Leo is nine

Today isn’t merely the first day of winter in this part of the word, nor is it merely the King’s Birthday public holiday in New Zealand, no, the MOST important thing is that today is my little boy Leo’s ninth birthday!

Leo came to live with us shortly before his first birthday, and was such a gentle, loving soul that Nigel said, "we're besotted with him,” and he was right. I still am enough for both of us.

I've written several times about the how he and I are the only survivors of the family he joined back in 2018, and how how he's on of the main reasons I'm still here to talk about it—and no, I'm not talking about anything dire that might have happened, but, rather, simply that he gave me a reason and focus to keep moving forward. In other words, Leo was with me during every loss, and that's made me feel incredibly lucky to have had him with me.

As has often happened in past years, he needs to be groomed, but unlike in the past, he's been allowing me to trim his fur and we're making progress. Hopefully he doesn't change his mind before we finish. Today, however, was a day off for him. Of course.

Happy Ninth Birthday, Leo!

(Also I don’t think he’s intentionally giving me side eye in his birthday portrait…)

Related:

Leo is eight – 2025
Leo is seven – 2024
Leo is six – 2023
Leo is five – 2022
Leo is four – 2021
Leo is three – 2020
Leo is two – 2019
Leo is one year old – 2018
Another new addition – The post in which I announced Leo joined our family
All blog posts tagged “Leo” – All the posts in which I’ve talked about him

AmeriNZ Podcast episode 425 is now available

Fortune’s favour

Maybe fortune favours the bold, as the saying goes, but maybe it’s simply persistence that wins the day. I’d like to think so, anyway.

Back in March, I wrote about a failed project to help Leo: I bought some steps to help Leo get up onto the bed more easily. At the time, it seemed like a good idea, but he wouldn’t use it, which I talked about in that post. But, contrary to what that post implied, I didn’t give up.

I recently moved the steps back to the foot of the bed, but rather than being parallel to the end of the bed as before, I turned them so they were perpendicular to the foot of the bed. I thought that in that position, when viewed from in front of the steps, they’d appear to rise easily from the floor to the bed top, and so, be less intimidating for Leo.

While I’d thought about doing that back in March, the reason I didn’t do it is that I felt it would stick out too far, maybe even creating a tripping hazard for me (I walk past it every twice a day, in the morning to open the window blinds and later in the day to close them for the night). I thought the tripping hazard had become minimal because I’d cleared out some “stuff” that had been stored in my bedroom for “quite some time”, and that meant there was more room at the foot of the bed. It was worth a try, I thought.

A couple weeks or so ago I moved the blanket box over a bit and dragged the steps to the side of it (see the photo up top). However, Leo still seemed uninterested in the steps. As I did in March, I tried to encourage him up the steps, placing his paws on the steps for him, and I did that a few times. That much worked, but he never initiated the climb on his own. I decided to regroup—and chill out.

I thought that maybe he just needed more time to feel comfortable with the steps and so be willing to use them on his own terms. Over maybe a couple weeks, he didn’t use the steps, preferring to jump up, awkwardly and seemingly with much effort.

Then, it suddenly changed.

The night before last, I said to Leo, as I do every night, “let’s go to bed,” and as is our ritual he walks slowly, looking up and me expectantly. I then ask him, “aren’t you forgetting something?”, and he runs back into the living are to grab Brown Dog, his favourite toy. Then we can go down the hallway to the bedroom at the other end of the house, Leo trotting ahead of me, tail wagging.

Two nights ago, he entered the bedroom, and started to veer right, which usually means he’s about to climb under the bed (he always goes under the bed from that side). However, he simply walked up the steps and then climbed them to get onto to the bed. I was shocked, and may even have gasped a bit as I put my hand over my mouth as I muttered a (nearly) silent, “oh my god!”

I praised Leo effusively, and he looked up at me with one of his, “what are you carrying on about? looks. I understood my notes from him and left him to play with his toy while I got ready for bed—wondering all the time if that had been a simple accident.

Last night we did our nightly ritual again and, as I’d hoped, he climbed the steps onto the bed. I cannot express how happy this made me: I started the whole thing to make his life a little bit easier, and seeing that he appeared to have adapted gave me all the feels. Nothing will change that, even if he doesn’t continue using the steps—but I have a feeling he’s worked out that the steps are a much easier way to get up there rather trying to jump up. It did make me think that maybe I should come up with a similar solution to help him get up on the sofa, but that space is much smaller and tighter than the bedroom is. More thought is required.

One thing I didn’t bother to mention in March—or at any other time, for that matter—is that for both me and Nigel, our dogs have always been allowed on the furniture, including the bed. I’m well aware that some people are against that, perhaps even strongly so, and such folks may harbour quite negative judgements of people like me. I couldn’t possibly care less. Both Nigel and I always considered our furbabies to be family, but after Nigel died, having the dogs sleeping near me every night was comforting, and now, after we also lost Sunny and Jake, I appreciate Leo’s presence even more. Many nights I wake up, then reach over to pat Leo before I go back to sleep. After so much loss and the change that demands, having Leo’s reassuring presence is pretty damn important.

And, that, in a nutshell, is why I launched this little project in the first place, and why I persisted after the initial failure. Leo has been so vitally important in my journey to learn how to create a new life for myself that there was never any doubt that I’d find a way forward.

This isn’t just about a plan coming together, or that persistence was a vital ingredient of the success. Instead, it was always about doing that I could to make my little guy’s life a little bit easier. It the very least I could do.

But, yeah: Maybe fortune really does favour the persistent.

A well-meaning fail

Not every project I take on works out, but all of them begin with good intentions. Recently I tried a project with the best of intentions, but it didn’t pan out. Even so, I don’t regret a thing.

The background is simple: Leo will turn nine in a few months, and I’ve noticed that as he’s grown older, he’s had more trouble jumping onto furniture, like our bed. To be honest, I think some of it is performative, because if I walk over to lift him up, he suddenly manages to jump up on the bed or whatever. Even so, he’s a little guy about to turn nine, and, just like me, he’ll need some minor alterations to things to make his ageing easier.

I thought that there was something I could do to help him, and I designed something, a kind of steps to put at the foot of the bed. I imagined a three-tier thing with storage in each tier. It’d be strong enough for me to sit on, like wooden the blanket box that’s there right now. However, the Garage of No Return doesn’t have enough room for me to build anything, and I don’t know when that will change (note I didn’t say “if”—I live in hope).

