Riding Off Into the Sunset

So the time has come......my tenure at the deathstar has finally ended. After 9 years here, as of November 11th, I will finally be free. Hard to believe......but it's definitely long overdue. I still refuse to go into a long rant about how they've wronged me or whine about things that are just "so unfair"....it just doesn't serve any purpose...and for that matter I really don't want to look back on my blog and have to read about it.
The fact of the matter is, 9 years ago I loved it here....I planned to retire here....and the fact that my sweet hubby and I have been able to enjoy working together(only about 20 feet away from each other) for so long has been AWESOME! I will truly miss the commute in with him, the last minute kiss and I love yous before getting out of the car in the mornings and being able to go to lunch together everyday. Not to mention the occasional love notes tossed onto each other's desk as you quickly walk past them.
Over time though, things within the company changed, some good.....some not so good...and I have truly learned the intrinsic value in having supervisors who are not afraid to discipline employees when needed, because when unacceptable behaviour is left unchecked.....it makes life difficult for all.
So I have been looking for a long time for something better. I've gotten lots of offers and some were very good...but they just weren't where I wanted to be, or doing what I wanted to do. So I held out. Then finally last year something opened on the horizon that i just KNEW I wanted to be a part of. So I tossed my hat into the ring and due to circumstances...it just wasn't time yet. so I waited.....and every time that door popped up again I tested the water to see if it would work. Always the answer was a resounding, "not yet" .....**sigh**.....that was not easy, but I'm a big believer in the fact that "The right thing at the wrong time, equals the wrong thing" so I refused to try and MAKE it fit....it just wouldn't have been good at all......for anyone involved.
So I waited more.....then it happened....I checked in again, got a no and patiently set it down prepared to wait more....when out of the blue, a week or so later, "BAM".
My gosh......to say I was in tears of joy is a major understatement! Euphoric shock is more like it.

So, it will be a complete career change (THANK YOU LORD)....and I'll miss seeing my sweet Benny during the day....but I am soooo looking forward to the change and the new adventure this will bring. ***sigh***.....life is good.

Fur Buddies

Oy-vey………so I have soooooo much to share, but I think instead of posting one novel length entry I’ll break it up and post two, or three entries. Make things a bit more interesting…and a bit more organized.

Hmmmm…..so I think I’ll start with the boy. Now, for those of you that don’t know yet….our little Sargie is an abuse rescue puppy. Without going into a long tirade about his original owners, even though I would like to, let’s keep it simple by saying they had NO BUSINESS owning a dog! Overall, though I would say he has recovered SPECTACULARLY and has very little carry over from those first few months with them. However, one issue that we are still working on is socializing him with other dogs. Some dogs, he gets along with GREAT almost right off the bat….others however, well….not so much. People he has no issues with….he will run to you, hug you, lick you, and cry incessantly about where you have been all his life because you should have been patting him instead of being wherever you were. LOL.

When the family that rescued him for us took him, in they introduced him to their dogs and he LOVED them. Played all day and had a blast….and since then he has done the same with a couple of other dogs that he has deemed “buddy worthy”, HOWEVER…..the majority of other dogs he has NOT been so friendly with. So it has been very frustrating for us because we are doing our best to socialize him as much as possible by taking him wherever we go. In fact, eventually we would like to get him to such a point that he could be a service dog and go into convalescent homes and visit the residents. So conquering his social issues is imperative for us.

So anyway, two of our close friends, Al and Rae, just got their very own rescue dog. An ADORABLE giant gallut of a dog with one of the most docile and affectionate personalities I have seen in a dog in years. Ranger was quite literally rescued from the streets of Hartford after his original owners decided they couldn’t keep him, so they turned him loose in the city to survive on his own.

**sigh** ….oooooooohhhhhhhhhhh NOOOOOOOOOO comment……….

Anyway, Ranger is about the same age as Sargie and about two and a half times his size. Ranger however, THANKFULLY, doesn’t have the same issues with dogs that Sargie does. Instead all he knows is, “PLAY!!!! WILL YOU BE MY PLAY BUDDY?!?!?!? LET’S PLAY!!!!” He’s half Golden Retriever and half Chow-Chow, and he looks like a giant cream colored Sargie…..but a bit more lion like. Just a beautiful dog.

