Filed Under: Why I Haven’t Had Time to Help Bingley With Much Posting
What you don’t do for your kids:
We’ve been babysitting Ebola’s two schweet pups since mid-February. They WERE supposed to go to Guam with him first of May…but…they didn’t, thanks to our miserable casa de major dad luck and general government inefficiency. It hasn’t been a picnic. We TRIED the Caesar Milan, holistic, peace love and happiness route, and NONE of it worked.
Since his eldest and our eldest HATE each other, we have spent these past 8+ months (after two dog fights that cost $1300+ to stitch up the participants) living in shifts, with a 4 ft cage in our bedroom and one in the livingroom. Our day starts about 5:30 a.m., with me on the couch after letting our guys out. Get up about 7:30, feed our guys, get them OUTSIDE. While they’re OUTSIDE, I let HIS guys out of the cage in our bedroom and into the cage in the LR. Then OUR guys can come IN and go straight into being locked in our bedroom (and DON’T they appreciate that) for the next 1 1/2 hours while the granddogs eat, stretch their legs and do dog things. Then THEY get locked up again, and our guys, frantic by now, get let out. It’s lather, rinse, repeat all day. We can’t go out at night, because everybody has to eat and stretch their legs, too. So IF we went out for an adult time, we’d still have to stay up another hour at least when we got home, to let the grandkids out. Not fair to them otherwise.
Our two month granddog babysitting has stretched to the start of its 9th month. “HOW could that BE?” any sane person would ask. Welp, here’s a rundown of just our day YESTERDAY, TRYING to get puppies to their Daddy.
Ebola had called last Thursday to ask if we could get the dogs to him prior to the 25th, since the base pet lodge (where they do their quarantine) was closing for renovations. Being a holiday weekend, we can’t call OUR base vet ’til yesterday and they work miracles to get us in. Just before I leave work to help major dad wrangle doggies, I’m looking at Accuweather for P-cola and notice “Possible Direct Hurricane Strike for Hawaii This Weekend!” Just our luck. The dogs have to go through ~ and spend the night in ~ Honolulu. I shake it off and we get everyone to our precious base vets. Done. Every puppy certificate you’d need, we had in our hot little hands, along with an email that the admin girl had JUST found about that SAME pet lodge closing…on the 20th. W.T.F. (It did, however, also contain an alternate civilian kennel for arriving pets.) We hustle home in a state of semi-agitation, since I still had to fax ALL the paperwork to Guam Agri Dept AND the lodge, as it takes THEM up to 3 days from receiving it to send back an entry visa and the well dog is ONLY GOOD FOR TEN DAYS. (See where we’re going with times crunches here?) I’m looking for the fax number and BOOM. You have to fax well dog certs…AND the flight and kennel reservation info AT THE SAME TIME. Whichy I no have, because we don’t know squat about kennels until we can talk to Ebola…who is 9 hours behind the day ahead, time-wise. So asleep, after working swing shifts.
Being marginally efficient, I start making just-in-case plans for the drive to New Orleans Airport (United out of there has the most direct flight plan) with the dogs and their crates, which will require a minivan rental. Lock that sucker on for start of next week. Start double checking all the doggie info on United’s site, which is REALLY informative. Now, Achilles is a pretty little guy ~ only 68 pounds and small framed ~ but his ears sit up a country mile, so I want to make sure I have the regulations clear. We’ve got a hand-me-down crate in the garage that, while humongous, seems to be the only thing that’ll work for him, because his ears sit 33 in off the floor and this crate is 35 in. high. It’s like he’s going in the Presidential Suite. And then BOOM. That crate is known as a “700” and what ~ according to the chart ~ is the ONLY airplane United has that CAN’T carry a 700? A 737. I frantically zip over to the flight info for the NOLA departure. OF COURSE ~ it’s a 737 from NOLA to Houston. I call United’s PetSafe just to be sure. Awesome.