It was then that I found a four-tier step system (the bottom of the two photos at left; the blanket box I mentioned is the top half) that I thought would work. It’s a bit smaller than what I designed, but I thought that the four steps would make it easier for Leo. Each “step” is actually a soft-sided storage box, and each step is attached to the next-smaller step using a zip (aka zipper) on the front and back. The zips were a little tricky to fasten, but assembly was otherwise straightforward

And that was the end of the success. Leo wouldn’t step on any step, and wouldn’t jump onto a high one like he did on the old blanket box. I tried to lead him up the steps, but his reaction was as if he thought I was trying to hurt him. He didn’t “get” how to walk up stairs. He’s a smart guy, so this puzzled me—after all, we had stairs in the last house we all had together.

Yeah, well, I often forget how much time has passed since then. He lived in that house for 19 months (beginning shortly before his first birthday, and we moved away when he was 2 years old). I can’t remember how often he went up and down stairs at the old house, but we left that house more than six years ago, and we’ve lived in this one-storey house ever since.

I know that it may have nothing to do with his past, but the small stairs I bought for him may not have felt safe to him. So, I put the old blanket box back with just a blanket on top of it (making the top he jumps onto a centimetre or so lower than it had been).I moved the fancy steps over to the other side of the bed and put some of his toys on higher steps: He’s never tried to get them, not even when I put his favourite toy on it. I think that if the steps were more conventional, he might’ve been more willing to use it—or, at least, not as frightened of it as he seemed to be, but it it what it is.

This means I’m probably back to building something for him. Right now I think it should have a wide lower step for him to step onto, but I’ll have to create a temporary one to see if he uses it. We’ll see. The point is, just as I have various plans to make this house better for ageing me, I’ll make changes to make things easier for an ageing Leo, too. This particular attempt just wasn’t a good one. Oh, well—onward.

My last photo for 2025

The photo up top is my final photo of 2025, like what I’ve done before, like last year, for example. I guess it’s a tradition, like staying up to see in the New Year. I’ve done that for as long as I can remember, and I expect to do until I can’t anymore, for whatever reason that may be.

My caption on Instagram/Facebook said:

Leo and I are eagerly waiting for 2025 to end in less than 90 minutes, and he thought we should take another dual photo as the last one for the year. But he got momentarily distracted right before the shutter, so he didn’t get a chance to smile. Next year? 😁🐶

Meanwhile, that’s enough of this year. On to 2026!

Another food conundrum, but for Leo

I’m not the only one in this household who has issues finding appropriate food: That problem now includes Leo, too. That’s my boy! Or, something.

For more years than I can remember, we’ve fed our furbabies dry food made by Eukanuba (owned in by Mars Incorporated, except for Europe, apparently). I was recently in the pet store to get Leo some more of his food, and there was a sign saying that “due to changing customer demand” they were discontinuing most of the brand’s dry dog food, though it said they’d be carrying at least one for a dog the size of Leo, though they were out of stock on that day.

Most premium dog food in New Zealand’ is sold through two Australian-owned pet store chains, and I checked online with the other one and found that they, too, seemed to be eliminating all or most of that brand. No other online retailer seemed to sell it, either, but I confirmed that the pet shop I go to still had some of the adult version of Leo’s dry food, but he’s actually been on the senior formula, which is slightly lower in calories, for a bit more than a year. I was running out of Leo’s food, so I bought the adult version to tide him over, and even used the transition method normally used when changing brands—just in case.

In the meantime, I researched alternatives. Many of the dog foods available are made by big US-based corporations, and I was concerned about ongoing availability: If an established brand can disappear, for whatever reason, it could happen again.

I decided to restrict my search for dog food made in Australia or New Zealand, in the hope the shorter supply routes may keep it more available. I chose the Australian one because they have a small dog senior formula, but I’m also going to buy a small bag of the NZ-made one (which is freeze-dried, not a dry food) to use as treats. Hopefully, between the two of them I should be able to keep the same brands for Leo for several years, just as we used Eukanuba for at least 17 years.

This whole thing has required a lot of research, time, and energy, and now I’ll just have to wait and see if Leo likes the new (to him) brand. That transition is still several weeks away, though, because I only bought the stop-gap bag of food a couple weeks ago. On tyhe other hand, that means I can have a few weeks of normality, too, and that’s a good thing.

This is the first time I’ve had to make decisions about Leo’s food—or any furbaby’s food in New Zealand—by myself, and, yes, I found that reality challenging and a bit confronting. I just approached it the same way I do when I need to find a food substitute: I researched the alternatives, found what I felt was the most nutritious option, and made a decision.

I’ve been doing a lot of that deciding thing lately. Huh.

Photo memory and realities

Yesterday, I was served up yet another Facebook “Memory”, this time for a photo I made my Facebook cover photo. As always, it sparked all sorts of memories and thoughts, which I share on my personal Facebook:

This was one of my favourite photos of the kids as they waited for their other daddy to get home from work. All four of them are gone now.

Around a year and a half after I took this photo, we all moved to the southern edge of the Manukau Harbour, and a little more than a year after that, Leo joined our family. Some nine months later, we lost Bella, seven months after that, we lost their other daddy, nearly a year and a half later, Sunny left us, and Jake around seven months after that. Sometimes even I’m shocked I managed to survive all that loss so close together.

I still have the mat Jake and Sunny are laying on, and the dog rope, too—though no one plays with it anymore. On the other hand, I’ve upgraded my phone several times and my photos have much better resolution now—and the fact that was one of the first things I thought when this photo popped up in my FB “Memories” is an indication of healing (so called…). The fact I remember in detail when each member of our family left us shows that healing from grief isn’t actually a thing: We adapt, we grow around it, we move forward with it, but usually without the searing pain it once produced. I miss them all as much as ever, and I can tell that Leo does, too, but we have each other and some days that’s everything.

After I posted that, I naturally wondered if I’d shared that photo on this blog ten years ago, but I hadn’t at all in all of July 2015. Today, I looked though my stored photos and I found the original, which I took on June 5, exactly a month before I made it my Facebook cover photo. That’s not remotely important—the date I took the photo and the date I made it my FB cover photo were both ten years ago, and the real point wasn’t the date, it was how much things had changed since then.

