Once the surgery drugs wore off, she decided Fenris was awesome (as long as he didn’t violate her personal space when she wanted some alone-time with a rawhide) and it took all our energy to stop them playing — her surgery wound won’t be healed for another week or so, and we’re meant to keep her calm until then. Hah, I say. May as well try to hold back the sea with a sieve.

I’ll post some more pics soon, in between refereeing.

See, Loki thought Fenris needed a doggie friend — someone to play with during the day, since daycamp was first to go when we re-budgeted to line up with our new financial reality. And we were thinking of adopting from the rescue that comes to our PetSmart, but they weren’t there on Saturday.

Then I thought, well, the rescue is awesome, but they probably keep dogs until they’re adopted out, whereas the puppy prison … doesn’t. If we rescued a dog from the pound, we’d be actually saving an actual life. So we went.

And oh, gods, was that a hard, hard thing. So many sad dogs. So many dogs that were shaking with fear. So many dogs that you know won’t be adopted, and will die. I cried the entire time we were there.

Choosing was painful. There was a Husky with ice-blue eyes; a German Shorthaired Pointer mix like the dog I grew up with, so bouncy and happy; an American Foxhound mix, all gangly legs and wagging tail; and this wee German Shepherd mix, calm and perky-eared and wagging her little nub of a tail.

We went back and forth, and dithered, and went back to look at this one or that one. A nice-looking couple were playing with the Pointer through the cage bars, and I tried to encourage them. “Pointers are great. This dog would be awesome for you!” They tried not to make eye contact with me; I’m sure they thought I was nuts.

Finally, we decided to meet the Shepherd, so they brought her out and we took her to the big, enclosed pens they’ve set up so you can get acquainted. And she was awesome! Alternately spazzy and content to just lie on your feet.

So we filled in some paperwork and handed over some money and arranged to pick her up yesterday after her spay surgery. Loki drove her home, and she made it the nearly whole way home before yacking on his seats.

Now she’s installed in the house, and she’s got to be sort-of quarantined for a week or so, so we got her a big crate to hang out in. She doesn’t seem to mind, much, although she likes the outdoors better. But it’s just until her surgery wound heals, and then she and Fenris can start down the path to BFF-hood.

We still need a name for her. We’re considering Spike (Adora Belle or Speigel, doesn’t matter), or Freya/Freyja, or Sabine, but nothing’s stuck yet.

And now I think we’re done adopting new animals for a good long while, because oh, man, are the first few days rough, and I’m not going through that again anytime soon.

But I’m glad we’ve adopted this one!

I’m wrecked from an evening of cat- and dog-wrangling, so you’ll get the full skinny tomorrow.

In the meantime, she needs a name. Suggestions?

More worryingly, I didn’t cross anything off my to-do list, so that’s just more to do next week.

On the plus side, I have been reliably informed that Fresh & Squeezy has turkeys on sale for $0.37/lb, which is awesome, and one thing I can cross off my Thanksgiving shopping list. So yay.

And I expect next week to be eventful and interesting, and I should have some good pics to post. So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

The original was about one inch by two, and it wasn’t until I scanned it at high resolution that I realized … his mom’s sticking her tongue out.

If you’re not now dead from cute, you’re probably just dead.

OK, I slept like crap, had strange nightmares and then a bit of stupidity at work first thing, but it feels like I can’t get into gear. Even my normal walking pace feels slow.

On the plus side, there’s nothing too onerous going on this weekend, so if I need some puttering-and-decompression time, I’ll probably get it. Woo? You betcha.

Tonight, The Low Men play show at the Yucca Taproom, which should be fun, and you should totally come, not least because Calin-the-new-guitar-guy is really freaking good and you probably haven’t heard him yet. Tomorrow my plan is to finally put pictures into all the frames I got for my birthday^[1], and get them up on the living room walls. Sunday I start cleaning for Thanksgiving.

I’m off to see if more caffeine helps. Come back tomorrow & see if I just gave up & slipped into a coma.

[1] you can’t rush these things.

