After much soul-searching, over-thinking, procrastination and deliberation, I have decided to make myself the biggest birthday present ever and share my life with a dog. Yep. A four-legged, furry life companion. How come?
Apart from some Great Danes my uncle had and I used to play with and ride on when I was a wee little kid, I haven't been exposed to dogs much for all my life and much preferred cats with their strongly independent character as pets over dogs who I thought to be stupid and messy. And I didn't like all that licking and jumping. And the dirt.

Even found a picture of me and Alpho the Great Dane in my parents' album (I think I was two or three there). Look at how GINORMOUS he was:
(as always, click all pictures to enlarge)

I think this early childhood experience socialized me with dogs and taught me not to be afraid of dogs at all, though. I simply have no fear of dogs - they just don't scare me.
Well, after that episode passed (they died and were not replaced), there were no dogs in my life for a good three decades apart from those I took for walks while volunteering at a shelter in my high school years and an English Setter (RIP Ivo, he dies a month ago) my parents were dog-sitting for a neighbor in recent years.


Well, and then came March 30 of this year when I first met Sabrina, LotN's shepherd/husky/whatever mix who greeted me as if we always have been best friends. I kind of "knew" Sabrina from countless entries in Aurora's diary on here, but meeting her 'live' was something completely different.I immediatedly took a liking to her,  and from what I can say is that feeling was mutual. And silly me feared I might not get along with her and this would be the worst impediment in the way of enjoying my vacation... oh boy was I wrong...
We all drove to Dallas from LA in one long stretch, and in the beginning she mostly sat propped up between us smack in the middle of the space between the driver and passenger seats, looking ahead excitedly and gave alternating doggy love to each of our faces. She has the most amazing tongue I've ever seen anywhere, and she definitely knows how to use it :) I didn't really mind her licking my face, something I used to hate with dogs.
And then we stopped at a rest stop, and we got to do our first run together. Wow, that was FUN! Turned out we harmonize really well there, too and our speed matches almost perfectly when we're both running.

 
We stayed in Dallas for a few days at a house I rented, and I was entrusted with her a lot (for which I will forever be thankful to her owner) - running errands, walking (or rather jogging/running) around the neighborhood, checking up on her during the day where she was left alone as we did all those airport runs and attended the Dallas suscon. She was just plain lovely to have around, and everybody liked her, including a bunch of wacky Canadians who were staying there with us. But she was wary of Rolf and growled at him constantly, so it's not that she just likes everyone on two legs, oh no. She does choose whom to lavish her doggy love on, and I feel very lucky to have been chosen as worthy of a lot of it. Getting woken up in the morning by a now-familiar tongue tickling any limb that happened to be within reach was just priceless. Anyway, this is where I reversed my opinion about dogs being dumb obedient creatures. She definitely has a strong sense of independence, following demands only when she thought them to be appropiate.... but she listened to me, never pulled on the leash, went where I wanted her to go without making a fuss about it and usually acted like the sweetest dog on earth that she is.
Following the weekend in Dallas, Sabrina, LotN and me embarked on a week-long trip across the Southwest of the US back to LA. Long story short, this trip which should have been my annual vacation and highlight of the year had some surprises in store, not all of them positive, and it can be said that Sabrina's presence saved it for me.
Anyway, on the day after the grand Grand Canyon hike we did, with her owner being sore to the point of being unable to walk at all as a result result of overestimation and some degree of making stupid decisions (down to the river and back not in one day, but in two-thirds of a day...ha... my bad), and her very restless after a day locked up in a kennel and a night spent in a tiny tent with smelling all those hunt-able animals riiight in front of her nose but unreachable she made it very clear that she wanted out of that tent NOW. Since I was blocking the only exit, she had to 'convince' me to let her out, which she did by climbing on me and started to lick my face, and then trying to open the zipper with her paws. Hell, it was 5am in the morning, temperatures were in the low 30s °F right around freezing and my sleeping bag was waaay too warm and comfy to get out of it, but I relinquished to her demands and took a four-hour-long run/hike around the area with her. This turned out to be the turning point of it all, and standing on the Canyon rim, enjoying the view and doing my best to prevent her from going after the birds and plunging down several thousand feet marked the very first time I had these thoughts of "hey, so this is what owning a dog is like. I should take her home with me so I can have these experiences daily". Seeing her so happy and content on the other end of the leash in my company just felt so damn good and rewarding; it definitely was the highlight of this trip so far.

