The One With the MRI, Burnt Orange House and New Bed

My weekend so far:

• MRI: It came back negative, which means there's nothing seriously wrong with me. But it also means that no one knows what's wrong with me. I'm really tired of the dizzy spells, though, like with everything else, I've almost completely learned to deal with them. It is a little maddening trying to relax more, but you gotta do what you gotta do.
• House-hunting: Another very discouraging weekend. We thought that Long Beach was the key to our three-dog renting success, but Long Beach is terrible. The neighborhoods we were looking in, I wouldn't feel comfortable walking in the middle of the day, let alone jogging at 5:30 a.m. Early morning is actually when the largest percentage of rapes happen, so I have to be in a neighborhood where I feel comfortable being out at that hour. I think that means we're going to have to stay in the South Bay. We actually found this great house -- burnt orange, perfect for Ross -- that was close to the beach and in a quiet neighborhood that would accept our dogs, but he wanted to get it rented out this weekend, and our lease isn't up until the end of May. Sad.
• Ross' Birthday: Yes, it's in April, but I had decided to get him a new bed and there was a great President's Day sale this weekend, so I took him to pick it out. It ended up being twice what I wanted to pay, so he paid for the other half, our present for the next two birthdays and Chronikahs. So it will be awhile before I fly anyone to Vegas again. :) This bed is pretty great, though. Ross hates my bed, and I wanted to get him one that would be more comfortable. I like a soft bed, so I sprung for an expensive one that is supposed to last 25 years. There was a huge difference in the quality between that one and the ones half the price. I guess I just felt like you shouldn't pinch pennies when it comes to getting a good night's sleep. It's getting delivered next week, so that's pretty exciting. Time to say good-bye to the waterbed.

Hope the rest of you are having a good weekend.

The One With the Perfect House and Perfect Job But Not-So-Perfect Timing

This weekend, I found the perfect house and the perfect job. Unfortunately, neither will probably work out.

Of course, you all know that I'm looking for a new job. I found an area that I think I could really enjoy -- environmental groups. I've applied for communication positions at several and am hoping that eventually something will work out. I don't think I can work for another government job because I hate the politics, and I definitely don't want to try my hand at private PR. It makes me feel slimy. Anyway, I found a great job producing newsletters for an environmental agency in Los Angeles. It's a 30-hour per week job that would be a perfect supplement to dog training. Unfortunately, I'm not ready to go full-time with that yet, so I can't afford to work at a job that would give me a $20,000 pay cut. I will have to continue working my stressful full-time job and use my free time for all the activities that I hope will lead to full-time jobs someday.

As for the house, I found it by accident. I was driving around the neighborhood looking at all of the houses for sale. Now, all of the houses in my neighborhood are going for around $800,000-900,000, which I could never afford, but it's fun to look. In my search, I found a house for rent that would be perfect. It's the back half of a duplex, which would be perfect for Muggsy because there are no windows looking onto the sidewalk and it's far enough away that sidewalk noise would be muffled. It seems that the neighborhood is a lot more quiet than my neighborhood as well. It's 3-bedroom, 1.5-bath, which would also give Muggsy the space he needed to keep away from Chubbs, and it has a nice large BACKyard. To top it all off, it's only $100 more a month than the toybox we're currently living in. Unfortunately, though, our lease isn't up until June 1, which means we aren't quite ready to move yet. However, I'll keep hoping that this place stays on the market another couple of months, just because it would be a great place to move as soon as we can.

The One With the Worst Conference Ever

I spent my Valentine's Day at a conference in Los Angeles that was supposed to be focused on developing relationships with reporters. It would seem that this type of conference would be best given by a reporter or editor, but it was given by a lawyer who hates reporters. Interesting. First of all, he never got up from his desk to walk around or interact. He didn't even get up during the breaks. That lost our attention easily, but his topic would soon get me pretty riled up.

He kept talking about how reporters are lazy. They never want to leave their desks or meet their sources and want to get all their information from the Public Information Officer in one phone call. Being a former reporter and knowing many, many others, I don't know anyone who had this attitude to reporting. I always visited my sources, and leaving the office was my favorite part of the job. He later said that reporters don't even like to go to their offices. Hmm. He gave a lot of inaccurate information, going so far as to say that reporters will often call and pretend to be someone they are not to get information from you. He said reporters have dirty friends at the phone company that will allow them to get unlisted phone numbers for sources. It was crazy.

But the funniest part was that this guy was a lawyer! Of all people, lawyers should be able to understand that negative perceptions of a certain profession are not always true. We came to find out, however, that with him, it was true. He angrily told a story of how a reporter found out a company that he was representing was selling cigarettes to 9-year-olds. However, through an aggressive PR campaign, he was able to triple the sales for that company. Way to go!! Now, many more 9-year-olds have access to an early death. He also represented a company who rented their airplane to a guy who ran out of gas on his flight and had to land on a street. In doing so, he wrecked into a bus of disabled children. Because of the media, this story, which in his opinion should not have been a story, was in the news for three weeks. His job included making sure none of the injured children sued.

