Here it is Christmas Day and I am here all alone, excepting for my pooch, Addler.  The folks here apparently had a change of mind and are spending the entire day at a friend's house not far away.  Considering it's 3:16 pm, I am decidely not going to cook that roast today.  They are likely eating over there and I am not going to cook that big of a feast just for myself.  It will go back into the refrigerator and cook it tomorrow or Sunday.

However, if I had known this, I would have changed my plans considerably.  I'm not necessarily wanting to spend Christmas alone.  I'm not feeling sorry for myself nor having a pity party, I'm just a people oriented person and Christmas is my favorite holiday of the entire year, it kinda sucks that I am sitting home, alone.  John Wayne movies on all day, though, that's a plus.

I'm seriously considering treating myself and pup to a La Quinta Inn overnight stay.  Yup, they take any size dog.  I know this because I have a friend that breeds Danes and she stays at La Quinta all the time, including taking a Dane to the pool!  I don't think she lets it swim, just you usually cannot leave a dog in a room unattended.  I haven't decided.

Meanwhile, I found a doggy park both here where I live and a much larger one in Longview.  I really want to get Addler off the leash onto a large plot of land where he can run freely.  No longer living on 36 acres, which I do miss but certainly not the "company" that went along with it, he is a very active dog and I would like to give him opportunity to have some free running range - that is fenced.  When I figure I can trust him to come back to me without having to chase him, then I can just take him out to public land where he can run as free as the wind.

__________________________________________________

8 hours later. lol
They came home.  Are you still going to make dinner?  Umm, well I thought you
guys would have already eaten.  It will be 7 to 8 before we eat. We'll be up. lol
Okay.  I got everything out and prepared a pretty darn good meal if I do say so myself.
After that, I went out on the front porch to enjoy beautiful weather.  That's when I was invited
over to the next door neighbor's - the Sheriff's house.  Okay, I could use some company in the
midst of gentlemen.  Sure enough, there were 3 of them out there and they were all very cool
people.

I sat out there for 3 hours cutting the bull with them and laughing it up, ended up being a
much better day in the socialization department than I could have imagined.  Well actually it was longer than that cause' it's past midnight, wayyyy past my bedtime!  No biggies, don't have to get up early tomorrow and allegedly rain's a coming.

I learned quite a bit about law enforcement social life, never really been exposed to that before.  They were smoking expensive cigars and drinking high dollar liquor.  I had a few drinks, but I stopped after a couple.  I don't need or want to drink all night long. They were drinking and drinking and drinking, but they weren't drunk.  They must drink a lot ot have that kind of tolerance.  I'm not judging them, I was happy to be in the company of some cool people having good conversation.  I just guess I didn't expect to see that.

Well, Turned into a very pleasant day.  I still like the idea of spending a day/night at La Quinta though : )

The Night before Christmas.
Not a lot going on here.
Got up late, went to several stores, got my haircut and came home.
Was messing around with Addler and the other dogs when the next
door neighbor kids come up to the fence.  Addler was getting agitated
by one of the puppies that simply won't leave him alone - until he deals
with it.  The puppy attacks him, bites him and that's when Addler digs
into the dog.  I mean, gets on top of it, pounds his paw down on it, flings
it to the ground and lets it know who's boss.  The puppy decided to try to
bite him anyway, which is when Addler - gave it right back to him.  No blood drawn, but I am not going to fault him for defending himself against a stupid dog that doesn't seem
to understand that Addler is at least 5 times bigger than the puppy and the puppy
needs to stop.

The puppy - it's not a small, it's about 50 pounds now - started howling carrying on
in fear and went whimpering off.

I gave Addler a cowhide chew bone which is when he went crazy!  I don't know WHAT
gets into that dog's mind! He started jumping and throwing it around, picking it up, jumping
- we're talking at least 5 feet up in the air - playing with this chew bone.

One of the kids came over the fence which is when Addler started misbehaving.  He has this
habit of "biting" a person's arm - taking it into his mouth and applying a little pressure to it.
It's not even close to drawing blood but it definitely got that kid running for his life!  He jumped
up on the 4 wheeler - but I got a hold of Addler by then and got it stopped.  I like messing around
with the dog but some things I just can't allow him to do for if he does it to someone else, they
are going to be terrified.  He's definitely a rough houser - when I came up to him today he jumped
up, hit me square in the chest with his right paw and just about knocked me on my @$$.

