Jackie and Angel's First Adventure in the New House

When Jackie and Angel were little, we allowed them to sleep in the bed with us. As they got bigger my wife felt they should sleep on the floor in our room. Angel didn't have a problem with that idea, but it took a few nights before Jackie got used to the idea, but she ultimately did, and all was well.

Jackie, Angel, and I get up at least an hour and a half earlier than my wife during the work week, and probably an hour earlier on the weekends. During the week I take the dogs out of our room, and give them their breakfast. On the weekends they are usually up by six, and usually get pretty restless. When we lived in our condo it seemed every little sound in the neighborhood was amplified, and that of course would set off lots of barking from Angel and Jackie. That in turn would disturb my wife and me as we tried to sleep in.

Part of the allure of buying a house was that we thought Jackie and Angel would be able to sleep in another room away from our bedroom. That way they wouldn't prematurely wake either my wife or me, and we could therefore sleep better and longer. And so on the very first night in our new home, that is exactly what they did. But not for long.

We decided to have Angel and Jackie sleep in what we refer to as the "Party Room". It is an addition to the original house that is quite large and clear across the house from our bedroom. The Party Room connects to the kitchen, which leads to the entryway, from which extends a hallway that branches off to the four bedrooms. We figured it would be the perfect place for the dogs because it is far enough away from our room that we wouldn't be subjected to their whining protests the first few nights, and because we can close them in the Party Room by way of a pocket door. The party room is also carpet free, a benefit should there be any accidents.

That first night we put Angel and Jackie in the Party Room with their pillows, and closed the pocket door. Just down the hallway, up from our bedroom, is a door that shuts off the rest of the house from the bedrooms, so we closed that too, and then retired to our own room for our first night's sleep in our new home.

All went surprising well, at least at first it did. Although there was the expected crying and door scratching, it all seemed to settle down after a while, and I started to have hope that this arrangement just might work out. I even got up a few times during the night and checked on them, (stealthily, of course,) and didn't hear a peep. I would discover later it was most likely because they were plotting their nefarious plans for escape.

At around 4am I awoke Jacqueline's signature squealing. It is a pathetic little cry intended to wrench even the most chilly of hearts, and is to my ears what a newborn's cries are to it's mother's. Before I knew what I was doing, I leaped out of bed, and let me tell you at my age, and with my body, that is quite the accomplishment, and rushed down the hall.

As I approached the hallway door, and a more lucid state, I realized what had happened. When I finally opened the hallway door, and saw my two little dogs standing there wagging their happy tails at me, my suspicions were confirmed. A breakout had taken place.

I walked back to the Party Room and found the pocket door slid back to just about Angel size. I figure that Jackie kept working the door until a gap presented itself between the door and the door frame, and she slipped in her paw and slid the door open just enough to get out. Angel was most likely hot on her trail. (I credit Jackie for the breakout not because I think she is the brains of their little gang of two, but because she is the more persistent.)

From there they found their way through their new house to the hallway door, which they had determined to lay in the path between them, and their mommy and daddy. Jackie then turned on the waterworks to alert me, knowing I would come running once I heard her cries.

After we all had walked back to the scene of the crime, (because they now follow me around the new house like little ducklings following their mother,) we all shambled back down the hall and into our new bedroom.

They have slept there with us ever since.

So there you go, yet another fascinating entry in The Adventures of Jackie and Angel. Please also check out the Carnival of the Dogs at Mickey's Musings, and the Friday Ark at The Modulator for more interesting animals.

First Pictures in the New House

I was hoping to have something better for you, but so far these are the only decent pictures of Jackie and Angel in their new home. However, we will be living here a very long time, and so rest assured there will be some great photos of our favorite two little dogs in the coming years.

In any event, in between the unpacking and the arranging of all our stuff around our new place I was able to take a couple of shots of the dogs as they got used to their new surroundings. The biggest change for them, I think, is the carpeting. We had carpet in our condo when Angel was still a baby, but we replaced it ALL with laminate flooring when he was about a year and a half old. When Jackie arrived, the new flooring had already been installed, so it is all she has ever known. Looking at the pictures below, you can see she gets along with the carpet juuuusst fine...

