Genevieve
	Waking	Sleeping	Sign	Repose	Wish
	The gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam...

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puppy and 13 boxes
2002-02-18 - 1:56 p.m.

Well, this was a very productive weekend, and parts of it were even fun. :)

Started off on Friday, I left work at ~3:30 for a few stated "mental health hours". Good start to the weekend by not lying to boss and yet getting some freedom time. Went over to Wendy's (who was taking a flex friday), drank a cider, and I gave her the keys to my truck and we just went driving, all over, hither and yon, with a quick stop at Savage Mills to buy chocolate, and shop for small stuffed animals. I got Rescue the Dalmation puppy Beanie Baby, proceeds go to Widows and Children of 9-11 firemen victims. Not a grand donation, but something, and I got a cute little dalmation puppy with a flag on his shoulder. They also have Courage the German Sheperd. We then looked at a bunch of strange stuff including a Gund Squirrel who had a little leather acorn in his paws, but he was a strange kind of fluffy for a stuffed animal, a little to coarse to cuddle. Maybe he was made of wool. Eh, not likely.

Afterwards we picked up Alan, and Rob and went to dinner and then drove down to Thornbury Manor for the Welcome Home Beth Party, which was nice and low key and relaxed. Got to chat with Kev, who was luckily not entirely plague-ridden, but then Jake had caught it, so we had the containment area where the two of them sat until she retired to bed. Wen got Beth the cutest little stuffed Classic Pooh Owl from Gund, who is extra soft and cuddly who stayed with her the entire evening. Maybe she was being sweet and sentimental, maybe she was loopy and jet lagged, but it was cute to watch.

Saturday Gen didn't sleep in too late, and we started a big cleaning out of the basement, boxing up stuff, throwing out stuff, and all sorts of simplifying and storing madness. This continued almost all day and into Sunday as well. Interrupted briefly with a house the next street over, four houses down bursting into flames, which was ...er... exciting? We felt bad at first for not jumping fences and offering to help, but seeing how badly it got so quickly we were just as happy to let the professionals deal with it, who were on site fairly quickly. That and smoke and Gen's bad lungs and Alan's sensitive sinuses, and the dust from cleaning was bad enough. Call us heartless, I am fairly certain everyone made it out alive and someone else's stuff is not worth my lungs.

So, all told over the weekend we got five truckloads (3 Scarlett, 2 Rhett) of stuff to storage and one truckload (Rhett) of stuff to the dump. The stuff in storage includes my grandfather's old cedar chest he made in high school filled with our canvas, SCA stuff like tables and chairs, old aquariums, my yarn and pattern boxes, an old bench, end table, folding samsonite chairs, the shelves my fabric was on set up to help organize, and the 13 boxes of fabric. Yup, 13 boxes. 7 of which are the largish Dell Flatscreen monitor boxes. No, I don't have a problem. And, No, I'm not having separation anxiety either.

I also did some minor grocery shopping (while on the phone with tech support since I was on call), accomplished something like 9 loads of laundry, sweeping out the basement from all that moving, and getting rid of most of the cobwebs in the rafters of the basement. Alan was much more productive. He repaired that hole in the hardwood floor in the den closet which must have been that way for almost 20 years, took down the attempt at crown molding in the den to asses what to do next, repaired with hydrolic cement some serious divits in the concrete basement floor, spackled several spots in the kitchen, and on the doors to the kitchen from the living room and dining room. I in turn took down most of the SCA related art in the dining room to bring it to a more normal art level, and so we could figure out how many nails to pull and how many holes to spackle. He got this special spackle that is pink when applied but turns white when dry so you know when it is dry and okay to add more layers or paint over. It's very cool, and yet cute at the same time. Alan was hoping to maybe get to painting half of the basement floor today with his day off of work. yay for dead presidents!

Then for dinner last night we head over to Wen and Rob's and have a very random and interesting night out. First we head to Laurel for dinner at Friday's, long line. Hostess says 10-20 minute wait, we look skepical. The lady behind us looks skeptical. We decide to try somewhere else. Lone Star, food smells lovely, wait is 40 mins, more realistic, and yet not worth it. Try to find Hard Times in Laurel, a little bit of turning around, and little bit of "RED LIGHT!" and bam, thanks to Wendy's reflexes we find it. But there is also a Ruby Tuesday there as well, no line and in the same vein as Friday's. Immediately sat down, yummy food, fast refills on drinks, excellent! We opt to be virtuous and turn down dessert and head home. Then we decide to randomly call H&MG and head to Clyde's for chocolate mousse. What happened to being virtuous? H&MG in for the evening, but we are welcome to come over and meet the puppy afterwards if we want to. We have 3 meese for the 4 of us, one cafe au lait, and one blue moon martini and savor the glory of the chocolate mousse. Afterwards we head over to visit with the Meng and Brian and meet Maddie...

Ohhhhh!!!! puppy head!!!! Maddie was very nice and met us at the door, and I immediately dropped my purse and jacket and started playing with the puppy. What a soft and wonderful active little golden retriever she is. Gonna be big too, floppy ears and huge paws and all. And there was some chatting, and puppy playing, and watching how well trained she already is, and seeing the puppy and cat interaction, which the cat tolerates and almost even instigates and then turns into a boxer with amazing paw speed as Brian pointed out. Now, here is something amazing to point out. Apparently the cat watched all of the teaching the puppy to sit and stay interaction from atop the back of the couch. After it was all said and done, Dodger went up to Brian and meowed and looked up expectantly for a treat. Brian thought, the dog gets treats for tricks, so let's see if the cat will do tricks for dog treats. He looks at cat and says: "Sit!" Cat sits. Brian astonished gives Cat treat. Cat runs off happy and proving that he could do it in one try which took the silly puppy several times to learn. Now that cat sits on command, for a treat. He did it last night, we all died laughing. Teach a cat to sit, unheard of!

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