Claire's Anxieties

Today I woke up at 4:30 am, with two cats walking on me and lots of thoughts in my head. So, naturally, I went running. The moon was out, so it was actually lighter than my usual running time (6am) and I was surprised to find that there were several other people out and about (running, riding bikes) that early in the morning--psychos!! Maybe they are having trouble sleeping, too.

While I was running I had my first feeling of real remorse about leaving Dallas and everything that we are so comfortable with. I don't know how long it will be before I have a job again or where to even look for a job once we get to London. I won't even have a work permit for a couple of months, so I just have to get used to the idea of being unemployed and trying to be productive and adventurous in the meantime. We are also moving with no furniture. A furnished apartment seems like the most rational and easiest way to deal with this problem, but what if that is not where we decide to land? How will we get furniture to an apartment when we have no car? Will we take our mattress on the tube? Does Ikea deliver?

I didn't figure any of this out on my run, but I did remind myself that I've moved to a new city before (that's how I'm trying to think of it) and that it always has worked out in the past. And I heard a screech owl, which was cool (and appropriate since it is October, after all).

Cedar Fever, By: Buster Brown

This has been a horrible day. Naturally, there are embarassing pictures of me in a very fragile state: I am allergic and it is NOT funny! This morning, after a night of torture, I was rushed to the vet where they shaved my chest:


I look like a plucked chicken!

The good thing is that I get to eat bologna a lot for some reason. The bad thing is that they keep spraying me with this cold stuff that really @(#*&$ hurts. I don't want to humiliate myself further by rolling around on the ground in agony, so I use all of my energy to stay upright and just rush from point to point while foaming at the mouth in a manly way. Good thing my Dad knows how to make me feel better:

Never ending stuff

It is very hard to become a minimalist after a lifetime of pack rat-like behavior. But that is what we are forced to do as we start the moving to London process. One would think that getting rid of everything wouldn't be that hard, but when there is so much of everything to get rid of, it is not that simple. The key, I have found, is to check your sentimentality at the garage door. Yes, yes, that Christmas ornament that you made with your sister and your then-boyfriend, now-husband, is sweet, but it's a piece of crap, so get rid of it. The outdated public health books that have been in boxes since 2000? Those go, too. If you haven't consulted them in six years, you're not going to start now. Pictures albums are tricky, because even though you can't remember the names of half of the people in your college photo albums, their pictures do trigger memories. If you have six guitars and a banjo, but you only play one of them, keep that one and sell the rest--even the one that is just like Robert Smith's. What to do with that box of costumes dating back from the days when you had no qualms with walking down the streets of New Orleans in barely more than your underwear? Do you really think that you would be caught dead in any of those slut costumes now, much less in five years?

And we haven't even gotten to what's in the house yet.

LDN!!!

It's been a long, long time since we have updated this blog, but now it has become our official "moving to London" site, where we will document all the trials, tribulations, and excitement involved in moving from Texas to London. We are not moving to New London, CT or London, TX (I'm sure that there is one), but we're off to the real deal: London, England, UK. We're hoping to blend right in:



Our friends are welcome to visit and stay in any spare space in our 700 square foot apartment (bathtub, kitchen counter, window sill etc.) . Just think, if you had come to see us in Texas, you would have had your own garage apartment to stay in!

For those of you who are concerned, Buster Brown will be staying behind to live full time on the farm he so loves. Chowder and Emma (our cats) will be microchipped, rabies tested and vaccinated, put into "quarantine" in Tallulah (also on the farm) until we can come back for them, at which point they will be drugged, stuffed into boxes, and flown across the ocean to us. I'm sure that this will be a fascinating and exciting experience for them. Poor kitties..but we are selfish and want them with us. The only reason Buster will miss out on this experience, is that we are pretty confident that putting him on a plane for 9-15 hours will scare him to death (seriously) or at least traumatize him completely.

Stay tuned as we attempt to sell both of our cars, pawn our electronics, and force our relatives to take over all of our stuff...all in the next 3 weeks!

Underwear on my head is not a funny joke

Oh hah hah, really funny. Why don't you put some flowery underwear on my head while I'm innocently resting on the forbidden bed after a long, hard, and exhausting weekend? And then, after you do that, I think you should definitely try to blame it all on me, as if I would ever, voluntarily put a pair of seriously dorky underwear on my head. Frankly, I think the person who owns those underwear, should, in the future, consider the consequences of taking a picture of it. I'm sure that she didn't expect that I would post her underwear on the internet for all the world to see or she would have picked a much more respectable pair.

