Sort of a followup, apparently people are actually getting off their couches (or at least grabbing their laptops) and emailing their congressmen in such huge numbers that they crashed the server! I’m so proud!
Constantly having to call IT to add more hardware makes us hard to ignore! Tell those load balanced servers to shove it! Keep emailing. And if that fails, call. And if that fails, it’s a recess, go track them down in your hometown. Tell them how you feel! They represent you afterall!
Cause that’s totally how she’s gonna view it. Her yard. And for that matter, her house. Closing should be on or before June 30. I anticipate it being more exciting after I get out of the financial stages.
And because I was asked to: Registry. The bed bath and beyond registry gun was heavier than I expected. If you want to get something off there, but find it somewhere cheaper, by all means get it there. Consider it more a list of suggestions. I’m tempted to make Ichi one on like Petsmart.com if they offer that. A couple of people have expressed wanting to get her a more outside oriented toy.
More to come soon, including trying to move with a dog that doesn’t like strangers. At least in the new house she hopefully won’t be as possessive as it won’t instantly be recognized as “hers”.
I think I ask mom this more and more frequently. She’s probably tired of it by now. And while it doesn’t appear to be a huge thing for mom and dad (as dad seems like he goes through computers faster than he can fill them), I don’t even want to think about the day when Becca’s computer fails. I really don’t want to be there for that, honestly.
But, I’ve been thinking about backups a lot lately, now that I have 2 macs instead of just one. (SO LONG PC’S I WILL NOT MISS YOU.) Currently I’m running Time Machine, SuperDuper!, and .Mac MobileMe. MobileMe is the new .Mac, released less than a month ago and OH HOW I HATE IT. it’s supposed to “push”, it doesn’t, it “syncs”, but I’m not even sure it’s doing that correctly. My calendars are all out of whack (pieces of SOME of the calendars).
Granted, I redid a lot of stuff last night that seemed to fix the majority of the problem, but I’m still left contactless on my phone. It’s supposed to push to my phone and it has been more than 24 hours, nothing.
Well, now that I’ve vented the MobileMe back up frustrations, I’ll continue with my lecture on BACKING UP.
So, ‘kunoichi’ is the japanese word for ‘female ninja’. When debating names, it was on the table as she’s a female black japanese dog. She LOOKS like a doggie ninja. When she arrived and would follow me only until I turned to look at her, or hid under furniture, I decided that was the name. But let me tell you, I’ve found MORE reasons why she’s a ninja.
1) She’s sneaky. She’ll sneak into my room and under my bed in no time flat. Fortunately for me, she hasn’t figured out that I can almost always hear her under the bed. Then there’s the occasional outline and my favorite trick she picked up from Sunny…peeking out so that just her nose if visible. It’s adorable.
2) She now hides all over the house. Yesterday I found her hidden in the pantry. How she got into the pantry I have no idea. She was BEHIND the garbage can where it’s REALLY REALLY dark. Thank God for that curly tail or I would have been really freaked out.
3) She’ll steal your stuff without your knowledge. Like SD cards and Jump Drives. She likes to fake you out by chewing harmless on a bone. You go back to your business thing, paying no mind to the chewing sound that’s now almost comforting cause it means she’s occupied. And then, you return and instead of bringing you the bone, she runs. This is typical “oh crap I’ve been caught” Ichi behavior. Yeah, not so much fun for me.
More on her behavior lately after the cut.
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Just kidding. I watch a lot of tv and that seems to be one thing that writers do a LOT and viewers never like. Seriously? What was the point of that DH? Additionally…the Bones season finale completely jumped the shark. At first I was excited because of all the stuff that had just happened, but less than an hour later I was confronted with thoughts of “wait….what?”. I also found the season finale of How I Met Your Mother kind of meh. To be fair, i watched it between Bones and House (I love you Tivo!), so it was clearly overshadowed by drama. Speaking of House…I only saw the last 20 minutes, but I was in tears. I think Fox is trying to kill us emotionally. Next up, Gossip Girl (Tivo), Grey’s Anatomy and Lost. By Friday I may not be able to express emotions, they might be all sucked away. I might just be living in a constant state of “huh…wait…what…to who…polar bears?” Good thing there’s no BSG this Friday. I’m not sure I could take it.
