Troop 22 Court of Honor

Kids -- Watch This Space

Okay, kiddos. The three of us in the center of Typhoon Johnson can use this space  to communicate. Let's do that.

This is our family newspaper. The calendar is at the top. Dad will keep it up-to-date. You can refer to it for planning. You will be expected to tell me what to put on the calendar for your life. Okay?

I'll be posting things that I think will interest you. Don't hesitate to post things you find shareable too.

Love,

Dad

Spring Break Review

Spring Break was terrific for R and M. They spent nine days at the family compound*, and I got to join them over both weekends.

Rest and relaxation was the theme of the week. There were trips to the community pool in Lincoln City for swimming and Rock Wall climbing. There was a lot of sleeping. And naps. Really! And book reading. And typing practice. And games. And playing with the dogs in the yard.

There was all sorts of quality time with Grandma and Grandpa.

There was even a little time for Dear Old Dad!

It was a party. D paid a visit at the end. So did Lola.

===

* Otherwise known as Grandma & Grandpa’s place on the Oregon Coast

The Start of Spring Break

…at the beach. Kids are staying the whole week with Grandma and Grandpa. I’m spending the weekends. Made it a long weekend, stayed over on Monday. It’s just the typical Spring Break in Oregon thing… dashes outside to play between rain squalls.

The pace of life at the beach place slows down immensely. It’s another world. We sleep a bit more, but still get up relatively early. Saturday, for example, I was awake just before dawn, watching the light come up through the window of my bedroom while still snuggled down under a quilt that my Mom had made by hand.

We do physical stuff at the beach, whether it’s work or play. We washed and detailed FOUR vehicles over the weekend, and we built a play fort in the side yard. The kids ran with the dogs outside whenever the rain let up.

And when it rained, we moved inside to feed our brains. The television showed Discovery channel and History channel; R spent time researching the history of the Trail of Tears forced march. M studied videos on how to do magic tricks with strings and cards. We also laid out a plan for ultra-lightweight survival packs that fit inside a coat pocket or a fanny pack, and learned more about tsunamis by studying footage of the recent Japanese events. Then we spent some time discussing how a similar tsunami might affect our house at the beach.

As I write this, I’m back home, ready for my work week. I try to hold on to the beauty of the beach pace. It’s hard, but it’s worth it. It’s not the speed, but the ability to pay full attention to something or someone important. Whether it’s the loving dog, or the child, or my parents, or a friend I hold dear. It’s about getting my thoughts squared up in “the present” and then keeping them there. Yes, there’s a future to plan for, and there’s a past to learn from. But the real impact is what I do RIGHT NOW. And a faster present does not always make for a better future.

Swedish Crème Cookies

It started like this, a question from M, over breakfast at the “Doghouse”**

“Dad, where can we get Swedish Crème Cookies?”

The conversation went from there. Seemed that a character in a book she’d just read gets pelted with Swedish Crème Cookies (SCCs) that a friend throws from up in a tree. M wants to know what they look like and where we might get some.

“Dunno” is the answer to both questions. We look it up. The recipe is quite straightforward, and they look yummy. So we all decide to make some. A quick trip to the store to get a couple cookie sheets, vegetable food coloring, almond extract and extra butter, and we’re in business making Swedish Crème Cookies. Everyone in the house lends a hand. M is having a blast. It’s her project, and everyone else helps, but defers to her ultimate decisions. She decides on blue and raspberry colored frosting for the centers. Because it’s her first time with the food coloring, M gets a bit carried away with the quantities, leaving the frosting a very intensely blue and vivid red-purple. Oh well, that’s how we learn. And, it’s vegetable coloring anyway, so that’s fine. The cookie dough was really stiff, so I had to do the rolling pin part. D guided the baking process throughout. Lola, the Beagle, cleaned the floor.

Total output: about 14 SCCs.

So, how were they? They turned out great! The frosting was a bit soft, so D refrigerated them. We had them for Saturday evening dessert. The first impulse as you held a blue SCC in your hand was to lick off the frosting that poked out around the edges. As soon as you did that, however, you were tattooed! It was like the exploding ink packets they put in the money they give to bank robbers – marked irrefutably by the SCC. You can see the evidence In this photo:  blue tongues abound!

