Since blog entries post in reverse order, you'll want to scroll down a bit to catch the start of the vacation blog posts. They also tend to be long so you may want to grab a snack before you start reading.
Just Finished Reading:Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
Ok so there I am, sitting in the grooming room, just minding my own business, playing a little Super Mario Brothers while waiting for my two little doggies to dry when I hear a knock on the door. Tara, the vet assistant, sticks her head in and says in a cheerful voice, "You 10:00 is here." She pushes open the door and THIS walks in . . .
His name is Ronin and in case you were wondering, YES, he really is as big as he looks in that picture. Notice over to the far right, you can see the corner of a counter. That's an exam table. See, Ronin is just a little too big to fit in any of our kennels so he gets a room of his own.
Of course, he STILL has to go into the tub for his bath, just like all the other dogs that come in. I don't have a room where I can just wash him on the floor. And no, I don't have any sort of automatic lift in there either. Ronin here got into the tub the old-fashioned way. Tara and I lifted him up and put him in.
Fortunately great danes are generally laid-back in their approach to life. They're big dogs that KNOW they're big dogs and so they don't have anything to prove. In fact, if he probably could have crawled up into the tub himself if we'd been able to explain to him what we wanted.
And you folks thought all I did was shave cute little poodles :-)
Friday I had "one of those days." Yeah, we all have them once in a while right? At one point Friday was going so bad it could have filled in for a Monday. Then again, since I start my work week on Friday, I suppose it WAS filling in for a Monday.
The theme of Friday was smelly dogs. Everything that came through the salon and landed on my table smelled and I mean BAD. The worst one was a yorkie who tangled with a skunk. This is something I've encountered before but never with a dog so small. Usually it's the bigger dogs that go poking around after the skunk and they tend to smell bad starting at the nose and then it fades out as you get to the tail. But with the yorkie, I think it's fair to say he had a pretty even covering of skunk smell. Very consistent from heat to tail.
Coming in second from Friday would be the Bouvier. This dog was in for a full shave which usually means it hasn't been bathed in quite a while and it's all nasty and matted. That wasn't really too big of a deal. We get those all the time. This one though, well, right in the middle of the shave, she just decided she had to GO and go NOW and she squatted down a little and WHOOSH! I actually HEARD the pee before I saw it, it went so fast. She got the table, my left leg, my left shoe and the floor all around the table. Really, it's the kind of thing that's DAMN funny later that day or the next day when you're telling someone about it but at that particular moment what goes through your mind is, "yeah, it really is better to be pissed off than pissed on."
Saturday was doggie adoption day and boy did we ever have a lot of dogs in the store. We had our usual group from one of the local dog rescue places plus we had the cat lady (same thing but with cats) plus we had greyhounds. Then about mid-morning someone came in with PUPPIES! Everybody loves puppies right?
These cute little guys are chow-lab mix. Very friendly and very adorable as you can see. I took lots of pictures but only a few of them came out. Puppies don't stand still very much unless they're asleep. After several near-perfect shots that were almost always ruined by one puppy up front turning at the last minute, I finally decided I'd gotten all the good pictures I was going to get. That's when I remembered that my new digital camera also takes VIDEO. Well now, it's MUCH easier to take video of puppies than still pictures so I shot a little video of them too. The original is MUCH clearer and larger for that matter but it would have taken forever for people to download. I decided to put it on You Tube instead.
By the end of my shift all the little brown ones were gone. I guess most people found them the cutest. They were certainly the ones who were the most out-going. You can see them in the little video crawling all over each other trying to get as much attention as possible. They just weren't going to take NO for an answer.
We have no idea how big they'll eventually get. Both the parents were probably pretty big but when you mix the breeds like that, they don't always come out the same size. We've got several chow mixes that come through and only a couple are actually as big as a chow.
Sunday was a mixed bag really. One of my regulars came in for a shave. Her name is Taj Kamra and she's a Jack Russell terrier. I know what you're thinking, shave a JRT? Yeah, we do that sometimes, especially if they're a mix between a short hair and long hair. What happens is you get a sort of weird coat that's MOSTLY short but with occasional long hairs sticking out and it just looks WEIRD. In Taj's case, she has a medium length coat and the owner likes it short so that's what we do. Now, I bring all this up because it reminded me that there's a sort of unwritten rule in the universe that says if you want to earn tips, you have to spend the tips you already have. No, no it's true, really. See, just Saturday afternoon I spent the last of my accumulated tip money from a few weeks ago by tipping my hairdresser. Then I turn right around and start earning tips again. See how it works? There's some sort of hidden tip cap and when you reach that cap, no more tips will flow in until you spend what you have. I don't know who writes these rules, I just follow them :-)
We've got a new promotion coming out. Party collars! These are for Mardi Gras. They're free if you buy a certain type of bath for your dog. So far I haven't had any luck with them but mostly that's because we're tied up in selling all the Valentine's Day stuff. Yes, I know Mardi Gras comes a week BEFORE Valentine's Day but this is what they tell me to do so I do it. Anyway, I found two eager models for the party collars in Erin and Elle. They're regulars and are just SUPER cute so I thought I'd include their shots here.
