Best of 09 - Day 20

  
    
  
 December 20 New person. She came into your life and turned it upside down. He went out of his way to provide incredible customer service. Who is your unsung hero of 2009?

Woohoo, a VERY easy one. The best people that came into my life were David and Gina P. I don't know how we would have made the transition from me living in Alabama to this house in Florida without them. We're truly lucky to have become friends with them!

David works with M, I don't actually know how long. I first met him, I think, when we were dropping M's dogs off at their house to stay during the honeymoon. They have 4 dogs of their own and usually have some fosters, so they didn't blink an eye at absorbing two more dogs for a week.

David came to Alabama to help M load up the Uhaul with my stuff. We ended up being there all weekend because we couldn't get the truck completely loaded on Saturday as planned (it's hard to do that in 95 degree weather with craaaazy humidity). So he drove 6 hours on Friday after work, using his car, loaded Saturday and Sunday, then drove 6 hours Sunday. Sunday or Monday night, the boys unloaded the truck into David and Gina's garage. We didn't think the stuff woul dbe there too long...but it ended up being from early August to early October! They never once complained. They took care of my fish. And they offered to take Buck and Judy on until we had a house (M's place was too cramped for 4 dogs) so they wouldnt have to be boarded for an extended period. With their dogs, my dogs, and 2 fosters, they had 8 dogs!

The closest they ever came to complaining was after Judy busted the door to the office during a storm, I think. While there, Judy ran away twice and the dogs locked themselves in the office once. Plus, Judy was having a dominance contest with one of the fosters, causing fights. But they wouldn't let me board Judy.

To top it off, David helped M last weekend to try to finally get him moved out of his apartment.

Yeah, I'd say they qualify as unsung heroes!

Best of 09 - Day 8

 
  
    
  
 

December 8 Moment of peace. An hour or a day or a week of solitude. What was the quality of your breath? The state of your mind? How did you get there?

Finally an easy one! My peace, my heaven, comes when I lay in my hammock in the sun, with my babies  running and playing around me, or laying in the sun with me. The sun on my face feels wonderful, and it's always fun to watch my dogs wrestle, or watch them relax in their own little heavenly way. It's a time when I can just let all my stresses go, and be in the moment. Or, contemplate something that's been bothering me in a more distanced way. I'll usually bring out my mp3 player, and maybe a magazine.

A certain amount of sun, of course, is good for mood and health and circadian rhythms. Being in the south, it doesn't take long for laying int he sun to become uncomfortably hot, so I usually dont lay out too long. But while I'm out there, nothing is wrong.

Best of 09 - Day 4

  
    
  


December 4 Book. What book - fiction or non - touched you? Where were you when you read it? Have you bought and given away multiple copies?
Geez Louise, yet another one that I can't immediately answer. Law school kind of got me off reading books for fun; even now, I mostly read magazines. I have an entire shelf of books I haven't read, though I've started quite a few of them. Granted, I read plenty in law school, but I wouldn't call any of those "touching" nor anything I would want to remember.

I'm going to go with a book I got about a man's experience in adopting a special needs dog. The book is buried under who-knows-what at M's old place, so I can't look up the name that I can't remember. I can't even remember all the details; I think the dog was deaf but maybe it was blind. I started the book back in August, then it fell from it's "home" and hasn't been seen in awhile, thus the lapses in detail. At any rate, I'll update this if I ever find it, and tell you what I do remember. It's a sweet story; the dog is adopted from backyard breeders after the writer's long time pet dies. The dog had been pretty unloved up to that point. The highlight so far is when the police end up at the home because the dog's antics, when locked up in a bedroom, made the neighbor's think something awful was going on at the house. When I left off, the author was trying to get his new dog and his roommate's two dogs to give peace a chance. I hope I can find the book soon and get back into reading stories that last moire than a few pages; I've always been an avid reader, and I do miss it.

The Kids

I'm likely to talk about the dogs a lot here, and I don't post a lot of pictures. So now seems like a good time to describe them all and post some pictures of my babies.

This is Buck. He's my angel, my first born. He's super sweet and recently become a little cuddlebug. He liiiives for food and being told that he's a good boy. That tail is almost always wagging. He loves chasing toys and wrestling with me or other dogs. He's the only one of the 4 that we trust enough to take out off leash. I can't really say anything bad about him.

Judy just doesn't do photos, so this is the best I can do. Seriously, she knows when I switch my phone to camera mode and runs off. She's very sweet, loves to cuddle, is good for spooning at night when I'm alone. She lacks common sense (terrified of the vacuum, won't move when you're sweeping and will just let you sweep her), but is very clever. She thinks that sitting will get her anything she wants - attention, food, being let go to go chase that cat. She can escape from anything. Seriously, anything. She twice threw the pan out of her crate from inside the crate. One time she ate half of it, threw out half, and pulled the curtain rod out of the wall from inside her crate. She's kinda crazy. But, she's very loving, and if you need to know whether someone closed a car door two blocks away, she's your gal.

That's Loki, with Scrappy AKA Baby Girl AKA hellhound behind him. Loki is M's angel. He's pretty mellow most of the time, but whines if he sees you or an animal outside. He's pretty obedient to M, not so much to me. Poor thing has had multiple knee surgeries and melanoma removed from his face, plus demodex (sp?) that doesn't really respond to treatment and causes his fur to fall out in clumps. He and Buck made fast friends. Scrappy is another escape artist and absolutely destroyed M's old place, so we're keeping her on a figurative short leash. What is is about boy dogs being so good and girls being, well, bitches? Judy is little miss dominant and Scrappy is little miss chaos. She's another sweety, loves attention, but watch out if she's not getting enough of it!

M's dogs are both about 8 and mine are both about 5, so with some luck, knock on wood, we'll have them all for awhile to come. Mine are both 50-55 pounds, loki is 60-70, and scrappy is 30-35, so that's a lot of dogs! they're all used to sleeping in bed with people, but loki can't get up on my bed with his knees (i have a tall bedframe and a pillowtop mattress, so it's pretty high up) and scrappy sleeps in her crate, so we only have 110 pounds of dog at night, thank goodness. Judy is pretty iffy with other dogs, and Loki is a little dominant too, but luckily they've all gotten along pretty damn well, with just an occasional minor fight. There's a lot of humping, but dogs will be dogs. They even eat close together without problems, which surprised me. I'm so relieved that they get on so well; I don't know what we would have done if they didnt. Now if we could just keep them off the couch when we're not looking and keep the girls from finding ways out of the fence when we get that finished, we'll be good.

Told ya I could go on and on about my kids!