I'm Back, Baby!

The MBA is finally done. I started two classes for the Human Resource concentration, but when I finished the first class (which covered pay and benefits in depth) and started the second (job analysis and designing pay structures), I called it quits. The area I really wanted to study was probably something like organizational behavior or group dynamics. So I just dropped the concentration and am going with the regular MBA. Which means I'm done! Done! Done! Done! All done! I submitted my application for graduation to the school - waiting to hear back from my Academic Counselor.

Of course, I can't just sit idly home. I'm moving locally (about 3 miles away) to a house with a fenced in backyard for the dogs. Since Trouble is dog-aggressive (and some people-aggressive), he hasn't been running around anywhere in a while. I used to bring Maggie and Trouble to the dog park at night, but caused a few problems: Namely, 1) this was illegal, and 2) sometimes I ran into other people at the dog park at night. I never had a problem but I figure I was bound to. When I brought the doggies home from the PetsHotel last time, they gave me a report saying Trouble "loved the individual play time with Maggie." I felt a huge pang of guilt because I knew he doesn't get enough exercise running around. So he should love running around the new back yard.

I'm actually looking forward to mowing the grass and planting some flowers in the front yard. I find pushing a lawn mower back and forth cathartic. Back and forth, slightly overlapping the row from before. I guess I like the orderliness about it.

Anyway, I'm packing up boxes and boxes of books. Seriously, lots of books. U-Haul has these 1.0 cubic foot boxes specifically for books, and I've got 18 filled and about half the books packed. I think I need to donate a mess once I get into the new place. I secretly want a library in my dream home and I've been collecting books in anticipation of that.

Will post more soon! I've done a few more dog transports since I posted last and I have pictures. Lots of cute puppies and one beautiful boxer named Champ.

Dog Transport #2 for 2009

This past Saturday I drove for Rhonda's transport. We moved the following dogs/puppies from South Carolina to New York, New Jersey, Rhode Island and New Hampshire starting Saturday morning and ending on Sunday.

1. Four houndettes ~ hound-mix pups, 7 weeks old
2. Four Sharpies ~ shar-pei mix pups, 9 weeks old
3. Jenga ~ shepard-mix, 1 year, spayed female
4. Sheamus ~ dauschund-mix, 3 months, neutered male
5. Iris ~ keeshond-mix, 9 months, spayed female
6. Bluey ~ cattle dog-mix, 1 yr, neutered male
7. Belle ~ dauschund, female, 9 years
8. Eden ~ dauschund, spayed female
9. Rain ~ plotthound-mix, 8 months, female
10. Lily~ American bulldog, 2 yrs, spayed female
11. Autumn ~ retriever-mix, 1.5 yrs, spayed female
12. Benny ~ lab-mix, 2 yrs, neutered male
13. Princess ~ pitbull, 1 yr, spayed female

I couldn't take everyone's pictures since there were two drivers, and we had to unload and load the furries from our vehicles to the next leg. But I was able to take pictures on the ones I transported in Alexandria. For some reason, I beat the second driver to the meeting spot by 10 minutes. I wonder how that happened?

Below is Autumn. She was super-skittish and very shy. She would keep hopping to the opposite side of the vehicle whenever someone opened a door. Which made getting her out of the 4Runner a fun task. There was a tragic end to my GPS when I finally did get her out.

Here are the four hound-mix puppies. All black and shiny with perky inquisitive faces. Another rescue told me it's very hard taking pictures of all black dogs, but apparently the secret is using a flash at night.

Here are the four shar-pei mix puppies. Sorry about the wiring for the crates in the pictures. I didn't want to risk opening the doors and having the puppies sneak out. There is nothing worse than losing a dog during a transport. It's happened a few times at hand offs I've been to (and once to myself), and every time I practically have a heart attack. A lot of these dogs have been abused or living on the street and aren't used to people. So having a dog slip out of her collar, and then trying to coax her to get near enough to grab her without spooking her is a very difficult. All the while, I'm thinking to myself, "If she dashes, there is no way we can just call her to come back. And she's not from this area and doesn't know any familiar places or people ..." Scary. Oh yeah, the four shar-pei puppies:

This is Iris the keeshond. She was adorable although she did not get along with Lily, the American bulldog. Fortunately, there were two vehicles per leg, so we kept them in separate cars. Iris was a pistol and so full of life. You can see it in her face when I took her picture.

I think this is Rain. I didn't drive her on this leg, and I was able to snap a quick shot when the other vehicle showed up and we started to figure out who goes where.

So that was my second transport of the year. I've always wanted to foster dogs, but since I'm already over my limit of pets in the condo I'm renting, and one of my dogs is dog-aggressive, I tried to figure out another way to help. After driving for dog rescues for over a year, and meeting so many beautiful dogs and puppies just waiting for a fur-ever home, I can't justify ever buying a dog or puppy. It's disheartening to realize that for all dogs we've been able to help, thousands are still put to sleep for no other reason than no one wants to adopt them.

Okay. I'm done with my soapbox now.

Winter Coats Over the Fur Coats

Maggie and Trouble in their winter coats. I had to bust them out this morning as well as my silk long underwear (to wear under my flannel-lined jeans) for the 0 degree wind chill we had. I still say if I have to suffer through the cold, we should at least get some snow to make everything white and pretty.

Maybe I can get a Battlestar Galactica winter coat at the auction ...

News from the Weekend

Let's see, some friends from work took me out to lunch to Paradiso Restaurante in Springfield, VA which was yummy. Thanks friends!

