So, because the kitties are winging  their way to their new home I am awake to make sure the handoff goes smoothly (not that I can actually do anything from afar but it’s just who I am; I’m a natural-born worrier.) 
Random aside: there is absolutely nothing better in this world than an intelligent competent person; and tonight I have the absolute honor to be assisting five intelligent competent women (3 kitty flyers; 2 kitty receivers) who helped change the world for the better ❤ Thank you all so much!

So, here I am awake and I just heard Darrin & Ziesa have an entire conversation in asleep grunt-ese.
Original conversation verbatim:
Z: “grunt. Grunt gruntle GRUNT grunt grunt.”
D: “grunt. grunt. grunt. GRUNTGRUNT. grunt. *Sigh*!”
Z: “GRUNT! gruntie gruntie gruntie grunt!”
D: “grunt!”
Z: “gruuuuunt!” *snoring*

Allow me to translate:
Z: “Ugh, that lady’s up, I should get closer to her head and see what she’s doing. I’m tired but there could be a snack or something…..”
D: “um….dearest Ziesa, please stop poking me with your feets and moving around afore I eat you.”
Z: “damn, crawled all the way up here and no snacks. Huh, that guy’s gonna eat me. I’mma flip over, here are my feets for you lady!”
D: “so much better, Thanks!”
Z: “no problem human! So tired…….*snore*”

The kitties have arrived safely. ❤☺❤
My eternal gratitude to all involved! ❤❤❤

So there I was in my asbestos refresher training over the past two days and I couldn’t help but notice my instructor was from Illinois. “Hmmmmmm” I said to myself, “I wonder if she could be suckered into…..uh, I mean, would be willing to help a young mother cat & one of her kittens get to their forever home?” I spoke with her about it and bless her kind heart, she said yes!
So, Lucille & Shaggy are flying from STX through MIA and then onto ORD where they will get to meet their forever humans. The mad rush of “crap to do” has begun, in addition to my regularly scheduled work and home ‘sponsibilities I need to do (or have done) the following: Made kitty reservation with airline yesterday, got carrier and kitty-harness for Lucille today (have to take cats out of carrier when going through TSA; kitten can be scruffed but mama cat needs to be secured); gathering records and getting health certificates and rabies vaccine tomorrow at 4pm; flight leaves at 4pm Friday, meeting nice lady at airport at 2pm to pay animal check in fee and at some point on Friday I am teaching a big group of children (small humans are super scary in herds) about dog bite prevention and I need to meet up with kitten-Fred’s new human so he can go to his new home. But then, then all of the kitties will be safe, happy, loved, and in wonderful homes which, for me, is as close to pure joy as I can get. Then, Saturday, I’m doing a little puppy wrangling and helping out at the Blue Mutt.
Right now though, right now I am just really tired. Also, I really miss Herbert – quite a few people asked about him so far this week, and that sucked; but I survived it.
Love, FL

This is Wilbur.

Wilbur is up for adoption at the St. Croix Animal Welfare Center.
I have no room for adopting a Wilbur.
That said, I owe Wibur a great deal because holy crap, his picture makes me laugh.
I can just picture walking him next to Ziesa and how incredibly tall she would look. I have developed an intricate backstory involving me declaring him a rottweiler and getting rull fiesty when people disagree. “What? You saying the breeder ripped me off?!!”
Or, “he is a rare breed of Keebler Rottweiler.”
So, somebody go adopt Wilbur and his teeny tiny legs please and send me pictures daily.
❤
Seriously, just look at the wee legs.
Look at em!
*squeeeeeee!*
I loves him.