And that ends another fascinating chapter in the exciting adventures of Jackie and Angel. (And Thalia). Please also check out the Carnival of the Dogs at Mickey's Musings, and the Friday Ark at The Modulator for more interesting animals.

Moved

We have successfully moved. Unfortunately, I have yet to secure internet service,so posting will be light(er).

I do have the capability to post from work, and so as soon as I can, I will have pictures of our favorite two little dogs romping around their new digs. We will of course also have some pictures of Thalia and the other cats as soon as they finish up their quarantine. (We have them locked in the garage until they calm down somewhat).

Thanks to everyone who wished us well, and I hope you all have been enjoying exceptionally wonderful holidays.

Moving

I was hoping to have some nice pictures of our pets up this week because I am pretty sure the story that includes Athenamama is going to run in this Sunday's paper. Unfortunately I have been busy trying to get everything together for our big move, which I believe is also going to happen this weekend.

The story behind selling our condo, and the purchase of our new home is rather harrowing. I honestly don't remember ever being so close to what we used to call a "nervous breakdown" as I have been these past few weeks. The delays, problems, costs, and incompetence of certain people has worn every one of my nerves down to the nub.

Yet, the very first time I find myself sitting in my new living room, looking out of my French doors onto my patio while listening to the rain as it hits the corrugated fiberglass that covers that patio, will make it all worthwhile.

Until then, let's take a look at some pictures of Jackie and Angel that I took during what most likely will be our last walk up at the park across from where we used to live...

So there you have it, another fascinating chapter in the exciting adventures of Jackie and Angel. This is the last entry made from our old digs. Next week we should be pretty well settled in our new home. It is my intention to post pictures of Angel and Jackie in their new backyard, and perhaps pictures of our other pets enjoying various places around the new compound. Please join us next week, then, for what I hope will be a special set of pictures.

Please also check out the Carnival of the Dogs at Mickey's Musings, and the Friday Ark at The Modulator for more interesting animals.

Reminiscing

As we zero in on our new home, I have had a lot of time to reflect back on the past seven years my wife and I have spent in our soon to be old home. We moved in with her three kids just five months before we got married, so it the house we had as newlyweds. It is the house we were living in when we got our first pet together. That pet is world renown as my fluffy white little macho man, Angel. It is the house we lived in when we fostered homeless kittens. That resulted in my wife giving me one of those kittens which I named Athena.

This was also the house I recuperated in after my first ever stay in a hospital following an anterior cervical discectomy with fusion surgery. (Not a good first operation to have, by the way.) I had hoped to spend that time recuperating with Athena on my lap, but she died while I was in the hospital. I feel guilty for the pain that causes me when I realize that other people have suffered losing a child, or a spouse, or some other family member, yet I cannot let go of my grief over a cat.

This is the house in which my stepchildren grew up, and in which my grandson came home. We have had a lot of good times, and more than our share of bad times, but soon we will be leaving this house for our new house where we will continue to make memories.

One of the things we will be leaving behind is the places where Jackie and Angel and I go for our walks. Near where we live now are two great places for little dogs to go for a walk with their daddy.

The first great place is the barranca. The barranca is a natural stream that cuts through our neighborhood, and has been used by the city as form of drainage for years. It is relatively clean for a drainage ditch, and has changed little since I first encountered it when I was a kid in the late 1960s. Back then it was as natural as you could get, harboring thick flora, and some fairly exotic fauna. It was a true jungle, and if you followed the stream up far enough, it became impenetrable. The city cleared out and lined a good portion of it with cement during the 1980s, and it is very accessible today. The reason is so that the city can get down in there for maintenance reasons, but even though "No Trespassing" signs are posted at the gates leading down into the barranca, the city pretty much looks the other way when people venture down into it.

