Adventures in Dogwalking

Kina is an incredibly curious dog. She loves to smell things and will often plant herself at an interesting branch of patch of grass while I'm pulling on her leash trying to get her to continue our walk. We've managed to work out a bit of a system that seems to keep both of us happy. Kina will run out ahead of me as far as her leash extends. Then she finds something interesting to smell and stops. I amble along past her until the leash catches again. Then Kina's off and running ahead of me again until she finds the next interesting thing to smell. This doesn't work as well when we're on a path that Kina's unfamiliar with. But when we're going over worn ground, she's more willing to keep walking.

Kina hates staying on the path. She's usually off in the trees. If we're walking on a sidewalk, she's in the grass next to the sidewalk. This mostly works. But when we come across a tree or a sign, I have to either pull her back to the path or leave the path and walk around the same way as her to avoid getting her leash caught. Last night I made the mistake of calling her and following her. So Kina came running back to me and started following me around the tree. We walked around in circles a couple of times, with me looking like a fool, before I managed to get everything straightened out.

Kina's a pretty big dog (75 pounds) which has gotten a few comments. I wasn't too surprised when the little girl said "Big doggie!" and made sure to stay out of our way. I was surprised when a grown man reacted the same way. Kina's big, but she's not mean or poorly behaved or anything. She doesn't even bark. But people are still scared of her.

It turns out that the only reason Kina hasn't chased Onyx is that Onyx hasn't run away from her. Kina's pretty content to approach cautiously and just sniff when Onyx is sitting there. But I've found that she has a penchant for chasing things that run. I've had to hold her off what seems like every cat in the neighborhood and a few small dogs at this point. She still seems pretty uninterested in squirrels, though. Perhaps because they're so small.

For some reason, Kina has yet to poop while on a walk with Kevin. But she makes sure to go every time I take her for a walk. You'd think this would mean I've gotten used to picking it up, but that's not the case yet. Yesterday as I was leaning down with the bag, Kina saw something and took off. She managed to tear the leash out of my hands and I had to go running after her across the park. Then I had to drag her back so I could pick up the poo. I really hope that doesn't happen again. On the bright side, I can catch up to her across short distances. Or maybe she just slowed down because I was shouting at her.

I got to experience my first rainy dog walk. It actually has me not looking forward to winter for the first time in my life. But hopefully Kina won't like the cold as much as she seemed to like the wet. She was having a ball running through puddles and pulling me off the paved path so we could tromp through the swampy grass. My pants were soaked almost up to my knees by the time we got home. Thankfully, at this point Kina proved what a good dog she can be. I told her to stay in the kitchen while I ran upstairs to get a bath towel. She refrained from attempting to follow me or even shaking herself off and I was able to dry her completely before releasing her into the rest of the house. Now I just need to teach her to stay after she's pooped.

Back to the Gym

When I first joined the gym, I was doing really well. I had a few sessions with a personal trainer, and then I was going several times a week to lift weights. Even though I didn't lose a ton if weight, I was definitely able to see the effects. Clothes were fitting better and all that.

But then the holidays happened. Between Thanksgiving and New Years I was out of town every single weekend which made getting to the gym basically impossible. I started going back in January, but quickly gave up the weight training in favor of attempting to train for a 5K. Then the weather warmed up and I traded running in for biking. Over the months the muscles turned back in to fat. Again, I wasn't really gaining weight, but my clothes stopped fitting as well.

Then I received two more free personal training sessions simply for continuing to be a member of my gym for six months. It seemed like a great way to get back on track with some sort of training schedule.

I had my first session yesterday, and it was a great success. The trainer I met with was much better than the last one I met with. She was a little more on the same page as me as far as goals were concerned. She also listened to me a bit better. Rather than just walking me through a full body workout, she actually helped me put together a comprehensive schedule that focuses on different muscle groups and means I shouldn't be in the gym for more than half an hour at a time.

