Brisingamen End Of Year Note, 2022 (June)

I took Tawbs to her last Kinder Dance class.  A “whole year” of dance.  Wow!  Later on was swimming.  I hate swim classes.  Dealing with locker rooms and public showers and humidity and traffic – all for 30 minutes of water time – 5 minutes of instruction.  Gah!  My parents did it right.  Life jacket at Bark Lake until we outgrew the kiddie one we had – then we had to stay in the shallow end of the lake with all of the slimy seaweed until we learned to swim.  I promise you – Matthew and I taught ourselves to swim pretty quickly!

            Class ended and I could tell Catawba wanted to say something to me, but I just needed to get her in and out of the shower and she knew not to complain or talk about people in public – we wait until we get in the car for that.  Upon entering the car and exiting the parking lot, Catawba-Lynn told me that the girl next to her had some nasty things to say to her.  The girl said that “If my father saw your hair, he’d take a machete to your head.”  This harassment continued in between instruction – even bringing in another boy to join in with the stupidity.  I asked Catawba-Lynn all the questions – “What were you doing at the time?  Has this happened before?  What did you do?  Did anyone else hear this?”  I wasn’t getting a good picture of what exactly happened, but I brought it up to staff the next week – her last week of class.  Tawbs ended up sitting out for half the class trying to explain what happened.  No one could figure out what kid said this to her because, apparently, Catawba-Lynn had been swimming with the wrong class – a more advanced class – and no one bothered to correct her.  Furthermore, they had her attendance all messed up, thus they had no idea when she was in class.  Tawbs has been in water since then, just not there.

            I said I had been trying to figure out taxes and cost of living and such, and in my searching and comparing I found a house in Delaware, on the Delaware River, surrounded by Augustine State Wildlife Management Area and Sliver Run Wildlife Area.  That meant few neighbors and no development!  We went to the open house, and it was beautiful and all, but I mean.  It’s a house.  Lots of thought, lots of work, lots of money.  It wasn’t enough to start the thought process of moving.

As a family we went to the Fonthill Castle – the other half of the Mercer Museum pass.  I was afraid that Tawbs wouldn’t like it, as it was a 1-2 hour guided tour.  But she loved it!  She loved being in the castle.  Probably helped that I allowed her to wear her Cinderella dress, so she got to be a “princess” in a castle.  (I’ve had enough of this princess crap.  I don’t want to forbid it – I just don’t want her to think she’s going to be a princess.  I listened to all of her goals and interests and took all of this to Lucas.  He said it sounds like she wants to be a baroness.  I then discussed it with Catawba-Lynn and it seems to be a good fit.  Now she says she wants to be a baroness – landowner, inventor, scientist, politician/activist, business owner, paleontologist, entomologist, farmer, castle owner.  Not a princess.  She wasn’t born into it – so she would have to marry into it – and who wants that?  Just control your own empire as a baroness – and she loves that idea!  Excellent.  Be a baroness.  Parenting for the win!!)  I recommend the Fonthill Castle.  It was beautiful and quirky and informative.

Kids Castle, the huge playground in Doylestown, was open.  Again, another place I recommend.  It’s roughly a 20-foot tall? 30 foot tall? I don’t know, it’s a huge castle playground.  Great place.  Benches.  Walking.  Picnic area.  Bathrooms.  Recommended.  We got her home in time to clean her up and take her dance pictures.  What a day.

            That weekend Catawba-Lynn had her dance rehearsal and recital.  I volunteered to be the backstage dance mom or Catawba’s class.  I didn’t realize that Tawbs liked or cared that I stay in the basement during dance or that I am present during classes and such – but she is very proud that I am lurking near.  She was very excited I was the backstage mom.  I had to entertain the girls in between dances, help them in the bathroom, help them into their costumes and just keep track of them.  They did great.  I was so proud of Tawbs.  I wouldn’t have picked out her costume to wear, but I understand it is dance, so it is what it is.  But they looked real sweet.  She loved it.  I bought flowers for all of the girls in her class and she gave them their flowers after the whole performance.  Tawbs has asked me repeatedly to be that again for the classes she dances in during her recital.

