Benito – The Hermits' Rest

If I could mess with time

If you could erase one event from history, what would it be?

I think I’d rather stick with “the devil you know.” The possibility of preventing one atrocity that leads to a worse one makes me leery of even contemplating erasing an event. There always seems to be another evil lurking in the wings after one’s eliminated.

That’s also why I don’t wish anyone, even my least favorite human, would die earlier than nature intends. Just think about what may happen next. Or not. That leads to disregulation.

Breathe and think about birds, trees, or cute little dogs. I happen to have an example dog. This is a series of Benito playing.

Who writes these prompts? I guess I can’t imagine anyone really wanting to erase an event. But maybe I read too much science fiction as a youth.

What are little dogs made of?

We have a better idea about what at least two of our dogs are made of, now that Carlton and Benito’s Embark tests have come back. There were mysteries solved and theories confirmed, too. My guess is that Penney’s swab didn’t take, because hers didn’t come back.

You don’t need DNA results for us. We are obviously American Stair Dogs. (They spend much of their days here. Penney is trained to move her front paws when I approach.)

I was pretty sure Benito was not the purebred Chihuahua that he was purchased as. People guessed he had Fox Terrier or Miniature Pinscher.

I was right about our little fellow. At least one of his parents was a mutt.

My guess is that one grandparent was a total mutt. The Poodle surprised me, though.

I never had any good guesses about Carlton other than there must be some pit bull in there. And there had to be some breeds with the Merle gene.

We had a nice rest this evening. He’s my big lap dog.

It turns out Carlton is a big ole mix, as we knew, but there are some good surprises in there.

He’s about as pitty as I expected but the Mountain Cur thing threw me for a loop. I didn’t know we had any of those here. We do have lots of cowdogs that they call curs, but I thought those were mostly Black Mouth Curs. Seeing the ACD in there makes me surmise one parent was a working dog with those breeds mixed in. Then the other parent was probably a small dog that looked like a lab. Carlton has carefully hidden his Chihuahuan heritage. That’s a hoot.

Who knows how it works out? They are both quite the mixes! And I know enough to take these analyses with a grain of salt. I would have loved seeing what breeds contributed to Harvey, but there was no way he was gonna let me swab his saliva!

I didn’t pay the extra money to get their health analysis. Benito should be hardy now that his heart worms are treated. And I know Carlton has weird eyes. That’s enough.

Geez, Louise, will ya look at me

Today was good. Lots of work was done and I had a nice talk with my Master Naturalist friend, Donna. Then Lee and I tried out my friends’ new restaurant on the Cameron square. I had a nice chat with Michelle, then enjoyed a Chicago dog and really good green chile creamed corn. All fine. Pleasant.

I went up to my bathroom and immensely clean closet just now to change into pajamas and ingest my hormonal normalization pills. As one does, I looked into the mirror as I brushed my blueish hair. Not only the hair was bluish. So was my face.

I look like I’m bruised. There was another splotch by my nose, but I wiped it off to be sure it would come off.

Okay, spouses, if you go to dinner with our spouse, at least LOOK at their face. I tell Lee when he’s dribbled food on his beard! He could sweetly whisper to me that there’s blue smears all over my face. Geez.

Explanation: today I spent some time reorganizing my pens, since I change colors each month. July was red and blue, in a feeble attempt at portraying loyalty to where I live. one blue pen had sprung a leak and I got some on my hands. I washed that all off. But I didn’t check my face. I did a Zoom call with my boss with that stuff on it, too. Argh. That pen is in the trash basket now.

This is cheerier. I finished July on my temperature blanket at the end of July! I can easily see only three days when the high was below 90, plus three 100+ days (today being one). I’m predicting August will look similar but maybe with no oranges at all. A good month to leave town a lot!

Benito is having a blast. Yesterday he got to help the Great Hunter Vlassic chow down on a fresh rabbit kill. Remember, that’s what dachshunds were bred for. Both dogs got a healthy fresh meal at least. And today he figured out that toys are fun and has been tossing two toys around and playing. that’s less icky.

Benito also is an incredible jumper. He can really launch himself into the air for long distances, to our surprise! He’s probably missing out on a career in agility work. Also, when he’s excited and barking with the other dogs because someone is here, he bounces on all four legs. I have always wanted a dog who could do that.

He’s fitting in. And he doesn’t care if I have ink on my face while ordering in a restaurant.

I’m sure glad it’s Friday.

Make it go away

If you could erase one trend from history, what would it be?

I’ll tell you what trend I’d like to eliminate: charismatic psychopaths taking over the leadership of powerful countries and embarking on unstoppable campaigns to satisfy their need for praise and power.

Can we make this trend go away? Not without a destructive struggle, I fear.

Okay, people who came here to read the prompt response can stop reading. I’ll go on to ranch news. First, the dogs are making progress. And, hey, I discovered in the archives that we got Penney seven years ago this week, and she was my most recent acquisition. So we aren’t grabbing dogs Willy-nilly. (Kathleen rescued Goldie.)

Benito has started to both play with and assert himself with Harvey. I just hope they establish their boundaries quickly. It’s hard to keep B calm for his heart worm treatment when everyone wants to play and play. But they do sleep a lot.

We have noticed much less mounting and marking from Benito, which is really good. I’m not fond of that stuff.

As for the rest of us, we are muddling along, with no one feeling all that great. My jaw swelling has gone down, but I still hurt. I’ll let the dentist know, and I’m taking the antibiotics on schedule.

Sharing some white-mouthed day flowers, which got sprayed today. They were pretty, but it was time to trim some overgrowth.

Big thing for me: I am finally going through all my clothing from work and ranch and will be making some lucky thrift store shopper very happy. I got two boxes full of clothes today. More to come! This is one of my “issues,” having too many clothes. Comes from not having many growing up. But I go overboard. Sigh. I guess I could have worse issues (and probably do).

PS: haven’t lost a fish in my water garden! Yay!

I’d rather be a dolphin than Benito

If you had to be an animal for a week, which one would you be and why?

I liked today’s question. I thought about many possibilities, brought on by the book I’m reading about consciousness. I wondered how it would feel to be a bird, a fish, or a snake (those were my other ideas). But I settled on a dolphin,

Why a week as a dolphin? I’d love to live on the water and perceive how that feels. Of course, dolphins know what air feels like, so it’s not like many fish, who don’t know there’s any other option. I’d love to learn how dolphins communicate, what matters to them in their world, and what kinds of emotions they have. It would be like experiencing another culture and language but much stronger.

I wouldn’t want to be a captive dolphin. They are probably depressed. Image from Pexels

This kind of experience would probably lead us humans to rethink a lot of our assumptions.

I could be one of these happy guys I saw from a boat.

Okay, but why wouldn’t I want to be Benny/Benito? He had a hard day today and hurts all over, I’m guessing, having been neutered and given many vaccinations. It’s for the best in the long run, of course.

Plus, Dr Amy and team found out he is heart worm positive. I guess his previous folks hadn’t given him heart worm preventative every month. So he is embarking on a long road to recovery that involves keeping him inactive. Yeah. Good luck. Maybe the medicine will keep him tired.

I’ll miss that testosterone once it’s out of my system.

Poor little guy. I’m glad he made it over here so he can get the care he needs.

Currently he’s sleeping under the covers next to me.

A cute thing about today was that when he got home, instead of Benito following Carlton and pestering him, the tables were turned. Carlton didn’t stray from Benito’s side, like he was caring for him. So sweet.

We are liking the nickname Benito for Benny. After all, he’s Hispanic sort of. He just has to get used to it. This way when we scold him Penney won’t think she did something wrong.