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.