Mountain Mama

Wordless Wednesday

We are sad

Our beloved Paco died last night. It was a relatively peaceful death and not unexpected, but we will miss him dearly. The foot of my bed is a cold, empty place now.

If you'll indulge me just a little, I'd like to leave for you a couple of links to posts I've written about him, one a few years ago when we first moved back to the mountains and he ran into some hazards of country life, and one I wrote several months ago, when we first discovered that he was sick and we did not expect him to live more than a few weeks (he was still with us for another seven months--good, happy, relatively lively months):

Hazards of taking city dog to live in the country

and

A marriage and a dog.

I must add here that Owen has handled this very well, I think. We told her this morning and she cried a bit, then we all talked about him and what we loved about him and what we'll miss about him. She was curious about his body and burial, so we allowed her to see him and to sit with him while we dug a grave after dinner tonight. Then we all said our goodbyes and she cried and told him she loved him. She talked about the things she will remember most about him and we cried some more and laughed a little at the same time. By the time she went to bed, she was okay.

Barrett only asked about him at bedtime after Paul, Owen, and I had been outside burying him. She wondered if we were trying to find his bone for him. I told her that Paco is gone. She said, "We find him!" and I told her Paco died and was not coming back. She said, in an I-am-sad-for-you voice: "Awww, Paco not coming back." So she understands, in her way.

Paul and I are very sad. We loved him, and he us, and our lives are richer for his having been a part of them.

 

 

This is the last I will write about him. Thank you for your indulgence...and for the lovely outpouring of support on Facebook and email today.

Paco will always be the first dog to completely steal my heart and he will always hold a special place there.

Rest in peace, my buddy.

Soup Sunday :: Onion Soup

When Paul and I were sans kids--dating and then even after we were married--we would eat out regularly. Meaning: all the time. And one of our favorite things to get when we ate out was French Onion Soup. We would often judge a restaurant by their French Onion Soup. The best, in our opinion, came in a bread bowl, was more brothy than creamy, and had a nice thick layer of melted cheese on top, slightly browned and crusty on the edges. If no bread bowl, the soup would still be deemed good if a thick slice of French bread floated beneath the cheese. Yum.

I have only once tried to make French Onion Soup at home, and it wasn't pretty. My version of it was not salty enough and came out a little bland. Not to mention that I had no bread bowls and no individual ramekins to melt the cheese to that slight browned, crusty, melty, gooey stage I love so much.

Alas I still don't have ramekins, but I'm willing to give French Onion Soup another try. I'm thinking I'll use this recipe, from Diane Phillips' Slow Cooker: The Best Cookbook Ever. Perhaps I can make bread bowls and/or broil some thick slices of French bread topped with cheese and float them on top. Worth experimenting, I think.

Creamy Onion Soup (in the slow cooker)

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter

2 Tbs olive oil

5 large sweet onions (such as Vidalia), thinly sliced

2 Tbs sugar

1 Tbs dried thyme

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

1 bay leaf

1/4 cup white wine (or white vermouth)

5 cups beef stock

1 1/2 cups finely shredded Gruyere cheese for garnishing

Turn a 5- to 7-quart slow cooker on high, as butter and oil to the insert, and cover until butter is melted.

Remove the cover and add the onions, sugar, thyme, salt, pepper, and bay leaf. Stir until the onions are coated with the butter and seasonings.

Cover and cook in high for 7 to 8 hours, until onions are caramelized to a deep golden brown.

Remove the cover and add the wine and beef stock. Cover and cook on high for and additional 30 minutes or on low for an additional 1 hour.

Remove the bay leaf before serving and garnish each serving with a sprinkling of cheese. (or do what I plan to do, which is load each serving with a big cheesy, garlicky crouton).

Enjoy!

_____________________________________________________________________

We've had an interesting and somewhat expensive end to 2009 and start to 2010: our heat pump has been on the fritz since Christmas Eve (it works, but not well and we have to run Emergency Heat to get it to work at all); our pipes froze this morning and we had no water (we think they froze at the well, because my dad also was without water and we share a well); our car had some major problems before the holidays and so we had to get a new one (nice but with a car payment now for the first time in many many years); and...Paco has been having some problems again, problems that indicate that he may be back into a decline. We're hoping the medication they've given him now will give us another six months with him at least. We're grateful for whatever time we have with him, though, as we believed back in May that he only had a matter of days or weeks.

On top of all of this, Owen starts back to school tomorrow, Paul's graduate school semester begins Thursday, his teaching semester begins next Monday, and my semester begins Thursday with an impossibly heavy load. It's likely to be a challenging semester for me and for us as a family.

I ask your kind thoughts, prayers, good energy for us to manage everything with grace.

