Oregon

Half my family lives in Oregon, so I go up there every couple years to visit, usually with my sister and my dad and his crew.

This year I was excited to drive up there with Byrd, sightseeing along the way, but at the last minute, the company he works for decided they really needed him to stay and work. So I flew up there without him, and stayed for a week.

I eagerly anticipated that I'd be getting out of the Texas heat and into some pleasant weather. Come to find out, they're having a heat wave up there. Eugene's temperatures weren't much cooler than the 100s in Texas, but here's the big difference: low humidity and a cool breeze. In Texas, we have high humidity and the sort of breeze that hits your face when you open an oven door.

So even though my grandma didn't have air conditioning, it got cool enough at night to leave windows open, and the house retained that coolness throughout the day. That's unheard of where I live, at least in the summer. I even had to fix the settings on Grandma's A/C in her car, because she never used it.

My sis walking Grandma's dog out in the heat...

We spent the first several days at Grandma's house fixing things. My sis and I tackled some of the dirtier work, including cleaning out the garage/shed and recarpeting the vegetable garden.

Now, there are two things in this world that I really feel that I can do without. One is roaches. And the other is spiders. These two things are the only critters that can send me running and screaming like a two-year-old.

And let me tell you, working at my Grandma's house, I have never seen so many spiders in my life. The climate was really favorable for them this year or something.

Here we are gingerly peeling back the old carpet that was acting as a weed barrier in Grandma's garden...

We piled up the old carpet (notice the strawberry plant that had rooted itself to the carpet) and the spiders were even happier to have this fancy new home full of hidey-holes:

Well the last laugh's on you, spiders! (We took the carpet to the dump, spiders and all.)

And here's the garage, partway done. We got everything out of the smack middle, but there will never be enough room for Grandma's car unless she manages to find someone to buy the approx. 300 boxed-up collectible glass whiskey decanters that line the back of her garage (not pictured here).

We found three boxes of old magazines that Grandma said she just hadn't had the time to read. We tore off the address labels and recycled them. The boxes were full of spiders.

Even when I sought some respite from the dirty jobs of cleaning and organizing, there were spiders. I went to pick blueberries and found out the bushes were fave hangouts for spiders.

By the way, if you are ever in Eugene, there's this great little place there called Off the Waffle. EAT A WAFFLE THERE. You will not regret it. We found it purely by chance on our first day in town, and ate those waffles every single day we were in the city. I came back to Texas, bought a waffle maker, and made waffles (liege waffles to be precise) for the first time in my life because of that place. I would tell you how good these waffles are, but if you cannot go to Eugene and eat one, then my description will only make you horribly, possibly incurably, depressed. So I'll just say they were rockin'.

After three days of spiders, screams, and swearing, a group of us went on a little road trip to Crater Lake.

We took the boat tour of the lake. The boat ride around Crater Lake was educational and entertaining, and gave us great closeups of the lake's features.

Devil's Spine:


Wizard Island (large island to one side of the Lake):

My favorite, Phantom Ship (smaller island):

Just a few tips from me if you ever plan to stay at Crater Lake.

One, either bring your own food, or prepare to PAY for your meals. They have a captive audience there, and they know it. No civilization for hours in any direction.

Two, don't do the boat tour if you can't handle a serious climb afterwards. The path down is sandy, slippery, and steep. It doesn't change coming back up, and you've just spent two hours in a boat, likely developing hunger and thirst along the way. For the same reason, do the morning tour rather than the afternoon ones, especially in the late summer--earlier tour means a cooler temperature when you climb back up.

Three, take advantage of the ranger-led seminars that are usually offered in the evening. We went to one I thought would be really boring, but it turned out quite interesting.

Four, if you have any interest in stars--this is the place to look. We were there at the tail end of the annual Perseid meteor shower and got to see some really nice shooting stars (but it gets cold at night!).

The next day we were at the coast, and caught a Mail Boat speed boat ride on the Rogue River. Fun stuff! We got to see bald eagles, otters, turtles, a mink, fish, blue herons, and a lot of campers, fishers, and park rangers--and our fine captain did donuts in the river, which got quite a few people along the edges of the boat wet (if you want to stay dry(er), sit in the middle toward the back).

First otter I've ever seen in the wild:


Possibly the most fun job ever--biologist park ranger? These guys were catching fish to weigh and measure. Suddenly I'm thinking of a career change.

Bald eagle flying off a nest. There's another one roosting in the tree, if you look close.

After all this entertainment, we headed back to Grandma's. No more spiders for me--we headed north to Portland and the airport shortly after. A great trip and a nice break.

Came home to 179 unopened emails.

RAGE

Byrd and I planned to go up to Oregon to visit family. We would have had to drive, since Byrd doesn't fly, so the whole trip was going to take two weeks. We were going to see things like Yellowstone, Mt. Ranier, Devil's Tower, and so much more along the way. Stuff I've never seen before.

We were going to go in early August.

So in May--yes, MAY--Byrd submitted his vacation request for the two weeks in August we'd picked for the trip.

I planned the itinerary, reserved hotels, mapped our driving route, went to AAA and got a bunch of maps and travel books, and got totally riled up about seeing Prairie Dog Town. Byrd was excited about the prospect of a vacation unaffected by hurricanes.

Then today, a mere three weeks from our departure date, Byrd's higher ups suddenly said he can't have the time off after all!

WTF. Is that even legal??!?

Now I'm sitting here cancelling hotel reservations that I made months ago--some of them nonrefundable--watching our happy vacation crumble while simultaneously wondering just how bad it could be to be in jail. Cause I am this close to a destructive rampage in the corporate offices.

