Hero and I crossed a major milestone a few days ago in that I gave her a bath on my own. I would presume that bathing dogs in general is not the most pleasant experience, but this one in particular is petrified of water. She's been bathed before, but only when I was either at home (and there were two people to manhandle her) or, after I moved and started work, at the groomers. So there are two things to take away from this:

1) The last time I was involved in washing her, I had somebody to help hold her down; since then,
2) She has doubled her weight.

We were at a point when her recuperation from surgery allowed me to bathe her, but not yet send her back to daycare (which is where she is normally groomed). Needless to say, she'd gotten a little smelly. So I took it upon myself to clean my dog, which sounds like a fairly simply endeavor, since, come on, how many people pay for groomers anyhow? The bathing part was painful enough as it was - at one point she literally jumped out of the tub (and I have a fairly high clawfoot bathtub) and left a trail of soap and water behind her as she scampered around my relatively small bathroom before I caught her. (Little dogs may be easier to pick up, but they have quite an advantage in the squirminess factor.)

And then the real challenge began.

The problem with double-coated dogs is that they take forever to dry. We went through two towels before she could be considered 'extremely damp'. We spent a good twenty minutes in which I chased her around the bathroom with my blowdryer (she is convinced my blowdryer is the Anti-Christ) before she started cowering by the door (which was too far for my blowdryer cord to reach). I then moved her to her own little room, which was more square shaped than my bathroom, attached a blowdryer to each side of the wall, and proceeded to chase around for another twenty minutes. In the end she was "slightly damp" and extremely unhappy, but she hasn't appeared to catch a cold from it so I'm going to say it was a job well done.

I thought maybe she'd forgotten about the whole ordeal, as puppies tend to - not five minutes after I put away the blow dryers she was back and ready to rumble. It seems, however, that the perils of the bathroom have had somewhat of a lasting effect: in the mornings when I'm getting ready (re: blow drying my hair) the puppy-that-follows-you-everywhere now refrains from entering the bathroom.



She is definitely going to the groomers from now on.

I guess I'm updating now?


1. Somehow I managed to spend $700 in the course of 12 hours - between getting Hero spayed (ridiculously expensive when you factor in using a laser!) and getting a flat tire on my way to work...on the highway...while it was raining...great fun. But more on the former:


2. Hero is officially incapable of puppy-bearing! Her surgery was last last Thursday (so a week and a half ago?). The whole point of paying for the laser was so it would be less pain for her overall, which I can definitely see since she responded fairly well overall, despite being a little loopy from the anesthesia when I first took her home. They sutured her internally and then used skin glue on the incision site, and told me she would most likely not need an e-collar since the glue doesn't itch the way stitches do. So I'm thinking this is a fairly easy process since the most complicated factor involved is refraining from playing with her. But...after the weekend I noticed that the incision site was actually coming OPEN. I brought her into the vet the following day, whereupon they re-glued her and sent her home with an e-collar, citing that she must have been picking at it. Lo and behold, two days later it had come apart yet again, after which we deduced that she most likely strains a lot when she does her business, and that the pressure must be too much for the glue to hold. Long story short, they put two staples in her, gave me a bottle of antibiotics, and now she's recuperating smoothly, if a bit grumpily.

Anyways, here's sullen Hero and her cone of shame:


I feel like I'm turning into one of *those people* that talk about their pets all the time (until they have babies). As someone who didn't actually have pets growing up, the human affinity for pets was something I never fully comprehended - an ex boyfriend's poorly trained golden retriever actually had me convinced I didn't like dogs for a while. But I will say this: coming home from a long day of work (thank you, mandatory overtime), there is nothing quite as endearing as a pissy puppy with a giant circle of plastic around her head, trying to decide whether she resents you for putting it on her or just loves you oh-so-much for coming home. WHO NEEDS MEN? I can haz dog.


