It's a Dog's World--A Commentary on life by Buster

It seems that people find my blogs more interesting than those of my parents, so I am taking over the blog again to appease my fans. Everyone with sense knows that I'm the authority.

This Halloween, I have escaped the ultimate humiliation--the Hotdog Costume. Unfortunately, last year I wasn't so lucky. Also, this Halloween, my parents saw fit that I wear a stupid looking bandana that says "Boo" on it and is covered with white ghosts. Not only did I have to wear that thing in front of all of my cousins at the farm last weekend, but today they put it on me and made me wear it in the hope that someone would see how "cute" I looked. I'm not sure who that someone was--possibly the cats? No one else could possibly have seen me today, because I was locked inside of the house. I don't think they wanted the trick or treaters to see me, since they didn't even buy candy and have been hiding out with the lights out so that no one will think that they are home. So, I don't know what the point of the bandana was, except to exert power over me and humiliate me into submission.

But I will not submit. Last weekend, we went to the farm and I showed everyone who was boss. First, I stopped Moose from humping Libby with my masterful referee skills. Then, while all the people were out at their Pigfest I tore into the trash like a rabid beast, spreading death and destruction throughout the kitchen.

Well, maybe that last part was a little dramatic. I did get some good morsels out of the trash, though...and I did make a mess, but there was no death. Only destruction.

Of course a weekend in Tallulah wouldn't be complete if I didn't rub my butt across my Grandma's rug. And the best part is that before I did that, I scared one of the cats so badly that she lost control of her bladder ON THE SAME RUG.

Well, let's be honest. I didn't scare her...but Libby did. And Libby is a dog, too, so that means that I definitely would have scared her if I had gotten there first.

After rubbing my butt on Grandma's rug, I defeated Moose in a dramatic tug of war, which I celebrated with a victory toss of the victim of Tug of War--a stuffed bird. I tossed it so well that it's eyes popped off and gave me extra things to chew on and destroy. And then, once again, I prevented Moose from humping Libby. If I felt love for anyone besides my pink pig, I, too, would be humping Libby. But, due to some circumstances out of my control, I can only imagine what it would be like to want to hump a female dog.

The best part about the weekend is that even though I was "bad" my grandma still fed me meatloaf and even though I growled at my Shug, she still called me "Sweetie." Now that's love, people. I bet my Grandma would never make me wear a hotdog costume.

The Mexico Saga...continued (resolved???) and what we REALLY think about Travelocity

Oh yeah, the little gnome commercials are SO cute and they make life with Travelocity look cushy and fun and flexible--trips all over the world! It doesn't matter if you miss your flights! Natural disasters?? NO problem with the travel gnome!!

All we have to say to that is it's a bunch of hooey.

After 10-12 phone calls and many hours talking to Travelocity and Sun Country Airlines, we finally got our stupid refund...or we'll get it after 15-30 days. What a nightmare! Jim and I talked to no fewer than 15 different people at Travelocity and not one of them was a native English speaker, so we spent half of the conversations not being able to understand each other. Once we started to make some progress, the Travelocity person would claim that he/she had to speak with someone else and then would come back and retract every positive thing that they had told us. Yesterday, someone told me that if we cancelled our hotel reservation, we would get all but $80 back and then today I was told that we would lose all $320. After I pitched a fit about that and insisted that they call the hotel and see for themselves that it wasn't even open, they agreed that we would get our full refund.

It was the same thing with the airline. Yesterday, Travelocity said the airline had cancelled our ticket, so we would definitely get a full refund. But, unfortunately, they couldn't reach the airline due to long wait periods, so they couldn't confirm. When I got off the phone with Travelocity, I called the airline myself (on hold for 8 minutes) and they said that (insert bitchy voice of your choice here) NO THEY HADN'T CANCELLED OUR RESERVATIONS and that they NEVER give refunds for coach tickets. NEVER EVER EVER....and that it was all Travelocity's fault so we should talk to them.

Apparently overnight the airline decided that since the Cancun airport is closed to all flights but those getting people out of the city, they could, they guess, give us our money back. But we had to deal with Travelocity. An hour and a half later, Travelocity also agreed to give us our money back.

