We have just posted the 100th episode to Alex’s YouTube channel. You can watch above, or go to ALeXMXeLA.com to subscribe. He decided not to do anything special for the 100th episode other than continuing to play through the Portal 2 Community Test Chamber series called “Into the Multiverse” that we were in the middle of. You can watch all of our play through of this series that has been published so far here.
He continues to record new episodes faster than I have been able to push them out to YouTube. Episode 100 was recorded way back on May 29th. The most recent episode, recorded this Tuesday, will be Episode 240 when I eventually get around to getting it posted…
He has 25 subscribers now and is very serious about his channel. He may only be six, but he knows what he wants!
Subscribe and tell your friends to subscribe too! :-)
On this week’s Curmudgeon’s Corner podcast most of the show is on all the crazy Trump news from the last week. There was a lot. Battles with Khan, complaints about debates and voter fraud, the baby incident, the non-endorsements… and much much more. Sam and Ivan cover all of it. But first they cover some of the other events in the world… Libya, Zika, Clinton’s email… and they celebrate a milestone for the show!
Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2016-08-04
Length this week – 1:52:18
1-Click Subscribe in iTunes View Podcast in iTunes View Raw Podcast Feed Download MP3 File Follow the podcast on Facebook
Show Details:
(0:00:10-0:04:45) But First
Agenda
100 Downloads!
(0:05:30-0:33:08) Everything Else
Libya Engagement
American Wars
Zika Response
Clinton Email Lie
Iran Cash
(0:33:46-0:53:32 ) Trumpity Trump Trump Part 1
Trump vs Khan
Trump on debates
Trump on voter fraud
Trump’s effect on GOP after a loss
(0:55:32-1:19:14 ) Trumpity Trump Trump Part 2
Trump and the Baby
Trump non-endorsements
Trump ignites GOP Civil War
Trump’s faithless elector
Trump dump?
(1:20:17-1:51:58) Trumpity Trump Trump Part 3
Trump University
Trump’s Purple Heart
Trump’s WaPo Interview
Trump and the Iran Video
Trump on nukes
Trump sanity
The GOP owns this
No more ticket splitting
I’m with her
Note: Timestamps are accurate, but many audio players are not very precise on the timestamps they show, especially when scanning forwards and backwards, so depending on your player, if you scan to a specific time, you may not get exactly what is shown above and may have to scan back or forward a bit to get what is expected.
The Curmudgeon’s Corner theme music is generously provided by Ray Lynch.
Lovely, huh? I was trying to do an obstacle course Alex had built in our driveway. I was on my bike. I fell. Crunched my foot between a wooden 4×4 and my bike. It wasn’t a hard fall, and at first I thought it was nothing and I would just get up and brush it off. That idea disappeared once I tried to stand up.
After a night of crawling slowly from room to room since I couldn’t stand or walk, and with even the crawling resulting in quite a bit of pain, Brandy made me go to the doctor. :-)
For now I have a boot on my left foot and I’ve got some crutches. I’ve been referred to an orthopedic office to see exactly what more they want to do with me. Sounds like it will probably be more than just the boot. In the mean time, I’m hobbling around the house, but even going from room to room is a fairly big effort, and often quite painful. The doctor says no weight at all on the foot if I don’t want to make it worse, and that I need to minimize how much I’m up and around.
So I’m thinking I have lots of working from home in my immediate future, and probably quite a bit of time just in bed or on the couch. Sounds like minimum 4 to 6 weeks to heal, possibly more.
Sigh.
But hey, at age 44 this is my first broken bone ever, so I guess I did pretty well…
We no longer have a teenager! How amazing is that?
According to my calculations, which take into account time zones, the fact that a year isn’t an even number of days, leap years, and all that fun stuff, at the moment this posts… 2015-10-21 01:44 UTC (6:44 PM on the 20th Pacific, 9:44 PM on the 20th Eastern) Amy will be exactly 20 years old. TWENTY!
<Insert bad joke about paying rent here.>
Happy birthday Amy! It is an honor to have you as my daughter. Love you!
As of the moment this posts at 12:43 UTC on the 16th (5:43 AM Pacific, 8:43 AM Eastern) I will be officially exactly 44 years old, including the complications of leap years and time zones and everything.
The years go by quickly these days I guess. Anyway, yay?
