We got a new dog - god help us - on Saturday morning, and a new van on Saturday evening. Not too bad. On Saturday morning we went to Sunset park, which was frankly an Interesting experience. I hate Geese of all kinds with a passion. After arousing their hunger, they took it upon themselves to mob both mob us and chase us around the lake until some other poor bastard decided to feed them. We saw, I kid you not, this blancmange with a pair of limbs sticking out of it, failing desperately.

We survived, made our appointed rendezvous, and came home with Spenser, a chipper little Poodle/Terrier mix. He’s Mariah’s pet, and you can ask her if you’d like to know more.

On Saturday evening, we bought a new van. I can’t help but somehow feeling vaguely screwed over by the dealership. I’ve spent years around retail financing, and I don’t know…some of the terms seemed onerous or just strange to me. It’s a tidy little van, and I don’t doubt that we’re going to put it to good use in years coming.

Lastly, we went up to Mount Charleston on Sunday and spent the evening dodging drivers who’ve never been in anything but a five-lane freeway in their lives. It was frightening and exhilarating all at once, watching asshole dodge and weave in and out of their lanes, randomly slam on their breaks and generally make the trip Interesting. I didn’t shoot much except for a really beautiful tree stump behind the local primary school:

Mazie Canyon

I mean, literally. Princess took one look at it, then gave me a dirty, disgusted look, and climbed the tree to take a nap.

Everyone at home was pretty upset over it. They said we had no room for it, that they wanted it, but that the it we got was too big.

But I say pooh to the naysayers. Our puppy is just awesome.

Bailey (pictures to follow) is an eight-month old Golden Retriver/Border Collie mix who we adopted through a local animal sanctuary, the Lied Animal Shelter. I don’t recall the actual sanctuary right now, and much as it’s unkind of me to say it, they are of the type of animal lover I’ve never been comfortable around. I’m an animal…okay, cat…lover, but I know from my own experiences and from volunteering for Heaven Can Wait that there is a practical side to all this love.

They are to me the people who slide toward the fanaticism toward an animal that they would ignore the opinion of a clinic full of veterinary staff (literally, everyone spoke to her) who wanted to humanely put down an old feral male with a broken jaw. He was severely underweight, couldn’t eat or drink, and the lady and group in question insisted that rather than put the animal out of it’s misery HCWS should go ahead and neuter it and release it. HCW were in turn obliged to perform the operation and release him back to the lady. Four months later and there’s still some nasty bad blood going around over this incident, for which I cannot blame HCW.

All of this is to say that while we love Bailey, and I’m very grateful to the group for their adoption program, their kind of devotion to animals was something I’m really not personally comfortable with. Personal rule of thumb: You really don’t want to get involved in an animal group that doesn’t have a sizeable veterinary staff.

/rant

Bailey is awesome. He’s shy, but he’s coming out of his shell a little more each day, and I’m looking forward to bringing him to our new home and letting him run wild with Caira.

New home, you ask?!

Why yes, we’ve rented out a beautiful little house in east Last Vegas, just off the Boulder Highway. It’s a beautiful little (and this is my word) three-bedroom cottage on a large plot of land, so we have huge front and back lawns for the menagerie to run around on. I’m happy, as the landlords are lovely people, Caira finally has room to run around and play. Actually we have room in general now, glee.

The bastards had me out of bed at 6am as they were digging up the road outside the house, but I’d no choice but to open the window as my room was stiffling. Nggh. Ah well, Killer at least has a love-hate relationship with them, she gets to take over my bed earlier than usual today.

She doesn’t like the builders, either

And at the price of God’s Own Migraine, I cancelled my hotel reservation for Paris and booked a hotel for London. I’ll be staying about a kilometre down the road from Heathrow, which suits me perfectly fine.