Raving Amicks

I started off my Saturday by running down to Hauptbanhof to pick up my train ticket to Paris and London for spring break. Since it was the first somewhat spring like day in a long time I took the opportunity to visit the Tierpark Hellabrunn (zoo). It was pretty fun, even before entering the zoo I spotted a legit “organ grinder” lady, who was awesome even without a monkey on her shoulder. I got a picture of her but you’ll have to wait until I get the film developed. Once inside the zoo I spent quite a bit of time just staring at the chimpanzees watching their eerily human like movements. Other than that I saw some good old american bison, european wolves, and little curled up red pandas just to name a few.

The next day, Sunday I woke up early to meet up with a group going cross-country skiing in Bad Tölz. We ended up skiing for roughly 18 km with a break halfway through for lunch at this amazing Bavarian restaurant in a little town just off the trail. We all had amazing meals and I had my first Radler which tasted pretty interesting, a little too sweet for me though.

He looks dead, but he’s just worn out. Your Mom has been walking the dogs hard like 6 miles every morning.

With Tyler’s help during President’s Day Weekend (he had a three-day weekend back then), I reupholstered our dining chairs that he had picked up for $10 years ago. They originally had dirty and cracked white vinyl on the seats, plus they were really hard and uncomfortable. Now they have high-density foam seats covered with beautiful white leather, and our butts sigh with delight each time we sit on them (or maybe it’s just the leather sinking into the foam that sighs). One of the chair seats isn’t quite as taut as the other (surprisingly, the second one we did), but they’re still infinitely better than before. Now I just need to strip and re-stain them during a summer dry spell and we’ll be dining in style.

Osa also approves of the new seats:

The snakes were enjoying the spring rays today.

On the same note my friend Adam McRae and I came up with a name for dad’s snake the other day. We’re calling him Neville which seems to pair with “Benji” the other snake pretty well. It only took about a decade to name two pets but I think the wait was worth it don’t you?

Well, we’ve had the puppy for a little over a week now. I guess Tyler and I were just too lazy to take pictures, upload them, and write a post. Oh yeah, we were also busy reorganizing the apartment. And later Tyler was busy with battling what was potentially the swine flu. It was a flu anyway—a flu that he conveniently came down with 48 hours after attending a video game expo where there was a swine flu outbreak. All those video gamers not washing their hands and then eating lunch makes even me feel sick.

So now we have a cute, fluffy puppy that loves people and loves to snuggle. But oh the whining. Oh god, the whining. This is the whiniest puppy I’ve ever met. I feed her food, she scarfs it down—while whining. I give her a walk, she bounds around happily—while whining. I look at her, she whines. I hold her, she whines. All I can guess is we’re simply not giving her enough attention. Or maybe she’s just pissed that we haven’t given her a name yet.

On the flip side, she makes a really good bookend:

Over a month ago, a local terrier breeder with which I’ve been in contact emailed me about six weeks ago and said “I have a female Wire Fox puppy. If you want her, let me know and send a deposit.” That was all I knew, and all I needed to know.

After close to 9 months of being dog-free, of being on the wait list for 7 different local rescue groups for terriers, of being told repeatedly by the city pound and the humane society and a number of different non-profit rescue groups that we suck because we live in an apartment and don’t have a fenced yard even though we are amazing people and will spoil any dog rotten with love and love and more love, I finally was close to getting a dog. Holy crap, a dog! Of course I want the dog. It’s a puppy from a reputable breeder, it’s 1.5 hours away, and it’s a female. Yes, I want the dog. Here is my deposit. Thank you, come again.

So last week, I get another email with some pictures of two cute puppies gnawing on each other and being all floppy and puppy-like. The only text is, “These are the two females of the litter. Which one do you want?” (more…)