ThisWeek Community Newspapers Olentangy
Page A4
March 24, 2011
Library news The following programs are offered at the Powell branch of the Delaware County District Library, 460 S. Liberty St. For information, call (614) 888-9160. Library hours are 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday and Saturday, and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Registration is not required for any story time unless noted. • Sesame Street party, family program, 6:30 p.m., Monday, March 28. Stories, games
and crafts. • Toddler Time, for ages 2-3, 10 a.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays. • Baby Time, for ages birth-24 months, 11 a.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays. • Family Story Time, for preschool ages, 10 a.m. on Fridays. To download e-books onto computers or iPods, visit www.delawarelibrary.org and click on the “e-books” link on the home page.
Military & Veteran’s Family Appreciation Day March 26, 2011, 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Commentary & opinion
GET TO KNOW US before YOU NEED US! If you or a family member are either active military or a military veteran, we invite you to visit the Delaware County Chapter for our First Annual Military and Veteran’s Family Appreciation Day. There is no cost to attend. We will give away personal vintage first aid kits to the first 50 families! We will have exhibitors, food, and activities for the kids. Join Us!
There will be a drawing for a free Home Disaster Preparedness Kit. We will also have a limited number of coupons for FREE CPR or First Aid training for our militaryfamilymembers.
Just thinking
Spring: Time to wash and wash and wash the dog screen test for “101 Dalmatians,” or a remake of “Lady and the Tramp,” yet he has a sure sense of theMARGO ater. When the BARTLETT water’s running into the downstairs sink, he can fake nonchalance all the way up the stairs and into the farthest corner of the farthest bedroom without once breaking character. That’s more acting than I can do as I follow along behind him, pretending I just want to see him up close. “Come on, Pip,” I say in wheedling tones that even I can see straight through. “Hey Buddy. Nothing bad’s going to happen.” Then, because I don’t like to lie to my dog, I feel compelled to acknowledge the truth. “You are, in fact, going to have a bath, but you don’t really mind baths,” I say to him, or at least at him, since he’s under the bed. Even there, though, he manages to express innocent bewilderment: “I’m just lying under the bed minding my own business” he says. It’s almost enough to make me forget the bath and take him to Hollywood instead. But I can’t, because for the second (or third or fourth) time during the first few weeks of spring, he has gone outside and rubbed his neck in something so
foul, so awful and stinky and horrible that one whiff of him, even outside on the porch, is enough to make me wish I owned a gas mask. If I’m both fast and lucky, I close the doors to the stairs before he can amble through them – so casually! If he were taller, he could be Clark Gable playing Mr. Butler. After that, the game is over. I carry him – turning my head away from his neck – to the sink, plump him into the water and watch as he slowly relaxes in the warm soapiness. “You do too like baths,” I tell him as I suds and rinse, suds and rinse. He just sighs and leans his wet head against me. But I know the truth. Because after I’ve lifted him out of the sink, stood back for the big shake, and cleaned the bathroom within an inch of its life, I’m barely given time to dry out myself before he’s turned his neck into another unspeakable outdoor spot and the ritual begins again. Ah, spring. If any season resembles paradise more than another to a dog, it’s this one, when every smell is front and center, and the very best ones can be applied directly to the neck. At least the bathroom’s clean. And yes, I do see the irony in that. Margo Bartlett can be reached at mbartlett@thisweeknews.com.
Phone: 740-362-2021 Ext: 119 www.delco-redcross.org www.facebook.com/delcoredcross
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Everyday we prove that outstanding childcare doesn’t have to break the bank! Under New Management, Previously Liberty Childcare Supervised and staffed by licensed healthcare professionals.
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Ah, spring. Season of washing the dog every few minutes. Not that we look forward to this ritual. On the contrary, in this house, dog-bathing is roundly dreaded – by the dog, who attempts to wander casually away when he hears water running into the deep sink in the bathroom, and also by my husband and me, because we know that even a best-case scenario will leave both us and the bathroom splattered with water, coated with dog hair, and reeking of whatever that is in dog shampoo. It’s not scent, I know that. Scent is something that smells good. This smells like a night in a holding center. The one positive thing about it is how thoroughly protected against mites and fleas we all feel in the hours immediately after a bath. I feel downright invulnerable, and whether that’s because I’m fortified with flea-fighting agents or because no decent flea would dream of getting close to any of us and possibly picking up that odor hardly matters. The fact is, I feel healthy and sanitized and also as if my fur is thick and shiny. Which is all very well, but if my husband and I develop even the slightest urge to go out in the yard and sniff for rabbits, we’re going to start taking the dog someplace else to be washed. That’s what my older daughter and her husband do. They drop off their dog on their way to work, and when they pick him up later, he’s clean and trim and he has a jaunty kerchief tied around his neck. Furthermore, Fritz loves the people who bathe him. Although he’s a shy dog, a dog so shy that my daughter and her husband can’t take him for a walk because if they do get him as far as the sidewalk, he’ll want to go back indoors if he sees a stranger. And I don’t mean a stranger approaching with his hand out, ready to scratch Fritz’s ears. I mean a stranger a block and a half away, a tiny, indistinct smudge that no one except this neurotic dog would even recognize as human. But I’ve drifted from my point, which is that once Fritz makes friends, he keeps them, and he is friends with his groomers. He cries with happiness when he enters the business, and apparently he can’t wait to jump into the tub to be sudsed. Our dog might learn to feel that way too, I’ve thought. He’d go eagerly off to his bath, and we’d be spared the drenching. Of course, before we can be drenched we have to find him. As far as we know our dog has had no stage experience – has never played Toto in “The Wizard of Oz,” has never been through a
American Red Cross Delaware County 380 Hills Miller Rd. Delaware, OH 43015 Stuart Gray, Director of Emergency Services
Brenda@bighearts-littlehands.com Right in the heart of Powell! 14 Grace Drive • P.O. Box 1298 Powell, OH 43065-1298