At the moment this posts… 2015-09-13 03:31 UTC (the 12th at 8:31 PM Pacific, 11:31 PM Eastern)… Alex will be exactly 6 years old accounting for leap years and time zones and all the rest. So…
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX!!!
As I have done on previous birthdays, here is a quick interview with Alex about turning six… well, almost 12 minutes. So maybe not so quick. I thought about editing it down to five minutes or something, but I was too lazy to take the time.
As usual, I suspect only close family will watch the whole thing. :-)
And now for my usual rundown of things that are different from the last one of these posts (which this time was from when he turned 5).
First, to get it out of the way, this summer Alex was diagnnosed on the autism spectrum. In his particular case the parts of this that actually affect anything that requires attention manifest as social anxiety, with some selective mutism. To put it simply, he is very outgoing and self-directed and talks constantly at home or with people he knows very well, but he shuts down quickly in unfamiliar situations, and takes a very long time to become comfortable in those new situations, especially if he is required to interact with lots of people. He is working with a councilor on techniques to make things easier on him, but new people and places are still pretty stressful for him, which sometimes results in him acting out in one way or another, refusing to speak at all, making animal noises instead of speaking, or just plan hiding. That kind of thing.
The one other aspect that is actually problematic is that he can be very inflexible with rules he makes for himself. Normally, this is not a problem… this, uh, describes me quite well too… but one particular rule is one we are working hard to get him to change his mind on. In December, after years of it not being a problem at all, he decided that if he were ever to use any bathroom other than the downstairs bathroom in our house, that would make Daddy die, so therefore no matter what, he would never do that. Which means if he doesn’t come home to “check his trains” at least once every six hours or so he is very uncomfortable, and if it goes past eight or so, we’re in deeper trouble. We really want this particular rule to go away. Not really concerned about any others at the moment. :-)
This year Alex lost his dog. He had never known life without a dog. Dog was his first word. Roscoe was his constant companion. It was very sad, and a big deal for a five year old. He mostly tried to be matter of fact about it, but it was clear there was a big hole in his life, and questions and concerns about life and death became a common theme for many months.
This year Alex also got a new dog. As of his birthday today, Miley has been with us exactly a week. We have yet to see how everything will work out in the long run, but Alex was very very excited to get the new dog. Perhaps a little too excited, as can be seen in the interview, but we are working on that. By being so submissive to him Miley isn’t really helping to discourage Alex’s excesses though.
The once unimaginable has happened. While trains are still a frequent toy, and train games are still played, the train obsession appears to be over. From about age 1.5 to age 4.5, trains were the be all and end all of everything. Since then they have been slowly fading. Not going away, but fading. He will always have a soft spot for trains I think (and maybe hope a little) but they are now just one of many things, not the center of everything.
But, there is a new central obsession, and for almost a year it has been Minecraft. Minecraft wasn’t even mentioned in last year’s birthday post. He started playing soon after, and was instantly hooked. First all creative mode. Then all survival mode for awhile. Now one or the other depending on what he is planning to do and who is going to be playing with him. Minecraft is a family activity, and all of us play with him, sometimes all of us at once, in the same world, cooperating to build things. As each month goes by, his creations have gotten more complex and more creative. He now routinely builds very large complex fully decorated structures. He plans out what he is going to do, builds a outline or scaffolding, then fills in the rest of the structure as needed. Often he acts as the central coordinator, determining the overall plan, then dividing up the necessary tasks between each of the family members he can get to join him. He’s got many Minecraft worlds he is cultivating over time on each and every one of our devices, many of which have now slowly developed over the course of the whole year. Recently, when opening one world, he said “This was one of my very first worlds, see, look, I didn’t know how to do anything yet, everything I built here is RUBBISH! RUBBISH I tell you!”
He started riding his actual bike! Sometimes. Occasionally. It still has training wheels on it, and he still PREFERS his push bike (which he calls his “tool bike”), but he has spent time riding his bike around the neighborhood with me. He could probably actually already ride without the training wheels, it is just a confidence thing. He likes what he is already secure with. Thus still prefering the push bike. We’ll probably start raising the training wheels soon…
He no longer has a single favorite movie or TV show. He watches a wide variety of different shows, and lots of different kinds of videos on YouTube too. Not much train stuff any more. But lots of Minecraft related stuff. And other “let’s play” kinds of game videos. But other things too. For TV he still primarily like shows that are in some way based on vehicles, but there are a few that are not.