So, I'm back. It's been a while since I have had the time in my busy schedule to post a blog, but now that life is settling down, I can update you all on important things.

First of all, we moved to a new neighborhood with lots of new smells and interesting animals. I have discovered that vines are a great place to sniff out critters and I would spend the majority of my time in one particular patch of vines if my parents would just stop it with the whole dragging me out by my leash thing. At least they had the good sense to get me a harness, so that I don't choke to death, although being on a harness definitely moves me further into the realm of the not-so-cool and slightly reminds me of the hotdog costume. My Dad says it's my S&M look. I'm not sure that's the look I'm really going for.

After we moved, I got to spend several glorious weeks with my Grandma and Grandpa on the farm, where I got to eat lots of leftover people food on top of my dog food and run around the back yard and bark at squirrels all day long every day. Being on the farm is the life, so when my Uncle Will came by and took me back to Dallas, I showed my disapproval, by expressing my anal glands very violently in the back of his car. Then I did it several more times on my parents' couch as soon as I got home. Unfortunately, that got me a nice trip to the vet, but it was worth it to be able to express...no pun intended...my emotions about the whole coming back home and being left by myself for 8 hours a day situation.

The good news is that there is a dog park here and we went the other day. I was pretty tired, because we had some people over the night before and one guy gave me about two hamburgers and the people were making a ruckus playing some game where they jump up and down and wave their hands in the air and try to guess who each other are without talking. It was so stupid and very disruptive for those of us who would have liked to have gotten some sleep. But, the guy who kept feeding me hamburgers rocked and the next time we go to the dog park, I will be more into it. The only thing I'm a little worried about with the dog park is that there is a fenced in water area for dogs who like to swim. I don't like to swim, but my Dad can't seem to accept this fact and thinks it's really funny to throw me into pools and such, so I'm a little concerned that he will get the genius idea (like the undies) to throw me in and laugh at my frantic swimming to shore. If he does that, I'll just make sure to pee on his guitar.

So, that's the latest in my life. Peace out. Buster.

Parent Birthday Bash

Happy Birthday to Mom, Jack and Mindy! On March 4th we celebrated all of their birthdays, with food, fanfare, artificially colored flowers (they turned the water purple!) and friends. Carrot cake was, surprisingly, sort of pretty, if lopsided. It tasted good. Here are the party pics!

Today was not a good day. I as you can see, I suffered my fate with dignity, but having a bath is quite possibly my least favorite of all the negative experiences I have to endure in my daily life. You might think that, judging from the color of the water, I actually needed a bath, but that is pure nonsense. I prefer my fur to be slick with natural oils, because when it is, I itch less. And what dog would choose the scent of oatmeal shampoo over his own potent aroma? I am a good dog, though, so I put up with this torture thinly disguised as a bath. I remind myself that it could be much worse. They could be doing it with a hose...but I refuse to pretend like I enjoy it!! Even in the most desperate of situations, I will not be a ham for the camera. I prefer to remain stoic when I am being humiliated and abused.

Unfortunately, this day reeked of potential for disaster from the moment I got up. I started my day off by eating some kitty litter, which is one of my favorite forbidden treats. But something went terribly wrong and instead of digesting the morsel, I regurgitated it onto the dining room floor. My parents were both disgusted and intrigued. Someone wanted to take a picture of it for the blog, but I assure you all I would never let something as tasteless as a regurgitated morsel of kitty litter be displayed within this fine publication.

Anyway, it was all downhill from there. And to top it all off, its COLD outside. But at least I don't look like this when I go for walks:

My mom regularly gets mistaken for a homeless derelict, because she takes me for walks in the dark dressed in outfits similar to this one. Last week some of our neighbors pulled into their driveway when we were walking by and did not get out of their car until after we had gone on down the street and safely back into our house. What an embarassment to be tagged as the crazy homeless looking lady's pet! It's totally ruining my reputation.

On an upnote, I showed the Rotweiller down the street, who was boss yesterday. If he hadn't been behind that huge steel fence, I would have really socked it to him.