Woah.

I suck at keeping a blog.  Like really. 


I have to try not to forget about this thing...  


We begin Homeward Bound Journey Number 2 this afternoon (driving Houston to Philadelphia).  It actually is like the movie with the dogs and the cat, because we have 2 dogs (Kimma and Pentti) and 1 THE cat (Nika).  Though we have 2 girls and 1 boy, so maybe not. 

Let's hope we can all get through this thing without going insane/getting sick. 

Red Bull is my friend.  <3

Today was simply ridiculous.

My dog is trying to give me a heart attack.  (Though she definitely succeeded in giving me a migraine!).

Note:  This is going to be long.  I apologize.

Today started off weird.  Kimma was a bit more reactive than usual, barking at cars randomly, and just being a pain.  But whatever.  We all have bad days.

So we went to go for a walk with a group from our dog park.  We go walking with them a few times a week at different parks in the area.  Kimma was fine overall.  Not pulling too much on lead, though she did bark at a jogger, which hasn't happened in a while.  Again, though, not a huge thing.  We'll keep working on it.

Then comes the bad part.  We are standing in the parking lot after our walk, and talking about where we are going tomorrow.  Kimma begins barking at a landscaper at the church nearby.  I get her attention, have her sit and focus on me, and I give her treats.  Of course, the other dogs in the group see/smell that I have treats, and crowd around me.  No problem.  Their owners say I can give them treats if they sit/beg/whatever the trick is.  As I'm doing this, Kimma decides that she MUST get to that landscaper.  So she backs out of her collar.  She has NEVER done that before. 

And she runs.  Towards the landscaper.  Who hears me call for her (she pays no attention of course - all that training has been worthless thus far, I suppose), and goes to grab her once she gets close enough to him.  She is hand shy (still not sure why - I think it's a breed thing), and RUNS.  Towards a road. 

And I sprint after her.  Calling her name like a crazy person.  I forget about the whole "best thing to do is run away and they will follow" stuff, and just kept chasing her.  At this point she is alongside the road, trotting on the shoulder against traffic.  I don't want to go behind her because she will run more.  So I try to circle around her by staying on the other side of the ditch alongside the road. 

By the grace of doG, she gets scared by a truck and backs into the ditch, further away from the road.  I successfully run through the trees/bushes next to me and head her off in said ditch.  She has stopped running.  And is just looking at me.  I say, "Kimma, come here!" in the nicest tone I can muster, and offer her a handful of hotdogs. 

She comes to me and I snatch her up so fast it's not even funny. 

And I just stood there with her, trying to catch my breath, and trying so hard not to have a breakdown. 

The others from the group arrive with their dogs (they were hoping if I didn't get her by then that if Kimma saw her friends, maybe she would come to them on her own), make sure all is well, pet Kimma like crazy, and we walk back and go to our cars and leave.

I get home, hug Kimma, and just start bawling.  She has no idea, and keeps wiggling and barking.  All she wants to do is play.  So we play tug, and all is OK.

Fast forward to the evening. 

I've recently started working on Control Unleashed.  We went outback for some training.  After a bit of work, she gets to take a break and she does her favorite thing - lays down and pulls up some grass.  Then it's time to go in and do some more training before we go for a walk. 

As soon as Kimma enters my kitchen from the backyard, she starts kind of twitching, like something bit her.  All of a sudden, she just throws up.  Weird.  Then I see them.  Fire ants.  Falling off of her.  About 15-20 little ones.

I'm allergic to fire ants.  Great.

Poor girl is still twitching a bit, so I put a slip lead on her quick, and start stomping on the ants, making sure they're dying as I do so.  I then take a paper towel and start rubbing her all over trying to make sure they are gone.  She gags once more, then goes to get some water.  I put her in her crate with a chewy thing, and clean up the ant remains. 

The e-vet gets a panicked phone call from me, and they said to just monitor her for the next day or so, and bring her in if she starts acting weird.  OK.  I can do that.  Hang up the phone...

Another breakdown.  As she's barking at me from in the crate (which had also gotten better, but apparently we're back to square-one with that, too). 

Needless to say, today was not good.  Every time I close my eyes, I see her running away.  It's horrible. 

She has a new martingale walking collar. 

And I have my migraine.

Hopefully I will never have a day like this again.

