What the hell did I have jammed in my craw last night, eh? Hey, long weekend.  Rhonda, it's fine that you cancelled. Who am I to judge, anyway? You should be like my other friends and just say, "Katy — FU".  Lora, I don't have much to report on Derek, yet.  My lesson was so PG as to scare me back to ProNovice where I will walk upright and suck like one.

Today is moving day.  My new office is shared with two women. Susie, who loves cats and cute things, hearts and butterflies. She's so nice I want to stab myself with my mechanical pencil just to cut thru the good to something I understand.  And Gena, someone whom I've worked with for years and who I would consider a work friend.  Sadly she loves plants and air fresheners.  (Both women do, actually)  Two enemies of mine. I don't like things that die a quiet easy death.  With leaves.  I don't like smelling anything obvious that won't satisfy some, preferably unhealthy, appetite.  Air fresheners are the frauds of the sensory world.  I've told them that I will be frying bacon later.  Both women looked alarm. Susie actually moved her plants. 

AND Because my blog needs PICTURES and COLOR: One of my favorite co-workers is in town –Andy W. (Pictured here in his Cyclo-cross Barbie wear)

He's a 'researcher' from Portland who I stick on every group or committee that I am on just to have his craziness and large indecipherable brain around.   He tends to talk fast and long about shit that no one understands and then when you look at him like WTF? he sums his wisdom up in one tidy statement.  He has insane prematurely white hair that sticks up everywhere and he consumes more beer and junk food than anyone I've ever met.  Sometimes he sends me cryptic messages late at night that must be beer induced and yet are so well constructed or amusing that I save them and try to figure them out. Here is his last one:

I am so far gone….    Like December. 

Gone.  WIth a flock of
large people in their shorts that have been let sag and stuck in places
I wish I didn't have to see, the hawaiian shirts that are more
expensive than they should be given what hawaii really is, the sandals
they wear so they can get through security, but still they take a 12 oz
bottle of lotion – heck , if I knew that, I  would've brought a silo or
two of "chelada" for the flight so I would fit in.  And all this on
flights to Cincinnati or Kansas City, or Albuquerque via Salt Lake
City.   BMs and ipod did wonders.

This time I end on a Kinder, Gentler Katy note…see? Like my bacon, I'm cured!

…Sometimes I feel like I SHOULD post on something, because its expected by my *3* estimated regular readers…but in the end I just can't think of anything new or interesting to say about it, and, anyway anyone who really cares will call me tomorrow.   Suffice it to say that a) Derek was helpful, and entertaining, as always, and I had a good time running Jen through the Ranch course today….It was worth $25 to me, but I'm not sure about Derek, driving that aged Chevy? pickup 30 or so hard-lived miles from Old New Plymouth for just ME…

because I was his only student.  Rhonda cancelled and…

SURPRISE:

b) A** predictably flaked, yet again…Does she ever show up? Is she just FUCKING WITH US?  I don't care if she reads my blog, or someone quotes me here because, frankly, I don't give a crispy fisting what your other certifiable reasons for being a Chronic might be – quit being so habitually rude.  You can be lazy or drunk or eye-warbling mad like many of my friends; you can rock like a 30 week fetus in crazy fluid, jabber in tongues and lick Janie's t-posts…you can medicate yourself until the only thing behind those beady brown eyes is thorazine and whatever else you had for breakfast but if you're well enough to say you'll be somewhere you are well enough to fucking be there. ONE TIME.  ONE FUCKING TIME.  No excuses.   

Nice, huh? I like A**. She's one of my 46th or 59th closest friends. Really. I plan to name a cat after her someday.  I'm not mean, I just have a nice deficiency. 

While I'm on a rampage here are some other things that irritate me:

"It is what it is…." – While that may have been refreshingly succinct the first time it fell on human ears, it is now so overused and pumped full of banal as to actually hurt my cringing gland when I hear it an estimated 10 – 100 times daily by those who just lack the imagination or verbal skills to say WHAT IT REALLY ACTUALLY IS OR ISN'T.  NEVER USE THIS EXPRESSION AGAIN.  IT IS WHAT IT ISN'T, ACTUALLY. IT ISN'T SAYING ANYTHING.  Try just shrugging.  Or licking something inanimate.

Renee Zellweger – I watched a sort of documentary series called 'Iconoclasts' this weekend, a Sundance channel production that "pairs two creative visionaries who discuss their lives, influences, and art."  The episode I saw had my favorite Christiane Amanpour with the worst actress ever — Renee Z.  So we have Christiane eloquently describing how she has for the last 20 years traveled with CNN to cover war, and death, and famine ..why it is a moral imperative of people in her position to reveal a dark inhumane or awful truth in a a way that inspires others to feel a responsibility towards changing it.  Renee would interrupt with such insightful remarks as,

"I know! RIGHT? Cause they are really poor! It makes me sad!" and,

"Where are some pretty places you've visited?"

"I was going to be a journalist, too! I can't remember why I didn't be one…."

