So, about Pickles

Since my mom died last month DbR and I started planning a trip down to Nashville with the dogs to visit his parents and their dogs on his dad's 70th birthday week. Pickles hasn't had a face to face with Pepper or Berkeley and I was nervous about it. Pickles is generally a big dick and wants to always be the alpha and happily Peretz has come to grips with that from the get go. Meanwhile, Peretz has always known and been accepted into the Russell family of dogs, in fact, he came first and is sort of P + B's foster uncle.
So, in preparation I sent two of Pickles' blankets to Nashville along with a bone and a ball he had chewed and drooled on, believing in the experts who say that the scent of the strange dog will become familiar to the home dogs and he'll be more easily accepted, etc etc.
I was still very nervous the whole drive down from Massachusetts and the overnight in the Wytheville hotel didn't calm me. It didn't seem like either dogs are hotel dogs and they both (mostly Pickles, of course) were crazily preoccupied with the smells out in the hall (Pickles had his nose pasted to the doorcrack and spent most the night lying in the mini-vestibule) and wouldn't calm down. They relaxed for most the drive yesterday, however.
We got to Currywood Drive and let them run around the fenced in yard, without P + B at first. Pickles was in heaven. That dog loves to run run run and in the yard full of tennis balls he was pretty happy. Then we let Berkeley into the yard. Berkeley is a shaggy mutt, about 25 % larger than Pickles, same age. They scrapped pretty hard at first and no amount of yelling ceased that action. I was very upset, almost crying at the violence. The fighting continued and began to ebb. I was reassured by the Russells that that was what usually occurred, alpha was made clear and dog fighting ended. I was still worried, as Pickles still hadn't met Pepper and I was afraid the Peanut Butter gang would gang up on him and although Pickles kind of deserved it, he was definitely the aggressor, I was worried someone would get hurt, even a human when dogs were attempted to be split up.

"What if one dog bites the other dog's eye out?" I fretted, imagining the worst scenario.
"That wouldn't happen." I was reassured.
"I just don't want anyone to get hurt, get taken to the hospital."
"They usually yelp or tell us if they are hurt."

Pepper was introduced and Pickles attacked but when she backed down, peace haphazardly reigned. David wanted to nap after a while and so the four of us hunkered down in the bedroom and although at first the dogs napped for a minute, after a while longer they were anxious to go out and party some more. I grudgingly rose and feeling like showering but needing some product, I let the dogs out in the yard and asked Mr and Mrs if they would watch the four hounds while I went shopping real quick. They assented.

As I was leaving the store with my bag of hair stuff, toothbrush and new bag of balls, I received a call from David.

"You're up!" I declared.
"Yeah, my mom just woke me and told me she wanted to take Pickles to the vet because I guess the dogs got into a fight and his eyelid was tore."


We went to the emergency clinic and $450 and seven stitches later I have a dog on vacation who pushes against stuff with his lampshade hat as if it weren't there.
He definitely needs to be separated from the Peanut Butter gang. He seems happy enough, still chasing balls around the yard like mad. This morning he woke me up at 7 am and we went outside in the most gorgeous pink light and when I saw him running at full tilt I knew he was going to be okay.

cookery

My good friend David has moved into my house officially, as of June 1st and he has brought a lot of stuff. Some stuff I don't even know about yet-but the stuff I am more quickly becoming acquainted with is his melange of cookery equip. I've never seen the like. There are tools I look at and usually upon examination, I can fathom what they are used for but there are items which I take to him and I have to ask, "for what?" I realize that I am a novice about many things food and cooking.

My mom, bless her heart, is an okay cook and she managed to feed our family adequately while we were brought up. I quickly realized that I loved cookies and I loved to bake and that is what I did in the kitchen but there was never a time where she brought me in the kitchen and said "I'm going to teach you to make a roast, (or turkey, or sauce, or steak, cornbeef or pizza)." I think it might have been because she lacked confidence. She did what she could, she never seemed creative or interested too much in the wonders of the kitchen. She probably just wanted to "get 'er done" and wasn't inspired to do more that the basics. That's okay, but resulted in me growing up with a very limited food prep palette or food taste palate.

The first time I ever had chinese food was when I was in college. I grew so sick of pizza that by the time I began college I really never was interested in eating it ever again. I hadn't had any cream sauces besides potato au gratin which I have hated to this day. Stir fry was an amazing new idea and a wok was a strange device. My boyfriend after college cooked like a chef and even though I never really took an interest in learning any skills, just being in the kitchen with him rubbed off on me. I was taught that tacos didn't only come in a brittle shell which was sold neatly spooned together and I also learned that mexican food actually included things other than tacos. I gathered that one makes tomato sauces without it coming in a jar ready to be dumped into a pan to be heated. And! fish doesn't necessarily have to be coated and fried! wow.

After that boyfriend and I parted I spent some time by myself eating out too much and slowly trying to cook a little bit. Somethings did not turn out too well but I could manage to shape a flour tortilla in hot oil and I did remember to put the cumin in with the refried beans. My next boyfriend had the novel experience of me cooking for him on our first date. He broke his longtime diet with me late night fixing him some snacksters in one of those devices Carol J bought for all her friends. It set a precedent that we would both cook during the relationship but once during a fight I realized that if he didn't cook for me, it was a major deal breaker. This was somewhat of a self-revelation which intrigued me. Although I cooked some stuff here and there, I needed my partner to cook for me, I was dependent. He and I broke up, even though I made enchiladas for him on his birthday (and a cake!) and I was alone again, making my self tacos every couple of days. I started to buy chicken more often, and again, although I ate out more often than I could afford, I started to glean tips from foodie friends. I never watched cooking shows except for "top chef", but I guess I should have, to expand knowledge.

I met my good friend David at his house at a dinner party he was throwing. The food he had made for that party was okay, some things were more impressive than others but we've been somewhat unseparable since. I've done a little cooking and he's done a lot. He's mentioned food and cooking knowledge in conversation which I have no understanding of whatsoever. Just recently we have had hamburgers and I came out of the closet and asked him, "what is the difference between sirloin and chuck and why is one better for burgers than the other?"

Last night I turned to him around 7 pm and I was hungry. "What is for dinner?" I asked. I had heard him crunching chips and who knows what else in the kitchen while I sat in the living. We hadn't talked or made any plan about it yet that night which is somewhat odd because we both love food and I think he anticipates dinner with as much interest as I do. "I've been craving nachos.." He stated and I immediately thought of the nearest restaurants where we could get such a thing. The options were bleak. Then, I did something which the first boyfriend, Charlie, would have done: I began to catalogue the items in the house which would add up to adequate nachos: we had corn tortillas which I could cut up and fry, we had cans of refried, we had some cheese (not enough for the cheese lover in David, but it would suffice)...I wandered over to the fridge and started collecting the assorted peppers I had in there and although we have zero onions in the house I managed to put together the nachos in a somewhat timely fashion. He claims they tasted okay.

What do you use this thing for?