Cello and Halo

The new Halo game came out.  Can you say addicting???  It's so addicting that I had conversations with multiple students (basically my male students!), about it.  Oh, and one of their parents.  Awesome.  The convo with one of my students' Dads pretty much went down like this:

Not Me:  Hi!  How are you?  How did Mike do in his lesson today?
Me:  I'm well, thanks!  We had a good lesson.  We are starting to work on shifting a lot, and I think he's getting the hang of it really quickly!  How are you doing?
Not Me:  I'm doing well, ready for the weekend.
Me:  Yeah, Mike says that you guys get to play Halo: Reach Saturday night!  He seems very excited about it.  I told him I'm jealous because I'm not sure when I will get to pick the game up and start playing.
Not Me:  Hahaha, yeah, we're pretty excited. 
Me:  It will be interesting to see what new stuff they're worked in to this one...  Especially with the weapons!
Not Me:  Yeah, they seem to add a bunch of new weapons to each game.
Me:  They also make them differ in terms of how much power they have.  Like from Halo 2 to Halo 3, the Needler get so much stronger!  It actually does some damage in 3!
Not Me:  Oh, we prefer the Plasma weapons. 
Me:  Plasmas are pretty cool.  Though I have to admit, I'm all about the melee.
Not Me:  Yes!  When in doubt, just hit B!

It was probably amazing.

But of course, as is the way of my life, with every cool thing that happens, one random stroke of bad/weird has to occur.  Take last night for example.  Something gave me an allergic reaction, and I have no idea what it was.  I hadn't eaten anything abnormal, hadn't been anywhere new, I didn't change my detergent or anything like that...  So the only thing I can think of is that I'm now allergic to life in general. 

In response to this (and the fact that I was up pretty much all night itching and worrying that I was going to stop breathing or something), I canceled my lesson for this morning.  Lo and behold, I wake up perfectly fine looking!  Still itchy and a bit loopy, but not as red or swollen.  Now this guy probably thinks I'm irresponsible or lazy...  And he hasn't gotten back to my email asking about a makeup, so that doesn't bode too well. 

However, I have pretty much figured out that I'm not meant to be a musician.  Sure I can teach (well, when I find students), but as far as gigs go, I must have done something to somebody and am currently on a black-list of some kind.  (I say "some" a lot - maybe that's why no one will hire me).

I think I need to just stick with playing with dogs...  Namely, mine.  At least she doesn't make me feel bad about my cello playing.

And we have an AGILITY TUNNEL!  Now, THAT is a good time right there. 

(Except when she gets distracted and goes off to chase a bug or chew on some grass - though as long as she doesn't say anything about my apparent lack of cello skills, all is forgiven!)

Why bother?

I'm not sure if I'm the only one who feels this way, but I really hate when people say something is going to happen, and then come back a day later with an, "Oh, my bad, just kidding!"

A few examples:

1. Telling me that I will have like a billion kids to teach, and then coming back to me the next day with "Ooops...  We only have 2 students for you!  Sorry!  Hope I didn't inconvenience you!"  Yeah, it's fine.  You totally just told me to clear that day so I could teach all these cellists, and I quit another job so that I could do so.

But seriously, it's no biggie!  I don't like money anyway.  It's totally overrated.  Food?  Who needs that???  Silly people with their eating and living and driving.  Hah!  I laugh at them!

2. Making Justin ask me if it's OK to move places, only to never mention it again....

Case in point:  Malaysia.  Seems like a cool place (though I couldn't find it on a blank map if my life depended on it...  I'm not entirely sure I even understand which continent it's in... I totally have a Masters degree), and we would make a good amount of money to compensate for being a lot further from everyone and everything we know.  I was asked if I would be OK with going, to which I replied yes.  Usually companies don't do that unless it's a pretty sure thing.

Apparently not!  It's like there is a group of people sitting in a conference room deciding that, "On a whim, we will torture this poor guy and his new wife for a couple of nights as they wrack their little brains trying to think of what they are going to do with their house, cars, ferret, dog, family obligations, etc. in preparation for a move that will never happen!  Bwahahahah!!!"  I'm imagining Bowser being the head of such discussions, obviously.  Then...  NOTHING.  No mention of it.  Only when Justin asks is he met with, "Oh yeah, that.  Never mind!"

Not cool, guys...  Not cool at all.

(Note:  I picked Malaysia out of a list of approximately 10 places he has been "told" about)

3-ish. OK, so by "a few," I meant "a couple," and by "examples," I meant, "things that are bugging me a lot at this very moment."

In conclusion, if you don't know something is for sure, then just don't say anything.

And now I must go and do something productive with my life...  Like practice, since I now have a new (amazing!) teacher that I must impress at my lesson next week :)

Plus, my dog likes eating the gravel that's in my fireplace, and I need to go intervene before she takes another mouthful..........

A Rose By Any Other Name...

As my best friend Tiffany has pointed out in the comments section to my previous post, I have left out a few nicknames...  I suppose I did this because I wanted to type the abridged version.  But now that it has been brought to my attention, I must respond accordingly.  (Though I'm sure I'm still leaving some out...)