She agreed with me that, given my ankle problems, it made more sense to keep on biking rather than returning to running. And when she noticed how much crunches were hurting my back, she gave me some exercises to help rebuild the muscles there (muscles I'm not sure I've ever had).

The bottom line is that I now have a whole program that I'm going to do my best to stick to. It involves three days a week of biking and three days of weightlifting. Each weightlifting day focuses on a different muscle group (back and biceps, chest and triceps, legs), though I'm supposed to work on my back all three days. None of the workouts are too long, which should make it easier to stick to the schedule. Since it won't be eating it my entire evening, I won't feel like I'm sacrificing all of my time working out.

I even made a spreadsheet so I can track my progress. Hopefully that will keep me motivated. I also have a second appointment with the same trainer in three weeks. That alone should motivate me enough to stay on track. After that I hope I'll start seeing enough results that it'll be easier to continue going. Wish me luck.

Dog Adoption, Part 3

[Part 1] [Part 2]

The whole dog adoption process sort of accelerated towards the end. Once we decided we wanted Kina, it was only a matter of days before we had her.

We emailed Kina's foster mom on Monday to let her know we were interested in adopting. We had known that the shelter needed to double-check that she'd been spayed before we were allowed to take her. Given how long the previous steps in this process took, I honestly expected it to take forever to get Kina to the vet. Kevin attempted to offset this by sending our own vet's information and offering to organize the appointment. But the next time we heard from the foster mom was with dates when we could take Kina.

We were given a choice between taking Kina on a Friday or a Sunday. Given that both of us work during the week, we decided to take her on Friday. This way we could hang out over the weekend and make sure she was adjusting properly.

Kevin picked her up in the later afternoon and brought her home. But he had to go to a baseball game before I got home. So Kina got to hang out in the house by herself for about an hour. She was really excited to see me when I got home.

I walked in the door after work, and Kina immediately started running circles around me. She went to pick up her rawhide chew and held it in her mouth while continuing to run around me. She wouldn't even stop long enough to pet me. Eventually I let her out to our backyard and she went around excitedly sniffing thing for half an hour or so.

It actually didn't take long for Kina to wear herself out. Once we came inside she was content to nap on the floor in the same room as me. I'm a little sad that she refuses to jump up on the couch and cuddle. I've been told that we should be happy she knows to stay off the furniture, but I'm sure we'll end up breaking her of that. Kevin and I don't have particularly nice furniture, and it would be nice to be able to cuddle with the dog while I'm laying on the couch.

At the moment both the cat and the dog are in my office. They're having a bit of a standoff, mostly because Kina accidentally managed to trap Onyx in the room. Onyx came in while the dog was downstairs and got too scared to leave when he heard the dog coming back upstairs. He's sitting on the desk, growling every now and then. But the dog doesn't seemed overly concerned. She's mostly keeping her distance, just laying on the floor. I'm pretty confident that they'll work out their differences before too long.

Workaholic Culture

I don't really know the other people in my office that well. My company is spread over several cities, and most of the people I work with day to day are in a different city than me. I see the people in my office in the halls every day. But since I don't work directly with them it's hard to get to know them.

Occasionally there are happy hours, which I make an effort to go to. And sometimes a group will go out to lunch. But that doesn't exactly help. Everyone in my office eats lunch at their desk. Even when they go out with other people. It's a little weird.

For example, this morning one of my coworkers stopped by to ask if I wanted to go get burgers for lunch.  burger sounded good, so I said yes. He emailed me an order form for the restaurant and told me to specify the pick up time at 1:15. I filled out the form and paid for my burger.

At 1:10, a few of us gathered in the lobby. We walked two blocks to the burger joint, picked up our burgers, and walked back to the office. At the office, everyone went back to their separate offices to enjoy what was reportedly the best burger in DC. Of course we talked on the walk to and from the restaurant, but there's only so much you can say while walking in a group on a crowded city street.

So maybe it makes sense that I don't really know anyone in my office. It'd be nice if getting lunch with someone could last long enough for a conversation to occur.