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There was a great little blurb in the alumni magazine from my university this month. The main article talks about what various students are doing over in Europe. Then in a little side-bar they talk about the program that allows the students to do the traveling. Here's what it says:
J. David Bowen's generosity is benefiting studends at The University of Texas at San Antonio.
When he died Jan 23, 1998, he left the bulk of his estate to create an endowment to fund European study and travel opportunities for undergraduates in the College of Liberal and Fine Arts. According to his will, his desire was "to expose the students to cultures where history is ever present and commercialism does not have the last word."
The grandson of Jewish immigrants from Germany, Bowen was born in New York City in 1930 and grew up in New York and Chicago. After graduating from Harvard in 1951, he earned a master's degree in Latin American history at the City College of New York while also making a name for himself as an off-Broadway actor and Latin American travel writer.
Bowen arrived in San Antonio in 1966 as part of the planning staff for HemisFair '68 and never left the city he had grown to love. In the ensuing years, he came to be known locally as the "dean of San Antonio actors" as well as the consummate "bookman" through his rare book shop and Corona Publishing Company, which he started in 1977 to feature the works of Texas writers.
Is that cool or what? This just has good karma written all over it. Here he left the bulk of his estate to the university so they could do something like this even though he never went there. Because of him, kids who would otherwise never make it out of the US or perhaps never make it out of Texas get to see Europe, Latin America, wherever. At the same time, it was awfully nice of the alumni magazine to remind everyone who made all this possible in the first place. Usually when you see articles like this they only mention the donor in passing, if at all. So I think it's fantastic that they went out of their way to print a little mini-bio like that.
I will admit, I am a bit biased in this matter though. I did a few shows with David Bowen when I was working with Offstage. It's funny how Offstage was a sort of great equalizer among the people. We had David Bowen in a few of our shows and he was a Harvard graduate, had his own publishing company, etc. We had doctors, we had lawyers, we had TV personalities. We had waiters, we had store clerks, we had computer artists. Didn't make a difference. What you did outside the theater doors didn't matter. Once you came inside, you were an actor, or set builder, or stage manager or light board operator. That's how a guy like me, B.A. English from UTSA ends up working with someone like David Bowen :-)
Currently Reading:Short stories by H.P. Lovecraft and Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography
As you can see from the sub-heading, I'm taking a break from long fiction and reading some shorter works at the moment. No particular reason, I just wasn't in the mood to read another novel. Later, at the end of the month, the new Harry Potter comes out and I've already ordered a copy so I'll be reading that for sure. I've also got a copy of I Am Legend sitting on the desk along with a few others. This is just a temporary break.
Why the switch and why those two authors? Again, no reason. With Lovecraft it's mostly due to my not having read a horror novel in a while. There just hasn't been anything that really drew my attention. Most vampire novels tend to run about the same basic plot. Either the vampire is a misunderstood, tragic hero or the old German type that doesn't even look close to being human and must be destroyed at all costs. You take that same basic vampire plot and swap in other monsters and you pretty much have yourself a horror novel. Too easy to predict.
Lovecraft, on the other hand, well I have no idea what, if anything, he was smoking but it sure was some powerful stuff. These novellas and short stories were WAY before their time and run off in all sorts of unpredictable directions. Some of them have your basic Twilight Zone twist at the end. Some really don't end at all, they just sort of stop. It's a different approach to story telling which, I suppose, is why I'm enjoying it.
As for Benjamin Franklin, well I've always liked him. He's my favorite of the founding fathers mostly because he's so normal, at least for us. He doesn't have that sort of semi-regal aura around him like the others do. He wasn't president either. Not one of your lofty, moralists. Ben was the kind of guy you could sit down and have a beer with and he'd tell ya interesting stories along the way.
Wow, did you catch the all-star game? Probably not. Most of the people who read my blog aren't baseball fans. That's a shame because it was one hell of a great game.