For many months he talked about how he wanted to go camping. Eventually, we bought a cheap tent and went camping… in the yard. He loved it, and he and I ended up sleeping in the tent four or five nights. I asked if that meant he was ready to go camping in the actual woods or something. He said, no, in the yard was what he had meant all along, and that is the only place he wants to camp. :-)
He sneaks into presents. Knowing that one of the Amazon boxes was a present, despite multiple warnings not to open it, he just couldn’t resist. He opened it just enough to peek. He almost lost the present because of it, but he earned it back later, so it was still one of the presents under his Birthday Tree. (Yes, birthday tree, we did a birthday tree to put the presents under. :-)
As usual, I’m sure there is much more, but that is what I could remember off the top of my head just now. I’m sure it is more than enough for most folks reading this. :-)
[Edit 14:42 UTC to remove an extraneous space.]
[Edit 2016-09-12 07:46 UTC to fix a typo found a year later… “w” -> “few”.]
He did not seem impressed. I asked him if he had a good time. Silence. I asked him what the best thing that happened today was. Silence. I asked him what the worst thing that happened today was. He said, “Everything. Everything that happened today was the worst.” I tried to get more information out of him, but failed.
Urgh. Hope it gets better little guy!
[We’re going through a chaotic few weeks with regard to school scheduling, and while today was the first day at one school (a brand new one to him), his old school is still in the mix too (it starts tomorrow) and it won’t be clear for a couple more weeks if our original plan of having him do a half day at each school will actually work, or if he will end up full time at one of them… it depends on a lot of factors, some of which aren’t under our control…]
Almost exactly three days ago as I post this, we lost our dog Roscoe. He was an old dog for his size, so we knew we didn’t have too long, but he didn’t have any obvious health problems, so we thought we had a little while longer. He had gotten slower with age, and in the last few weeks he had gotten a little bit grumpier, but otherwise he was acting normally up through Sunday afternoon. After dinner we realized we hadn’t seen him in a little bit, and he hadn’t come in from the backyard to beg for the last bites of our food like he usually does. We found him curled up in a hole he dug under his favorite bush, unwilling to move. With some effort we got our old 100 pound dog into the car to an emergency vet.
The news was not good. He was bleeding internally from a previously unknown tumor. There were no good treatment options and an impossible prognosis, with very little chance of meaningful recovery. They made a strong recommendation that we end it right away rather than let him suffer.
Brandy and I had a little time to say goodbye before we let Roscoe go. We pet him and told him we loved him and that he was a good dog, and then he was gone.
It has been a rough three days. Roscoe has been an important part of our family for nearly a decade. He was a funny dog, very smart in many ways, seeming to sometimes understand full sentences and do various clever things, but still running to the door to bark whenever a doorbell rang on TV. The early days we had him were very rough. He was a bit wild, and very anxious. He was a rescue dog, and his experiences before us apparently were not the best. And he caused our family some pain at the beginning. By the time Alex came, he had calmed down a lot, but we were still a little worried.
Our fears dissipated quickly though, as he seemed to know what he had to do, and he became an incredibly patient dog, tolerating an unruly small child better than we could ever have hoped. Alex has never known life without Roscoe, and they were often inseparable. Alex’s first word was “dog”. Roscoe was his brother and best friend. Roscoe’s job was to take care of this little guy, and Roscoe knew it from the start.
Since a few hours after Roscoe died, I have wanted to do this post, including sharing some of the best pictures and videos of Roscoe. But narrowing down the many hundreds of pictures we had was extremely emotional, and I could only do it for a few minutes at a time. I wanted to get it down to just 40 or so, about the size of the monthly family pictures posts I sometimes do. But after getting it down to 100, I decided I was done. This post is mainly for family and friends who knew Roscoe, and a few extra pictures are OK. So here are 89 pictures, 10 videos, and 1 picture with audio, in chronological order.
This is Roscoe’s life with us. We miss you so much buddy.
