December 18, 2009

again?Read the Instructions

At our house you’ll often hear Ann ask Gretchen, “Did you read the instructions?” Gretchen’s like me. She likes to experience the world as it comes and not “plan” ahead. She fiddles with things, instead of reading the instructions, and when her curiosity yields positive results she’s a genius. When the results are less than positive, Ann says, gently at first, “Did you read the instructions?”

This was the case with Gretchen’s new camera. She’s fiddled with it these past few months and when her photos didn’t turn out the way she wanted — blurred, too dark or too light — she got frustrated. Well last night, she read the instructions and learned a lot. She practiced on me (that’s the first photo) and then she practiced more today. There’s still more to learn and there’s still more to practice, but hopefully she learned that reading the instructions can be a good thing.

Our instructions today were pretty clear. It’s Friday. The day was warm…almost like spring (shocking)…and we had five walks on the schedule, but even before all of that, Gretchen had to go to the doctor for her annual check up. She came back with more instructions to read plus needle marks in her arm and her two shoulders. The first for a blood draw and the others for a tetanus shot and an H1N1 shot. She was worried that her arms would hurt all day, but they didn’t!

When she got home, we walked up to pick up my buddy Monty. He was happy to see us and even happier when we set out on a walk up to Bradner Gardens where Gretchen practiced with the settings on her camera (per instruction manual!)…

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Monty and I were served lunch after that while Gretchen headed out to pick up Gemma and then Saber. Oh boy do those two love each other. No instruction manual needed here! Just a lot of running around until they wore themselves out.

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Don’t let these photos scare you…they may look vicious, but the next thing you know, the teeth are put away and Saber is flopping onto the ground in happy exhaustion and Gemma is practicing levitation…

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After the two lovebirds wore each other out, Gemma walked Saber home and then hustled up to Oshi and Perrito’s house for some more fun! Well, actually just a walk as Gemma, believe it or not, was kind of tired. So the boys walked her home and then posed at the park for their shot in the almost sunny weather. I think the weather gods lost the instruction manual. It’s December, remember?

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After the boys went home and Gretchen had her own lunch, she took out Monty and me for a nice game of fetch at the little field. We love that, as you can see.

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Then we picked up Saber again and headed over to the tennis courts where we met up with Bella and new puppy, Emmylou! Saber fell in love and even though I reminded him of his affections for Gemma, he let himself get carried away with the little one! And Bella tried not to smash into everyone!

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Meanwhile, Monty got kissed by Bella and I did my best to win back Saber’s affections.

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While some of the photos show how much Gretchen learned, you can tell that others still need her to revisit that instruction manual. I’m going to prod her this weekend and I’ll let you know how it goes on Monday.

Remember, we’ll be taking some time off starting Wednesday of next week to celebrate the holidays with each other and then again on the following Wednesday through Friday to celebrate the New Year. I wonder if there is an instruction manual for 2010?

Have a great weekend,

Rubin

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