The Great Christmas Cookie Debacle

I made Christmas cookies this year. It seems like I can only work myself up to the big holiday cookie baking thing once every few years - I may have mentioned that I'm not particularly good in the kitchen. Which is weird, because in many ways it seems like baking really isn't that different from the science that I do for a living. The difference, I guess, is that I understand the science - I know what each component in the reaction is doing, I know which things need to be exact, and which don't, and how one thing is reacting with another, and what each step should look like. Baking, on the other hand, is still a mystery to me.


Every time I bake Christmas cookies, I am reminded of the Great Christmas Cookie Debacle - many years ago, when I was in grad school, a couple of friends came over for a full day of cookie baking. It was fun for the first part of the day, but after a few hours, it turned into an ordeal. Some of the cookie cutters we were using were shaped like a little boy and a little girl, but their darned necks were too thin and their heads kept breaking off, and it began to get very frustrating. And as we became increasingly punchy, we decided there was no sense in letting those broken cookies go to waste. So we used red frosting to make bloody stumps on the broken necks, and used more frosting to glue the broken heads onto the little cookie arms, so that our little Christmas boys and girls were carrying around their own severed heads. We even drew surprised little faces on the disembodied heads for good measure.


One friend started writing some very un-Christmas-y things on the tree- and star-shaped cookies, and the other thought that my dog might have licked one of the cookies that was cooling on the coffee table in the living room (nearly every flat surface of the house was taken up by cookies by that time) but she wasn't sure, and she lost track of which one, so... nothing was done. And when we were putting cookies onto plates, we found a jam thumbprint cookie with a staple sticking out of it. I still have no idea where a staple could have come from - I just hope it was the only one! So, we gave all our friends plates of some of the most gruesome (and potentially dangerous) Christmas cookies anyone has ever seen. Somehow, none of our friends seemed particularly surprised.

This year, I made molasses crinkles, toffee shortbread cookies, and spice slices (which Mr. Geek insisted I put frosting on, making them iced spice splices, I guess.) All nice and normal and festive. Notice how I avoided anything that required cookie cutters. Maybe next year I will be brave enough for that again!

So Happy Holidays to everyone! If you are traveling - be safe! If you are staying at home - have a wonderful staycation! I hope everyone has a great holiday!

Let It Snow

We finally got hit with a substantial amount of snow. I know this is probably no big deal for those of you up North, or in the Rockies, but it has been many years since we've had a snowfall this big. None of our current dogs have seen snow this deep in their lifetimes. Here are a few scenes from the back deck to give you an idea.


We took the dogs for a short hike, staying close to home so that Z wouldn't overdo it. He enjoyed some play time, but I worry about him getting too crazy and tweaking his back- he still doesn't want to acknowledge his physical limitations.



B wasn't quite sure what to make of all this cold white stuff at first, but quickly decided that it was fun. She especially seems to like to tackle L and push him down in deep drifts when he is unsuspecting.

And L can't resist occasionally checking for rodents under the snow.

B is non-stop energy, porpoising this way and that, across the field and back. She worked so hard, I had to feed her an extra meal today. She's very hard to keep weight on - sometimes I blink and a bunch of weight melts off of her in the split second that my eyes were closed. She is slightly shorter than L at the shoulder, but eats more than twice as much.



For some reason, the vast white expanse makes B seem even smaller and scrawnier than usual. Maybe it is because she has so much more white on her than L, and only the black parts really stand out in the snow.



Later in the day, we left Z in the house to rest and took B and L for a longer hike through the back fields. They had a great time bounding and sproinging through the drifts, wrestling and playing chase.








I think all of us were pretty tired by the end of our hike, but I'm sure that we'll be ready to do it again tomorrow! We certainly don't plan on going anywhere else in this weather!