My boss was correct in referring to this guy as Lucifer throughout the conference.

So, in a good, lazy reporter fashion, we blew off the conference and lunch and spent the next several hours in a bar. I couldn't have been prouder of my PR colleagues. :)

The One with the Newest Wal-Mart Greeter

I know this is cheap humor and is not classy, but I just had to post it to accompany Rachel's well-written post below. Besides, a guy who used to work here and who I only know as "Dave the Mizzou fan" recently came by to say good-bye and wave the "Death-Nell" headline from last year's tourney in my face. Well Dave, this post and a big F-U is for you. See you in the tourney ... oh, no wait. You won't be there. HA HA HA!

The One With the Sad Good-Bye

Thursday was a sad day for Kansas fans everywhere. Quin Snyder, head basketball coach at Missouri, stepped down. I will really miss that guy. Yeah, he's a pretty boy who's hair got more attention than his coaching ability, but he really ran Missouri's program into the ground and that made me happy. I know that I should want the Missouri-Kansas rivalry to actually mean something again, but Missouri represents all that is wrong with the world and I enjoy watching them spend some time at the bottom.

What kills me is all of the TV announcers who seemed outraged that Quin was fired. Like we didn't all see this coming. In his seven years at Missouri, they never finished higher than sixth in the Big 12, they were put on probation for recruiting violations, and they had that Ricky Clemons disaster that I still laugh about. They also haven't made the tournament for the last two years, probably three. Last year, they lost in the first round of the NIT. Is this a coach any program would want to keep around? No. Quinny has even admitted in interviews this year that he expected to be fired.

I just hope the Missouri AD Mike Alden will find someone who is equally terrible that can continue Missouri's tradition of mediocrity.

My favorite joke, of course: Why are the golf courses in Columbia only 14 holes? Because no one at Missouri has been to the Final Four.

The One With Chubbs' Success

I know you all are on the edge of your seats waiting for the news, so I'll get right to it -- Chubbs passed his Delta Society test with a perfect score. He struggled early in the test with loose-leash walking, and I was just sure it was going to go downhill from there. But the evaluators loved him because of his good temperment and overlooked the pulling. When he not only tolerated the restrained hug and exuberant petting (which she thought he was going to struggle with) but wagged his tail the whole time, I think she would have overlooked anything. She wrote on his evaluation that he LOVED the restrained hug. Plus, he didn't get rattled at all by the yelling or loud noises. His temperment is perfect, though his training still needs a little work.

So we got a certificate, and Chubbs will get to wear a vest and special tag. We also got our picture taken for our ID. It's so cute. It's official now. We're members of Paws 4 Healing. They even said on the evaluation that my good handling skills would be valuable to the group, so that was nice to read after a week when I had to kick someone out of one of my classes.

So Chubbs is now approved at the highest level of the Delta Society, meaning that we can go to schools, nursing homes, children's hospitals etc. to cheer people up. I think Chubbs will be so great at this. When they asked me my goals and I told them working with children, they seemed to think this was a wonderful idea and are starting me out with children. Most have to start with senior citizens. They also have some exciting events coming up working with the Special Olympics. And I'll now be able to go to schools to do the READ program, where kids who struggle to read can read to Chubbs instead of an adult or something embarrassing. I'm really excited.

In addition, it gave me a reason to call my dad, who actually answered the phone and proceeded to have a pretty good talk with me. When he said, "Hi. How are you?" instead of saying, "Fine. How are you?" and letting him launch into some speech designed to hurt me, I launched into a story about Chubbs, giving him a chance to talk to me about something cheerful. When he started asking questions, I realized how little he knows about me, but it gave me a good chance to share so maybe he got to know me just a little bit better.

I also dremmeled Muggsy's nails this weekend, and he let me do the foot he never lets anyone touch! And when I went to give him a bath, he started to lunge into an attack but stopped himself when I said, "Hey." So I don't count that as a blowup. See? I'm proud of both my babies this week.

Continuing with my successful weekend, KU came back from a 16-point deficit to beat No. 18 Oklahoma by one point. It's the big win KU really needed to be able to establish itself as a tournament contender. I think that KU might even be ranked this week. Colorado losing put Kansas is sole possession of second place in the conference.

I'm still sick, but I have an appointment at one of the top ear clinics in the country this week. I hope that by this time next week, I'll be blogging to say that I feel well for the first time in a month. So send me good healing vibes this week.

The One With the Deranged Senator

This article just made me sick to my stomach. I'm sure you'll all feel the same way.