This is my boy here, Ichiro Suzuki. Clearly he's not a blood relative :-)
He put on one hell of a display last night at the all-star game in San Francisco. He was the lead-off hitter and got the game started with his first base hit of three. In fact, he went three for three last night, getting on base every time he was at bat. Oh but that's not what made it such a spectacular display last night. What really made him stand out, and what earned him the MVP award, was this in the park home run!
You think a no-hitter is rare? Well this was the first in the park home run ever in the all star game. Officials from the baseball hall of fame took the ball and will put it on display. That's how rare we're talking here. For those of you who don't know what that is, and who didn't bother to watch the video, an in the park home run means the ball didn't go out over the wall but the player hitting it still managed to run the bases without getting tagged out.
So now he's the MVP of the all star game. About the only person disappointed about that (apart from the losing National League all stars) might be Ichiro's agent. You see, they've been negotiating a contract extension and rumor has it they'd reached a deal before the all star game. Of course, had they been able to bring this video to the table, he could easily have asked for more. And he's worth it. Unlike SOME players (Mr. Bonds), Ichiro is part of the team. He works hard, he handles the ball VERY well, and he does what's best for the team as a whole, not just for himself. Guys like that in professional sports are getting pretty rare so it's nice to see a guy like that get rewarded.
I'm no longer going to bother reading any of the new Dune books. I've tried the first of each series and ended up giving up on them right at about the same point. These latest two books (of which one has been released) were supposed to be based on an outline by Frank Herbert that was discovered in some safe deposit box by his son but after reading the first 150 pages or so and reading the outline of the plot, I'm finding that hard to believe.
I didn't really care that much that the son was going to do a whole set of prequel books. So long as he didn't mess with the original, fine, no problem. I didn't find them very well-written and they really weren't very complex in plot. In all I would rank them as average. Maybe if you liked that sort of book you'd want to read it but otherwise, nothing in it really jumps out at you.
Towards the end of the series though, he started messing a little bit with the original. Or rather, his version started running into consistency errors with the original. Characters that were clearly alive in the original series had already been killed off in the prequels leaving some readers scratching their heads. Oh they tried to play it off by saying that the one in the original series was a clone (of which there are many in the original series) but the problem with that is the clones weren't introduced until the second or third book. Oops.
Still, didn't really bother me because I never put much stock into the prequels. They were supposed to tell the backstory of the novels, most of which is already told in the novels themselves. These books were just fleshing things out a little.
Then this new series came out and, as I said, it was supposed to be based on a long-missing outline. I'm guessing that's a very loose term "based on." Yeah, it was based on that outline in the sense that it has chapters and characters, sure. Or maybe there really wasn't anything IN the outline at that point and the outline needed fleshing out.
What it looks like they're doing with the two new books is trying to link everything together. And while I can understand the need to do it, it's really like trying to nail the back end of a rusted out Ford onto a new Cadillac. They just don't match and I don't mean purely in style. The characters suddenly have different personalities. Minor details are over-looked. The plot, well, it doesn't move very much and when it does move it certainly doesn't take off in the direction the other novels were heading. They couldn't even keep it to one book (which would have made two trilogies linked by one bridge novel). They attempted (or were forced to) stretch everything out to make it all fit together.
So, my advice, skip Hunters of Dune and the soon to be released Sandworms of Dune. Instead, just fill in the blanks after Chapterhouse yourself. It's certainly going to be better than what Brian Herbert came up with.
Baseball's All-Star game is coming up next week. If you're a fan, you'll want to check out all the action on the MLB site. If you're not a fan, better make plans to rent some videos or take in a movie that night :-)
People spell names weird down here. There was an article in the paper about a kid in Arkansas who got killed. His name was DeAuntae. Yes, just like that. No, you're not supposed to translate it, that's supposed to be in English. He's not "Of the Aunt" or "the Aunt". That's the family's attempt to produce Dante or at least make it seem more fancy. Worse, apparently they called this kid Tae Tae. If you're from the Philippines, go ahead and laugh. Just try not to spew coffee all over your keyboard when I tell you that the headline in the paper that day was FAREWELL TAE TAE. For the rest of us who do NOT speak Tagalog, roughly translated, that headline reads FAREWELL POO POO.
Slow week in the grooming salon because of the 4th of July. Sunday I had a total of two dogs. Monday I had no appointments scheduled. Fortunately we had quite a few walk-ins, otherwise I'd have gone nuts from boredom. Things will pick up over the weekend though. It as kinda nice having a few slow days after all the heavy work we had leading up to it.