Tiffany = Tiffy (yeah, I'm creative...), Tiffanoleum (woah, no clue how to spell that!), Twin, Fwiendy, Fwiendles, other things involving changing the "r" in "friend" to a "w"

Ryan (Tiffany's finance - yes, I spelled finance not fiance) = Crab

Justin = Justa-Just, Just-in-Time (I'm not kidding), The Impregnator (also not kidding)

And I forgot that for me, somewhere before Beebs came Beep.  Plus, Justin's teasing me about my egg tooth once I became The Speckles Chicken.  (How else could I escape from my shell?!??)

Justin and I also call each other "pal" a lot.  So without vowels (we don't like vowels, remember???), that means right now, I'm Brdpl and he's Brpl (Birdpal and Bearpal).  Also, adding Pod without the "o" is one of our favorites.  That would make Brdpd and Brpd.  Confused yet?  That has become the story of my life with Justin.

Other than that, we are pretty much normal.

Oh wait.  No we're not.

While we are on the topic of random names, I must comment on my sister Josephine's AWESOME choice of a name for her pet.  Being that she is my sister and she gets along with Justin, it comes as no surprise that she would want a more "unusual" pet than most.  Originally, she wanted a snake.  I think a ball python to be precise.  But there's no way our Mom would let us have anything like that in our house (I had to beg my parents for a fish my junior year of college, for goodness sake!), plus feeding mice to something does not sound like a good time.  So she decided on a leopard gecko.

So for Josephine's graduation from college this past May, Justin and I got her her very own gecko, complete with habitat and crickets (which the poor thing was terrified of and refused to eat).  New pet needs a name.  Nothing too common, but also nothing that is way too out there.  What does she decide on?  Oh yes...  King Henry.

Brilliant.

Words cannot describe how amazing that is.  He may be a girl for all we know!  Then she will have to change his name to be one of the women Henry The VIII was with.  The choices for that are pretty endless for that, though, so either way someone wins.

I'm proud of my sister.  Not only for being good at life and going to law school and all of that, but for naming her reptile something epic.

And now I must depart because Nika is attacking Justin's work shoes.  That happens pretty frequently around here....

So, what's with the chicken?

Being in a relationship is awesome.  You have someone to go to with all of your problems (no matter how silly they may be), they take care of you, give you presents, etc.  All good things.

But as we all know, relationships can also be difficult.  Meeting the parents/families, getting to know their friends, making sure things don't get boring...  Ah yes, and then there are the "pet names." 

Rewind to senior year of high school.  After going to mass every week for my entire life, I knew that the priest said something about blessing the various leaders of the church every week.  The first name of the Archbishop of Philadelphia was/is Justin.  So I thought of how silly it would be to put a nickname with that...  Say, "Justy-Bear."  Wouldn't that get a few laughs, even at a Catholic church?  I thought so. 

Of course, this translated to my then friend/sort of boyfriend-ish, now husband, Justin.  My best friend Tiffany and I started with Justy-Bear, then we just shortened it to Bear.  Or sometimes Justy.  We are pretty creative.

Somewhere along the line, after we started going out, Justin began calling me Beebs.  No clue where it came from, but it worked quite nicely.  Beebs and Bear.  Our mutual gamer friends loved it, and would use those names at every chance.  Usually saying them in funny voices.  We are now in college, BTW, and oh so mature.

Then came the discovery (well, rediscovery maybe?) of the song The Great Speckled Bird, sung by Johnny Cash (I guess it was a cover, because I don't think he was the one who wrote it...).  Now, I have actual freckles, AKA speckles.  And apparently, I resemble a bird.  Cool.  I'm really excited about that one.  Chicken somehow just happened, and The Speckles Chicken, or TSC, was born!  Our friend Jon had a lot to do with this, as he and Justin are like long-lost brothers or something.

After TSC had lost it's fervor, it was just shortened down to Bird, and later Brd.  And Bear became Br.  We don't like vowels. 

Banjo Kazooie is the pretty much the epitome of our lives together.

And this was playing most of the time I was typing.  That, and we are playing Halo.  By ourselves.  On a Saturday.  WE ARE THE COOLEST.

I don't understand...

Music today is insane.  I don't get it.  Back in my day, we didn't listen to all the hip-hops.  OK, we did, but at least it sort of made sense.  Everything has been done already, so the only place to go is down (apparently).

Justin just had "Hey Soul Sister" by Train on his YouTube (yes, we are in our mid-twenties and we spend our Friday nights sitting next to each other on separate laptops...  What of it?), and I must say, it's horrible. 

Have you listened to the lyrics?  I mean, really listened?  For some reason, this song makes me uncomfortable.  It totally does.  I don't care about how shaven you are. 

We need to go back to the time of qwijibo (thanks, Justin, for typing that in there).  Yes, that wonderful composer Wolfgang Qwijibo. 

I need to sit further away from him from now on (story of my life).

Wow, I definitely didn't expect to write in this thing again so soon, but I could not contain my anger any longer.