A visual

My mom sent me this picture and it kind of shows where the puppy made his fall. Don't mind the random people in the picture, they're just family friends. The trailer on the right is my parents, the trailer on the left is my grandpa's. The deck/yard you're looking at is my parents. Notice the tops of trailers behind the deck on the second row behind the arrows. The staircase they climbed is in between the two back porches.

It's raining cats and dogs! Or puppies at least.....

Little dude fell off the roof and bent the cartilidge in his rib and injured his foot. But's that's not all of it. I shall begin at the beginning.....

Friday morning Andrew and I packed up all the beach stuff we needed for a night, the 4 puppies, their massive kennel, and Gidget and headed to Dillon Beach for the night because every year my family has a huge Thanksgiving feast at their trailer and all kinds of people come from far and wide and it's a blast. It's about an hour and a half trip from our house and the bastard puppies will whine the entire way if you don't have the A/C on full blast (they get hot when they're stuck together in their kennel) so I froze to death the whole way there. Andrew was fine since he had Gidget on his lap the entire time as there was no room for her in the back seat. We really need a bigger car. But anyway, about 20 mins from the beach one of the puppies went poop in the kennel and oh my god I've never smelt anything so bad in my life before! But there was nothing we could do but suffer and drive faster until we got there. We were there a couple hours before we headed off to dinner at Dinnuci's and we locked Gidget and the puppies up on the back patio to stay warm while we were gone.

*Side Note*

Now the way that Dillon's Beach is set up is that there's rows of old travel travelers that have been left there over the years and people buy them and build decks up around them and such and then people like my parents and grandparents buy the trailer and everything around it but they have to rent the land from the greedy bastards that run the place. They are pretty large (ours has an actual bedroom and a sliding glass door) but there's no electricity and everything runs off of solar power or propane. Ours has a heater with a theromsat, a telephone line, and a large TV antenna. Not everyone is that equiped but everyone has hot water and a gas refridgerator and usually a stove/oven. My dad built this massive enclosed back patio with a storage room, a wood stove, another oven for outdoor cooking and a sink. There's a picnic table back there for the cold morning and nights when you want to visit with everyone but you want to stay nice and toasty (the trailer itself is way to cramped for visiting with guests). Outside there is a regular deck with another picnic table and a stair case that goes to the row of trailers behind us. There's two levels and we're on the bottom level. My dad's assigned boat parking is behind our trailer on the upper level so he built a staircase for easy access. Also, since the trailers all used to be on wheels they do not sit on the ground and there is about a foot of space under each one. If you don't block them off completely critters like to make their homes under there. So I hope that's enough of mental picture of the upcoming story....

So we get home from dinner and let Gidget out to go potty and to run about a bit. No sooner does she get out the front gate and in front of my grandpa's trailer (right next door to ourse) but a damned skunk comes sauntering out and skunks Gidget right in the face! Andrew had to run up to the local store and buy tomato juice, simple green, and dish washing liquid to try and get the smell out of her! After about a 45 min bath she finally acceptable enough to be allowed near other humans again. No sooner had we started bathing her but some friends of ours that have a trailer on the other side of my grandpa come over and ask who set the skunk off. Apparently it went off while they were eating dinner inside their trailer with all their windows open. Whoops. Personally I feel that the people who own the beach should do something about the skunk problem but that's a whole 'nother issue. Finally we get Gidget all dried off and warmed up and we hit the sack.

