Kunoichi: Doggie Ninja

I think Ichi’s just excited for her first Thanksgiving with us. Also, I think she’s counting on things to fall from tables and counters…she’ll take anything, but she’s clearly hoping for cheese and meats.

In other November news…I made a very grown up purchase. I think Mom and Dad were willing to chip in as party of my birthday partially becuase this is the first time in years I didn’t get a video game related item for my birthday. See, I’m growing up. It was a couch/loveseat set from Ashley furniture. Boy it’s nice to no longer have nails poking me in the back from the papasan chair.

Ichi’s favorite aspect of the new couches is that the combo forms a small traingle area in between them. Becuase of the way they are shaped, the table doesn’t close off this area. She now has her own tunnell like place in the apartment. Also, when there is company, she sits in between the loveseat and the sofa so she can get petted by everyone.

But yes, we leave in a few days for much good food and insane shopping (BlackFriday.info). I’ve committed to making cheesecake and I’ve picked it out.  I’ll let you know how it goes. BTW, here’s the one I made for St. Patrick’s Day. Bailey’s Irish Coffee Cheesecake. Thanksgiving will be Pumpkin Caramel.

So, secret time, I actually like going to ballparks. If I didn’t, it would have REALLY SUCKED to go to as many softball games as I have (some people were raised in barns, I was raised in a ballpark). I have an affinity for ballpark style foods. I have my patterns (at Jordan-Hare it’s always a hot dog, big drink, and a frozen lemonade, because, well, it’s hot and they’re tasty, but that’s football, it doesn’t count as ballpark food really). But my real love when it comes to ball park food is funnel cakes*. Sometimes they sell them at amusement parks (yes, I know the closest place to the entrace at Islands of Adventure to get one) and carnivals.

But I have other reasons, one of which being it’s pretty relaxing. At least, when kids aren’t blowing horns at you that kind of make them sound more like a dying moose.  There are usually people willing to make a fool of themselves for free tickets to a game that cost me .22 to get into (school supply night FTW!). And oh yeah, fireworks!

Last year I bought a new camera for our trip to Mexico. It turned out some BEAUTIFUL pictures, but one of the first places I took it to was to a ballgame on the 4th of July. After playing with the settings so much I don’t remember how to get it back, I got decent pictures. Shortly thereafter I found the fireworks setting. D’oh!

Friday’s game was my redemption. I got some excellent pictures now that I know about that and burst mode. Now, if I can just start remembering to take pictures of myself at some of these events, maybe my facebook profile picture wouldn’t have snow in it…in August.

Click the picture for the whole set. Keep in mind I was playing with some settings and they don’t release all the fireworks at once, so some are better than others.

And if you are wondering: Ichi’s good. We had a power outage last  night that made things a little difficult getting her into her leash, but otherwise, just fine. Also, thanks to her dorky “mom”, she’s thoroughly enjoying her scooby snacks.

*if buying me food at a ballpark and I’ve already had a funnel cake or they are out, the following foods may be offered as a substitute: hot dog, hot pretzel, big gigantic thing of popcorn, massive pixie sticks, large pickles, sour straws, cheese sticks, pizza, and last but not least, dipping dots. Keep in mind I like to have as many different foods as possible, therefore, unless it’s 0.25 hot dog day, pick something I haven’t eaten yet. If you bring me nachos with melted cheese, you do not know me at all.

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.

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Well, first off, Ichi and I made our first trip to the fairly new Huntsville Dog Park. To be fair, the Huntsville Dog Park was a nice place to congregate, but it’s basically a chainlink fenced in area under the interstate. However, kudos to whoever thought of putting it there, what a great way to use the area under the interstates! The shade was nice.

When we first walked in, every dog in the area came to check out Ichi. I swear, she thinks she’s a movie star or something cause everyone loves her. Eventually, she grew tired of her puparazzi and decided to check things out, which also involved shunning the dogs. Eventually I got her back to the dogs and owners (so I felt less awkward) and she started to play a bit. Honestly, what good is going to the dog park if she just chills on her own?  And at some point, play, turned to chase. This may have been the first time Ichi ever realized she’s not a big dog.

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It’s coming along. It would probably be infinitely speedier if Ichi would calm down a bit. Last night was one of the few times I knew what she wanted, but alas, I know my dog and even if I had acted upon that, it wouldn’t have worked. There are just certain things ya notice (one of them being that she will not, for any reason, cross the concrete drainage area of the lake at the complex). And she’s gone back to not eating when it’s been laid out for her, too stuck on play time.

Speaking of playtime, that’s exactly what she thought we were having while I was scanning stuff yesterday. I guess she doesn’t realize that it’s not a flatbed scanner and I don’t have to wait a million years for the completion of one document. She attempted to chew on everything in retaliation. I gave her squeaky toys, bones, anything I could think of….but she wanted none of it. She wanted what she wanted and would accept no substitutes. It felt quite like a temper tantrum. More on another of her temper tantrums later. Scansnap now.

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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.

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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?