The next day I got her to the LegoLand Discovery Center, and she had her last 4H Cloverbud meeting of the season.  “Summer” was upon us!

We knew Tawbs was going to need glasses, and finally it was time to buy her first pair.  When doing classwork, reading, Lego building, and sometimes traveling, Tawbs needs to wear the beautiful pink glasses that she picked out.

            That night, I went to let the dogs outside and there were emergency lights all over.  Come to find out, there was a murderer running about in Norwood.  A neighbor said she hoped that the guy would get on out of Norwood and I said I didn’t want him going anywhere – I wanted him caught right here in Norwood!  Let criminals knew we are not here to mess around!  I don’t think the guy was caught though, sadly.

            There are 28 libraries in out library system, in Delaware County, and we utilize them all.  But we found that Upper Chichester has a stand-alone library, which we visited.  Tawbs enjoyed being there.  But we are invested in the system, and we do not live close to the Upper Chichester library.

            Later that night we went to one of the Rose Tree Park live concerts.  That night’s concert was Delaware County Symphony.  We went to a few this past year.  I would have liked to attend more; however, it just wasn’t in the cards for us this past year.  Maybe 2023.

We went to a couple of Cabela’s events this year as well.  Free cookies and pretzels and gift card raffles.  Cabela’s is dog friendly, so Sessrumnir came to some as well!  We did not win any of the raffles but had a good time.

            We had our second show in June.  We went to the Bryn Mawr dog show held in the horse arena.  We didn’t show well, but both days we had very good judges who were understanding that Sessrumnir was young, and I was new.  Both judges, both days, tried giving me a ribbon, even though I didn’t qualify for them, and they also excitedly told me I could show in the owner-handler show – and then they had to take it back.  That made me feel good though – the judges were happy to see the American Water Spaniel out showing.

Funny story, we were sitting on the side watching the show.  During the terrier group, Catawba-Lynn was busy setting up her toys and fort among our cooler and chairs.  The judge had the dogs lined up; the handlers were doing their best to show off their dogs.  The American Staffordshire Terrier’s handler used/uses hotdogs as bait.  The dog, Trouble, would ever so intently stare at the hotdogs flying through the air.  Well, things were getting intense, and the handler was flinging hotdog pieces – Trouble looked beautiful.  Well one of the hotdog pieces got away from her and smack, hit Tawbs in the head.  We laughed – Sessrumnir cleaned it up and Trouble sadly didn’t win group but placed.  Well, during Thanksgiving this year, I was watching The National Dog Show (not to be confused with The National Championship held in Florida, mid-December) held at the Philadelphia Expo Center, on “TV” as I wrote out this letter.  As the American Staffordshire Terrier came out, I wondered if it was the same team.  I saw the handler throwing bait and sure enough, it was!  And *spoilers* Trouble won the Terrier Group at the National Dog Show in “Philadelphia.”

            Another exciting thing at the Bryn Mawr show was the buzz and energy for Westminster.  Many handlers were going right from Bryn Mawr to Westminster.  While watching Westminster, I recognized a handful of teams, including *spoilers again* Trumpet the Bloodhound, who won Westminster, 2022.  We were talking about Westminster at the first competition show handling class that Sessrumnir and I took.  Sessrumnir had great movement when he wanted but couldn’t help himself – he just kept jumping on the judge – who was understanding as he was a puppy – but gave me pointers and tips on how to fix it.  That’s why I was there – I was paying money to work on correcting an in-ring issue.  Our next week’s class was poor.  I was highly disappointed with the judge.  Within minutes of seeing Sessrumnir and I, she thought it necessary and proper to take Sessrumnir from me and choke-drag him down and back – even going so far as to loudly – in front of the whole class, tell Sessrumnir, “Don’t look at her” (as he looked back at her and tried to get away from her) “She can’t help you.”  What the Fuck?  Of course I had something to say to her, reminding her that the AKC saw her actions as border-line abuse.  She of course blew me off – saying no judge would put up with him and that I was wasting my money showing him.  “If he actually does anything right, then you can treat him.”  Talk about a bi-polar experience.  One week, great!  Next week, um – it took me until November to trust going to class there again.

