A lot of friends have asked what we’re doing with our dog, Peggy Sue (P.S. for short). Well, we could bring her to Tianjin, but the second we turn our backs she’ll be captured, roasted, chopped up, and served with rice.
…
Just kidding. Seriously though, if we were to take P.S. to China, she would have to stay in the luggage compartment for the entire 15 hour flight. We’d have to give her a sedative to make sure she slept the whole time, and there’s no drink or food service for dogs. Once we got to China, it would probably be fine, except for when we need to go to Hong Kong. If she ever goes from the mainland to Hong Kong, she’ll be put into quarantine for 3 months. Lastly, our apartment is provided by the school. I’m not sure what the rules are, but it’s probably safe to guess that pets are not welcome.
Jedi P.S.
This has been a huge faith struggle for us. We can’t just give her away to a random stranger, she has a very particular personality. It took her months to act like a normal dog after Angel first bought her. At best, an abrupt shift would leave P.S. with the same abandonment issues with which she came to us.We were talking about it with our former small group leaders, Darrell and Christa over lunch at Panera. Darrell mentioned it to a coworker of his, Karin. Karin and her husband, Jeff, just happened to have had a dachshund that passed away back in February. Their dog, named Elvis, was a 13 year old rescue who had been run over and suffered extensive damage to his back legs. They nursed him back to health, and over the next 5 years of his life (pretty old for a dachshund) he regained some use of his damaged legs.
Karin was thrilled to hear about a dachshund in need, especially an older and more laid back one. In fact, P.S. is about the same age that Elvis was when Karin and Jeff adopted him. As we took P.S. to meet her new owners, we were concerned: they have another dog four times bigger than P.S.! We cautiously let them meet each other (I’ll spare you the details on how dogs become acquainted), and they seemed to get along well. After a second meeting, we left P.S. with Karin and Jeff. We’ve been back to visit once, and P.S. is happily enjoying her new home.
Last night, I took Angel out to Maggiano’s to celebrate our two year anniversary. I asked her, “What are the highlights from this past year?” One of her responses was, “Finding a good home for P.S.” While we will miss her, it is a happy thing that she has a good home.
Some pictures of her. Kudos to Dan Matundan on the first few for his expert photography.
P.S. Waving goodbye
P.S.'s favorite doggie date spot: the McDowell Forest Preserve
Just because it’s been awhile…here’s what is going on in our lives these days:
Matt just started doing P90X. I’m impressed with his dedication to it. He even bought stretcher band things from Amazon so he can do the weight exercises without having a whole weight set in our small apartment. Unfortunately, one of the bands ripped in half the other day while he was working out. I guess he’s just that amazingly strong. No stretch band stands a chance against those biceps. Or triceps. Or abs. Or whatever he uses to pull them.
I watch Matt doing P90X. I don’t do P90X. Enough said.
For my exercising, I do physical therapy exercises, which are mild, gentle, strengthening, and achievable! In fact, my physical therapist tells me, “Don’t do it to the point of pain! When it hurts, stop.” That is my kind of mentality for working out. I’m doing physical therapy for my shoulder, which some of you may have had the privilege of hearing. When I rotate my left shoulder, there is this loud popping sound that happens. It doesn’t hurt too much, but it sounds gross and feels kind of uncomfortable. My doctor said it is the beginnings of rotator cuff tendinitis, and since my insurance covers it, I’m seeing a physical therapist every week to strengthen the left shoulder muscles. I can definitely feel a big difference in strength between my right and left shoulders, and as I do the exercises for my left shoulder, it is improving my strength. It’s not totally there yet, and I still have the popping sound, but it’s making a difference, and I love to see difference-making when I exercise.
We went to New York City last week to see friends, family, and for a couple of work meetings. Saw lots of great people and had a fun, albeit hectic time. At the end of the trip, we took the bus down to Baltimore and stayed at David’s house for a couple of days, which was much more relaxing because he took over on navigating us around and I didn’t have to worry about getting lost. It was good to see everyone and get away for awhile, but I’m glad to be back sleeping in the same place every night and knowing where everything is.
