Good Dog

This might shock the Farm Family, knowing as they do the Pup's love of going off exploring whenever she gets half a chance, and her addiction to "catch me catch me" when she does get away on her own, but Noel is learning to heel off leash.

It's never been an issue before, we had a big yard, which both doors opened onto, and she could go out whenever she felt like it. She would occasionally get out of the yard, and when she did, it took twenty minutes to catch her, even for me. Longer, for anyone else, on a typical day.

The new place doesn't have a big yard though. The sliding glass door opens on the yard but the front (back? we face on the alley, but its the only outside access to our part of the duplex without going over the fence...) door just goes straight out to the alley.

So, we've been working on "Stay in the house." As opposed to "stay" which is plant your puppy butt until I tell you otherwise, "stay in the house" means just that. I don't care where she goes as long as its not out the door.

We've also been working on "stay close." Roommate has a twenty foot rope lead that Noel can drag around and I can step on if need be, but I haven't had to. We've graduated to going out the door off the leash entirely already, although I ask her to stay closer when I don't have a leash to step on.

The reason I titled this post the way I did, is because a few minutes ago, we were outside (I was smoking, the dogs were sniffing and eating grass) and the German Shepherds across the alley started barking. Roommate's dog Happy, who has been trained off leash since he was a pup, hopped up and started running, and I had to holler. Noel, who started off leash training two weeks ago, perked her ears and then looked at me. I told her to stay, and she sat down and waited for Happy to come back.

When I told her good girl, she stood up and went to Happy, grabbed his collar, and drug him over to me, then sat again.

I about wet myself laughing. Good dog.

The Pup

So. The Farmdog, aka Noel, aka Fat Dog, aka "who'smylittlepudgypuppy??" has had, pretty much since her adoption into the Farm Family, a small multicolored crab that has the unique ability to squeak.

This crab, known as "Squeaky", was the second noise toy miss Noel had. The first was a fake lambskin covered stuffed toy with a small squeaker in it, which she promptly shredded.

She didn't get Squeaky for a few months after that, and then with the admonition that if she tore him up, she wouldn't get another one.

That is the best taken care of dog toy in the history of dogdom. Unfortunately, the rubber has a finite shelf life, and we're reaching the end of that. And so, today Mamaw bought her granddog two brand new toys... one rope with a squeaker on it (the ultimate toy for Noel, who loves tug, and loves her noisy toys) and, after I saw it on the shelf and just had to see what it did, a stuffed duck, with an honest to goodness duck call inside it.

She was hesitant about Ducky for a while, but now has fully claimed it as hers, chasing the roommate's dog Happy away from it.

She looks absolutely adorable fetching Ducky like a real retriever. And when it quacks at her when she's not expecting it, she drops it and gives it this quizzical look, as if to say "Did you say something Ducky?"

Yeah, I'm a little odd about my dog, but Pup has been a good pal to me over the years. If all it takes to make her happy is a little fetch, a little tug, and something that squeaks at her when she bites it, it's the least I can do.

Well Hell

I have got to get in to the eye doctor.

My prescription has changed enough that I'm getting headaches. I was hoping to put this off for a while yet, but it looks like I'm not gonna have a choice.

It's time to go answer that age old question, over and over again.

"Better, or worse?"

Technology

Is a wonderful thing.

When I called to cancel my debit card, the nice lady at the bank checked for any transactions.

Whoever stole all my stuff attempted to use my card at the ATM at a nearby (like, a block and a half away) convenience store. Three times. They did get money off the other card, but we canceled it in time for the bank to not hold us responsible for the charges.

The first and second times were spread out, too, so there's either two chances for the security cameras to have caught the guy (or gal) coming in, or there's a nice long stretch for it to have caught them while they hung around in the store for about three hours.

Hopefully, they got a good picture. Then the nice officers can just go get a warrant and slap the guy in jail. It wasn't that much, money wise, but for me, it's the principle of the matter. I'd very much love five minutes alone with the asshole that did this, but I know that isn't going to happen.

Still... it's a nice fantasy.

