25 Years!
Last week was a week that I'd love to live over again. We dropped the pups off at Puppy Play & Stay and then drove up to Duluth for a few days away to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. We had such a nice time, but we did worry about our boys at the boarding kennel and hoped they were doing okay. Given their history, we were concerned that they would feel abandoned again, and that thought kept us checking our phones for the video feed from the facility to see how they were doing. This screenshot shows them both on the yellow and blue stairs, keeping watch over the others. They did well, but the staff told us Rudy was shy and stayed beside Oscar when he wasn't alone. Visit our home sometime, and you'll not find a shy Rudy!
On our recent trip to Chicago, I enjoyed getting up early and walking each morning to begin my day. Our stay in Duluth was the same. There is an inviting Lakewalk trail along the Lake Superior shoreline that I fell in love with. After my walk, I would meet Tammy in the dining area of our hotel, the Park Point Marina Inn and we'd have breakfast together. The accommodations at the hotel are nice, but their breakfasts keep us coming back. It's where we always stay when we're in the city.
This trip was mainly unscripted. We knew we'd drive up to Split Rock Lighthouse, but beyond that, we allowed each day to unfold on its own. The one item on our list (my list more than Tammy's) was an airshow by the Canadian Snowbirds. A line of thunderstorms threatened to cancel or abbreviate the show, but it appeared to go off without any trouble. The storm fizzled just west of the city and posed no problem. Look for a video of the airshow at the end of this blog post.
Several years ago, I wrote a series of blog posts about how Tammy and I met. Here's a link to the first post.
We're working with Luke, a dog trainer and owner of Operation Good Dog. Steve introduced me to Luke a few months ago when he joined us for a round of golf. I didn't imagine I'd ever require a dog trainer, but here we are. We want to give Oscar and Rudy the proper start in life that they never received. Oscar exhibits aggression toward people riding bikes, the mail carrier's vehicle, people running, and other pups being walked. I have no idea where the aggression is coming from, but we'd like to rid him of it. We've had one session with Luke and have several more scheduled with him. Oscar is an adorable boy otherwise.
I had a scare a couple mornings ago with Oscar. I was standing in the doorway out to our deck while trying to attach his leash when he saw something in the yard that caused him to give chase. He ran past me, nosed open the unlatched deck gate, and took off running through our backyard and down the street. I chased him for nearly a quarter mile, running as fast as I could until realizing that I couldn't catch him. My heart was pounding, and the last thing I wanted to do was chase him further away. I stopped and yelled for him. "Oscar!" He turned to see me trailing far behind, then began running toward me before stopping in the middle of the street to poop. 🤷🏽♂️ When he finished, he ran toward me and past me following the road to home. He went through our backyard before running to the street in front of our house. I quickly entered the security code to the garage door keypad and opened it while yelling for him to come to me, hoping he would follow me into the garage and inside our home. Thankfully, he did. That wasn't the start of my day that I had planned, especially not at 6:30 in the morning.
So much has happened in our world of politics since I last wrote in my blog. A mentally ill 20-year-old attempted to assassinate Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania; The U.S. Supreme Court has granted Trump near total immunity from his many crimes while in office, obliterating whatever credibility remained for SCOTUS; Biden has dropped out of the race after much pressure from party leaders in the face of abysmal poll numbers, and Kamala Harris has secured the Democratic nomination for the presidency.
I was glad to see Biden step aside, but I needed it to be his decision, and I trust it was. He's been an excellent president and the right man for this moment in our nation's history. Kamala Harris has the party energized in a way that was unthinkable just a few weeks ago. The positive messaging coming from her campaign stands in stark contrast to the dark, negative, and full-of-fear messaging from Republicans.
I feel good about our chances to hold off the authoritarianism that's waiting to be unleashed on our country if Trump prevails. I'll never understand how he polls at anything above a few percentage points.
That's all I've got.
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