If we “were having coffee” I’d say how my first week with the new puppy Muffin was going. She is gorgeous but the disruption to our normal schedule is immense. I didn’t go into my office all week and feel I should avoid it for as long as possible. Unfortunately though I get a lot more work done there than I do at home. The distractions at home are great (even without the puppy) and at home I am more than happy allowing myselfself to take breaks. After all it is only 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there which turns into hours and a bit of gardening, a cupboard cleaned out and now puppy play time. I am doing the final edit of my exegesis at the moment and it is taking me around two to three days to do each page. I only have 179 pages to go. It leaves me with a constant headache.
Back to Muffin. She is sleeping through the night. I am waking up before her and we have no night-time accidents or early morning accidents. As the day wears on these increase as I think my attention to her squatting decreases. We have had no poop accidents indoors for the last couple of days although she is not as yet taking herself outside. She comes when called and I am about to start teaching her to sit. As their socialisation occurs between 3 weeks and 16 weeks I’m trying to introduce her to new sounds and experiences every day in a way that won’t frighten her. This afternoon we are going to go down to the river. Her teeth are sharp so toys litter the house that I can shove in her mouth as soon as she tries to latch on to either my hands or my dangling pant legs. My legs are full of little puncture marks. All in all I think I and Muffin are doing well.
My husband and Bundy, our older dog, though, I’m not too sure about. Yesterday I thought they were going to leave home but today we all seem to be making a start to getting on together a little better. Bundy has taken to living on a higher level in order to avoid the pup but today he is again on the floor warning her off if she comes too close. Perhaps by next week they’ll be friends.
© irene waters 2015
If we “were having coffee” I’d also tell you that we had a superb lunch for the Melbourne Cup race. The pub was one I don’t normally go to and I was pleasantly surprised at the effort they put in to make the day special, right down to the fashion parade. With one of my group taking a prize.
© irene waters 2015
© irene waters 2015
I would also tell you, over coffee, of a post I read this week regarding colour. I have become fascinated in identity, identity formation and memory and when I read Sarah’s post which asked “what are your true colours” and who are you underneath? my antennas started whirring. This was right up my alley. I responded saying that perhaps our true colours are those that stay with us making our past continuous with our present and future. Sure as eggs are eggs ( and I bet some researcher is out there questioning that) our identities change over time and with the circumstances we find ourselves in, but something must keep us knowing ourselves as who we are that is unchanging over time. Is it just our name or is it more than that? I’d love to hear your thoughts on that. By some coincidence as I dropped off to sleep last night I listened to a fellow who won the nobel prize last year for his work on memory and he has now found the area of the brain where episodic memories form also contain cells that deal with space and time. This allows us to know where we are when we wake from sleep and where our memories fit in the scheme of our lives. I’ve just reminded myself that I have to go and see if I can find something about this. That’s the trouble when you hear something when you are half asleep – you either don’t remember it in the morning or you’ve got it all wrong.
I’d better head off now as a storm is coming. Looks like it could be a doozy.
© irene waters 2015
© irene waters 2015
See you next week.
Thanks for hosting the weekend coffee Diana.
Reflections and Nightmares- Irene A Waters (writer and memoirist) 