Champs - The Finals

I already mentioned how nervous I was starting out on the first day of the Championships, but after the first few runs, I had settled down quite a bit and was able to enjoy the experience. But then something happened - we kept running well. Really well. I kept waiting for us to have a total melt down run, but as we made it through each event, I started to get a little more nervous after each good run. I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I was sure the higher we were, the harder we were going to fall. My big pie-in-the-sky goal was to make it to the finals, but I didn't really expect it to happen. In fact, I hadn't even made a hotel reservation for Sunday night or taken off work Monday. But as we continued to do well, I started thinking.... maybe.... maybe we could make it!

Then Sunday morning in the last round before the finals, Regular Round 5, L took an off-course tunnel. It was still a good run - not a meltdown. Actually, parts of that run were some of our best work all week, but we did cross the finish line having done one tunnel too many. I figured that was surely enough to knock us out of contention. (I didn't know at the time that many of the dogs after us also had an off-course tunnel, and that we still finished in the middle of the pack, even with our 10 course faults.) And I hope you won't think any less of me if I tell you that, far from being disappointed, I was actually relieved. In fact, I was practically giddy about being done and having not just survived the week, but having thrived. I didn't choke, I didn't let my nerves get the best of me, I rose to all the physical and mental challenges - the heat and humidity, the long courses, the long days, the double shots... we ran better than I had dared to hope, and I had no regrets about any of it. We did our best. We left it all out there on the floor, and I was so proud of us! And I was done! I made it! I was going home! Whee!!!


There were never any standings posted during the week, so it was hard to get a feel for how we measured up. My plan was to get some lunch and wait to see where we ended up, and then pack it up and hit the road. I figured I could be home by bedtime, and in good shape to go work Monday morning. I was sitting in the stands, totally relaxed and stupid-happy, eating delicious lasagna (seriously - how many sports arena concessions stands do you know that sell lasagna for lunch?!?) when the finalists were announced. They called my name just as I was about to take another bite, and I remember actually dropping my fork in surprise. I can only hope that no food fell out of my mouth when my jaw dropped open, but I don't think I was aware of details like that at the time. I'm not sure what happened to the rest of my lasagna, but I don't think I finished it.


After the jolt of surprise came a little jolt of panic. Oh. I'm NOT done. I'm NOT going home quite yet. Oh dear. Suddenly, I was feeling quite green again. There were a few moments when I was probably as nervous as I had been at any point during the week, until I realized that we could have a total melt-down run in the finals, and I wouldn't matter - we were finalists, period! No matter what, the worst we could finish now was 4th place! I could trip, hit my head on the dogwalk and knock myself unconscious half way through my run, and I would still be a finalist! Anything we did in the finals was icing. By the time it was our turn to go to the line, (after I explained to L about how I had accidentally lied to him about being done and really we just had one more run to do) I was feeling almost giddy-happy again, with just a touch of nerves.







In the end, we didn't crash and burn, I didn't trip and knock myself out on the dogwalk, we finished second place in the finals round, and third place overall in the 20 inch height class. L also won several sponsored awards: Highest Scoring Mixed Breed in Proficient Jumpers, Highest Scoring Mixed Breed, and Highest Scoring First Time Rescue Dog.



We drove partway home Sunday night before stopping around midnight to find a hotel, and finally made it home around lunch time on Monday. I was so exhausted, I didn't go in to work until Tuesday, and didn't start speaking in complete sentences again until Thursday or Friday. I was a wonderful experience, but I honestly don't know how people do it every year - I think it has taken me most of the fall to recover. And I don't know if we will ever go again, since I don't think I could ever top how we did this year!

(PS - Bonus points to the first person to name the TV show the theme music came from. Double bonus points if you can name the TV show that the Round 1 video music came from!)

Champs Part 3

At the first exhibitor's briefing, Sharon Nelson told us that there would be some course that would make us look invincible, and some courses that would expose all of our weaknesses. When I saw the course for Regular Round 3, I knew it was going to be one of the latter. One of our biggest weaknesses is going straight through boxes. (A "box", for those of you who don't do agility, is 4 jumps set up like the sides of a square - so once the dog jumps into the box, they have a lot of options for where to go - they could either turn 90 degrees to the right, or 90 degrees to the left, or go straight ahead, to jump back out of the box.) L doesn't have any trouble turning in or out, but he has a hard time going straight through - he always wants to flip out away from me.

