Lucy's Favorite Things

If you know me at all, you know I am always happy to talk about my dogs. Rusty is our four-year-old Lab/German Shepherd mix who is super-sweet with huge chocolate eyes, scared of everything, and not quite right in the head. Lucy is seven, a beautiful mutt of uncertain ancestry, probably Husky and Australian Shepherd. She has been Greg's dog ever since she picked him out at the Portales pound, but she loves me too, and sometimes she even seems to like Rusty. She's a smart but stubborn dog, very well-trained with good manners and a sweet spirit. Her list of favorite things is short, but definite: food, affection, sleep, treats, and her two squeaky toys. One is a purple polka-dotted ball, and one is a bumpy white football. They have been around since before her time. They came in a stocking that Greg and I got for Sally, our first dog, on her first Christmas. She was a little freaked out by the squeak, so she never played with them. Then we got Lucy, and the football was the only toy that Sally would let her play with, so it became her one special toy. Sally then decided that squeaky toys weren't all bad, and adopted the purple ball as her own. We only let the dogs play with toys in the house, under supervision, and the house time is pretty limited. So any time she would come in the house, Lucy would immediately find the football, squeak it a few times to make sure it was okay, and then she'd be ready to play, or be petted, or flop on the floor and go to sleep. She would always remember where she had left the football, but if we had moved it and she couldn't find it, she would hunt it down with dedication and purpose, and expect us to help if she was having trouble. When Sally died, Lucy inherited the purple ball. That was great for us, because occasionally we would lose one of the balls, and Lucy would be very disappointed if she couldn't have her squeaky time when she first came in the house.

Lucy is a fluffy brown dog with furry ears and feet. Texas was not the ideal climate for her. She seemed to feel the heat more every summer. However, since we moved to Colorado last month, she seems to have a whole new lease on life. She is bouncy and happy all the time, and so far hasn't showed any of the grumpy moods that she would get into in Texas. Also, since Rusty would insist on barking all night if we left them outside, and we want our neighbors to like us, we have been letting them sleep in the utility room in the basement instead of in the pen outside. So they are really living it up now. Every night, they come in the door and charge down the stairs, and Lucy goes to find both the white football and the purple ball. Now, instead of just squeaking them once or twice, she pounces on them, chases them around the room, and has some real fun before coming to us for love and affection. This week, apparently she has got the idea that if the balls are so fun inside, why not take them outside? Earlier this week I found the football in a corner at the top of the stairs, and asked Greg if he had brought it up there. He hadn't, so I figured Lucy must have tried to sneak it outside. Then this morning, I went to let them out, and Rusty immediately ran up the stairs and waited at the door. Lucy took her time but came up soon after, and when I opened the door, there was the purple ball, about to roll out the screen door. I grabbed it just as Lucy scooted out the door. She looked back for the ball, and then looked up at me as if to say, "What the heck? It's my ball and I want to bring it outside!" I just shrugged and tossed it down the stairs. Greg laughed and laughed, and we decided the story was too good not to share. So there you go.

Lucy on the doghouse                             











Lucy and Rusty

Best of Pueblo: The Daily Grind

Now that I live in a new town, I get to try new restaurants! I'm so excited! One of the ladies at our new church gave us a section from the paper called The Best of Pueblo 2009, and I'm going to make it my goal to try several of them over the next few months. Oh boy!

The Daily Grind is a coffeeshop and deli on Union Street. We went there last year when we were visiting Pueblo, but I don't remember much other than we liked it. It's kind of eclectic and chic, with old board games and paperbacks available for entertainment, and local art on the walls. It was voted the best coffeeshop in Pueblo, and when we returned today, we saw why.

One of the first things I noticed when I walked in was the wall of tea. It is a floor-to-ceiling shelf filled with containers of about forty varieties of loose tea. As tempted as I was to try them (Ginger Black Tea sounded especially tasty), I had to go with the Hazelnut Latte. I chose decaf because I'd already had tea that morning and I'm trying to be careful with my caffeine intake. Now, I have never found a coffeeshop that could rival Starbucks' hazelnut latte, but this was actually better. It tasted richer, with a little better hazelnut latte. I was impressed. Then I ate the food.

I ordered a half BLT on multi-grain bread and the soup of the day, which was baked potato. I opted for the cheese and bacon on the soup (I get 300 extra calories a day, so why not use them on bacon and cheese, right?) It was the thickest, creamiest, cheesiest potato soup I have ever had, and it was so rich I had to take some home. Yum! And the BLT was great, too. I had to trim some of the lettuce off the edges (I think they used a whole green leaf), and there was some kind of reddish-orange sauce on it that I was a little concerned about, but not for long! The bacon was excellent (Greg said it tasted expensive), the lettuce was crisp, the tomato was nicely ripe, and the bread was toasted to perfection. I don't know what kind of sauce the reddish-orange stuff was, but it was tasty. Oh, and they served it with a pickle spear that was over six inches long. Pickles are my favorite food lately, so I was perfectly happy.

I am now a fan of The Daily Grind. They have a large variety of sandwiches, pastries, soups, and salads, some really excellent coffeeshop drinks, and a pleasant, edgy ambiance. I imagine I will have more good things to say about them in the future!

Summer Reading Project Book Ten: Redeeming Love

This book is a treasure. Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers is one of those rare books that absolutely every adult should read. If you haven't read it, do it! Even if you happen to be a guy! Yes, it is a novel, and it is a romance novel, and actually, it's a Christian romance novel, which might make some of you groan and gag, but no matter. You have got to read this book. It is really so much more than a novel. It's an allegory, a retelling of an ancient story, and a revealing glimpse of humanity at its best and worst. It will rip your heart out, break it into pieces, and then very slowly put it back together, whole and new full of hope and promise. All that from one book? Yes. You just have to read it.

Set in the California Gold Rush, the book first introduces Angel, an incredibly beautiful girl with an unspeakably horrible past, a miserable present, and a hopeless future. We then meet Michael Hosea, a godly, wholesome farmer whose peaceful life is interrupted when God tells him to marry a prostitute. The complicated, heartrending, beautiful story of their relationship fills the book. Every character in the book fills an important role: Michael, the forgiving husband who loves his wife no matter what; Angel, the tortured soul who runs from love, refuses hope, and yet longs for peace throughout the story; Paul, the antagonist, who allows his bitterness to wreak destruction in the lives around him; the Altmans, who bring a picture of the "perfect" family in contrast to Michael and Angel's struggle; and even Duke, so great an instrument of the Enemy that sometimes the two are indistinguishable. Yet despite the symbolism and allegory of the story, still the characters seem real, with real emotions, real failures, and real victories. Although I could never imagine the kind of life Angel lived, still I could feel her struggle, her futility, and the belief that everything that had ever happened to her was somehow her fault, that she had been to blame from the moment of her birth. Yet just as real as all that is the steadfast love of her husband, wooing her with a picture of the deeper, greater love that God had in store for her.

Reading this again, years after the first time, I did notice that there are a few lines that are a little cheesy, a couple of cliche's, and a little more sappy sweetness than I had noticed before. It's not flawless writing, but it's still excellent and powerful, and definitely a cut above what you often get with Christian fiction. Also, it is a little more "racy" than Christian fiction usually is, although some writers have gotten a little edgier in recent years. Anyway, I wouldn't recommend it to younger readers, but for older teens and adults, I definitely think it's a must-read!