The blue tongue thing became a bit of a focal point, to be honest. Suddenly the kids were working the blue frosting for maximum tongue/tooth impact. Notice, however, that they did a remarkable job keeping the frosting color to the INSIDES of their mouths, which is saying something because the USDA could have used this frosting to stamp their approvals on the sides of beef or something.

Leave it to R to take it all to the next logical conclusion. One SCC, pulled apart to make “Tommy”-esque eyes to go with the blue tongue. The SCC did NOT suffer from the vivisection – it was consumed immediately after the photo was taken.

 

Needless to say, toothbrushing was incredibly thorough on Saturday night: any residual food particles practically iridesced blue color. Dads could to tooth inspection from across the room this time around!

Four SCCs survived the Saturday evening onslaught, to be used in Monday morning lunches.

 

 

** without much real explanation as to their reasoning, the kids now refer to Dad’s house as “The Doghouse”. It just seemed to happen organically. It fits.

School Calendar

 

PPS expects the 2011-12 school calendar to be available by the end of April.

Staff have drafted a calendar that must be approved by unions and the Portland School Board.

 

Important tentative dates are:

• First day of school: Sept. 6, 2011
• Thanksgiving:  Nov. 24-25, 2011
• December break: Dec. 19, 2011-Jan. 3, 2012
• Spring break: March 16-23, 2012
• Last day of school: June 13 or 14, 2012

Bonus Time

It’s important to celebrate the little things. I get reminded of that nearly every day at this point in my life. Things like:

• How good it feels to clean out your ears with a warm Q-tip
• The magic of Potato/Leek Soup
• Coming home to the greeting of a dog
• Clothes that fit

This is a ‘living simply’ time for me, and one that increasingly is becoming a life choice more than a necessity. It’s a fitting line of thinking for me in this Ayyami-Ha season. A new beginning. Keep only what you need and only that which works. Jettison the rest and revel in the freedom and bliss that comes from simplicity. Let that freedom create the ability to respond to magical moments in life.

One of those magical moments happened this weekend, in fact. M had a date with her Mother to see the OBT professional dancers perform on Saturday. That left R with nothing to do on a Saturday night. I was informed that he could spend the evening with me if he wished; he wished; and so did I.

Now, full disclosure: I had planned to spend some evening time with my friend, D. This was, after all, my “weekend off”, so I’d planned some clothes shopping*, a trip to IKEA**, and a Saturday evening meal with D.

With the opportunity to spend time with R popping up short-notice, it was easy to adjust. D thought roller skating would be a lot of fun, so we merged everything. R tagged along on our meal / D tagged along on the impromptu boys night out, and I got to spend great social time with two delightfully witty and intelligent human beings. To watch R’s emerging mastery of sarcasm go toe-to-toe with D’s mastery of irony as a comedy device, was really cool. While I certainly could have joined in, it was much more fun to keep quiet, let them spar, and enjoy their fun. It was really, really cool for me to watch the two of them get acquainted. My son will do well in the world as he grows up. I can rest easy in that.

It was an Ayyami-Ha night. Celebrations all around, in ways that match the style of the individual members of the family.  Simple. Joyous. Freeing.

It was Bonus Time. And such a bonus it was. A “Bounty of Bonus” one might say…

Throughout this week, the kids and I will consult on a plan for our weekend together coming up. I wonder what else we can incorporate for Bonus Time?

===

* I’m slowly gathering up some ‘skinny’ clothes to fit my svelter self. Right now, I’m wearing size 30 waists where I used to wear 33 waists. Needless to say, the old pants are pretty saggy when they’re 3-4 inches too big in the waist.

** My first trip to IKEA for me. Overwhelming without a guide.

Home or Away?

Spring Training baseball starts in a few days. I love going to spring training games. I thought, last year, that I finally had a mechanism in place for the family that would allow for some spring ball every year. But that fell apart, didn’t it? I’m not complaining; I’m just registering my personal disappointment… and my understanding that, as the Rolling Stones put it, “you can’t always get what you want.”

We’re at the beach this weekend, the kids and I. It’s a three day weekend for the kids; I took a vacation day on Monday, and we’ve been here since M finished ballet rehearsal. The question I’ve been pondering is this: am I at Home? Or am I Away?

Where exactly is Home? What constitutes Home?  My folks have owned this property for 30 years. Chances are good that the property will stay in the family beyond them. This has been the place to visit my folks for longer than all other addresses combined. I may not have gone to school in this community as a child, but there’s MUCH more sense of home for me here than anywhere else.