Snow Day(s)

It started Friday morning with a 6am phone call--a Robocall from Owen's school. Delayed two hours. We turned on the radio, listened to the announcements of all the other school closings. Every district except ours closed for the day. We turned on the porch light and, sure enough, it was coming down, a light dusting already on the deck and ground and trees. Coffee and breakfast and two excited girls and we hear that, yes, our district, too will be closed.

Paul had to go in to the University. Last final exam day and the University never closes because most students are on campus anyway. Except that many of them were planning to leave after their last exam and now...

Predictions were all over the map--4 inches, 6 inches, 14 inches.

Barely daylight and the girls were anxious to go out. I was briefly a crazed Mommy, forgetting what it's like to be a kid on a snow day. Owen's been watching Frosty over and over on DVD and was dying to make a snowman. Barrett wanted to go with Owen because Owen was going. I couldn't find their mittens (my mom has bought them some for Christmas but that didn't help for now) and only had one pair of boots, claimed by Owen although really she's outgrown them. I put Barrett in her suede Merrills and socks on their hands and sent them along. Paul slip-slid his truck along to work. My dad walked down from his house and spent the morning playing with the girls--building a snowperson, sledding, snowball fights.

 

The snow turned to sleet and then rain, which kept accumulation down.

Didn't keep the girls down. We went through three changes of clothes (kept getting soaked through and coming in to warm up and I couldn't put soaking wet clothes back on them).

The snow began again in earnest. We were getting reports of roads closed. Worried emails and phone calls flew between friends with loved ones traveling in it. Paul finally made it home (after going into the ditch and being pulled out by our neighbor), and we settled in, happy to be safe and warm and together. The power went out along the valley, but not for us. We just lost our Internet service for the night.

 

Saturday morning we awoke to a world in white. 

Pancakes, then dressing in layers and out there quickly. Just running around. Going for a walk. Sledding. Then more sledding. Then more.

 

The sun came out for a while, but then the clouds returned, but no more snow. And the roads were pretty much clear. My dad took Owen Christmas shopping (for gifts for us) and we went on to the store, because, of course, we suddenly needed lots of groceries.

Then home, and soup (what did you expect?) and wine and warm and indoor play and baths and bed.

Good days. Fun days. Snow days.

Labor Day weekend in photos

 

  

A Marriage and a Dog

I read a review once of the movie Marley & Me in which the reviewer said the movie is not so much about the dog as it is about the marriage. I think that if I were to tell you the story of my dog, Paco, it would be much the same. His story is so closely tied to the beginning of our marriage that it's hard to think of one without the other. Remembering the beginning of his life with us, I can't help but remember the beginning of us as a family.

Paul and I had been dating for three years. I was ready to move things along between us, and I had been staying at his place more through the week. I suppose he sensed my readiness for something more and this frightened him a bit. So one night we had a long and difficult phone conversation in which he told me that he wasn't sure he would ever want to marry and have children. I amazed myself with my calmness as I told him that it was fine if that's what he wanted but that I did want to someday get married and have children so if he did not want that eventually we would have to part. Not right away, but someday. When we hung up the phone I cried, and then I decided I would not stay at his place quite so much anymore.

Paul, on the other hand, was impressed with my handling of the conversation (I found out later during required premarital counseling with our minister). So impressed that he decided he wanted to marry me and have children with me after all.

Then came Valentine's Day of that same year, 1997.

Paul called me at work and excitedly invited me to lunch, saying "I think I've done a crazy stupid thing." Curious, I met him. When he got out of his truck, he set in front of me this tiny black and white puppy that took off spinning in all directions like a wind-up toy the minute its feet hit the ground.

"He's for you. Happy Valentine's Day." Paul said, beaming.

One of Paul's work colleagues had purchased the puppy, a Jack Russell terrier/Feist mix, at the flea market for his wife, who was a Turkish immigrant in the throes of studying for her American medical boards. He thought the puppy would keep her company. She thought otherwise and told him to take the puppy to work and not bring it back. (The wife, to her credit, was saving the poor dog because her husband, who knew nothing about dogs, had placed rubber bands around his muzzle to keep him from crying at night. To this day, Paco bears the scars of that fiasco).

Paul took one look at him and knew I would not be able to resist (nor could he, truthfully).

After that day I all but officially moved in with him. After all, we had a dog to look after together.

We played with him, stared at him while he slept, bought him tons of toys and treats, doted on him like a baby. When he cried that yelping cry at night I gave in and brought him into bed with me. He curled up against my body, fell asleep contentedly, and has slept like that most every night since.

We named him Paco because we read that dogs respond best when their name is two syllables with a consonant in the middle and a soft vowel on the end. We tried a few names but he most consistently responded to Paco, so we thought that must be the one he chose.