The whole thing gave me a chance to underscore the fact that grief never diminishes or ends, instead, we grow around it. I’ve talked about this many times, and I’ll talk about more into the future because I think it’s the biggest thing that people don’t understand about grief, and also what they most need to understand.

Still, the photo I took ten years ago was a great example of what my life was like only a decade ago. I miss that life, everyone I’ve lost. But I’m still here, and so is Leo, and together we continue moving forward. And that’s the way of things.

Leo is eight

Today is a very important day on my calendar: Today is my best friend Leo’s 8th birthday! He’s still as awesome as ever, of course, and has no idea what a birthday even is, but I know, and I’m glad to celebrate it on his behalf.

We got together with some of the family for lunch today, which had nothing to do with Leo’s birthday, of course, but he got to go, too, so it was still a treat for him. Later, he got special dinner, as he always does. In between those two, he spent a lot of time sleeping—I think his lunchtime adventure wore him out!

As I said last year, “Leo came to live with us just before his first birthday, but his Daddy Nigel only got to celebrate two of Leo’s birthdays. Nigel would be so very happy to see what a happy boy Leo is these days. I feel both happy and honoured to have spent all seven of Leo’s birthdays with him.

That's still true now that I’ve spent all eight of his birthdays with him. Something else I wrote last year is also true:

Today I also trimmed the fur around his eyes a little bit. Every year on his birthday he’s always being groomed, about to be groomed, or was just groomed. Who am I to buck tradition? He didn’t seem to mind.

Leo still makes every day better, simply by being—whether he’s making me laugh, or just looking at me while I talk to him as if he completely understands what I’m saying. He still loves playing “the chase game” where we take turns chasing each other around the house. He also still loves the toy rabbit I gave him last year.

There are times when I feel bad about how I don’t look after him as well as I should, but I could say the same thing about myself or the house or pretty much anything else. But, like I always say, each day presents us with a new opportunity to do better and be better. Leo deserves to get only my best, and I know one day he will. In the meantime, every day is better because he’s in it. I kinda think he’s rather fond of me, too.

Happy Eighth Birthday, Leo!

Related:

Leo is seven – 2024
Leo is six – 2023
Leo is five – 2022
Leo is four – 2021
Leo is three – 2020
Leo is two – 2019
Leo is one year old – 2018
Another new addition – The post in which I announced Leo joined our family
All blog posts tagged “Leo” – All the posts in which I’ve talked about him

Last photo of 2024

The photo above is the last photo of Leo and me for 2024. It’s a different take on a photo I shared on December 31, 2022. There’s an earlier one, from my first New Year’s Eve in this house back in 2020, that I shared to Instagram, but not here. That Instagram photo may have inspired the 2022 phoro (because of the time on the clock), but I it could’ve been coincidence, too. However, this year it was deliberate—and Leo was less thrilled than he was in 2022.

At any rate, we have our final photo of the year, which was the main objective. Now, on to 2025!

Merry Christmas from Leo and me

Leo and I hope you had as awesome a Christmas as we had! Great food, along with family giving lots of laughs and inappropriate talk, as only families can do, and the odd little bit of food that Leo “found”.

Lost in the weeds

A week ago, I was in the midst of mowing adventures. It took me three days to mow all the lawns, and that made me reconsider—well, a lot of things, really. In the end, the lawns were tidy, but I’m not sure my mind was.

There was a lot of rainy weather after my most recent mowing, and that was bad for a couple reasons. First, as always, it delayed the mowing because I needed the lawns to dry out a bit—and then it would rain again. At the same time, warmer temperatures, when combined with that rain, caused the weeds to run amok.

It’s not unusual for that to happen this time of year—it’s actually what Spring is like an a normal year. This time of year, then, the lawns are filled with the flower spikes from the weeds, and the leaves of the weeds grow more quickly, too, making the whole lawn thicker, from the machine’s perspective, than it actually is.

So, a week ago Friday I went out to start using the line trimmer on the edges out front (because it’s what everyone sees). That was fairly uneventful. The mowing, however, went slowly because the lawn was still pretty damp, and because I often had to go back and forth over some patches to be able to cut off the flower spikes at ground level (also not unusual for this time of year).

That was difficult, but the front lawn is also a gentle slope from the house down to the footpath, and at the side, it’s even a little steeper. As I was finishing up, on that steeper side, I was absolutely miserable: Tired, sweaty, and totally over it. I thought, yet again, about getting a service to mow the front lawn so I don’t have to deal with it—and that, in turn, led me to think about how these days I think about all the things that I no longer seem to be able to cope with doing by myself, and how that seems to have picked up speed since I turned 65.

I knew there wasn’t much battery left in the mower after it struggled out front, so I only mowed a very little bit of the side yard. I also did some of the edges—until the line trimmer’s filament rand out. That, I decided, was a good place to pause.

I sat down to rest and cool off, and to let the mower battery cool enough to recharge it. Unfortunately, I realised too late that I’d forgotten to do that, and there wasn’t enough time to charge it and mow the back, and that meant I’d have to finish on Saturday.

The next day, Saturday, despite totally not feeling it, I went out to do the back lawn, starting with the edges. First, I opened the spool because I couldn’t feed new line into it, and found out that the old line had someone gotten stuck, and some was still wrapped around the head. I cleaned it out, fed in the new line, and began trimming.

I hadn’t gotten very far when the line trimmer stopped: The battery was dead. I went and grabbed another one, but the trimmer wouldn’t go, so I checked the power level (the manufaturer calls it a "fuel gauge") and found out it was empty: I hadn’t recharged it the last time I used the line trimmer because I put it were recharged batteries go. Oops.

I decided to start mowing, anyway, and got a lot of the lawn done—until the battery was again fully drained without the mowing being done. The problem is that the back lawn, which is mostly weeds, grows much faster and thicker than the front lawn does, and so, the mower had to work much harder than at other times of year.

I thought I’d finish mowing on the next mostly sunny day, which was projected to be Monday or Tuesday, and for a very personal reason: I like to avoid making any noise on Sundays. My rationale is that people who work Monday through Friday generally do noisy outside chores on Saturday, not Sunday. Maybe they like the idea of one quiet weekend day, too? At any rate, I normally avoid making noise outside on Sundays unless I have no choice.

