{"id":111,"date":"2007-12-29T19:24:51","date_gmt":"2007-12-30T00:24:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stringpage.com\/blog\/?p=111"},"modified":"2007-12-29T19:24:51","modified_gmt":"2007-12-30T00:24:51","slug":"a-brief-interlude","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/?p=111","title":{"rendered":"A brief interlude"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Getting caught up&#8230; the umpteenth load of laundry is in the dryer, the next load of dishes will go into the washer next time I get up, the bookkeeping is done, as a head-start on year-end (hi mom!), the living room is picked up, and I&#8217;ve got a couple batches of wool simmering on the stove. <\/p>\n<p>In the midst of all that, I&#8217;m sitting on the couch, cup of tea at hand, dog snuggled up, cat farther down (can&#8217;t get too close to the dog, after all), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prairiehome.org\">Prairie Home Companion<\/a> on the radio&#8230; and far too many cute puppy pictures for <i>anyone&#8217;s<\/i> good. <\/p>\n<p>Nick and I went to visit his parents in southern Pennsylvania for Christmas Eve and Christmas. His little sister was there as well (far too many siblings &#8211; it took me years to get the names and order correct, and I&#8217;m not entirely sure about the order. Why yes, his parents are Catholic, why do you ask?), and she brought a nine-week-old <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/English_Springer_Spaniel\"> English springer spaniel<\/a> puppy for the parents. We&#8217;d been trying to convince them to get a dog for a while, and some excuse always came up at the last minute. But if someone shows up at the door with a puppy, it takes a heart of granite to say no, especially to something that looks like this.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/photos\/xmas2007-1.jpg\" alt=\"spaniel puppy\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Everybody promptly fell in love with the puppy, inconveniently named Morgan, and thus referred to here as &#8220;the puppy&#8221;, not that she looks anything like my fluffy black cat.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/photos\/xmas2007-2.jpg\" alt=\"spaniel puppy\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/photos\/xmas2007-3.jpg\" alt=\"spaniel puppy\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/photos\/xmas2007-4.jpg\" alt=\"spaniel puppy\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/photos\/xmas2007-5.jpg\" alt=\"spaniel puppy\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Grendel was less than enthralled with the tiny puppy. I don&#8217;t know what you are, so leave me alone! He even growled and showed fang when she wouldn&#8217;t leave him alone. He plays well with larger dogs, but the puppy is so small that I think Grendel might have been unsure if she fell in the &#8220;cat&#8221; class of things not to be messed with. Once she&#8217;s bigger, Grendel will probably be more comfortable with her.<\/p>\n<p>He also didn&#8217;t think that the new puppy should get all the attention.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/photos\/xmas2007-6.jpg\" alt=\"spaniel puppy\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/photos\/xmas2007-7.jpg\" alt=\"spaniel puppy\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Things were different outside &#8211; the dogs played vigorously, even if the puppy had to jump up to even touch Grendel. He even gave her dog lessons. I can only imagine the conversation. &#8220;Okay, this one smells like a rabbit&#8230;&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/photos\/xmas2007-8.jpg\" alt=\"spaniel puppy\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Poor old pooch slept for two days after we got back. (He&#8217;s not that old, just dreadfully lazy.) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Getting caught up&#8230; the umpteenth load of laundry is in the dryer, the next load of dishes will go into the washer next time I get up, the bookkeeping is done, as a head-start on year-end (hi mom!), the living room is picked up, and I&#8217;ve got a couple batches of wool simmering on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pets"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stringpage.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}