Whining, Training, and Nashville.

The alarm clock woke me up this morning for the second day in a row. That never happens. I’m always awake before the alarm clock. I don’t suppose it’s a sign of impending Apocalypse, though. Just exhaustion. My back hurts. Other regions hurt. I’m tired. I’m whiney. I’d rather not have to sit with myself today, but I just won’t go away.

KfH is still stealing pumice from the cactus planting. We don’t know how she’s getting to it, but there was a complete kitten paw print obvious in the dust on top of the shelves when we looked last night. (And here everybody thought I wasn’t dusting because I was lazy! Mais non, I was leaving the dust there to collect incriminating evidence!) I’m beginning to wonder if tying lead weights on her isn’t an option. They do it with race horses, after all.

I started working with KfH last night, teaching her to “come” and “sit”. It will take weeks until it sinks in, but she’s at least caught on that there is two way communication going on, and that something is expected of her. She even sits, although she only keeps her butt on the ground for a millisecond or so before she forgets herself and tries to come after her treat. She’s quite taken with Pounce dental control treats, so I have a good reward to use on her.

I tell poor Clueless Wonder (who already does come, sit, beg and “high five”) to sit during all this, but he forgets after a few minutes and tries to butt in to do the trick for her. I suppose I should stick him in another room during the early stages of KfH’s training, but I want them to be able to differentiate between each other’s commands, so I’ll stick it out a few days longer.

I’ve been paging though the AVMA convention schedule for this year. This time it’s in Nashville, July 13-17. If I drive down, I can take the 12th and 18th as travel days. That will make a nice break from work, without me having to take any vacation time.

I’ve never attended the General Sessions of any of these, and I doubt this year will be an exception. Terry Bradshw is giving a talk on “The Future is a World Without Limits.” I personally don’t believe I’d care to live in a world without limits. I’d probably fall off the edge.

I never go to Family Night at these things either. This year they’ve got Charley Pride lined up for that. The cookout is featuring things like fried pickles and hot wings. Sounds like a good night to check out the finer local restaurants.

The only big surprise is there are only two hotels with convention rates to choose from (usually there are at least six). One is $113/night, and the other $167/night. I’ve always been able to keep the figure well down into the double digits for my company before. I’ll be curious to see if they balk at sending me this year because of the cost. Can’t say I’d blame them.

I’ve loaded pictures of my Gumby collection to my Atomic Album. If it seems worth the bother, I’ll stick them in my diary later today.