While we were gone, PS developed two interesting problems. She got fleas (apparently this is the worst year for fleas in 20 years, just like it has been for mosquitoes). We’ve been putting a natural topical solution on her each month to kill fleas and ticks, but it’s not strong enough to handle the intensity of the flea season this year. We took her to the vet and they gave us a stronger thing that kills all of the life cycles of the flea and some spray for our apartment. We applied the medicine and spray and seem to have killed all the fleas…but PS probably is allergic to their saliva because her stomach is really red and itchy still, even though the fleas have been dead for almost a week now. She also has an eye infection of some kind. The vet said it is either from a bacteria/virus infection and will go away now that we’re giving her medicine for it or it is from some condition that causes dry eye. If it’s the dry eye problem, we’ll have to give her eye drops for the rest of her life. So we’re applying the medicine and waiting to see what happens. We’re a day into her treatment for that and so far no strong signs of improvement. She is quite pathetic with this eye problem since she can’t fully open her eyes. She walks around squinting at us because it hurts her to open her eyes all the way. And we thought she was good at being desperate-looking before…we even let her sleep in bed with us last night because we feel so bad for her. If I didn’t know better, I would think she was faking it to get special treatment, haha. But after the vet put some numbing stuff in her eyes yesterday to give her an eye test, she was opening her eyes all the way and running around like normal. Then when the numbing stuff wore off, she was back to being sad, lethargic and squinty again. So I can tell she really is in pain. But I’m sure she’s enjoying the special treatment too.
Another thing occupying quite a bit of our time is work. It’s still crazy, but at least we have some help now. We hired several new people, and I no longer have to do things like blog. So hopefully that will give me some incentive to do personal blogging. Now that we’re freed up a little bit from minor things at work, we have more pressure to do things like meet our financial goals. That’s a little more stressful than just trying to maintain and get little things done, but we’ve both had more stressful jobs before…just have to remember that it could definitely be worse.
The final thing occupying a lot of our time is church stuff. I don’t know if I mentioned it on our blog yet, but I joined the choir at our church earlier this year. It’s been a really great experience, but definitely gives me a lot more of a “schedule” at church. The good things that come along with that are that I’m forced to get to know lots of people instead of just the cursory acquaintanceship that usually happens when you’re not involved in anything at church and it forces me to actually go to church, even when I’m busy or tired. But the bad thing is, of course, feeling like I’m always “doing” something at church. Still, I’d say the pros outweigh the cons, and I’m really growing a lot spiritually, especially during our rehearsals. That’s one thing I really enjoy about the choir – it reminds me a lot of Gospel Choir at Wheaton. The rehearsals are actually better times of worship and spiritual growth than concerts, or in our case, Sunday mornings leading worship. While I do choir, Matt goes to our young adults group and holds down the fort there. We’re also looking forward to a new small group season this fall and deepening some relationships there.
Well, that’s it for now. I’ve got to start getting our apartment cleaned up and organized since we’ve been busy non-stop upon our return from the East Coast. The mess is starting to get to me.
Question (because it’s always good to end a blog post with an interaction of some kind):
What is your favorite fall activity?
And because it’s also good to have media in a blog post, here is a video of PS with her eye squinting:
Today, we wanted to take a bike ride. We also wanted to take P.S., but she can’t keep up with us on bikes (let alone walking). So, we decided to improvise:
“Stop licking! NO.” That’s Angel yelling at our dog, P.S. right now. It stands for Peggy Sue, and that’s the name that she came with. We got her as a retired breeder from Indiana a couple years ago. P.S. has some quirks about her, but overall she’s a great dog. Well, having a dog, to my surprise, totally impacts your life. It did for me, at least. See, I never had a dog growing up. Other than some quick-to-die beta fish, the most that we had was a rabbit. Hazel (as we named her) never really did that much except try to run away whenever we let her out. Despite some annoyances (like the compulsive licking), P.S. does a few things that I try to do myself:
1. Dogs listen to you ramble. Around the time of our wedding, Angel was out of town a lot planning, and P.S. moved in with me. I was stressed with my old job and wedding stuff. P.S. was always there (what, it’s not like she’s going to the store or anywhere) and never seems to mind when I talk about life.
2. Dogs forgive you quickly. P.S., being only a bit taller than my ankles, has had a few accidental kicks from both Angel and me when she nips at our heels. Despite the kick, she always seems to forget about it in less than a minute. Angel and our friend Karen can attest to this, but I enjoy wrestling with our dog. P.S.? Doesn’t enjoy it as much as I do. Even after she gives me her dirty look, she always forgets about it and comes back.
3. Dogs aren’t picky. Listen, any animal that eats its own poop (remember how I said P.S. has some quirks?) doesn’t have discriminating tastes. I think if P.S. could talk, she would tell me that she likes any food, just as long as it’s not spicy. Do I think that it’s good to eat poop? I think that’s way too far (sorry to burst your bubble P.S.), but the idea of being flexible in your expectations is something that I think you can really learn from dogs.
4. Dogs are enthusiastic. You’d think that when I work all day and come home to let P.S. out, she would be pretty angry about that. Well, as I pointed out, she forgives pretty quickly. Not only that, but she gets excited about pretty much anything that I do with her.
5. Dogs continually seek to entertain you. P.S. has this quirk (yes, another one) about wrapping herself in her blanket until she’s a little mummy. When she’s ready to come out, it’s pretty hilarious:
So, that’s my list of 5. Do you have a dog? How do you think we should be more like dogs?