The other great walking spot is the new park the city built a couple of years ago. It is just across the street from where our condominium is, and I used to take Jackie and Angel there quite often for a while. We stopped going as often because a lot of people walk their dogs there, and Angel and Jackie are not the best behaved little dogs in the world. (Shocking, I know.) Besides, I prefer the tranquility that comes with walking either down in the barranca, or on the path that follows alongside it. Even though that path is on much higher ground than the bottom of the barranca, it is still a wonderful place to walk.

So, I wrote all that to lead into the few pictures I want to share this week of Angel and Jackie walking along down in the barranca in their little sweaters. These pictures were taken about two years ago, and around this time of year. It was colder and wetter that winter, and I used to bundle the two of them up in their little sweaters more often. I love inclement weather, and hope we start getting some serious rain soon. I just hope it waits until we are all moved into the new house.....

So there is yet another fascinating chapter in the exciting adventures of Jackie and Angel. I figure we have one more of these left before we find ourselves in our new digs, so join us again next week for the last Adventures of Angel and Jacqueline in our old house.

Check in next week for a new chapter in The Adventures of Angel and Jacqueline. And don't forget to check out the Carnival of the Dogs at Mickey's Musings, and the Friday Ark at The Modulator for more interesting animals.

A Funny Thing Happened on My Way To Work...

This morning's drive into work was, well, interesting.

Every morning I take the 101 freeway to Oxnard. I usually leave for work at about 6:10 in the morning, and traffic is pretty light.

In California you can turn right at an intersection against a red light, so I was sitting at the red light at the 101 and Rose Ave. in Oxnard this morning waiting for a break in traffic so that I could make my right hand turn. I got my break, and without turning my head back forward so that I could see where I was going, I pressed on the accelerator of my 2004 GMC Sierra Pickup truck. That's when I heard the THUMP!

I knew immediately I hit someone, and turned around in time to see this poor man and his bike tumbling forward off of the front bumper of my truck. I was mortified.

The man got up, and held his arms out to his side, a look of disgust clearly appeared across his face. He was a pretty big Filipino man, and I gotta say the first thing that crossed my mind was that this big, pissed off guy was gonna want a piece of me.

"DUDE!" he exclaimed, "What's your problem!"

Wondering why he would think I would do such a thing on purpose I responded with, "DUDE! I don't have "a problem" I just didn't see you!"

The man, still angry but obviously recognizing it was just an accident, picked up his bike and started walking it the rest of the way through the intersection.

I was of course sorry that it happened. Contrary to what the man seemingly believed when I first tried to plow him over, I don't go looking for Filipino men to run down with my truck. So, I asked him if he was OK.

He replied with, "Yeah, I'm f*cking great. I had a f*cking orgasm, OK?"

I had to keep myself from laughing, which I am sure would have really been my undoing.

Oh, and to the guy I ran over... If you Google "Who was that idiot that ran me over this morning", and happen across Athenamama, I just want to say that I really am sorry, and I hope you are feeling better.

Barney Cam

Athenamama isn't a very political blog, and I never, ever thought I would link to the official site of the White House, but I wanted to point out that the Barney Cam is up, and this year we are treated to the first dog, (one of two, by the way,) as he struggles to bring together the Barney's Holiday Extravaganza.

It's a hoot.

106

This is a photograph of my grandfather on my mother's side taken in either 1969 or 1970. The date written on the border in my grandmother's handwriting is "6/69 or 70". It was taken at my grandparent's house on Old Mill road in Azusa, California. The chair he is sitting in now resides at my parent's house. It has never been reupholstered.

Granddad would have been 106 years old this past December 2nd. The stories he told were better than anything Hollywood could come up with. My father genuinely liked my mom's dad, and would sit and talk with him whenever we all got together. Before I realized that the people closest to me in my childhood, such as aunts, uncles, and my grandparents, would be the first lost in my life, I ignored the conversations between my grandfather and my dad. It wasn't until maybe two years before my grandfather died that I started listening with earnest to what he had to say about his life. I really regret not having done so earlier.

