bunnies! (and other pictures)

I got close enough to this little guy to have the flash reflect out of his eyes. Then he hop, hop, hopped away.

It made me smile.

Then there was a sunset.

It wasn't blurry in real life. :P

crossing fingers

So, as I've mentioned before, I've been applying to jobs online. Today I turned in my first resume in person. It's at the "hippie" grocery store - you know, organic, vegetarian, free-range, etc. It would be an awesome place to work all around, so I checked out their website and emailed them my resume. A guy emailed my back and told me when he would be in the store so I could drop off my resume in person. So today I went.

I thought it was going to be a quick, here's my resume, nice to meet you, shake hands and leave, so I didn't get very dressed up - khaki shorts and a polka-dot shirt. The shirt was low cut, but not a tank top. Significance? My tattos were visible but not on attention-drawing display.

Jay and I went into the store (I needed some veggie sausage anyway) and I went to the customer service desk. I noticed a big stack of applications, so I grabbed one and headed to the cafe area. On the way there a guy stopped us - "looking for me?" It was the guy I was supposed to meet, and he saw that I was carrying a resume so he guessed I was me. He told me to go fill out the app and he'd be with me in a few minutes. As I was filling it out, he was running around, having other people fill stuff out, getting paged to the front, etc. Jay went to go shop / look around while I waited.

Eventually he came back over, and gave me a rundown of everything. They weren't hiring right this second (despite the enormous amount of people turning n resumes), and when a position does open up it generally goes to someone internally. The store by my house is the flagship store, the busiest store, and thus the highest demand to work. But he slips in an "outsider" application whenever possible. After we had been talking for a few minutes, he told me that I had a really strong presence and belonged out helping customers. I agreed and told him this is my strongest point. We chatted a bit more, and I could tell he was really digging me. In fact, he gave me the hiring manager's name to the other Asheville store, AND a list of other local (similar) business that I could also apply to, just in case. He understood that I just moved here and need a job, but he said he hoped I would wait because I was "an easy sell" to the official hiring manager.

Poor Jason was wandering the store during this entire time. According to him, it was about an hour and a half. This doesn't surprise me, because even though the guy kept getting called away to "interview" other people, he always came back to me, and we talked for a LONG time. I walked out of there with a really good feeling. Hopefully something opens up soon, because I know I'll be the first in line for an "outsider" position.

punishments

I don't often watch the news, because it is always depressing. However lately, I've been catching some snippets. Since I've lived here, there have been several murders (not all IN Asheville). There were at least 2 children and one elderly lady killed, all in seperate incidents.

One of the children - an 8 year old girl - was shot 4 times in the head execution style by her dad's girlfriend's ex-husband. The man was trying to get back at his ex-wife, so he shot her future stepdaughter. Nice huh?

Another child was killed "accidentally." An off duty police officer was apparently having a "bad" day, and hit a little girl with his car as she walked home from school. She was killed. He of course, was fine. Nevermind that he had a previous tarnish on his record for reckless driving. What was his punishment for taking an innocent life? One year house-arrest and four years' probation.

Here's the thing I have with that. Obviously the first guy was a whackjob and he's in jail now for a very long time, where I'm sure the other inmates will treat him very nicely (as people who hurt children so generally are treated). But the second guy? He gets a tiny slap on the wrist. It's true, it was an accident, but he killed a child. I think he should get a full punishment.

Here's my reasoning: When a murder is planned, generally the murderer has an idea that what he is doing is wrong. He knows he'll be punished. Will the punishment teach him not to kill people? Who knows. But when it's an accidental murder, there definitely needs to be some conditioning done, i.e. certain behaviors will lead to punishment. It's very B.F. Skinner - if you hit a dog's nose with a newspaper every time he pees in the house, he'll learn to stop peeing in the house. The fact that this guy had already been in trouble at least once for reckless driving should be a testament. He wasn't punished severely enough, and now he's killed a small child.

But it's ok, he got one year of house arrest. I'm sure the girl's parents are ok with that. And it will never ever happen again.

life in Asheville

So far life in Asheville has been pretty good. They still chase each other, but we've caught Mecrutio & Femi hanging out a few times. So far, I have no picture proof, but I'm working on that.

I do have lots of picture proof of other stuff.