Hillsboro is my home town for school and the like. But I only lived there for twelve years and have been away for more than twice as long. So much has changed in that town that I only recognize vague pieces of the place nowadays.

So where is Home?

On the one hand: according to the Post Office and the law, Home is where I get my mail. That’s a reasonable distinction. In that case, my Home is in the city. But that seems like a rather tenuous thread to Home.

On the other hand: I tell colleagues, friends and neighbors in my community that we’re “going away” to the beach. Except, I’m really going home, aren’t I? I’m more “away” when I’m in the city, living in my city house, going to my city job. Given the choice to retire today, would I stay in the city or go to the beach full-time? Odds are I’d go to the beach. So… where exactly is Home?

My folks live here. But that’s not exactly why it qualifies as Home. Parents move to new places. The post-parenting home is not always a place the children will call home for themselves. Retirement communities, snowbird lifestyles, and the like, are more like Away than Home. I have some friends who, for a variety of circumstances, are living with their parents for the time-being. They don’t necessarily feel like they’re Home. There’s more to Home than where the Parents are.

In baseball, each team gets to play half of their games in their home venue. The other half – the road games – are spread out amongst about two dozen various stadiums. No player knows a field better than their home field. They can play their best there, if for no other reason than their familiarity with the place. Is that the city? Not necessarily. Is it the beach? Very likely. I’ve much more time spent at the beach. I’ve more connection to the place. My children, myself, and my parents include this place as a part of our personal identity. In fact, this place has drawn four generations of my family into it’s loving embrace. From my grandmother Iola, right down to my two kids.

Yesterday, the kids and I climbed up the hillside at the Cape. It’s a big sand dune, this particular Cape. M was telling me that it was the first time she’d gone all the way to the summit. She’d been on the dune face many times before, but not over the summit because she needed a grownup with her. I qualified, so over the top we went. As we climbed the dune, I shared with M that I’d been climbing that dune since I was her age – ten years old. Then, I shared that she, at the age when I started coming here, could say “I’ve been climbing this dune for my WHOLE LIFE!” I think that qualifies as Home.

So, today, when we drive back to town, we’ll be going away. It was nice to have a weekend home stand with the entire category 3 Typhoon Johnson. This little community may not be much, but like the Rolling Stones said with their next thought: “if you try some time, you’ll find, you get what you need!”

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R goes Electric

R has been struggling to keep up with his homework. Not because he's buried in it, but because he's been having trouble focusing on it. Working from two different households, learning a new rhythm, and spending a number of days sleeping on the couch instead of in his room didn't help.

Nevertheless, some things now seem to have him on an upward slope:

1. We've upped his ADD meds slightly. It's not unexpected that he's got a bit of a tolerance for the meds. He takes a VERY small dose compared to some of the other kids in his similar position.
2. He's back in his room, with his things.
3. He's looking forward to time at the Beach Compound with all of us: the Three Johnsketeers, the Grandparents, and Teddy & Tilly.
4. Last night, he was invited to spar on electrics with the rest of the 'guys' after class.

Because R had his homework caught up, we could stay late and spar. He was all sorts of excited when Zach told him to put on a lame' jacket. He's fenced electric before, but this was full on sparring with the big guys. What ended up happening is that R and I sparred each other on a second strip, in parallel with the competitive types. It was good. R's working on a fourth parry / disengage/ riposte move that's accurate and whip-fast in execution. When he throws his lightning-fast super-long lunge behind the riposte, he's very dangerous -- pushes right through anyone else's parry and getting the point on the continuation. Soon to be overwhelming, that move! So we worked on that. It would seem that he was pleased to be there, pleased to have been promoted. 

I drove home a young man who was focused, thinking well, and all together in his organization. It was nice. For us both.

Readying Valentines at the PCC library on Date Night.

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R sparring

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The Famlitution

At least, that's what M calls it.

We're writing a Family Constitution. Establishing our own set of beliefs, inalienable rights, expectations, and operating protocols. We started over the weekend, and captured a much more complete first pass than I expected. Given that both kids have some some study of The US Constitution in school already, and have contributed to the creation of a classroom constitution, the process of writing out a "Famlitution" was quite familiar to them. Upon suggesting a Constitution, I was met with an immediate, kind-hearted debate over which child got to write the preamble. This debate quickly "devolved" into the two of them riffing off each other, framing the preamble on the spot. Yeah. It was like that...I had to write fast and memorize the rest, lest we miss something.