So the four of us decided it would be a good idea to introduce the boys, especially since we have wanted to get together for a while anyway and schedules just hadn’t allowed it. So they brought Ranger out to Isaiah on Saturday to let them meet and let’s just say Sargie’s reaction was far less than enthusiastic and I had to put the muzzle on him (poor thing looks like a K-9 Hannibal Lector when he has it on). In fact, he was downright obnoxious, and I now have a little mouth shaped bruise on my arm to prove it.

Thankfully, Rae is wonderful when it comes to this stuff. Her parents own a kennel and so she was raised around dogs and knows how to train them and how to work with them to get them through this….so her patience with Sargie was not just encouraging, but soooooooo productive. Once we got back home and Sargie realized he was going to have a furry guest at the house for dinner he was NOT happy. For the first hour and a half to two hours, we had to keep the muzzle on him. All the while though, Ranger persistently goaded him to play and refused to give up or even return Sargie’s nastiness (which would have been completely justified). Ranger would bark incessantly in Sarge’s face and ear, poke him with his nose, pull on his ears, pull his tail, chew on his legs, etc….it was hilarious. All the while Sarge would just sit and endure it with a very obvious scowl and occasionally try to nip back. FINALLY, though we had breakthrough. Rae told us to go ahead and take the muzzle off Sarge, so we did, and while she petted and occupied Ranger, we let Sarge sniff him out without fear of threat. Once Sarge decided he was ok, it was HIS turn to do the goading. So Sarge began to bark at Ranger and punch him with his nose. Now one thing you must know is that even though Sarge is a boy, he has the voice of a yippy girl. Horrifically shrill. Thankfully he really doesn’t bark very much (carry over from his abuse….they made him AFRAID to bark), but when he does….get the earplugs! So for about ten or fifteen minutes we all endured his incessant yipping back at Ranger and then it was time for the true test. Rae let Ranger go, and then LOOK OUT!

Now Ben and I don’t have a large house, it’s very small, in fact, it’s TINY. So having two dogs race through the kitchen and living room at full turbo speed was pretty funny. Of course, one of Sargie’s quirks is that he LOVES to play tag, and Ranger was only too happy to oblige. So for the next few hours they ran, chased, wrestled, flipped, jumped, skidded and chewed on each other. The amount of fur lost from them sent little doggy tumbleweeds everywhere. It was great. By the end of the night, after catching their second, third, fourth and fifth wind the two of them finally collapsed onto the floor, covered in slobber and panting like they had just climbed Mt McKinley.

It was sooooo nice to see the two of them playing and having fun. We decided to do it again as soon as possible, but for now, here’s a couple of pics from that night.

Is There Such a Thing as Cyber Marital Counseling?

I saw the following news article come across the A/P wires Friday and decided this would be a nice piece of brevity to interject right about here……

Online divorcee jailed after killing virtual hubby
By MARI YAMAGUCHI, Associated Press

TOKYO: A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband's digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday.
The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his identification and password to log onto popular interactive game "Maple Story" to carry out the virtual murder in mid-May, a police official in northern Sapporo said on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.
"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations. The woman had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said. She has not yet been formally charged, but if convicted could face a prison term of up to five years or a fine up to $5,000.
Players in "Maple Story" raise and manipulate digital images called "avatars" that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting against monsters and other obstacles. The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married, and killed the character. The man complained to police when he discovered that his beloved online avatar was dead.
Soooooooooo…………….NOWWWW back to life, back to reality……..(and yes, that was a TRUE news story released by the AP Friday)
Am I the only one that finds that entire news story disturbing? I mean REALLY??? I can’t decide which bothers me more, the fact that this chic lost ALL touch with reality and decided that she “needed” to off this guys AVATAR,(heaven forbid his little pixilated character remarry some little gigabyte tart! LOL) or the fact that this guy was so attached to his cyber self that he needed to go to the actual human police to report the “murder”. Then again it could be the fact that these two were so absorbed in an internet GAME…..G-A-M-E…..GAME…..that they actually thought these two responses were NORMAL!!! Wackos!

If they can’t handle marriage in a cartoon computer world without going over the edge, when they don’t have to deal with dirty laundry, clogged toilets, smelly sneakers, lawns to mow, and no budgets to try and maintain, how will they EVER handle the real thing?

Real life may not be as neatly manicured as a cyber world, but REALLY???? When do we draw the line between harmless fun and internet networking and losing touch with ALL reality?