BTW, Battlestar Galatica (reimagined) is like my new obsession. I’m racing through the dvds and am currently on disc 3 of 2.5 and have already seen large chunks of season 3. My ex has told me I should be ashamed for watching the current season before I catch up..don’t care. It’s a gigantic puzzle and I love it.
In OTHER NEWS (and really the point of the post)…ICHI’S 7 MONTHS OLD TODAY. You can all go “awww” now. In her 6th month of being alive she has proven to be an enemy to linoleum, flip flops, and sunglasses. Oh, she’s also clearly wanting to eat/drink everything that I eat/drink…aka, she’s developed an unnatural obsession with tomatoes and coca cola. I kid you not. If I leave the room and there happens to be grape tomatoes or a coke on the end table, you best believe I’ll hear a crash before I get back in. Additionally, she seems to want cucumbers. I’ve somewhat combatted this problem by replacing the cheese in her diet…with carrots. I figure, when I’m going to the fridge to get something like a cucumber, the baby carrot is roughly the same shape and proportion so she thinks she’s getting one too. Plus, it takes her forever to eat one, which kind of works out for me.
I’ve also had a lot more people recognize her breed, which is weird to me now. And she’s almost over the compulsion to chase the ducks/birds while on a leash. There are too many babies right now, I can’t let her. The compulsion to run the Shiba 500 at every opportunity is not gone however.
And again, the high is 88 for today. It’s getting warm.
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Ichi does a lot of weird things. Things that can’t be explained. Yesterday highlighted this. I’ll start with lunch.
Lately, she’s been in a “you’re never gonna catch me” mood. So, at lunch yesterday, when she decided to get some water, I snuck behind her and closed her door. I figured that way I could keep tabs on her since I only had about 20 minutes left and in that time I’d have to take her for a walk. I went back to get her for said walk, the door was LOCKED. Let me say that again…the door…was….LOCKED….from the inside. I guess we’ve reached those teenage years where we don’t want to behave and lock ourselves in our room.
That would have sucked if I couldn’t her out…more so for her. I probably should have done the parent thing of “okay, you wanna do something that will get you put in jail, stay there for a night” and then she would have realized that she gets food because I have to give it to her. But I didn’t, I got a coin and unlocked the door. Off we went on our walk, I went back to work, I came back home…SAME OLD SAME OLD.
Now, here’s where things get a bit different.
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So, as I’ve mentioned before, I enrolled Ichi in obedience classes and we’re in the midst of those. Currently on week 5 I believe. So far we’ve learned “sit”, “lie down”, sitting when I stop on walks, coming back to me when I stop on walks, “leave it”, “take it”, “stay” and this week was “down stay”. Oh and “come”.
She does well on “sit”, sometimes confusing it with “lie down” but in general, not a problem. She was excellent on stopping when we walked. And she does a decent job at most of the rest. Except “stay”. She’s pretty easily distracted (maybe it’s the big ears) so even at home I have trouble getting her to keep her focus. I’m always the nervous one on “come” because Shibas are known for their escape plans. Well, ’stay’ and ‘come’ were the tasks yesterday.
Well, after 2 weeks of training, 2 straight weekends away, things are finally back to normal (for the time being). Ichi seems to be adjusting quite well, but then, things weren’t all that different for her other than staying with Mom and Dad (where she was completely spoiled by a seemingly neverending supply of cheese).