Sheesh. A word of advice to all of you who don't want to spend 12 hours in two days trying to get your money back in the wake of a hurricane. Use Travelocity to find the cheap tickets and the good deals and then book it yourself directly with the airline and hotel...or use a travel agent! They know all of the laws and what the airlines can and can't get away with. If we had done it that way, we could have avoided much confusion and may have gotten all of this figured out with time to plan for changing our destination.

As it is, we are very disappointed that we are going to miss the Katie and John wedding extravaganza in Cabo San Lucas, but we're really glad that they are still getting married this weekend, despite Wilma! We'll be celebrating from afar and we plan to spend the money that we get back on a fun trip out to Seattle to visit them and all of our other "out west" friends. It won't be Mexico, but I don't doubt it will be a lot of fun anyway.

The Mexico Saga...

Our friends Katie and John had their wedding planned in Playa Del Carmen for next weekend. Unfortunately, Hurricane Wilma decided to hang out on top of Playa for a few days, so the wedding has been moved.

Beware to all of you who book your travel on obscure airlines through Travelocity: they are liars and will try to tell you that you can't get a full refund, despite the bold print on their confirmation to you that states otherwise. At the moment, we are in the throes of trying to get our full refund and re-book our travels to Cabo San Lucas (or somewhere around there). Jim is going to put a full court press on Travelocity tomorrow...stay tuned for the gorey details.

Next blog: To Mexico or Not to Mexico?

Yesterday was my birthday!!!! I entered the last year of my 20's with a romantic get away, planned by Jim.

I have to say that turning 29 hasn't been traumatic for me at all. Yes, I have had the usual fleeting thoughts about sagging body parts and aching limbs, but, in reality, I feel better now than I did when I was in my early 20's. It has a lot to do with not living in New Orleans anymore...

Anyway, we had a great birthday celebration in Dallas, which is cosmopolitan and more happening than Fort Worth (it has good restaurants and funky bars, for example). Jim took me to a nice dinner and then to the symphony and we stayed the night at the Magnolia Hotel. Besides the luxury of not having two cats walking on us and having a bathtub that didn't require that we sit in it with our knees around our ears, the best part about the hotel room was the window shades. They had DOUBLE shades and the second layer blocked out the light entirely. I was in an insomniac's heaven.

Happy birthday to me!! One more year until I get to plan my 30th!

We apologize for the lack of blog lately. Life has been busy, sleep has been in demand, and time has been non-existant...

Here is a re-cap of the recent adventures of Jim and Claire. Last weekend, we headed up to chilly, rainy New England to celebrate the marriage of Paul and Natalie. Our flight, due to the horrible weather, was delayed, and, fortunately, Andrea and Danny let us stay at their place for the night. We surprised Jessie and Steve (who were coming over for dinner) and had a fun time re-living the old days in Arlington. It was just like 2003--delicious food, flowing wine, lots of laughter--a great start to a great weekend!

On Saturday we mapped out an alternate route through New Hampshire, which, I'm sure many of you saw on the news, was being flooded out by persistant, torrential rain storms (also the cause of our delayed flight). Ever the mapster, Jim had several routes figured out on the map of New Hampshire that we bought at a corner store, but was thwarted by various washed out roads. We took backroads through the woods and saw rushing streams and beautifully colored leaves on the way. Although it was supposedly a "muted" fall, after looking at Fort Worth all summer (it's brown), we were really impressed by the beauty of backwoods New Hampshire. It was almost better, we think, that we had to go around our usual route, because we saw so much that we probably would have missed otherwise.

Finally, after about four and a half hours, we made it to Walpole...and, being the ill prepared people that we are, didn't have a map or directions to the apple orchard. We got country directions from a local (go left a the big yellow house, make a right at the second dirt road and cut across that property, then go up two hills and around the corner) and we arrived in the pouring down rain!

When we got there, it was naptime at the lodge. All of the babies were getting ready for the big night, so we had to quietly celebrate being there and, by the time we got there it was practically time for the wedding anyway, so we just went upstairs and rested, before whipping into our wedding best and heading over to the apple orchard.