Edit: What idiot decided that the convenience store security cameras didn't need to cover the ATM??? We'll find out tomorrow if there were any other charges to either card. It's very confusing, on the one hand I hope there aren't, because that's less money the bank is going to have to get back somehow (yay fraud protection, I'm not liable) and on the other hand, if they just got the cash from the ATM then they didn't use either card anywhere that a security camera could get a good picture of their face, which means it will be that much harder to catch the bastard.

And if one more person tries to sing me happy birthday today, I'm going to kill them. Thanks to this I'm seriously considering becoming one of those women who don't have birthdays.

Victim

It's amazing how much impact a single word can have. Most of my life I've been striving to keep that label the hell off of me.

I've used phrases like "With the way I look, I might as well have Victim stamped across my forehead."

I've advocated self defense (loudly) and told people to be smart, use their heads.

And last night, I was an idiot. A complete, and utter fool.

I picked the kids up from daycare, and it was hot, so I left my windows down on my car. I wasn't sure if I'd be taking them to CM's house or if he was coming to pick them up, and I didn't want the kids, or me, getting a case of heat stroke on the way over, if we took my car.

Well, CM picked the kids up, and I promptly forgot about my windows being down.

As I was drifting off to sleep last night, I thought about it. And instead of getting up, throwing on a bath robe, and going out to secure my vehicle like I should have, I thought "it's not going to rain tonight" and rolled over and went to sleep.

When I woke up this morning, my roommate informed me that my trunk was open.

Yeah, my car was ransacked.

XM Radio, gone.

Bookbag, gone. Although they were nice enough to dump out all of my books before they took the bag.

Wallet, gone. That one hurts the most, it had my driver's license, debit cards, concealed carry permit, and social security card in it.

Tried to take my car stereo but they couldn't get it out. I need to remember to thank my brother for putting it in correctly when he did it, they didn't have the tools to get it out of the mounting.

I was all right until I remembered that one of the debit cards was to an account that isn't mine. Then I felt like an absolute heel. That one has already been canceled, and I'll be canceling mine as soon as I can get ahold of someone at the bank.

Once I got the debit card taken care of, I was back to being pissed off about it, until the officer used that word.

A single word, and it was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears right then and there. The only thing that saved me was that another part of me was wanting to slap the officer for calling me a victim.

But, I am. A victim of a crime, through my own stupidity. Might as well get used to it, as much as I dislike it.

Hell of a way to start my birthday.

Huzzah!

At long, long, long last, Law Dog has finally completed the infamous Pink Gorilla Suit Story.

I think we finally nagged him enough. Either that or my creative writing teacher was entirely right when she said that sometimes, the best thing to do is to walk away from a tale for a while, and come back to it later.

I hope so, because my block on Jane has only gotten more solid the more I push on it, and my life has increased in hectic-ocity since CM and the kids came into it, so I've back-burnered her for a while. She's not going under the bed yet, just to the side of the desk, I swear. But she isn't being very forthcoming with me right now, and I don't have the time to sit down and sweet talk her.

Maybe all of ya'll can spend the time you used to spend thinking about the PGSS bugging me about Jane. I'm not sure if it will do any good, but maybe it will make her feel important again, and she'll start being clear. Lately she's been about as clear as mud about the rest of her story, the confounded woman.

Yippie Skippy

I'm sitting here waiting for my Computerized Farm Records class to start, listening to everyone BS and fiddling around on the net.

It's been a long weekend... I spent twelve hours in the car on Friday, did the Old Homestead's Big Birthday Bash Saturday, in addition to hauling Sparky and J down. I hauled Sparky cause Farmmom would have killed me if I hadn't, and J wanted to look at Miss Legs and maybe take her for the semester. We're still not sure if he's gonna or not.

I'm just exhausted for no good reason. I napped this morning before my first class, and again in between my first and second classes, and I'm still tired. Maybe all the napping is why.

On an entirely different note, I'm sort of scared. MC asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and said that since I wouldn't tell him (I don't know! Everything I wanted the Farm Family got me!) he's going to have to be creative. My actual birthday isn't until Thursday, so he's got some time to plot yet.

Well, the instructor is starting to look around like he's ready for us to chill out and get going, so I'll have to wrap this up and actually pay attention. Sort of. Since it's Quick Books I ought to be able to snooze through the biggest part of the lectures without too much trouble.