2006
2006-09-15 04:33 UTC: This was the picture Brandy found online when looking for a rescue dog to adopt. Brandy knew this was the right dog almost immediately, and we went to the shelter looking specifically for Roscoe, which was the name that had already been given to him by the people where he was. He had been found wandering alone and no family came to look for him. He had already moved a couple of times between shelters. They said they guessed he was probably about 2 years old at the time, although based on behavior, he might have been a little younger. We visited him, and he ran around in circles and barked, without interacting with us all that much. We picked him anyway. He hopped right in the car to head home. The rest of 2006 was a bit rough honestly. There were some very hard times with him. One time in particular. But we stuck with it, and with him.
2007
2007-03-21 05:34 UTC – After a few months though, he was settling in and calming down a bit. He was still a bit hyper, but he was part of the family now. And he always wanted to cuddle.
2007-10-14 14:43 UTC – In fact, he was pretty sure he was a lap dog. He never had any idea how big he was.
2007-10-26 17:15 UTC – He would just sit near you and stare up at you with those big brown eyes, looking for attention and love.
2007-12-14 18:35 UTC – And if he could sit between two of us, so much the better.
2008
2008-08-14 23:43 UTC – Almost two years in, and he still thinks this is an awesome way to sit with us.
2008-11-21 06:48 UTC – There is audio that goes with this picture! Be sure to hit play on the audio player right below the picture! One of the things that Roscoe would do is “sing” with us. Sort of a moan, howl, yodel, mooing sort of thing. It wasn’t every day, every week, or even every month, but every once in awhile he would respond to one of us talking or saying something, then before you know it, we all doing it together. Sometimes we would start it, sometimes he would start it. This isn’t the best example, but is the first one of these we managed to get a recording of. There is a lot of Amy and I making noises too.
2009
2009-02-02 01:01 UTC – Roscoe didn’t do many tricks, but he occasionally would engage in fun poses. (Later on, Amy did have him sitting and rolling over for food, but I’m not sure I ever got any good pictures or videos of that.)
2009-02-25 03:14 UTC – Nothing is better than snuggling with your people.
2009-03-27 07:09 UTC – Roscoe wasn’t the kind of dog who “played” all the time. But every one in awhile he got into a really playful mood and would want to run and chase and be chased. This was one of those times, as he was getting poised for dashing up and down the hallway… and out of the hallway, round and round the living room, always followed by a final mad dash into the back yard.
2009-04-02 01:35 UTC – We didn’t do it often, but when we did, Roscoe liked his car rides, and wanted to always watch everything going on outside. As long as we didn’t go on bridges over bodies of water. Water kind of scared him.
2009-04-11 02:00 – Something else we didn’t do nearly enough. Go off to a nice park with Roscoe. He liked it. We liked it. But we rarely seemed to find the time.
2009-08-14 01:50 UTC – Both at our old house (shown here) and our new house, Roscoe would sometimes just spend hours hanging out on the back porch, checking out whatever was going on. Or looking at the door asking to be let back in.
2009-08-22 00:51 UTC – Look at those eyes! He often looked so concerned or worried. Brandy always would say “He’s a hound! That is how he is supposed to look!”
2009-09-09 07:29 UTC – Here he is sitting like a person again. Sometimes he’d just do that.
2009-09-09 15:27 UTC – He loved the big back yard in our old place. He probably spent almost as much time outside as inside. But sometimes he would just sit and stare at the fence. Could never tell what exactly was going on in his head.
2009-09-15 04:17 UTC – And then there was Alex! We had told Roscoe that Brandy was going to have a puppy, and he had become very protective of her while she was pregnant, so we think he understood and knew what to expect. This is the first picture i have of Roscoe and Alex together.
2009-09-26 22:15 UTC – “I’m just going to sit in my favorite chair. Hey, why is it so lumpy? Oh well, who cares, still comfy!”
2009-10-23 05:25 UTC – The whole family together. Alex is clearly not quite sure what to think of Roscoe.
2010
2010-01-03 21:12 UTC – Alex still pretty suspicious here. Roscoe tolerating.
2010-04-25 19:48 UTC – Caught while tramping through the back yard. He must have been up to something!
2010-05-13 01:25 UTC – Roscoe wants to be let in. Alex wants to help. But Alex isn’t quite able to operate the door quite yet.
2010-05-23 23:00 UTC – Alex’s curiosity and desire to play with Roscoe is overwhelming. Roscoe allows it.