It was a beautiful wedding. The sun came out while Paul and Natalie were saying their vows and Jim got a little teary eyed when he saw Paul start up. After the wedding, we took a hayride through the apple orchards (minus the hay) and enjoyed the great music and food. Jim and Kristian shared a dance (they've got moves!) and the champagne was flowing.

The good times, unfortunately, had to end and we capped the weekend off with a nauseating drive back through the hills of New Hampshire (not such a good mix with the champagne and lack of sleep...it was fetal position all the way home for me). After fifteen hours of traveling, we made it back to Fort Worth, worn out, but happy to have gotten to spend time with so many good friends. And to those of you we missed, we'll be back soon! We have the Boston itch and we're already making plans for a longer visit ASAP!

O L I V I A

This is my niece. She's cool.

Jim has a new love....BABIES! You'll recall, from an Ofoto download not long ago, that Jim did not used to have such a good relationship with babies. In fact, he consistently made them cry. Hand a baby to Jim and both he and the baby would get VERY uncomfortable. Even with our adorable, happy neice, Jenna Hope, Jim is tentative. (Note: we'll be dedicating a whole blog to Olivia and Jenna, our neices, including some pretty awesome baby pictures of Olivia from back in the day. We'll also be creating an entire blog dedicated to Kate, during her most fashionable days. Posting old, embarassing pictures of people on the internet never gets old.) Anyway, with the help of a little champagne, it appears that Jim's baby attitude may have changed! We took a trip up north for Paul and Natalie's wedding and Jim, it seems, has become a new man! A BABY man.

The first picture is Jim, REALLY excited, because he just felt the little Bagley give a good hearty kick! Then, the next day, at Paul and Natalie's wedding, Jim played airplane with cute litte Ella Manon. She was so tickled that she threw up on him. After that, Jim was so enamored that he said, "I want one!" Suspecting that he had champagne goggles on, I re-confirmed the comment on Sunday and Jim quickly clarified, "I meant I want one some day a few years from now after we've travelled to Europe." Whew. (Don't worry, Mendy...some day we'll have one.)

In the meantime, enjoy these pictures of Jim with other people's babies. Unfortunately, we didn't get pictures of every baby over the weekend, but ALL the babies at the wedding (and there were a lot) were well behaved and could have been Gerber's or Huggies models.

Umm...ok. You should all look forward to some extremely humiliating pictures of Jim in the near future. Check back at the end of November, after I've had some time to riffle through the hundreds of Jim photos from high school that I have stashed in my bedroom in Tallulah.

One thing that Jim forgot to point out is that he, too, is in the prom picture (re:primary colors, airplane earrings). For the record, Jim was wearing a paisley shirt and had one of the most beautiful seniors as his date (I guess she could see past the shirt). I also was with a senior, who I wasn't really that interested in, but the thrill of going to the Junior/Senior prom when I was only a Sophomore, was worth it...and the guy was really nice. Anyway, at that point, Jim and I didn't know each other. I knew who he was because he was the object of all of the Sophomore girls' affections and was in with the "cool" crowd, but I never knew that the guy my sister and I had dubbed "Highwaters" (he rolled his pants up to mid-calf...some weird Arizona fashion, I guess) and who drove the pumpkin orange Saab knew who I was. I can't remember the details of the actual prom, but one thing stands out very clearly in my mind from the prom after party. I was off in a corner avoiding my date and suddenly Highwaters appeared and said, "Wouldn't it be cool if we could do some tequila shots right now?" I think I just looked at him. I probably didn't even know what tequila was at that point in my life. I think I remember thinking, "what a dork."

A couple of months passed and I was "dating" (playing pinball, not holding hands and not kissing) a guy my mother adored because he was handsome and a merit scholar. I thought he was boring, but in a cool way and as I was meandering my way through getting out of that relationship, I received an unexpect call. It was "Jim." At first I was confused. Who is Jim? Wait Jim Highwaters??! And why was Jim Highwaters calling me? He wanted to know if I was going to So and So's party tonight and if I wanted some crawfish. My mom freaked out because she was in love with the handsome merit scholar and thought that I, at fifteen, was making a horrible mistake by ditching him to hang out with some guy in the 11th grade, but I was adventurous and just discovering my manipulative woman side, so I went to the party with one guy and completely ignored him while I ate crawfish and played asshole with Jim Highwaters.

