Pablo is Learning from Cheddar

First, let me remind you that the last time Cheddar stayed with us he was dubbed Cheddar the Houdini Dog. Well, looks like Pablo is learning from Cheddar. Currently we have a house full of animals; Cheddar the dog and Sabrina the cat along with our own Pablo (at least it feels like a lot when you are used to one). So last night Peter and I were winding down and getting ready for bed – taking the contacts out, brushing teeth, nightly reading etc. when we realized the rain was pretty light, we figured we would take this opportunity to walk the dogs. Well, we find Cheddar and Sabrina but no Pablo. We look under beds, in his crate, under the kitchen table…no Pablo. The last time I had “lost” Pablo he was in the garage, so I curiously open the door to the garage…and there is Pablo sitting on the steps. What? How? Who knows really, these dogs have a magic way about them, maybe he wanted some peace in the house full of animals?

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It was a cold evening, but I was running in my field so it didn’t matter much. I can convince myself I am not all that cold when I am out running in my field, it is one of my favorite things you know. The normal routine; check out the heap of old food scraps in that one backyard, that spot that bigger dog always pees, the brush pile that has so many wonderful smells and then my sixth sense made me aware of something in the trees. I had to have a look.

There it was, something black and white (isn’t everything!) – a cat? Let me take a closer look. Smells a little funny, but it is definitely not fast like a cat, the big bushy tail…ow, ow, what, ow, my eyes, my eyes, burning, ow, what in the heck…run, back home, fast, run…oh, what stinks? Is it me? My eyes burn…turn around, run toward home. I smell that heap of old food scraps in that one backyard, so I am going the right way, ohhh, can’t I get away from the smell, maybe weaving will help. What do the wiser dogs tell me…run, fast and far.

I found the house. Good, but my eyes and the stink. Let me in. No. What? I want my bed, I want to run…I don’t know what I want…just…the burn, the smell.

Uh oh, a tub and I am now in it…I don’t like the looks of this. Sniff. What is that? Lick…yum. Not bad. Lick, lick, lick. Somehow I am feeling a little better. Alright, I am outside and it is cold. Are we done? I am cold and my one eye still hurts. Yeah, a towel. Brrrr. What’s with all the noses in my face? Can I go in yet? I want my pillow and warmth. More noses, please, will this stop, I am cold and tired and my eye hurts.

Oh yes, I am going inside. My pillow, a towel…ah life is good…zzz

Cheddar the Houdini dog

So Cheddar is vacationing with us this week. Pablo is naturally excited and the evening was full of running, jumping, jawing and those odd play noises dogs make. Bedtime inevitably arrives and the dogs are put to bed with Cheddar in his crate and Pablo on his pillow.

Pablo, as he often does, comes in the bedroom in the early morning to check to see if Peter and I have mysteriously disappeared during the night (at least this in what I believe he is thinking) by putting his front paws on the bed so he can see us. Last night this happened pretty much in the middle of the night, so in order to ensure a restful rest of the night, I put Pablo in his crate and no more than a minute after I laid back down, I feel a nose on my back…I freeze, listen and realize it is Cheddar.

My mind is confused, Cheddar was in his crate, but I don’t try to solve the mystery…it isn’t worth it, so I take him back out to the living room and put him in his crate. Again, not more than a minute goes by and I hear a dog drinking water in the hallway…what is going on, both dogs are in their respective crates? It is Cheddar again. By this point I am thinking he is quite the Houdini dog. I take him back out to the living room and put him in his crate and this time I remember he has two doors in his crate. I check the second one…the gig is up…I know Houdini’s secret…after latching the second door I have a restful rest of the night!

Recognizing the Risen

In a devotion a co-worker gave last week, he was sharing from a chapter in Ravi Zacerious‘ book Jesus Among Other Gods. One minor point really jumped out to me: Jesus’ enemies seemed to understand some of His teachings better than the Apostles.

Matthew 26:62-66 tells about the chief priests and Pharisees who asked to have guards placed by the tomb because they remembered Jesus saying He would rise again in three days. They were afraid the disciples were going to steal His body, so they could pretend He had risen. Yet when the disciples saw Him, they thought He was a ghost (Luke 24:37). Can you imagine the disciples practically falling out of their chairs, “Ahhk, wha…what are you doing here?” And it is not like the disciples had never seen anyone raised from the dead before either.

I think sometimes we are too close to a particular situation for our eyes to focus. I hope you don’t miss seeing God work right under your nose this spring.

If someone takes your tunic

This morning in my men’s group we read and discussed Matthew 5:38-42, part of the Sermon on the Mount. Reading it is hard, applying it is even harder. But then on my drive into work from small group I heard an awesome story on the radio about a man who was robbed at knife point when he was getting off a New York subway. He handed over his wallet thinking “If you’re willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money.” As the robber was walking away the  man called after him, “If you’re going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm.” The rest of the story is a perfect example of why Christ tells us to love our enemies. Listen for yourself.

Savannah for St. Patty’s Day

We spent the weekend in Savannah, GA. It was the first trip for either of us to that Georgian city. We were visiting our friend Rachel. We choose this past weekend because Savannah evidently has a huge St. Patrick’s Day parade and party. The parade we can vouch for, it was three and a half hours long. The partying, we could tell lots of people were excited about that, but we pretty much avoided the night life, neither one of us was much for getting River Faced.