About 6 am the bastard puppies wake up and they are screaming bloody hell. About 6:30 I decide I can't take it anymore I let them outside and I put them in the blocked off pen area my dad fashioned for them the day before. My mom wakes up before the sun so she came out to visit with me when she heard me out shuffling around. About 7 we hear one of the puppies straight up shrieking. We ran to pen and 3 of the 4 puppies were missing..... Only little Cocoa was left. The bastards had climbed up the steps that my dad had built to access the boat and they were playing on the roof of my grandpa's back patio! The one we call Little Shadow because he looks like his grandpa had fallen off the side of the trailer between my grandpa's back patio and his neighbor's trailer! Nobody saw him fall so we don't know how he fell or what he landed on but Andrew kept claiming he broke a rib. Nobody else could see or feel it and he was acting ok so we let it go a bit. About 20 mins later he starting limping and sitting weird so I picked him up and poked and prodded him a bit and he didn't even twitch. We thought for sure if he was broken he'd jump when I ran my hands over his ribs. Nothing. Little dude fell asleep in my lap and all was well with the world until he woke up and wanted down. I put him down and I could instantly see what I thought was the bone sticking out. His little fur was all ruffled strange around it and you could see it clear as day. So Andrew and I rushed him to a 24/7 vet hospital in Rohnert Park and they did full body x-rays on him. $420 later we found out that he doesn't have any broken bones, no interal bleeding, and no bruised lungs. He had some cartilidge that got bent out of shape and that's what we were feeling and seeing. He also had a very sore foot but all and all he's fine! Thank god! They said that within 24 hours he should start acting like a normal puppy again and sure enough as soon as we got home he started rough housing with his brothers. If nothing else he sure proved to everyone that he is definitely his grandfater reincarnated :)

Seriously disturbing

Every day my neighbor's dog parks to no end. NO END. He barks all morning, all afternoon, and all night. I know they never play with the poor thing but the daughter once told me that he slept in the garage at night. I had my doubts but whatever. The other night it was going to be 35 degrees during the night and it was advised to bring all your pets inside or to make sure they would be plenty warm for the night. Gidget is in the house as long as we're in the house anyway so she's taken care of. The puppies all had to sleep in a huge Extra Large size dog kennel that belongs to Gidget inside the house and we were out rounding them up when I told Andrew to toss a couple Milkbones over the back fence to get the dog to stop barking. He decided to investigate and peek over the fence a bit. What we discovered was that no only does that dog NOT have so much as a blanket let along a dog house but he didn't even have any food or water. At the very minimun he should have some water! Especially with all that barking he does. Now I've never called the cops before in my life and I'm not one to get nosey on my neighbors and I don't expect everyone to let their dog have free range like mine does but I CAN'T STAND to see a dog suffer. It was going to 35 freaking degrees that night and he's a short haired bastard. He could literally freeze to death! Literally. And he's doing all he can to say "hey! I'm fucking cold you assholes, let me in!" If I see it again I'm going to call the sheriff's to do a welfare check on him. I don't want to see him get taken away from his family (as if they care about him anyway!) but in my opinion you don't deserve to have animals if you can't care for them properly. If I can make sure that 8 puppies and a momma are fed, watered, warm, and entertained by billions of toys they can take care of one for Pete's sake! Assholes.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I can't believe the holidays are here already! I'm not ready! Stop! Wait! Let's go back to September for awhile.....

I went to the future inlaws for dinner tonight. Yummy! We had ham and smoked turkey and my famous caramel apple crisp for dessert. Tomorrow we're headed off to the beach for a night and Saturday is the big Thanksgiving party with my family and friends complete with my dad's cajun deep fried turkey. Mmm..... Turkey. I have Monday off of work which means 5 day weekend for me! I love it! Since I don't have much to say I'm going to force some pictures of my dogs on you.

Notice how the two up front are mid attack!

Now they are making up!

My computer screwed the color up on this one but this is Cocoa, my bastard puppy. She's cuter in real life :)

Found 'em!

Andrew came home and found my keys laying in the grass on the edge of the driveway. Don't ask me how they got there but they were cold and wet when he returned them to me! I can only assume that while I was pulling the Kia keys off my key ring that my car keys slipped off as well and I didn't notice because I was too busy worrying about the Kia keys. Plus they fell in the grass so they didn't make a noise. In any case I'm ecstatic. I was seriously concerned there for a little bit!

Tomorrow we head off to Colusa again where one puppy is guaranteed to go home to a new home. They named her Lucy and I've already fallen in love with her! She's so much sweeter and better behaved than my psycho puppy Cocoa aka Runtie who is only good for A) peeing in the house B) chasing Gidget relentlessly trying to nurse even though she's freaking 8 weeks old already or C) whining incessantly because she has to sleep in the nice warm cozy house in her own personal soft bedded kennel. I want a cat instead.

