Work Vs. Puppy

SUMMARY: My puppies vs my career

August 18: A friend, who retired 2 years ago and just got a new puppy, posted on Facebook, "How did we ever get out of the house when we worked and had puppies?"

My first puppy, Amber, I spent the Winter holidays (yes that includes Christmas Day) paper-training her. When I returned to work, I left her confined in the kitchen with a bunch of newspaper in one end of the room. I worked in a secure location managing and running computers and clients (imagine the combinations in that phrase) and I couldn't leave long enough to check on her during my shift.

Amber at 6-8 weeks outside my apartment.

She was mostly good about using the newspapers for the intended purpose. Whew! But I was mistaken to think that a 7-week old puppy couldn't reach anything in the room. Tsk, Amber. And I didn't know nuthin' 'bout cratin' no puppies. 

And even worse at 10 weeks. 😉 After receiving notice at my apartment that pets were not allowed (I did know that, but...), we stayed with my parents and sisters for another couple of months or so while I looked for a place to live, and they'd let her out as needed.

Amber, maybe 4 months, at my parents'. 
Note the newspapers on the floor by the sliding door.
She was pretty good about using them if no one let her out.
But I didn't know enough to put plastic underneath,
and it ruined the color of their sheet flooring.

When I got Boost at three months, I had worked at home almost exclusively for the previous dozen years. Perfect for starting a new puppy, right? A week after I got her, of course I was assigned a contract in Foster City, a commute of somewhere between half an hour and an hour, where the client required that I work on site. Of course. Because that's how the universe works.  

Working full time, and even assuming I ate lunch at my desk instead of taking an official break, that still meant I'd be away from home for nine or ten hours straight.

It was one of those times when good contracts were hard to find, and it really was a good assignment. Other than that.

[TO DO: Do I have photos of her in that small crate?!]

I explained carefully to the client's manager that I had just gotten a new puppy and why I would need access to her. And said I'd be grateful if would it be OK if I brought in her crate and put it under my desk, and that she would stay there except when I took her out for walks. He said he would check with HR, because HR had always said no to that sort of thing, and later, yep, HR said no way. 

So I took her to Foster City in MUTT MVR in her crate, and every morning upon arrival I'd drive around the busy high-rise office park and streets in an area without much extra parking or shade until I found a legal shady spot, leave the car there, and walk into the office as much as 15 minutes away. Then every two or three hours I'd go out to check the shade and usually to walk her around and play with her a bunch. That means: I was essentially taking a half hour to 45 minute break every two or three hours. 

Within three weeks, they gave me permission to work from home.

Working at home, I kept her sometimes in her crate but most often penned up in my office in her x-pen.  Plastic underneath newspapers (I'm capable of learning), although the newspapers didn't stay put with her ministrations. Mostly I was able to get her outside frequently enough for pottying.
Don't ask whether she ever decided to pull the plastic all into a heap inside the x-pen.

Geez she was gorgeous.

I tried leaving her in the kitchen (from where, by the way, she could see me perfectly well) because: No carpets. But she wasn't thrilled about that.

And those are the only puppies I've really had.  Except ... Remington... oh, well, he was about 6 months, so I guess that counts. That's another story.

This is the World In Which We Live Now

SUMMARY: COVID-19? Normal reality? Somewhere in between?

Just a day in the life of... during lockdown... Monday, April 6, 2020

UPDATES APRIL 9, 11:30AM PDT: Added a bit more to the puzzle-doing and a related photo.

• 2 AM -- Poof! Awake! Why why why?  Don't need to visit the Little Human Mom's Room. No extraneous noises that I can  hear. Suddenly the sheets are scratchy, the pillow is lumpy. My shoulder hurts when I roll over. I roll back.
  
  This is not abnormal for me. I wish it were. Should not have stayed awake past 11, reading the Captive Prince books for the 3rd time in 3 weeks, where I dozed off twice with the Kindle and light still on, then slept for real--for a little while. Until 2.

