Happy New Dog Year!

The dog had a fractured vertebrae that the vet said miraculously didn't move around, injuring him badly. He spent the night with Daniela, who is the one who went to physically get him, and she has been loving on him for me and taking care of him.

She would have never gotten to him if I didn't have Google Maps. I was able to pin-point his exact location with road names, and she found him quickly. She is my hero.

We are, as we expected, dealing with a lot of flack from people about bringing him home. It sucks big hairy donkey balls. I know you can't go through life expecting everyone to be as thrilled as you are over things, but the negative energy has been pretty bad. I have resisted the urge to throw back nasty things, because I don't do that, but maybe I should start? No. But it's tempting. I make it a point to not criticize people's life choices; I wish I would get the same respect instead of being called names.

I'm thinking of setting up a hotline, and if you have really good news that no one else will be happy hearing for whatever reason, someone will be on the other line, thrilled for you. We'd get calls like,

"I just quit my pre-med major, and I'm going to go research a rare and rapidly disappearing worm in the Amazon rain forest! I will be instrumental in saving this species!" and the hotline worker will go, "Woo hoo! You save those worms! The world is full of doctors anyway!"

or

"Hi, Happy Hotline? I'm pregnant! With number 10! Isn't that great?!" and the HH worker will go, "Alright! You'll have a full two hand's worth of kids! You've got your own bowling league, now!"

I expect we'd get a lot of calls from gay people crowing about finding the loves of their lives, and formerly rich people who give their wealth away to help the poor.

I'll work on setting that up soon.

Oh yea, we named him Tino. Daniela had been calling him Rocco, which I love, but I promised Rob that we could name him Tino, after Tino Martinez, first basemen for the Yankees after Don Mattingly left the position in 1996 (Mattingly is, of course, who Matty is named after). I'll get used to it.

The vet said he can't fly for a week to two weeks, so it'll be a while longer than I thought, which is bumming me out, but it gives me time to get prepared for him, too. He'll stay with the vet and Daniela until he can come home (provided, of course, that M & L like him).
Happy New Year!