My current rants

1. My internet has been acting like an asshole lately. It never ever wants to work! I don't know if it's the internet provider or my router but I'm about sick of it already! Work, you bastard, work!

2. I can't find my car keys anywhere. In the whole 5 years that I've owned my car I've never actually lost the keys and had no idea where they might be. I can't even blame Andrew as he has his own key to my car and he has no reason to steal mine. Plus he refuses to get in my purse for anything, even if I ask him to. He flat out will not put a finger in my purse. Don't ask me why, he just doesn't. He claims he was raised that way. Losing my key is bad for a number of reasons. First of all Andrew took the Kia to Sacramento taking his spare key to my car and the keys to his truck with him leaving me stranded at home. Grr... I was headed to the grocery store for some avocados and sour cream for our dinner when I realized the keys were missing. Now I feel trapped even though the grocery store is in walking distance but it's dark and cold outside and there's no way I'm going to carry all those groceries home. Secondly it worries me that I have NO IDEA where the damn things are. I never lose things. I don't even know how they got off my keychain! I have one of those hooks that rock climbers use and I have a couple different key rings on there but I don't know how that one got off! I can only assume that it's at my desk, in the Kia, or buried somewhere in the house. I hope to God I didn't drop them somewhere. Thirdly, my post office box key is on the same ring as my car keys and the post office ladies are going to get seriously bitchy with me if I don't check my mail at least every other day.

3. My house is under remodel and we're sleeping in the living room. Fun times. It all started when I tore the spare bed out of the small spare bedroom and put it in the bigger spare bedroom (unassembled of course) and started painting the small room. Everything was running along smoothly until the boy came home and then of course we had to primer shit and sand shit and of course it's nowhere near done. On Tuesday he fixed a horrible patch job in the small bedroom and then decided to fix the nasty spot in the roof of the big bedroom since he has all the stuff out. So at this point we have a half painted small bedroom, a clutter in the big spare bedroom with a drywall patch drying in the room and dry wall and plaster peices all over the floor. At this point we're still ok because our bedroom is in tact. Andrew took on the job of repainting our hall closet hinged doors and putting on the new handles I bought like 6 months ago and while putting the doors back in place he noticed the ceiling fan we had bought for our bedroom like 4 months ago but it was too hot in the attic to put it up. He decided it was a good time to put it up now. Out goes our bed and in comes the ladders and spot lights and drywall patching kits. He had to put up a ceiling fan support bracket thingy in the roof and with his bum knee he decided just to cut out some roof and do it that way which would be fine had our other 2 bedrooms not been in disasterous states. And OF COURSE the procedure requires crap to dry overnight so our bedroom is now a mess.

The good news is that Andrew got all kinds of stuff done that I'd been asking him to do for months. The bad news is that he did them in a totally random order which has rendered all 3 bedrooms of my house useless. NICE.

4. Gidget has really bad gas.

My hands hurt!

I got up at the crack of dawn today to assist Arlene in moving out and to start putting my house back together. My body hurts so bad my hands even hurt! The moving part was actually quick and painless, it was the moving all my crap around that killed me! That and shampooing the carpets and cleaning the walls with TSP so that I can paint them. I sent the boy to his mom's this weekend to sell puppies while I handled the house. I know it would seem logical for most women to leave their man in charge of the whole moving heavy furniture thing but that's not practical with Andrew. He always has a "better" way to do everything and it always involves spending money and it takes him 2-3 months to actually get it done. Left to my own devices I just use what I have and get it done effectively within a few short hours. Then we he gets home he can't bitch because it's done and he has no idea how I got it done. I didn't get as much done as I had hoped so I'm a little dissapointed. I got the spare bed pulled apart and started shampooing the dog piss out of the matress and I got both rooms shampooed and TSP'd. I got two book shelves moved which was a pain in the ass!!!! Andrew has soo many heavy ass books that he never ever reads but feels the need to have. We have gun manuals up the wazooo 'cause you know like twice a year he has time to go shooting. That's not even the worst part though! It's the 5 million HUGE binders that he insists on keeping even though each one has like 5 pieces of paper in there. Oh well, he gets one shelf and I get the other so as long as all his shit fits on one shelf I allow him to keep it.

