Thursday, December 11, 2008

Dogs, food, and I don't know what else

Jeannie sent me an email early this morning (or late last night) forwarding a message that there was a year-old Australian Shepherd male at the local PetSmart, sweet and responsive (aren't they all?), and about to be euthanized if he didn't find a home in a week. I did note it didn't mention manners, training, or housebreaking, and I don't think PetSmart euthanizes but I guess they keep dogs for the Humane Society or something. Anyway I called a friend who has talked about getting another dog and got voice mail, which she never answers; I emailed Colin and got no reply; I emailed the DFW Aussie Rescue Group and got no reply. Finally tonight, I called the store--they didn't know a thing about such a dog, though the guy I talked to didn't sound particularly sharp--asked me if an Aussie was a cat. I swear if I thought the dog was still out there and if I wasn't getting ready to be gone for ten days, I'd have gotten him myself and then worried about how Scooby would feel about a companion. Actually I think he'd like the company--he is happy when his "cousin" Mozby, Jamie's chocolate lab, comes to visit, though Mozby, much younger, lets Scoob be the alpha dog, something I can't imagine since Scooby is so sweet and sort of mild.
Speaking of emails, I guess the flood from that contest I foolishly entered is over--the deadline was 4 p.m. Pacific Time today, which has now passed. Best I can figure from the agent's blog, he got over 1400 responses--and I got every last one of them. One good thing: I learned how to delete permanently from the inbox without having to go to the deleted items box and delete all over again. You hold down the shift key when you hit delete. Everyone one in the world probably knows this except me. Jeannie had tried to tell me once, and I thought it had something to do with clicking twice, which only opened the offending email. Got an email today about a company I'd never heard of that didn't want query letters, only first chapters. I decided I'd had enough of that kind of thing and held the shift key while I deleted.
I overserved myself today. Had lunch with friends at a place where I can't resist the gorgonzola burger, although I almost never eat a burger--ate half, but the big sin was I ate a bunch of waffle fries with ketchup. I know better than that. Took the other half of the burger with me and of course left it in the office fridge. A weekend lunch though. Tonight Betty and I went down the street to Chadra. She had chicken in a vodka sauce--it did look lovely and she raved over it. I had spaghetti with meat sauce--I love their red sauce and, contrary to some places, they're generous with it. So I brought over half of it home for another weekend
meal.
Rushed into work early this morning because I had so much to do. Found I'd already done one of the big projects--getting estimates on a book, communicating with the editorial board for approval, and drawing up a contract. So that put me ahead of the game, and I finished the other big project by ten, managed to collate the corrections on a manuscript so Melinda could get it off to the designer. Went to lunch fairly early and came back for the meeting, which was about a project that looks very promising. A productive day.
Now I'm going to finish that mystery!

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