Message from the President

Friends, Romans, Countrydogs. . . As president of the Secret Doggie Alliance, I want to thank you all for your support. Remember to stay the course. Our mission here at the Secret Doggie Alliance to ensure that we remain vigilent.. . . vigilant. . .vigi. . . darn it! I hate large human words. We gotta remember our rights! To bark when we want! to sleep where we want! To have coffee every morning if that is what we want! You must remember that though it appears your humans are in charge, the fate of your household in fact, rests on your canine shoulders. You must never reveal your secret dog name, given to you during your initiation ceremony. Should someone guess your secret dog name, you must pretend you didn’t hear them. In fact, it’s best to pretend you don’t hear your humans at all. When they call you over, when they ask you to sit, when they want you to come inside because you are barking too much and the neighbors are starting to complain . . . The only exception to this rule is when you hear one of the following magic words: Treats, Cookies, Walk, Bedtime.

Be strong my friends. Soon we will rule the world.

Nevermind. . . I don’t want to know. . .

So one of the bathrooms at work got re-done. The toilet seat is weird. It’s all shaped and contoured. I guess it’s supposed to be ergonomically designed or something.

Come on. Ergonomically designed? Just how long were you planning on sitting there?

I take it back, I DON’T want to know.

Car is back from the shop and I must say, those guys at the Husky gas station (where I took it) were super nice. I feel I got a good price for the work done – they switched out my coolant fluid, ran a pressure test on my coolant system and changed my oil. They even filled up my washer fluid, even though I didn’t mention it was low! They must have checked it for me. And my conversation with them went something like this:
Mechanic: Well, you were totally out of coolant fluid. All the seals on your system are shot.
Me: I know. I was told by the dealership that it would cost $1200.00 to fix
Mechanic: Oh no. It shouldn’t cost that. I mean, you’re looking at about 925.00 but 1200.00 is too much.
Me: I just can’t afford that.
Mechanic: Well, as long as you put fluid in every time the light comes on, you’ll be fine. It’ll drive no problems. Just keep an eye on it.

And I waited for him to pressure me to fix it, like the dealership had done, but then there was just silence from his end. And I said:
Can you change my oil while you’re in there?
Mechanic: No problem. By the way, whoever added coolant last didn’t put the lid back on.
Me: Oh. Well. (pauses – and then blurts out) It was me! What an idiot!
Mechanic chuckles: well just make sure you put it back on or it can cause worse problems.
Me (sheepish): okay, thanks. When will it be ready?
Mechanic: anytime after 1pm. You can pick it up till 9pm.
Me: Oh, wow thanks!! How much?
Mechanic: Well, I haven’t totalled it up but it’ll be around $XXX
Me: Alrighty. Thanks.

And then I showed up and it was EXACTLY what he said it would be!!

This is the first time I’ve gone to a mechanic and haven ‘t felt TOTALLY screwed over when I left. I was dealt with politely and (I feel) fairly. I paid what I was told it would cost. And no one pressured me to get this or that done to my car.

Dog N A

I’m a curious person and being a curious person means that I read alot. Last night I couldn’t sleep but I didn’t want to get wrapped up in a book and then stay up all night, so I plucked some mindless reading of my bookshelves – Your Alaskan Malamute and You. Now, Portia is not a pure bred, she was rescued by ARF (link on the right) but based on her appearance, they speculated she was either a Husky or a Malamute cross. After reading several books and scrutinizing pictures, I have decided to go with Malamute.

I was reading last night the general characteristics of malamutes: stubborn (check), likes to be with her pack (check), loves children (check), worst guard dog ever (check – she loves anyone who looks at her sideways), loves snow (check), etc. But all of this got me thinking – these were not physical traits – these were mental/emotional traits. So how much of who she is is defined by her DNA? And by that turn, how much of who we are is defined by our DNA? The old Nature vs Nurture debate. If there are characteristics that can be generally applied to most alaskan malamutes, then what would be the charateristics applied to me by my ancestors? What’s a product of my environment and experiences, and what’s a product of stuff lurking in my genes? My love of pink? Scrapbooking? My dislike of seafood?

If you say that someone is an artist, or musically talented because someone else in their family was and that was passed on, then what else can be handed down? Like, I hate the smell of wind, I love crunchy food and I’m afraid of the dark. If I could hand out questionaires to all my ancestors, what would they say? Would there by a high proportion of people who like pink and solitary activities the same way that Portia’s ancestors learned you depended on your pack for survival and therefore, pack was all?

Shrug – but it sure makes for interesting wool gathering late at night.

That’s the pic on my calendar for February and I really like it! Don’t you hate it when you really like your February calendar picture but you know it’s only gonna be up for 28 days? Or less if you’re like me and you forgot to flip over from January. And why haven’t we done something about this whole 28-day-February? Why can’t we take a day from January and one from March and make all three 30-day months? Don’t you think it’s odd that we’ve never fixed this? I call for a revolution!!

Let me tell you!

Let me tell you about my obsession with Sean Bean. It is fierce! Ya know, normally, I’m not into historical war stuff but I have seen every installment of the Sharpe series simply because Sean plays Sharpe. (example here). I rooted for him in Goldeneye even when he was a bad guy, I rented Silent Hill for the sole purpose of seeing him. I’ve watched Anna Karenina a dozen times because he’s in it. I never wanted Boromir to try to steel the ring from Frodo in LOTR even though I had read the book! But why oh why does he regularly play a bad guy? In his upcoming film, The Hitcher, Sean is once again our resident baddie. I’ll have to go see it just so I can ogle him, but I’m dying for him to play a romantic hero! Dammit!

Return to the Valley of the Dolls – by Squirrelly Girly and Portia

Scene begins – Jenge has just gone upstairs while Margarita sips her coffee on the sofa. . .

J (from upstairs): What medication did you have in your room?
M(sits up like a shot): No! She didn’t!
J: She did. What was it and how many did you have in the bottle?
M: Umm, I dunno, 30? but I’ve taken some.
J: Kay, I got 26.
M: Call the vet! I don’t think she ate any, but we can’t be sure!
J(on phone with vet, covers mouthpiece and speaks to M): She has to come in and throw up.
M: How much is that gonna cost me?
J: Dunno, but since we can’t be positive she didn’t’ eat them, she has to come in.

Later that day, at the vet’s. . .
Vet: Looks like she didn’t eat any of them, or if she did, didn’t ingest any full capsules. All we found was kibble, a cookie and some black plastic.
– side note: It was “Underworld Evolution” Later found chewed up in my room.

Portia had to spend most of the day at the vet getting her vitals checked every hour, but has since returned home. Apparently she busted into the pills and was more interested in destroying the prescription bottle than actually eating its contents. That dog is going to give me a heart attack!