Tag Archives: dogs

Two rooms…

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Having been back for almost a day, I have exactly two clean-ish rooms to show for it. I say clean-ish because with Maggie and Winston around nothing is really ever what some might call actually clean. At best, you can say they majority of the hair, dust, and random crud has been removed… but that’s not really the point of this post.

The point? It’s simply that after less than a week away from the office I’ve been reduced to bitching and complaining about household dust and dirt. I have no idea what’s going on in the world – and what’s more, for the most part I really don’t care. I wouldn’t have known it was even Sunday today if my phone hadn’t made a point of telling me that when I woke up this morning. Maybe I’m too much the cynic, but I think there might be a life lesson in there somewhere.

I’m sure some people have a hard time adjusting to the unstructured life of not punching a clock twice a day. As I’ve long suspected, that’s not going to be a problem I’ll suffer when the time comes. For some reason a clean kitchen fills me with a greater sense of accomplishment than all the powerpoint briefings I’ve ever built. That’s one of those fun facts I’ll file away in the “good to know” file.

Preparations for getting underway…

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You’d think after spending four Christmases fighting my way home across 900 miles, a quick hop from on side of a small mid-Atlantic state to the other could be accomplished with a minimum of fuss. If you thought that, however, you would be exactly wrong. Traveling with Maggie and Winston in tow is a task table_3_supply_classesso complex that it makes even the planning for Normandy look like amateur hour. Beds, food, fuel, clothes, sundries, health and welfare items, medication – if I added barrier material and ammo I could cover down on all the classes of supply getting loaded into the truck in preparation for getting underway.

There’s a fair percentage – maybe 30% – of what’s getting packed that I won’t actually use or need. Still, I like knowing that I have it. You could fill warehouses with things I like having along “just in case.” For me, apparently it’s just in case I need to rebuild my life from the ground up starting only with what I have on hand with me in the truck. Almost disturbingly, that’s only a bit of an exaggeration. I don’t travel as much as I use to, but when I do, I travel heavy. After all, you never know what just in case might pop up requiring you to rebuild civilization using only contents of your luggage.

Needy…

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I’m hopelessly devoted to the dogs. It’s safe to say that there are human children in Ceciltucky who are more poorly cared for then these two fur balls. Even so, it would occasionally be nice to take a step backwards without needing to check my six. I only bring it up because Maggie has been exceptionally needy this afternoon. And by needy, I mean attached to my hip even more than usual. That’s not an exaggeration. Every time I move, she adjusts so that some part of her is in direct contact with me. It’s sweet, but more than a bit inconvenient.

Winston, bless my stoic descendent of British fighting dogs, is mostly happy just to lay in front of the couch protecting his marrow bone and casting an occasional look around the room to make sure everyone is still there. George, being a tortoise, could care less. At the moment, he’s under his heat lamp looking very much like a round, shiny rock. It’s for the best. I’m not sure I could manage with three that need undivided attention.

This post would be longer, but you’d be surprised how difficult it is to type anything coherent with one hand while the other is occupied with playing tug and dispensing ear scratches…

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Begging. Tonight’s the night when all you parents out there send your children mixed messages by encouraging them off to talk to strangers for candy. Fortunately the houses in my neighborhood are far enough apart that it’s not particularly lucrative bit of ground to cover, so there aren’t typically herds of children wandering around looking for a handout. It’s not so much that I mind the giving away of candy, but like the 4th of July, it’s one of those nights that threatens to send one or both of the dogs over the edge every time they hear the gate close or someone knocking on the door. Then again there’s the unmitigated glee when I open the door so parent and child are faced with a surly looking bald man with two barking dogs at his back… so at least there’s that.

2. Getting Close. Earlier this month it looked like jeffreytharp.com was well on its way to having its best month ever in terms of unique views. WordPress was regularly reporting daily views of 50 or 60 people. On October 3rd, the site posted its biggest single day. Since this past Sunday the number of views per day have plummeted for reasons I haven’t been able to identify just yet. At the rate they’re hitting now, I’ll be lucky to bring in 50 or 60 views this week. Alas, such are the vagaries of the internet. As October draws to a close, I’ll have to content myself with having the 2nd best month in the blog’s short history… and start worrying about how to keep November from ending up recorded as the 2nd worst.

3. Indecision. You can accuse me of a lot of things, but being indecisive is generally not one of them. Right, wrong, or otherwise, when confronted with possible courses of action I’ll pick one based on the best information I have available at the time and move out smartly. I’ll never claim to make the right decision all the time, but I’ll by God make one instead of just sitting around waiting for something to happen. Whether it’s where to have lunch or which program to throw over the side, I wish the populace at large would just stop pussyfooting around and figure out what they want to happen. Walking through life having other people’s bad decisions foist upon you is simply piss poor planning. As far as I’m concerned, any decision made on the spot is better than a great decision made ten minutes too late.

Blue hell…

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I’ve been outside for a grand total of thirty minutes today… and that’s only because the dogs insist on it from time to time. Other than that, I’ve been hiding inside with two window air conditioners cranked all the way over to 11 and the blinds drawn in an effort to lessen the effects of the giant ball of fire in the sky. Maybe it was the 40 straight days of rain we’ve just had, but I’d forgotten just how uncomfortable July can be when you’re acclimated to it. George seems to be enjoying it, but the mammals in the house are officially over the part of the year where we hide inside during the daylight hours.