This time, I thought that I’d better not count on good weather the following week, so I did go out and finish the mowing on Sunday, something that only took maybe 20 minutes (at most) to do. It turned out I definitely made the right choice: Parts of Monday and Tuesday had rain.

My plan was do the lawns again after about a week—basically, now—to try and get it under control before the next big blooming of the weeds. Today has been a rainy day, and tomorrow is expected to be one, too. Monday through Wednesday are expected to have at least some sun, so they look like my best shot, earlier than I’d normally do them, but later than I’d have liked. I’ve noticed some flower spikes are already pushing up,

That mowing adventure was unusually arduous, but my thinking around it was not unusual. I’ve spoken before about how often I’ve thought about hiring a service to mow out front, but they only use petrol-powered equipment, and mine a use batteries recharged with electricity from the sun. Giving up feels like going backward.

At the same time, part of the problem is that I now only have one battery, so I usually can’t mow both lawns on one day. Worse, my current battery is probably nearing the end of its life (the warranty is only for three years), and when it dies, a new battery will cost me between $379 and $579 (today, around US$221 to US$338) for a new one (depending on the capacity—which basically means how long it’ll go before it runs out of charge). Is it really worth buying a new battery, or should I just give it all up at that point?

This gets back to the things that I no longer seem to be able to cope with doing. Mowing is my major form of physical exercise, and, I always told myself, that’s precisely why I find it so difficult to do: I’m not fit enough. But, what if this is at least related to my aging body, or even just that aging is making things harder regardless of my fitness level?

Yesterday, the company that installed my ventilation system sent a technician to change the filters, something they do every two years. Last time, I found non-branded filters of a similar spec that cost less than half the price of what it cost me to have the company do it. However, that would mean going up in the attic to do it, something I think is a terrible idea, not just because I’m getting older, but also because I live alone, and if I fell through the ceiling, no one would be here to help me. To be fair, the company also checks to make sure everything including airflow rates are within specification, so it’s more than just changing a filter. Even so, 20 years ago I’d absolutely have gone up there to do it myself.

All up, this period in my aging has been confusing as hell, and trying to work out what I can or should do myself, and what I should pay others to do for me, has been exhausting. Whether it’s mowing my lawns or changing filters in the attic, the first step is to be sure of my own realistic and sensible limits, something thats not always easy to do

Last week, I had unexpectedly fraught and lengthy mowing adventures. There are likely to be many pivot points over the next five and ten years, times where I’ll have to accept my limitations beginning to exceed, or, at least, restrict, my abilities for doing things myself.

There’s one more thing I know for certain: All of this is exponentially more difficult because Nigel’s not here to figure all this out with. On the other hand, if this really is the beginning of my physical decline, then I’m kind of glad he didn’t have to see it, because I know how hard that would’ve been on him.

No wonder I’m lost in the weeds.

The photo up top is of Leo in the weeds this past Sunday, November 24, just before I began to finish the mowing. By the time this mowing adventure began the previous Friday, the weed stalks out back were at twice his height (more in some places). I took this photo kneeling on the ground, so the view is basically at flower height.

Problem kitty?

I’m a lifelong fan of dogs and cats, and have shared my life with several of both kinds. In general, I tend to prefer dogs a bit more mainly because dogs are so obviously happy to see me when I come home. Cats may do that, too—and some of mine did—but they’re far more likely than dogs are to show what seems like indifference when we return home. All of that, though, is really about furbabies I’ve shared life with. Other people’s furry companions are another matter—especially when they’re a bit, well, odd.

The photo up top is of Leo back in August of last year. It shows a brief pause in his barking at the cat on the fence. Leo likes cats and other dogs, as long as he’s properly introduced—he has very proper, some might say “old fashioned”, manners. However, if he sees a dog or cat walk past the front of his house, he will bark and bark and bark. And when this cat started walking along the top of the fence, he could also run along the fence to bark—and so did the two dogs next door.

The cat belongs to the neighbours over the back fence (I was “introduced” once, but I don’t remember its name—or the neighbours’, for that matter). Over the past year, I’ve occasionally had to go outside after dark to retrieve a barking Leo, with that cat laying on top of the fence, but directly behind my house, not at the corner, as in the photo. The cat seems to be wary of Leo—and intrigued by me. Maybe that's because when we first met, I talked nicely to it. Or, maybe it just likes exceptionally handsome men—that’s equally possible.

There's been a very recent change in the cat’s behaviour: It wants to come inside my house.

A week or so ago, I was standing in the living area, and I happened to look at the partially open slider door to the patio, when the cat appeared and placed one paw on the threshold, then froze when it saw me. I said, “I don’t think coming inside Leo’s house is very good idea…” and the cat turned and ran away which gave me just enough time to close the door before Leo could run out the door and chase the cat across the yard.

Last week, I was doing things in the back of the house and walked down the hallway and opened the internal garage door to get something when I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see that cat running out the once again slightly open slider. I closed the door, and Leo was oblivious—until he caught scent of where the cat had be laying or sitting (and not peeing—I checked). He sniffed the area extensively, so much so that there are now very few fibres left in that spot of the carpet. He then demanded to be let outside so he could find the cat.

Yesterday evening, I let Leo outside after his dinner, and I heard a “thunk!” outside, which I thought was the next door neighbour (the parents of Leo’s dog friends) accidentally bumping the fence, like with a rake or something. Leo started barking, and kept at it, so I went out on the patio to being him inside. There was no one on the neighbours’ side of the fence, and Leo was going spare.

I walked over and peered over the fence when that cat suddenly jumped and climbed over the fence and ran across the yard to the same corner in the photo up top. Leo was oblivious, still convinced that the cat was on the patio, under the Vegepod (which I moved onto the patio two years ago this month). He could not be convinced to come inside, and ultimately I had to pick him up to bring him into the house.

As we were walking back through the same (more widely) open slider door, we turned and I tried to show Leo where the cat was sitting. He didn’t seem to really look, but the cat saw that and was prepared to jump and climb over the fence. Leo and I went inside.

I liked leaving the slider door slightly open in nice weather so Leo can go outside whenever he wanted to, but I’m not keen on having a cat I don’t actually know enter my the house, especially because its ideal choice of toilet may not be outside. More importantly, Leo isn’t keen on the idea.