2010-11-19 ??:?? UTC – The first video I’ve included here. Be sure to press play. Alex thinks Roscoe needs some tissue.
2011
2011-04-24 00:13 UTC – Just chilling together on the back steps.
2011-04-29 16:28 UTC – Alex is about to head down the slide. Roscoe watching out for him as usual.
2011-05-08 22:21 UTC – They would often explore the backyard together.
2011-05-22 00:51 UTC – Partners in crime. This was the bin where all the dry dog food was kept. Alex’s job that he did almost every night was give Roscoe two scoops from the bin. Into roscoe’s bowl. But this night, they conspired together and opened and knocked over the bin so Roscoe could have as much as he wanted.
2011-07-25 01:30 UTC – The first of several videos in a row now. Roscoe and Alex play together in the grass. Well… Alex tries to play with Roscoe. Roscoe remains aloof and eventually walks away.
2011-08-05 19:40 UTC – Alex discovers the hose. Which Roscoe loves to attack. Which is just so funny!
2011-09-24 15:18 UTC – Now at our new (current) house, Roscoe gets to walk the dog for the first time. At first, and for a long time, we used two leashes. One for Alex to hold, and one that I or another adult would hold. This worked very well and Alex loved it. Roscoe was fine with it too. He didn’t care, he got his walk! From this point for quite a long time, one of Alex’s favorite activities was walking Roscoe. Since Roscoe had a fenced back yard, he often just did his business there, so walks were not as regular or as often as they should have been. But when we did walk, everybody enjoyed it.
2012
2012-01-17 17:12 UTC – Playing in the snow would soon become one of the favorite things Alex and Roscoe would do together. In the first of these in our new house, Roscoe and Alex started out in the back yard checking everything out. But Roscoe was done before Alex was.
2012-01-19 20:25 UTC – On a quiet snowy day, with everything shut down, Alex takes charge of BOTH leashes!
2012-05-13 17:35 UTC – A few months later in the Spring, he would sometimes even go solo with just one leash! Under close supervision of course. But Roscoe was almost always very good and followed Alex’s lead and didn’t pull or run. Uh, unless he saw another dog. Then Daddy would insist on taking over.
2012-07-18 04:24 UTC – Oooh! Grandma Ruth visiting! Roscoe’s favorite person who didn’t live with us!
2012-07-24 21:24 UTC – Roscoe would stick close to Alex, even when Alex was busy playing with his trains.
2012-07-31 15:12 UTC – Another ride in the car! He was going into the vet for a little bit of surgery, but he came out just fine!
2012-08-26 22:28 UTC – Roscoe very rarely played with toys, but this was one of those times. Alex would throw the squeaky bone and Roscoe would go get it. He never learned the bring it back part of fetch, but would give up the bone when someone kept to take it. Sometimes after a little playful keep away. Alex and Roscoe tossed around the bone for several minutes. Then Roscoe was done.
2012-08-28 06:57 UTC – Excited that Grandma Leslie is visiting and paying attention to him.
2012-09-02 19:32 UTC – Um… Alex decided that when Roscoe licked him, the right thing to do was lick back. After all, that is how dogs kiss. And he was going to pretend he was a dog too. He also extended this to be how he tried to greet people. This was not always appreciated. “Daddy, lick our tongues together like I do with Roscoe!” Uh, no. No thanks. Really.
2012-09-20 06:12 UTC – I don’t know exactly what was going on here when I caught them, but they were clearly up to no good!
2012-12-05 02:48 UTC – When Amy sits down to work on her computer, Roscoe decides that would be a good time to cuddle on her hand.
2012-12-19 05:46 UTC – Sometimes Roscoe wanted to get just a bit TOO involved in playing with trains. Alex complained Roscoe wouldn’t play right and would try to shoo him away, or put obstacles in the way so Roscoe couldn’t walk over and lie down on top of the trains. But Roscoe often did anyway.
2013
2013-03-26 03:43 UTC – Squishy dog face. Alex and Roscoe both comfy on Mommy’s lap.
2013-03-26 17:09 UTC – “What? Why are you looking at me?”
2013-03-26 17:11 UTC – “I’m just lying here relaxing.”
2013-04-06 21:47 UTC – “I’ll just lie here with you. you don’t mind if I poke your eye do you?”
2013-04-06 22:41 UTC – “Is this picture going online?”
