Rewards exist

Alpha and Beta have started walking. For two reasons, I guess, the first being that Beta's doctor told her to after her most recent hospital visit, and the second being that retirement can drain all the fitness out of you if you opt for the rocking-chair version.

I go along, and the walks are getting longer, so I've seen some new territory and made some new friends.

Several blocks away, the neighborhood goes decidedly upscale, and that's where I met Crystal.

Crystal, in spite of all the money floating around, is a regular dog, more like Gus and me than hoity-toity. She'd fit right in down at Len's bar-and-grill-and-swap meet.

When we went by the other day, she was sitting on the front porch chuckling.

It seems her humans had just fired their maid, who, on the way out, had tucked a fifty-dollar bill in Crystal's collar. Her human, of course, asked why, and the maid said, "Because I never forget a friend. That, Crystal, is for doing the dishes all this time."

Back in the Day

Alpha and Beta, the humans whom I adopted and have spent these years training, used to teach school. I had to let them leave the house early in the morning, and often they wouldn't return until late in the day. I'm sure it was hard for them, but it was hard for me as well, letting them go off into the big world unsupervised like that.

They took off again yesterday to reunite with some friends they had made over the years and across the internet, friends from T-Net. A & B have haunted the chatboards there for quite a while, and developed almost blogosheric friendships with some of the people in the main live chatroom.

In between worrying about how they were representing me in the wide world in Austin, TX, and hoping they would look both ways for traffic on the road there and back, I had time to reminisce about our time together. Alpha likes to tell stories, see, even if he doesn't always remember the punch line. It's sometimes like reading that Mark Twain story "Grandpa's Goat," where you get to the end only to find yourself back at the beginning. Oh, well, at least the journey is entertaining. Besides, sometimes it's better that he not remember the punchline, as it's not terribly funny anyway.

A case in point (and, since he taught, he tends toward teacher-stories):

Mrs. Jones, the third-grade teacher, was having some difficulty with young Billy, a student in her class. He wasn't mean, he wasn't refusing to learn, in fact, he was learning everything rather quickly. But he didn't pay much attention to detail, and he could be disruptive with disturbing frequency.

Mrs. Jones determined to make a home visit, and speak with Billy's parents.

She parked her car in front of the address she'd been given, and sure enough, there was Billy playing with a puppy in the front yard. "Hi, Mrs. Jones," he shouted.

"Good afternoon, Billy," she said. "Where are your parents?"

"They ain't here." Billy rolled the puppy over.

Mrs. Jones added a note of sternness. "Billy! Where's your grammar?!"

"Oh, she's out in back weeding the tomatoes."


Ed. note: I added the part about the puppy. Alpha doesn't tell it that way.

A New-York-City Carnival!

This is not a salsa commercial: This is the 74th Carnival of Education, hosted from the BiG Apple by NYC Educator with his usual panache.