Hitting the Road, and why does it take so dang long to go on vacation

So I'm dropping my foster dogs off to boarding (so I can go on vacation), and the poor gal at the counter is really confused. "One is staying here at the boarding facility and one is going back home with you when you get back from the beach?" Yep. She chases cats, and in my house, that just doesn't cut the mustard. "Ok, so which is which?" Which is a pretty decent question, since both dogs are black with white patches on their chests and white paws.

And this is only the start of a never ending list of chores to do before I go on vacation, which I actually thought started on Friday afternoon, last week, when I left work for 10 days. But boy, there's a lot to do to go on vacation. Especially if you're taking your own dogs with you. You've got to:
* clean your house so the petsitter you've hired for the cats doesn't think you're a slob
* clean your car so you can stand driving in it
* buy beach appropriate clothes including a cute new bathing suit for the boyfriend
* run all around town trying to find the exact Schick shaver for your bikini area that was mentioned in Glamour magazine. But no one seems to carry it, not even Walgreens or CVS
* after all that driving, remember you don't need to shave your bikini area because your swimsuit has a skirt and no one's gonna see the bikini area
* buy sunscreen, buy a shaver for your legs, get all of your prescriptions filled
* shave your legs
* go pick up the prescriptions
* buy some magic hair product so your hair doesn't frizz
* make sure there's enough dog food to last while your gone
* mail all those letters and bills you've been meaning to send
* type up something for the petsitter and try not to sound too anal retentive
* write out your last will and testament in case you get killed driving to the beach (just kidding!)
* decide you really do need to clean up the junky office because the petsitter is going to think you're a slob
* OMG, decide you are anal retentive

God, it took me 3 days to get ready to drive 4 1/2 hours away from home to try to relax at the beach. I'm going to be exhausted when I get there. But at least I'll have a cute bathing suit, shaved legs, happy dogs running through the surf , and a petsetter who'll be enjoying my really clean house.

North Carolina Oysters, or as we used to say in Louisiana, Suck the Head and Eat the Tail

Well, I've probably seen it all now. My friend Leslie and I really like this restaurant in downtown Asheville called Limones. They serve old time country Mexican food, and just about the best scallops in town. There's a waiter there who knows us by name, and is always suggesting new restaurants around town that we should try, and what we should order at the new place. Recently he suggested a place and their "Sweet Breads". I guess if you're a fan of Hannibal Lector movies, you know that means brains (or technically, glands in the brains). Now I'm just not going there. But my friend Leslie seems to be a woman up for adventure, and she was willing to give it a try.

Fortunately for me, she gave them a try when I was not with her. Because while I'm willing to be fairly adventurous when it comes to food, I have some bone crunching memories from childhood. And I do mean bone crunching. I grew up in New Orleans, where people love to eat crawfish. And it's a big joke around there, that you "suck the head and eat the tail". I never could stomach sucking out the head content of a crawfish. I did try it a few times, but sexual innuendo aside, it just don't taste good.

But back to the bone crunching. My momma, bless her heart, loves to crack open chicken bones and suck out the marrow. She's done this as long as I've known her. At some point, I think around age 13, I realized this was really disgusting to me, and I promptly announced that I was becoming a vegetarian. This actually lasted for quite a long time, until I realized that I really missed eating seafood, and so it was back to crawfish, and shrimp, and other creatures of the sea.

But not brains. And despite my friend Leslie's many charming features, I just don't get it. So when we went to Limone's 2 nights ago, she and our waiter friend had a nice conversation about "Sweet breads". And by the way, did you know that our local organic grocery store carries sweet breads now, so you can have them any time you want. And they also carry tongue and North Carolina oysters. Do you have any idea what those are? Talk about sexual innuendos!

Did You Know Spackling Comes in Purple?

So here we are, opening our new facility, and everything is a little behind the opening date. I've worked in plenty of companies and always heard that line, "we're set to be finished construction in April", and then it's not done until September of the next year, and now I totally get it! We opened June 1st, and we're just getting by. We have dogs stashed here and there, and running on an amazing crew of volunteers. It's put together with gum and spit. So I'm there one day, and the city inspector has finally decided to allow us to keep the wall we've constructed for the front office (and not make us tear it down), and it looks a little dismal. I volunteer to paint the wall. I show up to start painting, only to find, that over half the drywall hasn't been screwed in to the frame. Wow. Me, a carpenter?

Luckily I've got a power screwdriver, but after the incident last month of falling off of the ladder trying to get the kitty off of the roof of the garage, I'm not too inclined to get onto a ladder and start screwing in a wall. Which, by the way, did you know that cats are perfectly able to get themselves down if they got themselves up there in the first place? It hurt pretty good falling off of that ladder. My elbow and shoulder still hurt from hitting the concrete driveway.

So thank God for other volunteers. Sarah's husband does some screwing in of screws, and I take a whole day spackling. I get to enjoy one dog bark the whole time. She misses her mommy who is in Ethiopia adopting a baby. I feel bad for her and give her a pet. I love volunteering and I love animal rescue. I think how can anyone abandon their pet? I returned a call from our hotline recently from a woman who took in a stray dog even though she's not allowed to have pets according to her lease. That was a year ago. Her landlord drove by 2 days ago, saw the dog in the yard and said get rid of the dog or move. He gave her 2 days. I asked if she could pay the landlord a pet deposit. She said the landlord said no, the dog had to go. I said we could probably help in 2 weeks, were there friends, family, coworkers, someone, who could keep her dog, that she claimed to love, for 2 weeks, until we can probably help. No, there was no one. I suggest that she could move to a pet friendly rental, which in this town there are plenty of. She said, get this, "I'm not moving because of a dog!" very indignantly.

So at some point I run out of spackling and leave for the day. I go back the next day and stop by Walmart and buy more. I get there and start spackling only to find that it's purple! Did you know spackling comes in purple? It looks really weird. And since we're painting the wall white, I'm hoping it won't make a difference. But I'm just happy to be there. I'm happy that our dog (and now cat) rescue has been so successful, and that we're opening up a place that we can have more space, and now a commercial business. So check it out folks! http://www.petsouppetservices.com/ even though the wall isn't finished yet :)