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eau de Eleanor
Monday, July 13 2009
When she was younger (say, circa 2002), Sally would routinely roll in disgusting things she'd encounter. In those days we were living in Brooklyn and walking Sally in Prospect Park, so the things she would roll in were often the excreta of humans. Those made for some nasty occasions. These days, Sally almost never rolls in stuff, Eleanor (who is the age Sally was during the Prospect Park period), acts as if she's rolling for two. Luckily, the disgusting things Eleanor can find to roll in in our woods is much less disgusting that the things Sally found in Prospect Park. Still, it's never pleasant to have a dog covered with bear shit, eau de rotting animal carcass, or gelatinous mushroom.
Eleanor had rolled in something a few days ago and we just let it pass because it wasn't too offensive (even if it did leave of trace of detectable essence on the bed sheets when she slept on them). But today Eleanor got a refresher that left crusty patches on the sides of her neck and a series of black marking on her DayGlo orange collar. She'd crossed the line, and it was time for a bath.
We bathe Eleanor several times each summer, and it's never for any reason other than that she rolled in something. Unlike many dogs, our dogs do not have oily pungent fur and, so long as they don't deliberately add fragrances, naturally smell clean (indeed, many have commented that Sally's natural fragrance could be bottled and sold as perfume).
Eleanor is a fairly good sport about getting a bath. We run it warm so it's comfortable for her and then scrub her thoroughly. But no matter how much scrubbing we do, it's usually impossible to completely erase whatever fragrance she has applied. When the bath is over, the tub is full of black hairs and Eleanor bolts off in some distant corner of the house to lick the water out of her fur. (She also likes to lick my hairy legs when I get out of the bathtub.)
The folks I work with on the West Coast have had me working on a secret iPhone project for months. Today they sent me an actual iPhone to work with (up until now, I've had to use a simulator running on an Mac Mini, which they also gave me). I couldn't immediately get the thing to work because they'd only sent a FireWire charging cable, and such cables lack the wiring necessary to transfer data. This crucial (and, as it turns out, well-known) bit of information made all the difference in the world in terms of what I was able to do, and yet it was surprisingly hard to find using Mr. Google.
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