I am not perfect.
Hell, the majority of the time I’m just striving for “okay”. In fact, I remember having a small rant at my old boss in the refinery that went something like, “when this place f*cking kills me you better have, “she f*cking tried!” written ‘rull big at my memorial!”
So, this story needs to be filed under more of a “Dumbass move” header than say, “outstanding dog training maneuver #7”. Alas, I digress. This morning was….special.
Allow me to explain – woke up at 05:30 and to drop the boyfriend off at work (his car at shop) and then zipped home to get ready for work. When I arrived home I found the mail order prescription bottles containing my 90 day supply of two maintenance meds had been lovingly destroyed by the dog pack (aka assholes). I believe I recovered the majority of the tablets, but the bottle of gel-caps had been melted together into a modern art piece entitled, ‘dog drool purple gel mound’. Assholes. Gathered as much purple drool gel as I could and added, “call pharmacy later today and discuss any potential dog-drool rx replacement policy for medications” to my rather impressive to-do list.
[note: dammit, don’t forget to move that to tomorrow’s to-do list]
I was still smiling at this point, yes they are assholes – but dammit they are *my* assholes and it was totally my fault I left the pharmacy bag on the floor.
Then I (in retrospect, stupidly) put on some pretty eye makeup and worked on getting out the door. I leashed Zisa and she decided she should go and fall asleep under the table. I could have been the bigger person here and made a responsible decision to just leave the sleepy butthead at home – but would that really be “me”? [no. no it wouldn’t.] So, instead of being a thinking human and just going to work by myself I said [out. loud. – like the dogs had any freaking clue what the crazy FoodLady was going on and on about], “fine, you don’t want to go to work?! okay, then I’m going to take a dog who will ‘preciate the amount of work and training I do with you and who will be EXCITED to spend the day with me. So. There.” [that’s right, like the all the best tween temper tantrums, I threw the “so there” in there!] and that is what led to,
PIPER’S BIG* DAY OUT!!!
(* to be accurate, the word BIG should be clarified to as big, scary, HOLYFUCKGONNADIE!, StairsAreMadeOfEvil! whatfreshhellisthis!, oh, turkey? YUMMO!, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!, and WHY!?!?!)
At first, Piper was THRILLED to be the pretty princess leaving the house with the lady!
*leash & harness? must be going walkies!! – AWESOME! Getting into the car? um….this is scary! what is going on? why? What? Get to the office and out walking around? cool. new. smells. Wait, stairs? WHAT THE FUCK ARE STAIRS – AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!*
So, I got to carry, drag, beg, and manipulate the Piper up the death-stairs which led to a vast quantity of perspiration (tropics, it was about 89 degrees in the full sun); remember that “pretty eye makeup”? Yeah, it was not as pretty as it melted down my face. So now there’s me, melting into a puddle, accompanied by a scared-off-her-ass Piper (shaking and nervous and all, “wtf wtf wtf WHERE AM I?!?) attempting to make it into the office. Now, I honestly figured we would get into my office and Piper would smell that Zisa hangs out there and she would just grab a chewy and chill. Nope, it was more like, in office and stare at FoodLady with deep emotions such as, “is this where you kill me!?”, “is this where someone else comes to kill me?!”, and my personal favorite, “am I already dead!?” To be fair, all questions I have also asked myself at work. 😉
She calmed down after an hour or so and when it was time for me to work alongside my coworker in different office, Piper sat with me like a good girl and gnawed a bully stick like a pro. Then she and I split a pound of turkey for lunch and that was hands-down the highlight of the day [fyi-her look said, “I KNEW IT! That Ziesa gets turkey every day doesn’t she!!!”]. At the end of Piper’s day she looked down the stairs and said, “f*ck that! nope, I live up here now. Let’s go back to that office!” before hightailing it back inside. We tried again and slowly made our way down and when we were on grass she pee’d and danced like the good girl that she is!
…and that’s when I remembered the car keys were upstairs. dammit.  So, I loaded up the car with my bag o’ crap (of course setting off the alarm because the key-fob alarm thingy wasn’t with me – yeah, that was soothing *face-palm*) and walked back to the small fenced courtyard where I locked the gate and let Ms. Piper off-leash, figuring that the pretty girl wouldn’t want to go with me up the stairs [see above re: stairs being very scary, devil incarnate, etc.]. I trotted up, found key on desk, and by the time I got back to the stairs to go down, it turned out the brave girl had followed me up ALL BY HERSELF! I was so proud. I leashed her and we locked up and walked down the stairs with no issues, locked up the outer gate, turned off the car alarm, lifted her into the car and headed home where she told all the other dogs about “being a SUPER SPECIAL pretty girl office dog and had turkey for lunch and stairs are super easy and really the best way to travel, have you all tried them? if not you really should – I’m good at stairs!”
And thus ends, Piper’s Big Day Out.
🙂 

FoodLady Chronicles-Dear Piper edition: Dear Piper, you came into my life at a really craptastic time, but you were very low maintenance (I know, right?! A low maintenance dog?) and provided some much needed support and love at the right time–so you stayed. You are the pretty pretty girl and you were totally the dog that was way too normal to live here – until you became very comfortable and let your wee little freak flag fly.
You have a theme song and a nickname. You know the song, “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong,” by the Spin Doctors? Yeah, that’s the format of your theme song except the lyrics are, “Little Miss Make It Weird” and your nickname is “MakeItWeird” because wee Miss Piper, making it weird is your superpower.
If there is a naked human you will attempt to sniff….places (ick ick!). If I wear a tank top, you attempt to lick my armpit (ick ick screech!)
Once, when the boyfriend and I were kissing you walked up and licked. his. nipple. We were both so skeeved out it took weeks and a solidly built dog gate before we kissed again.
My darling Miss “make-it-weird” Piper, in theory, I’m fully supportive of your weirdness; in practice, keep your schnozz away from the places that skeeve me out, ‘kay?
Love, a fully clothed at all times always and forever unless there’s a gate,
FoodLady.

Dear Zisa, et al.,
Ouchie, that hurt. I’m sorry if it was scary when Zisa, “eeeped!” because I accidentally stepped on her paw. I am also sorry that then I made it really scary when I sort of trip-hop-fall-rolled through all the dogs onto the concrete floor. I did really appreciate the, “hey ‘Lady, ya dead?!” sniffs y’all gave me as I lie there a bit stunned. Zisa, it bodes well for your future employment that you stomped (with your wee little stompy legs) right up and sniffle-snorted my face as I said, “owwww-cheeeeee”. You’re all (occasionally) good dogs. Meanwhile, why does it seem that as age increases the perceived distance to the floor increases as well. I must have fallen like 30 feet. *wink*.
Love,
FoodLady.