I hate Mondays. I really do. Funny thing is, as CC keeps reminding me, Mondays for me are like Fridays for everyone else, at least in terms of which days I work. Tuesday and Wednesday are my weekend days so you'd think being closer to them would be a good thing right?
Mondays for me tend to start on Sunday, which is part of the problem. Sundays I'm at the store 10 to 6. No big deal there right? Sure I'm there until dinnertime but I also don't have to roll out of bed at the crack of dawn. No, rolling out of bed at or before sunrise is something I reserve for MONDAY!
Less than 12 hours after I return home from work Sunday evening, I'm crawling out of bed Monday morning. Why? Because Monday is my day to open. The salon opens at 7 am which means I have to be there a little before that to set things up and be ready for all those happy customers who want their dogs cut. Just think about that for a second. At the time when most people are either just getting up or just eating breakfast or maybe even just sitting in morning traffic, I'm already standing behind the counter waiting to take customers.
So there I am, 7 am, Monday morning. The only thing that separates me from the weekend is an 8-hour work day. You'd think that would be an easy thing. But just remember, this is Monday and it doesn't matter whether it's your first, middle or last day of the week, it's still Monday and Monday's are universally a pain in the ass.
First hour one of two things will happen. Either I'll be flooded with people trying to drop their dogs off on the way to work or the place will be completely empty. It's always one or the other. There never seems to be any sort of middle ground. I'm either springing into action right up front or trying not to fall asleep. The thing is, I really have no way of telling which one it will be. On the appointment calendar it will say, at most, one person checking in at 7 am. And that one person will bring, at most, 2 dogs. The others will be walk-ins and there is no way to predict when people will get the urge for some dog hair cutting (holidays excepted of course).
Let's use Monday of this week as an example. 7 am was a no-show. Phone rings 7:30. Repeat customer wants to bring in his poodle. Fine, great, wonderful, makes up for the one who didn't show. Perfect. 8 am I have 4 people all trying to get their dogs in at the same time. Why? Well, repeat customer has made it to the salon, the scheduled 8 am person is also there but now the two 9 am customers have decided they'll be busy at 9 and are dropping their pets off early. And like that *poof* we've gone from total boredom to near chaos.
8:30 am all the dogs are in and I've started washing them. By 9 I'm mostly caught up with all the dogs washed and rough cuts done on the poodle and the chow mix. Ok, going great so far. Not going to be too bad. Then we hit 9:30. Every remaining appointment shows up. Oh no, I'm not kidding. We have appointments listed until 2 pm only for some reason, this being Monday, everyone else on the list has decided to show up a little early.
10 am I have 8 dogs sitting in the back, only a few of them are done. The phone is ringing every 10 minutes as people try and talk me into squeezing just one more dog in. Of course, I can't do that no matter how nice they ask. I'm only supposed to take in 6 cuts in a given day and I've already got 7 on deck with one just in for a bath. So unless it's a full-blown 5 alarm dog grooming emergency (such as a skunk hit) they'll just have to wait.
11 am. That's when I look at the clock and think, "Oh crap it's 11 already? I've only got 4 hours left to finish all these dogs!" Of course the phone is STILL ringing off the hook. I've managed to push these people onto the other days when we're not as busy but so long as they keep calling, I can't finish this little toy poodle which only needs to have her face trimmed up a little.
11:30 am poodle is done and the owner is picking her up. She looks great. He thinks she looks great. I think she looks great. Guess what though. Over at the registers they're no longer giving cash back. Even if you pay for your purchase with a debit card you're no longer given the option to get cash back. New policy. We have as little cash on hand as possible now. WONDERFUL. Good for the store but bad for us in the salon as most of our tippers use that cash back option to get the money to tip us with. Ah well. As word spreads our regular tippers will start bringing a little extra with them. For now though, it means no tips.
Noon. The sun is high in the sky. Not that I can see it because we're overcast. Two bath dogs come in but I've already got enough on my plate. They'll have to wait until the bather comes in at 1. That's fine by the owners so it doesn't slow me down too much. Just adds more barking to the chorus.
12:30. I'm catching up. Several more dogs are done and it's looking like I'll manage to get to those two poodles pretty soon and get them done by 3:30. Not bad, only half an hour behind.
2:00. All done except for those last two poodles. I'm taking a chocolate break because DAMN I need the energy. I've now reached the point where as soon as my last dogs are done, I can leave. Or at least I can clock out and wait for CC to pick me up, which is just as good because it means my work day is done.
