At the Calendars' Ends

Hellllllllllloooooooo????  Is anybody out there???? Anybody????

Oh! There you are! Daisy Jones-Klein here. I wanted to give y’all a seasonal update, but with the end of the Mayan calendar and so much more going on, I wasn’t sure that anyone would be around to hear what I’ve got to say. But since you're still here, too, c'mon up!

Were you also surprised that the world didn’t end with the Mayan Apocalypse last week? I sure was. Just a couple of days earlier, my Peeps gave me a bath, which for some of us is pretty close to an end-of-the-world near-death experience, and about as frequent, too! So I figured, yeah, it’s probably coming. Plus, the weather forecast earlier in the week seemed pretty convincing:

But Saturday came and went, so I guess it wasn’t the end of the world after all. And a good thing, too! There’s been lots to do here. Cousins from Colorado came in over the weekend to visit, and now we’ve got friends from Washington DC in for the week. That’s a lot more barking for me, and a whole lot more plates in need of a pre-wash. Plus, the days are shorter, which means I’ve got to be a lot quicker in finding and pinning down the sunbeams. But I’m pretty good at that:

As the days have gotten shorter and colder, we’ve also gotten a couple of snowfalls. It was up to my armpits, which can make it tricky to get around if you don’t have four-on-the-floor!  But the snow and the winter light make for some nice walks, even when it’s cold and your undercarriage gets a little damp:

 

 

 

With all the snow, we can also see prints in the snow, telling us who else has been out and about. Apparently, it’s not just Peeps and doggies and bunnies; there are more kinds of critters than we thought. One of our neighbors set up a camera to see the wild vicious things. There’s deer and coyotes and even a mountain lion:

His camera even caught photos of something huge and hairy, which probably would’ve been terrifying if it wasn’t carrying such a cute package!

There’s also a bear in the neighborhood, though we haven’t yet seen it. But I’m keeping my distance, thinking it's better to play it safe. As I figure it, any animal that leaves a pile of poop about the size and color of a Jack Russell Terrier is probably someone not to be trifled with. Even my legendary fearlessness has its limits!

 
So having made it safely past the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar, we’re now deep into the holiday season. Here in Santa Fe, the town Plaza is all lit up and decorated.

 

And on Canyon Road, with all its art galleries, is Santa Fe's Christmas Eve walk, and all the townsfolk and their better-behaved doggies stroll up and down, sharing cider and cookies and music, and admiring the corner bonfires and the farolitos all lit up.

  

Season's Greeting to all! Enjoy the holidays, be it Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa or Winter Solstice or even Festivus. Whatever works for you.  And try not to worry so much about the end of the Mayan calendar, or the Fiscal Cliff, or the Debt Ceiling, or the Zombie Apocalypse, or any of the actual things that really happened and are too sad to mention here.

“But Daisy!”, you may ask, “How can I not worry with so much going on?” If you asked this, Gentle Reader, then you’re probably a biped, since my fellow quadrupeds have long ago figured out chillin’. Just ask Harley, Blue, Bailey, Ginger, & Kayla in McLean VA, or Goldie in Atlanta, or Indy in Colonial Beach VA, or Madison in Deer Canyon East, or Rufus, Toby, & Maggie here in my Santa Fe neighborhood, or Boo Radley and Henry in Laguna Beach CA, or Sadie & Zoey in Leesburg VA, or Lucy in Mariaville ME, or Jackson the donkey and those noisy goats Grub, Blizzard, Brownie, Sebastian & Cormack in Asheville NC, or even pesky cats like Lexie and Sinatra in Littleton CO, or Jasper in Washington DC, or Roberto in Colonial Beach VA, or Hal & Sweetpea in Asheville NC, or Norman in Mariaville ME. They all know how to live in the moment. So as my holiday gift to all you Peeps, I’m sharing the following:

 

• It's okay to mess up occasionally. Every rescue dog knows that there can be second or even third chances to get things right.
  
• Remember that even most bad days with your Peeps are better than most good days in the shelter.
  
• You don’t always need a reason to bark. Sometimes you just need to let your Freak Flag fly.
• Try to make every walk a “meaningful” one.
• Let your senses be collectors, not filters. Look, listen, and sniff. Good stuff’s out there, just waiting to be found.
• Catching bunnies can be a thrill (or at least I imagine it will be, soon), but giving chase is its own reward.
• Go to sleep at night, and leave the old day behind you.
• Wake up in the morning, open to the possibilities of each dawning day.
• And if you like your Peeps and they like you, show your appreciation. A little lick on the nose works for me. My Peeps seem to like this so much that they rarely even think about the last place I licked.

There you have it! So to all you Peeps and to all you finer critters out there, a Happy and Healthy 2013 to everyone! It's good to be Daisy, and hopefully it's good to be you, too.

And if your New Year’s resolutions are like mine, may you also be bath-free, not get eaten by a coyote, lick lots of plates, stay away from the vet, wag more, nap in the sunshine, get lots of belly rubs, let your inner puppy play, and catch many bunnies. There’s treasure everywhere!

     
Daisy Jones-Klein