Carpe Librum

I grew up in the boonies. And as much as I would love to live in the boonies again, I have to admit that working in the city occasionally has its perks.

Every day I come out of the metro station to someone pushing something. More often than not it's high school kids selling Krispe Kremes to raise money for whatever club they're in. Now that baseball has started I occasionally see a giant George Washington or Abraham Lincoln trying to convince me to attend a Nationals games. And then there's the occasional person handing out fliers for a play or a magazine or a concert or something. I've gotten really good at ignoring all of them.

But today a couple of words caught my attention: popup bookstore. I took a flier and proceeded to not throw it in the nearest trash can.

The flier told me of a used bookstore, conveniently located between my office and the metro station I use, that would be open for the next few weeks. It was a fundraiser for Turning the Page, an organization that focuses on improving public education in DC.. This is extra incentive to buy books that I don't necessarily need. I mean, a used bookstore on my way home from work whose proceeds go to charity? Shut up and take my money!

I ended up stopping by after work. Because obviously. I confined myself to the (rather small) sci-fi section where I managed to find three books I've been wanting to read. I picked up The Mists of Avalon (which I haven't read since high school), Stranger in a Strange Land (which I've been meaning to read since high school), and Contact (I saw the movie, but never read the book). All three cost me about five dollars total.

I'm sorely tempted to go back tomorrow and see what else I can find. The books cost between one and three dollars, which is hard to pass up. But I could also see myself spending far too much money there. Then again, it all goes to kids, right?

The silver lining (and touch of gray) is that the store won't be there forever. This is a limited temptation, meaning that I won't be able to spend all of my money on books. In the meantime, I'll probably be adding quite a few books to my personal collection at an incredibly reduced price

Dog Adoption, part 2

[Part 1]

Once we got approval to adopt a dog, we were assigned a case worker. She emailed us to let us know that she'd been assigned to our case, but I don't think she really did much after that. She answered Kevin's questions, but she wasn't particularly pro-active about helping us find a dog. Or maybe it was just that we were so pro-active that she didn't need to be.

Kevin and I went through the website and found a bunch of dogs that we were interested in. The majority of them were two-year-old females. After emailing the foster owners, we found out that all of them would be at an adoption event pretty close to us, so we went to that.

At the event we learned that one of the dogs had already been adopted. Another had been living in isolation and needed other dogs to model her behavior after. Since we don't already have dogs, the foster mom didn't seem very willing to let us adopt that dog. This left two dogs: Kina and Mystique. Mystique was younger, but also more energetic. She was really sweet, but we decided that she wasn't really a good fit for us. Kina was older (five), and whether it was because of this or just a different personality, she was much more laid-back. She was also reportedly better with cats

Once we decided that we wanted to adopt Kina, we contacted the foster family and set up a sleepover. See, we can't just take the dog, we have to double and triple check that everything will work out. This makes sense. They don't want the dogs bouncing around from one house to another forever. And it's good for us to figure out what we're getting in to. But it definitely made the process drag out even longer.

The sleepover was a lot of fun. Kina is a very laid-back, low energy dog. She sort of knows basic commands, but could definitely use some work in the form of obedience training. She can sit and shake if you have a treat ready for her, but if you ask her to do more than a couple of things she gets confused and excited and tries to do everything at once.

She also doesn't quite understand fetch. There are some baseball fields behind our house. We took her up to one of those and let her off her leash. She had fun running around and sniffing anything. If we threw a stick she would take off running. And she didn't always go in the direction of the stick. But I bet we can teach her how to fetch with a little work.

The only other worrisome bit was that she had some trouble with the stairs. Since we live in a three story town house, this could definitely become a problem. But what we initially thought was a hip problem may have just been nervousness about being in a new house. By the end of our time with her, she seemed to be getting more comfortable going up and down.

The biggest pro is that Kina seemed to get along well with our cat, Onyx. At least as well as could be hoped. She didn't chase Onyx or bark at him. She was curious and sniffed him a little, but she kept her distance. Meanwhile Onyx kept up a steady stream of howling, growling, and hissing whenever Kina was in the same room as him. But since Kina never pushed Onyx, the cat should get over this in a few days.