So now we have a preamble, and ten "articles." Among the articles are:  "Personal Safety, Privacy and Dignity", "Communicating and Listening", "Openness and Honesty", "Integrity", "Family Decision-Making", "Grievances", "Who Makes Up the Family?" Among others. We discuss broad-stroke thinking on what we expect, and what might be done for discipline. We discuss how we make decisions and who gets to vote, and when. We discuss what to do when someone brings a challenging belief or idea to the family. When do we accept an Idea? When do we reject an Idea? How do we reject an Idea without rejecting the Person bringing it? The children themselves brought up the idea of family citizenship and how we allow someone to become a family member. I thought that was amazingly broad-minded of them.

It was an interesting process, and I got the sense that it did two things:

1. created an immediate sense of increased belonging, safety and influence in their surroundings, and
2. rekindled a sense of intimacy and caring between the siblings.

The rules would be made clear, and they both could hold the other accountable to those rules. Why? because they were written down. They didn't need to bicker through each momentary issue because they'd have a written document to use. They could each check the issue against the Famlitution for a self-ruling before even bringing up the topic.

A good thing, this Family Constitution.

Off to dance rehearsal

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Typhoon Johnson Now a Cat 3

In my mid-October post, "Let's All Go To The Lobby", I wrote about taking a break, about having lost relevance. Some things had come up; I needed to pay careful attention to them. For the most part, that work has been accomplished. Now, it's the start of February, and I'll be returning to the blog. The intermission is over. I've a new mission for this space.

            Henceforth, the Typhoon Johnson blog will be an online journal exploring my relationship
            with my children, R and M.

This new direction is the right thing to do, for many reasons -  which I will not expose here (they're matters of the private heart). And, I realize, it'll be a place where the children can interact, post, comment and get involved as well. That, you see, will become a part of the Typhoon Johnson blog's new mission. Maybe, just maybe, we can capture some of the magic that is our interaction with each other.

There is an elephant in the room here, and I will address it this way:  the blog will not be spending time on C's personal life. She has asked in a number of ways for more privacy; I will be granting that. It is now not my place to expose the details of her life either intentionally or accidentally.

That, my friends, is why Typhoon Johnson is now a Category 3... smaller, more compact, quieter/calmer in some ways. But still full of vibrancy and energy.

Now watch us go!!

Intermission -- let's all go to the lobby....

I've said enough here for now. Once upon a time, this was an effective way to communicate outbound with my circle of people about my family. It grew out of an email newsletter I used as a way to keep everyone updated on C's cancer battle. It continued into a phase where the family worked to rebuild, recover and find a new normal.  Inbound communication *from* my people, however? Not so much.

In the past year, there has been, it seems, increasingly less to say here. Not that there's been less going on, but that the blog format just didn't seem as relevant any longer. This has been like an open diary. I'm not feeling like I'm in a place to do that right now.

So, I'm going to take a break from this. I won't shut down the blog. As an online multimedia paper trail for a crucial period in our lives, this blog is still relevant. But if you're reading, do expect me to be quiet here for some time. My guess is that very few people are still engaged with me here at all, making this an exercise in self-indulgence. Right now, I have more important issues to resolve. Respectfully.

Connect with me on FaceBook in the meantime.  I expect that my FaceBook activity will likewise change for a while, but I will continue a presence there during the intermission.

I guess that's an appropriate metaphor -- where as this online journal has been the theater of my life, FaceBook has been the lobby - close to the action but separated, and filled with a lot more chatter.

So, yes. See you in the lobby for a while...

Trying to Hunker Down

The family’s working to hold a rhythm…and strengthen it.

Over the summer, we did a LOT of Hot Air Ballooning related stuff. Then, in the past few weeks, we’ve been working on the Stark house to prepare it for sale. All this is good, but we have a behavior pattern that has kept us out of the house most of every day, seven days a week. That’s starting to change a little. Here’s what’s up:

C:

• Working on her health and fitness. She’s been exercising and walking. Lots of walking. Daily. She’s constantly pushing her body up to her anaerobic threshold, and striving not to cross over. She has made it her mission.
• Actively changing her diet. This continues as well. She has support in the family.
• Practicing an “I can do it myself” attitude every day. C has told me that she’ll set up her own cell phone for email access, and connection to her bluetooth hands-free devices. While these tasks are well inside my strengths, I don’t necessarily help her build her own skills if I just do it all for her. So I’m willing to back off. Others build their skills through necessity and practice. That’s how I built mine.
• Because Moms need day’s off too, we’re trying to give C a change of pace at some point in the weekend…something she can point to as a ‘day off’ or a ‘break’ from the monotony. I get it.