So that's how it all began. Eventually Jim and I went to the movies (Fried Green Tomatos) and stuck gummy bears all over the car, stop signs, and movie chairs. Then we climbed some trees in the pecan grove....and then my Dad came outside in his bathrobe and glasses and Jim took off so fast I figured I would never see him again. My dad has that effect on new boyfriends.

Fortunately, he came back...and he's never been able to get over those airplane earrings.

I'm still going to post some EVIL pictures of you, Jim Avant, so don't think you're off the hook.

As promised, here are some pictures of my one and only wife back in the '90s. Can you find her? Here's a hint: She's wearing a primary yellow, blue, green, red and white shirt with....and this is the best part...WWII airplane earings. I think they're P-38s.

What can I say, she was ahead of her times.



Thus ends the cruel and unusual pictures of Claire. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before she posts the one of me wearing my Depeche Mode t-shirt and Flock of Seagulls haircut.
Bring it on.

Since I can't write as well as my wife, and I never ever will, I have elected to post pictures in the place of words. Here is a collection of random images taken over the years. And yes, several of these are revenge photos for the "cactus picture" that Claire promised she would never show to anyone. Enjoy.

Oh my, what have we here...could it be Claire in the 10th Grade? Why, yes it is!! Take note of the 4" diameter glasses (it should be noted that my glasses were approximately 2x the diamter of Claire's when this picture was taken)

Please note the red sleaves, polka-dot skirt and sailor-like collar. Stylish, indeed. (it should be said that this was about the time I fell head over heals for Claire and, yes, fashion had something to do with it.)
















Apparently, those are all the pictures I'm allowed to post in this blog. Must be a size limit or something. Anyway, my next post will be of normal photos of Claire during the '90s. Well, at least they were normal back then.....

Well, since my parents are completely lame and do NOTHING worth writing about during the week, I have decided to take over the blog to defend dogs of all shapes and sizes. This is Buster, the family dog. The ONLY dog. You should remember me, because I'm pretty sure I've bitten most of you at some point or the other.

Anyway, I'm writing because today my mom received a document from a friend which is truly, truly insulting and demeaning to all dogs. Basically it said that the only emotion that dogs have is blind happiness and excitement and that cats are full of deep and conniving thoughts. When I read it (yes, people, I CAN read...just because I can't speak your language, doesn't mean I'm illiterate. I mean, how do you think I'm typing this blog?) I was filled with rage and horror at how misunderstood, emotionally, we dogs are.

First of all, I'm sure many of you remember my early years in Houston. Contrary to the claims of the insulting document, I was neither blindly happy nor was I excited. I was nervous and scared and insecure. Why do you think I bit so many people?

Besides being a tender little thing, I also was, and still am, scheming and conniving. Although my parents have wised up in recent years and discovered that just because I have short legs, it doesn't mean I can't get up onto table tops and eat sheet cakes, I still do my fair share of getting into things. For instance, the other day I ate half a bottle of pills that were meant to help me with my joint pain. It wasn't my fault that my parents left them somewhere I could reach them, and that they tasted like treats! I walked really well for a couple of days....and then I got diarreah. Green, viscous diarreah, which I made sure to desposit in every room in the house...especially my parents' bedroom. How's that for conniving?

I have to admit that I do get excited. When my parents get home from work I AM really happy to see them, BECAUSE I HAVE TO PEE! And yes, I look longingly at them, BECAUSE I'M HUNGRY! I mean, I only get to eat one cup of food a day now and it's DIET food. Please...the only thing that I really, truly get excited about is going on walks. It's an opportunity to show everyone on the street that I'm the boss of this household. I get to drag my parents around by a string, while stimultaneously barking at all the dogs in the neighborhood, who don't have the priviledge. AND my parents PICK UP MY POOP. How is that for power?

I also feel true love. My pink pig, "Piggy," is the object of all of my true affections. I roll on him and toss him around, I rub on him, and...well, you get the picture. Without Piggy, life would be much less amourous.

So, remember people. Just because cats have big eyes and clean themselves, doesn't mean that they are the superior, more emotional race. When cats have the power to control the social lives of people, have the ability to lead humans around by a string instead of just playing with one, and figure out that leaves blown by the wind are not living objects and that the lazer pointer is just light, then we'll talk about emotions and intelligence. Until then, I'll just eat their poop.