I like playing around with dogs, but I have to think about what would happen if he did that to
someone else.

Then the kids started asking to ride the 4 wheeler.  Don't care, really, but you need parent's
permission.  Dad is a county sheriff, if he says it's okay to ride around the neighborhood on a
4 wheeler then I have no problem with it. They already let them do it on a smaller one, but still.
Well, it turned into it's own event.  Neighborhood kids came over, landlady had asked them to kill
the squirrels - the dogs just bark and bark and bark at them - so, I guess for riding the 4 wheeler
they decided to take care of the squirrel population. Turns out the neighborhood kids are avid,
experienced and good hunters, having had killed both deer and pigs, but also kill squirrels.

They skin them and get the meat off of them, freeze it and wait until they have enough to feed
the entire family a meal of squirrel meat, proclaiming it tastes just like chicken.  I kinda have
a problem with just killing animals to kill them, but if they actually eat them, another story entirely.
It is an interesting place, out here.  Those kids are going hunting tonight.  Out in someone's property.
They get dropped off there and spend the entire night out there waiting on pigs.  The property owner
doesn't want the pigs around, just the deer.  They're pretty destructive animals, farmers hate them - pigs that is.

Well, after all of that was over with, I decided to try and make a cheese dip recipe I found on AllRecipes.com.  The ingredients looked like it wold make an excellent dish, however, it turned out mediocre at best.  Just not that good for what was in it.  Yes, I can follow a recipe and yes I made it exactly as the directions said to, it just didn't taste that good.  A large waste of Monterrey Jack, cream cheese and other ingredients. Oh well.  Some recipes turn out great, others you remember very well so you don't ever make it again!

Ate it anyway - well enough to satisfy my desire for some cheese dip anyway - the rest is going into
'the trash can.  Oh, and I tried to get Addler in to the vet today, but, they were closed.  His right eye is tomato red and has been for a while. I want to get whatever is needed to get that done and over with.

And then I was asked a question today. The landlady sees Valerie twice a week at her work.  That relationship has cooled considerably since the divorce.  What messages is Valerie talking about? she asks me.  No clue, what are you talking about?  She says she has gotten messages since you got divorced about something you are doing.  Ummm, not from me.  I don't talk to her at all. She is spreading some more poison about me, which isn't unexpected.  I have no connection with her at all at this point, whatever messages she is saying she is receiving? Probably total BS just designed to try and continue to get my landlady to evict me.  It's whatever.

I then got a Facebook message from a lady I have known since the 80's asking if I were going to be seeing Val for Christmas? Ummm, no, we are divorced.  Ohhh, she replies, I didn't know, she blocked me on Facebook and I don't know what's going on.  Well, she blocked just about everyone on Facebook that has anything to do with me and asked her friends and family to unfriend/block me as well.  Another non-surprising move on her part.  Which is why I have decided against giving Nathan the 4 wheeler.  I'm not giving a thousand dollars worth of a motorized toy to a person I can't even talk to.  It is still perplexing to me that her best friend still hasn't unfriended/blocked me.  I continue to "like" things on her Facebook wall to see if she just forgot.  But Val wouldn't have let her forget.  I have no idea.  Just strange to me.

So, tomorrow - a few hours from now - is Christmas and first time I'll not be spending it with any loved ones in quite a long time  I could have gone home, though, I just didn't want to go until Caleb returns from Portland.  I will have used up a large amount of vacation hours after this week's vacation and time I took last month off, so, need to keep some available to see him.  But, Wanna Get Away fare, round trip from Dallas to Phoenix - $81.  I doubt that will last long but I can't just make plans to go back without having a definitive return date for Caleb.

Vacation to Mississippi draws to a close.  A big shout out and thanks to Fin and Bethany for showing exceedingly wonderful hospitality and generosity for alowing me the privilege of staying in their home wiht my newest beloved dog, Addler. IL acquired Addler froma loving family about 5 to 6 weeks ago, he was an outside only dog.  For having only been with me for the short  time he has, I think he is doing a very good job of adapting and getting used to my ways of doing things.  His behavior on this trip was mostly very well behaved.  He hada  few lapses, but nothing too serious.