Like fireflies. I really love this 1st picture (click to make larger):

And, just to prove that it's not a broken pixel on my camera, please observe the next two:

There's lots of other wildlife here too. I haven't gotten any pictures of bats yet either, but they're around. And bunnies!

This bunny is so far away because when I went out to take pictures, of course Lily came with. For some reason, bunnies don't like sausage dogs charging after them.

And of course, the wildest wildlife of all (Jay and Lily):

The other night we went to The Orange Peel, which is a pretty famous loval venue. We saw Woody Wood and Hollywood Red, and that was awesome.

I decided that I would love to work at the Peel. I've already applied to a few places online, but that will be one of the places that I stop by in person.

So that's it so far. I still really like it here (but I'll like it even more when I have a job).

dogs and cat

The cat is still adapting to his new home. We started him out in our bedroom, and he got used to that pretty quick. Then we started letting him roam the rest of the house, but only when the dogs were outside. When Midnight was around, he could be in the house because Mecrutio already knew him and knew he wasn't a threat. But Femi and Lily are different. (Femi is a Rhodesian Ridgeback and Lily is some sort of beagle / pointer / sausage mix. Both are bigger than the cat, but Lily isn't much bigger.)

Lily acts like she doesn't care at all. Femi is interested in Mecrutio, but doesn't do anything. If the cat looks at Femi, she runs away. When the cat is not looking at her however, Femi is following her all the way, ears up. Because of this, Mecrutio has gotten confident enough to wander freely about the house, and even go outside on the deck (which we would like to discourage).

This morning, however, the dogs were together when the cat (and Jay and I) emerged for the morning. The dogs were both watching Mecru, but I thought nothing of it since they had never done anything. Apparently Mecu didn't think anything of it either. I took my eyes of them, and heard a giant scramble. I turned back around and stopped both dogs in their tracks, but they had already chased the cat into the bathroom. I guess they had a silent dog conference that went something like "Dude, if you chase him, I'll chase him too!" and poor Mecrutio was now hiding in the bathroom with a poofy tail.

All is sorted out, and we'll be in our own place in a few weeks so it doesn't matter anyway. But I do feel a little sorry for the cat.

Here are some pictures:

Femi:

Lily (full name - Miss Lily Taylor):

And you've all seen Mecrutio before.

RIP Midnight

This was written by Jay.

Today I had to put my puppy to sleep.

Midnight was a good dog. He was my friend. And every day for the last 15 years he put a smile on my face. He was a joy to be around. He loved everyone, even cats and squirrels. And I will never forget him. He and I went through a lot together.

But as sharp as his mind was, his body failed him. He lost the use of his back legs and lost a bunch of weight. He would throw up his food, and because he couldnt stand up on his own he would mess himself. If he did manage to stand, he would fall over into things and hurt himself. So I decided not to make him suffer any more indignity, not to suffer any more pain.

I'm going to write a big entry celebrating his life. But for now I have too heavy a heart. We laid him to rest out back behind the barn. I miss him. It hurts a lot.

I just figured I'd share the news to those who knew him.

And now, some pictures.

moved

Too lazy to write a real blog.

- We have way more stuff than we thought. Took too long to pack, completely filled up 16-foot truck, with some stuff in the car. Left at 1pm instead of 8am, without cleaning the place. In fact, the dog left them a lovely stain in the middle of the living room carpet (a side effect of his medications is vomit). We don't get our security deposit back, but I hated that place anyway.

- Jay is a champ at driving a giant truck full of crap while towing a car. The animals are champs at riding in said truck.

- We had planned on doing the drive al in one shot because of lack of funds for a motel, but that plan started fizzling out after being on the road for about 10 hours AFTER doing manual labor in the morning. The original plan would have worked better, executing it really failed. We had to text a few peeps that we knew were on the internet so we could find a convenient pet-friendly motel. When nobody responded fast enough, I texted ChaCha (242242). They totally came through for us by responding "In my experience, Super 8 is very pet friendly" and giving me the address of one on our route. I had asked for one on I-75 near Knoxville, but it just so happened that as I received that text, we passed a Super 8, (we were about an hour and a half from Kvle still). We pulled over and the ladies working the night shift were super nce & knowledgable.

- If you get two things from ths blog, it's that ChaCha and Super 8 Motels are both aces.