WhenEVER the dogs DO get to leave, we get to DRIVE them TO HOUSTON to catch the jet plane. Now we’re talking TWO DAYS, since it’s 525+ miles one way.
I think Ebola’s about coming out of his post-work coma and send him a FB message to call us. He does and that’s AFTER reading the copy of the pet lodge email, calling THEM, unloading with “WHY couldn’t you MENTION THAT TO ME when I talked to you two days ago?!?!” and hearing, “Oh, I’m so sorry. It’s just not going to take as long as we thought, so we just went ahead sooner…” We do a cursory search for the civilian kennel they’re shunting you over to, as Brat’s never heard of them. Of COURSE they require a bordatella vaccine of 6 months or less and OUR dogs ~ who were at the vets that very day ~ have a 7 month-old one. Just. Shoot. Me. Not to mention that their fees are significantly more and, as a civilian facility, they don’t have the liability for stuff that might happen to your precious pups, which is a legitimate concern, considering that dogs go missing in Guam on a regular basis and NOT because they slipped a leash or got out through the fence on their own, if you get my drift.
What a crap sandwich.
So, we wait. Can’t take them for the additional shot (w/ base vets closed Fri and Mon) until we know more about THAT kennel, if we even want to chance it, or if they’re not booked anyway. Will there be space on the plane once we have a date? Will minivan rental rates soar in the interim? Will Hawaii be cleaned up in time for their airport schedule to be back to normal? AND. Have to have enough time left on our 10 days certificate to wait the 3 WORKING days to get an answer back from Guam.
Or blow the whole thing off and do the drill around 10 November when base opens.
That’s a taste of what it means to be uno amigo de casa de major dad. If it’s not a disaster, you can’t POSSIBLY be talking about us.
Fun, Life, Planet Ebola | tree hugging sister | 
October 15, 2014 11:07 am
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There’s a reason that God invented wine.
I’m sorry, I stopped reading when I saw YOU’RE COMING TO HOUSTON!! 🙂 YAY! (Insert Tigger bounce here) We’ll go to Los Cucos, my treat. I have a very tiny Casa de Julie but it has a nice back yard so if you find a hotel but it doesn’t accept varmints the pups can run around in safety until the flight arrives (letting your critters run around would have the extra bonus of p*ssing off my neighbor, Cruella DeVil, which I try to do on a frequent basis.) Let me know how I can help.
I KNEW you were the schweetest thang EH-VAH, Julie my love!
But. 🙁
It’s 10 hours to get in there, so we might not get in ’til very late and we have to keep the puppers isolated in a hotel room, or we break quarantine and get to do the whole drill over again. All we’re gonna have time for is an all day trek getting there, hit the La Quinta by the airport, hope something’s open for OUR dinner by the time we pull in, leave 6:30 a.m. to get them to the cargo terminal for the 3 hour before flight check-in. Pray NOTHING goes wrong, and head straight home. Wouldn’t I LOVE to have time to pass with dearest girlfriends, especially if I get to help them piss of neighbors. I LIVE for that stuff.
Now, I’ve got to take 2 days of from work to do it as it is, probably miss seeing you AND not be able to feel my butt for about a week after a road trip like that. 🙁
Syd, the problem with the wine is I wake with a headache AND all five dogs. Nothing changes. Trust me, I TRIED.
Bypassing me again, eh? I guess I know where I stand with you. 🙂
As you SHOULD. 😉
UGH! Well, no matter what time you get in, I will send you my digits if you need ANYthing. There is at least a Denny’s nearish IAH so there’s always that. (Not a great part of town but if anyone can handle it, y’all can 🙂 )
Oh my God. This is exactly the sort of three-ring circus my parents specialize in. Good luck.
And I know you MUST be a dog devotee to put up with this! Bless you.
Seems to me it’s easier for a HUMAN to go to Guam than a couple of dogs. Sheesh. You are made of some tough stuff.