R:

• We talk time management every day. Not a lecture or a scolding, but we sit down with R’s school planner and his homework assignments, and we discuss how to manage time to achieve goals. For R, it takes this kind of daily attention. BUT, what’s gratifying is that his results are much, much better when we do take the time. AND, the proactive time costs me less emotional energy than the crisis management that happens the other way ‘round. R is learning there’s another way to do things than the crisis management method.
• Boy Scouts and Fencing continue. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings. We try to set our clocks by those events. R is stepping up his activity within the troop. Now that he’s almost a Star Scout, and he’s learning to manage his own calendar, he’s showing up for the optional things like Eagle Service Projects, and earning his stripes as a troop leader, not just a junior-level kid in the troop.

M:

• Ballet and ballet rehearsals. Three days a week – Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.  M is in the same class as last year, and is rehearsing for the same part in The Nutcracker as last year. Because she’s done this before, and is concentrating on mastery/perfection instead of learning it all for the first time, she seems much less stressed than before.
• Because homework is rarely an issue for M, she gets more time to ‘chill’ and play. She did a lot of that this weekend, spending social time with D and her dear old Dad. She went shopping with D and C on Saturday.

N:

• With the turn back inside for winter, I’m organizing a little. Stepping in to domestic duties on weekends as well. This weekend, I cooked dinner on both Saturday and Sunday, put down the primer coat of paint in the powder bath, and had a chance to follow the OSU football game on the radio. It was actually quite relaxing. In return, C got a day off on Sunday to ‘check out;’, and spend the day doing a complete wardrobe audit in her closet.
• I’m cooking a bit more. First, I enjoy it. Second, I get to change up the menu a little. Third, I get to show support for C’s vegetarianism by showing I cook appropriately for her without being reminded.  Mid afternoon on Sunday, C had worked hard on her closet until she ‘bonked.’ She hadn’t eaten, and had neglected to take her meds. She asked me to cook some white fish for her. I countered that getting the fish thawed, then cooked, would take a long time and that I could make her egg white huevos rancheros in five minutes or less. She looked at me dubiously, but when I made good on my promise and delivered her a plate of steaming huevos, she was grateful.
• As for me, I’m working on locking onto my respectful treatment of others. Regardless of what happens, I have to hold on to that as inviolable. I’ve not been very good at doing that in recent months. I’m making that my rhythm – respect and compassion.

D:

• Our long-term exchange student, D is from Taiwan. He tested right out of the PIA English preparation courses, and immediately started attending classes at Marylhurst.
• D is finding his rhythm as a college student, attending class on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, mostly in the evening. He has four days off each week. This allows him to get his studies done, and also keeps him around the house a lot.

Teddy and Cats:

• They’re learning to get along. Teddy doesn’t chase the cats; he greets Shadow with a nose-kisss in the morning. Sam’s slower to adapt, he doesn’t like the dog in the same room, but no longer freaks out.
• Teddy is learning to follow commands from everyone in the family.
• Teddy has transitioned to sleeping with Ryne… though some nights Teddy is just too rambunctious at bed time for this to be possible. Most nights, though…

We’re looking for a rhythm…I’m thinking I want to just settle into a six week rut, up to the holidays, then settle into a six week rut to spring break and make the drive to Phoenix as we planned. That’s what I’m aiming for…

Hey, you know what? Teddy might just be able to make the trip to Phoenix with us. I have to think about that a bit…\

Note To Self

C has been Facebooking in recent weeks.

She’s also been working on becoming more “herself”. For her, this means:

• dietary adjustments back to vegetarianism
• adjustments to bring more exercise into her daily rhythm
• changing some of her approaches to guiding, correcting and providing feedback to the children
• a concentration on making sure she’s surrounded by respectful dynamics – to her, from her, between others near her

She’s working on her thinking. She’s working on her surroundings. I’m inspired by her work, and trying to follow suit. It isn’t always easy. That, in itself, uncovers where I need to pay attention to my own “self”.

