Posts Tagged ‘cross country’

Dogs and cats living together

April 19, 2012

Dear Jennifer,

Thank you for house and pet sitting! We hope you enjoy spending time with the dogs and cats. We aren’t insane pet parents so as long as everyone is ok when we get home, it is all fine with us. However, I’ll write up a note on them so you know what you are getting in to.

Thanks!

Elecia & Christopher

Introduction

We have two dogs (Zoe and the Bear):

Zoe is an 8 year-old beagle (right). She doesn’t howl but she’s got all the other beagle traits (“merrily stubborn” means she’s happy but she thinks we are idiots). Bear is a 7 year-old maltese-poodle cross (moodle? maltipoo?). He’d love to be carried in a purse and he’s genetically engineered to crave laps.

We also have two black cats. This one is Anakin.

This one is Dylan.

It is easy to tell them apart, Ani is small and fuzzy and has white whiskers, Dylan is a little Jabba-the-Hut-esque. Oh, and Ani will be running away from you. She does not like people at all. If you sit quietly on the couch, she may deign to let you pet her or, more likely, she’ll groom you. Dylan will do anything for you if you feed him.

Food

Bear and Zoe get separated for feeding because Zoe doesn’t like letting Bear eat. Zoe gets two scoops twice a day in her crate. Bear gets one scoop twice a day but won’t eat all of it. They start dancing around 6:30pm, demanding their dinner. We try not to give in until 7pm but that is mostly because watching Bear dance is highly amusing. They can also have assorted treats and cookies (atop their crate). They don’t get goodies very often but you are welcome to spoil them.

Ani and Dylan get fed at night, usually after the dogs get put in their crate. We feed them on top of their kitty tree so the dogs to munch their food. Fill their bowl to the top (but not overflowing). Dylan will try to convince you that is not enough. But it is. Really. But if his mind control works, you’ll find wet food in the kitchen cabinet marked Pet Food.

As for water, all of the pets drink out of the bowl in the living room. Zoe is a sloppy drinker, sometimes needing a mop up after. Bear shouldn’t drink 1.5hours before his bedtime (usually between 10-11pm). If the dogs drink a lot of water after playing, they will barf it up so if it seems like someone (usually Zoe) is drinking a lot of water in one sitting, it is usually prudent to ask her to sit down and take a breath. Which she’ll ignore (she’s a beagle) so usually we tie her to a table or something. Bear will often cough or quack like a goose when he drinks. Don’t worry about it.

Activities

The dogs spend a fair amount of time tied to or encaged in the furniture. We often shut the doors to the living room or tuck their leashes in the coffee table drawers so they don’t roam the house. They’d like to eat trash and cat poo. They do the latter in the backyard and we pretend not to notice. If you are home, the backyard is a fine place to let them hang out as long as they don’t start barking a lot. Do feel free to kick them off a lounge chair and hang out yourself. The umbrellas are easy to work. Zoe may bring you a tennis ball, she can have about 4 throws before she starts to get too into it and injures herself. Just throw it into the cypress tree or tuck it inside when she isn’t looking. She’ll keep searching for it but that will make her tired, not hurt, so it is ok.

If you aren’t home and it is daytime, feel free to put them in their kennel. As you can see, it isn’t exactly a hardship. Zoe knows the word kennel (of course, she’s a beagle so knowing what you want and doing it really aren’t the same for her). But she likes it and will usually happily go in. There are bowls for water in there.

The cats are allowed to roam the house (excluding our bedroom and office). Dylan likes to sleep in the bathroom closet. Ani in the hall closet. They recharge their solar cells in the wood paneled room. Ani has no desire to go outside but Dylan occasionally wants to munch on some grass and will sneak out with the dogs. We’ve taught him that out means to get out of this room. Since he thinks the outside is a wonderful playroom, saying, “OUT!” will usually get him back inside. But so will picking him up (lift with your legs!) and taking him back inside.

The dogs also go for walks, we usually take a left from our driveway and walk around the block (not crossing the streets). They both wear halters to walk. Zoe is not the best walker, she would like to sniff everything but if you are moving, so will she. Bear usually only stops if he wants to do something. Baggies are atop their crate. Two or three of these round-the-blocks spaced out through the a day is enough to keep them sleeping for the most part, especially if there is a lounge chair involved.

