Tuesday, January 02, 2007

This Must Be How Sisyphus Felt

Meret Oppenheimer's Furry CupI've been tagged. This always brings to mind the term "attraction-repulsion" from freshman Art History. The example Ms. Goodgal (seriously) used was Meret Oppenheimer's Furry Cup, where the attraction was that luxurious fur, and the repulsion was, well, hairy coffee.

With tagging the attraction is the sense of kinship and popularity, and the repulsion is how it plays on tribal memories of chain letters promising death and dismemberment if broken. 'Nuff whining...

My good buddy Gus has tagged me with the task of writing five New Year's Resolutions. With Pappy in mind, here are my resolutions:

  1. For Pappy: chase some balls. Check!
  2. For me: I promise to use the word "depredations" in a post.
  3. For me: I know this is getting repetitive, but I have to figure out some way to get grass to grow in the back yard and survive Pappy's depredations (check!). It's too shady for zoysia grass, so maybe astroturf.
  4. For me: take Pappy on a road trip, maybe to the ocean. To my knowledge he's never been outside a 60 mile radius of Washington, DC, and that's kind of sad.
  5. For Pappy and me: I need to take my lead from Ferndoggle and get on the training bandwagon with Pappy. Her Lola has similar leash aggression issues with other dogs. While I'm getting irritated, Ferndoggle's doing something about it.

Now I am to tag five new people. In the spirit of New Year, it's time to remember old debts and get some payback. So I am going to tag people who have tagged me in the past, in hopes they'll do the same and move these tags back to the source-- beautiful symmetry. My tagees are Disgruntled Owl, Pippin, 3DogCache, and Scrappy. My fifth is a discretional tagging of Cara, since I didn't actually complete her tag (but I'd done the Xmas tag twice already).

8 comments:

Scrappy and Pebbles said...

LoL I love your penmanship

Tail wags
~Scrappy

Pippin, the Gentle Pup said...

Hey Pappy's Fellow,

If you find a way to keep grass in the yard, please let our people know. We don't care that much, but they wish they had some.

Happy New Year
Pippin

Anonymous said...

Hmmmmm...that reminds me - I must get my humans to put some training posts up. Woof! My grass is in my yard except where I dig holes.

Love and Licks,
Texas (and his humans).

Nat said...

Scrappy,
Penmanship, check!

Pippin,
This isn't the prettiest site, but they make some recommendations on grass types for dog traffic.

Tex,
Training isn't a bad topic. Spent today shoveling treats into Pappy on a long walk just to get back into the pattern of him wanting to pay attention.

Finnegan said...

Good resolutions. I recommend a road trip. Unless it is to the vet or in the back of a Subaru with a psychotic drugged out cat.

:)

Finny

Buster the Wired Fox Terror said...

Yuk that furry cup makes me gag!

Leash aggression is a terrier thing. We use a Gentle Leader now and it works. Keeps me from tugging arms out of sockets too!

Bussie Kissies
Buster

Ferndoggle said...

I worked through a major leash aggression problem with Penny so I have faith Lola & I can work through her issues too (although hers seem a bit worse then Penny's did).

You and Pappy can do it!! We have faith in you too!

Ferndoggle

Nat said...

Finnegan,
No Subarus or cats, so we're safe.

Buster,
I'll try to limit my expectations, but I gotta try. It drives me nuts to have him hopping along on two feet snarling at other dogs.

Ferndoggle,
I'm trying to be in the mix with you kiddo. We'll see how my resolution holds up.