Quincy's World

A little inside joke for all of you ESPN junkies with the title of the post (wink, wink, Brady). Lately, Quincy has been doing a lot with words. He likes to use his Nitro Jr. laptop (thank you Townsend clan) to make words and do other word related activities. He loves to make words from his plastic letters of words he sees around the house. He’s always asking us how to spell this-and-that word for him. I can’t remember how many times I’ve spelled ‘cupboard’ ‘caravan’ and ‘wardrobe’ over the past several days. Tonight, Quincy read his first word.

The image with this post is where Quincy recognized and read a word all by himself. See the word ‘BOOK’ all in caps and in red? Yeah? Quincy saw it too and said “Mommy, that says ‘book’. B-O-O-K.”

I’m sure it won’t be too much longer until he can follow our very basic cryptography, i.e. the spelling out of words we don’t want him to understand. When he gets to that point, we’ll have to switch to our fancy-schmancy college words.

So, the site has been stagnant for a while now. That has been for a few reasons. The biggest one was the malaise I had been in following Ashby’s death. I didn’t really care about the site for a while. It is also very hard to keep track of all the things that Quincy is up to and into these days.

We haven’t been very busy – just the way we like it. Quincy is finishing up his current round of swimming lessons this coming Saturday. He’s done well and we’ve enjoyed not having to be in the pool at all.

One of his favorite things to do outside right now is to play deck soccer. If you’ve been to or seen our house, you know we have an unnecessarily large deck out back. We made it our soccer rink basically. Quincy has taken a few soccer balls to the head, but nothing serious. He still sort of walks with a starboard list, but that’ll go away.

Quincy is anxious for it to snow so that we can make honeyballs for Christmas. He frequently asks when Christmas is ’cause he’s sure he’s going to get some more City Legos.

For being an only child, Quincy does an awesome job of playing with other kids and sharing his toys. He’s very sympathetic to those who don’t have things, and he’s always willing to give away cookies we bake or my fresh bread (even when I want it all!). We’re also noticing the absence of Ashby a lot lately.

I knew Ashby being gone would create a new set of issues and it has. Ashby was Quincy’s playmate, even though Ashby didn’t see it that way. I would play referee between them as needed, but they occupied each other for long periods of time. Quincy still does a great job playing by himself for periods of time, but the phrase we’ve been hearing recently is, “I need someone to play with me.” We never heard him utter that while Ashby was alive. So, we’re glad that he wants us to play with him a lot, but at the same time, we can’t spend every minute entertaining him during the day. Some days are easier than others. So, we’re thinking of adding a new puppy sometime next year. Since Quincy will start school next Fall as well, it’d be nice for me to have a companion at home to hang out with during the day while Quincy hits the books.

We’ll be away for Thanksgiving, but home for Christmas. So we’ll have photos for those upcoming holidays. I’ll have to check the cameras at some point and see if there are some random pictures on there for me to post. I can’t really remember if we took any pictures in October. Until Thanksgiving, barring any unusual events here, there won’t be many posts, but probably just timeline updates.

It was a beautiful Saturday morning and one which we would use to say goodbye to Ashby. Quincy and I picked up Ashby’s ashes earlier in the week, and we had planned on having him buried somewhere on the property. Today was the day.

I made a keepsake DVD of Ashby pictures set to Celtic music which we purchased in Nova Scotia on one of our vacations. We watched that this morning. I had already watched it before, as had Quincy, but Dara hadn’t seen it yet. I thought I was doing better with things, but was not able to stay in the room for the whole video. After that, I went outside to dig the hole.

The picture with this post is where Ashby is buried. It is a really nice spot in the front yard. Dara wrapped his remains in the towel that Ashby came to us with from Nova Scotia all those years ago. To add insult to injury – the towel is a Toronto Maple Leafs towel. I had forgotten that.

Dara had also typed up a list of things about Ashby that we loved about him, and she read that outside. We put the piece of paper and some flowers in the hole with him and then filled in the hole. We ordered a slate tablet with his name and dates on it that we’ll place over the dirt patch when it comes.

We were very happy to have had Ashby for 10 years, but at the same time, very upset that things had to end the way they did. Quincy is fine with everything and wants to get another dog “tomorrow”, but there’s no way Dara and I are remotely close to even thinking about that. Time will makes things easier, but for now, we’re content to remember the fun times that Ashby brought to the family.

25 Good Things about Ashby

• He was a good swimmer and it was fun to watch him swimming.
• He made us go for walks and it was fun to go on walks with him, especially if Quincy got to hold the leash.
• He let Quincy make a “hole” around him (made out of pillows or stuffed animals), usually without running away.
• He came over to greet us with his tail wagging and to sniff and lick Quincy when we arrived home from any outing or when
• Quincy got up in the morning.
• He was so patient with Quincy and was never aggressive towards him.
• He let Quincy hug and tackle him.
• He usually obeyed our commands.
• He liked to roll around and rub his face on the rug or grass.
• He provided companionship and was a good listener.
• He was nice to us 99% of the time.
• He was beautiful as an adult dog and adorable as a puppy.
• He was very smart.
• He had a nice smile.
• He had “people eyes.”
• He had soft fur that was nice to snuggle against.
• He loved to race back to the house at high speed when he was taken off leash.
• He was always glad to come home after being at the kennel.
• He loved the snow.
• He was a useful guard dog, always alerting us to the presence of a stranger on our property.
• He accepted anyone that we welcomed into our home as a friend.
• He was friends with Gus and it was fun to watch them play together.
• He cleaned up the crumbs under the table.
• His toenails made a clicking sound on the floor when he would walk around the house.
• His collar jingled when he walked.
• He enjoyed being around his people.

The other day I was fiddling around with how we will eventually keep Quincy’s site all intact once it is no longer hosted on a web server. There are a few options out there and it shouldn’t be too terribly difficult. One item I had overlooked was the photos. When I changed over to using the new gallery, that was something that I would not be able to replicate offline. I spent some time trying to figure out a new way (I know, crazy) to standardize the photos and allow me to pull them all offline too. I completed about 99% of the work this morning.

The solution was to install another web server application called plogger. It now takes care of the imaging needs for Quincy’s site, and I can use it offlline when the time comes. You should use the site as usual. I have changed the links to point to the new galleries and whatnot. If you find any broken ones, just send me a message. I like to find software that is free, easy to use, nice to look at, and easy to use and did I mention free?

We don’t know when Quincy’s playground will cease in its current form, but as Quincy gets older, he might want to do something different with it. Granted, that is a long way away, but I like to have the ducks in a row for when that time comes. It’ll be neat to be able to see his web site years from now. Of course, as technology changes and software evolves, I’m sure I’ll have to come up with something different down the line. Yup, gotta love the IT world.