Posted in Real Life

The Lure of Money

We got my dog about 9 years ago. He is a wonderful dog, and the whole experience of getting him was excellent. I found a breeder of mixed breed dogs, because I have allergies and couldn’t risk getting a shelter pup of questionable lineage. Her dogs were actually cross-breeds, so both parents were purebred. I spoke several times on the phone with the breeder about our needs, the kind of dog that would fit in best with my family. She had several litters of mixed breed pups brewing, and most types were only available 2 or 3 times a year at most. It was a small, family-run breeding business and the puppies spent a lot of time with her family, making them well-socialized.

I sent photos of Phantom to her and a few became part of the website. I would peek back on periodically, and a few years ago noticed she had a LOT more puppies available, in a LOT of new mixes. Like, a LOT. This bothered me, as I knew when we got my dog the litters were housed in an area attached to her home where she also did grooming. I should have given it more thought than I did, but I didn’t.

Yesterday I tried to pull up the site to look for a photo of a specific mix, and the site was unavailable. This morning I did some digging. There were complaints that she was running a puppy mill, dating back to 2011 or so. The large numbers of available puppies apparently were a concern. There wasn’t any record of an “aha!” Investigation into her business, it appears people where making claims and asking her to provide photos of the building where the puppies were housed, and a claim that the family no longer lived on the property.

There were no new mentions of her, the website, her business or anthing after 2012. It appears she sold the whole thing to someone who went out of business last year. It probably didn’t help that even if the new owner was on the up and up, the old domain was listed on the web as a puppy mill.

I feel things went off the rails when they started to make money, and just kept adding more and more dogs, built a separate building for them, etc. I’m not convinced they run it like one of those horrid mills with wire cages, etc., (because nothing I’ve read says that was the case) but the only photos I ever saw were the old days. When the dogs were happy and playing with the family. I hope.

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Oh, That Would Be My Luck

You know, this is why I don’t go skydiving. You can ask anyone, my sister, my husband…whenever we do something, I’m the one who gets the screwy equipment, or has the weird things happen. So if we all went skydiving, I would be the one with the dead instructor strapped to me.

I feel horrible for both people – especially the poor guy who died at 49(!) but really, that is just the kind of thing that keeps me from jumping out of a plane. Well, that and the fact that I would crap my pants if I had to jump out of a perfectly good plane.

In other airplane news, I finally got around to watching the National Geographic Channel special on Air Force One, and I now officially want to be President of the United States cause I really want to travel on that plane. It is sweeeeeeeeet! And the food looks pretty good too. Sure, there would be the pesky “leader of the free world” job responsibility crap, but it’s got beds! And a nice office for me! And they would give me a jacket with my name embroidered on it!

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End of Vacation Panic

Arrrrrrgh. Do I really have to go to work tomorrow? Is there some reason I can stay home? I would really like to extend vacation by, um, 3 months. Okay, not three, just one. One month. It can even be a short month like February (except I don’t want the vacation month to BE February, I want it to be right now).

I don’t think I’m going to have a good reason to stay home tomorrow. Thank goodness I did laundry yesterday so I would have some clean work pants. Damn, a week of wearing jeans and shorts, all gone.

First day of school tomorrow too. I’m going to go bury my head in a pile of sale pillows from JC Penney. How on earth did Junior get to be a 5th grader?

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I’m Sorry, But I’m Cranky

Lots of reasons why, but the least of which is that Target did not have my deodorant in stock when I went in there last week. That is NOT COOL. I will be swinging by CVS to see if they still carry it, and if they don’t, all hell is going to break loose. I CANNOT wear baby powder-scented deodorant. It does not and will not work for me.

Also, my right foot hurts. A lot. I don’t know what I did, it feels like a combination of a muscle problem and a bone spur or something, but it’s impacting my ability to walk like a normal person. Unless normal people have an inability to walk normally because one of their feet has raging heel pain. That could be, I really don’t know.

Lastly, I’m mad that last year at this time, we were just starting our Cape Cod vacation. Seven glorious ocean-view days. It’s breaking my heart to not be standing in that living room, looking out at the sea right now. And I haven’t even been to the beach since it officially became summer, just that one trip in the spring. I sat in one of those little chairs you use at the edge of the ocean, you know, to dip your toes in the water, but I had no reason to buy one, even if it was comfortable. Sad. Very sad.

So yes, I’m cranky today. It’s Monday, and it feels like it’s been Monday for a couple of days in a row.

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Well, THAT is Disappointing

I got really excited yesterday when my iTunes music alert told me that Jason Falkner had released a new CD. I love Jason Falkner and his old band Jellyfish. I went running to iTunes to check it out, and its….instrumental versions of Beatles songs.

If I want to listen to Beatles songs, I will listen to the originals. Or the 1970s Sgt. Pepper movie soundtrack, cause I’m one of two people in the universe who liked that movie.

To give Jason some credit, the sample of Norwegian Wood had so much of a Pink Floyd vibe that I’ll have to check to see if David Gilmour was somehow involved. However, the next track I sampled, Something, sounded like bad department store Muzak. For those of you locals who have been local for a while, it would have fit perfectly on the speakers at Capital Toy/Capital Warehouse. I know my sister will understand that one…there was just a certain style to the songs they played there, they featured a lot of electric guitar in that old country music style (that I cannot accurately describe but I know it when I hear it.)

I just don’t know if I’ll be buying it. If it’s new age-y and Pink Floyd-y enough, I might. But that second track is killing it for me right now. C’mon Jason. I want more “Feeling No Pain”. That was only 4 years ago, dude!

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