Talk to Me, Goose

Goose stole our hearts the moment we met her.

It's with a still heavy heart that I write this, but I have to try and put into words the emotions from this past week.

Our beloved dog Goose died this week.

Sometimes it seems like just yesterday that Goose joined our family and brightened our lives with her crazy hound dog antics.  At other times it feels like she had been with us for years and not just the short 15 months that she was ours.

We all cried when we found out on Wednesday that someone had found our dog's body by the railroad tracks.  I took some comfort in knowing that her death was quick and that she did not suffer.

That's a wiggly pillow...

Needless to say, this has been difficult for all of us.  We loved Goose with everything we had, she was an integral part of our family.  We don't know her exact circumstances before she joined our family, but given some of her behaviors, I am confident that she did not get the same level of love and affection that she enjoyed in our home.

Mali said it best about Goose when she told me, "Goose wasn't a perfect dog, but she was the perfect dog for our family."  It's so true, and that's why losing her hit us so hard.  We had expected to have another 10 years or more, and to have her suddenly gone hurts.  It's doubly hard for me because I am on the other side of the world and unable to hug my family and cry with them.

There is a part of me that feels like maybe I'm being overly dramatic, especially when I consider people I know who have lost a family member, like a parent or a child.  This is the first time I have experienced such a sudden loss, and it is difficult.  As I have had time these past few days to think and ponder the meaning of our mortal experiences, however, I have been grateful for the blessing of knowing maybe a little better the pain that others feel when something like this happens.  Hopefully this will make me more sympathetic and more caring when others are grieving.

She always had my six.

So we say good-bye to our Goose, and she will forever be a part of our family.  She brought us so much happiness and I am eternally thankful she was ours.  And I am grateful for my family and their willingness to open their loving hearts to Goose.

So one last time: talk to me, Goose.  We love you.

Of course Goose isn't looking at the camera, there was a squirrel...

I Stand All Corrected

In my previous post I almost casually dropped a line that I didn’t like the local Coke brew in this part of the world. Well, after some continued taste testing—my parents didn’t raise me to quit at the first sign of adversity—I believe that the problem with my introduction to Coke in these parts was that the employees at the McDonald’s in Dubai International Airport actually gave me Coke Zero.  In my book that stuff just ain’t right.  But my point is that it was a simple mistake (cue Men at Work).

That said, I do drink too much Coke, I know that. So maybe the well-meaning McDonald’s employees were giving me a subtle hint to cut back.  Yeah, we’ll go with that interpretation.  It wasn’t a mistake (cancel the Aussie background music) it was out of genuine concern for my well-being (cue some righteous Orchestral Manouevers in the Dark).  Thanks, DBX McDonald’s!

Judgy McJudgealot

I am super judgmental. My kids know this and especially admonish me for comments I make about other drivers. In my defense, I tend to drive as if every other driver on the road is either distracted or an idiot or possibly both.  This approach has worked well for me as evidenced by the fact that I have only hit one other vehicle in my life: the 80-something-year-old lady made that turn way too fast for me to stop on wet pavement at night.  The two motorcycles that hit our van in Thailand were in fact idiots. I rest that particular case.

Back to the point of me being super judgmental.  Nothing seems to bring out the super judgy in me quite like the airport. And flying international seems to make it even worse. Don’t believe me? Read here and here. One trip, two international airports. Hyper-judgmentality in overdrive.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ranting about people who are dressed in what by most standards would be considered normal, appropriate everyday attire. This is my first time transiting through Dubai, and the men in their robes and head coverings and the women with their robes are all pretty cool to see.  This is after all, their part of the world, and it’s entirely appropriate.

Nor am I ranting about the folks who mosey through the airport looking like they got up late for class dressed in sweats, sandals or flip-flops and backwards baseball caps.  I especially like the flip-flops with socks look. Okay, I get it, people like to be comfortable when they fly, and they like to do things that make it easier to transit through the security screening process.*

So yeah, be comfortable when you fly, but I am ranting about the dude I saw at the airport in Boston. My friend, please, there are children at the airport. Your brotastic man bun, two-week patchy beard, short-sleeve henley unbuttoned to display your chest fur, adidas soccer warmup pants, down to your brightly-colored patterned socks and your shiny leather loafers with the gold hardwear...I just...I can’t...my head is exploding!  It’s like you couldn’t quite decide which hipster/millennial stereotype you wanted to represent, so you put them all together in a glorious train wreck of a fashion mashup. All you were missing was a locally-sourced mocha latte and a slouch beanie (which, to be fair, you might have had stashed in your backpack).  Just pick ONE theme and go with it!  Think of the children.  Do it for them.

See, I told you.

Super.

Duper.