The cat is clearly well-fed and seems happy and active—and it also could be a little too curious for its own good. For now, I'll leave the doors closed whenever Leo’s inside the house—like in winter or on a stormy day. I may eventually try again—until the weather gets too hot, when the doors are closed (and in the afternoon, their curtains are, too) to keep the summer heat outside.

I’ve never had a situation like this before, where a cat I don’t know wants to enter my house, despite a dog living here. But the cat definitely seems friendly, and it's clearly curious, so many I shouldn’t be surprised. Or maybe it really does just like exceptionally handsome men. I can understand that, too. Of course.

Winter of my discontent

I joke all the time about how I hate winter, but it’s actually true—when winter is being winter, in the usual sense for wherever I was living that season. Here in New Zealand, the news media and ordinary people alike have all talked about the past few winters with the word “unusually” preceding whatever they’re talking about: “unusually mild”, for example, though it could be cold, wet, dry, or anything else. While there could be faulty memories involved sometimes (as in, “winter was never live this when I was a kid”), it’s also true that records of all sorts are falling all over the planet.

Take the gross weather, stir in things going on in my own life, add the short days, and for me this winter has been particularly awful. All the things I hate about winters in this part of New Zealand—cold, rain, and days in which it doesn’t rain, but that remain dark and dreary, anyway—have been present more days than not.

To be sure, it’s not dark and/or rainy every single day—there have been some beautiful days, too. It also hasn’t been below freezing every night (though it has been on far too many nights…), and some daytime temperatures have been quite pleasant. However, taken as a whole, winter this year has been pretty awful—in my opinion, of course.

I took the photo up top on a very foggy night last Thursday, when I took the recycling to the kerb for collection the next morning. However, I didn’t share it anywhere because I didn’t think it showed the fogginess well enough. Leo and I then went bed, and a few hours later, at 2.40am, he woke me up to let him outside, and I sleepily ambled into the lounge, slid open the door to the patio—and saw that the fog was completely gone. Kirikiriroa-Hamilton is legendary for having heavy fog in winter, especially in the morning, and after I snapped the photo I just assumed it would thicken. Instead, I think it may have rained between the time we went to bed and when I noticed the fog was gone, and the temperature may have changed, but whatever it was, I was definitely surprised.

Fog isn’t normally that much of a problem for me: I think that since I’ve moved to Hamilton I’ve only had to drive in fog a couple times—once once in the morning when I went to a medical appointment of some sort, and once at night after a family get-together. The truth is, winter weather phenomena like fog or frosts don’t actually affect me. It’s cold and sunlight.

The trouble with cold is that my house is mostly unheated: Only the living area and my bedroom have a heat pump air conditioner, which means that the other two bedrooms (one of which is my office) and the hallway can feel pretty cold, especially at night. To cope, I add another layer of clothing, and I shut the doors of unheated rooms—the guest room, the toilet (room, not throne), the bathroom, and, when I go to bed, the en suite attached to my bedroom. I also close the door between the living area and the hallway until there’s just enough room for Leo to get through in the morning (he loves running down the hallway to the kitchen).

Unfortunately, I can’t do anything about the amount of sunshine or the length of the days, so I have to rely on other things to cope with those problems.

My solar power system reduces the amount of electricity I need to buy, dramatically in the summer months, and slightly in the winter. The problem with winter is, first, the days are short, and second, it rains so very much, or at least is overcast, that I don’t generate much electricity in the winter months.

To cope with that, on the many days with no sunshine, I do power-hungry chores—like running the clothes dryer or dishwasher—after 10pm when the electricity rates are lowest. When I can, I wait until a sunny day to do those sorts of chores so I have free electricity, but that’s not always possible—especially when we have the better part of two weeks with nothing but cloudy or rainy days.

And then there’s the potential problem with hot water.

I have a special device installed that diverts solar electricity to my hot water cylinder before sending it to the power grid, meaning that, basically, I have a solar hot water heater. The problem is that the solar panels have to produce enough electricity to heat the water. When we have several days in a row of cloudy skies, especially if some of those daylight hours are storms, and especially if we have nighttime temperatures around or below freezing, it can mean my water never heats properly, though it’s rare for the drop to be noticeable—in fact, the second time it happened was this week.

I had my shower Saturday morning, and noticed that the water temperature was barely lukewarm. I turned the knob toward hotter, and it was warm enough, though it could’ve been better. The thing is, the en suite is at one end of the house, and the hot water can take forever to get there in winter, so I needed to test it—maybe I just had to wait?

A little while latter, I hand washed a couple dishes in the kitchen sink, and even turned to all the way hot, it wasn’t very hot. Time for my back-up plan: I went into the garage and tapped the “Boost” button on the controller to use mains power electricity to head the hot water for one hour (at the time, the panel on the device said something like that it was “waiting for surplus power”. This is an expensive way to heat water (hot water cylinders are normally on a special circuit at a reduced rate), but, as the saying goes, needs must.

The only other time I’ve needed to do that was the first winter after the controller device was installed. In fact, there was some sunshine Saturday, and again Sunday and today, so the hot water is back to normal. Hopefully, the weather will be more favourable for power and hot water for the rest of winter—something I say with no rational reason for doing so.

There’s not much I can do to change all that at the moment, however, if I stay in this house long-term, I’ll change the heating so that all the bedrooms are heated/cooled, and I’ll work to get the hot water less reliant on sunshine. Right now, though, my strategies for coping with winter weather are pretty much working. Even though I can’t always say I’m comfortable, I nevertheless have it better than many, and far better than some. Still, it does seem kind of pointless to have to cope with cold temperatures and lack of sunshine without the pay-off of snow—is something I’d never actually say.

By the way, have I ever mentioned how much I hate winter? No? Well, here’s a bonus photo: The moon amid the clouds around 3am Saturday night/Sunday morning, after Leo got me get out of bed. Again.

Toy obsession

Many dogs love their toys, though precisely what that means varies a lot. In Leo’s case, the pattern is indifference, interest, obsession, de-construction, and then routine. I’ve seen this basic pattern repeated continually since Leo was a puppy, and it continues even now. I may end up with more work out of the deal, but along the way, he’s extremely happy, which is the point.

When I first gave the new stuffed toy to Leo on his birthday (photo at left), he was, as usual, not all that interested in it. He left the toy on the sofa where I’d given it to him, and only paid attention to it when I returned that evening. Even then, though, as I said at the time, “he’s not yet entirely sure about his new toy”, which, I also said, “basically means he hasn’t yet torn it open.” I knew that wouldn’t last.

