How about that, my town has a farmer’s market now. Or, well, it’s been about a month now, but it’s still new–we never had one before.

The four of us went over this morning for the first time. It’s small, really, and not too many vendors, but they looked like they were doing pretty decent business.

It was not, though. Hot enough that Chappy even considered taking a drink from the flower-water at one of the booths. (Not that I would have let him.)

We also had one woman stop me to tell me that the heat coming off the asphalt could “burn his feet, poor thing.” Which I’m still kind of torn about. I mean, she was clearly trying to do a nice thing, and it’s possible that I could have (theoretically) been the kind of dog owner who didn’t pay attention to my dog’s needs. But, still. We’d only been there for about 10 minutes and Chappy was just panting gently. He wasn’t fidgeting in the sun and picking up his feet as if they hurt. His tongue wasn’t dragging on the ground. He was clearly happy and interested and looking around at all the new stuff and, yeah, panting a bit, but you try being out in the 90-degree hot sun covered with fur and not feel a little warm. Her intentions were obviously good, but her delivery came across as “I know best,” with no recognition that I might possibly know my dog and his needs better than she. Like, for example, how much FUR he’s got growing between the pads of his feet which protect them pretty well. Or that, yes, we had only been there a few minutes and no, I wasn’t planning on dragging him on a walk all over town. (Where, in fact, the pavement would have been just as hot.) Mom was standing right next to me and agreed that the woman’s delivery was definitely of the butting-in-because-I-can kind, rather than the “What a sweet dog, but do please be careful” kind of warning a well-meaning person might give.

And, frankly, it was the “poor thing” that got me–as if I was abusing my dog by subjecting him to cruel conditions because I am a heartless, unobservant idiot.

So, yeah, while I’m giving her intentions the benefit of the doubt, that annoyed me just a bit.

On the other hand, I DID abuse and torture Chappy today.

I gave him a haircut.

AND a bath.

On the same day.

If I had pulled out the nail grinder, I could probably have been accused of cruelty to animals.

You know, for a water dog, he really doesn’t enjoy baths very much. He doesn’t complain, exactly, but he stands there stoically, waiting for it to be over. … Actually, it’s not really the bath that he minds. It’s the being wet afterwards. He won’t stand still long enough for me to towel off anything other than the worst of the drips, and by the time we’re at that stage, I never really have the patience to force him, either. Hell, I don’t even blow-dry my own hair, and even when I did, the only way I could alleviate the boredom enough to get through it was to read while I blew-dry.

What? You think that’s weird? I’d sit on the floor with a book in my lap. Then I’d hold the blow-dryer in my right hand, lean over to the left and finger-comb my hair with my left hand while reading the book. My hair got dry, and I kept my sanity. What’s your problem? Even at the hair-dresser, I start fidgeting before my hair is halfway dry. I don’t like to dry dishes, either. Things dry on their own, you know. Unless it’s necessary, I’d rather just let them do so on their own … especially if the drying-off process means more work for me.

Which is something that Chappy and I agree on. I give him baths, towel him off enough for him not to be soaking, and then let him out of the bathroom. He often tears around the house (which we say is his way of blow-drying) and then curls up in a towel and tries to sleep off the rest of the “wet.” But if you pet him while he’s still wet, he almost looks sulky, like he’s saying, “I’m WET,” the same way a person would say, “I’m FILTHY.” Like it was something to be remedied as quickly as possible, but in the meantime, please, don’t look at me.

Anyway, he slept most of the afternoon, and I did some more spinning. It’s the end of the Tour de Fleece and I did meet my goal of spinning every single day. I got that pound of green merino spun, and most of these 8 oz of superwash merino. I finished the first bobbin on Friday and am more than halfway through with the second.

I spun a lot of that yesterday afternoon, watching “The First Olympics.” It was a mini-series back when I was in high school, shortly after we’d gotten our first VCR. (Yes, the early 1980s.) My best friend and I watched and rewatched and watched it again, over and over for several years, and every now and again I get a yen to see it again. Especially on particularly  hot weekends, don’t ask me why. So, while watching Robert Garret and Jamie Connolly doing their wondrous feets of athletics, I spun.

I spent time with this, too. My new computer–and this one’s staying. It’s a Toshiba A665 something-something and I’m ridiculously excited about the fact that it has a number key pad on the right. I’ve never had a laptop with one of those before. I’m still getting used to the keyboard, though–the keys are slippery and slick and my fingers keep wanting to slide off, which I would imagine would be particularly annoying if I wasn’t touch-typing–but is something I can adapt to. It’s much better than on the HP I had gotten last week, which had an annoying touchpad. I’m the only one in my family, mind you, who likes touch pads. In fact, I actively like them, and even at work I use a trackball rather than a traditional mouse. This one not only is more user-friendly than that HP one had been, but has those multi-gesture options, like being able to scroll by using a circular gesture, which I LOVE.

And did I mention it has a number keypad? And now my laptop and my netbook brands match, which I think is kind of sweet. One of these days I’ll take a picture of the two of them side-by-side (which makes the laptop look huge). And also hopefully, one of these days Mom will be used to HER new computer (my old HP) and will stop asking me questions about it (grin).

Oh, and did you hear the casting news for my favorite show, CHUCK? They cast his mother, who disappeared when he was a kid and apparently was/has been/is? a member of the CIA herself … a real kick-ass Mom … and the casting is? Linda Hamilton. As in, the original Sarah Connor from the Terminator. (Not to mention Catherine Chandler on Beauty and the Beast–or am I the only one who remembers that tv show?) I can’t WAIT. She’ll be in the season premiere (on September 20th) and will show up periodically through the season while Chuck searches for her … really. I can’t wait!

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Now, I wonder if I could get the rest of that bobbin of yarn spun tonight… Or, no, I should really be working on my book.

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