Judgmental.

On the positive side of things, the local Coca-Cola brew tastes different to me, which is probably a good thing. I drink too much Coke.

*Quick shout out to my brother, the one who is a TSA agent.  If you’ve ever had one of those guys give you a hard time at the airport, I promise it wasn’t him.  Okay, it might have been him, but it could have been because of how you were dressed. He’s super judgy.  I mean, we are brothers...

Keeping Peace in the Family

It recently--as in just this afternoon--came to my attention that one of the unnamed members of my family was a little hurt when picture in the header of this blog was changed to a photograph that no longer contained the family.  How was I to know that putting a picture of me with a huge fish would cause so much angst among my progeny?

Anyway, in the spirit of nostalgia, and mainly for my own entertainment, here are the series of pictures that have graced the header of Soderblogger since its inception in 2009.

The original 2009 Soderblogger photo.  Look how little the kids were!  This was before we went to Thailand.  Right before we went to Thailand.

Early 2011, family photo at the ancient Thai capital of Ayutthaya.  And yes, I am wearing FiveFingers.

Mid-2011 on the grass in front of our house, right before we left Thailand.  The kids were still much smaller than they are today.  And fortunately there were no snakes in that grass.

2013 at Cannon Beach in Oregon.  The sun was obviously very bright and in everybody's eyes.  Not at all like that rainy day when The Inferno emerged courtesy of The Goonies.

2017 with the massive amberjack I caught.  And no family because apparently I'm a heartless, cruel man, hence this update.

Introducing the Newest Member of our Family

I very briefly mentioned back in October that we got a dog.  Her name is Goose, named by my daughter Maggie after the character from Top Gun.  Hopefully, our Goose does not end up in a flat spin that results in her untimely and tragic demise.  I probably should have included a spoiler alert for those who haven't yet seen the cinematic genius that is Top Gun. My apologies.

Goose is sticking her tongue out...yup, she's
a Soderborg!

The kids have been asking for years if we could get a dog, and last fall Mali decided that the time was finally right.  We started looking at shelters, adoption agencies, and breeders and doing lots of research to determine the characteristics we wanted for the Soderborg family dog.  The kids would print pictures of dogs they found and put them on the wall and they were all voting for the dogs they liked best.  I really only had one requirement; the dog had to be able to go running with me.

We adopted Goose from an agency that had rescued her and her four puppies from a shelter in North Carolina.  At just about 15 months old when we got her, having puppies means she's the canine equivalent of a teenage mom, so she still has a few puppy-like tendencies we're working on.  Goose is a foxhound-beagle mix and displays characteristics of both breeds, but from what I can see she leans more heavily towards the foxhound in her physical appearance as well as her temperament.  One thing that means is that she can run, thereby fulfilling my single requirement.  And by "she can run" I mean that Goose is built to run all day long and she simply loves it.  If I try and go for a run without her, she gives me those sad hound dog eyes and makes me feel totally guilty.

For example, just last night I got home from work and there was enough light that I thought, "Hey, I'll sneak a quick run in before the snow starts and that'll be awesome."  Goose was in the basement keeping an eye on the kids while they watched a movie, which really means that Goose was falling asleep.  But as soon as she heard the sound my Suunto makes when it has the GPS synced up, she came bounding up the stairs, tail wagging a million miles an hour--check that, her entire back end wagging a million miles an hour--with that look that says, "Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!  WE'RE GOING RUNNING!"  I'm pretty sure that if Goose could talk, that's what she would say.  And what kind of a monster would I be if I denied her the joy of going out and doing pretty much what she was put on this earth to do?

Did I mention that not only does Goose like to run, but she is fast?  I wanted to know exactly how fast, so I put my Suunto on her collar the other day at the dog park and she clocked in at 18.5 miles per hour, and she didn't even hit her top speed.  I blame the other dogs at the park that weren't running full speed either.  Yeah, so when Goose does get away from us, we're not going to be able to catch her unless she lets us.  How can I be so sure?  Because she somehow got off the leash while I was walking her last week and it took more than an hour to get her back.

All in all, we are so happy to have Goose in our family.  She's pretty much the worst guard dog ever, thanks to her bloodlines that make her very friendly to people and other dogs alike.  That same temperament makes it much easier to get her back when she does get away from us, however.  Aside from barking at us when any one of us is sitting at the table and eating alone, Goose is a really good dog around the house.  We're still going to work on some obedience training, with the ultimate goal of being able to take her with us hiking and camping off leash so she can run around and be happy but still come back to us.  I also have a goal to take her running long enough to find the bottom of her gas tank, but that's going to take extensive training on my part.  You know, like training for a 50-mile race.

Goose, we love you!

What are you lookin' at?