Personal Dork Assistant

Dog Days

Sam's heading back to Duke to finish his last year, and Michelle is starting hospital rotations, right after a month in Botswana volunteering at the Butler clinic. Unfortunately, that doesn't leave much time or place for the dog, so Laika got to take his first plane ride to a new home. There's more space here for him to run around anyway, with the yard and the park across the street, and boy does he like to run around. At least it's only playful energy, without inflicting furniture damage, although he does like to lie down on the nearest carpet in mom's way. Taking him out for a walk makes for a good upper body workout along with the jogging, as he strains against the leash to check out all the new territory. He probably wished he drank more water before heading out. He kept trying to mark every single telephone pole along the way, but he ran out of pee. The small hunting dog genes were obvious. He kept sticking his nose into drainholes and loose earth. He must've smelled something along the golf course, when he began vigorously digging for whatever poor rodent he was gunning for. The little dude can sure excavate. Even after we get home I had to let him off the leash and run a few laps around the house to bleed off the excess energy before he'll come inside.

Michelle decided to take the Board exam (don't you love multiple-choice questions that go down to J?) in Alameda, so she was busy studying for most of the week. That left Sam and I on the couch with split-screen baseball/basketball triple-header action. The MX-700 remote handled it all perfectly. Also watched Kill Bill 1 (on DVD) and 2 (at the theater). Watching them close together was definitely the right way to go. It was all perfectly entertaining, but I'm sure gobs of film-geek references went whooshing right over our heads (David Carradine as a story-telling, flute-playing, kung-fu master, ha ha). Very clever to have a tall white woman in a role usually played by stocky asian guys, but I'm not sure if that automatically freshens up all the clichés. Not sure how I felt about seeing said white girl emasculating Asian men by the dozens in Volume 1, either.

Michelle filled up her iPod with my music for her month in Africa. A big chunk of the stuff on the iPod was from my iTunes collection originally, but now I have all my CD's at home. She wanted the Yo La Tengo. Who knew? I guess I have perfect musical tastes for the liberal college chick. I just need some more feminist-correct soul and hip-hop. Maybe some Missy Elliot or Erykah Badu. I bet Lauren Hill's fallen into the bargain bins by now.

What I learned from Sam this week

Dog + Party Hat = Instant Comedy

In other news, the crazy kids decided to get engaged. More of an evolutionary step than a big bang, really. No ring or anything, no point in taking a big rock to Africa, although you know mom's just dying to hit the jewelers in HK.