• 7 AM -- Oh! Apparently sleep returned at some point! But NOW why awake?  I feel a little chilly: Darn it, electric mattress pad turned off at some point.
  
  It's nice that it does that after a certain number of hours, because I'd prefer that neither it nor my bedroom furniture catch fire. BUT if I turn it on early to prewarm my flannel-clad bed, then if I forget to reset it when I snuggle into bed, this happens sometime during the night or early morning.   No choice now: I rise and release the boys from their crates.

• 7:15ish -- Neither dog dashed downstairs immediately; instead, THEY are now  curled up on my body-warmed section of bedding. THEY don't care that it's Monday. So I have made my daily weigh-in and recorded it in my FitBit, chosen clothing (turtleneck and  warm fleece. And jeans, because always jeans), dressed, and taken care of The Usual Related Activities.

• 7:30ish -- Down to the kitchen, open the door to the back porch for the dogs. Gray skies and rain. I remind Zorro that he needs to get off the porch to Go Pee. Chip is self-monitored
  
• (Except yesterday afternoon when I heard this weird noise like Chip chewing softly on something unusual. Dashed around the corner of my desk and somedog had marked one of the cardboard boxes sitting there with Things To Do in it.  I still don't know for sure who it was  who Done the Deed, because he licks to clean it up so I have no way of knowing who left it there to be cleaned up, and I never catch either of them actually Doing It, and so I don't know whether I heard him peeing or licking. So there was some time mopping the carpet and box, applying Nature's Miracle, and so on. )
  
• Put the doggie door in: The door is clean and dry, unlike yesterday morning when it was covered with rainwater, on both sides, go figure, as it's resting closer to horizontal than vertical, but it gave me an excuse to clean the glass then.
  
• Stride confidently but carefully on my new-ish knee to the driveway in the rain to fetch the daily paper. 

• I always wonder--it's covered in plastic, which supposedly can hold COVID virus for up to 3 days, and moisture and chill encourage it, so how much decontamination must I do on the bag if it has been sitting in the rain for probably 3 hours?  This is the world in which we live now.

•  7:45ish -- What for breakfast? The Chef personally selects a prime cut of whole wheat sourdough from her personal freezer, places it into the high-tech defrosting/warming/browning device (yes! all in one device!), carefully spreads choice fruit puree from the cooling box, and pours a chilled glass of milk from only Happy Cows in California. Served at a private table. And A Baby's Arm Holding an Apple. Or, actually, only the apple.
  
  Eat breakfast, read some of the paper, start scrolling through Facebook on my Portable Time-Wasting Device, catch myself after not too long, and set it down.

• 8:30ish -- I have a 9:15 phone meeting w/client manager; I've been anticipating for the last couple of weeks that, despite earlier reassurances about renewing me, they don't have the work for me that they thought they did. So, anyway, for the client: download, read, and distribute emails or respond to them, check Slack for everyone's work statuses on the teams there, do a wee bit of work.

• 9:15 -- Meeting. Yep. 2 week's notice that contract is ending. One manager thinks there might be work there somewhere else, but nothing so far. My company is also looking for something for me. I REALLY wouldn't mind a couple of weeks off, even if it's unpaid.  But I also really need the income. With my company and my position, this is complicated. Might address in another post.

• With the current employment environment--higher than during the Great Depression in some places, and unemployment organization overwhelmed with applications, no idea whether a job exists anywhere for me.  This is the world in which we live now. 

• 9:25-11: Read client team's agenda for 11:00 meeting, more email, phone call, start this blog post, I dunno, work & leisure intertwined.

• 11:00-11:35 -- WebEx team video meeting. Status, what we're working on, what our plans are, and so on. Actually well organized and efficient, with 2 or 3 instances where some funny comment got us all laughing. Important in these not-really-end times.

• 11:10 -- OMD forgot to feed the dogs around 10! Chip gives me a gentle nudge, I pet him for a bit while continuing in the meeting.

• 11:35 to 1:15 -- Who the heck knows? Chat w/some people at client or at my company via Slack or email.  Feed the poor patient dogs.

