Grendel's Kitchen » Furry and Fluffy Ones

Anna and Shui Li come for a visit

Grendel — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 18:10:41 +0000

Anna is our wonderful ASL teacher, and for today’s lesson we got a special treat: Shui Li, who attends Li-Li’s school, although a few years ahead, came to sign and play, too! It was so lovely outside that we had to take our lessons to the chickens (poor hassled things), the garden, the old fallen-down mill next door, the bridal path that curves around our yard, Li-Li’s playhouse way out back, our pond (heaven for both a small boy and our large dog), and finally, the hammock!

Anna, Li-Li, and Shui Li fall off the hammock — as planned!

John, Anna, Li-Li, and Shui Li (and Grendel) on the bridal path outside our back gate

Li-Li’s playhouse is in disrepair: next weekend!

Li-Li has never seen anyone hold a hen quite the way Shui does it

Anna and Shui at Li-Li’s playhouse

See all photos from Anna and Shui Li’s visit.

Anna-Li and Grendel: a long afternoon in the snow

Grendel — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 16:24:00 +0000

Watering the garden, the dog, the pants, and the baby!

Grendel — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 14:53:09 +0000

A little horse

Grendel — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 15:52:17 +0000

When my veterinarian called this morning and apologized for being “a little hoarse,” I had to laugh out loud. Wouldn’t you?

Grabbed a cup of coffee and the monsters took my spot in bed

Grendel — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 12:59:02 +0000

Natural enemies sleeping in on a Saturday morning

Grendel — Sat, 16 Dec 2006 12:55:20 +0000

Grendel greeting the neighbors

Grendel — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 00:09:59 +0000

Hot chicks on Olbermann’s Oddball!!

Grendel — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 01:31:09 +0000

He knows my fears, my dreams … it’s a chicken beauty contest!

Ahab: There are no good-byes for my dog who has died

Grendel — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 12:57:52 +0000

Ahab passed on this morning at 3am in bed beside us. Grendel woke us, and we held Ahab as he took three deep breaths and then was still. He wasn’t exhibiting much pain and he had spent much of yesterday outdoors in the sun, and last evening cuddling by the fire with John. Last night was his first refusal of a meal aside from the chemo sessions, and he’d begun to experience increasingly labored breathing even when crossing the room or changing position on the bed — he fought it to the very end, and never gave up his spirit until his body just stopped.

A dog has died, Pablo Neruda My dog has died. I buried him in the gardennext to a rusted old machine. Some day I’ll join him right there, but now he’s gone with his shaggy coat, his bad manners and his cold nose, and I, the materialist, who never believed in any promised heaven in the sky for any human being, I believe in a heaven I’ll never enter. Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom where my dog waits for my arrival waving his fan-like tail in friendship. Ai, I’ll not speak of sadness here on earth, of having lost a companion who was never servile. His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine withholding its authority, was the friendship of a star, aloof, with no more intimacy than was called for, with no exaggerations: he never climbed all over my clothes filling me full of his hair or his mange, he never rubbed up against my knee like other dogs obsessed with sex. No, my dog used to gaze at me, paying me the attention I need, the attention required to make a vain person like me understand that, being a dog, he was wasting time, but, with those eyes so much purer than mine, he’d keep on gazing at mewith a look that reserved for me alone all his sweet and shaggy life, always near me, never troubling me, and asking nothing. Ai, how many times have I envied his tailas we walked together on the shores of the sea in the lonely winter of Isla Negra where the wintering birds filled the sky and my hairy dog was jumping aboutfull of the voltage of the sea’s movement: my wandering dog, sniffing away with his golden tail held high, face to face with the ocean’s spray. Joyful, joyful, joyful, as only dogs know how to be happywith only the autonomy of their shameless spirit. There are no good-byes for my dog who has died, and we don’t now and never did lie to each other. So now he’s gone and I buried him, and that’s all there is to it.

Click to see our photos of Ahab.

It be not now, yet it will come

Grendel — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 02:37:55 +0000

We brought Ahab in to our very kind vet this evening, fully expecting to say goodbye and hold him through the end.

There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes?Hamlet. Act v. Sc. 2.

But, after half an hour discussing Ahab’s present situation with Dr. Fitch, she listened to us. We weren’t ready, but thought Ahab was. But then, he looked up at us and reached out a paw to John. Dr Fitch examined Ahab, and said we had a couple more days. We feel like the governor called, Mitt himself.