2013-06-04 02:57 UTC – A boy and his dog. You can’t even see their faces, but I think this is my favorite picture of the whole bunch. It just captures the closeness of Roscoe and Alex’s relationship perfectly. In one of their good moments. They really were best friends.
2013-08-05 05:23 UTC – Of course, seeming them being friends from the front is nice too.
2013-09-12 06:36 UTC – I have a lot fewer pictures of Roscoe and me together. But when he got a chance, he really liked to cuddle with me too.
2013-10-26 21:15 UTC – Sometimes walking the dog is less exciting than others.
2013-12-20 17:17 UTC – More snow! One of Roscoe’s absolute favorite things was rolling in the snow. The deeper the better! He would just jump in and roll, roll, roll! Alex would talk all summer about how important it was that we get snow and walk Roscoe in the snow. To the point where in years where it looked like we might not get real snow, we started to make plans to take Roscoe up to the mountains for that walk. We never had to do that, but a couple years it came close!
2013-12-20 17:19 UTC – A video this time, of a nice walk in the snow!
2013-12-29 06:49 UTC – “What, this Thomas couch thing wasn’t supposed to be my bed?”
2014
2014-02-09 17:49 UTC – Sometimes when you are walking the dog, you drop the leash and have to run to catch it! Roscoe hadn’t made a run for it in a dropped leash situation since 2006 though, and even when he’d occasionally let himself out for a walk, we’d find him idly walking nearby, almost always on one of our usual walking routes, and he’d come running when called.
2014-02-22 01:12 UTC – “This footrest is for my head, right?”
2014-02-22 18:25 UTC – “I gotcha covered buddy.”
2014-03-12 00:15 UTC – Just a nice pic.
2014-03-16 20:47 UTC – Sharing Ducky.
2014-04-09 01:14 UTC – Forget about WALKING the dog, it is time to RUN!
2014-04-12 07:39 UTC – This one time, I was heading to bed, only to discover that Alex had spilled something on the bed. It was late, I didn’t want to deal with it beyond throwing a towel over it, and I went to lie down on the floor of my office. Roscoe almost immediately lay down beside me, put his arm around me, and fell asleep. Awww…
2014-04-27 23:47 UTC – More running with the dog!
2014-05-13 20:06 UTC – Big hug!
2014-05-27 03:07 UTC – Looking cool wearing those sunglasses!
2015-06-07 18:09 UTC – “Hey kid, that iPad thing is boring, but I’ll still sit with you, cause you’re my boy.”
2015-06-23 01:11 UTC – Limbo!!
2014-06-29 23:31 UTC – Alex was pretty sure washing the dog would be great fun. Roscoe was pretty sure it would not be.
2014-07-20 00:20 UTC – A nice lick on the mouth for his boy.
2014-07-25 19:57 UTC – Alex sings with Roscoe for awhile, then leaves and fetches the leash to invite Roscoe for a walk… upstairs… to get me. We went for a walk immediately after I stopped recording.
2014-08-02 03:06 UTC – Friends trotting down the street together barefoot.
2014-09-20 23:22 UTC – When we got him, Roscoe was afraid of water. Especially lakes and streams. Later he would tolerate going near them if he had to. But he would never PLAY in the water. Until we went on a hike to a nearby lake and Alex asked him to play. “Come on Roscoe, come in!” Alex and Roscoe frolicked in the water together at the edge of the lake for a couple minutes. I was so shocked that I didn’t manage to get a picture until Roscoe was done and jumping out.
2014-10-05 00:23 UTC – Time for another bath for Roscoe! Uh, sorry. Shower. Alex was very particular that this was a shower and not a bath.
2014-10-14 06:39 UTC – We would find them like this SO often.
2014-11-08 20:23 UTC – “What? What are you looking at? I’m just sitting here!”
2014-11-24 04:44 UTC – Just hanging on the cough with Brandy and Alex.
2014-11-29 18:14 UTC – Lick, lick, lick.
2014-12-07 20:32 UTC – Sitting with Daddy.
2014-12-07 20:38 UTC – Alex wanted in on the picture too, but Roscoe was getting tired.