• Start reviewing a website with a free How To Become An API Writer course, in writing, not dumb videos, which is exactly the kind of document that I wanted to write for my last project for the client but it turned into something else. This is billable in some form or other, because that's what I'm working on for the client AND for my company.
  
  Glad that I pointed it out to my client's writing team, because there are a couple of experienced writers who don't know the first thing about APIs or programming or documentation for such, and w/out my specifically suggesting it to them, they've already started working their way through it. I expect that they and my client will be enriched by it. So, I'm not the one who wrote it, but I am the one who typed the  link to it (big win for me! Yay! Gold star! Not real gold, though--).

• My mail-order fudge arrived! As did a mail order prescription in a plastic bag. 

• Mailman delivered to my front porch barehanded (well, gloves wouldn't have mattered), but did he disinfect his hands before handling it here or at the PO? Fudge is in a cardboard box, and I have my little spray bottle of alcohol ready; spray the whole  thing down, cardboard as well as the plastic tape holding it closed, because cardboard can hold the virus for possibly 3 hours or longer.   This is the world in which we live now. 

• Had lunch. Half can of spicy bean soup, hot for a cold wet day, combined with a big mug of hot chocolate. Hit the appropriate spot. Down side: Now I want a nap.
• 
  
• 1:15 -- Fudge package has been sitting now for about an hour and alcohol has dried.  I extract my 4 containers with different flavors of fudge (these folks do a PHENOMENAL job!). My order included a free flavor-of-the month, peanut butter banana, which I'd have never chosen on  my own, so I pull it out for a taste test... quarter of a pound later, yep, it's as phenomenal as all the other flavors! Shouldn't be reading paper & eating fudge at the same time.
  
  
• 1:31 -- Call vet to give him status of the lump on Chip's shoulder from a week ago. Looking good to me (so far diagnosis is simply a fluid-filled bruise, which he aspirated, tested blood & checked for cancer indications, and it all looks fine).

• 1:32 -- Bring this blog up to this hour.
  
  
• 1:45 -- OMG I really need a nap. Guess I'd better let work know that I'm taking another break. The day is gray and rainy; I try to survive by turning on every light in sight, but it's just not working for me today. 

• thru 4:00 -- oops, lost track of my time, so the rest of the day  is rough guesses. In bed, reading some, napping some, occasionally getting checked by the dogs, which wakes me some each time. Still, it's relaxing. I know that I'm really ready for sleep when I slip under the covers, put my head down, and everything immediately seems perfectly comfortable and safely enclosing.
  
  Fitbit tells me afterwards that I slept 1 hr 41 mins during that time, which is great, because last night I slept less than 5 hours.

• Thru 10:00 PM -- Some things that happened--
• I thought the yard guy wasn't going to be coming during the COVID lockdown after I paid him through May and said he should stay home if he felt more comfortable doing that; he skipped 2 weeks but showed up today with one or 2 assistants. So, while he was working out front, I went out back and started scooping poops. Seems like only a day or 2since I was out there, BUT there were little deposits everywhere! So my time sense was failing me again. It has been raining for a couple of days, so most of them were wet and heavy and partially melted into the grass, so it took a while. (I know you wanted to know all this.)  Finished just as he came through the gate. 

• We said hi, how are you, I'm good, from across the yard, and I went back inside. This is the world in which we live now.\

• After he left, I decided to go for a walk. (Walked yesterday in the rain with my brolly and barely a soul to be seen.)  Rain stopped much earlier, and things had started to dry out. It's about 6:30 and joggers are everywhere! My side of the street, the other side of the street, the middle of the street--   and I start wondering: 

• If  virus is detectable for up to three hours in aerosols (exhales), then is it safe for me to walk back to the house at all? Well, I'm not going to wait 3 hours, and anyway more people would be coming-- and there is a slight breeze for dispersal. So I go back home, a shorter walk than planned.  This is the world in which we live now.

• I did take a few photos while out. Posted a couple on Facebook. Probably spent a bunch of time on Facebook, too. 