Four months later, he hiked with us to the top of Looking Glass Rock, sat watching as Paul knelt and asked gallantly for my hand in marriage.

Since that day Paco has been no less than our first child. Our friends will attest to this. We took him everywhere with us, arranged play dates, even doggie day care. We discussed his eating and elimination habits at dinner parties (I'm ashamed to admit). We discovered he likes catching frisbees, so we took him to the park nearly every day to play. We forced him on our families, even my mom who is not a dog person. And he made everyone love him, even (maybe especially) my mom.

He's our dog, our boy, our Paco-man.

Mostly, though, he is my dog. He loved me from the start with a devotion I will never know again. Whenever we traveled he paced and worried and moped, waiting for my return. When Owen was born and I was in the hospital for five days he all but wrung his hands as he worried over my absence. And when I did return, he was beside himself with relief and would not leave my side for some time.

He transferred some of that worry onto the baby. When Owen would cry, he would whine and pace between her and the nearest adult. He would put his paws on the edge of the changing table to supervise our care of her. He watched over her. 

                    

As she grew, he became her friend, too, often sleeping on her bed or following her as she learned to walk, then run. Her first word, after "Dada", I swear, was "Papo."

When Barrett came along, he was older, more sedate, but he befriended her as well. Let her poke and grab him, rest against him, ride him, and generally abuse him with her affections. He would look up at me with those soulful brown eyes, but he would not get up and move away from her.

I could tell you so much more about Paco. The time he won a frisbee contest. How watching him catch frisbees was like a visual definition of joy. How hyper and energetic he was. How my friend Dana brought her boyfriend over to see him because the boyfriend was considering getting his daughter a Jack Russell Terrier and how, after meeting Paco, he changed his mind and got a cat instead. How Paco always (still) likes to ride in the truck with Paul. How he was such a fierce protector of his family that the Terminex man (who had large dogs at home) was afraid of him. How Paul's nephews liked to make him growl and show his teeth but he never ever would bite anyone. How he loves loves loves belly rubs and closes his eyes with pleasure when you scratch his ears. How he sits with me and snuggles me when I cry, or am sick. How even now, when he is sick and dying, he wants most of all to be with me.

 

He was, and is, the best dog I've ever had in my life. I can honestly say that I have never loved--or been loved by--another animal more. Mostly, however, he is truly a part of the Paul-and-me, the unit that is the base of our family.

 

Saturday will be our 11th wedding anniversary. And sometime over the next few weeks, Paco will leave us at 12 years old. We have loved him, and he us, utterly and completely. He has brought us together and seen us through many ups and downs and changes and bumps and new beginnings. He has been a true companion.

Our lives, and our marriage, have been enriched by his friendship.

Rough Weekend

So...just to update you:

I did get sick. Thursday night, after writing the last post. Friday I spent the morning working on getting my grades in. Then the afternoon, evening, and the rest of the weekend were spent worrying over our dog, Paco. Long story there, details of which my friends and family are probably tired of hearing. Short version: he's been acting sick, we went to the local vet, who said there'd been a trauma and sent us to the Asheville emergency vet for a surgery that did not happen because they discovered instead of trauma, tumors. He's dying but we don't know how soon.

So, now I've decided to not go to the coast so that I can keep a closer eye on him. But I am sending Paul and Owen. Not Barrett because Barrett is firmly in her terrible two's right now and I do not want to torment Paul and all of the others on the camping trip with her-without-me.

Barrett and I will meet them in Durham on Friday because if Paco is okay by then, I'll feel better leaving him with my mom (the babysitter-turned-dogsitter) for the weekend.

I know. It's a complicated tale. But then again, that's my "simple" life.

Anyway, to add to our worried, grieving weekend, Paul finally succumbed to the stomach bug on Sunday morning. While we were staying at his parents', who are old enough that they do not need to be exposed to illness of any kind. And also where all of his siblings, their spouses, his nephews, his niece, and more were gathering for Mother's Day lunch. So we were able to spread the gastrointestinal joy even further (God I do hope not).

A little bit of a rough weekend we've had. But we're done with school/work and are ready for our summer. Today Paul and I each made a list of summer projects around the house. The lists are long, but so is the summer.

By the way, Owen wanted to make a list, too, in all seriousness. I transcribed it for her and will share it in another post. Trust me--it's better than Paul's and mine by far.

Happiness

 

Why all this embarrassment

about being happy?

Sometimes I’m as happy

as a sleeping dog,

and for the same reasons,

and for others.

                                                    --Wendell Berry

Wordless Wednesday

 

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Wordless Wednesday

     

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