From today’s installment of “Take your Rufus to work day”:
“So you, uh, don’t happen to have any treats in that desk drawer, do you?”
Working like a dog
Today was “Take your Rufus to work day”:
That weird device next to Rufus’ head is a Soundstick, from Amy’s old computer. And yes, I had iTunes going on my desktop computer.
What It Is: 5/5/2008
What I’m reading: Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, on my Kindle via Manybooks.net. And Lush Life
What I’m listening to: Third
What I’m watching: Juno, which was cute. And we started the third season of the wire
What I’m drinking: More G’Vine G&Ts, plus Circus Boy by Magic Hat.
Where I’m going: Nowhere this week, but I’ll be working at home mid-week when the tree-removal guys show up to clear out a bunch of the more hazardous trees in the yard. I’ll take before-and-after pix.
What I’m happy about: That my trip into NYC yesterday to donate platelets at Sloan-Kettering went off without a hitch, despite the presence of the Five Boro Bike Tour, which would shut down the southbound FDR Drive later in the day. If I’d gotten caught in that traffic on the way into the city, I’d have been quite peeved. Good thing I’m an earlybird!
What I’m sad about: That a tick managed to evade the combined efforts of Frontline and my vigilant eye, leading to a nasty-looking bite on one of Rufus’ forelegs. Now I’ve gotta get him to the vet. Grr.
What I’m pondering: When I went to that pharma-event in Atlantic City last Monday, the keynote address was given by Linda Ellerbee. She didn’t have anything to say about clinical supplies and outsourcing, but she did give a funny and warm speech about her own history, women’s roles in the workplace, cheating husbands, breast cancer, and the messed-up-edness of the media. Some of it showed a real datedness, insofar as a lot of women under 35 simply don’t have the same limits that Linda butted up against when she was trailblazing. But that’s not what I’m pondering.
No, what I’m pondering is why, of all people she could quote throughout history to illustrate the need to change one’s own ways, she went with Anwar Sadat. Now, I can understand why his words — “He who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality, and will never, therefore, make any progress.” — were relevant to her speech.
I just think that maybe she could’ve looked for someone whose change of thought — in this case, visiting Israel and working for peace — didn’t lead to his being assassinated by his own army.
Steel cage match
Your morning moment of Rufus:
Grand
Mom headed home to St. Louis yesterday, but before her departure, she posed for a couple of pix with her four-legged grandchild. Enjoy!
What It Is: 4/21/08
What I’m reading: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
What I’m watching: NBA Playoffs, except for most of the Nuggets-Lakers game.
What I’m listening to: not much. I haven’t played a lot of music lately, partly because I can’t (work-)write when there’s music on, and partly because my mom is visiting for a week and it’d be rude to play my music as loud as I like to. But I did just fall in love with Academia, off the new album by Sia.
What I’m drinking: G&Ts with G’Vine, a fancy French gin that my associate editor bought me for the holidays.
What I’m happy about: That Rufus was impossibly well-behaved (well, sleepy) during our Seder on Saturday night, despite the presence of 5 people he’d never seen before.
What I’m sad about: All the games we could’ve played. (oh, and these, too)
What I’m pondering: Going back to Montaigne and writing more of those Monday Morning Montaigne pieces that you hated.
Flip out
I’m pretty happy about that Flip Video Ultra I bought a few weeks ago. It looks like Pure Digital, the manufacturer, is pretty happy with the response, having turned the marketplace upside-down in the past year.
I know I haven’t posted much video yet, but I’ve been too busy to sit down and figure out optimal settings, edit clips, etc. So, in honor of his first seder tonight, here’s a new clip of Rufus going crazy on that pheasant-toy of his (you may recall that he tore the head off the guy about 5 minutes after we bought it):
I’ll milk this joke for all it’s worth
In the month that he’s lived with us, we’ve come up with several nicknames for Rufus. His ruthlessness with his plush friends has made him “The Toya Destroya,” while his ability to pee for 10 minutes at a time earned him the sobriquet of “Austin Powers.”
I just discovered his second tick in three days — it’s currently taking a dip in Lake Isopropyl — so I’ve decided that Rufus, following in Prince Harry’s footsteps, will now be known as the “Ginger Tick Magnet.”
Tick #1 was enough of a signal for me to buy a 3-pack of Frontline Plus for Dogs. Reading over the labeling, I discovered that the product “can also be used for the treatment and control of flea, tick and chewing lice infestations on breeding, pregnant and lactating bitches.”
And in a happy coincidence, Shoot ‘Em Up is our next Netflix DVD!
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Bonus dog cuteness!
“I didn’t do it!”
What it is: 4/7/08
What I’m reading: Wrong for All the Right Reasons
What I’m listening to: Veneer
What I’m watching: Miss Guided. I have a crush on Judy Greer. There, I’ve said it. Oh, and Amazing Grace, starring the guy who played both Mister Fantastic and Mister Miracle. (For the record, it was structured poorly, starting in 1797 and using extensive flashbacks to 1782 to show Wilberforce’s early battles to get slavery abolished in the British territories. Near as I can tell, the only reason to assemble the story that way was so they could introduce the hot wife-to-be early on in the movie. The story would’ve been far more effective if it had been told linearly, with a “15 years later” title coming up after Wilberforce’s initial failure in Parliament. Oh, and Albert Finney should’ve had more screen time. On the plus side, the guy who plays William Pitt is named Benedict Cumberbatch.)
What I’m happy about: Getting to see my friends for brunch on Sunday.
What I’m sad about: Dog toys made with such shoddy workmanship that Rufus tears them to pieces within minutes. Last night, we had to stop him from chewing on the plastic squeak-insert in his toy bunny, which he’d received 4 hours earlier. And don’t ask what happened to his toy crawfish.
What I’m pondering: Whether to cobble together a new design for this blog.
The Raccoon Whisperer
Last week, I wrote about the raccoon who took up residence in a tree stump in my backyard. I came up with several theories to explain its presence there. He may have been:
- rabid,
- the reincarnation of Abin Sur,
- a MOVE-like squatter, or
- the victim of a Nigerian time-share scam.
The animal’s sluggishness and lack of response to having a rock tossed into its nest left me to conclude that it was dying. However, as one of my coworkers pointed out, the raccoon probably took up residence because it needed somewhere to birth its babies. It’s that time of year for them. I guess there’s some sort of symbolism in my seeing decay and death while other people see life, but maybe that’s just my zombie-fixation showing.
So on Monday evening I called the local animal hospital to find out the protocol for dealing with this guy, and that led me on the merry chase of calling the police’s non-emergency line, then the animal control facility in a nearby town, and ultimately The Wildlife Rehabilitator.
TWR, who lives in my town, confirmed the likelihood of my coworker’s prognosis on Tuesday morning: Raccquel Raccoon was likely getting ready to spawn little raccoon kids. “So, um, what do we do about that? Because I’m really not ready to start a family. I mean, I just got a dog!”
She told me that her daughter, who handles varmint-evictions, would call and check out the scene in the stump. She said, “She used to handle animal control in the town, until the other party took over after the election. They fired her after 8 years. And she’d done a great job. She was even working with the Mine People [a.k.a. the Jackson-Whites] on a spay/neuter program!”
“She was gonna spay and neuter the Jackson-Whites? That is AWESOME!”
“. . . Anyway, the fee to remove a raccoon is $175. But if she has babies, then it’s $225, because we have to house them together while they’re rehabilitated.”
“House them? Seriously? I was figuring I’d have to pay you for a burlap sack, some bricks and a length of twine.”
“Sir?”
“Well, it’s not like raccoons are an endangered species or something. . .”
“We take our job very seriously! These animals need to be rehabilitated before we let them out in the wild.”
Great: now I was stuck envisioning this raccoon in a group session at a rehab clinic with Britney, Lindsay and Amy Winehouse. I thought about sparing Raccquel that fate by borrowing one of dad’s rifles and drilling her. Then I thought about the possibility of a ricocheting bullet catching me in the throat and killing me, and how people would laugh because I was too cheap to call in The Wildlife Rehabilitator and her daughter, The Raccoon Whisperer, to take care of things. [Note: Of course, when I told Dad about this situation, he volunteered to come over and shoot Raccquel. I still would’ve ended up getting hit by a ricochet.]
I told her to go ahead and set it up. She didn’t call back for the rest of the week, so I started thinking of what amount of Kevlar I’d need to wear to feel safe. Then I thought about calling in a stump-grinder to take care of Raccquel’s home, without telling him that the raccoon was living there. Then I thought about the premise of Bosom Buddies and feared that Raccquel would take up residence in my attic or boiler room, dressed in drag.
With enough other stuff going on at work, I was able to put off thinking too much about the situation. Friday morning, TWR called to say that she and TRW were in my neighborhood, and would check out the situation with Raccquel. I was convinced that they took a few extra days in hopes that she’d have given birth, earning themselves an extra $50. It was to no avail. They called, live from the stump, to tell me that Raccquel was there, alone, and that they’d get her out that morning.
“I forgot to mention; watch out for the dog-crap. That’s how Rufus & I discovered this whole thing, after all.”
When I got home that night, there was no sign of my tenant in the tree stump, nor any struggle and zombified animal control staff, so I figure that things went smoothly, and Raccquel was safely in rehab, learning that opening people’s trash cans is just a cry for help.
Au revoir, raton laveur!
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Coda: Friday evening, I took Rufus out for his bathroom break, and noticed a policeman walking in the woods behind my neighbor’s house (and mine).
“What’s going on, officer?” I called out.
He looked up, saw me, and said, “Get your dog inside! There’s a bear somewhere down the hill!”