On Saturday I did a dog run from Fredericksburg, VA to Laurel, MD with 5 adorable chow puppies, 4 black lab-mix puppies, 4 medium size puppies, and 1 smaller female dog names Meris. I didn't get a chance to take pictures of the puppies, but I did get some photos with the camera phone of Meris and Jack (a tri chi/jack russell terrier/feist male) who sat on the seat next to me. Actually, one of the bigger brindle puppies sat on my lap. He kept sneaking out from the back of the 4Runner.

Meris is looking into the camera.


Meris is looking into the camera again.

Jack sleeping peacefully.

Jack (right) and Meris (left) while I'm driving to Laurel, MD.

Ending the dog run in Laurel worked out well since I met up with my friend Stephen to see The Spirit. Now, the movie was released on Christmas, and within 2 weeks, the movie was relegated to late night showings at most of the theaters in my area. Not a good sign. A woman at work said that visually The Spirit was good, but the dialog and plot were stupid. With some trepidation, I plunked money down and saw it in the theater.

The best way to enjoy The Spirit is to watch it as a campy, not serious movie. Which I enjoyed immensely. I do have a few beefs. Gabriel Macht apparantly learned from the Christian Bale School of Superhero Dialog and graveled his way through the movie. I also never saw Gabriel Macht without his mask, and after seeing him play Johnny in Because I Said So (Gabriel Macht's character was the only good thing in the movie), I think we should have seen him more with out the mask. Sure, it would have detracted from the movie, but that's just a small wish on my part.

Sunday I had a phone conference for 3 hours, met up with some folks interested in getting a Young People's bid for something started (they decided in NECYPAA) and talked with the sponsor for a few hours.

All in all, a busy weekend, and now I'm back at work. Yuck.

Houma, LA to Alexandria, VA via Jacksonville, FL, Orlando, FL and Santee, SC.

I finally made it to the Washington DC area late last week with two boxers (Maggie and Trouble), two cats (Beaumont and Ballard), and one 4' x 8' U-Haul trailer in tow. The following is a list of things I learned on the one-way 1600 mile trip.

1. If you think you might need the 5' x 8' trailer, get it. Don't look at it and say, "There is no way I'm going to fill that, give me the smaller one" like I did. Mine was freaking packed and I even threw out some stuff mid-trip in the La Quinta dumpster midway in Jacksonville, FL. La Quinta's natiowide accept dogs in their hotels. And La Quinta is spanish for a lot of things.

2. Stopping every two hours to pee is mandatory when drinking my favorite beverage: Arizona Green Ice Tea. Unfortunately, this doesn't match up with the gas fill up I needed every 2-1/2 hours.

3. I suck at backing up a trailer. Enough said.

4. My dog Trouble does not like other dogs. In fact, I have a very nice skidded knee from wiping out in the concrete while the 75 lb monster literally hopped around on hind legs trying to say "hi" to an Alaskan Husky. It's nicely scabbed over by the way.

5. I've reduced the time I can spend around my parents from 2-1/2 days to 1-1/2 days (this visit) to probably about six hours for the next one. I've done lots of prayer and meditation on this, worked steps and looked at my part. Sometimes, the best thing I can do is not put myself in harm's way and around toxic people. The upshoot from this visit was that I got very punchy and hysterically laughed (not in a rip roaring good way. More like an Airplane! slap me across the face way) at not funny things in the La Quinta parking lot when my sister finally caught up with me. This was while I realized just how much crap I lugged with me from Harvey and tossed some.

6. Eating 1 lb of cherries on a road trip is a very bad idea.

7. I really really did not want to leave Louisiana. I blubbered like a big baby for five minutes when making my going away speech at work in Houma, cried at Sinai, my last regular meeting in New Orleans, and avoided doing any packing or sorting until the last possible minute. I guess living in New Orleans for 7 years allowed me to put down some roots which I had avoided my first four years sober. I hate saying goodbye, I'm horrible about staying in contact with people, and I guess HP wants me to learn how to do both since he gave me the opportunity to move out of the area despite my wanting to get transferred from Houma back to New Orleans. Well, HP and the Coast Guard assignment officer anyway.

8. Sometimes Mapquest's directions are not accurate.

9. When a billboard says, "over 1200 rooms and 20 restaurants available," this means that one hotel will allow dogs. I had to smuggle in the cats, but they didn't do any damage.

10. Asking the Jefferson Parish Water Department on Thursday to turn off your water on Monday means they will turn it off on Friday morning at 0600. I unfortunately discovered this when I took my morning pee. At least I didn't get naked and in the shower first. But there is no way I will be getting back my deposit since I couldn't do any cleaning other than vacuuming. Oops.

11. Visiting my sister and getting her head cold as soon as I got into Virginia really really sucks. I did nothing but sleep, drink tea, and walk the dogs every four hours for a week. I very stupidly went into work anyway to get settled and start the process for the DC housing money versus Houma, LA (which is significantly more money) to kick in, and I apologize to anyone I passed sickness and germs too. This was also when I wiped out on the concrete with Trouble and Maggie.

12. Hmmm. I think that's it. Oh yeah, I had to buy a laptop since the computer wrapped up in a carpet and stowed (very securely I thought) in the trailer doesn't work now. I will get all my work done from MBA 530. Really.

13. Monk and Psych are the best things on TV in the summer. When the heck is Battlestar Galactica on again?!?

14. I have no idea who Dane Cook is, but I watched all episodes of his Tourgasm, and he is freaking hilarious. And cute.

Okay, my list degenerated to just ramblings. Oh well. I'm here, I'm connected, and I'm awake. I'm keeping my expectations very simple right now.

Jennifer