About 3 pm I gave up and went to Big 5 to get a start on some Christmas shopping. I got Andrew and my dad both binoculars that have digital cameras in them. They were normally $130 and this weekend only they're on sale fr $30! It's a steal! I also got Andrew's step dad a couple of pocket knives that were on sale as well. One was normally $40 and it was on sale for $10. The other was like normally $20 and it was on sale for $7. He collects pocket knives I guess so he's getting $60 worth of knives for $17! That's my kind of Christmas shopping!

Tomorow I have a movie date with Ange. We're going to see American Gangster. I'm pretty damned excited because Ange and I never get to hang out anymore! It's hard for us to get together 'cause she has a kid and I'm always busy and/or broke. Woohoo! I'm also super excited because Monday is a holiday! And then the week after that is Thanksgiving so I get two days off and I took off the following Monday which means no more 40 hour weeks for me for the rest of November.

Something is poking me in the shoulder through my shirt and it makes me paranoid because I think there's a bug in there. I hate that.

So one puppy went home to her new home today and 3 others are seriously interested but they have to talk to their significant others so we'll see how many dogs Andrew comes home with tomorrow. The one that went bye-bye went to a good home so I'm happy. My coworker wants one too and I know it will have a good home as well so that brings me glee. I get worried that bad people will buy them and then leave them outside all the time in the heat and cold and such. I can't stand to see animals mistreated!!! It's not fair 'cause they can't stand up for themselves. My heart hurts just thinking about it. I'm sad now :(

The other Sarah

My boss hired another girl named Sarah today. This does not make me happy. Not only are we going to get the usual issues with people confusing us but when she starts answering phones she's going to give people wrong information and screw stuff up and such and then the defendants will want to fight ME about it. I'm not saying she's going to be retarded or anything but as a general rule your first year in traffic court is a learning year and most of the time you only have a vague idea about what's going on. There's so many if, and, or but's with the policies you can't expect anyone to learn it all right away. Usually it's not a problem. For instance, if Karina tells someone something that is incorrect and the asshole at the counter wants to fight me about it and he says "Karina said so!" I will calmly tell him that Karina is new and she is learning and there's alot to learn and then I will set his ass straight. If they say "Sarah said so!" and I try to convince them it wasn't me there's just going to think I'm crazy and they will continue to act like assholes. Or people will talk to her and then call back and ask for her and the other lazy clerks will send the call to me. Bah! My boss said I can go by "Number One" but that doesn't make me any happier. Radyne suggested Bad Sarah (like Bad Santa, hahahaha) but nobody else will use it. I like it. I think it's fitting. Everyone who has met the new Sarah says she's so sweet and blah blah blah. I'm evil and I like it that way. In fact her arrival makes me feel more and more evil by the minute!

In other news, Gidget is suppossedly doing fine. According to the vet it's normal for her to bleed at this point even though I think it's crazy. But this is the vet that took the time to save her life when she was a puppy when all other vets suggested Andrew have her put to sleep instead so I have to trust him on it. It's just hard. This is my stinky, annoying, food dribbling baby we're talking about here. She goes back in two weeks for another check up though so that makes me feel a little bit better. I guess Andrew sold a puppy today. Yippee. I'm so tired of those stinky bastards. I can't even go in the garage to do the laundry anymore because I literally gag and we clean out their cage every day! It's insane.

Finally!

I finally got my pictures from Canada! Woohoo!!!! Turns out their not as good as I remember but whatever. Somethings are hard to capture with a photograph there because it's soaking wet everywhere you go. At least I have them though. Andrew and I will only get engaged to each other once, I gotta have the pictures from it!