Hey Mom, good news: You won't have to babysit the dogs for two weeks. :'(

And your total comes to...

Way too much. That's how much money I've spent on pets in the last 30 days.

Between Star's classes, Peepers's pox, and Dozer's allergies and TPLO surgery (1/2 down, and 1/2 next week), I've probably spent $2K. This doesn't count the dogs' new collars (bought before I knew two pets would need major vet visits) and all the dog treats for class.

The remodeling job costs money, of course, even if Byrd is doing it himself. And since the walls aren't yet insulated and sheetrocked, a good chunk of the air pouring from our brand new (expensive) A/C is cooling the bugs and birds outside. So the electric bill is higher than normal, but at least we're animal friendly!

I'd give credit to the veggie garden for reducing our grocery bills, except that it's only producing squash right now. And Byrd hates squash. And our water bill has gone up. (Welcome to Texas summertime, where searing afternoon heat ensures vegetable garden demise without adequate water.) At least the ornamental plants in the front garden are drought-hardy and native.

Let's not bring up the 30th birthdays of myself and my best bud, less than a week away, for which we had hoped to go to Schlitterbahn (are you too old for Schlitterbahn at age 30? Byrd says yes, I say never) and/or have a nice dinner at a fancy food place. And Father's Day, also a nice dinner event.

To make matters worse, I am without a contract job this month, so Byrd is the only income source. This will change on July 15, when my next job starts.

And the money earned from that job will be eliminated by a two-week vacation to Oregon in August.

I suppose this steady money-suck could explain why Byrd looks a bit tense lately.

At least blogging is free.

A week off

Hooray, starting tomorrow Byrd and I are cruise-bound. We'll drive to Galveston, board a cruise ship, and get outta Dodge until next weekend.

This is our first real vacation in a very long time, so I'm pretty excited. Hurricane Ike and whatever all else, I could care less about that. As long as I'm away. With my husband. Having an adventure.

Poor Dozer is a wreck. I thought he was sick this morning. He was droopy, lethargic, and just plain depressed-looking. When we came home from last-minute trip shopping, he didn't even rush to greet us as he usually does. But then I realized how anxiously he's been eyeballing our rapidly filling suitcases. He definitely knows what's going on. I feel bad for him but I know he'll be fine with my mom.

So--back in a week. Au revoir!

The Chicken and the Vacation

Two exciting events are unfolding around here that are (finally) unrelated to dogs in any way...

Chicken

First, we have a new member of the household, a little baby chicken. I've always planned to have chickens someday, but things rarely go as planned around here, especially when we have a reputation in the neighborhood as "the people who rescue strange animals." None of our neighbors have forgotten the beautiful and hilarious Pekin ducks we used to have, and so when this new barnyard fowl somehow ended up in the neighbor's yard (we have two different chicken flocks that roam our neighborhood, which is a strange sight since we're in a well-established neighborhood), they happily handed it over to us, knowing we would know how to care for it.

So after some preparations, the chick is now settled into Dozer's old dog run, and it seems to be doing really well. It's scratched up, maybe from a cat or a car, which would explain why it was alone when it was found, but otherwise happy and healthy and perky. It loves Byrd and it even follows Dozer around; we can't help but remember our lively duck Fred when he was a little bitty baby. I wonder if this is a boy or a girl? We won't know until it starts to crow--or lay eggs!

We're going to get at least one, maybe two, more chickens as soon as is feasible. Those two will be planned and carefully picked; I've found a breeder of the type of chicken that I want, that lays the type of eggs that I want, so there won't be any Mystery surrounding them. Plus, the breeder has some chicks that are the same approximate age as our Mystery Chick, so they aren't like day olds, which require indoor care for quite a while.

I thought a chicken blog would be interesting so I can record pictures and events as the chick grows up... and we find out whether it's a boy or a girl, and what it will look like... so it's at http://achicken.wordpress.com

Vacation

And that brings us to the next thing: our vacation! Yes, a real live vacation. Byrd and I haven't been on a vacation for... well, eight years or so, if you don't count our honeymoon (a two-day excursion to San Antonio, not much of a trip). We're going on a cruise in the Caribbean, which should be entertaining considering all the hurricanes down there right now. But we are leaving on next Sunday and won't be back for a week. I'm really looking forward to it!

Dozer is going to stay here at home, and my mom is going to move in and take care of him and the chicken while we're away. So this next week I've actually got to do a lot of work. Not just packing, but also shopping and cleaning and writing care instructions and labeling cabinets and light switches and so forth, so Mom will know where everything is. The bad thing is that while we are on the cruise, we probably won't have any cell phone reception and we definitely won't have Internet access, so once we're gone, we're really gone for the whole week.

Poor Dozer, this will be the first time we have both left the house for such an extended period of time. I'm so glad Mom will be here with him, but she is not a dog person at all, and Dozer really needs to have a confident leader to tell him what to do or else he just falls to pieces. I sure hope things go okay or else I might not have a dog sitter anymore for future vacations.

Lye Burn

And as a side note, I did a really stupid thing considering I'm about to go on a cruise and I'll be wearing shorts and a swimsuit almost the whole time--I managed to get a nasty lye burn on both my knees! We just laid some concrete (for our fence--pictures and such to come at a later date), and I was helping to "finish" it by scrubbing it with water and a big stone thing. Well, after kneeling on the concrete for nearly an hour, I realized that the pain in my knees wasn't actually from kneeling on a hard surface--it was a burning feeling... and sure enough, when I pulled up my jeans (which were soaking wet and covered with concrete), my knees were red and blistered. Now I can only hope these oozing blisters will heal up in five days. :( Well, I guess the good thing is that it got me out of the rest of the job because I had to go shower straightaway!