Suzy

About 14 years ago, my youngest sister Laura returned from visiting our cousins in Arizona and she wanted a dog. A miniature Schnauzer, to be exact (the same my cousins had).

Now, we weren’t dog-people. We’d never owned a dog, didn’t really have any pets to speak of and still pretty much had a full household of mouths to feed, and shoes to trip over.

My sis was undeterred. She lobbied hard. She left notes on my folks bed, she left pictures lying around and she begged…. Incessantly.

I’m not sure why they relented, but they did. The fam drove out one evening and picked out a little Schnauzer puppy from the litter and brought her home.

Most of us were reticent. After all, my only prior experience with dogs was getting chased home once by a barking, snarling, awful dog (which required assistance from a neighbor to get the dog to leave me alone), and my best friend’s yappy dog which always served as a barrier between her house and me standing outside the fence.

Dogs were scary.

I came home that night and the whole family was gathered in the office around a cardboard box. Inside was a little silver-y puppy… with a tiny pokey beard. Laura was delighted and I think the rest of us were nervous. Pam (my other, younger sis) pouted for most of the night at the prospect of having to share a room not only with Laura, but also this new furry creature.

My how times changed. That little Schnauzer, named Suzy officially - but would undergo more nicknames than any living creature should, turned this clan of non-dog-people into a big bunch of dog lovers – quick to ooh, aah, gush, and baby talk any dog especially of the Schnauzer variety. We’d gush to dogs sticking their heads out of car windows, dogs on TV, dogs walking by, dogs in movies, any dog, anywhere.

Suzy taught us that barking doesn’t always mean ‘I’m going to eat you,’ and chasing doesn’t always mean ‘I’m going to eat you.’ She cured me of my fear of dogs. She learned how to manipulate us into giving treats (countless treats); she was remarkably patient during many fashions shows, costume contests and arms wanting to hold her.

You’ll notice in most of these pictures she looks 100% unamused…. But always patient.

Suzy made it through one house move, her ‘kids’ moving out. She was there through 3 weddings, the loss of 3 grandparents, 3 high school graduations, 6 college graduations, 2 new grandbabies (again, very patient), new cars, new jobs, new boyfriends, new highs and lows and she was there to greet you at every entrance into the house.

Over the years, we watched her suffer through Parvo (and survive!), a couple of minor surgeries (resulting in the nickname “Hop-a-long”) and the fear and loathing of haircuts and grooming (one time escaping and running along busy 3500 S with my sister chasing after her during morning rush hour – still good for a family laugh). She impressed us – even my dad - when she sniffed out and killed a ground hog that had been eating the flowers.

Most recently though, we watched as Suzy got a little older and a little slower. It became hard for Suzy to move, hard for her to hear and hard to her to greet us as we arrived.

I got a call one night from my younger sis, Laura who tearfully told me that Suzy had died - She just finally couldn’t get up.

We will miss Suzy. She has truly been our family mascot.

Thank you, Laura, for your begging all those years ago. I think we’re all a happier bunch for having had that little gray Schnauzer in our lives!

I Love Birthdays

I love birthdays. I know, I know, it’s all about getting older, more decrepit, loss of memory, slower moving, graying, lines etc. etc. blah, blah. Growing up you hear those jokes so many times that you truly DO start to dread it.

But, I’ve decided to put all that aside and not just for MY birthday.

Birthdays add a little spice to life. A little paprika during a boring ‘casserole’ of a week (how’s THAT for an analogy?)

What other time is someone going to get me a cake? I can honestly say there is not one other day when that would ever cross anyone’s mind.

I get phone calls from friends, cards in the mail, taken to lunch, and sometimes a little token of a gift.

Why would anyone have a hard time with that? It’s fun!

Look at this cake made by Baker Bill!! He owns Leslie’s French Pastry in Holladay (278-3341). I like to mention that but Bill hates it when I do. He’s the nicest friend and listener and he made the most unique, Erica-specific cake I’ve ever seen. I literally squealed with delight. Not to mention, it was super-tasty too!

So for you birthday bah-humbuggers… here’s a list of great things about getting another year older:
Cake!
A present or two – come on… admit it… it’s fun!
People thinking about you.
Being called the “Birthday Girl”… even still.
Being taken out to lunch/dinner.
Hopefully being surrounded by people you like.
Hearing people say “You look great!” (Doesn’t matter if they mean it!)
Colorful gift bags, with colorful tissue paper sticking out the top.
Treating yourself to something extra
Birthday calories don’t count!!!!!!!

Cooking Dinner

I did something yesterday I don’t normally do.

I cooked.

Mark and I aren’t home together at night since we work opposite shifts, so I usually make do with cereal, peanut butter sandwiches…. Umm….. cheese sticks…. That might be it.

But last night Mark was off and I decided to pull out a recipe I’d tried before and liked – Quick and Easy Lasagna. It has all the fab flavor of lasagna but the ease of a casserole (see?… I make it sound easy, right?)

I’m horribly out of practice!! I stumbled and bumbled my way through the grocery store. Studying the ground rounds, number of ounces in a can of tomato sauce and wondered why they don’t make any 8 oz bags of medium egg noodles. Why are they all 12 or 16 ounces?

