Stumbling Along...

Another OFIM (TM Bob Walder), as it tends to go in my world.

Slept horribly last night, and woke up at 4:44 am.  The alarm goes off at 5:45 am for me, so I get a few minutes to sit here, get the eyes to blink in unison, attempt to ease into the day by discovering what, if anything, happened overnight, and then prepare for the day.  By about 6:15 I get the shoes on, pull on my sweatshirt, grab my mug, and encourage the dogs to head upstairs with me.  Once I hit the first landing, I divert to the freezer in the garage, grab breakfast, and then consider if I need additional cold caffeine beverages in the fridge upstairs, then hit the last six steps.  

Once I'm upstairs, I unload my stuff onto the kitchen stove, and put food in Cheyanne's bowl, by the time that is complete, she's usually right behind me.  I remove the baby gate blocking off the kitchen - as puppies are well-known connoisseurs of kitchen garbage.  Freyja has a predilection for paper towels used to clean up anything, wrappers, and the like, so keeping the kitchen canine non Gratia is a good idea.    I drop food in Freyja's bowl, then check the corner whoops pad to see if she didn't pee/poop indoors.  It's getting less and less likely.

Yes, I know damned well that if the pad is there she considers it acceptable to use it.  We are working to get her to consistently head to the pad, which we'll notice, and then can take her outside.  It IS working, but it's a very slow process with a very stubborn dog.  So anyway, Freyja doesn't like to eat until I'm sitting down, and appear to be there for a while.  Monday mornings usually mean morning re-runs of Maine Cabin Masters on the Magnolia network, so I get some building stuff watching in, which does help to keep me mentally stable.  Once Freyja's done with her breakfast, we head outside and make a lap around the yard.  Usually there's at least one less-intelligent rabbit in visual range.  Fortunately, my wife did find some six-foot leashes with heavy-duty elastic sections that allow two additional feet of travel - which does lessen the shock to the upper body when 90 pounds of canine in four-paw low drive dig in for additional breakfast protein, damn the fur.  Fortunately, at this point, the score is Dogs 1, rabbits many.  That is, Cheyanne is the only dog who has caught a rabbit, and said capture was of a bunny that was mostly furless, smaller than the length of my hand, and had a very full belly of mama's milk.  Which I discovered when I delivered the final release for the poor thing as Cheyanne had merely caused it to enter it's final misery, not complete it.

And no, those moments do not leave me quickly.  I'm still a bit disgusted of the baby bunny I had to dispatch some 22 years ago in the house when Lily caught one and brought it to the deck for us to admire.  No, I don't hunt, I'm not against hunting, I learned long ago that the taste of wild game was not worth the amount of effort I might have to expend to collect it, and I far more value the beauty of those wild animals than I do eating them.  I am not opposed to anyone else doing the work if they chose to do so, I just don't find it all that worthwhile.

Anyway, after a full lap around the yard, we head back in, the dogs look to find their favorite spots to wait while I nuke my breakfast, check my blood sugars, do my injections, and then load my pills onto my plate with breakfast. I also pull a chocolate protein shake (4 carbs, 40 grams protein) and cold liquid caffeine (either store-bought Diet Mt. Dew or homemade soda fountain diet dew, if we have the syrup), do my breakfast, get the brain firing on at least six cylinders, and then, round about 7:30, get ready to head upstairs.  I first may need to make ice cubes - that is, empty the four trays of 16 cubes each, one tray going into my mug, the others going into the bin in the freezer, then refill them with water, back into the freezer.  Then I block off the kitchen, find today's canine chewie option - whether it's bones, collagen chews, or some other item - we don't give them rawhide, it's not good for them, we try other things - then I go upstairs.  I get situated behind the work computer, wake it up (it takes less than 20 seconds to wake, versus 7 minutes from power button to the point where I can provide the three-finger salute to log in).  Then once it fully wakes up, I reboot it - and it takes less than 4 minutes at this point from "restart" to the three finger salute. I do not know why.  I expect it has much to do with the fact that I have processed through two previous computers, which were desktop machines, and this one is a laptop not quite as powerful or as much memory as my personal laptop I bought earlier this year, but whatever.  Once it completed the reboot, I log into the VPN, then wait until 8:00 and five seconds - then punch in and fire up the other literally 14 applications I need to do my job.  Then do it.  

And at that point, most days, I just need a nap.  That doesn't come for at least another couple hours.  I'd best get to bed now so I can handle tomorrow more coherently.  Hopefully.  G'nite.