• Drive the Nürburgring
• Paint a mural on a wall
• Spend a year taking pictures every day
• Own a cottage in a forest
• Be fluent in German
• Zip line through a canopy
• Picnic in the Parc du Champs de Mars
• See the Hagia Sofia
• Start my own business
• See the aurora borealis
• Quit smoking
• Dip my toes in the Mediterranean
• Cruise to Alaska
• Eat pizza in Naples
• Show Loki my Chicago
• Go to Wave Gotik Treffen – properly
• Lose weight
• Eat pretzel rolls in Germany
• Make soap
• Remove money as a concern
• See the sunrise at Stonehenge on the Solstice
• See the mosaics in Ravenna
• Sail on a tall ship
• Swim with the dolphins
• Live in another country for a year
• Build a kebab pit in the back yard
• Run our house on solar or wind power
• Open a Swiss bank account in Switzerland
• Eat at El Bulli
• Donate a thousand dollars to an animal charity
• See an opera
• Travel on a narrowboat on English canals
• Take a flying lesson
• Help someone learn to read
• Blend my own perfume
• Play a show without getting stage fright
• Be conversational in Russian
• Make 5 different cheeses at home
• Watch a British steeplechase from beside the fences
• Make a proper costume for Halloween
• Leave a note in a crevice in the Western Wall
• See a World Cup match in person
• See the Angkor Wat
• Meet someone I admire, and not say something stupid
• Travel above the Arctic Circle
• Spend a night in a castle
• Build my dream house
• Learn to tango
• Have a croquet party in the back yard
• Watch glassblowers at work in Venice
• See a glacier
• Visit that church made entirely of bones
• Make pad thai at home
• Climb to the top of a lighthouse
• Drive 200mph
• Publish a poem
• Make a stained-glass window
• Take my mom on a tour of places mentioned in Martha Grimes novels
• Sew a quilt
• Go camping in a tent again
• Photograph 100 Buddhas
• Haggle for a something in a souq
• Learn a programming language
• Find my favorite childhood books
• Play a show in Hamburg, so we can say the line
• Cover a wall with snapshots
• Watch a great chef at work
• Eat tapas in Spain
• Grow my own herbs
• Throw a black-tie dinner party
• Write a novel
• Have a Charm City Cakes cake made
• Build Fenris a dog house
• Eat sushi in Japan
• Wear a large hat at the Kentucky Derby, or Royal Ascot
• Pick a sprig of edelweiss
• Create a mosaic
• Ride 500 rollercoasters
• Lap the Top Gear test track
• Take the Eurostar from London to Paris
• Play an alpenhorn
• Take Fenris to play in snow
• Make vegetarian marshmallows
• Make bacon
• Make pastrami
• Make a fabulous cake
• Visit all the dams in Arizona
• Spend a whole day reading

I’ll be crossing some of these off soon =)

In no particular order:

• Portland. We spent far, far too little time there, but I liked it a lot, and need to see more. That’s a city that likes its food. I approve of that.
• Alaska. With Hawaii, one of the two states I’m missing in my what-US-states-have-you-visited map. I’m thinking a cruise there would be fun.
• More of Canada. Mainly Vancouver & Prince Edward Island. I’ve seen quite a lot of Canada, but mainly the bits that are easily accessible from Michigan and Minnesota. Vancouver sounds quite cool, and I’ve read far too much LM Montgomery to skip PEI.
• Britain. I’ve been to Cranfield, Exeter (just the airport and the railway station, though … does that count?) and a wee tiny slice of London, and I require more. Part of me still wants to retire to the Hebrides.
• France, ditto. I’ve now spent a combined total of about 24 hours in France, and I require much more. It’s the land of my people, and also it’d be nice to put my nearly-degree in French to use.
• Germany, ditto again. Except I’ve spent a bit more than a week there, but it was 95% work-related.
• Eastern Europe. Lots of this. Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, Poland …
• Seriously Eastern Europe. Kazakhstan and Mongolia. Because horse cultures are cool.
• Istanbul. Ever since I read the Sarantine Mosaic, I really need to see the Hagia Sofia.
• Italy. I need to see San Vitale in Ravenna for the same reason as I need to see Istanbul.
• Egypt and Morocco. I’d like to see the Valley of the Kings, and the Atlas Mountains. How evocative are those names? They are enchanting.
• Australia & New Zealand. We have labelmates there (Dandelion Wine & Brillig), but they seem like cool places all on their own.

Where would you go?

Happily, most of today’s busy was good: we got a new couch for the living room that’s comfy as hell, and I took Fenris for a nice birthday walk.

Tomorrow: actual content. Probably.

Everyone has scent-triggered memories. Here are a few of mine:

* Trees : Woods I explored and trees I climbed growing up. I was incapable of passing a tree without evaluating its climbing potential.
* Wet wind / damp soil : Spring in the Chicago ‘burbs; it smelled so fucking good. Weirdly, autumn in Arizona smells the same way, and gives me cognitive dissonance every single time.
* Polo cologne : On a red shirt that he left behind, inhaling deeply and remembering, remembering.

Sights that will make me forget what I’m doing :

* Snowy streets, snow covered trees, blue shadows. So magical.
* The perfect Craftsman house. It’s probably a good thing I live in a place filled with soulless stucco and 60s ranch-styles, or I’d never get anywhere.
* Low dark clouds threatening rain. It doesn’t even need to rain.
* A huge, orange moon still hugging the horizon. Or later, when it appears in Agnes’ half-round window, which is perfectly positioned to frame a moonrise.

Sounds that yank me right back :

* Disintigration and Pretty Hate Machine and that mixtape Loki made me : Exile in Louisiana, angsty and gothy and sad and hopeful.
* Trashcan Sinatras : On the Highway O’Death with my sweetie, singing along to the entire CD. Or the live show we saw. They were so cute and wee, like you could pick them up and take them home in a pocket.
* Das Ich : That fantastic, shivery-good show.
* Zeraphine : Back. Fucking. Stage.

What are yours?