Realizing that cooking is nothing like baking – which is an exact science that I’m MUCH more comfortable with – I thought it’d be okay if I fudged a few things here and there.

I kept thinking, “I could just go to Subway….” “Subway sure would be easier…” but I wanted to cook for Mark since I never get to.

So, I boiled the noodles and mixed my cheese mixture. Estimated the tomato sauce, and the ground round. I had to buy 1.34 lbs of ground round as opposed to 1 lb. And does that matter? I didn’t know. Ginger enjoyed a few extras of this and that while I had cheese, pans, sauce and noodles spread throughout the entire kitchen, on all counter surfaces and even a bit on the floor (again, it’s good to have Ging around). I certainly made a production of it.

I was happily singing to myself and mixing, dicing, and boiling when Mark came thundering out of his office, hollering down the stairs,
“Erica?! ERICA!”
“What?”
“What’s burning?!?!”

Niiiiice. That’s not quite the scent I was hoping to use to lure him away from him work project.

“Umm… just a little something I’m working on.” Which was NOT burning by the way… it just smelled like it was.
“You’re cooking?!?!?!?”

I listened for a squeal of delight from Mark when I said yes but I didn’t hear it. He merely said, “Okay,” clearly relieved the house wasn’t burning around him, and went back to work.

Nevertheless, I continued. I tossed my masterpiece in the oven, along with the garlic bread I’d picked up. Mixed up some brownies for dessert, and waited for my praise.

What a great wife I am! How sweet is this?! He’s working and I’m doing laundry AND cooking dinner!

Mark came down, asked if I concocted this dish on my own, sat down and ate. I sat there thinking, ‘Umm… you know this is the first time I’ve done this in years… don’t you?’ I waited for an “Oooohhh,” or an “aaahhhh” or a “Wow this is good! How nice!”

The look on my face must’ve said it all because Mark finally said “What?! I like it.”

I’m not railing on Mark for not gushing about my silly feast. I’m mostly frustrated with myself that I turned the kitchen into something that looks like a Thanksgiving meal for 20 was prepared in, I spent FAR more time than the 20 minutes the recipe told me I would, and I only made a marginal meal.

Mark is great. He’ll eat anything – even if I had burned it. But I think… probably… he’d rather have had the Subway sandwich!

Pedicure

I sat in the massage chair while the gal worked on my feet. I knew I’d been upsold. I wanted plain hot pink toes, but she wouldn’t have it. Amidst her cleansing and buffing, she curled her nose, waved her arms in disgust and suggested a “frag” – which I later took to mean “Flag.” I hope I don’t sound mean. I just find myself feeling very awkward trying to decipher the very thick accents, over the drone of the massage chair and bustle of the salon.

So hot pink was out and frags were in. My younger sis was in on it too. In fact, the whole reason I brought Laura along was so she could give me support in the face of the sometimes-militant nail techs. You see, they like you to get fancy designs because they can charge more – who can blame them? Makes good business sense. And heck, if some of us are stupid enough to fall for it….


Anyway, she happily scurried around in her super-high heel opened-toed shoes, found the necessary red, white and blue and began her artwork – happy that I’d seen the light.

Now I’m left wondering – are these toes festive? Or gaudy? Should a grown woman be walking around with frags on her toes? Are toes an area where we can all let our hair down a little and have a touch of fun?

Grass Fire

I’m married to a news photographer. They’re the guys who run around with the big cameras on the their shoulder and shoot everything from Olympics to City-council meetings; TRAX accidents to the American Idol finale; and home invasions, robberies, high speed chases to the NBA finals. Needless to say, there are certainly some assignments that are more glamorous than others.

At any rate, when married to a camera news guy, they tend to always be on the lookout for…. Well, news. Any time there are flashing lights, Mark will pay extra close attention sometimes taking a detour or two. Any time we see something odd like a herd of cattle roaming around an exit ramp, Mark pulls over and gets his camera. And any time there is a plume of black smoke stretching into the sky, we find it. (Starting to sound like Super Heroes, huh?)

That’s what happened on Saturday afternoon. Mark, Ginger (the dog) and I were running errands and doing regular Saturday-type things when we saw a big cloud of smoke. At first we panicked cause it looked like it was our house. Then we panicked because it looked like it could be Ginger’s daycare. So we, of course, drove to it.

It was a grass fire next to TRAX at 4500 S. The smoke was thick and black – billowing out over traffic and causing quite a back up. Mark pulled up onto the median and went to work, disappearing into the smoky blanket. Ginger and I just sat there. The windows were down a bit and the AC was on but I almost thought I could feel the heat. Perhaps I was being dramatic, after all, it was 100 degrees that day. People driving by the news vehicle all strained to look in and see if I was somebody… (sorry folks). Ginger ranged from curious to nervous about the whole event and I just felt a little odd sitting on this island in the middle of 4500 s.

Killing time, I decided to pull out my little digital camera and shoot some video of my own. Trying to do what I’ve seen Mark do, I was very proud of one artistic shot through the side mirror. If you look closely, you can see Mark at work along with the firefighters. Perhaps a career change is in order for myself?… Ms. Photog!