Towards the end of his life he and my grandmother moved to Ventura to be near my mother and our family. They bought a house not far from where I went to high school, and in my sophomore and junior years I would walk up to my grandparent's house maybe once a month and help my grandfather mow his lawn after school. Afterwards my grandmother would fix us something to eat until my mother came to pick me up. I really enjoyed those afternoons with my grandparents.

He had his first heart attack just before Thanksgiving in 1977. He stopped smoking for a while after that, but in 1979 he had another heart attack, and this time it was fatal. He was 78 years old. I wish I had known him better.

Haunted House Update

You remember this house...

Well, the woman who wrote me about it not long ago did a little investigative work, and found a listing for the place!

Someone recently renovated the house, and sold it earlier this year for about $1.6 million. It was evidently built in the early 1980s, and the people who built it never completed the project for some reason.

Anyway, here's a taste of what the place looks like today..

Click the link above to see the full listing. Honestly, I was sort of unimpressed with the interior. It seemed rather bland, and the rooms look surprisingly small. But, I have never actually been inside the place, so what do I know?

Athenamama Hits the Big Time UPDATE

You might remember back in October I reported that Athenamama might be mentioned in an upcoming article in our local newspaper. You may also recall I said the article was going to come out in the Sunday edition of either the following weekend, or the weekend after that.

Well, the article never ran, and so I wrote the man who interviewed me for the article and asked if it had been axed. He wrote me back and said that it hadn't, but that it had been postponed because the editor wanted to run a different story in its place. He said that the multiple pets article would be published the Sunday before Christmas.

I think that is even better! People will be home all the next day, and their relatives will be there too, so Athenamama will be popular beyond my wildest dreams!

I wonder what kind of bandwidth packages my hosting company has to offer?

Fort Ebby

While Thalia builds her fort out of cloth, Ebby prefers her made of wood.

More cats can be found at the Friday Ark at The Modulator, and the Carnival of the Cats this Sunday.

Breakfast With Angel and Jackie... Again

I've done this before; posted pictures of Jackie and Angel having their breakfast, but I have been so busy with the whole new house thing that I haven't had much time for anything else. So, this morning before work I grabbed the camera, and what follows is the results...

So there you have it, another fascinating chapter in the exciting adventures of Jackie and Angel.

Check in next week for a new chapter in The Adventures of Angel and Jacqueline. And don't forget to check out the Carnival of the Dogs at Mickey's Musings, and the Friday Ark at The Modulator for more interesting animals.

Fort Thalia

First, I would like to say that our hearts go out to Laurence and his family. They lost their dear, much loved Piper the other day. Catcams will never be the same.

Now...

Who is that peeking out from inside her makeshift hideout?

More cats can be found at the Friday Ark at The Modulator, and the Carnival of the Cats this Sunday.

Moving Sucks (If it Happens at all)

I am really getting nervous over this whole house deal.

You see, our old place sold on November 4th, and if you are any good at math, then you know that the thirty day escrow is over. WAY over.

The problem is with the place we bought. When we made the offer the listing agent was getting ready to go on his second vacation in as many months. We had to wait one and a half weeks before we knew if our offer was even accepted. The people who owned the house accepted right away, but since the bank was giving them the boot, and was essentially the real seller, then we had to wait on them to give the real OK.

The bank finally accepted our offer, and since then everyone has been running around like headless chickens trying to get everything squared away. Inspections have to be made, loan docs have to be drawn up, and signatures have to be in place. All that takes a while, and that is the reason for thirty day escrows.

Right now I have a buyer who wants to move into his new home. I also have an impatient bank that wants out of the real estate business, and wants ME in their house. They have hinted that that better happen soon, or I will be looking for a NEW house. The problem there is, we got this place at such a deal that I doubt we could afford a house at current market prices. (The one we are buying we got for about $50,000.00 less than market.)

So, I have literally no fingernails left. All my stuff is packed ready to move. I just don't know if that is going to be under a new roof, or an overpass.