2:30. The last poodle won't stand still. I am not kidding about this, the little guy will NOT stand still. I'm shaving a moving target and the owner has left specific instructions about how she wants this one done. One false move and it's a bad cut. I'm getting frustrated and it's starting to show. Time to take a step back and pause a bit. Let the little guy get some of that energy out of his system.
3:00 All done now except for this last poodle. He still won't stop moving. Every time the clippers come close to him, he turns his head and spins around. Sometimes he tries to bite them. I'm tempted to let him. Problem is, his owner wants him to have a mustache. If he bites the clippers, that mustache is gone.
3:15 mustache almost disappears. While shaving the bridge of his snout, the poodle suddenly turns. Good thing my reflexes still work. He damn near lost half his mustache.
3:35. FREE AT LAST! Poodle is FINALLY done. Had to do most of him by hand (scissoring, it takes MUCH longer to get an even cut that way). There's hair all over the place and I'm 100% covered in it too. Every time I breathe in I can feel it. I'd be sneezing by now except I just don't have the energy. Time to clock out and decompress.
And that's Monday. Or so I think. 5 pm we make it home. CC had a meeting and stayed a bit late. No big deal. It happens. We walk through the front door of the apartment and smell the poo. It's everywhere! Doggies have bad tummies because of some chew bones they've been working on. Poo is NOT solid, I repeat, poo is NOT solid!
Yes . . . it's Monday. Let there be no doubt.
All of this must have some connection with why I like the Hulk. Lately he's been the only Marvel hero who's been consistent. The Fantastic Four have split up yet again and reformed with two new members (Mr. F and Sue are taking some time off to work on their marriage). Iron man has turned into a total control freak and Captain America has up and died on us again. I hate it when that happens.
Meanwhile, poor Robert Bruce Banner has turned into the hulk and been shot into space to deal with a rogue intelligence satellite which has gotten a little too smart for its own good. His job: HULK SMASH! Gotta love that. Such easy instructions. It'd be like someone coming into the salon and asking me to GROOMER SHAVE! It's never that easy in real life.
Anyway, so there the guy us, beating the crap out of the satellite. He wins, they send a shuttle to pick him up. Time to head home right? Well not quite. Seems a group of smart Marvels have decided that we're better off with the Hulk somewhere else. Like ripping up someone else's planet. So rather than bringing him home, they pick an uninhabited planet out there in the middle of nowhere and off he goes. Naturally they fail to take into account this hidden wormhole so he ends up on the wrong planet. And that's where the fun begins.
This sort of thing is ALWAYS happening to Banner/Hulk. It seems to be one of the few constants in the Marvel universe. The other heroes may change their costumes or the teams may change their players. Hell some of the bad guys even become good guys once in a while but none of that changes for the Hulk.
His whole story is one ongoing quest for peace and I guess we can all identify with that to some extent. Hell I know after surviving another Monday that's all I want, just a little peace and quiet. And let's face it, how many times have you wanted to solve a problem the Hulk way? Some guy cut you off in traffic? Just reach out and toss that car onto the side of the road. That'll teach him :-) Some obnoxious jerk yacking at full volume on his cell phone, bragging about how important he is? Reach out and spread a little of the Hulk's love. Just take phone and reduce it to dust with a pinch of your fingers. Trying to watch a movie and the kids behind you won't stop kicking your chair? Why that's no problem for the Hulk. Just pick those kids up, chair and all, and deposit them in some other theater.
We like the Hulk. We like the Hulk especially on Mondays.
Well, the vacation is over and it's time to get back to work. Ok, I actually went back to work LAST week, but you get the idea. It was kinda funny actually, I THOUGHT I was due back on the first of June but it turns out I was supposed to be back on the 31st. Don't worry, I didn't get into trouble or anything. It was just a misunderstanding about my schedule but it was pretty funny getting that phone call.
Speaking of the work schedule, I've pretty much settled into a comfortable one. I've got Tuesday and Wednesday off right now and if things work out with our new bather, I'll also have Thursday off. We're going to be training another guy for grooming too so me going to a 4 day work week makes things MUCH easier for everyone all around. It'll give him more time to apprentice with the boss and that makes a HUGE difference. The more you can learn from someone who actually knows what they're doing, the better you'll be fresh out of training.
I don't know how long that will last though. Mostly we find ourselves with plenty of people to do the work because it's summer. That means folks who had to have certain days off because of school are eager to work more hours so they can put away more money. But for the next two or three months things will be low-stress and if all goes well, right at about the time things get stressful for the holidays, we'll have enough people to handle the work.