The course for Regular Round 3 starts out with not one, but two boxes, and we were to go straight through both of them. And then, after the dogwalk, we had to go straight through both boxes again. I figured it would be a miracle if we made it through all those boxes, and you can tell how preoccupied I was with getting through the stupid boxes at the start, when I almost forget to do my front cross afterwards! I think I was caught by surprise that we were still on course!

In all the Regular courses, there were also embedded distance challenges - parts of the course where there was a line on the ground that the handler was not allowed to cross for certain obstacles. The line didn't show up well in my video of Round 1, but in this video, you can see the line for all the parts of the course near the dogwalk.



I was surprised to learn that the course for Regular Round 4 had been used several times at Championships in previous years. Some of the more experienced competitors told me that had seen this one come up so many times that they practiced it the week before! That didn't do anything for my confidence. There were several tough tunnel/contact discriminations in this course - I know my reverse flow pivots look ridiculous, but seriously L would pick the tunnel any day of the week, even if he wasn't shot like a cannon out of one tunnel directly at the off-course tunnel. I have already vowed with B that I will not have to handle discriminations this way!

In the end, we nailed it and finished in second place - ironically ahead of all those who told me they had practiced this course the week before!

Coming up: The Finals!

Champs Part II

One thing I knew going into the Championships is that we would all be tested both physically and mentally. I knew from hearing stories of previous years, that the powers that be at NADAC like to change things up at the Championships. This is not your average weekend trial - courses are longer, and in some cases when there were two rounds of the same class, both courses would be set and competitors were offered 5 bonus points for running the two rounds back to back, as one continuous course. I had decided at the outset that I was not going to allow myself to be tempted by any of these sorts of incentives. I didn't know if L would appreciate running a course that was over twice the length of the courses he was used to, and I didn't think it was worth 5 bonus points to find out.

The first "double shot" bonus opportunity was in jumpers, and I didn't even consider it. The two courses were connected by a long straight tunnel, making it impossible not to be way behind your dog at the beginning of the second course. A surprisingly few handlers went for the bonus - most opted, as we did, to run the two courses separately. When L and I finished 5th place in Jumpers Round 2, despite our lack of bonus points, I knew I had made the right decision.

That first day lasted just about forever, though. After jumpers, we still had one round of Hoopers and two rounds of Weavers, which were also a 5 point double shot opportunity if you opted to run them back to back as one course. I knew if there was one class I definitely didn't want to run as a double shot, it was weavers.

Sometime in the early evening, it was finally our turn to run Hoopers in the covered arena outside. L was really wound up by the time we got out on course. He growled at me the whole way around - I wish that the video had picked up his growling! We had a very nice run, and came out with a third place. Meanwhile, in the indoor arena, because things were running so late, they decided to start running Weavers. Many of us who were getting ready to go in the Hoopers ring had to miss the Weavers walk-throughs, but we were assured that there would be a second walk-through for us, after all those who were in the first walk-through finished running.

I did some quick math, and realized that the second walk-through wasn't going to be until around midnight (that's 1am for me, with the time zone difference!) As I sat in the stands and watched run after run, I was SO exhausted, and my eyes were red and puffy from the dust in the arena, and I made a decision. My options were to wait to walk the course (around midnight) and then run L around 1am, and then run Round 2 at who knows when... or to keep my place in the original running order, and run the course without walking it first, in which case I would be done around 11 pm. I just needed to be done. So I decided not only to run it without walking first, but I decided to do the doubleshot, so I could go home.

