After my brother picked us up from the airport, the next person to greet us was ... you guessed it... this guy!
Love, love, love, LOVE him! We just had a chill night. I stayed up and talked to my mom a bit, then me and Mike kind of relaxed and lazed around. I think we soaked in the hot tub for a bit too (I'm glad we got it fixed). Then my family came over (mostly people from my mom's side, with my aunt, uncle, other aunt, and grandma only from my dad's side) to have a potluck dinner. Originally, it was for Liza's baby shower, but she had some minor complications and was bedridden (she should be doing fine). My mom decided that, because everyone had cleared their schedules, we might as well make it a reunion of sorts anyway, so that's what we did. The food was great, although I spent most of the time grilling skewers of chicken, shrimp, beef, and veggies. My mom's side is ethnically Chinese, but they lived in Indonesia, so we had a bunch of homemade Indonesian cooking. I haven't had it for awhile...Everything was delicious!
The next day, we had a little time to take a break before taking care of some job-search related matters, so Mike and I went back to some of my favorite old haunts in my old neighborhood, before we moved to our new house, as a treat to Barley and a treat for us. :) Barley loves to chase the ground squirrels, although the one time he caught a baby one, he had no idea what to do with it. He just sniffed it and licked it's head and then, puzzled, he let it go. What a gentle giant... but still. He loves running after these guys. Now that he's fatter, and there aren't any defenseless babies left unawares, he can't get close to catching them. That's why I let him chase them...but this time, this school administrator informed me that elementary school classes were in session, so I couldn't let him run around off-leash. Poor guy was straining! And poor Mike kept getting yanked around. Good thing Mike is still much stronger than Barley, or else we'd have trouble controlling him. Barley has been cooped up way too long; my mom has trouble walking him due to her arthritis, and my brother is super busy with work. Poor puppy. Oh well. We decided we would just take him to the creek and maybe...MAYBE let him into the water. We let him sniff around off-leash for a bit, and before we could call him back, he shot toward the stream and got half-way wet...we figured, what the heck. Might as well let him have some fun and wade in for a bit ourselves. So we did. I always feel like Huck Finn when I do that. :)
After our walk, after Barley thought his day couldn't get any better....it got worse (for him). We had to give him a bath. I am sorry to say, he did not enjoy himself. We scrubbed him with special dog shampoo, hosed him down in the yard, and he shook dirty soap-water and then cleaner soap-suds at us, and then soapy water, and then just water. He definitely smelled better, that's for sure. Although afterward, he ran around the backyard like a mad-man(dog), zig-zagging this way and that and rolling around (at least the law is relatively clean in our backyard), shaking, pawing the grass, and otherwise engaging in ridiculous antics. I miss seeing him do silly things like that, the rascal. A small part of me is excited to go back to school and ready to get started again (one year closer to leaving law school forever, right?). I am definitely sad to leave this goofy bugger at home, though. I really wish I could take him with me. I would force myself to walk him, because I do that at home even when I have more exciting things to do. I have no exciting things to do in Ithaca, so he'd be a priority. Walking him would work me out, though, making me move more than I usually do while I'm at school so I'd be healthier too. Plus, he's just such a joy. Naughty sometimes, but still a joy indeed. I miss you already, Barley! Even your stinky smells. Goodbye, and I hope you miss me a little bit too.
He'll definitely miss you. No doubt about it.
Posted by: LBeeeze | August 27, 2010 at 09:54 PM