Leo brought his new toy to bed with him Saturday night, but put it aside and went to sleep. However, when I woke up in the morning, there was some of the toy’s stuffing on the bed. I looked at the toy, and saw its nose was chewed off. Leo had moved to the complementary obsession and de-construction phases.

As the day passed, Leo spent most of his time with the toy. Sometimes he’d lick and chew it, and pause to lay next to it panting (a sure sign of his obsession phase), or he’d have a nap with the toy right next to him. This continued all day, and by mid-afternoon, I noticed there was a lot of stuffing strewn around the floor in the living area, even though I’d been picking it up all day.

Around 3pm, Leo jumped into my lap, chewed on the toy for awhile, then jumped over onto the sofa to have a nap. I could see the extent of his de-construction at that point (photo at right). Basically, the nose was completely gone, and the head was somewhat deflated.

This overall pattern continued on into the evening, until a little around 8pm, when Leo was busily working on his toy and I noticed that the chest was open and I could see the plastic bottle that provided the air for the squeaky noisemaker. While he was busy chewing on the toy, I noticed the noisemaker itself was laying in my lap—he’d chewed it off the bottle—and I picked it up immediately because it was small enough for him to choke on. I also removed the bottle itself from the toy and put it on the table next to me. Leo apparently only wanted to get that out of his toy, because he wasn’t interested in where I put it. He seemed to calm down—until I riled him up again.

I wanted to see how the thing made noise, so, I blew into one end—the wrong one, it turned out—then the other, and it made the squeaky noise. Once again, Leo was riled up, just as he is every time he hears a squeaky toy. I thought this was utterly hilarious—but then immediately felt guilty for getting him all riled up, so I put the noisemaker into my shirt pocket. He lay on my lap next to his victim, looking pretty pleased with himself, then he jumped onto the sofa, leaving the toy behind. This is what I saw (the photo at right is staged, and includes the ear he’d chewed off late afternoon):

He didn’t spend much time working on his toy after that point, not vigorously, anyway. When we went to bed, he again brought his toy with him. When I came out of the en suite after brushing my teeth, I saw him laying on the bed with his chin on his toy, making it barely visible. He lifted his head to look at me as I tried to get a photo of him (at the bottom of this post).

Today, he’s played with his toy a bit, but at one point he picked up one of his other toys when I thought I was headed to my chair, something he hasn’t done since I first got home Saturday evening. His de-construction of the toy will continue, but less vigorously than when he was still obsessed, meaning he’s moving into the next stage, routine, one in which his existing toys will be played with again, too. And the new will continue to slowly become smaller.

This new toy is tentatively named “New Bunny”, to distinguish it from a long line of stuffed toy rabbits called “Funny Bunny” (the final one of those is in a photo with a post just before sunny had to have teeth removed). Leo hasn’t yet lost interest in any of his toys, and they stick around until they become utterly destroyed, often little more that bits of cloth, and they leave the house when I quickly put it in the rubbish while he’s outside, and none the wiser. In fact, I have my eye on one of his older toys right now, the tiny bit that’s left of “Mr. Turtle”, a toy I mentioned in a post back in December 2022. That’s my role in his routine, I suppose.

I don’t know how long he’ll still be interested in destroying his toys, but as along as he is I’ll continue to give him toys for him be indifferent about, become interested in, then obsessed with, until he de-constructs it and it enters his routine. It’s a small thing, really, but getting him new toys makes him extremely happy, and that’s the whole point.

Leo is seven

Today is the first day of meteorological winter in the Southern Hemisphere, and not all that long ago, that was just about all the significance the day had for me. Today has something far more important about it: It’s my boy Leo’s 7th birthday! That means he’s considered a “senior” for things like dogfood (fewer calories, among other things), though none of that affects his happy demeanour.

Leo came to live with us just before his first birthday, but his Daddy Nigel only got to celebrate two of Leo’s birthdays. Nigel would be so very happy to see what a happy boy Leo is these days. I feel both happy and honoured to have spent all seven of Leo’s birthday’s with him.

To celebrate his birthday, Leo had a special breakfast, as has long been our custom. After his official birthday photo (up top), and the photo he graciously allowed me to take with him (at the bottom of this post), it was time for his birthday present: A new stuffed toy (photo at left), not that he knows what’s a birthday present is, of course (all of this is stuff I bought yesterday, which I referred to in yesterday’s post). I actually wanted to get a new toy for him because two of his toys (formerly stuffed animals…) are now basically just rags, though he still loves playing with them. This makes me want to be more like him, content with what I have and not needing any new toys.

Today I also trimmed the fur around his eyes a little bit. Every year on his birthday he’s always being groomed, about to be groomed, or was just groomed. Who am I to buck tradition? He didn’t seem to mind.

This evening I got together with some of the family to celebrate the birthday of one of our humans, and when I got home Leo got a special dinner, too. He’s not yet entirely sure about his new toy, though—which basically means he hasn’t yet torn it open. On the other hand, he played with it this evening, which he didn’t do earlier in the day.

As always, Leo makes every one of my days better. He makes me laugh, keeps me entertained, gives me someone in the house to talk to, loves playing the game where we take turns chasing each other, and he looks after me when I’m feeling sick or just sad. He really is this man’s best friend! I love how happy he seems all the time, and I like to think—or maybe I just like to flatter myself—that I have a little bit to do with his happiness. In any case, Leo seems as happy with me as I am with him, and that’s probably enough for us both.

Happy Seventh Birthday, Leo!

Related:

Leo is six – 2023
Leo is five – 2022
Leo is four – 2021
Leo is three – 2020
Leo is two – 2019
Leo is one year old – 2018
Another new addition
All blog posts tagged “Leo” – All the posts in which I’ve talked about him

Six years ago, Leo

Leo is clearly a huge part of my life, and both this blog and my social media posts show that. This makes a lot of sense, of course: Ever since Jake died in September 2021, it’s just been Leo and me. And, naturally, there’s a lot that goes with that.

Last week, Facebook served up a Memory of the day in 2018 when I announced that Leo had joined our family, and and a couple days later I also talked about it in a blog post (the photo up top is what I shared on Facebook and in that 2018 blog post, and the blog post also has another photo of him).