Finally, Zoe and Bear will play fight but we’ve never seen them really fight. You can tell they are playing by the tails and the fact that Zoe lies on the ground so Bear has better leverage.

Sleeping

Bear and Zoe would like to sleep with you. If you opt to sleep on the couch, that is fine with us (I’ve slept on the couch plenty of times, it is pretty comfy but so is the bed). If you opt to sleep in bed, well, then they get to sleep in their crate. They sleep together in there. Bear sometimes wakes up and barks. On the crate door are the bark collars for both of them. You can put Bear’s on him before you go to bed. He seems to go through spurts where he’ll wake up early and bark so I tend to leave it off, groggily put it on at 4am and then make him sleep in it for a couple days. Extra batteries and spray are atop the crate. Leaving the bark collars on the crate door does provide some level of deterrent though I often forget to turn them on.

Zoe wears her normal collar to bed but Bear sleeps in the buff (his halter will give him mats).

Bathroom

The kitty litter is in the front bathroom. It is scoop litter, nothing special. The black bin is for trash so it goes there. The grey bin is for recyclables.

Both dogs will let you know when they need to potty by wandering around a lot or getting hyper. Bear will scritch at the door. He hasn’t had an accident in a long, long time but since he was the last one to have one, well, he’ll always live with the stigma.

Medical issues

Bear will often shiver. The shivering is not a sign that he’s cold. Or scared. It is all about manipulating his way into your lap.

Bear sometimes skips when he walks (his back leg). If he’s doing it a lot, cut back on the walks. (Or if Zoe is limping.) Zoe tends to get too excited and hurt her shoulder, back, or tail. (She actually had a bad sprain due to wagging too hard, oh to be a dog!) If she’s heavily limping, give her an anti-inflammatory pill (Previcox). There is a green container in the Pet Food kitchen cupboard along with liver snack pouches. But you shouldn’t need these.

The dogs clean bill of health is on the fridge.

Dylan’s nose is occasionally snotty and he’s not great at grooming himself.

Commands and personality

Zoe is very smart and kind of tricksy. She’ll sneak out of a room to go back and get a snack. She understand object permanence and kind of enjoys puzzles (beef jerky in boxes taped closed).

While she’s gotten better at it, especially if you make a show of giving Bear a treat, Zoe does not usually come when called. Don’t let her off leash. If she escapes, take a yummy treat, show it to her and then run into an enclosed area. It is like a game of tag… if you are “it”, she’ll run from you. But if you convince her that she’s “it”, she’ll run toward you.

Bear is not very smart. He’s relied on his cuteness too much.

Command	Supposed Action	Known by Zoe	Known by Bear
Sit (hold fist out, possibly put cookie in fist)	Sit	Y	Y
Stay	Stay	Y	N
Down (point down)	Lie down	Y	Sometimes
Roll over	As expected	Y, requires visible treat	N
Wave	Will wave at you	N	Y
Shake	Shake your hand	N	Y
No	Stop what you are doing, look guilty	Sometimes	Sometimes
Leave it	Quit eating that, stop licking yourself (or each other)	Sometimes	Sometimes
Potty	Um, well, go potty.	Y	Y, but he likes to find just the right spot by circling
Come (crouch, clapping hands to knees)	Come back	No	Y

The house

You’ve got keys to the back door and front (or will soon). We talked about alarms and neighbors.

I showed you the TV remote, mostly push help if it didn’t do what you want. And open the cabinet doors so the remote can talk to the receiver.

The thermostat is on in the dining area.

I put new sheets on top of the bed and there is another set in a box under the bed. There is a plant in the master bedroom which I thought was a miraculous no-water-needing plant but apparently C waters it every few days.

I’ve put post-it notes on the Pet Food, Forks, Cups and Plates cupboards. We usually put trash under the sink and recyclables in the blue bin. Zoe would love to eat people food. You give a dog bacon once in her life and she’s sure that is all you ever eat.

The WiFi password is on the fridge with the dog’s vet info.

If something goes wrong

You have our phone numbers and my mother-in-law’s. Email or text is easy, do feel free to send us pics of the pets.

There is some cash on the dining table in case we forgot to buy enough food or what not.

