Cars and Dogs

You know how dogs can sense emotions? Gracie has developed a new reaction to my temper tantrums. About a week ago, I was borrowing a friend's carpet cleaner. After refilling the water and trying to reassemble the compartments, something got stuck and I couldn't get it back together. So I started yelling at it. And hitting it. And carrying on as neither of those actions made the machine go back together. Gracie started to get real concerned, and came up to me and nuzzled her head in my hands, getting in my face. As I continued to curse the machine, she gave up, walked herself into the office, and curled up as far under our desk as she could get herself and stared at me through her sorrowful, beautiful brown eyes. I cracked up. She did this again the other day after I woke up to a note outside the bedroom door that read:

"Hey. Guess what? Our car was stolen. Call me when you get up."

After looking outside for proof, (Yep. Two cars gone and one person still in the house), and after calling the police and filing the report, I proceeded to stomp around the living room, cursing mean people and insurance policies. Gracie then proceeded to walk herself under the table (that I have set up in the living room in an attempt to get my photo albums caught up...yeah, how's that coming anyway?) and curled up in a little ball and looked at me again with those eyes. Again, I could do nothing but laugh. This is new behavior for her (curling up in tight balls under tables), but it works wonders on changing my mood. Dogs are the best.

So.....yeah. Our car was stolen. Pretty shitty. Taken right out from under our noses in the middle of the night. Not a shed of broken glass, not a sign or sound of a struggle. These were either professionals or it was one of those flukes where someone else has a key that works in our car. Of course it wasn't worth much, as we deliberately buy older cars, but still, I liked that little car, and it got amazing gas mileage (40+). Which is one of our theories as to why it was taken. Or it was just because it was a Honda Civic (one of the most commonly stolen cars), or it was due to the ever-present meth problem. Who knows. Our neighborhood isn't bad, but we are on the borderline of some more questionable areas. Still, this is Eugene, right? Just a bunch of free-love hippies? Apparently not. From other stories I heard at work, car, motorcycle and bike theft is all too common.

We are partly to blame as we parked it on the street instead of in our pseudo-driveway, but I wonder if that really would have mattered. It was probably just a matter of time. And of course we don't ever carry comprehensive/theft, so not a dime will be coming in the mail to us, except for that $16 reimbursement from Progressive for canceling the liability insurance on it. Yay. Now we are left with a gas guzzling Explorer with gas prices at their highest ever and Keith with a prospective job that involves lots of driving to Corvallis and Albany. Double yay. Have I gone on long enough? We've actually handled it well, as what really can you do? Hey, maybe the police will find it parked nicely somewhere all vacuumed and cleaned out. One can dream.

In other news, work has been fine. More good days than bad this last week, which is an improvement. And finally some feedback - they say I am "progressing as normal". Which translates into: "We can see you are struggling, and stressed and not as efficient as the other nurses, but that is what we expect." I went ahead and took it as a compliment.

Keith has been networking with the big foreclosure player in town and since we aren't having much luck at beating them at these auctions, he may be joining them. It's still in the works, but he plans to do a trial run in managing the Albany/Lebanon/Corvallis foreclosures. Which means we can no longer bid against these guys at the Lane County auctions, but it also presents some other opportunities for gaining property within the county by working with them. Long story short, we hope to have a fixer-upper of our own soon, we just need a little more patience.

Meanwhile some pictures....

Although it is raining cats and dogs right now and quite cold, a week ago, we had a real nice run of weather. I had the day off and Keith worked, so I took a little drive to look at a random house for sale, then stopped by one of our local buttes for a hike and a swim for Gracie in the river.

OK, so Gracie doesn't really swim anymore. But she does love getting in the water and doing this: Behold the anatomy of the rock search (do you want to borrow her for a while dad? She finds some real gems sometimes!):
First, she paws around looking for that perfect rock:


Then she goes in for the kill. Blowing bubbles out her nose and everything.


And then she proudly displays her catch:


After letting Gracie cool off in the river, we took a little walk among the many fine trails of Mt Pisgah, some of which they have actually made dog friendly and you can remove the leash (because we always leash our dog....wink, wink). I picked a different trail than normal that took me up a side hill, and at the top was rewarded with and surprised to find this:


View along the trail:


And finally, the new edition for the week, Mr Wiley. Our friends are out of town, so we get to dogsit Wiley for the week. He and Gracie spend most of the time minding their own business, but in this rare moment Gracie had her ball, and I swear, deliberately dropped it out of her mouth and rolled it towards Wiley as an offering of some sort. OK, OK, so maybe I spend too much time looking at and analyzing my and others' dogs. (And I'm a little embarrassed about that pile of mess in the background...).


Wiley is doing great. Pugs are hilarious. A little noisy at night with all the snoring, but we're working things out. The other thing these two do together is feed off each other with the barking. One hears something and barks, which causes the other to bark, which causes the other to bark, etc. This is happening right now....