Happy Birthday Duke!

One year ago today, I saw a listing for a dog named Victor on petfinder. He was a scruffy little black dog that looked dirty and terrified and I fell in love. He was at Forsyth County Animal Control, which happens to be where my husband works. I called the shelter and make sure he was still available and got a little background. He'd been picked up as a stray. He was severely matted. And scared. I then dispatched my husband to go get pick him up and he came home with the ridiculous little terrified furball. We knew "Victor" wasn't going to work for a name for us, and after all, he'd only been Victor for a couple of days since he'd been at the shelter, so after much deliberation, we decided on "The Duke of Embry" a.k.a. Duke a.k.a. Dewey. From day 1, I was in love, but the elation was short lived when I took him to the vet and discovered that he had a urniary tract infection, intestional worms, and worst of all, heartworms. We began treatment and put Duke on "cage rest" which he was not happy about. He somehow Houdini'd his way out of his cage two days in a row (we still don't know how) and on the third day, we tried locking him in the downstairs powder room. I came home from work to discover a chewed up door frame and a shredded door bottom, so we decided to just let him stay out. After all, he didn't chew much, he didn't go to the potty inside and the stress of being locked up couldn't be good for his heart. Eventually, he recovered and became the happiest dog you will ever meet. His tail is in a constant state of motion. In the past year, I've lost at least three pairs of shoes, but for the most part, he's a good boy.

My love for Duke led me to become involved in an animal rescue group (AARF) and in August I took in a foster dog, who also had heartworms. Together, these two dogs make me laugh every day. They have brought so much joy into my life that it is hard to remember what life was like without them. They have taught me to live in the moment and to love unconditionally. They are what gets me out of bed in the mornings and gets me outside and moving and keep me connected with the outside world, during this time when it would be so easy to slip into being a hermit.

Tonight, we are going to the dog park and going to have some treats to celebrate. Duke doesn't know it's his anniversary, but it doesn't matter, because he is happy just to have a home and people who love him. He appreciates every day.

eBay sale

eBay is having a sale today. $.15 insertion fees. If you're doing spring cleaning and thinking of getting rid of some stuff, now might be the time.

I went yard saling on Saturday and picked up some great items, which I'll be listing in the store later this week, so stay tuned!

Easter in Savannah

Got back into town yesterday afternoon after spending the weekend in the lovely Savannah with my family for Easter. We drove down Friday evening with both dogs in tow. They do pretty well on road trips, although they darted out of the car at a rest stop and were caught be a lovely young goth couple, thankfully. Mental note to put the leashes on before opening the car doors.

Saturday morning, we headed down to Tybee Island with the family and my husband set foot in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. Tide was low, but the beach was crowded. I spent my time of the pier people watching, since I hadn't planned on going to the beach and I neglected to bring my bathing suit. On the way home, we stopped by Bonaventure cemetery, which is somewhere I've always wanted to go, and being a Savannah native, should have visited long ago. I was sad to learn that the Bird Girl statue, made famous by being photographed for the cover of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, has been moved out of the cemetery.

We spent the evening in, grilling burgers and learning to play Texas Hold 'Em. I came in second place! Sunday morning, I was disappointed that the Easter Bunny was unable to find me, but headed off to church for Easter services, nonetheless. Strangely, the pastor selected a chapter from Revelations for the sermon, rather than the typical more Eastery verses. I guess he was trying to do something different.

That afternoon, after having fried seafood for Easter lunch, Paul and I gathered up the dogs and headed to River Street for a couple of daiquiris at Wet Willies. I was harassed by a drunk, who was encouraged by my husband, who thought it was hilarious. It was kind of funny, but also kind of sad and uncomfortable. Paul took a picture of him sitting in my lap and smelling my hair, which I will not be posting to protect the identities of all involved.

Paul wasn't feeling well (allergies), so we headed back early and Paul went to bed early while I played cards with my nieces. Monday morning, we ate breakfast with the family and then headed home. We have to drive through terrible weather, but made it home safely and in good time.

Moonlight

I've spent tonight watching "Moonlight" on the Sci-Fi Network. It's a television show about a vampire private detective in LA seeking redemption for his murderous past. Sound familiar? Yeah, that's because it's the exact same plot as "Angel: The Series," the Buffy spin-off. Same film noir cinematography, worse dialog, worse editing.

This show is complete with a blond-haired, angel-faced human love interest that finds out about his vampire identity and partners with him to solve crimes.