Okay. I'm paraphrasing, but its not far from the mark.  I was a little disappointed that Amanpour didn't gut punch Zellweger mid-way through the hour episode.  Or just ask her to show the camera men her wan little teats and then get the hell out of there.  Where was the creative vision in letting that skinny little latex vole prattle on about moisturizer for Darfur? I kept waiting for Christiane to offer a solution for vapid hollywood actresses earning enough during that interview alone to feed several of her recently visited refugee camps for a year….but it never happened.  Single tear.  DIsappointment.

I'll probably delete this tomorrow. This has become one of my favorite things to do.

UPDATE: I deided not to delete this because it felt cowardly.  I did delete A's consonants, though. I stripped her of them. My policy in general is to not write about anyone I know or have met unless I ask first.  Usually.  UNLESS I don't like them or they piss me off.  Half the people I know, at the least, don't even know I have a blog(s).  Its a wide grey line alright.

Yesterday I had a great morning/early afternoon working dogs at Dianne's house.  I worked Pat and Jen, they worked great, both.  The key with Pat is being quiet and not making him frantic.  He's a sweet dog who wants to do the Right Thing.  The key to Jen is that she patronizes me.  I have to be a little more insistent with her and I have to take into account that I've let her get a little out of shape so getting her to cover her sheep is harder for both of us if I'm not on top of it at all times.   It's challenging to go from one dog to the other with their opposite working styles, but its also really good for me.

Jen dreams of a world where I crawl to the post in heels. Pat dreams of me in a crate while he and Dianne go to lunch. 

Zeke Finley

Yesterday afternoon I took Zeke Finley on a long run in the foothills. About 45 minutes into the run he ran off across a ravine and thru a creek after a deer and when I called him back I heard scrambling, a splash and YIPE YIPE YIPE.  In the end, he'd fractured his right front leg.  So, after an hour or so walking out to the car with Zeke either limping on 3 legs, or me carrying him for brief stretches, we spent the evening in Animal Emergency where everyone else's night, except Tanner's owners, was way worse than mine. (Euthanasia, Dog ate poison, dog peeing blood in the foyer).

Tanner's owners carried him in, claiming that he couldn't walk.  Tanner was some sort of small long curley-haired house dog. He was the fattest dog I've seen in quite some time.  Two women (mother and daughter, I assumed by the MATCHING DEER AND GAMEBIRD SCENE fleece coats, although they looked roughly the same red-meat and gravy middle-age) and a man in a Railroad Union jacket.  The women talked at the same time. 

"Tanner won't walk"

"Tanner can't walk"

"Tanner hasn't walked all evening."

The man stood there, holding Tanner. He agreed,

"Yup. He's not walking, that's for sure."

"Put him down so we can look at him," the vet tech instructed.

The man put Tanner gingerly down, as if he were loaded, and Tanner promptly shook his mussed coat out and then waddled over to the vet tech, wagging.  Tanner jumped up on the tech's legs. Then turned a portly little circle, wagging.

"WULL I'LL BE…" the women said simultaneously, then,

"He HASN'T WALKED ALL NIGHT! HE WASN'T ABLE!"

and "No. Not a STEP!"

The man added, "Tanner you fucking shit bag."

Anyway, I was relieved to have something worth laughing at.   I was there for HOURS while they took x-rays of Zeke's leg.  In the end, it was determined that he had a 'stable fracture' and more x-rays should be taken to see if Zeke needed surgery and to have his fractured bones pinned.  I asked what my other options were, since I'm fairly opposed to surgery unless absolutely necessary, (I.e pissing blood in the foyer or having eaten a railroad spike). 

I took what was behind door number 2, waiting and seeing how the next few days play out.  Already Zeke is better. His swelling went down and he's not, visibly anyway, in pain.  

Tanner was walking on his fat hind legs for milkbones when we left.

Sunday GSH is having guest trainer Derek Fabulous Fisher teach lessons in Caldwell.  It hasn't been SPECIFIED but I hope that he will be giving us a bit more than the standard Dianne fare.  I mean, Dianne is GREAT with the dogs, and the people, and the training of both on livestock. Classic stuff…but I want to hope that bringing Derek in means that we are FINALLY going to address some other important issues.  Like fashion.

I think we could all use some tips on Walking to the Post.  Sashay? Grind? Runway walk?  CRAWL with fruit in your mouth? Dianne has been known to throw in a pratfall, and I'm certain that works if you can pull it off, but some of us can't, not in hooker heels and a skirt so short that the clerk in the children's store didn't want you to try it on, let alone sell it to you.  Some of us know that our only hope for getting a 'score' on the trial field is in distraction from the actual DOG on STOCK portion of the run.  With the right outfit, anyone can run in open. I'm convinced of it. I've convinced myself and it's no where near happy hour.  In Greenleaf.

But, you might ask, what if its a WOMAN JUDGE? Someone who, once she gets over the horror of seeing a fellow female handler crawl to the post in an S&M vinyl truss, actually watches the dog and the stock and RATES YOU ACCORDINGLY?  This is where an experienced voice like Derek will really have some good ideas.  Tough stuff.  I won't trial under a woman, personally, because they are too emotional.  Too much drama. 

Anyway! If you are in the Caldwell area on Sunday, consider stopping by and learn to crawl like an Open Handler.  Pro Novice is just another word for Dignity.  You have NOTHING to lose.

I'm off to train with the Traditional.