            Battleship New Jersey was another library museum pass that we utilized.  I’m well aware that Battleships are large, but I could not fathom how huge and a complete mini city the ship was.  I forgot I was on a ship.  It was amazing!  Up on the deck, equip with sound effects, model 50-cal machine guns were mounted at the sides of the ship.  Museum goers could pretend to man the guns.  Of course, we very much enjoyed “attacking” the enemy – Philadelphia.

I may not have been too successful with showing Sessrumnir, but Catawba was a different story.  The Swarthmore Library hosted a fun little dog show at Little Crum Creek Park.  Tawbs and Sessrumnir were entered into several specialties – but the two of them won first place in the Brown Dog Competition.  Even after Tawbs was walking Sess and he jumped and she fell on her butt.  She got up and finished and they won.  Congratulations, Catawba-Lynn and Sesrumnir!

Couple more interesting things happened in June.  Catawba-Lynn and I went to the LegoLand Discovery Center with Justine and her boys.  We congratulated Tomo and Becca on being in a contract at the same time that we were truly realizing and voicing that we could not afford to live in PA.  We looked at more homes in DE to compare lifestyles.  We honestly were attempting to look at all options available to us.  But, if we were to buy a different house, we needed to sell ours first.  We were responsible for paying to put a curb in the front of our house.  Connor, Luke’s brother, said it would most likely be a $10,000 job.  Our realtor said that to sell the house, it would cost us roughly $33,000 – most of which is paid to the county and state to change ownership.  This is hugely different than the roughly $7,000 – $11,000 it cost to sell our Wisconsin home.  Rough.  Once you move to Pennsylvania, it digs it’s claws in and refuses to let you leave, but again, we were collecting knowledge.  10/17/2022 would be (was) our 2-year anniversary for owning the house.  If we sold the house within 2 years of purchase, we would have to pay a tax on our “gains.”  Collecting knowledge.

            Keeping to our schedule, Catawba-Lynn and I went to the Brandywine Zoo for story time.  Afterwards, we wandered about and looked at animals for a moment but had to head home so Catawba could attend her Varsity Tutors Wildlife Creature Camp.  I carry a giant backpack whenever we go hiking or to a zoo or park.  I have food and books and drinks and extra clothes – all the things, in my bag.  I also carry Catawba-Lynn’s flask – her 6oz water bottle.  It gives me great joy to hand my daughter a flask for her to drink out of.  We were exiting the zoo and Catawba-Lynn was talking talking talking talking – I was just trying to get us to the car so we could get home to get to class.  There was a black gentleman, peacefully trying to eat his lunch at the park picnic table.  I reached into the side pocket in the backpack I was wearing, still walking – Tawbs still blathering on about a 5-year-old’s plan to, I don’t know, cross breed insects or something.  I was on the concrete path but accidently mis-stepped right as I grasped the flask.  There was no saving me; down I went in the most ungraceful of fashions.  My huge bag landed on top of me.  My capris leg was ripped, my knee instantly bleeding.  I laid in a crumpled mess only for a moment.  Tawbs, totally unfazed, stood over me, and continued to talk about her praying mantis spider as she plucked the flask from my hand, opened it up and took a big drink.  I stood up and assessed my capris – ripped.  Instant bruise and blood on my leg.  This poor gentleman saw and heard it all.  And he couldn’t look away.  He stopped eating and just stared until we got to the iQ.  I don’t blame him – that was a total shit show!