If things aren’t working out, take them to Paws Crossing at 901 Dell Avenue, Campbell. Get them a shared room and give us a call.

In case of emergency, take them to Kirkwood Animal Hospital, in the same shopping center as Starbucks and Nob Hill. They are under White. The vet’s number is (408) 374-5850.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cross country, mundane, pets | Comments Off on Dogs and cats living together

Why does it matter where I am?

April 18, 2012

Where ever you go, there you are.

I find that statement dumb. I don’t know what about it makes me slightly crazy with “duh!” but it grates on me. Of course, it is true. But sometimes you are where you didn’t go, or didn’t mean to go, but there you are anyway. And sometimes you are there when you didn’t move at all because you were there before.

There was a point, I swear, I was working on one. But now I have no idea what it was. Like walking through a room to figure out what it was I forgot, let’s start with the title… C asked me a week ago why we were nervous about this trip (we both are) and what does it matter where we are on a given day. After all, we’ll have the internet, food, shelter, and showers. We could live nearly anywhere and be able to do what we do. And we have each other so we’ll be happy. Why does physical location matter?

I love California. I’ve lived here all my life so I suppose I don’t know if I’d love living somewhere else (other than Pittsburgh in the summer, which I did not love). The beauty of California is hard to top but is a familiar beauty. We sometimes go for a walk when the sunset looks nice over the hills or the moon rises over the far mountains. And the beach is a half hour away and we play hooky pretty often (it is supposed to be 85F on Friday, so expect some slacking soon). But, you know, if we don’t do it today (or Friday), it will be the same tomorrow, next week, next month. There is comfort in that sameness.

There is comfort in our life. We’ve worked hard to get the house the way we want it, the kitchen organized for us and pretty to look at, the garden full of bees and squirrels and flowers, the TV set up to do what we want, our jobs such that they amuse us, etc.

Here, the internet is fast. The food is exactly what we like. And when we go out, we know where we are going, what restaurant has great food, where is good to chat, what is minimum fuss, who has good takeout, where has nice outdoor seating for dawdling, what is new and should be tried when we feel adventurous.

We have choices but once we decide on, say, pizza then the next choice is delivery, pick up or sit. Once we decide that, we know where we are going. We know what to expect when we get there. And we enjoy the anticipation of knowing we’ll be getting something good and the ease of choice.

When we travel, we’ll lose all that context. We won’t know where the good pizza is, at least, not our definition of good. And we won’t know which hotel to stay in. We’ll be faced with a barrage of choices at every stage.

These choices have consequences: this gas station or maybe drive a block to save $5? will this grocery store have our preferred yogurts? if we eat at this dicey taco stand, will we regret it for thirty minutes or three days? if I go for a walk in this neighborhood, is there a chance of getting hassled (or worse)?

Some of those can be determined by asking for help from the natives but we aren’t good at that. Sure, Google is our friend (does this hotel have wifi? internet? free? secure?) but we aren’t that good at asking for help. We are accustomed to figuring it out ourselves or knowing the answers from long association. Talking to people is hard.

We will experience lots of new things. I feel a little sorry for future-us, it will be a firehose of newness and uncertainty. As someone who sometimes gets catatonic faced with the array of shampoo choices in the grocery, this overload of options is going to be hard.

So why do it? Well, let’s stop dwelling on the causes of the fears and start thinking about the investment we are making.

First, it doesn’t matter which shampoo I choose. It doesn’t matter which hotel, gas station, or lunch. Sure, there are consequences but the consequences are minor, remember that. The best options and the worst options will average out over time. And if they don’t, that is ok (remember that too). No one dies.

Second, that phrase, no one dies, is an important one. Our last road trip was due to my mother’s failing health. It was horrible. Terrible. Awful. All that and so much worse. Maybe someday I’ll tell you about it but as aversion therapy, it was excellent. Neither one of us wanted to leave the house for months.

We need to get over it. A weekend in Half Moon Bay or Paso Robles is enough to prove we can. But those aren’t real road trips and we want to be ok with this, to prove to ourselves that we can do it, to show that when something looks difficult, well, at least it won’t be as tedious as driving through Nevada on the last leg of a 6,891 mile journey.

The third investment requires some creeping up on so let me take this from a different angle.