Behold, Elizabeth Rohm, "Kate" on Angel...

And Sophia Myles, "Beth" on Moonlight.



Also interesting to note that David Greenwalt, former Buffy and Angel producer, is also involved in this show.

Funnily, this show was originally called "Twilight." Don't get me started on Twilight.

"What does that meeeeeeeaaaaan?"

I saw my share of whacky footage while I was working in news, but this one takes it to a 'ho 'notha leva'.



As a public relations professional, I admire her dedication to sticking to her talking points and plugging her website. I think she says "Matt Lauer was better!" at the very end.

Powdered PB and other random bits

I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my powdered peanut butter that I ordered last week from Bell Plantation. This was actually Paul's idea, but I must admit that I am intrigued. You mix this stuff with water, and apparently get a low-fat peanut butter, made from real peanuts and not much else. They also offer this product in a chocolate version.

I am also anxionsly waiting to hear back from a job interview that I had on Friday. I keep flip-flopping between thinking that I nailed it to thinking that I blew it. I'm supposed to hear something by Tuesday.

Paul had some family in town from Chicago this weekend who came over for lunch today. Paul made chicken and ribs and we spent the morning cleaning the house. Paul said that we need to get an HGTV show called "People Coming Over" that demonstrates ways to make your house presentable in 2 hours.

Cupcake Magic

So, I FINALLY got my letter of clearance for substitute teaching late last week and decided to up my chances of getting called in by placing a few bribes. I spent most of Thursday evening baking 4 dozen cupcakes and then drove around in the rain all day Friday delivering them to local schools where I introduced myself and gave them the cupcake bribe.

Well, it worked, because at 7:14 this morning my phone rang and it was a school calling for me to be in at 7:45. I guess they expect people to be out of bed and dressed or whatever by 7:15, but I was dead asleep. I jumped out of bed and into the shower, threw on some clothes (I'd already planned an outfit in my head) and drove to the school. I was assigned a 4th grade class.

The students were fine. A little chatty, but nothing horrible. We did quiet reading until the bell rang, then I called roll, then I taught Social Studies where I had the honor of teaching the children that Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, which happens to be one of the three things that I retained from my own 4th grade Social Studies. Then, we did Math, but I didn't have to teach them anything. They just did two worksheets. Then, they were "dispersed" to "Humanities" and I had a 45 minute break. When they got back, we took off for computer lab, where we had multiple technical (or possibly user) errors with no tech support. Some of the kids could never even log in. After that fiasco, we headed off the the "media center" where the librarian media specialist talked to them for half an hour about an atlas and then we went to lunch, which is when I realized that I was woefully unprepared. I hadn't brought anything to eat or any cash and in case you didn't know, the lunch lady doesn't take plastic. This reminded me of the time that I went to the laundr-o-mat with a credit card. So, I just sat there on my little attached-to-the-table stool and watched them eat- pizza, ice cream, chocolate milk- it actually looked good. After, lunch, I had another break because I wasn't on "recess duty, " but it was only 30 minutes, so I didn't have time to go get anything to eat off campus. When recess was over, they had "Reading and Writing" where I had them write a FULL PAGE WITHOUT SKIPPING LINES about what they were going to go over Spring Break. Then, much to my surprise, some other teacher lady showed up and taught them some grammar. She was the "linguistic specialist." Fine by me, but while she was jabbering about similes and metaphors, the fire alarm went off and I had to jump into action. Some kid thrust an "emergency bag" into my hands and sadly, I neglected to check a map, but we just followed the class next to us and ended up in the right place. I took role and every one was accounted for and the assistant principal came by and asked me if I was red or green and I told her that I didn't know what that meant. Ha. Apparently, green means that all your kids are there. So, after she told me that, I told her that I was green. Soon, the bell rang again and we went back to class. Then, we read a chapter in the Science book about ecosystems and answered some questions in the book and then, the day was over.

My mom was a teacher. She hated it and was constantly going on and on about how hard it was. My dad later became a teacher and he used to also torment her by saying that teaching was like "finding money." Based on this one experience, I'm going to have to side with my dad so far. It was a very easy day at work. Low stress. Not much thinking. Just a lot a patience and repeating yourself.

No REALLY ridiculous names as I had hoped. Nothing unpronounceable or with an unnecessary apostrophe.

ETA: I didn't mean to imply that being a teacher was easy. I can't imagine the stress and responsibility that comes with being an actual teacher. I realize being a substitute is basically just babysitting and not al all like being a real teacher.