I was a little surprised by all the new faces when I got back to work last week. Apparently we've been hiring a LOT. I've already seen three new clerks and one new supervisor. I'm still trying to figure out who's no longer working for us. You don't hire that many people at one time unless someone or several someones get fired first.
I'm getting better and faster at doing the dogs, which is great. The more dogs I can do in a day, the more money I can make. I'm still not nearly as fast as my boss but then she's been doing this for a LONG time. One day I'll get there but right now I'm still a bit slower. Everything comes out good though. I haven't managed to mess up a dog yet (knock on wood). And so far everyone has liked the cut I gave them, or at least no one has come back to complain about it. So it looks like I'm getting the hang of this much quicker than I thought I would :-)
Haven't really been doing much other than work since our vacation ended. If you've ready CC's blog you know we watched Pan's Labyrinth the other day. I thought it was really good and very well put together. Makes sense considering it won awards for makeup and costume and so forth. Whether or not you like the story, it was a well-crafted film.
I get a kick out of CC's reaction to it though. She's still trying to figure out just why it was so good. She sees the critics reviews and it's running at 96% over at Rotten Tomatoes which means 96% of all the critics liked it. A movie scores that high it's going to be good. She just isn't quite sure WHY it's good, or rather, why it's SO good that it has gotten almost universally good reviews. To be honest, I couldn't really go into too much detail as to why I like it either. Perhaps because it was just so different from the way movies are usually approached. I mean, how often do you see films that blend revolution with children's faerie tales?
We also saw Shrek The Third. It wasn't as good as the others I don't think but it was still really funny. If they're smart, they'll stop here and not make anymore. At this rate the whole grumpy ogre theme is getting a little tired. Worse, they keep introducing more and more new characters which means less screen time for whoever your favorites are. I would have liked to have seen more of Puss in Boots because I just LOVE him but you can only fit in so much in one movie. I did get a kick out of the princesses storming the castle. That was a hoot. I also loved Snow White making all sorts of dwarf jokes. At one point, they're giving Fiona a baby shower and Snow White, as her gift, gives her a dwarf to work as a babysitter. When Fiona says she can't accept it Snow White tells her not to worry because she's got 6 more at home.
I don't know how close Barry Bonds is to breaking Hank Aaron's home run record but I really hope he doesn't. It may sound mean but I actually find myself wishing some pitcher will nail him with a fastball that ends his career. The guy is a REAL jerk and has clearly been shooting up with something or several somethings. He's put on WAY too much muscle mass and he did it far too quickly. It becomes MUCH more apparent when you look at the old footage of Hank Aaron and Babe Ruth. Aaron is so SKINNY compared to the players these days and Ruth, clearly he never turned down a good meal. At this point though I don't think anyone from MLB is going to step up and do anything about it. There's no sign that Bonds will be banned or that his manager will bench him. So, unless there are any rogue pictures out there willing to take one for the sport, it's looking like Bonds will break the record some time this season.
Hey have you been following basketball? Well no, actually I haven't either, not until last week anyway. In previous seasons I really didn't follow the game until after the all-star break or even until the playoffs. The past few seasons I didn't even really follow it THAT much. This year though, the Spurs have reached the finals yet again and they're finally getting some long over-due respect from the writers. I guess when you beat up on Utah as much as they did during the last series it's impossible NOT to give credit where credit is due. I don't know how much longer they'll remain competitive as a team though. They're the oldest team in the league right now so they're due to lose players to retirement and injuries. Still, one more championship before they start to rebuild would be great :-)
She belongs to one of our clients at the salon. That's my work, right there. She came in along with her sister on Friday. The owners wanted their dogs shaved but poms look horrible shaved all the way so they decided to go with a lion cut. Came out great don't you think? The owner loved it. More importantly, the owner's girlfriend (who's actually the REAL owner) loved it. They'll be coming back regularly for sure now :-)
It's funny, they used to live in our apartment complex. He used to hang out by the pool all the time so I guess it was HIS apartment and she moved in. They got married and moved into a house. How do I know all this? Well, I'm just filling in the blanks really. Never really saw her around while he was living here. The info card they filled out shows them both with the same last name now and a new address, which doesn't have an apartment number.