What I didn’t mention in the original posts was that my announcement was actually well after Leo came to live with us—a few weeks later, I think it was. I didn’t say anything earlier than that in case his first humans changed their minds and wanted to take him back. Nigel and I tried so hard to be cool about it, and to not fall head over heels for him, but Nigel was absolutely right when he said to me, “we’re besotted with him,” because we immediately were. It was also Nigel who reflected on our family of three dogs, a cat, and us, saying, “We bought a zoo!” (from the Matt Damon movie…). I expanded on that in a comment on my blog post, replying to Roger Green: “I suggested we get a tank of fish and cage of birds so we’d have a complete set. But I think this is enough.”

Six years later, it’s now just Leo and me, and every single day I’m grateful to be sharing life with him. He was an unexpected addition to our family back then, and now he’s my last—and very treasured—remnant of it. He makes me smile, even laugh, every day, and there have been times he was quite literally the only one that could do that.

So, the significance of my posts six years ago wasn’t about his “gotcha” day—I don’t remember when that was precisely because at first Nigel and I tried to pretend we were just his temporary carers. However, it was the day I first shared the fact that he’d joined our family—and you can only imagine how hard it was for me to not share photos of him before my announcement.

So, that particular FB Memory reminded me of how glad I was that he joined our family. I still am. Of course.

Picturing a weekend

I had a great weekend, from Friday right through Sunday. As it happens, there I took several relevant photos, ones that add to the story of my weekend. Not that I said much on social media, though.

I shared the photo above on my personal Facebook Sunday evening, noting, “instead of talk, here’s my favourite photo of the weekend.” It was my favourite photo, but it’s one I actually took because of another one I shared in the comments on my Facebook post:

When I shared it to Facebook, I said, “And here’s another one from earlier this morning when I woke Leo up to have his breakfast,” which was also a completely accurate comment. However, I took the photo at the top of this post because I noticed that in the second one it looked like his fur was over one eye, and he doesn’t ordinarily look like that. I think it was because of the way the sun was shining on him (the reason I took the photo), and maybe the position he’d been sleeping in pushed his fur over his eye a bit. Even so, I took the second photo to show what he normally looks like these days.

As it happens, there was yet another photo of Leo, one I took Friday afternoon, right after I was done posting my podcast episode that day. I took the photo because I thought he looked cute, but I didn’t share it online or even show family.

There was one other thing about Friday’s photo: One of Leo’s favourite toys, what’s left of a blue dog soft toy named “B-Dog”, is between his front legs. That same toy is in teh background of the photo up top, just the right of Leo’s head. I took the photo a little while after he was done with his breakfast, when he jumped up on my lap, as he often does when I’m in my chair, in order to have a snooze after he’s played with a toy for a bit. That day, it was B-Dog.

Finally, there was another photo I took on Sunday, after I’d fed Leo. It’s two fried eggs (which I’ve become pretty good at making) on toasted store-bought bread, and baked beans straight out of the can, unheated. This was a meal that made me think of Nigel, for three reasons.

First, Nigel always ate the bean straight out of the tin, and I always did, too, but I can remember one of his sisters expressing disgust (mostly real) at this because she always heated them. Every time I have baked beans out of a tin, I think of Nigel.

The second thing was that I don’t recall becoming good at making fried eggs until after I shifted to Hamilton, though maybe I’ve just forgotten. I do know that I learned the technique from a TV chef, though I’ve forgotten who that was. I crack each egg into a ramekin in case the yolk breaks, because then I’ll make scrambles eggs instead, I do the same thing when I make poached eggs, and for the same reason. Once I’ve poured the eggs into my frypan, I add around a teaspoon or so of water and cover the pan. The heat form below cooks the whites, and the steam from the water cooks the top of the egg white and the top of the yolk. Personally, I prefer a see-though lid so I can keep an eye on teh eggs so I can plate them when the top of the yolk starts to get a bit cloudy and the white is clearly firm.

And finally, there’s the toast. As I’ve said before, Nigel had peanut butter and jam on toast nearly very work days for maybe ten years before he died, eating it on the car on his way to work. Sometimes, if he was running a bit late, he’d have me make it for him (especially when we lived in our last house). However, he always insisted that the toast must be cold before it was buttered, and I thought that was crazy—though, of course, I did as he asked. I’ve always buttered my toast hot so the butter melts into the nooks and crannies.

Last week, though—and for absolutely no particular reason—I made toast the way Nigel did, and my Sunday brunch I did it again, partly so see if my first impression was right, and it was: Nigel was right, and it was better when buttered cold because the toast stayed crispy. I tried it when, like Sunday, I was having egg on toast, which can often make toast a bit soggy—but not so much if its buttered cold. He would’ve thought it was hysterical that I tried his method with toast and liked it—though I’d still butter hot toast if I was having cheese on it so the cheese would soften.

Overall, none of these photos, nor the stories behind them, are particularly important, but they are a kind of visual slice of my life this past weekend. As I’ve said a few times now, I I like having reminders, especially from photos. That’s true whether I share them or not.

Autumn adventures

Autumn is definitely here, and I’ve been watching its progress on a tree on my street, a tree that’s been in many of my photos over the past 4+ years (including above). I noticed today that most of the leaves it's dropped have come from one side, and that was after some windy days lately. Unfortunately, this tree is also about as close to “pretty autumn colours” that we get in this part of the country, which is probably because we don’t get any frosts until winter, and even then they’re mild. Even so, there’ll still be plenty of leaves to grind up when I mow the lawns next week.

That wasn’t the only nice thing in my day: Today I met up for lunch with my mother-in-law, two sisters-in-law, and my cousin-in-law. It’s always nice to have a catch up, especially when the meal is nice. After I dropped of my M-I-L at her place, I stopped at Animates to pick up flea/worm stuff for Leo, and I decided I may as well get him some more food because he’ll need more in the next month or so, and it’d save me a trip at that time.

I was trying to decide which size bag to get, because it IS expensive (it ain’t called “super-premium for nothing), and I suddenly remembered something: Leo will be seven at his next birthday (in around six weeks), and that’s the age I’m to start transitioning him to “senior” dog food—already!

So, I decided to buy a small bag of his current “adult” food, and that size will make it easier for me to manage the transition to his new food when the time comes in a couple months. Time is going so fast nowadays!