• Ate more fudge. Way more fudge. It is really really really good, and so smooth! Until very recent years, I could eat sugar with impunity--that is, with no detectable symptoms--but in the last, I dunno, 3-4 years, my body starts feeling wonky. Can't describe it exactly, but it happens when I've had too much sugar. So: My body starts feeling wonky.

• I manage to have something small (because not that hungry now) vaguely healthy for supper--finish the rest of the soup, and some nuts?-- with a glass of cold milk, and now the milk is gone! 

• So am I going to go to the store? Scary! Am I going to order & pay extra to have it delivered? Expensive, plus will still have to clean things as they come into the house! How long do I want to go w/out milk? That means no oatmeal or other cereals in the  morning. And nothing to drink with fudge! Crisis!  This is the world in which we live now.

• Did a bunch of puzzles in the paper. Every other Sunday, they have the usual puzzles plus a bonus entire section with more puzzles. Crosswords are my main thing. For years I avoided cryptograms--did them as a kid but then they seemed like too much work. But a year or so ago, I did one out of desperation, and Lo! it wasn't too hard and didn't take too long. (The ones in the paper aren't all that challenging and give one letter for you. I typically finish them in 5-8 minutes, with maybe a max of 15 on occasion. If it's more than that, I do quit because it then *does* feel like work.)
  
  UPDATE April 9: The San Jose Mercury News, because it has hardly enough to fill the daily Sports section, has instead been filling another whole page with just puzzles! Sports have stopped. All sports. Tennis, football, hockey, golf, at high school, college, pro levels. All of it. This is the world in which we live now.
  Doing puzzles to avoid doing actual work or anything here at home that needs doing. Today is a day in which my stress level is high, can't concentrate, can't make even smaller decisions for the most part, feel completely incapable of functioning. 

• Pondering: It has now been 6 days without driving anywhere (back then, it was to the vet and get a few groceries). It was 9 days before that (groceries and Farmer's Market). And I think 10 days before that. I'd rather have it be more more more days w/out breathing other people's air or touching things that other people touch.  This is the world in which we live now.

• 10:00 -- Agreed with dogs that it's time for bed. But-- OMG, did I give them dinner?  I struggle to remember and can't, and I see that I didn't give Chip his mealtime medication. So I give them each about 1/3 of a meal and figure it won't kill them to have extra or to have a little too little this evening.

• 10:20 -- We are all tucked into our beds and crates. I read some but again doze off while reading, then eventually put that away and turn out the light, and it feels like reasonable sleep. Hope so, since the last couple of nights have been iffy. But I did get that nap in the afternoon--.
  
• Update next morning: 6 hrs 47 min sleep per Fitbit. Pretty good, for me.

Related images--

Walked in the rain the previous day. No one around.

Zorro with newspaper in its plastic bag

Who just stole my warm spot on my bed??

Chip resenting having his photo taken with the shaved spot from his shoulder-lump work.

UPDATE APR 9: Sports section with normal half page of puzzles plus
a whole 'nother page because there ain't no sports nowhere nohow!

Odd Story

SUMMARY: The missing boot.

Two weeks ago, I started working at my client's site rather than from my home office. Client has 7 floors of parking garage in each of two different buildings, each level with multiple aisles of parking. Each day that I've been there, I've parked in a different place, on a different floor.

Each floor is painted a different color and has a huge floor number painted in many places. That doesn't always help me--I have to stop and think every evening about where I left MUTT MVR that morning. First three days it was on the first floor twice and a basement floor once, all different spots. Through Wednesday of this week, I've been there 6 other times--have parked on floor 2A, 2B, 3, 4, and 5 (not in that order, of course), and also on the down ramp in the 2nd building's garage.

The point is, somewhere different every time.

OK.

Last weekend, I couldn't stand MUTT MVR's interior mess any more. You know, mess just accrues as I do agility--toss things in, haul them out, rearrange-- or hiking--toss things in, rearrange, haul them out--or just drive around--printed google maps directions, empty fast-food bags and soda cans, things I bought but haven't yet taken into the house... Try to straighten everything out every couple of months but don't always get to it.

Anyway, sick of it. Spent 4 hours Sunday rearranging the car AND the garage to better accommodate things that I regularly put into and take out of the car. Vacuumed the entire car, places I've not vacuumed in years (found more bits of broken window glass). Put everything in its place. No clutter, nothing lying around loose. Perfect.

I was at the office for long days every day, so no chance to mess things up after that, either. At the end of the day Wednesday, i was going to drive to hiking directly from the office. So, at 5 p.m., I neatly hid my computer under my neatly arranged dog gear, pulled my hiking boots out of my hiking pack, tossed them into the front seat, neatly put the pack back in its spot, and neatly pulled my black cover over everything in the back.

Drove up to Palo Alto to meet my hiking group. In the dark, fumbled around on the floor, found one boot, and put it on before even opening the car door (it was cold). Annnnnnd the other boot wasn't there. If the car had been messy, I'd have had a better reason for not finding it, but the car was beautifully clean and neat. I looked anyway. Got out my flashlight to help. Under the seats. (Not there.) Under the black cover somewhere. (Not that I could see.) In the pack in case for some reason I had a brain hiccup and didn't actually pull out both boots, except that I VERY CLEARLy this time remembered having both boots in my hand. (Not there.) Unburied the computer thinking, well, it has to be here SOMEWHERE, right? (Not there.) Everything's messy again, crap. But no boot.

Finally gave up and figured I'd go through the car again when I got home, although quite unclear as to where it could possibly be. Hiked 5 miles in my normal shoes, which fortunately turned out OK.

Raced home and got there JUST in time for a conference call, had a quick dinner, and went to bed. Didn't think about the boot.

Next morning, got up, did a little emergency billable work at home, drove the renter to the auto shop to pick up his car, continued on fairly late in the morning to the client's site. Drove around and around and around through the various aisles on the various floors, looking for a parking spot. Finally found one up on the fourth floor around 11 a.m.

Pulled in, opened the door, got out.

And there was my other boot.

Could You Not Lie Under My Chair Sighing While She Whines and Paces In The Other Room?

SUMMARY: Dogs would like me to know that they are bored.

I've been BUSY. A long day of work, at the client site mostly but quite a bit here on the computer. I have a big deadline! This is important!

We DID go into the back yard and I threw the toy and played tug late this morning. Yes, with YOU TWO specifically, as there are no other dogs here, if you will remember!

SORRY we didn't go for our usual walk; I thought we'd have class!

And it's NOT MY FAULT that it's IT'S RAINING, you guys, and they canceled agility class!

You GOT dinner, fercryinoutloud, WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT?! Leave me alone! I have important stuff I have to do! I'm not in the mood for playing gingerly in the living room! You had the last of the bully sticks last night! Just--Go away!

Some times are just easier without dogs.

Guess I'll go play gingerly in the living room.

Predestiny

SUMMARY: The challenges in trying to schedule my hours.

I'm coming to believe that my life is ruled by exceptions, not by regularity. I am arriving at this revelation based on a week's worth of attempting to schedule out exactly 9 hours of billable working time--more than I usually do--per weekday for a week, and being unable to manage it.

To start with, I assume that I'm schedulable from 7:30 in the morning, about my average time for morning rising, until 10:00 at night, when I (nominally) retire to bed. Subtract 9 hours of work, gives me 5 and a half hours per day for other activities.

It takes me about 3 hours a day to do only the basics--rise, eat breakfast while skimming the morning paper (and doing my average-8-minute crossword), shower, dress, prepare and eat lunch, prepare and eat dinner, do the exercises I'm supposed to do to strengthen my knees, go through my mail, clean the dishes...in short, just get by. I'm not even talking about bonus activities like reconciling my checkbook or doing the laundry.

