Welcome back, Theo

If you call Mother, as some of you do, then you will have heard about the ordeal last week.

Remember this?

From the downhill driveway, the park is downhill. It's downhill all the way to Boots Adam Park. Theo's legs pump like an engineer's dream of efficiency when he escapes. He's the black-and-white locomotive. He can scoot with the fastest of greyhounds for at least the distance to the park.

Your Mother recounted the initiation of her painful search-and-cajole party. Too bad you missed that recount, Matt.

As I listened to her, the description reminded me of the Great Ice Storm of 2007. Carl's lights were back on within 24 hours after the Destruction Formerly Known as My Neighborhood. We were, however, without power for a few more days. I took Theo to see Carl in the cozy, well-lit duplex. When I returned home, Theo was on a leash. Or he was until I looked downward and realized the collar was just choking air. I looked up and, even in the darkness, I could see his legs pumping from just falling downwards with the gravity to the park. I lacked thermal wear. I lacked night vision binoculars. I lacked a machete to cut through the tons of debris on the ground. I lacked a pair of ice skates.

Adios. Have a nice life, Theo.

I manually opened the garage door, let Stella in the house, fumbled around in the darkness to find the flashlight, lit a couple of candles, took a well-deserved leak, and walked back into the kitchen. I still had to manually close the garage door.

When I opened the door from the kitchen to the garage, a black ball of fur still went pretty darned fast right past my feet, even though it was all uphill.

From BostonTerrierhub.com, we learn: "Protecting your Boston Terrier from heat and cold is extremely important for his health ... Bostons have short, thin coats, so they have little protection in wet, cold weather."

Aw, ain't that a shame? Welcome back, Theo.

It was the easiest search-and-cajole party ever initiated for him.

Never too early for Christmas

Here's a little Christmas gift idea that can be purchased as far away as Toyko, Japan, or Madrid, Spain. I'm pretty sure the back yard is 500+ square yards. Theo is not going anywhere near it, though. He'll have to resume hiking his leg in the study.

Clue translation: Colonel Theo in the study with hiked leg.

markdeafsmith

I said goodbye to a departing colleague yesterday. We've spent many hours together over the past two years, but he found a better job for his living situation. As I shook his hand, he hands me his business card for his new job. He encourages me to stay in touch. I had not really thought of that, due to the age difference. I'm still on the good side of 50; he's still on the terrific side of something under 30, I think. Unsure of what to say, I ask if he wants my email address.

He grabs a pen and piece of paper.

"Mark," I start.

He writes it down.

"Deaf," I continue.

"D-e-f?" he asks.

"D-e-a-f," I reply, then add "Smith at yahoo dot com."

He looks very puzzled.

"Mark is my first name." He's no longer puzzled, just smirking.

"Deaf Smith is my hero," I explain. I briefly summarize the Texas scout's hearing impairment. I briefly describe the first time I saw him in the painting depicting the surrender of Santa Ana. The wounded Sam Houston is on the blanket, accepting the surrender and Deaf Smith is kneeling there, hand cupped around his ear so he can hear better.

I suggest that my colleague look up Deaf Smith on Wikipedia sometime. Deaf Smith really is a hero of Texas' struggle for independence. But like most hearing impaired people he kind of sinks into the background because he doesn't communicate much.

So I get home and open up Wikipedia to look up something else. What's the feature of the day? It's something called the "Grass Fight." I missed this one when I took Texas history, as far as I can recall. It's not hard to see why the loyal daughters of Texas who were teaching elementary school in the 1960s would skip past it.

The war had just started. The Texans spot a supply train from Mexico. Thinking it's full of ammo, guns, and payrolls for Mexican soldiers, they attack. The supplies turn out to be grass for horses.

Not sure why Mexicans felt they had to bring their own grass. And, no, I'm not talking about that kind of grass.

Anyway, the Wikipedia account of the Grass Fight includes this sentence: "On November 26, Texian scout Deaf Smith brought news of a Mexican pack train, accompanied by 50–100 soldiers, that was on its way to Bexar."

Well, OK, Deaf Smith was just a rookie then. When you have a moment sometime, read accounts of the rest of his life.