If Fletchie was our little old man in a poodle suit, Alfie was the love doctor.

Alfie was a pistol to train, and by that I mean housebreak. He just didn’t care where he did his business liquid or solid. I don’t really think that he associated his bodily functions with himself. For example, Alfie didn’t really stop to perform his bodily functions. He would lift his leg on a tree and keep right on walking. He would be hunting and suddenly spin in a circle releasing a semicircle of droppings. If you brought the error of his ways to his attention, he would have his feeling hurt. He did learn that it upset us when he did his business inside. So, in true poodle fashion, he would urinate on our kitchen waste basket when he felt he had been wronged. Wronged usually meant that we had stayed away for too long or had taken Fletch someplace without him. He finally did housebreak himself. From then on he only peed in the house to punish.

Alfie’s trophies were:

A thousand lizards – he didn’t eat them, just wore them out playing with them,

Two toads – he gave those up because they made his mouth foam,

One squirrel – his proudest achievement,

One young cat – saved from Alfie by one screaming spouse, and

One old white tom whom he never caught but scared the bejeezus out of on a regular basis.

This old white tom has been in our neighborhood for at least ten years. He was used to dogs chasing him. What he did not anticipate was an arial attack. He had taken cover and was prepared to wait out Alfie, when Alfie leaped into the air an landed on top of him. The old tom lost his cool. He leaped arching and hissing into the air all fluffed out like a bottle brush and tore off across the street. Suddenly, he turned around, laid his ears back and gave Alfie a look that would kill. This was not the way cats and dogs did their thing. The cat runs, the dog chases, the cat goes up a tree and grins with great superiority down at the dumb dog.  Not this black devil.

As I mentioned in an earlier tweet, Alfie had only two speeds – full on and off. He had laser focus when he was hunting. He modeled Nike’s motto, “just do it!”. One day we were walking, and he saw a lizard in a young tree about four foot off the ground. Off he went leaping into the tree and there he hung caught in a fork in the tree still staring at the lizard. When following a scent, he frequently ran into things like garbage cans, signs, pickup trucks, etc. Sometimes he would hit them so hard he would knock himself down. When this happened, he paid no notice. Like I said, he had laser focus.

On Fletchie’s passing Alfie took on the role of “senior poodle” along with all the rights and privileges that accrued with the title. He became our constant companion since he was friendly with other dogs and humans. His favorite social outings were: walking at the lake front, having coffee on the patio outside Starbucks, and HomeDepot. He was so popular at HomeDepot that they gave him his own HomeDepot work apron with his name on it.

He is greatly missed.

Image courtesy of arztumui / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It has been probably several years since my spouse and i have flown.  And, how things have changed.

TSA

Really, in this war against terrorism, they have won.  I would like to see how many terrorist plots have been avoided by my taking off my sandals, or my limitation on shampoo, or bottles of water.  We have become a nation of chickens believeing we can live in a bubble. 

Why do we go to these extremes to prevent foreign terrorism, and then do nothing about domestic terrorism.  We cannot even get the government to pass a law for background checks.  

I theorize that the answer is money.  The TSA and its arsenal of electronic devices has to be one of the biggest government/civilian industrial complexes.  Contractors must be making a mint.

We don’t have background checks because of the gun manufacturer’s lobbies.  Only a small percentage of gun owners oppose background checks.  Who is making money and who is getting bribbed? 

Airlines 

Our plane was dirty and smelled of old urine.  I hope this was an unusual situation but I suspect that it wasn’t.

Since it has been awhile since we flew, we went to the airline site to see what thier baggage policy was.  Acording to their site our old carry ons were too large.  So, we packed into a back pack.  Of course as we boarded we saw people using carry-ons larger than our old one.  Even the sign about carry-ons was different from the website.

As we were traveling for an extended stay, we had a lot to take with us.  Should we pay extra for a second checked bag?  We boxed our stuff and sent it UPS.  Guaranteed delivery and no lost luggage or going through the baggage claim rush.

Stewardesses were as pleasant as underpaid Walmart cash register clerks.

Good Stuff?

We arrived at our destination in the shortest period of time and almost on schedule. Would I fly again?  Only if it couldn’t be avoided.