Mattie needs a grooming!

I always have stuff to do on my days off from flying. Saturday was my day of getting Mattie the dog groomed. I take her to my local big box store because Danielle is a fabulous groomer and manages to get Mattie cleaned up without getting her hand taken off. Mattie was a wreck when I found her; matted, in pain and miserable. She was extremely fearful of getting groomed. You can see why:

Dani was actually able to get her groomed without hurting Mattie or getting hurt in the process. Mattie responds to her and so I just stuck with Dani because I don’t mess with anything that’s not broken. Mattie doesn’t seem to mind getting groomed any more which is wonderful. I tip Danielle well. But the results are fabulous!

Mattie is much more comfortable and is a little zippier with her hair short. But this involves taking Mattie in and dropping her off and then driving home, doing some writing and then driving back to pick her up. I hate driving. But it was Saturday and lo and behold I ran into an old friend who works there as a dog trainer. Leeann and I go back a few years and she is a huge animal fan. She keeps ferrets, cats and has an Australian Shepherd named Emma. Here is Leeann getting obedience training student Cooper’s graduation cap ready to rock. Emma is observing the festivities:

When I was there, she was doing a training session with a Lab who was graduating that day. His name is Cooper. I got to see Cooper get his graduation photo taken:

Cooper was a good boy and posed nicely for the camera:

Leeann and I had some fun with the dogs and caught up while Mattie was being groomed. I had a little shopping to do at the store and got that taken care of. So it wasn’t too bad. I’d just rather stay home, which is a result of having to fly to another continent twice a week. Flying to Ecuador is fun and I get to meet some pretty cool people like forty-year Veteran Flight Attendant Mary Beth:

Flying for forty-plus years does give you a wealth of stories and some very cool points of view, so it was just great to meet Chicago based Mary Beth. Her favorite trip? Rome. (I tell ya, with us, it’s all about the food!) Famous people on her flights? Tons, including Gerald Ford and his wife Betty.

Once I get started with the errands it’s not too bad, it’s just the initial “getting out of the house” thing that honks me off. I have to take that one step out the door and just do it. I dread it before actually doing it, and once I do it, it’s not bad at all. Kind of like cleaning my fridge:

(It looks like there’s a lot of stuff in there and there is. My neighbor’s fridge went on the blink and I had her stuff in there along with mine.)

But once you get into it and get it over with, it’s not so bad. And just like banging your head against a brick wall, it feels so good when you’re done. I like to think that’s the way Mattie feels when she’s done with her grooming:


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