Renee Stelle: Recent Happenings

Craig shaved his head on January 15th (it's an annual thing, though usually occurs in the summer so it was long overdue). He also ended up shaving his gotee completely off (something he hasn't done since 2000)! It took me several days to get used to seeing his chin again. He really does look different (and much younger) without the facial hair. He did it so he can look more professional when he visits a school this semester for his research and also in anticipation of baby Alisa (she would grab and tug hard on his gotee if he kept it). This picture makes him look like a crazy guy who is pulling his hair out in chunks:

Last Saturday we took Minga to the dog park and met our friends Keith & Karen there. They just got a dog (named her Devin) so we wanted to let the two dogs have some fun together and with others. Minga spent much of the time at the dog park racing around like a chicken with its head cut off. Usually she spends more time sniffing and roaming with other dogs, rather than just running by herself. She has a great time no matter what she does there. After leaving the dog park, we took the girls to the nearby pond and Minga went swimming (fetching sticks in the pond) for quite awhile. Devin didn't want to get in the water so she watched from dry land. Then we took them home and went out for dinner at a little Italian place by our house. Keith & Karen came over after a bit and brought Devin so she could play with Minga. Minga is younger and more aggressive than Devin, but eventually Devin wasn't so timid and the two were soon playing tug-o-war with a braided rope. They had a blast and we enjoyed watching them. Minga was very sad when Devin went home.

The next day she was still sad and also very sore. She wouldn't sit down all day and her tail just hung down limply. We first noticed the problem when we asked her to sit and she started to but then stood back up. She tried several times but just wouldn't sit all the way down so we realized something was wrong. We figured all the swimming (she uses her tail a lot for that) and romping with Devin really worked her muscles. Her tail was a bit better by the next day as it would perk up occasionally for an excited wagging. By Monday, she was back to normal.

Here is Minga with her limp tail:

I realized I can now easily rest bowls of food on the top of my belly when eating in the living room. Pretty cool!

We saw this trash-filled car at Borders last Saturday and just could not believe it. The whole back seat was piled high with trash (wrappers, magazines, newspapers, cups, etc) and the front passenger seat was piled up to the window with the same. There was even some on the driver's seat and floor. The whole car was greatly weighted down by all that trash...the exhaust pipe was so close to hitting the ground. It was all so disgusting and we can't imagine why someone would do that to their car?! They obviously don't ever have any passengers.