Speaking of Andrew, he's enjoying his couch potato life right now. Occasionally he'll get a pain in his knee when he moves it the wrong way but all and all he's feeling ok. Tomorrow he's going to start bearing weight on it so we'll see how that goes. The doctor anticipates that he'll be great in a few days but he doesn't know how accident prone Andrew is so I have to make him rest a little more than a normal person would for precaution. I've enjoyed the movie fest we've had the last 2 days too. I don't remember the last time we got to sit around with each other for 2 whole days without something we had to get done. Unfortunately for me I will go back to work tomorrow. BUT I have Monday off, then the next week I have Thurs and Fri off for Thanksgiving and then the following Monday as well! Yippee! Andrew's getting off the couch tonight for a good ol' American Redneck meal at Denny's. All you can eat soup and salad and it's broccoli cheese night. Oh yeah, we're so there. We have to start going to a new denny's though because the ex wife's ex best friend works there now and while she's sweet as pie to us you just never know when they'll rekindle their friendship. Most crazy, manipulative, backstabbing people don't keep friends long and they often move from one best friend to another and never look back (it's a bonafide sign of craziness) so we may be ok but who wants to take chances?

Gidget and the babies go to the doctor tomorrow for their shots and a check up! I'm worried about Gidget though. She's started bleeding again after she stopped a few weeks ago and I can't imagine that it's normal to still be bleeding 6.5 weeks after giving birth. The doctor said last time that she may have to have a hystorectomy so I guess we'll find out tomorrow. My poor stinky baby :(

Today's the big day!

Andrew is getting his knee fixed up in about 45 mins! Woohoo! He's a little scared but I know he'll be fine. It's called arthoscopy - basically they stick a camera into one whole and the surgery tools in another hole and fix his artho stuff up. In other words, they're cutting out some flappy meniscus that's in there rubbing up against his cartalidge and causing pain and swelling. I've got today and tomorrow off to make sure he's alright before I go back to the hell hole.

Yesterday was a big day in the hell hole. While one person was checking in with security another person grabbed his wallet out of the little x-ray bins and ran out the door with it! Sounds like he's an idiot right? Oh you have no idea. First of all, he had just checked in with security about his court date so they knew his name. Second of all he was standing at the security station where he could literally see himself being videotaped on the security cameras. Thirdly, he skipped out on his court date which means he not only has a warrant for not appearing but now he has an arrest warrant. And lastly, they chased him outside where he jumped in his car and took off so they know what car he drives. HELLO LOSER.

Then the asshole of all assholes comes in demanding to know why his fine was so high. I tried to tell him, he refused to listen. Then I told him that he could have had it reduced had he appeared at his court date. He insisted he never made a court date. At one point he cut me off and told me "I'M THE ONE TALKING HERE!" Not for long buddy.... Then he insisted on talking to my supervisor and he gave her the same shit. Security was already standing beside him after the way he treated me and he continued to treat my supervisor in the same manner. He spoke to us like he was an authoritarian figure and we must listen and obey him. Finally security had had enough of him and ordered him to leave the building. He refused to leave. Security said that he was going to be arrested for trespassing and he said he'd like that. Hehehe.... the sheriff's love people like him! So 3 of them came down and out the door Mr. Demanding went. Then the asshole spent a half an hour arguing with the sheriff's! I would have totally cuffed his ass if I were them but they try not to have to write reports for assholes like that. Personally I would have cuffed his ass and given him a ride to the sheriff's department, booked him for a couple hours, and then let him find his own way back to his car. That would have taught him. It's pretty bad when security tells you to leave. I think I've only seen like MAYBE 5 people get asked to leave in the 3 years I've been there! Fucker.

*update*

Andrew is home and feeling fine. The surgery was very quick and easy and he's not having any pain right now. We'll see how he feels after the super strong drugs wear off and he's left with just his prescription.....

Hmphf

So apparently there was only 3 of us that had bad luck with the trick or treaters.

Anywho! I put an ad in the paper today for my puppies. Damn thing cost me $40 and I said like 15 words. Hopefully it works.