Kina hanging out in the living room

All in all, Kina seems like a really good fit for us. So we're going to move forward with the adoption. There's some more paper work to fill out. We also need to double check that she's been spayed before we can take her. Hopefully it will just be another week or two before we have a dog. And hopefully Onyx doesn't get too mad at us when she moves in permanently.

God Bless America. And Texas.

Kevin and I traveled to Houston last weekend to attend the wedding of a couple of friends from college. Although the travel-to-party ratio was awful (we arrived Saturday night and left Monday morning), we had a lot of fun.

We got to see a whole bunch of people from college that we've seen only rarely or not at all since graduation. It was a lot of fun to catch up with everyone, find out who's doing what, who's engaged, and who's married. A lot of people are only a year away from finishing up PhDs and we predicted that after that there will be a bit of a baby boom among our graduating class. I guess we'll have to wait and see if that holds true.

The ceremony itself was a Hindu ceremony, which was something I'd never attended before. As such, it basically took up the entirety of Saturday. The groom's procession began at 9:30. That led into the ceremony which was followed by lunch at noon. Then we had four hours to ourselves before the reception began at 5.

The ceremony was not at all what I'd expected. For starters, I assumed that the groom's procession (scheduled to last an hour) would be a very formal affair with lots of prayer and ritual. There was some of that towards the end, but the bulk of the "procession" was actually a massive dance party in the middle of the street.

Once the bride entered, the ceremony started. And even though there was a lot of  ritual and tradition, the entire thing was surprisingly informal. The priest explained what each ritual was meant to symbolize as we went along. The groom's family members cracked jokes throughout. And we had helpful programs to walk us through what was going on and what the various sanskrit words meant.

I was surprised by how much the ceremony involved the family of the bride and groom. Most Christian-based ceremonies that I've attended involve the bride and groom making promises to each other. They may ask for the family's blessing at some point, but that's the extent of their involvement.

The Hindu ceremony was very different. The groom had to make promises to the bride's father and brother. He received blessings from her mother. The bride participated in rituals with the groom's mother and married female relatives. She had to promise to share her life with her new family and not to forget about her birth family. The bride and groom shared a symbolic first meal, as did their fathers. All of this seemed to symbolize not the creation of a new family (which I'm accustomed to) but the blending of two existing families. There was also a definite sense of the bride's increased status as she became a married woman.

The ceremony also involved the bride and groom wearing more and more things as it went on. They began wearing traditional wedding garb. Then there was an exchange of flower garlands that they wore around their necks. There was a loop of cotton thread that bound them together, along with scarves that had been tied together and were draped around their necks. In addition to exchanging rings, the groom presented the bride with a necklace symbolizing her new status. And they were sprinkled with both holy water and rose petals throughout the ceremony.

The entire thing took over an hour. Afterwards, the bride told us she fought to cut the ceremony down from the original three hours. I can hardly imagine sitting through that, though I did enjoy the glimpse of Indian culture that I got. Any more and the hot Texas sun may have cooked me alive, though.

After the ceremony we were served an enormous Indian lunch. I'm not sure I could identify anything I ate, but all of it was delicious. Sadly, there was so much food I didn't have room to go back for seconds of anything. But all of it was delicious.

Once we got back to the hotel, I discovered that HBO was running the entire first season of Game of Thrones in preparation for the season two premiere later that night. I put that on, but it only took a few seconds for the marathon to turn into a two hour nap. Somehow my boyfriend managed to wake up from his own nap long enough to wake me up so that I'd have time to shower and run to Starbucks before the reception. I'm still not sure how he did that, given that he fell back asleep almost immediately.

The reception was more typical of other weddings I've attended. There was booze and lots of good food. Speeches by the parents and friends. And lots of dancing. We didn't stay for the entire evening, since we had to get up pretty early the next morning to catch our flight home. But it was fun to hang out with all the people we hadn't seen since college.