- The pets are recouping from the trip nicely. Mecru loves the bedroom we are staying in, but is unsure of how to treat the 2 other dogs that we live with now. Midnight pretty much just lays around, but he's still taking medicine.

- We had some friends visiting from Raleigh to help us unpack the truck. They stayed for a few days, so it felt like we were on vacation instead of having just moved. There was a big 4th of July party yesterday, but now all the people are gone and we can start our new lives in the South.

Now to find jobs.

- I love this town. It's full of tattooed vegetarians. I fit right in. I am a little sad that I don't stand out as much here, but I am super thrilled at the abundance of vegetarian food available both in restaurants and in grocery stores.

Ok, that's enough for now.

here

So I live in Asheville, North Carolina now. I hate moving. The whole ordeal took longer than planned, but we're here now. Right now Jay has some friends in from Raleigh for the 4th of July so it just feels like we're on vacation right now. I'll give a better update later when it has actually sunk in that I live here now.

quick update

Moving to Asheville, NC in a coupla days. My last day of work was Friday. I never saw my trainee again after the one time she was there, but whatever. That just means I got to listen to my music and sing my little heart out like I used to. Friday was a pretty busy day, but I'd rather have that than the time slink by ever so slowly. Damn did it feel good to walk out that door though. I did have to stop by the next day to turn in my keys, but that's no big deal. (I was just thankful I didn't get a call early the next morning to open the store.)

That night we went over to some friends house for a sort of goodbye BBQ / Wii party. Then, home to pack. We got a lot done today - Jay did most of the kitchen, and I did all the media (books, cds, dvds, some video games) and all my bead stuff. It's hard to pack because we'll actually be staying with Jay's sister for a month before we get our own place, so a lot of this is going straight into storage. The hard part lies in deciding what we'll need for a month. Tomorrow we finish packing and clean the place up. Tuesday morning we start packing up the truck. Wednesday morning, bright and early, we set out.

Me, Jay, Midnight, and Mecrutio will all be crammed into the cab of a uhaul for a 700 mile drive. Towing a car. Driving mountainous roads. With frequent bathroom breaks for the pets. SO, um, Wednesday is going to suck. But we'll get in Wednesday night, go to sleep, and unpack the truck the next day. We've actually got some friends making a 4-hour drive from Raleigh to help, so that will be fun. We don't have to have the truck back for a few days so we can take our time. Then there is a big 4th of July party, which will probably involve us drinking a lot. Shut up, we'll have earned it by then!

One last unrelated note:

This morning Mecrutio was laying on Jay's lap. I nommed his head. He didn't like that, so he bit my shoulder. Hard. I have a tooth-shaped welt right where my neck meets my shoulder. It rocks, thanks Mecru.

superstorm!

Yesterday if you were in my neck of the woods, you experienced a major thunderstorm. It was fine, partly cloudy, then suddenly the sky was dark and it was absolutely pouring. And hailing. And windy. With lightning and thunder directly overhead, shaking the buildings. I was at work, watching the parking lot flood, sure we were going to lose power. I wouldn't have cared if I lost power at work, but my apartment is on the same power grid, so I would have lost power at home too. That is more annoying.

Armageddon rained down for about an hour. Apparently during this time, people just a few miles away from me had no idea the world was ending. This is evidenced by my boss calling me while this was happening:

telling me about a fax he was sending. I had turned off the fax machine because the power was only one blink away from going out completely, and I was sick of the fax machine beeping to reset itself.

Then the storm stopped as suddenly as it had started. However, there was major damage all over the place: tree debris, downed power lines, tar pulled up from the very roads, etc. Traffic on the corner where my store is was backed up for miles in both directions. It took Jay almost 2 hours to get home from a place that is 20 minutes away. So I walked home.

I didn't have my camera with me because I wasn't expecting any excitement. But I had to take pictures of the beautiful rainbow I saw during my walk, so the phone cam had to suffice. (As always, click to enlarge.)

Then in my apartment complex, I saw that some of the trees were no longer in tact. Example:

Our place seemed to be good, though Jay says it sounded like one of the windows had taken quite a beating, and there were branches all around too. The animals were understandably freaked out. Shoot, I was a little freaked out while I was at work.

It was a helluva storm.