Anyway, as I was saying, they used to live here, or at least he did. Saw him all the time at the pool. Then he started coming into the store to buy dog things (which was probably about the time they started living together). They would come and ask me for advice on dog grooming products because I work in the salon. Now I'm a groomer so where do they go to get their dog cut? You got it. The same place they got excellent customer service :-)
Speaking of customer service, I had a guy come in on Sunday who went off on a rant about one of our competitors. I won't name names but the store in question isn't as SMART as they think they are ;-) He was really angry about the service there. He'd told me that they've had to cancel appointments for his dog TWICE and they didn't give any advance warning. He'd show up with his dog and they'd tell him it couldn't be done because (insert excuse here). Once in a while that sort of thing will happen of course. We had to do it last year when our groomer had a kidney stone and left for the day. We had no way to call the people who were already on their way to their appointments but we managed to deal with the rest. But with this guy, it's happened TWICE already. Just goes to show you that just because the store has SMART in its name doesn't mean they've got smart employees or give good customer service. Better to GO where the pets GO. Got it? ;-)
I'm still not "officially" a groomer yet though. Oh yes, I am working as a groomer, don't get me wrong. And I pull in the proper groomer's commission too. I had to send in pictures last week though and they still haven't been processed. You have to groom three different dogs to show that you know what you're doing and take before/after pictures to be sent to the district office for approval. That's all I'm waiting on now. I've passed all the other exams and, as I said, I've been working as a groomer. Just this weekend I worked Sunday solo and was the groomer on Monday too. Last week they sent me over to another store to fill in over there too so even though it's not official yet, I'm doing the job.
The best part, so far anyway, is that I haven't had any complaints (knock on wood). Granted I'm not exactly what you'd call speedy but so far everything has come out how the owner wanted it to come out. It's been tricky in a few cases too because the owners sometimes ask for stuff that's not normal. Take yesterday for example. Woman came in with a shihtzu. Apparently she has gotten tired of dealing with the tangling hair and so forth because her dog goes outside a lot. She wanted that dog bald. Ok. We can do bald. Normally we don't do it on that type of dog though because people like them styled. She also wanted the face shaved too. Normally we go with a rounder pattern so the dog looks like a teddy bear. She also wanted the ears shaved. Then sort of blend it all together. So what she got was a short shave, cocker spaniel face, terrier ears, poodle head. The poodle head part was just what I did with the hair on the top that was leftover. Couldn't shave the poor thing BALD. That would look freaky.
In the end, her dog sort of looked like a white, furry Yoda. Well, she had HUGE eyes which were now VERY visible so when she'd flop her ears back, just imagine Yoda, but white and fuzzy :-)
Guess you'd better get used to this, me telling dog stories I mean. That's probably what the blog is going to fill up with for a while. At the end of the month CC and I are going on a short vacation so we may have some adventure stories out of that but otherwise I think the summer will be going to the dogs so to speak. Dog days of summer, come on, you know that joke right? :-)
Before you ask, yes, THAT Julius Caesar. It's not a play on words or some author trying to cash in on a fortunate family name. The book I'm currently reading was written by the late emperor, the first in the line of emperors from that family, stabbed to death on the floor of the Roman senate, avenged by Marc Antony and Caesar's nephew Octavian, later named Augustus. Still with me or have your eyes glazed over?
I'm making progress in grooming school. Three days a week I'm officially in training, two days a week I'm just another guy working in the salon as a bather. This setup is supposed to allow me to earn a little extra money. The problem is that the three days of training pretty much balance out any commission money I make on the other two days so it's a wash.
Anyway, back to grooming school. I'm doing shaves at a much more regular rate now. Every day I do at least two and with more practice, I'm doing more and more of the work. In fact, I've had a few already that were done as soon as they left my table, no corrections needed. That's always cool when I get it right the first time.
I must say though, I do miss my three day weekends. Yes, I know I don't get much sympathy from the audience but it's true. The four 10-hour days really could be a pain in the butt sometimes but having one full day to just blow off and do nothing was great! Now I'm back to a normal schedule and just like everyone else, I find myself complaining a little that the weekend just doesn't seem to last long enough. I know, I know, you're shaking your head saying something sarcastic like, "poor baby!"
CC's getting ready for another trip to the Philippines. She's going to be delivering a seminar there. Actually she's going to be doing SEVERAL of them over the course of a few weeks. It's totally going to suck of course. Oh, not her seminar, that'll rock, I'm talking about her being over in the Philippines and me over here. See, she's going to be gone almost a month which means I'll be taking over all those little things that she normally handles. All the bills, they're mine. Rent, utilities, all that stuff has to be done by ME this time. Thank goodness she'll be making a list because I have NO idea who gets paid what and when.