She now goes to training on Tuesdays. 5 more sessions left. Of course, she’s so smart that she behaves like a perfect little angel around the teacher to the point that we get asked “have you already done this before”. Next week we learn stay. Last week we learned “leave it”, “take it”, “drop it”, and “lie down” (which we already knew). She’s doing great on “take it” (naturally, Shiba’s think it’s theirs to begin with). She’s doing OKAY with “leave it” and terrible at “drop it”. “Lie down” is getting better.
Bad behavior moments: still not completely housebroken and we knocked over mommy’s coke today all over her ps3 controller. It appears that no major harm was done, so all is forgiven.
As for me, on the first weekend I’m home in a while, I’ve cleaned. Oh and sewn. But mostly cleaned. My bedroom closet is prepped for a cleaning out and reorganized. My to do list is getting shorter, so hopefully I’ll be getting less stressed out soon. Anyone wanna give me a gift certificate for a spa?
I gotta say that I love the vet that I chose. Every time I bring Ichi home, I get a call in a day or two checking on her progress. Lazy thing that I am, it’s nice to have that appear on my phone as a method to tell them if anything’s wrong.
Nothing is so far. All she wanted to do yesterday when I brought her home was run and play, which was prohibited by the vet due to her abdominal incision. She didn’t like being put in her kennel most of the night, not one bit. This afternoon at lunch I even heard the dreaded Shiba Scream echo from the area her kennel’s in. Since she usually only does that when she’s in pain, I always go to check, but I never open the kennel door.
She’s a bit groggy today I think. She didn’t eat at breakfast, but did finish it by lunch. She’s playful, but not rambunctious. Hard to tell if that counts as “lethargic”. If it does, I kind of like it. It could also be that since she’s been put on “no running” orders, I’ve got the leash still on her (a lightweight one) so that I can grab her easier if she starts to run and play. She might be confused and thinking a trip outside is imminent.
However, in another “my puppy’s smart” moment, she ate her medicine like it was the tastiest treat she’d ever smelled. Seriously. Ichi saw that medicine and jumped on my leg to get me to give it to her. Must be the grape robutussin of doggie medication. I’m still amused that things I’m not supposed to work so hard on are hard for her (going to her kennel, eating) and the things that other people have to trick their dogs to do are a piece of cake (take medicine).
But that’s it. My PS3 came, so I’m using the Ichi-bed-rest moments to get acquainted with it. Blu-Ray ahoy! Currently immersed in Devil May Cry 4 and finding Nero annoying, MOAR DANTE! Up next: watching Layer Cake (DVD), Pirates 3 (BLU-RAY!) and Spidey 3 (BLU-RAY!). I’m preparing myself to never be satisfied by my parents TV ever again. Guess the PS3 will need a traveling case!
Well, I pick up my girl from the vet at 5:15 today. I dropped her off at 7:45AM yesterday. If you’ve been around me very often, you know that me up and anywhere at 7:45AM is a feat in and of itself and should be enough to prove that I love my puppy, even though I may not like her very much some days. I don’t think she knew what was going on when we left the house, but she KNEW where she was when we got out…or rather TRIED to get out of the car.
When we left the house she was all cute and adorable. She walked to the parking lot just fine, saw my car, instantly went to the tire nearest her door (thanks Ichi for not scratching up my paint with your massively long nails!) and waited for me to open it. She’s getting a little bit more independent and curious these days and thus, just as she does the papasan chair, she gave her all in trying to get in the car without my help. I think we’ve moved out of the toddler phase. Well, she couldn’t do it, of course, but with just a little help (pulling her up a little) she got in and then hopped up on the back seat as if she’d conquered the car.
Off we went. And then we arrived….much to her dismay. She didn’t want to get out of the car AT ALL. So I picked her up and carried her to the sidewalk at which point she struggled to get out of my arms, so I let her down. Apparently it wasn’t just to get out of my arms, she wanted away from that place. Much struggling later and we were in the door at like 7:58AM (cutoff for arrival was 8am). Next step: handing her off to the *gulp* surgery team. Again, she wasn’t fond of that, but I wasn’t really either. Something about the word SURGERY that bugs me about that.