 
Too bad I had to say "goodbye" to her when I returned home ten days later. I really miss her and can't wait to see her again! But the seed was planted and I started thinking about getting me a dog in earnest.


In the meantime, a colleague at work got himself a Siberian Husky puppy named Alexa (see a few posts farther down), which I had the pleasure to have in my care for two weeks while he and his wife were on holidays. Meeting her was much like meeting Sabrina was - there was instant "I like" on both sides. Seems like dogs and me go together better than I thought.
Lucky for me, as she was spayed just before he left and should be under supervision all day, it was arranged that I could bring her to the office (which normally is not allowed) so I did not need to keep her at home alone all day in my yard-less, balcony-less, 4th floor apartment.
She's a real sweetheart, but as all young huskies, she does have lots of energy, needs quite a lot of attention and work. With me being handicapped with my bad knee, still on crutches and not able to run or walk any longer distances, I loaned me an e-bike and rode that while she ran alongside. This proved to be a pretty efficient method of tiring her out while not overtaxing myself.

This new experience of having a dog in the house really awoke my interest in getting one for myself.
And it would be very beneficial if Alexa had a doggie partner to play around with to channel her boundless energy and help with socialization training. She gets bored easily far too often and too long, seeing she's alone for most of the day as both my colleague and his wife are working full-time and nobody is home to keep her company and entertain her. She enjoyed being at work with me a lot and quickly evolved into the office darling:)
  
 

I started to peruse husky sites on the internet for advice on how to care best for them, and well, as fate has it, all those sites have links to rescue groups. Apparently, huskies are not the easiest dogs to own due to their very active nature, their desire to run and pull and their hunting instincts. It seems that there's an abundance of Husky-type dogs in desparate need of new homes with owners who are able to care for their needs better than their previous ones. People apparently make the mistake of not informing themselves and getting a husky puppy as a pet, just to discover that their sweet puppy grows into a pretty large dog that still has those mesmerizing blue eyes and striking good looks but sports a character that's more like a cat than a dog (commands are obeyed only when seen fit...) and needs way more physical activity and time spent with it to be happy and occupied than the average family dog breed.

So, what they say about dogs is definitely true, and I now get the special place that dogs have in the hearts of people.
I never thought of myself as much of a dog person -  much preferred cats as pets. That changed rather abruptly when I had the opportunity to meet Aurora's dog Sabrina back in April when we went on vacation together and she took her along. We really took to each other very nicely real quick, and so I jumped on the opportunity to take care of Alexa, a Siberian Husky lady belonging to a colleague of mine who went on holiday for two weeks today.
He had her spayed just  the day before I got her, and she's wearing that plastic thing around her head to prevent her from accessing the wound with her tongue. I could bring her to the office with me, and that's where these pictures were taken.



Will write more about that tomorrow, but now it's time to turn in.

Don't feel like leaving the bleak last blurb on top, so here's a more fun one. And I promised Jesse that I'd put up the video

new set of tires: 670.-
new front brakes: 740.-
new clutch: um, don't know yet...
a day of fun spent circling around a racetrack  (in my bone-stock, two-ton car): priceless!

BTW, that happened in June - while I still could use both legs...

Reading others' entries and blogs, I used to never understand what drives people to put their deeply personal issues on these (semi-) public things and let the world take part in their misery. Well, I think I found an answer to that - writing it down apparently seems to help.
See, there's this one person who I have opened up to, have put lots of energy into building and maintaining what I perceive as true friendship and really put my heart behind the whole thing. Said person knows more about my personal thoughts and inner workings than anyone else, and I was under the impression there used to be some mutual understanding, at least to some degree. Well, apparently not, as I'm getting told that I'm "too close" and "so I want to do things that will keep you at a distance" now.
This hurts so f*cking much, and caught me by surprise. And I have no idea how to react and what to do. Should I let it go and just forget about everything that was, put all that was down the drain in a Better an end with terror than terror without end way? Should I try and argue and do whatever it takes that there's enough of that already? Or try to carry on like nothing happened and act like this didn't disturb me?
I just want to not think about it at all. I guess I'll help myself to some substance that'll help me escape into a state of mind where I forget about that for awhile. Again. Why does this always seem to happen to me? Do I attract these things?

Kept listening to this song all day, and I think there's nothing to add to what it says. So true: