And to all a good night...

Lou passed out with her new Christmas sweater and Santa hat on....Merry Christmas!

New baby in the family...

Miss Kitty has a little sister and I am a dog mom! I picked up my little Pomeranian last night (so hard to choose from the litter of four - they were all so stinking cute I could have taken all four home). She's 7 weeks old, is teeny-tiny (the little one of the litter), and is the neediest animal I have ever met in my life, excluding my sister's Yorkie. Miss Kitty hasn't really taken to her yet (she has been in her hidey box since last night), but she will eventually.

The new puppy has no name yet, but she does have the sweetest little face and is quite the spaz. She also has no discretion about where she makes peeps and poops, refuses to go potty outside, and woke me up 14 times last night chewing on my hair and my face, and another four or five times whimpering (potty? No. Food? No. Love? Yes. Just wanted to play at 4am).



I need help with a name! Her bio parents called her Apollonia because her daddy's name is Robin Masters Apollo. I'm not in love with the name Apollonia and don't want to call her Apple because Gwyneth already came up with that one. This is what I know about her so far: She enjoys running around in circles, chewing on the leg of my sweatpants when I stand up, will suddenly pass out for a nap in the middle of playing with her stuffed dog, whimpers if I leave the room and she can't see me, has the tiniest little white feet, and weighs about 2 lbs. I've come up with the following list with the help of family and friends (my mom and Michael have already met her):

Lulu Belle (Lou for short)
Tuffie
Mimi
Tiny Dancer (Tiny for short)
Little Lily

I don't want her to be three months old and nameless, so I have to come up with something soon. Ideas are welcome! Right now, I'm leaning toward Tiny. Tiny Dancer. Too weird?

More pics here.

Also, any training advice is welcome. She is wearing her collar now after some struggling last night, but I took her out this morning on a leash and she did not like it AT ALL. She has a box with newspaper where she is supposed to potty, but pretty much goes wherever she likes, even after I've put her in her potty box or taken her outside every single time she makes wee indoors. I know she's a baby and training is a lot of work. I can handle it, I just need to figure out what to do!

Despite the behavioral stuff, I adore her already. I love her baby growls when she fights with her stuffed dog. She barks at the television. She climbs me like a tree when I'm sitting on the couch. And right now, she's licking my laptop (don't think my Dell warranty covers dog spit, but she's only licking the outside). She smells like puppy, but in a good way. And I fell in love with her sweet little face in a pic the owner sent me before I even met her. Her cuteness makes me weak.

New family member?

Now that I'm working from home again, this might be the perfect time to get a puppy. I've checked with all the local shelters, and while some of them have puppies, none have small breeds (puppy or otherwise) and I really can't handle a dog larger than 10lbs.

I had considering getting a kitten, which would be cat #2 (and I wrote about getting a kitty as a pet for Miss Kitty a while back), but after a couple of vet visits (I go to Cats Only in Mt P) this summer, I realized that she hates other cats. However, she loves dogs. My former roommate had a beagle when I got Nina as a baby and she liked him. I had an upstairs neighbor last year who had a Maltese named Barkley or Barker or something like that and she LOVED him. She used to hear him in the entryway and I let her out to greet him a few times. After neighbor and dog went back upstairs, Nina would sit at the front door and cry for hours.

So my new family member might be a dog. I've been researching breeds, and would love a flat-faced dog to match my flat-faced kitty. I don't think I could deal with a Pekinese (yippy and nasal issues), Yorkie (neurotic as hell...my sister has one), or a French bulldog (gorgeous, but expensive). So I've narrowed it down to Pomeranian (you have to get them when they're babies because they are spoiled easily, according to the dog whisperer); Maltese (just so stinking cute), or Brussels Griffon (the dog from As Good As It Gets). Pure bred Brussels run upwards of $2,000 and I'm not spending that on a dog. I'd much rather adopt, but am also open to paying a small fee for a non-registered mix.

I have calls in to some breeders, trying to weed out the puppy farms (will not buy from puppy farm) and have found a few. One is selling a Pom Maltese mix for $500, which I think is a little pricey for a dog that isn't pure bred. In fact, I've found pure bred Pomeranians for less than that, papers included. But if you know anyone with Maltese, Pomeranian, Brussels Griffon, or any mix of these in puppy form that might be selling or putting up for adoption, put me in touch!

Manufactured productivity...

After spending four months in a high-pressure, 24/7, getting-up-at-5am-to-read-the-news-online job, I clearly had adrenaline withdrawal. Which looks something like the following:

*Wake up at 8am. Roll over. Go back to sleep.
*Wake up again at 10am. Spend 30 minutes deciding whether or not to get out of bed.
*Get out of bed and make coffee (no need for auto brew now that I don't set alarm for 6am).
*Halfheartedly drink coffee, check email, and end up playing umpteen games of spider solitaire.
*Cold. Make a fire in fireplace. Try to do some writing, but it's so waaarrrrrrm now.
*Shut down computer before noon and nap.
*Wake up around 3. Hate daytime television. If no food in house, go to store. If lazy, call for chinese takeout.
*Consider taking a second nap around 6pm. So. Tired.
*Eat, don't eat, don't care.
*TV is boring, try to read. Reading is boring. Watch TV.
*Phone rings. Don't even get up to answer...they'll leave a message.
*Remember back in college when you used to get high and watch cartoons. Feel nostalgic. Do that.
*Adult Swim is on Cartoon Network until at least 2am.
Repeat.

OK, so there's been a holiday in between and I actually have done a good job of keeping up with dishes and laundry, but none of that takes as much time as a 12-hour day working on a political campaign. And since four months is enough time to develop a habit, you know it's really over when political news on CNN or MSNBC just sounds like noise. Boring noise.

I was supposed to "take it easy" between now and the end of the year. That was the plan. But "taking it easy" shouldn't mean "sleep all effing day long." I think that's a symptom of depression, or in my case, adrenaline withdrawal. I need something else- a deadline, a crisis (not wishing, Universe, hear?), or a $750 bill for 30,000-mile maintenance on my Honda - to get my ass off the couch and start working again.

This week I started getting it together. I made an appointment for my car (see above "maintenance on my Honda." I committed to having lunch with a friend next week. I called my sister just to talk. I've had several conversations with friends and family about whether or not I should get a puppy (working from home again = perfect opportunity, no?). I paid all of my bills early. I bought stamps. I did some "real" grocery shopping (meaning not just dinner, but a week or more of meals), I updated my resume, I called Earthlink for the umpteenth time about my slow-ass "fast-access DSL" that I pay $65 a month for (finally got a straight answer on that one instead of them selling me another modem: slowdown is from "additional customers in broadband area and they are going to expand my line." Hello, could you have told me this a YEAR ago when I first starting calling about it? Pissed off.), updated Netflix queue, wrote a couple of blog posts, had lunch with mom and sister and nephew, downloaded Hemingway short stories on audio vols 1, 2 and 3 and listen while cleaning house, and once this week I made my bed.

There is still much to do. I have a guest room that needs cleaning, holiday shopping, puppy shopping, and need to start writing again regularly - even if only in the form of blog posts here.

Putting a toe in the water...

It was a wild ride, folks. I got four months of "how to run press for a political campaign" boot camp. I made some great friends. I had a lot of really good (long) days, and a few bad ones. In the end, my candidate only lost by four percentage points. She did really well in Charleston County, got more votes than Obama in Horry County, and I think we ran a hell of a campaign. I have lots of stories, but need some time to process before jumping in all the way.

My job didn't end on Election Day - I was really busy until the 15th and have been doing some of the things I listed in my previous post, but mostly sleeping and spending time with the family. I had a birthday (strangely, did not get a year older). I spent Thanksgiving with my mom, three sisters, five nieces, one nephew, a brother-in-law, a nephew-in-law (is there such a thing?), and some family friends. We ate a disgusting amount of food and played Cranium all afternoon.

And now I'm trying to get back into a routine, go through my list of all of the things that I've been putting off for four months, and getting my creative mojo back. Step one: start blogging again. Check.