I'll Sleep When I'm Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon by Crystal Zevon

In the main house along with our own poodles we board other peoples poodles, for various periods of time.  In the master bedroom there are seven dog crates of varying sizes; three of which can hold two dogs.  In the living room there's room for up to two large pens for litters of puppies from four to eight weeks of age.  At the moment there's a litter of 12 red puppies.  Once they're eight weeks old they move into the nursery - a building right off the main house.  There are sixteen medium sized crates there.  On the other side ot the house is the grooming room with four large crages and two double crates.  There is also a camping trailer we've turned into a welping area, where puppies are born and stay with mum until  they are four weeks old and then they move into the living room, where they begin being socialized.  They get used to all the comings and goings, the various sounds etc.  In a pinch ther is a dog crate in my room, but I usually don't have dogs in with me.  At the moment there is a skittish black standar poodle, Princess who sleeps at the foot of my bed and a white toy, Queenie who sleeps with me.

We also have two kennel buildings, with eight dog rooms, each with an outdorr run.  I don't have much to do with that part of the business other than supervising the part-time staff.

Most of my days are taken up with the poodles.  I feed the adult poodles and puppies in the living room breakfast.  I moniotr the mum and babies in thel welping trailer when neccessary.  For the living room pups, I monitor their weight gain, make sure they get out when they need to, make sure they have clean paper in their pen, get fed on time, make sure their collars aren't too tight, that their bums aren't blocked and their nails aren't too long.

We have nine teens working for us.  I monitor their daily assignments making sure they are getting the job done.  In the evening when the staff has gone, I help with letting dogs in and out and cleaning up after them.  Occassionally I help out with groomin by shampooing and blow drying dogs.  No hari cuts though.

There is alway lots of laundry to keep up with and dishes to load and unload in the dishwasher.  Time and weather permitting I help out in the garden

Yesterday I shampooed and blow dried two of the biggest poodles I have ever seen.  One of them was almost as wide as he was tall!  Normally it would take about a hour per poodle but with these guys it took a little over three hours for the two.

The first few times I shampooed and blow dried poodle my lower back was not impressed, and let me know in no uncertain terms.  Yesterday, there was barely a twinge, so there’s hope for me yet.  I’m still a little leery of cutting the poodles hair, but maybe with time I’ll grow comfortable with the idea.  Diane hasn’t mentioned anything to me about it, and since she has a couple of part time employees who can groom, there’s no pressure for me to do so.

Sorry it’s taken me so long to post an update!  After 15 years of mostly living alone I’m not used to having anyone around while I’m using my computer.  Now I share an office with Peter, and I am finding it a little intimidating. SILLY, I know, and I am working on getting over the feeling, but there it is.

I planted 100 onions and 108 potato plants yesterday.  My back was a little sore for an hour or so, but seems fine this morning.  I seem to be settling into a routine of letting Java out for her morning “constitutional” between 5 and 6 am and then going back to bed until 6:45 or 7.

Friday and Saturday were cold and rainy.  Today started out the same, but at 10:45  the sun has come out and it is starting to warm up.  After the rain, the air has a slightly sweet smell. 

We are still working out what my daily schedule will be.  Friday and Saturday were mostly spent unloading the truck and the trailer.  I did shampoo and blow dry a puppy yesterday.

My “office” work won’t really start until we get quick books installed on Friday.  I will also be taking over supervision of the part-time kennel help.

Well, a lot has happened since my last entry!  I managed to bring the most important stuff.  Cook books were the first to get left behind.  I hate to admit that I hadn’t looked at most of them for at least five years.  It’s just that having them, in some strange way, was a comfort.  On the other hand, there are so many cooking sites on the net, I should be able to get any recipe I need from there.

Speaking of the net…It looks like it will be another couple of weeks before we finally get broad band here.  We found out that the tower has been installed, but the dish is angled too low for the signal to get over the hill to get to our part of Udora.  Of course, it never occurred to the providers to keep the crew around while they checked the signal.  Now they have to pay for the crew to come back out to reposition the dish.  Let’s hope they test it this time before they send the crew away.  That way if more adjustments need to be made, they can be done on the spot.

Back to the move… My friend Charles came over Wednesday morning to help with the last of the packing up.  He was a huge help.  For starters, he was the one who thought of taking the wheels and the seat off my bike so it would fit better in the truck.  Thanks to him I managed to bring more stuff than Merle thought was possible.  I am extremely grateful to him!!!

The Dadster stopped by around eight to pick up my cable box and modem.  He very kindly offered to return it for me once we found out that I had 30 days to get it back to the company after my service was turned off.  Because of his generosity, I was able to have my land line working until I departed. (My phone was hooked up through the internet modem, so no modem, no phone.)  Yvette was miffed because he was too embarrassed to give her a good bye hug in front of the guys.  He did however play nosies with her, so she was some what placated.

We left New Rochelle at 9:15 am.  The trip went well.  We made our first pit stop at 10:40.  Since I had been too stressed to eat before leaving I was starved.  I had my first McDonald’s ¼ pounder and fries in what must be 10 years.  It was pretty good, but definitely not worth all those calories.  We stopped for lunch at a subway a little before two.  Somehow we managed to miss a turnoff which probably added 30 minutes to the trip, but in the grand scheme of things that was no biggy.

We got to customs around 4:00 and they couldn’t have been nicer.  We were out of there within 35 minutes. While we had made good time getting to and then crossing the border, we came to an almost stand still not far onto the 401.  We were held up 20 minutes by them “sweeping” the highway.  You would think they could have picked a better time than rush hour for this task?  I felt bad for all the semis burning all that diesel for nothing!  Times are tough enough as it is.

We dropped Rick and Trevor off in Pickering.  Rick is putting in a new bathroom.  I am in lust of his new shower.  It’s one of those with multiple nozzles including side mounted ones, an over head rain simulator and a hand held one.

We arrived at "The Land of Empirial Poodle a little before 7.  I am staying in the "Oriental Room" for now.  There's only room for a single bed, so no sharing with a poodle, (other than Yvette of course).  For the time being Java will be sleeping in a crate in my room.  She is somewhat incontinent, so it's just as well there's no room for her in the bed.  There is a door and a porch off my room leading into a small dog run, so I can easily let her out when need be.

This waiting to find out when the new closing date is wearing on my nerves!  Even though my head knows that  the board isn't likely to turn my buyer down and that things will work out, my body isn't getting the message.  My appitite is all wonky and don't get me started on how I've been sleeping!  I talked to my lawyer yesterday and he still had no news for me.  He said to call back this afternoon, so hopefully...They better give me enough time to rearrange the move!!!