This also means that I'll have to do the grocery shopping by myself (BORING!) and do all the ironing (BORING!) and all the housework (all together now! BORING!). So, if you happen to run into me during the time she's gone, expect me to be a little grumpier than usual.
On the lighter side, we'll be getting a decent vacation after she gets back. We don't have any firm dates yet but we're planning to go up to Nashville and check things out up there since we'll end up moving there in a year or so. We'll also probably check out Franklin, the little town CC's boss will be living in. It's not too far outside Nashville you see. We need to get familiar with the area and what's available in terms of . . . well in terms of just about everything. We need to look at apartments and shopping and all of that.
No video this week. Sorry. Just scroll down and play one of the cool ones from one of the previous blogs. And wouldn't you know it, after all this time I've been adding video to the sidebar, Blogger finally gets around to doing an automated version where you can just plug in the links. Well I'll show THEM. I won't even USE their little gadget! YEAH! :-)
Currently Reading:Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
Now, in all fairness, Tuesday wasn't the worst day I've ever had. In fact, it doesn't even rank in the top 10 of worst days. But I'm pretty sure it qualifies as a bad day though.
It started out with ominous foreboding. I got called into the break room to sit through another in-house video. Everyone has to go through this once in a while. The company you work for has a series of video productions designed to train you to do certain things or point out better ways to handle certain situations. You have to watch them. It's sort of a necessary evil really. The people in the video are always exaggerating everything. If you work in a store and you're supposed to be smiling all the time to greet customers, you can bet that the person in the video is wearing a grin as big as Batman's The Joker.
20 minutes long, this video. That's much longer than the previous ones we've sat through. I kept thinking that there were much better ways I could be spending my time. Worse, I got called in Monday afternoon so I closed the store Monday night and had to open again Tuesday morning. Lost a little bit of sleep along the way so I was already dragging.
Fast-forward to about noon. Things are busy but not hectic. I'm scheduled to go home at 1 when the bather comes in. I'm packing things up because an hour isn't enough time for me to have a dog finished so anything that comes in at that point is shifted to the bather. We get a phone call from said bather who wants to talk to someone about calling in sick for a second day. The groomer on duty takes the call and then calls the salon manager to ask how she should handle things. She turns to me and asks if I could go check on a chow that's been drying and if it's ready, bring it out. Sure, no problem.
I go back to the kennels, open up the cage. I reach in and check the chest, nice and dry. I check the belly, nice and dry. Check the dog's left side, nice and dry, then I reach across to check the right and, well something just didn't add up right. Couldn't quite figure out what that was at first but then it hit me: my arm is in this dog's mouth . . . and it HURTS!
It's one of those situations where, looking back, everything seems like it's in slow motion. I'm reaching over to check the dog, its mouth moves down, opens up and clamps down on my arm. Teeth sink in. Just like that. No growls, no shrinking back. No warning. Just the bite.
Now, I'd LIKE to say I handled this calmly, like in the movies where the hero takes a bullet to the shoulder and shrugs it off. That would be lying of course, but I'd LIKE to say that's how I handled it. Instead I let out a yell that had me sounding a lot like Eric Cartman from South Park. Then I pulled back, the dog let go and I slammed the cage shut with my foot and latched it.
I didn't go nuts after that. I was pretty calm. Got a paper towel to cover it up, told the groomer to call the manager on duty so we could write up the paperwork. Oddly enough, it didn't hurt nearly as much as it should have, which worried me a little bit.
I called CC and had her come over to take me to the emergency room. Did a little paperwork, showed a few people how nasty it looked. Then over to the ER where they pretty much took me right away. Not that I looked all freaky with blood pouring out of me or anything like that. In fact, very little blood at all. Just two big punctures and teeth marks (CC has pictures that she'll post to her blog).
The whole time I kept thinking that it didn't hurt nearly as much as it should. I've had less serious bites by smaller dogs that hurt WAY more than that. Then I figured out what it was. The bottom jaw of the chow hit my elbow. Made it all tingly, like when you smack your elbow on the desk or the corner of a wall. So that's really all I felt, that sort of tingly, almost numb feeling.
It didn't take long to get it cleaned up. We made it home a little early in fact. My arm's sore now, but more like muscle pain than anything else. Nothing some Tylenol can't take care of. And I've got to clean the wound twice a day and take antibiotics. Otherwise, that's about it.
My boss told me this morning I've officially been Christened in the world of dog grooming. I'm now "one of them."
All this drama gives me an excuse to post this music video CC showed me once. I like how it ends and it didn't really go with any of my previous entries . . .
