End of summer

 We're wrapping up our summer with some time in Washington. We stayed a few days at a house on Mason Lake, alternating swimming, inept paddling, dozing, eating, playing video games, and watching movies. Cook and I made the girls eat Klondike bars and watch old movies so we could relive our childhood vacations. (This is what children are for, right?)

Went for a short hike at Big Creek. (Staircase is closed, so we'll have to come back another time...)

Went camping again, again

 Another gentle car-camping trip! We camped at Seaquest this time, and hiked the Harry's Ridge trail. None of us except Duchess had seen Mt. St. Helens up close-ish before, and the trail offers a good view of the side of the mountain that blew out in 1980, and the lake where dead trees are still floating. It rained the night we arrived, but Saturday was beautiful, and there were ripe huckleberries and strawberries along the way, and a lot of very nonchalant chipmunks.

Went camping again

We're jamming all of our summer into August. Three camping trips and a house rental! This weekend was the second camping trip, a very gentle local adventure. We did get some river rafting in, which was very fun. Otherwise, mostly hammocks and berry foraging.

 

We're still okay, pretty much

 I've developed a new facial twitch, and I stayed up till midnight last night finishing the Hilary Mantel trilogy. (Was I sobbing loudly in the bathroom at 11:45, sitting on the step stool, hunched over Thomas Cromwell's execution? Yes I was.) And tonight I attended a video conference meeting hosted by the principal of the middle school, learning about how Skipper will experience her 6th-grade fall. It's really sad and shitty, and I am feeling angry and sad about all of this. 

However, Skipper and Dog #4 and I went camping! It was fun.

We're okay.

 We're muddling along. Still employed. 

Dog #4 goes to his new adoptive home next week, but Skipper and I are taking him camping this weekend. He likes hammocks, so we're hopeful it will go smoothly.

We've invested, like every American family that's still economically okay and has outdoor space, in some outdoor furniture. Trying to be outside so we don't go crazy, and make space where we can socialize with other humans.

Also, we discovered we have a hummingbird nest right in the middle of our yard.

Other than that, no news. Kids will be attending school remotely at least through the end of October, and Cook and I won't be back in a physical office at least till the end of the calendar year. It feels very hard to plan further than a few weeks in the future...

Dog #4 and actually all the dogs

I feel I should correct the record on Dog #4, who turned out to be affable and relatively low-maintenance. He arrived with the name "Rocky"* but since he was a stray, we can call him whatever we damn please, and there's nothing about this dog's personality that calls for "Rocky." (Dog #1 was an owner surrender whose owner didn't have time for him, which is ludicrous because that dog just wanted to sleep in your bed all day, and his name was "Maddy Boy," but we didn't have the heart to take away the single point of stability in his life.)  I'm pretty sure Dog #4's name should be Kevin or Jason, because he feels like a midwestern junior in college in the '90s who's the nicest guy in one of the lower-key fraternities. His soul wears khakis every day. However, the kids outvoted me, and we're calling him Teddy.

Teddy is a sweetheart. He knows no commands, and his elbow calluses suggest he's spent a lot of time sleeping on concrete, but he doesn't act like a yard dog. He loves being petted, lets you take food right out of his mouth, sleeps uncomplainingly in his crate, is easy to walk on a leash, and adorably insists on pawing all his blankets and cushions into a complicated nest. He's got a few negative points. He peed in the house once. He's un-neutered (which the girls find embarrassing and horrifying), so he actually drools and licks obsessively when he smells plants that lady dogs have peed on, and he will hump people if you let him get both paws up on any body part, but we've learned to head it off by never letting him get both paws up on any body part. (And he's got a neutering appointment in two weeks, which should temper the humping a little.) The vet thinks the sad raw skin on his back and sides is a bacterial infection secondary to a flea infestation, but he has no fleas now, and his skin is healing up nicely. A few ticks have come off him - after Dog #2 we're pretty sanguine about ticks in quantities smaller than fifty. Duchess is a pro at tick removal, and we keep them in a jar on a shelf. 

Conclusion: a week in, Dog #4 is giving Dog #1 some strong competition for Best Dog Yet. We'll see how he shakes out. 

I've learned a lot about fostering since signing up. It has been rewarding, but I don't think we'd have signed up for it if we knew then what we know now. It makes a very very (VERY) tiny dent in all the overwhelming awfulness of the world, which feels both good and wildly inadequate in the current state of things. I didn't realize that dogs come to you in a state of physical and emotional distress - even if they're not coming off of years of neglect, they are coming off of weeks or more in a stressful shelter environment and then a long trip. Even Dog #1, who had a naturally confident and even-keeled temperament, and whom I don't think had been abused or even really neglected, spent a lot of his first week with us just sleeping in his crate, doing what the dog rescue fanatics call "decompressing." You're supposed to keep your house very calm, keep the dog confined to a small area, only interact with them when they approach you, and more or less ignore them otherwise. It takes weeks (or longer, for the worse-off dogs) for them to feel safe enough to start to relax and be themselves. And then, if you're successful, they get adopted and you cry.  (I have high hopes for Teddy, whose awful-looking skin was making him a very unattractive adoption prospect straight out of the shitty under-resourced shelter he was living at - I think he'll be very adoptable once he's neutered and his fur grows back.) And then, unless you've had enough, you start all over again with another dirty, exhausted, stressed out, bug-infested, bacteria-infected, peeing-in-the-house, sad-eyed beastie whose personality and history is a total unknown.

*As far as I can tell, every pitbull who arrives at any shelter is given one of maybe six names- Rocky, Champ, Blue, Missy, Sadie, or Nala.