Day without dogs…

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Last night was the first time since I moved back to Maryland that I was home and the dogs weren’t. I’m not going to lie. It felt unnatural. I’ve had at least one of the furry brutes around for the better part of the last six years and a night without snorting, endless trips outside, slobber-covered toys dropped in my lap, and a constant attached at the hip presence Dogsjust felt odd. I’ve apparently grown rather fond of fighting a 70 pound chocolate lab for bed space and covers.

Sure, they’re a tremendous hassle with vet bills, specialized food, and a battalion’s worth of “stuff” that goes with them everywhere, but they’re my hassle. I won’t pretend that it’s not nice to have a break from the regular schedule of feeding, watering, chasing, fetching, farting, and drooling, but I’ll be glad to have the heathens back at the end of the week.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Instead of sending me an email saying my statement is available, how about you just email me the effing statement and save me half a dozen clicks, a password entry, and hunting around your site looking for my statement. I know you’re trying to drive traffic to your craptastic site so you can generate more ad revenue, but you’re using a really douchy and inconvenient method of making that happen… and that virtually guarantees that I won’t even consider buying whatever your marketing geniuses are trying to sell. Sure, the email notice is better than paper, but just barely.

2. The Cloud. About a year ago, we suffered through a veritable avalanche of reminders “Make Sure to back up your C: drive to the cloud.” This week we’re suffering from a flood of equal and opposite reminders to go clean up the files we’ve stored in the cloud, it’s taking up too much space on the server. Sigh. Yes, networked storage costs money, but its not that much money. And really, being able to revive a document you worked on three years ago that’s suddenly relevant again is pretty much priceless.

3. Dogs. Most of the time, dogs are perfectly happy leading their lives of sleeping, eating, going outside, and repeating ad infinitum until the end of days. Every now and then, though, they decide to change things up… for absolutely no apparent reason. Or maybe it’s just me who can’t figure out why a dog would come into the kitchen after spending half an hour outside, grin at you (and yes, I’m quite sure she grinned), and drop an enormous deuce on the floor. I love these dogs like most people love their kids… but sometimes I’m amazed that anyone puts up with having the little heathens living in their home.

Vetted…

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Just once I’d like to walk away from the vet with them telling me that everything is great and it’s $128.00 for the exam and yearly battery of shots. Such an idea is silly, though, as pet care is big business… an environment not aided by the fact that any perceived threat to one of my pups will be met with massive and overwhelming force and a willingness to bring every modern veterinary miracle to bear on even the smallest issue. Even so, I guess I got away easy this morning. Maggie got a relatively clean bill of health, but I still ended up walking away with a bag full of flea, tick, and heart worm preventative for the kids as well as a refill of Winston’s regular joint supplements and “special” food. I don’t know if I’ll ever stop being surprised (horrified?) at the expense we’ll got to to keep animals more or less healthy.

Dogs have been part of the human story since the first caveman tossed a scrap of meat to the great furry beast sitting at the edge of the village. It seems they’ve gotten along pretty well. Man’s life and dog’s have been infinitely improved by our happy coexistence. I can’t imagine a time when my home won’t include at least one of the little fuzzballs. Still, part of me wonders if we all weren’t better off when dogs were just dogs and not fur covered adopted children. Now that they are, I don’t think there’s any going back… but sweet baby Jesus, it would be nice to spend less on their healthcare than I spend on my own.

Christmas morning…

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After reading so many Facebook posts about staying up into the early hours assembling presents and waking up before the crack of dawn to begin the great unwrapping, I’d like to take a moment and really appreciate my incredibly low key Christmas morning. I woke up around 8AM, took the dogs for a quick walk in the snow (their idea, not mine), made a pot of coffee, and eventually got around to unwrapping presets and reading the paper before brewing another pot of coffee and settling in for the morning.

All-in-all, a quiet Christmas morning seems like an invaluable moment of calm before the mayhem and chaos of the rest of the day. It’s not quite zen, but sucking down copious amounts of coffee while the dogs snore in front of the fire vaguely feels like what Christmas is supposed to be. Of course that may just be my own uniquely warped view of how things work.

From my comfortable seat in the living room, Merry Christmas to all my friends and family (and anyone who stumbles across this post by accident).

Logistics…

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Supply Lines As close as I can tell moving me and two dogs from one side of Maryland to the other is the greatest logistical challenge which has faced mankind since Patton’s army raced across northern Europe. At present the packing list includes:

1. Two bags for me
2. Two crates stuffed to capacity with “dog stuff”
3. One Rubbermaid container of Christmas presents
4. Two containers of dog food (they can’t eat the same thing, of course)
5. Two hats
6. Two coats (one light, one heavy w/ zip out liner)
7. One backpack waiting to be stuffed to the brim with computer and networking equipment, a laptop, an iPad, a Kindle, and all the associated power cables
8. Two dogs

I’m sure I’ll be adding to that list throughout the night, but if you’ll excuse me I need to go start working on the load plan for the truck. I think I should have sprung for the extended bed instead of just the extended cab.