The parade has the tradition of letting lots of former Grand Marshals ride on the back of convertibles followed by their extended family. Also, girls and pre-noon-drunk women would run out and kiss random soldiers, firefighters and Shriner’s on the cheek. The boys from a military school were especially popular targets.

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The weather was about 5 degrees too cold that day, but that’s what I get when I try to dress too optimistically in March. One of my favorite sights was this Ewok dog.

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The day ended with paying $20 to park in an unlabled garage for 1.5 hours. Saturday consisted of eating lots of yummy food and walking around town. The She Crab Soup at The Pirate House and Rachel’s breakfasts were especially good. The most unexpected fun was when the power went out for about 2.5 hours Saturday night. There is something about having to light candles and use flash lights that is honestly kind of fun.

A side note – books on tape are amazing at helping to kill time on the long drive. A pleasant surprise – we got to meet Jen’s grandpop for lunch on the drive home.

More Pictures

Welcome to the New Old Blog

Judging by the previous post, it doesn’t look like much has happened in the last two years. On the contrary, we got married, have done some great traveling and have enjoyed getting to know extended family. As far as the blog goes, in the last two years, all of my writings have been about marketing and design. Jen and I (and Pablo) wanted a place to keep friends and family in the loop with our lives. All the work talk has been given a proper home over at: www.petervcook.com. All the old, non-work related posts (ie. the Katrina relief trip from two years ago) have decided to move over here to their new address.

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So welcome, to day one, of our little two person and dog family blog.

Katrina: Back to the Pass

It has been seven months since the storm. The images are less vivid, its fading from memory and no ones wondering where their next meal will come from anymore. But the Gulf coast is still very much reeling from Katrina. Two weeks ago I became the first to utilized the new Cre8tive Group Missions Trip Benefit™ (except for Andy I guess, whose trips showed the need for such a policy). I went with another group of 75, again mostly students from Asbury College plus the wonderful addition of my hot fiancée Jen.

Arriving back in Pass Christian, it was remarkable both how much work had been done and how much work there was still to do. One house would be mere weeks away from being ready to be lived in again, while the one right next to it had not even been touched since the storm, still filled with rotting fridges and mounds of mildew that were once called “couches.” What an amazing psychological strain for those who are living in town; those who are trying to rebuild their homes and lives. If and when they get everything back in order, they still have to drive by the devastation each time they go to the nearest grocery store a town or two away. The remaining residents have gotten used to living in a trailer with less space than my office.

So what did I learn? People need hope. People everywhere, in every situation, need hope. Seven months after a major hurricane, they need hope to fight off depression. Hope that things are going to get better, that life will return to normal, that they will one day live in a building that doesn’t have wheels. So what if I helped build a couple sheds, cleaned up a yard and painted a house? In the grand scope of things, that’s really not all that much progress. But, what we really did was build a little hope, show them a little love to know that they’re not forgotten about, and get to know the residents of a little town where we’ll likely celebrate our anniversary some year.

Katrina: Dreamland

So right now I am just 7 hours away from leaving on my second trip down to Pass Christian, Mississippi, to continue chipping at the relief we were able to take a part in three months ago. I am very much looking forward to it again. One thing that was a highlight of the traveling part of the trip itself was this great Bar-B-Que place Joe B. had heard about on the Food Network. Dreamland, down in Alabama somewhere. So we found out where it was and stopped. We had three vans full of hungry folks and we were excited to get some Bar-B-Que.

We got seated on not the prettiest of patio’s we had ever seen. We could tell this place was local, with a capital “ocal”. On the tables were loaves of Wonder Bread and styrofoam containers of their home made sauce. We assumed we were supposed to dip and snack for something like an appetizer. They soon took our “Proud to serve Pepsi” drink orders…sweat tea for most. When the waitress returned, we realized we hadn’t gotten any menus yet. She said “We don’t have menus. Cause we only serve ribs. Ribs. No chicken, no beef, no pulled pork, no baby back ribs. No sides, no fries, no beans, no cole slaw, no corn bread…” Well you get the idea. “We only serve ribs. You can get them in three sizes, a plate, a half rack or a full rack. It’s cheaper to slit a full rack than get two half racks.” So we were kind of shocked, and I was more shocked when no one in the group really had any problem with that. Seems like everyone likes ribs enough to get them. So we quickly count the number of people we have and divide by two, and we order that many racks. It was good stuff too!

As we were making our way out of the restaurant some of us naturally stopped in the restroom, we had a long car ride ahead of us. As we were getting in the car, one of the other guys asked if anyone had noticed the bathroom graffiti. And now I normally try to keep my eyes away from whatever nastiness is written on those walls, but some thing caught my eye. The bathroom graffiti wasn’t your normal dirty graffiti. It had words like “Ribs” and “Bar-B-Q” in it. Turns out it was all along the lines of “Dreamland is the BEST”, “I love ribs”, “Dreamland Bar-B-Que is awesome”. Wow, now that’s saying something!