"I'm Baaaack"

Last week I went on vacation and I got high. Almost 10,ooo feet high, to be exact. (For those of you who were thinking of another 'high", shame on you).
Anyway, I hopped on a plane May 1st to cross the pond to fly to Denver. I was actually nervous about this trip to America, b/c according to "Fox News" there was a chance everyone would be dead because of the Swine Flu. I was relieved to see that wasn't the case!
Had a great time visiting with my Aunt and Grandfather and my sister and her beau. We spent some time exploring the Rocky Mountains and taking lots of pictures of nature and the wild life out there. I'm sure the locals were aware that we were tourists b/c we were waaay too excited about seeing roaming Elk, Antelope, and Buffalo. But when you don't see it all the time it's quite interesting.

I even invested in some real cowboy boots from Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Yeehaw!!

Vay-cay

My blog went on vacation for a little while. (I'd like to think it went to Cabo San Lucas). Apparently I was supposed to notify people of this...b/c they were wondering what happened. And I thought people didn't care about my blog! In the future I'll post a memo.

While my blog was on vay-cay I was actually busy. It's spring time now and I've been doing some spring cleaning and spending a lot of time outdoors. Last Friday I put 25 miles on my bicycle. It was fabulous. I saw parts of Germany in this area that I've never seen before. We came across a new lake, but we didn't stop...maybe next time. I can't begin to describe how much I enjoy hopping on my bike at my house and riding for miles on safe paths through the country side and into other countries (primarily Holland). It's quite exhilarating. The myriad of bike paths are one of the perks of Europe I'll miss the most. Along with feeling very safe here.

Yesterday was Kevin's birthday. (I guess I should clarify for people who read this drivel and don't know me, that Kevin is the nice guy I married and George is our wonderful puppy dog). Anyway, we went to an awesome furniture store and Kevin bought me a new leather living room set. He said it's his anniversary gift to me. Our anniversary is next Wednesday. I was stoked!

And we're taking a trip to Schwarzwald, also known as The "Black Forest", next Thursday. I'm really looking forward to that. It's beautiful down there for hiking through the country side and Germany's largest waterfalls are located there. I'm sure it'll be very picturesque. Of course George is coming with us. He loves to take walks so this trip will be right up his alley. By the time we leave Europe he will be one of the most cultured dogs I've ever known! Rad!

For now I need to quit "blogging" and go make a "Tres Leche" cake for a cook-out with friends tomorrow. Kevin keeps asking me when I'm going to make it because it's almost 10pm now. I keep telling him when I finish typing this. Then we're going to play a round of golf on the Playstation 2. It's our latest addiction.

So this is my life right now. It sound really rough, doesn't it? I know, I know!

Grrrrr....

It seems like I've been blogging about George a lot lately, but I don't have any kids so it seems appropriate. (And people with kids talk and blog about them ALL the time....so, you know). If you don't want to read another blog on George, then don't read what follows.
Anyway, we've been taking lots of walks. My favorite walk is in the evening after dinner, we usually walk behind our village and go visit the horses. There are 2 different horse farms behind us. The very first time George encountered a horse he was afraid and he barked...a lot. Of course. But now he's used to them. So much so that he actually likes horses better than he likes other dogs. But he's always been a snob about other dogs. (Which, once again we attribute to his French-ness. He can be a snooty little French man). He doesn't bark at the horses anymore he just goes up to the fence to get a good whiff of them. (Although from what I can usually smell it's NOT good).
George is also getting to be more social with people. More and more he'll walk right up to strangers to sniff them, and lick their hand. I think that's his way of saying, "Hey. S'up? I'm George."

He's also turning out to be a cool little dog. Case in point:
There's a big, black dog down the street. Anytime he sees someone walking by he snarls and barks extremely loud and obnoxiously. And naturally when I walk by with George he turns all Cujo. This dog scares us. Even though he's behind a fence it's not very tall. It's actually a green little picket fence. I'm certain if he wanted to he could jump it without any problem. I've deemed this monster dog George's arch nemesis. So the other day we're walkin by and this dog starts his tirade against us from behind the fence as usual. Apparently George had had enough because he barked at him once, then he promptly turned around and backed up on the grass and he pooped right in front of that dog. And he pooped alot! I thought the moster dog was going to lose his mind after that. (And then I really thought he was gonna jump that fence, so we beat feet and got the hell out of there)! That's the only time I wasn't a good citizen and didn't scoop up George's mess, but I wasn't taking any chances by sticking around.