In Fort Worth, TX, the summers are so hot that it's hard to go outside. Everything fries to a crispy brown (especially our yard...and the bushes in the back yard....we are bad, bad tenants). Walking from your office to your car is an intense and draining experience and getting into your car, after it's been sitting in the parking lot all day...torture.

That said, we welcome the fall with open arms and much enthusiasm!

North Texas has lots of state parks, so we have been exploring them. Today, we even bought a state park pass, so that we can go to the parks as much as we want AND we can bring fifteen of our friends with us. If we make sure that we visit state parks at least 15 times in the next year, we'll break even on the cost of our state park pass!

Anyway, until today, our experiences in the North Texas State parks have been pretty dismal. The first state park we went to, Lake Mineral Wells, was desert-like. It was 103 degrees outside and we had the brilliant idea to go to the park and take a bike ride. At first, we were enthusiastic, enjoying the scenery, marveling over the cacti, in awe of the coyote poop. Then, our bike trail led us into the town of Mineral Wells, which looked a lot like most towns around here--strip malls, huge pick-up trucks, lots of mullets and cowboy hats. Continuing on, we soon entered the ghetto of Mineral Wells, complete with falling down houses, chickens in the bike path, goats tied to trees in the back yards. Finally, the trail ended in urban Mineral Wells, where homeless, slightly demented looking people, were surrounding the water fountain. We chose to take a chance with our minimal water supply and headed back up the dusty trail. Moments after we stopped for sips of 100 degree water (baked by the sun), on a scenic bridge, I got a flat. We were out of water, it was 103, and we had never changed a bike tire before. But we made it back to Fort Worth safely, after taking a dip in the slightly slimey, luke-warm, and red-neck filled Lake Mineral Wells.

Our next park adventure was at Ray Roberts State Park near Denton, TX. This park is ideal for mountain bikers (which we are not), so we decided to take advantage of the mountain bike trail trail and hike it instead. Apparently, they had done some controlled burning right before we got there. Somehow, it wasn't the scenic experience we had hoped for.

So, today, when we decided, on a whim, to go to Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, TX, we went with very low expectations. First of all, this park is called Dinosaur Valley, because there are fossils of dinosaur footprints in it and, on their webpage and all the guides, there are pictures of these huge, plaster dinosaurs. We figured it would be cheesy, but it was a beautiful day and we wanted to get out and enjoy it, so we took a risk...and it was SO worth it. The park does have giant, plaster dinosaurs, but they are there to give you an idea of the size of the dinosaurs that lived there. The first fossils they found there were of a giant plant eating dinosaur (something like the brontosaurus) being pursued by a meat eating dinosaur (something like a smaller Tyranasaurus...sorry, I'm not very good with my dinosaur names). Those fossils are now in the New York Natural History Museum. There is a beautiful, shaded river that runs through the park, and that is where we found our first dinosaur tracks. I was surprised at how excited I was and how cool it was to look down into the water and see the tracks from something that lived so long ago. It's hard to imagine North Texas, with all it's strip malls and bad traffic, being a place where dinosaurs used to live.

After the fossil viewing, we went on a hike up some bluffs and were, again, surprised at the beautiful views and the steep drop offs. There also were, as evidenced by this picture of Jim, many cacti.

We plan to continue exploring the Texas State Parks--next on our list is Colorado Bend State Park and then, our big trip in December, is Big Bend. We have to keep our food in a bear box and were warned, repeatedly, not to bring our pets unless we wanted them eaten by a bear or mountain lion or goared by a wild boar. And we were also warned, repeatedly, to make sure that our families knew where we were going, in case we didn't make it back to our campsite. Very reassuring...this will be a true test of my camping stamina and survival skills....stay tuned.

We're bloggin

Following in the footsteps of our friends Courtney and Adam, we are going to take a shot at this blog thing so that we, too, can keep everyone up to date with what we are doing. At first we thought that, because we live in Fort Worth, TX--not exactly an exciting city--we wouldn't have much of interest to say, but then we realized that we DO have a life that our friends and family might want to hear about, so here we go!!!