For the love of a dog

I will be posting some more pictures of our Mammoth trip in the next couple days. I am currently camera-less, so I need to wait until they are transfered to me. We didn't want to miss any pictures of our niece and nephew while B was in France, so he took our camera. Fortunately, there were lots of other cameras on our trip. The only problem, is that this can happen when you least expect it:


So, now I am trying to justify that little camera I've been looking at. The one that I can keep in my bag all the time, without it weighing a ton, so I can catch those crazy momments when you say - Man, I wish I had a camera! One thing that runs in my family is the ability to justify things. So, given that I worked nearly 22 hours of overtime last pay period and more than 17 this pay period, somehow I feel that I may be able to justify that camera here pretty soon.

In other news, I'm adjusting to life by myself. It's really weird to not have to call home and tell someone I'm going to be running late. To think that I need to get home because the doggie has been by herself too long already. I got married pretty young, so I never did live by myself. I went from roomates to B. And lately when B has been out of town, Jenny has been here to keep me company. But, this time, given the hours I've been working, Jenny went on vacation. She is staying with my parents and grandma where she almost always has a lap or a warm place to sleep. Plus, there are lots of sun spots to keep this sun bather happy.


But while she is happy. I'm not. That happy little face isn't there to say hi when I get home and she isn't keeping me warm. I couldn't believe how cold I got last night and then I realized I was missing my portable warming doggie.

What's funny (or maybe not depending on how you look at it) is that I think I'm one of those people who needs help from the Dog Whisperer. Do you know what B and I did before he left? We packed his bags in secret! B even snuck the suitcase out the night before his plane so that she wouldn't know he was going. Now, normally I wouldn't result to this deception because I think it's important for Jenny to know that someone is going to be gone for a while (she knows what the suitcase means). But Jenny has this crazy and irrational fear of being abandoned. We don't know why she has this fear. We've never left her unexpectedly or someplace scary and we've had her since she was 8 weeks old, so it isn't likely to be from a past experience. (Unless of course it comes from her separation from her mom and siblings.) Anyway, I've seen the terror in her eyes and heard the pain in her voice in the past and there was no way I wanted her to feel like she was going to be left at home forever. Which is how she was going to feel if she saw B leave with the suitcase. Since I had to work before he left for the airport, I wouldn't have been home until after work and I didn't want her to go through 6 hours of pure panic and emotional distress. So, B and I talked about it and decided that it was best to trick her. I feel bad and I'm sure Cesar would send us to his compound for full rehabilitation, but I still feel we did the best thing for her. I'm just looking forward to having my little friend back this weekend.

(B - I hope you like the Jenny pictures - those were just for you :-)