Anyway, it was nice, once again, to get away from the entire geographical region that encompasses all the memories of Valerie, her kids and everything else that went on there.  Not that I spend much time dwelling on that anyway, but getting away from there is good for the soul and heart.
I still have no sense of direction as to what to do next, I'm sorta waiting on word from work about pay raise and/or promotion, which would be an automatic pay raise.  I'm not necessariy holding out hopes to high, for it's been quite a while since I made the initial request and the GM had completely forgotten about it.  Which, frankly pissed me off at first.

Make a decision either way and give it to me.  But now, they are hoping to get the fired driver back on the payroll.  If they can do that, they won't care whether I stay or go.  He was the one released when he failed a drug test and came back positive for THC.  That's what's in marijuana that mmakes you high.  Automatic termination in our company, corporate policy.  He showed up last week with some paperwork in hand.  I didn't know our company allowed re=hire after that kind of termination, but apparently he believes so.  I am not interested in things reverting back to the way they were when he was there.  I got along well with the dude, no doubt, but he was doing things that weren't really all that great.  It was clsoing time at 4 to him, sit aorund for an hour until 5 and do nothing.

Anyway, I also got to meet Tammy - a long time internet friend started wayyyy back when when a blogging site called Journalspace existed and a bunch of us got to know each other.  Even after it crashed and went away forever, I was able to keep informed on the thigns she was doing and her kids and everything that was going on in her life.  It was pretty cool, really to finaly get to see her and catch up on old times.  She gave a standing invitation to come down and visit them and go out on their boat on the ocean for some sea fishing.  It just totally escaped me how relatively close Florida is to Mississippi even though I have driven I-10 countless times, but nothing recently.

There is a window of opportunity right now unlike any other anyone has seen in quite a long time to take a road trip for the extremely low price of fuel.  I saw it for $1.54 per gallon heading out of Mississippi today.  That opportunity is just how much longer will gas prices be this low? A month? 3 months? A year? I saw a story saying htat gas prices will likely not go back up significantly for at least 2 years.  But, "they" were completely wrong about forecasts of 5, 6 and even 7 dollar per gallon fuel that we would be experiencing right now if they had been right.  Regardless, even though I'm not the biggest fan of driving anymore, anything under a day's drive is fair game as far as I'm concerned.

Well, another 2 or so more hours and this trip will be done, be at home, Addler get to play with his friends.  I'm pretty glad that I still have 4 more days off after today before going back to work.  As for other things, I have almost convinced myself at this point that giving Nathan that 4 wheeler is not such a great idea.  I can imagine how I will feel giving away a grand worth of machinery to a person I can't even write letters to, much less text or message online.  How many people would give away something like that to someone they know but can't even have a short discussion with?  Probably not many.  Not a single person I have brought this subject up to has stated that it would be a good idea to give him teh thing, either.  So, I am going to write her after I get back and situated and let her know I am going to make plans to come and get it.  I probably won't feel too good about the 'getting it' part, but after I get it home I will be good with it.  I have no place to  use them, actually, but they are worth money and I can sell them either for or near what I paid for them. Speaking of which, the next door neighbor's son got sideswiped by a vehicle last week. No, the kid should not have been driving it on the street, at the same time, hit and run is a pretty serious offense.  I don't know what happened to the kid, his dad is a Sheriff, lol, but the driver of that vehicle frequently comes speeding through there - 45 at least in a 25 zone.  That individual lost their license because of it.

Anyway, my next vehicle is very likely going to be a truck so I may just keep them until I can haul them to the nearest place with riding trails.

Well enough for this entry.

Just a quick entry.
I had opportunity to sit down with my current manager
(versus the new one coming in whenever that is going to officially take place)
and have a "discussion".  I'm not going to sit around work and have all of these
issues unfolding before my eyes and not have anything to say about it.  First off is the
temperament - that's what I called it and though that is normally an adjective to describe
the state of a dog's or other animal's ability to get along with who or whatever - I thought
the word very fitting for the dude coming in.

Because that guy has a short fuse (this was told to me twice in the last few days by a few
people), gets angry easily, has a mouth and will yell at workers.  He AIN'T yelling at me,
not without consequences.  My manager replied saying yes, and we are talking to him about
that.  He used to be a heavy drinker but no more and he has calmed down quite a lot since
the days of his anger fits.

