first time she gets out into the woods off leash.
Remember, if you're going to break in and burgle the house while we're gone, do something to ruin the carpet while you're here. It really needs to be replaced. Thanks!