3. Hot water heater stopped functioning Saturday. I am unashamed to admit that I was too big of a sissy to take a cold shower. It's fixed now, but I may have improvised with giant pails of heated water, and am now convinced I could have survived as a countrywoman. (Not really)


4. One of the advantages of joining the ranks of the employed: money! (And the freedom to buy as many purses with that money as you want...) With that I've decided that my first major (non-furniture) purchase is going to be a piano - though it'll be a pretty basic and inexpensive piano, no matter how long many times I go to the piano store to stare forlornly at the 1940s French Provincial Wurlitzer. I originally had my heart set on a spinet or console, but I'm actually now considering a clavinova. I like the portability and the fact that you can plug in headphones, but the weighted keys just don't quite feel the same.


5. How is it that I always go to bed at least an hour and a half after I plan to?



I will conclude ruminations on my recent foray into adulthood with this quote from Grey's Anatomy, because...once upon a time, that show had good writing.

"Remember when you were a kid and your biggest worry was like... if you'd get a bike for your birthday or if you'd get to eat cookies for breakfast. Being an adult: totally overrated. I mean seriously, don't be fooled by the hot shoes and great sex and no parents anywhere telling you what to do. Being an adult is responsibility. Responsibility really does suck. Really, really sucks. Adults have to be places and do things and earn a living and pay the rent. And if you're training to be a surgeon, holding a human heart in your hands... Hello! Talk about responsibility! Kinda makes bikes and cookies look really really good, doesn't it? The scariest part about responsibility... When you screw up and let it slip right through your fingers. Responsibility. It really does suck. Unfortunately once you get past the age of braces and training bras, responsibility doesn't go away. It can't be avoided. Either someone makes us face it or we suffer the consequences. And still, adulthood has its perks. I mean the shoes, the sex, the no parents anywhere telling you what to do... That's pretty damn good. "

I'm tired of you, Donald Draper.

I make bad life decisions.

She is now half as fuzzy but twice as cute.

So I guess this is kind of like a real entry? Weird.


In my quest to become a full fledged adult following graduation, I bought a puppy. Well technically my mom bought me a puppy (full fledged adulthood is difficult to achieve before beginning employment, for the obvious reasons), but it was still my 7 pounds of pure cute overload and responsibility when I brought her home two weeks ago.



She's ten weeks old now, but eight weeks in the photos :) She's a Shiba Inu, her name is Hero (after Hero from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing) and she has these little eyebrows that make her look slightly sad whenever she's curious. Hence, since my camera up in her face usually induces a quizzical expression, when people see photographs of her they always ask me why she's so sad. She's not, I swear! Just confused.

95% of the time she is the most adorable thing I've ever seen. The other 5% she's a hyper terror. But I love her either way :)

( Two More! )

*Let me tell you, if you are a single guy that ever has trouble meeting women, these puppies are chick magnets. I guess all puppies are chick magnets, but seriously. The amount (and type) of people that stop to fawn over her!

**About the process - yes, I got her from a breeder. Smellyz and I made a few trips to the shelter in Champaign before I had come to this decision, but I inevitably decided against adopting because all of the dogs were large (or at least medium-large) sized at adulthood, and I personally don't think its fair to the dog if I'm living in a non-ground floor apartment.

People are lying liars that lie.

What, so now as long as I'm not logged in whenever I look at livejournal pages there will be advertisements on the side?

Oh LJ, you disappoint me. Remember the days when you were worth updating?

Things I hate:

- technical classes
- living in the library because of technical classes
- growing older but not wiser.
- expectations
- thinking about things that used to be
- wishing for things that no longer are
- raw fish, especially the kind that depletes your wallet
- how hearsay is most always distorted
- coffee (unless in ice cream form)
- boys that just don't know better
- life, sometimes


I am spending the last hour of my twentieth year in a lab, computing the empty weight fraction of a supersonic air-launch carrier that has yet to exist. I care about it greatly, obviously.



Whoever gave us the notion to anticipate adulthood was most definitely full of shit.

Gymnastics has always been my favorite sport, hands down, at the summer Olympics (obsession with Marian Dragulescu nonwithstanding).

This is the US womens' gymnastics team.

Sorry girls, but '96 is where it's at.