Retro Pictures

Years ago in college Karen and I would sit in the photo booth and take those tacky little black and white instant photo sets. Today we relived those times 30 years later at the local mall.

It's Called Acting, My Dear!

My better half and I were adopting out cats at Petco for our rescue group when I got the strangest request. Our president had gotten word that a chihuahua mix dog was dumped at the local kill shelter by a cretin. Since the dog had a bad knee and was 7 years old the chances of his being euthanized was excellent. The head of the humane shelter is a twit who refuses to work with any of the local rescue groups since she feels they are competing with the shelter. She is a very mean-spirited, nasty person who would rather kill animals than see them adopted. I was asked to go in, wearing my rescue group shirt, and somehow adopt this dog so the group could get it proper medical attention and then later find a good home for him.

The nasty woman grilled me about my affiliation with the group. "Oh, my wife volunteers for the group but I'm here because my good friend (never met him before, sorry!) had dumped this precious dog that I had bonded deeply with and I wanted to adopt my longtime buddy and take him home. The dog, Kiwi, played his part by licking my face when I held him up. "Oh, I missed you so much, you little scoundrel!" (never met Kiwi before, either!) "You are going to be SO happy in your new home! How horrible that Robert had dumped you. (that's about the only truthful thing I had said so far) " About 10 more minutes of complete bulls**t along this line and the head lady was convinced I had known Kiwi and his former owner for years. I signed the papers and strode out with Kiwi. The little dog now is with the head of our group and will see the vet Monday. If all goes well in a few weeks he will be able to go to a great family. As for me, I will just take a little bow, knowing that this was a better performance than any of my roles in little theater productions over the years, and for a much better cause. As the character in Saturday Night Live said, "It's ACTING!!" The funniest and most ironic thing about this whole idiotic episode is that when they brought out Kiwi into the main office he promptly pooped all over their nice clean floor. Now THAT was true acting!!

Getting in touch with the menagerie again

Now that I'm back home for most of the summer I have time to relax and spend more time with our 8 cats, bird, and bunny.

Luvey loves the attention I give her.

The bunny Peter is also very excited to have me to play with.

On the other hand, Freddie is too relaxed to do much more than open his eyes.

Changes

It's the end of another school year. I'm kicking back in my easy chair with a nice Honduran cigar just taking it easy. My keys are turned in, the class is empty, and all is right with the world.

I just found out that one of our assistant principals, Kathy, is moving to another high school in the county. She was here for the past 7 years. We've butted heads a few times and I haven't always bought into her idea of what a good school should be, but overall Kathy did a lot to keep our old school chugging along smoothly. Goodbye Kathy. I just hope her replacement is good.

Adoption Day!

We are home after another day of adopting out cats at Petco for our group Goliath and Bebe's World. We had a fairly successful day with 3 adoptions, but we also had 2 cats returned because of being incompatible with the households. (sigh) This is Maisey, one of our adoptions. Here is a picture of Maisey and her happy new owner, a local teacher.

It was a busy day doctoring the cats with upper respiratory vaccine, flea treatments, worm treatments, and snipping spay sutures. I only got scratched once while working with the cats, which is a good day for me!

No A/C

All my grades are now in. I stayed in my room for a few hours today but there is something wrong with the air conditioning on our hallway and it got up to a humid 83 degrees F. That's not bad until I tried to move around and pack up a few items. Whew! I went back home at 1 PM and completed some paperwork in cool comfort. It's one thing to want to finish the year but with a heart condition I'm not going to kill myself in the process. I'm about wrapped up anyway. One more hour of work and turning in papers and everything will be wrapped up until next year. This summer is pretty much free except for a workshop on website design and one on producing an Anatomy exit exam and pacing guide. These are both in June. Whee! I can almost see the end of the trail where I will get a few days of rest.

This is progress??

My wife and I have been walking 4-5 miles each afternoon down our local country road. The nice thing about walking is that it lets you get a closer view of the area than you would ever experience from a car.

There are a number of charming old country homes along our route.

Unfortunately, "progress" has come to our little country road in the form of expansions and several large housing developments. I hate the destruction of our area's rural charm. The entire road will one day be nothing but transplanted palm trees, landscaped vistas, and rows of tacky houses wedged side by side. I guess one day soon we will have to move on and find an unspoiled place to live in for retirement. I'll be damned if I'll be a part of the new plastic culture that passes for progress here in Florida.

Pig Rustling

I have a Masters degree for this??? It was Senior prank day and unfortunately I arrived early at school. I was met in the hallway by a cute little pig who was terrified. After running him into my office I checked the other halls and found another pig wandering around. I went to the office and told the principal. He had already found a couple more wandering in the courtyard. We went back upstairs and I helped round up the two pigs there. Our custodian grabbed them with a loop and rod, but I was afraid he was going to hurt them so I grabbed the guys and tried to calm them down by petting them and talking soothingly. They were farm animals and had obviously not been handled much. We eventually found 6 pigs at the school and they were relocated. Cleaning up pig poop completed a lovely early morning workout. I just wish they wouldn't use live animals for their yearly pranks as it scares the poor guys to be put in such a situation.

Guilty Pleasures - Queen

I'm sitting here on an early Sunday afternoon listening to Queen, Live at Wembley. They are one of the most underrated groups of the past 40 years.

Lord, When WIll It Ever End?

Tiredness envelops and cloaks me. We have 2 more weeks of teaching before the blessed freedom of summer comes. I flog myself awake in the morning and wait for the coffee to do its magic one more time.

I got my schedule for next year but at this time I don't know if I will be able to keep my old room. I will be teaching a combination of Biology Honors and Anatomy/Physiology Honors. This means I will be getting a good group and it should be an enjoyable experience. This is my field and though I tried hard this year with the physical science class I never really felt comfortable with the subject. Biology and Anatomy are my true passions and I can put a lot of enthusiasm into those courses.

Tommy and Sir Francis Won!!

It's official. The photo I submitted of Tommy and Sir Francis (R.I.P.) will be the featured photo on the Hot Buns 2008 calender for the month of September! This is a cute calender put out by a rabbit rescue group that benefits the adoption of rabbits in a wide area. I will post details on where to get the calender when they come out. In the meantime, here is the winning photo of my old friend Sir Francis and his bonded buddy Tommy Cat.