I think that was George's way of telling the mean dog to "Piss off!"

That's my boy.

It's Here

Spring has finally made its presence known here in Germany. Everybody and everything has come out of hibernation mode.

It's time for long evening walks and bike rides.

Sore throat, be damned...I'm going to indulge in both this week!

"Where's The Rest Of Me?"

Ronald Reagan was once in a movie called "King's Row." His character has his legs amputated by a sadistic surgeon, and when he wakes up to see his limbs missing he screams, "Where's the rest of me?" It was a film that made him famous, and was much better than most of his movies. (Where else but America can a guy go from making B movies to leader of the most powerful nation in the world! What a great country we live in)!
Anyway, George was neutered on Wednesday and I kept thinking of Reagan screaming that line when George would look down at his sutures. When we first brought him home from the vet I felt really bad. He was still out of it from the anesthesia, he was just dead weight and his little tongue kept falling out of his mouth. He was pitiful. But by later that evening he was totally fine, and back on his feet, racing around the house.

Having your pet spayed or neutered is the responsible thing to do. You can go to the ASPCA's website to read all about that. So over time we should see some slight changes in Georgie, all for the better. But overall he's already a great dog.

Kevin's always telling me that George respects boundaries. When I see George jump up on people and ram his cold little nose in their crotch, I kinda doubt the "respecting boundaries" thing. But that's minor in the grand scheme of things.

Yesterday Kevin also swore to me that George can differentiate between his left and his right. And while I don't doubt George's intelligence, I know humans who have a rough time with the left side, right side concept.

All of this is neither here nor there. Even though Georgie has been completely emasculated, he still walks down the street all studly in his little bitchin red plaid coat.

Gesudheit

It's spring time in Germany, which means a hodge podge of weather from all seasons in the span of one day. Case in point: yesterday a.m. I was driving George to the vet, it was 36 degrees, sprinkling, and I saw some snowflakes. At mid-day the wind picked up...it was wicked wind, and blowing in about 5 different directions all at once. (Nobody warned me about the wind in Germany). Then the rain came...I would say it was a torrential down pour, except that it wasn't coming down, it was raining sideways. Around 4:30pm I was driving to the bowling alley and I went through a hail storm and the temp dropped about 6 degrees within a few minutes. By the time I got to the base and bowling alley the sun was shining. This is what March in Germany is all about.
It's also about dealing with allergy problems. Red itchy eyes, stuffed up nose, runny nose, sniffles, congested head, etc, etc. Looking like you've just put in time at a Rick James coke party is not a good look at all.
Kevin (who swore he didn't have allergy problems) was referred to an ENT specialist down in Landstuhl, which is 3 hours away. They ran tests (probably to make it look official)and then gave him a bunch of maximum super strength Sudafed. A 6 hour drive for some souped up Sudafed!
Although I'm pretty sure we have enough to start our own Meth lab down in the basement now.

Down(ey) Time

If you think that I don't have much to blog about, or I'm just tired when I post a video on here, then you'd be right...about half the time. And, yes I am sleepy now (thanks to some Benadryl) but I also think this video is worth sharing.
I could blog a lot on how much I like Robert Downey Jr. But I'll spare you. However I will say it's a shame it took this long for his talents to be catapulted into the mainstream. (They are making an "Iron Man" sequel). This guy has been around for a while...and mega talented. It's nice to see him finally getting his due, and not making headlines for scoring crack and bouncing around from swanky rehab to rehab.
But I do think the crabby old men who sit on the Academy Awards board were smoking crack when they passed him over for the Best Actor Oscar for "Chaplin."
I can watch this movie countless times and it's still as exciting to me as the first time I saw it in the theater when I was 14.
And he can sing too! Check it out.