And, yes, today I wore one of my nicer shirts that I’d ironed in the past week or two (IYKYK). And for the photo above, I first shared the photo to my Instagram, and then I made a lengthy comment when Insta shared the photo to my personal Facebook; the comment described my actual day.

This post, then, is a mishmash of both of those, all squished together and spread neatly on the pan—I mean, page: Today was also a 4-year cooking anniversary—a meal I haven’t made again since. That was in a FB “Memory” this morning, and it kinda, coulda been its own blog post—I did briefly consider that. So this post, then is actually a tale of three tales. Unlike last time, none of them caused confusion, which is probably why I had to try harder to do so in this post.

Anyway, what’s the point of blogging if I don’t have a bit of fun with it now and then? Especially because good moods for me aren't necessarily all that common these days. I'm just glad that I had a nice lunch and visit with family, then I had a revelation about Leo, took a photo of one of my nearby trees, and did it all while wearing a recently ironed one of my nicer shirts. Winning!

A tale of two tales

Pretty much everyone who has used social media has seen how easy it is to inadvertently confuse people, whether we posted a photo, shared something from someone else, or maybe it was something we said, the opportunities to sow confusion seem endless. Last night, I found out it’s also possible to look a bit muddled.

I made two social media posts last night while I was watching the recorded version of a tech show that streams live on YouTube every Saturday afternoon (NZ time), something I watch in the evening because I almost never watch TV in the daytime, even on weekends, and I also watch other YouTube videos before I wathc the recording of the live stream. My first post was one I made to my personal Facebook, and the other was a photo I shared on Instagram (at the top of this post), and my Instagram posts are set to share to automatically post on Facebook, too. However, the two posts were very different in tone and focus.

My first post, directly Facebook, was about what I was watching, and how I related to the show’s content:

Tonight I was watching a discussion on the weekly live show (recorded in my time zone) show from a tech channel that made videos Nigel and I watched, often together, and as my eyes glazed over watching the video, I thought about how Nigel could both explain to me what they were on about AND educate me about what to do. I find it extremely difficult to navigate *some* of these tech issues, and while I do my best, I’m second-tier at the very, very best. To this very day, despite all my best efforts, I still struggle. And so it continues.🤷🏻‍♂️

I don’t remember what topic made me reflective, and that’s partly because they talk about a lot of subjects on the show. The bigger reason, though, is that once I start thinking about something, especially if I’m wring down my thoughts (even on Facebook), I tune out other things going on around me, especially things on TV.

The hosts of the show were most likely talking about something to do with parts for PCs, or things related to Windows, however, my computers and devices are all Apple (I even watch YouTube videos using an Apple TV attached to my television). The fact I didn’t fully grasp what they were talking about merely made me remember how well Nigel understood it all, and how much I relied on him for all things tech, something I’ve talked about many times.

Shortly after I made that Facebook post, Leo jumped up in my lap and went to sleep. He fell deeply asleep, so much so that he even snored a bit. I took the photo, and shared it to Instagram, writing:

Tonight I was watching the weekly livestream video (after the fact…) of a YouTube tech channel Nigel and I used to watch (though we never watched the streaming shows…), and I looked down. Leo was sound asleep on my lap. He’s somewhere near me always. He’s a good boy. ❤️

My Instagram post was really about Leo, and it actually didn’t matter what I was watching at the time. However, I was still feeling reflective, about an hour after my Facebook post, and that’s why I mentioned watching it. The post automatically shared to my personal Facebook, where it appeared above my first post.

There have been times in the past where I’ve decided to not share an Instagram post to Facebook, usually because I shared a different photo there. Or maybe I shared one to Facebook first. It’s more common, though, for me to share things only to Facebook—actually, I often forget about Instagram for weeks.

All of this means that it’s extremely unusual for me to have two Facebook posts that cover similar ground follow one another. I don’t have a social media “strategy”—though maybe I should—but I often try to share nice or even sweet photos on Instagram because that’s public, and I’m well aware how much of social media is worse than a clogged sewer line. Those same photos then show up on Facebook (and ones of Leo usually get more “reactions” (like Likes) than almost anything else I post there.

Like Instagram, I seldom post anything terribly serious on my personal Facebook, either, however, I’m much more likely to post something reflective on Facebook precisely because it’s not public. It never occurred to me to post the photo only to Instagram, partly because I seldom do that, but in retrospect I wish I hadn’t mentioned watching the show on the Instagram caption. In fact, I thought about editing the caption to take that reference out, but I usually only edit to correct typos, not to completely change what I’ve said.

In the end, it made me realise I need to pay a little more attention to what I’m posting, not as obsessively as “influencers” seem to do, but simply for clarity and to avoid seeming like I’m being inconsistent. In that sense, it’s a good thing that posts were even more jarring right next to each other

There’s one thing more about all this, and it’s the reason I didn’t make any changes to what I posted: Facebook is notorious for not showing FB “Friends” everything that their “Friends” post, and that means it’s probable that only a handful of my “Friends” saw even one post, and that even fewer saw, so I was quite possibly the only one who noticed the difference in tone between the two. Besides, photos of Leo are probably seen more often by my Facebook “Friends” than almost anything else I post (and yes, I'm aware that talking about the two posts could mean more people see the text of both than ever would've otherwise).

It’s easy to inadvertently confuse people when we post to social media. Last night, I found out it’s also possible to look a bit muddled, even if the only one who noticed was me.

Leo has magic, but isn’t a wizard

Today, all the unrelentingly bad news from all over the world, combined with the pressure from seemingly innumerable personal deadlines and challenges, was getting me down. Then this little guy decided he wanted to lay in my lap for a while (and, naturally, I had to take a photo!).

Once again, Leo provided the magic to make me feel less bad. It seems that whenever I feel the worst, Leo’s nearby, usually staring at me—and probably to get me to do something: Let him outside, feed him, give him a treat, or to let him lay in my lap. But it doesn’t really matter what it is he wants, if he wants anything at all, because he always pulls me out of whatever my mind is stuck in at that moment, and that helps keep me focused on “now” and on real life.

Leo’s not a wizard, and he can’t fix what’s wrong in the world or in my life, but he helps me focus on what’s right in front of me, the only thing I know that I have any sort of control over. There’s a kind of a magic in that.

Everyone needs that sort of magic in their lives, I think. I sincerely hope everyone has or finds the magic they need.