When you are sick (or injured) for a long time, you get used to the limitations. You get used to pain and not going out because it hurts. You get used to avoiding commitments because you can’t be sure if next Saturday will be a good day or a bad day. Even though it is disappointing, annoying, exhausting and frustrating, you get used to it. It makes the world small. We went through this with my health a few years ago (all better now, thanks).

That smallness of the world? I don’t feel the walls close in now because my cage is of my own making and so very luxurious. But I don’t delude myself, my world is fairly small. That is ok with me, I don’t know if I would try to stretch it out unless pushed. (But we were pushed, a little.)

What if there is more? What if one of the consequences for all those choices is something better? It is like finding out that the disgusting slimy Brussel sprout of my childhood is a nutty delicious thing. I could be wrong about my certainties of what is best. Things we know to be true will turn out to be (at best) partial answers. The beauty of California is a given. I know New Mexico is amazing too, in a totally different way. What else is there? That is the big question: what else is there?

We’ll see huge extremes, things we’ve never seen. And we’ll see little ways of doing things differently. We’ll come home with stories and ideas.

Change is scary. But if we pack snacks and hold hands, it’ll be all right. Our world will be bigger when we come back.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cross country, phobias | 1 Comment »

Driving America Naked

April 16, 2012

At this time next week, hopefully we’ll be pulling into a hotel in Arizona. I hope.

This weekend was about getting all our errands done. We went to the car rental agency and sat in the cars that might be assigned to us to make sure they were comfortable enough for long drive. We got a large cooler for storing food (not the cold food but food that shouldn’t get hot if left in the car). C checked that the car emergency kit had enough stuff (once we put back in the jumper cables). We decided our first aid kit needs an update but other than that we are ready to go.

In fact, we could go today. Just pick up the rental and hop in the car. Of course, I haven’t packed clothes but, really, do we need them? All across the country, everywhere we are staying, there are Gaps and Old Navys and Targets and Nordstroms’ and REIs. Except maybe Wells, Nevada but that is only 12 hours from when we arrive back at home.

Since the packing is a little daunting, I told C that we could head out without clothes. His response was to ask if we shouldn’t wear something initially, to drive in.

Yes, dear, probably so.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cross country | Comments Off on Driving America Naked

All that precious time

April 14, 2012

I have been concerned about the time spent in the car. I mean, I don’t like to be in a car. And I don’t like to be idle. Except with a good book. But I get carsick if I try to read.

That sounds like a recipe for disaster. [Whenever anyone says that I think something along the lines of: two cups people (mixed gender preferred), one cup idleness, 136 galleons of gasoline, place into car travelling at 70 mph, shake until done (at least 40 hours per recipe).]

I’ve been thinking about what to do while in the car. I suspect we’ll run out of podcasts by day two, even the ones that are on my list because they sound interesting but I’ve never actually listened to them.

I successfully picked up more Spanish in my hated 10-month-long commute to Palo Alto than I did in two years of high school Spanish. The Coffee Break Spanish from Radio Lingua was fantastic in large part because the podcasters were Scottish and a little harder to understand in English than they were in Spanish.

And C knows French, a language I tried to study some but if we studied together, we could pretend to be French tourists (zee pastree, eet ees eensiped! Zotolo! Bring me a cwassant!). Or we could start at zero for both of us and go with German (again, so we can pretend to be tourists, though Swedish would be better if we could keep ourselves from saying borkborkbork) or Japanese (actually a language I’m interested in learning). I’d love to learn how to say “hello”, “please”, “thank you”, “goodbye” and “where is the bakery?” in every language I could. But C isn’t into it and he thinks trying to learn while driving may be difficult. I’ll go quietly delete the Portugese language podcast. And the Russian one.

But, hmmm, 40 hours in the car. I’ll need something to do. So I was thinking about that.

Audio books in the car have been tough… the story flows without pauses and breaks so if one of us wants to point out “hey, check out that sign” we lose some narrative. So the book has to be simple enough to ignore minor interruptions. And an excellent narrator, good story. I think the two best books we’ve had before were Micheal J Fox’s Funny Man and John Scalzi’s Agent to the Stars (read by Wil Wheaton). We did get a pile of books and lectures so we’ll have our choice.

