Rachel Friedman

The Dog Days of Summer is the name for the most sultry period of the year and boy are we in it now!
Hot hot and more hot. For a bit of history, it was the ancient Romans — obviously not distracted by pursuits such as internet surfing, television and vacuuming — who connected the dots of stars into 88 constellations.

The brightest of all the stars is found in the constellation Canis Major (the big dog) and is called Sirius (also known as The Dog Star). Translation: Scorching. And seriously scorching outside it is indeed! Record breaking heat waves seem to be surrounding the country. While 85% of this country now has air conditioning, I’m in the minority here {although I’m grateful my 100 year old house was built with great cross ventilation}. I do, however, have electricity and I’m even more grateful for my array of fans.

There are only twelve months in a year and 365 days in most of them. Assignations for months and days for various interest groups to raise awareness abound. This month is National Stress Awareness Month and I phool you not. It must be legal now as this is the 18th year.

I know I have animals around me — my own pets and an awareness of nature and animals in the world — because their presence, antics, focus on the things in life that really matter — reduce my stress (not that stress isn’t sometimes a good thing but that’s a post for another time). My dogs add joy, motivation for exercise, a reason to sweep obsessively and a grounding that keeps me centered. An ethologist at heart, I spend inordinate amounts of time just observing. It never fails to fascinate me.

Lily the Queen died nearly 8 weeks ago. The historically sound triumvirate – 3 kids, 3 cats, 3 dogs — has been fang shwayed into imbalance with 3 kids, 3 cats, and just 2 dogs.

From the very beginning when she came into my life as a gangly rescue pup — serendipitiously and unplanned in January of 2000, Lily kept benevolent control over the human and animal gang. My aide-de-camp. An organic nanny cam. Chase games with Bean. Tolerance of Trip’s terrier antics. A jarring habit of one LOUD bark at the cats if they walked too close to her while she was resting. Never phased the cats. Freaked me out when I wasn’t prepared. I miss it.

Lily's recent death at age 10 paralleled the entire first decade of the 21st century. She came into my life on January 2, 2000 and she left it 10 days ago almost exactly ten years later on January 10, 2010. I've recently rediscovered a box of old video tapes including a lot of footage of my children when young and, of course, my dogs past and present were well represented, sometimes to the exclusion of the kids!

The process of video preservation -- transferring the tapes to the hard drive of a computer and then editing the footage into interesting little movies for both personal and professional use is an exciting but nevertheless daunting proposition.