The Secret Lives of Cancer Survivors

I just came across this Article on Breast Cancer and the impact on womens’ sense of sexual wellness. The article uses phrases like “sexual problems” and I couldn’t help feeling like the author is about 24 years old, single and has no difficulty finding a date. Judging from her FaceBook profile, I’d say I was pretty darned close. Marissa, if you happen to see this, the 45 year old you will look back on this article and scold the twenty-something you for letting your youthful sense of immortality sneak in to this article. You wrote it like you’re talking about your grandmother. Then again, maybe you were… I should grant you that room for grace, as I don’t know you.

Nonetheless, the articles on this study show a number of things:

1. 7 of 10 breast cancer survivors see a negative change in their sex lives after the cancer.
2. Changed body image means that most cancer survivors feel less appealing. (Surveys of the survivors’ partners did not corroborate this, however).
3. The post cancer drugs (Tamoxifen seems to be one among them) are huge contributors to the loss of sexual interest.
4. Chemotherapy made the sexuality issue worse at a uniform rate across all patients, regardless of surgery type, etc.
5. Treating reduced sexual desire is done through counseling.

About 200,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year in America, and more successful treatments are creating more survivors. In the United States, there are 2.4 million breast cancer survivors, many of whom will be facing the side effects.

I’ll spare you the specific details, but it’s safe to say that this cancer survivor partnership has experienced what this study is talking about.It’s very real.

Here’s the big “however'” thought, though…

Just being aware of what this study contains, C has become much more aware that she’s not alone in this battle. She has a list of things she “hates” about herself post-cancer. Many of them can be tied back to the issues on this study – body image concerns, physical changes, wanting to go back to who she used to be and being unable to reconnect with that person…

Knowing that she’s not alone, and that other members of the sisterhood are doing the same thing? It doesn’t make it better, but it does make it no longer about her specifically.

Separate from the Australian study mentioned above, here’s another resource from oncolink.com discussing how women react to their sexuality after cancer

Teddy is Home

It's been a couple weeks that Teddy the Black Lab has been part of our family. A rescue dog, we took him in on an interim basis, while another family prepared for him. To be fair, we *did* tell the rescue people at Fences for Fido that we might opt to keep him. They were okay with that.

Well, as of yesterday morning, Teddy is now a permanent member of our family. We decided Monday morning. Teddy, apparently, celebrated by getting hit by a car later that morning. Yep. Welcome to the family!

I've facebooked about Teddy a little - pics mostly. Here's where I'm writing something a bit more thoughtful. What with him becoming a family member and all.

Teddy came to us excited and excitable. I hesitate to say scared; more like he was so attention starved that he'd love-lunge at anyone and everyone. His tail would wag the dog, he was so happy to interact. That much boundless enthusiasm was also easy to mistake as a threat. I think (but don't know for sure) that his previous family couldn't see the friendliness, just bounding nature. They apparently separated him from the family rather than including him. That only made matters worse.

We included him right away. He was so happy to be allowed to roam free in the house that he followed me everywhere the first couple days. When I took my shower, I had to leave the shower door open just enough for him to stick his head through. He had to be close.

He knew his commands. He heeled, came and sat. But he needed firmness and patience to do so -- just because he was so excited to GET attention that he forgot to PAY attention. Getting him to respond to his commands was slow, but he's steadily better.

He SOOOO loves to play. He hasn't gotten the running/bounding play out of his system quite yet. In fact, he needs to play this particular game a lot more so as to satisfy his pent up need and, hopefully, move past it.

Teddy joined us on pretty short notice. That first night, we had just a harness and a leash, plus his blankets and toys from his previous home. He was EVERYWHERE. he wanted behind EVERY door. He wanted to bound and patrol every square inch. He was nearly frantic but excited. The dog crate wasn't delivered yet, and his scratching behavior meant that we couldn't use a bathroom as a makeshift crate. So, that first night, I slept on the couch, with Teddy on a leash, lying on the floor next to me, with my hand in constant contact with him. In fact, if I moved my hand for any reason, Teddy got antsy, and woke me up. So I must have slept a couple hundred 3 minute cat naps that night. But, we got through it. And Teddy was calmer in the morning.