I can look up hotels and whatnot, getting a little carsick and hoping for decent signal. (Though we have some paper guides so that will help.)
I can blog (badly) since I can type in the car (but I can’t read back). Though my wifi keyboard is kind of loud so C may not enjoy this.
Every day, we are going to purchase a new album and listen to at least half of it. The album should be something related to where we are, such as the band sang about it (Route 66, 18 Miles to Memphis), the band originated in the state we are passing through (oh Wikipedia, I love you), or the album benefits something on the day’s route. I’m hoping the “which album to buy” discussion is amusing as well as increasing my musical horizons. And I suspect good albums could be listened to 2-3 times that day and revisited.
Watching movies in the car is possible given the ipad. As long as it is something the driver is happy listening to (Star Wars, Princess Bride, etc). This would still make me carsick but I can listen as well, don’t have to watch the classics.

A friend suggested cross-stitch or knitting but I don’t know how to do either and I bet learning will be carsick inducing unless I start now. Also the potential for poking my eye out seems high.

License plate spotting doesn’t seem that exciting to me. C’s vision is about double mine so that makes it particularly tedious. Twenty questions with someone you’ve lived with for more than a decade is not that hard. There are other car games but none seem to appeal quite yet.

C says he’s going let me drive every day. While that should help some with the boredom, it doesn’t rate as amusing.

Any ideas?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cross country, learning, lists | 1 Comment »

Chain reaction

April 11, 2012

The nice lady at the AAA office (there will be a whole post about AAA at some point, promise), anyway, the nice lady at the AAA office said that one of the things she learned about being a booking agent was that for a trip like ours, we’d do best to find a hotel chain we like and stick with it, possibly pre-booking nights across the country, chaining them up. Then if we get behind, we can call the head office and all the nights can move in unison.

Huh, well, huh. I am a planner. I like plans. Most of my plans include at least A through G so it is not only about the plan, but also the failure modes and the backup plans. I build much of my career around being able to this sort of deep planning.

But I was planning (ahem!) to make this trip a little more spontaneous. I was thinking to whittle away time in the car by looking up yelp reviews in the next city, maybe going through a discount hotel site (travelocity or priceline) to get good deals. And if we end up without a hotel for the night we can just drive a little extra.

The exceptions were to be Boston’s and Washington DC’s multi night stays. And Flagstaff since that is the first night and C wanted to stay at Little America, a neat place he stayed with his parents (the last time he did a cross country trip).

But this idea of linking them all up has appeal. We’d get more uniformity. But we’d lose the possibility of finding the niftiest bed and breakfast or an amazing resort we’d only afford because they were relatively empty.

So in Boston, we are staying at a Best Western because it met the location and price quotient. But I don’t know if Best Westerns are the hotel of choice. What about Hampton Inn? La Quinta? Marriott? I know we’ve stayed in these. I do remember getting confused by one (two?) Hampton Inn, forgetting which city I was in once on a blur of a business trip with multiple stops.

The smallest place we are staying is Wells, NV. They have a Best Western but not a whole lot else. Oh, and BW has free internet. And a twitter account that seems active, like maybe they care. And just like that a decision is made. I think we’ll still make a point to have a few open nights but now we’ll have a default. We’ll call this a strong plan B. Or maybe a plan BW (hey, at least I amuse myself!).

(Goes away, makes a call….)

Huh, well, let’s just file that plan in the little round can. I called the main reservation line but all Best Westerns are individually owned. The reservation-taker could make reservations for me but she couldn’t line them up, it wouldn’t be any different than if I did it all myself online, no special discounts and any changes would require me to call them all individually. And they have a 24 hour cancellation policy which is tough if we get caught up on the road, probably better to just book it when we get nearby and are sure about where we want to stay.

Even so, I started to go ahead until she asked where in Oklahoma City we wanted to stay. I have no idea. We’d like to stay somewhere near the freeway, where we can walk to multiple restaurants and the Whole Foods. Oh, and something scenic nearby would be great, where it would be safe for walking on my own (in the morning). Apparently those criteria were not in her computer. Ahh… well, I think we are going to go back to the original plan, by which I mean the non-plan plan.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged cross country, plans | Comments Off on Chain reaction

Journey vs. Destination