Today was also my coworker Davina's last day with us :(. I'm gonna miss her! We had a nacho bar that I orchestrated and it turned out wonderfully except for the fact that the fiscal dept decided that just because we share a building with them we must share our food with them too and they helped themselves to not only the nacho's but the dessert. WTF? I hate them anyway but where are their manners? I mean really, who does that? Plus they barely moved into our building a couple months ago and they are down a hall and through a door (not even the same building as me thank god as I sit next to the court room). They don't even know Davina that well! Some people are just so rude.

Speaking of work, it's killing me physically this time. I'm probably the only person in history to get work related injuries at a freaking office job. You see they remodeled back in April and revamped our customer service counter where I work. Sounds great and all but the counter is seriously like 4 ft from my desk. 4 ft doesn't sound like alot until you're trying to reach over everything a million times a day to get various paperwork or money from people and to hand them their receipts. After awhile your neck, shoulders, and back start to protest. I've been doing it for 6 months in the new building and I can't hardly walk when I get off work! It's horrible! First tendenitis and now this! I guess it's just a sign that I'm getting old and haggard. I mean really, who gets hurt at an office job? No worries, I still go every day and I have no intention of claiming workers comp. That's not how I roll. I'd just assume get off the counter and go back to phones before I start pulling that shit. It's my choice to be at the counter and nobody else seems to have any issues so it's obviously my body that's jacked up although my boss things our counter is the most ergonomically INCORRECT set up ever built.

So... on that note I think I'll hit the sack.

Where have all the trick or treaters gone?

I was horribly disappointed in last nights trick or treaters. I was giving out as much candy as my fist could hold to the kids and I still had left over candy! Everyone I know said the same thing. The trick or treaters have vanished. I even got reports from two different cities and the reports were all the same! Where have all the children gone? Do they not crave candy like little meth addicts anymore? When I was a kid you had to wait your turn at the door of any house you went to because there was a million kids in front of you! I don't blame the parents though. The world is a crazy place and you really got watch yourself and your kids anymore. I just can't believe we didn't even get the kids that live on my street!

I had lunch with my girls at work today at Ludy's. It was much fun. Too bad the occassion is that one of my favorite girls is leaving us to go to Sacramento courts :(. We didn't have power when we arrived at work today which was horribly entertaining. My coworker talked my ear off about the new movie American Gangster. I hadn't even heard of the damn thing but now she's got me alllll interested. So if I have any extra money this month you'll know where I'll be spending it.

Oh, big news! Andrew is having surgery on his knee Tuesday. We found out yesterday at his follow up to his MRI. I guess his meniscus is torn and it's ruining his cartalidge or something. Anyway, it's very bad. So bad that they scheduled him for surgery less than week later! The good news is that it's microscopic surgery and he'll be up and running in no time (2-4 weeks). The bad news is that he works for an ASSHOLE of a company and he's going to get paid for his time off. NOT GOOD. Hopefully we'll sell some puppies or something to make up for it. He'll get disability but you don't get it for the first week here in Sunny California and it's only a fraction of your regular wages. So that's going to hit us hard with Christmas coming up and all. But hey, that's our luck. At least he's getting all fixed up and he'll be able to somewhat walk again! He's going to have them check out the other knee after this is all done and see if there's anything the stupid navy missed.

10 more days until I get my whole house back!!!! I'm so excited. I made a scrapbook for a friend this last week and I remember why I never scrapbook when I don't have an office. It's way too cluttered and I can't find half the things I know I have. Plus it will free up tons of space and I'll be able to spread my shit out again making my house look like a real house and less like a rummage sale. Now if I can just get rid of the dog smell...... Luckily for me Gidget doesn't want to be around the puppies anymore because they try to rip her boobies off so it will start being easier to keep her clean. We're going to start seperating our puppy now too since she's 6 weeks old this weekend and we've begun house training her. That will keep her from stinking too. She's so freaking cute. I can't believe something that small is going to grow up to be as big as Gidget!