Each day he got calmer and calmer. We learned that Teddy likes walks. We learned that Teddy doesn't go far, and returns home quickly and easily...except when we NEED him to obey our command to come home <grin!> We learned that Teddy is skittish about cars, and behaves unexpectedly around them. We also learned that Teddy doesn't see roads as a barrier whatsoever (that's a learned human trait, clearly).

We then promptly got ourselves a dog crate and took Teddy camping in the High Desert of Oregon for nine days.

That trip bonded him to us pretty quickly.

The drive was an interesting one. Excitable as he was, Teddy wanted to climb into the drivers seat with me. It took a little coaxing to convince him that sitting on the floor between the front buckets in the van, and leaning his nose against the crook of my elbow would be sufficient. By the time we got to Salem, however, Teddy had decided that was an okay compromise. But he owned my elbow, just so you know.

Without a fence or containment system while camping, we had to build a level of trust pretty quickly. Teddy showed that he was willing to stay nearby, and that he'd not roam far. Since we had the whole campground to ourselves for most of the time, this worked out pretty well. The whole group could come and go as they pleased; Teddy would generally stay within 50 feet or so of whomever was showing the most action or movement. He started on a lead line - which irritated him and inspired him to bark - but as we learned to trust each other, he was off the line more and more. Some mornings, I just put him on the leash and took him with me wherever I happened to be -- cooking the pancakes, cleaning dishes, going to the bathroom, whatever.

In fact, going to the bathroom is a good measure for how he calmed down, connected to the family and demonstrated his intelligence.

When he first came to join us, a closed door triggered barks and immediate door scratching. That behavior was still present when we went camping. The first morning in camp, I took Teddy on a leash to the nearby pit toilet facility. Inside the building we went, and I locked the door behind us. The facility was handicap accessible, so there was plenty of room. but as soon as the door closed, Teddy got nervous. He barked, He scratched at the door. He wanted out. And, he wanted in at the same time. He just didn't want to be constrained is what is was.

Well, the second day, after a day of some free roaming, and snow play, we did the same drill. Teddy and I left the tent and headed to the pit toilet. Teddy did his business on the way, then hesitated a few seconds before agreeing to go into the toilet with me. He whined, but didn't bark. He scratched, but less than before.

On the third day, Teddy did his business in the same spot, then immediately started walking to the pit toilet without my lead. We went in. he whined a little, but did not scratch.

On the fourth day, Teddy would wait a little impatiently, but would be quiet throughout the duration.

It just kept going from there. By the end of the week, Teddy could generally be trusted to be non-threateningly calm when approaching a stranger. I say this carefully: he was still boisterous and puppy-like, but not so enthusiastic as to resort to lunging and jumping. This was great. Teddy could be trusted to stay around camp and to return to camp when called back. Without cars in the vicinity, this was very easy to work with (except for the car issue back at home, this arrangement would work in Portland too, Except...)

We learned that Teddy is amazingly vocal. He does have different sounds he uses for different meanings. After a couple days, I could tell when he was asking for food and water, versus when he was notifying us of a full bladder. The danger bark was clearly different from the welcome bark. It got pretty easy to read his meaning after a while.

And, he was so absolutely eager to please us. We clearly engaged him at his level much more readily than he'd experienced heretofore. He was only too happy to oblige and to conform. We have photos (posting to the blog separately) of R and Teddy frolicking along the edge of the lake. The scenes were the essence of "a boy and his dog" in the woods together. Teddy followed along with R as his trusty companion tirelessly.

Driving home, Teddy was all too happy to lay down on top of R's feet in the middle seats, and sleep. My elbow belonged to me again. R's feet? Teddy had traded up...

Upon our return home, Teddy has been more than acceptably calm. He's energetic. He's a puppy. He's nowhere near laconic. But he is calm, and he does collaborate and integrate into our family.

Except for cars.

Monday morning, Teddy bounded out the open front door before any of us could catch him. Running around the front of the house like he was camping again, oblivious to the unique dangers presented by a busy street during the morning drive, Teddy bolted in front of a car and got hit.

He's okay. An evaluation visit to the vet, some muscle relaxers/anti-inflammatories, and some rest and he'll be fine. Just two smallish abrasions on the outside, no apparent internal damage. He's a member of the family now.

The same day he collided with the car, our previously installed invisible fence containment system was put back on line. We haven't completed the training to the fence yet, but Teddy now wears a collar and will soon have free reign of 12,000 square feet of yard and forest. He won't be suffering.

Welcome to the family, Teddy. You found your home.