It still amazes me that in the course of one day (albeit a VERY long day) I went from being so nervous and intimidated that I was ready to pack it in, to being so blasé that I was doing doubleshots without even walking the course. Luckily, it paid off. We had a little bobble in Round 1 but still finished with no faults. And contrary to my fears, L even picked up speed in Round 2 and had one of his best Weavers runs ever. And I got to go back to the hotel and go to bed. (They ended up running dogs until 1am, and then holding the rest of the class for the following morning, so if I had stayed, I might not have even gotten to run that night!)

And now... I promised a video. I remember why I hate watching myself on video, and these videos are no exception. In most of them I look like I've been sleeping under a bridge (why didn't I think to dress nicer?) I'm not graceful. I'm not structurally sound. My knees and ankles are all screwed on at wonky angles, making me look like I walk with a slight limp. I'm not built for speed, and I suspect that I don't own any fast twitch muscles. I know that L and I are not by any stretch of the imagination the fastest or flashiest team out there. We placed in the Champs because we were so consistent over 16 runs, not because of raw speed.

Nevertheless, here we are in Regular Round 1 where, believe it or not, we came in 1st place. When the results were posted, I thought I could die happy. I didn't care what happened in any of our runs after that. That first place finish was Enough.

And that's where I'll leave you with Part II. I have a few more vidoes to share, including the Finals round. Coming up!

Champs Flashbacks

I've had my videos from the NADAC Championships for a while now, debating about whether to post some of them or not. And I think I will, even though I really hate watching myself on video, But I thought I would go back and start the story from the beginning.

The Championships this year were held in Shelbyville, Tennessee, which happens to be the Tennessee Walking Horse capital of the world. Everything in Shelbyville was about Tennessee Walking Horses. The event itself was held in Calsonic Arena, which is the home of "The Celebration" - an 11 day festival of Tennessee Walking Horses.

All the walkways were bricked with names of famous horses from the past, Hall of Famers and their progeny. Tributes to historical winners were everywhere.

I arrived Tuesday afternoon, in time for check-in. Some people had been there for days already! It was only a 7.5 hour drive for me, but many people had to travel for days. I got my first glimpse of the empty arena, before anything had been set up, and I started to get a few butterflies in my stomach.

Some people got very decorative in the crating area - especially where there were large groups of people from the same club.

In addition to the main crating area, we had the option to rent a box stall in one of the adjacent barns, which is what I decided to do. It was so hot in the main crating area, I thought it would be easier to keep L cool in a box stall with a big fan, not to mention that I think he generally does better somewhere a little quieter, away from all the bustle and noise and barking dogs. Most of those who crated in stalls also had elaborate decorations for their stall doors. I started to feel pretty small, with no special decor on my stall. It was a little lonely being there by myself, as we have no local club to be a part of. Of course, I wasn't there alone - it was me and L.

Now, September in Tennessee can be hot and humid - and it was! We were fairly used to the heat and humidity, but it seemed hard on those from cooler climates. We had an exhibitor's briefing late Tuesday afternoon, and we braced ourselves for the start of competition early Wednesday morning - 16 runs in 5 days, scored cumulatively. I went to bed early Tuesday night, but woke about around 3am, and was too nervous to go back to sleep. I rarely get very nervous about agility, but I was a total wreck. By 6 am I had pretty much decided to give up agility all together.

Our first event was jumpers, and I was feeling pretty green by the time we stepped to the line. We had walked the course first thing in the morning, but since the run order was small to tall, it was hours before it was our turn to run. So I sat in the stands and watched run after run. I watched some good runs, but there were plenty of runs where people forgot the course, or made mistakes, just like any other trial weekend. I realized that these people weren't super humans, and I started to feel a little better. And so, finally it was our turn, and L and I had a very nice run. Not spectacular, but pretty good. Clean. No faults. And when the scores were posted, I saw we finished in 7th place, and I was over the moon! We placed! At the Champs! We belonged! So I decided maybe to not give up agility after all.

....so, that's how we started the week. The next installment is coming up soon, complete with a video!