Why is it that when you most need to catch the bus, it comes early for a change? I got to the bus stop at 9:53 to watch my 9:55 bus already fading out of sight down the street -- and naturally, the 10:10 bus came at 10:17.
I was hot for the bus this morning because I was dragging our dog crate to work. The crate has a handle, but it's still heavy, and after toting it down to the bus stop, I wasn't going to turn around and lug it two blocks in the other direction down to the U-Bahn station. So I just had to suck it up and wait for the next bus, whenever it came.
Why was I bringing the crate to work? We're leaving it behind in Germany, but we didn't feel right just throwing it away or leaving it in the alley for God-knows-who to pick up. Hopefully I can find a dog-owning co-worker who wants it, and we can help hook up some nice doggie out there with an almost-new home.
(Alternatively, if one of my faithful readers here in Hamburg wants a crate, and you can come by my office [next to the Fischmarkt] tomorrow to pick it up, you can have it -- for free! -- if nobody here has claimed it by then; drop me an E-mail. Bring along a picture of your dog so that I can see who the present is going to! The crate is the middle-sized model on this page -- 94 x 64 x 71, with two doors.)
(And some of you might be asking "what do you use a crate for?" or "why do you keep your dog in a cage, anyway?" Like many dogs, Scout has been 'crate-trained' -- whenever we leave the house and don't take her with us, we put her inside the crate. To someone who's never encountered this idea before, this might seem cruel -- I definitely asked Shelby the "you keep your dog in a cage??!?" question when we first started dating -- but crate-training actually provides dogs with peace of mind. Many dogs, upon being left alone in a house, start to get nervous and pace around the entire house, thinking that they have to guard every room -- the rest of the pack has gone, and I'm the only one left here to defend the den!! This kind of nervous behavior is what leads to the discovery of chewed-up furniture and soiled carpets when you get home. The crate provides a dog with a much smaller and totally manageable space -- their own personal den. Scout definitely looks on her crate as a place of refuge; if we hold a party with too many people in the house, or if she thinks something bad is about to happen [like a trip, or a bath], she'll voluntarily go and sit in her crate to be 'safe'.)
Anyway, life has gotten better since then. I seem to have gotten over my temporary hump at work -- I had my big presentation this afternoon, and it went well. Tonight, inbetween packing, I think that I'll either go back to the DOM, or walk around and take some pictures. Maybe I'll do both.
Posted by Kevin at July 28, 2004 01:29 PM