That did very little to reassure me and I brought up the fact that every time I say hi to the man,
he completely and utterly ignores me, and yes, he definitely hears me.  Turns his head, stares
at me and moves on.  My manager to a look on his face.  Well, he's going to HAVE to be good
with EVERYONE, he states and I can only hope that I at least got it in the mix that this guy is
a potential problem so don't be shocked if it comes back to them after these changes are officially
implemented that this kind of behavior has started to occur.

Several people indicated they would not work for him - but usually that is all talk and no action.
Especially a couple of them that would have no other job prospects if they were to try and leave.
I have a MUCH different situation, I could easily find a new job today - that would be just anyhing
I could find type of job of course, if I wanted to.  Finding a better job would take more time as I
would have to search them all out in this area and find the good ones and apply.

The second thing was the money situation.  I brought that up to him again and he said he was going
to lunch today with the general manager and he would talk to him about it.  I want to get this done
and over with - one way or the other - before the "new" manager takes over. He then went into asking
me what my goals are with the company?  Would you like to take the warehouse manager';s position when Tony retires? Of course.

Well time's up. More later when I find out more info.

Well, that was interesting.
We had a meeting at work after the day was done.
The things that were rumored - were brought out as fact.
A salesman is moving to Baton Rouge to be branch manager.
My manager is taking his position. The complete, total and all around
jerkoff purchasing officer is going to take my manager's position.
I VERY much dislike this man.  His history preceeds him.  He has
no personality.  He does not return gesstures of hi and how ya doing?
He looks at you funny but says nothing back.

The man has a temper, for one thing.  I absolutely do NOT tolerate
managers raising their voice at me or yelling.  But then again, neither does
corporate policy. Which doesn't mean anything, really. They may not condone
it but nothing would be done about it.  I am sitting here thinking of starting to
put in applications.  For the other thing that totally irked me today? The
General Manager.  Have you come to a decision on the money request?  He
looks at me blankly.  Remember we discussed a raise 2 months ago?  He had
to think about it.  Obviously, he had completely forgotten about the entire thing.

Which I find offensive.  But it's whatever.  I give up benefits to go work somewhere
else but I get more money if nothing else.  I was going to wait until after the New Year but with today's revelations I have changed my mind. Time to start looking now. This new manager has a huge chip on his shoulder and is an angry person.  He is a brown noser and two-faced - puts on a good show for his management peers but has nothing but sourness for everyone else and that, in my mind, doesn't bode well for a potential manager/employee relationship. I'm really trying to attempt to see how this could actually work out.  But he's also a micro-manager and I detest that.  I'm good with management doing what they are supposed to do, I do NOT need or WANT a pesron looking over my shoulder.

Well, whatever.  Spent a great deal of time perusing pictures and going through profiles on Plenty Of Fish. Lots of potentials, but lots of ladies that don't seem to get on to their profiles too much.  I paid for a month of it, so I'm going to try it for a month and if it doesn't pan out, moving on to Match.com.
I am so distracted by work right now.

It's Christmas time and I'm sitting here with all of this going on, freshly divorced.  Oh well.  My doggy loves me : )

How to give your dog antibiotics pills

I am writing this particular entry for those that are having a hard time getting their dogs to take whatever pills you are wanting them to take (and I would like to insert here to NEVER give your dog Tylenol/aceteminophine or aspirin for pain, only give them ibuprofen).  Mine is the easiet, most effective way to get it done and is over with in a few seconds.

There are sites all OVER the internet that tell you to hide pills in their dog food, rolled up in a piece of cheese, hidden in meat, whatever.  Dogs have a very keen sense of smell, they can smell that thing in there and more often than not either won't eat what you are attempting to hide the pill in or will "remove" the pill and then eat the treat.

The following works, every single time, without fail:  Get a hold of the dog's snout (from the top), pull up and open his mouth.  Put the pill on your fingertips and stick it as far back in his mouth as you can get it.  Then, with one finger only, push the pill all the way to the back of his mouth.  Let go of his snout, lift his head up a little and massage his throat gently.  The dog has no choice but to swallow the pill.  Actually, if you get the pill far enough in the back of his mouth, you need not do anything else, he won't be able to eject it with his tongue.

If he is able to spit it out, then you simply did not get it far enough back. I doubt I am the only person to ever have done this, but I developed this method on my own after having had enough of spending far too much time trying to trick the dog into eating pills.  This method literally only takes seconds once you get the hang of it and works every single time.