Moments with Ally

It's been a busy weekend, a busy bunch of days, in fact.

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I didn't feel all that great Friday morning when I woke up. Ever get too little rest and just have it wreck your stomach? I crashed until... maybe early afternoon? Can't recall. Felt better when I got up.

I felt well enough, in fact, to go ahead and attend the killer cardio class at Tiger Klay. Hoo boy, it was more circuit training, and it was rough! Rough I say! I'm glad I did it though; we have belt test in a couple weeks, and I need to focus on endurance work.

And heck, I need to start thinking about running again. I mean, I AM thinking about it... bought me some new running shoes yesterday. I'm daydreaming about running.

And I've gotta keep the half marathon in January in mind.

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Yesterday was the much-dreaded final exam in ethics class. This was strictly on Aristotle, all essay. Yeah, you read right.

Some folks have told me they'd assumed I'd dig Aristotle, that I'd really grasp it.

Those folks were mistaken.

But I did manage to do some good crash studying, and in fact, I feel like I kicked ass on the test.

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So we have a guest here for a couple days.

She is licking my ankles right now. It's not as enjoyable as you'd think.

She's a dachsund, see.

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So we're dog-sitting Ally for a classmate of mine. Now, most of you know that I'm pretty anti-pet these days. I see very little return on investment with the little buggers. Like I told Kelli earlier, 10 minutes of playing fetch does not equal 30 minutes of cleaning up shit.

I'm not a total killjoy, okay. My inlaws have certainly had a couple perfect dogs.

(More ankle licking)

And let me say, by the way, that what appears here is meant for comic affect. I never got genuinely steamed, was never to the point where I couldn't crack a joke no matter what Ally pulled.

And she pulled a few stunts.

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Moment with Ally #1: While on the phone with Whit, I found myself chasing her around: "Hey, don't eat those! Gimme that! Those are my earplugs!"

Ah crap. Too late.

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THEBOY starts kindergarten tomorrow. He's showing zero anxiety, zero fear. My first day of kindergarten two Mexican boys beat me up.

(That'd explain a lot, eh?)

So I guess I'm feeling a bit overprotective. Well, here we go.

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Moment with Ally #2: It's four or five a.m., and she's in the room I previously thought was mostly soundproof (the study), barking and whining. I'm awake, and none too pleased. I reach for my earplugs... oh, wait. Ah hell.

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I seized the moment and went to the 24 hour Wal Mart for groceries. I was a bit of a zombie, needless to say.

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We did a whole lot of nothing today, I must admit. The kids slept through Ally's shenanigans, but the grownups had some serious sleep schedule issues. Kelli and I napped a lot.

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Moment #3 with Ally: I'm staring at dog shit in the hall and thinking to myself, I'll bet my earplugs are in there.

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Intervention tonight... I'm not going to recap the whole thing. Betsy's a mess, a bigtime bad alcoholic. And like the crack addict from last week's show, she just screams abandonment issues.

Despite the interventionist's admonitions, the whole thing turned into a negotiation. "Can I leave Wednesday? Late Wednesday?"

She bailed, and her family and friends cut her off.

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Ally's licking my knees now. No, I'm leading up to some tacky joke. For once.

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Jobs... two job things are going on. I'm not writing much about them, despite the enormity of it all. For some good, very obvious reasons, it's just a good idea right now to not spill the beans too much about all this.

I have my fingers crossed about one... I am genuinely excited about it, and that'd be for the first time since I went to work for Yahoo in 2000.

It ain't a done deal yet. I'll holler.

***

So it's off to bed soon. I have fresh, uneaten earplugs to get me through the night. Ya'll be good.