Dogs consume a lot of my time on top of that. Two days a week, we have agility class (once for Boost, once for Tika), which is 1.5 to 1.75 hours of class time plus gathering oneself and one's dogs to go, driving there, and driving back. That consumes 3 hours each time, so for those two days a week, I have only 2.5 hours in which to do my 3 hours of basics.

But wait-- even on those days, there's just a minimal amount of dog attention that needs to be paid, let's say 10 minutes per dog sometime during the day (and that's not really enough to satisfy them, AND that has to include toenail trimming, hair removal, and such), that's another half an hour per day that's a high priority. More realistically, it's 10 minutes per dog twice a day, or I have bored, impatient, unexercised dogs starting to climb the walls. And even that's a minimum. And they don't count the time in which I'm rearranging or setting up agility obstacles for exercises or picking up 24 hours worth of three dogs' waste matter from around my large yard.

So I'm in arrears already from those 2 days unless I eat my reheated pizza over my keyboard while working, skip the exercises, skip the morning paper, skip the dog exercise--oh, wait, can't do that, dogs go nuts. OK, so I'm not going to manage 9 hours a day on those 2 days.

But the other 3 days should be fine, right? 9 hours of work plus 3 hours of basics plus 1 hour of dog exercise and I actually have 90 minutes of free time for those bonus activities like laundry or grocery shopping or watering the potted plants in the yard so they don't die or mowing the lawn before it overwhelms me.

So here's how my life is ruled by exceptions.

Last Tuesday, I was only a little behind schedule until 6 p.m., just needed 3 hours of billable time to make my daily goal. And a friend who's been living in Germany for the last 2 years calls. He's in town for a day or two. We'd like to get together. The only time our schedules look like they'll match is RIGHT NOW. So I bustle around, vacuuming up the dog hair and washing the dishes so at least there's a semblance of order and cleanliness. Then he's here for 2 hours and I actually kick him out so that I can get back to my billable hours. But I can't manage to stay awake and focused until midnight, so I'm out of luck.

The next day, middle of the day, I'm right on target. I have half an hour scheduled to bip to the bank to make a deposit and to the PO to drop off my bills. I'll sneak in a quick walk around the block with the dogs in a different neighborhood, by the PO. So I load the dogs in the car--and the battery won't go. I spend 10 minutes trying to trick it into starting, but no go. Unload the dogs, call AAA. Then deal with AAA when they get here, and it's not merely a drained battery, it's a battery on its last leg. Then deal with getting a new battery for the car. So I don't make my target that day.

The next day, I'm sitting quietly at my desk, enjoying a post-Christmas nougat, when a crown pops right off my tooth. I grab a paper towel to capture it, but Lo, my full stein of cherry soda is sitting on one edge of the paper towel, and now I have cherry soda all through and under my day timer, all over my desk, into and under the binder with my project info, all through the hardcopies of the document with my notes, and dripping onto the carpet. Cherry soda. There goes 15 minutes dealing with that, then call the dentist. That wasn't a lot of time that day because my dentist was out, but it rolled over into a 2-hour trip and procedure today.

This morning, I'm right on time for leaving the house to get to the dentist, except that as I start down the stairs, Jake vomits all over the wood in the hallway. This isn't something that can be left for later. I have to clean that up and hence am late for the dentist.

And as I'm putting things away, I notice the Discover magazine sitting by my door to remind me that my subscription has inexplicably stopped. This is after I already had to send them a letter a couple of months back, with a copy of my check, saying, "stop sending me past due notices because I sent you a check, here it is, please fix your records." So the past due notices stopped, and then my subscription did, too. So now I have to find the last issue that I received, get another copy of my check, find out when my subscription was supposed to be good through, and write another letter...

And then I have to come home and write about it in my blog. There's another 30 minutes down the tube. So I'll have to stay away for the rest of the week.

Oh, and I forgot to mention--my jaw is now throbbing and is approaching the moan-out-loud state of pain, and that's after a big dose of ibuprofen earlier. It's going to be hard to concentrate on anything requiring any thought at all, and if I take a codeine that'll put an end to any brainular function whatsoever. Tra la.