2014-12-08 16:49 UTC – Alex, Roscoe and I “sing” together for a little bit. i started taking snapshots for the last bit of the video, not realizing it would interrupt the video itself. Sorry about that…
2014-12-31 06:33 UTC – More just hanging out on the couch. This happened a lot. It was always cute.
2015
2015-01-06 04:19 UTC – Just more Alex/Roscoe cuddling
2015-01-12 05:29 UTC – “Maybe these iPad things are OK after all.”
2015-01-12 05:54 UTC – Amy gets couch time with Alex and Roscoe too.
2015-01-12 21:09 UTC – Years later, this was STILL Roscoe’s favorite chair. But as he got older, it was harder for him to jump up into it, so I gave it to him as a bed.
2015-01-22 09:33 UTC – Amy caught this middle of the night picture of Roscoe, Alex and me all fast asleep in a big puppy pile. Just the way Roscoe liked it.
2015-01-29 00:29 UTC – In this video Alex talks to Roscoe about how much Roscoe loves him. That Roscoe loves Alex more than Amy, more than anyone else does. This is all about how important they were to each other. Not too long after this video, a couple weeks maybe, I was having a conversation with Alex and mentioned that Roscoe was an old dog, and we wouldn’t have him forever. Alex told me: “Roscoe can’t die. Roscoe loves me SO MUCH, he would never leave me! So he can’t die.” Oh, Alex, I can’t express how much I wish things worked that way. But they don’t. Breaks my heart.
2015-01-30 05:06 UTC – Roscoe was also very attentive when Alex was playing Minecraft. He presumably wanted to learn how to play himself. Uh, or maybe it was the slice of pizza on the desk next to Alex. Nah…
2015-02-02 23:15 UTC – Just more Alex and Roscoe being loving.
2015-02-02 23:16 UTC – You can tell Roscoe is getting to be an old man, and that he really just wanted to rest most of the time. But even when Alex was being noisy and rough, Roscoe would always come back to be with him.
2015-02-03 07:16 UTC – Just more family cuddling on the couch.
2015-02-16 19:57 UTC – Um, you know that cushion from the chair that I gave Roscoe as a bed? Well, he made it his own. Ripped the cover to shreds, pulled out the stuffing, made a nest. We let him keep using it as a bed of course. It was his to do with as he pleased, and if that made it more comfortable for him, so be it.
2015-02-16 20:56 UTC – Always, always, on the alert for potential dropped food, or an opportunity to beg. He KNEW that both Alex and I were suckers and would feed him almost any time. Unless we were eating chocolate. He knew the word “chocolate”. It meant the same thing as “no”. (Since chocolate is bad for dogs.)
2015-03-01 04:24 UTC – Just another shot cuddling with me.
2015-03-18 04:46 UTC – Just Roscoe giving one of his looks.
2015-03-18 04:46 UTC – Oh, it is THAT look. Begging for food again…
2015-03-22 19:02 UTC – Mommy is good to cuddle with.
2015-04-17 04:51 UTC – We’re near the end now. About 10 days. Of course nobody knows this. Except maybe Roscoe. Meanwhile, Alex just looks into Roscoe’s eyes with obvious affection and adoration. Best friends for life.
2015-04-20 00:00 UTC – At the end of the weekend before Roscoe died, we were doing some work in the front of the house. I had my timelapse camera set up to catch some of it. We got a few moments of Roscoe hanging around with us while we went about our business.
2015-04-26 19:01 UTC – This is not a great picture of Roscoe. You can see part of him there. But my timelapse camera in my office caught just a short bit as I came up to my office for something, did it, and left again. This was the last photographic glimpse of Roscoe before he was clearly not doing well. In those few short minutes in real life, just a second or two on the timelapse, Roscoe followed me in and lay down at my feet. When I left, he left with me. Very often when I was home, especially when Alex was otherwise occupied, Roscoe would follow me, and sit with me wherever I happened to go.
He didn’t start out that way, but he became extremely loyal and loving, and always wanted to be with us. He would do anything for his people, especially Alex.
He was a good dog. A great dog. We miss him so much.
In the latest Curmudgeon’s Corner Sam and IvГЎn talk about:
* [00:00:09-00:13:12] 400 Episodes / Swearing
* [00:14:10-00:28:02] Israeli Elections
* [00:28:46-00:42:37] Federal Budget
* [00:43:46-01:00:07] Over the Top TV / Apple Stores
* [01:01:10-01:35:07] Lightning Round / Swearing Supercut
Recorded 2015-03-20
Length this week – 1:35:27
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1076 pictures for the month. First pass narrowed to 70. These are the 30 that best represent September.
