Thursday, October 28, 2010

I never really left you

Yeah, so it was kind of a long blog break.

Let's get up to date!

1. I'm now self-employed, which sometimes bears are remarkable resemblance to being unemployed. Somehow it didn't occur to me that the job mission "help independent sewing machine dealers sell high-end sewing and embroidery machines" just might be affected by the Great Recession.

2. I apply for jobs (you know, the kind with an employer who is not me, and a salary) periodically. Job hunting is depressingly like dating. You get all dressed up via your resume and cover letter, and you convince yourself that this is the one, a perfect match. And then they never, ever call you back.

3. I went to the Netherlands with Trent this summer for two weeks. I have no photographic evidence that this happened.

4. We adopted another dog in late April. This is Daisy:


She is cute as a button. She loves people and having her belly rubbed.

She wants to kill Stella (which, to be fair, is a reasonable reaction to Stella's behavior around her), and pretty much every other animal in the world, with the possible exception of Kidd. It's been a rough road. We've had several dog fights that required trips to the vet for one or more dogs. Then we unwittingly made things much worse. Daisy developed spay incontinence, so the vet put her on the most common medication for that issue (Proin). Welllllll, it turns out that it's an amphetamine (and a meth precursor!), and for some dogs it increases anxiousness and aggressiveness. Daisy is in that percentage, and she nearly ripped out one of Kidd's eyes. (He looks extremely piratical now with his scar.)

She's much nicer now that she's on a different med. It's an estrogen replacement therapy, so Trent keeps joking that she's going to take up knitting. I'd like that, actually. We're also working with a behaviorist (the lovely Christine Hibbard from Companion Animal Solutions). Daisy and Stella are currently separated at all times while we train them (separately) to sit nicely and be calm. The training regime is called the relaxation protocol, but we call it doggie yoga since we use a yoga mat to be the "sit here" spot.

It's an ongoing project. Daisy now shows no inclination to murder Kidd, and she seems calmer and happier. She's even started chewing on dog bones, which is progress.

5. I've been making lots of stuff, so hopefully there will be pictures in the future.