2014-09-01 06:39 UTC (Picture by Amy) – An Amy Selfie to start the month. (Yeah, yeah, I already used this one on her birthday post.)
2014-09-01 21:44 UTC – Alex chases after Amy at Bumbershoot
2014-09-02 02:19 UTC – Alex and me joining the family after a quick romp through the fountain at Bumbershoot
2014-09-02 04:36 UTC – Amy comforts Alex after he tripped and took a bad spill while running after her to get into the EDM venue at Bumbershoot. After this he was done for the night.
2014-09-03 16:58 UTC – First day of school for Alex
2014-09-05 01:19 UTC – We didn’t even know we had an apple tree, but one day we noticed this hanging off a tree in our front yard. We think it is the tree’s very first apple. Awww…
2014-09-07 19:44 UTC – Brandy accidentally made a sculpture out of frosting.
2014-09-11 21:53 UTC – Alex plays in a balloon room at a local mall. (Posted before as part of Alex through the Years.)
2014-09-11 22:13 UTC – Alex and I built a robot! He knocked it over seconds later of course.
2014-09-12 20:28 UTC – Alex’s class at school prepares for his birthday ceremony, where the birthday kid circles a candle representing the sun once for each year of their lives, while the parents show pictures of them from each year and say something brief about what the kid was like each year. Brandy and I were participating, so no pictures of the actual event.
2014-09-12 22:21 UTC – Once we were home, it was time for our own birthday celebrations, and Roscoe got to wear the birthday hat from school.
2014-09-12 22:22 UTC – Grandma Ruth got to wear the hat too.
2014-09-12 22:48 UTC – Brandy made a train cake for Alex.
2014-09-12 23:11 UTC – Alex with a present from Grandma Ruth.
2014-09-12 23:14 UTC – Alex opening a present from Amy.
2014-09-14 05:27 UTC – One of Alex’s presents was a lego set from Papa Bill and Grandma Cathy. Alex has been getting more into Lego lately. Here he diligently follows the instructions to assemble this set.
2014-09-14 05:45 UTC – And here is the final product. Alex assembled it almost entirely himself, following the instructions in the booklet. He only asked for help on one or two of the many steps in the process. In the following days, he did several other lego sets too.
2014-09-16 23:48 UTC – A few days later, it was time for my birthday. Alex wanted Brandy to make me a train cake too, but Brandy was sick at the time, so instead Amy and Alex went to the store. Alex picked this hamburger and fries cake for me instead.
2014-09-17 00:19 UTC – Amy presents me with my biggest present, from her and Brandy. Can you guess what it is? (It was a much needed new chair for my home office.)
2014-09-20 22:31 UTC – Grandma Ruth took Alex, Roscoe and me on an adventure in a nearby park. This was the start of our hike.
2014-09-20 23:22 UTC – The destination of the hike was a little area on the shore of Lake Washington. Roscoe and Alex spent a few minutes playing in the water!
2014-09-20 23:34 UTC – After the hike and playing a bit, Roscoe was ready for a bit of a rest. We had a picnic. Roscoe patiently waited to share.
2014-09-21 00:02 UTC – Alex and I climb up on a large tree that had fallen over and leaned over the lake
2014-09-21 00:04 UTC – Alex does not seem impressed as he dismounts from the fallen tree.
2014-09-21 00:07 UTC – After the tree, there is some time for some more splashing at the edge of the lake.
2014-09-21 00:18 UTC – Then it was time for the hike back to the car. Everybody was a little tired by this point. But we had to keep going.
2014-09-21 01:50 to 01:56 UTC – Once back in the car, a certain someone couldn’t quite manage to stay awake.
2014-09-23 01:11 UTC – Uh, he is not supposed to climb up there.
2014-09-26 00:31 UTC – My mom and Sara. A good team.
2014-09-27 22:24 UTC – Alex told Brandy that he wanted some fresh paper and markers and such. Brandy got him this new art desk thing. Since then Alex has been “art-ing” every chance he gets, producing many many pages of drawings and paintings and other things. He uses that desk almost every day now!
