Portiacakes update

So, at first, I was really hesitant to crate Portia as my vet had suggested. I thought if I made some other changes, crating her would not be necessary. And then, one night, as I lay in bed just about to fall asleep, I heard the UNMISTAKABLE sound of the portiacakes PEEING IN MY ROOM. I actually lay there for about 45 seconds having this internal monologue:
I DID NOT just hear that! Oh no she didn't. She couldn't have. She was outside on the patio for TWO HOURS before bed. she had PLENTY of time to potty. She couldn't have. Garrgh! but she did! I KNOW SHE DID.

And so I woke up and sure enough, there was a ginormous pee puddle right in front of my door. She didn't try to wake me up to have me put her out. she gave no indication that she still had a FULL bladder before going to bed. She just got out of her bed [her fluffy pillow], went to the door, peed, and went back to bed.

So Jenge helped me get her crate out, and I started crating her. Now, her crate is about 3 feet wide by 4 feet deep. It stays right by my bed. She can see me at all times. She has TWO fuzzy blankets in there for comfort and snuggles. The first night, she cried for 1 hour. By the end of the week, she was up to 6 hours of crying a night. It got to the point that Jenge came into my room one night [when portia was crated] and asked if I was going to bed or if I was going to read for a while. I said, [indicating portia and the wailing coming from the crate] that I had to finish lining her bed with steel spikes and jabbing her with a hot poker before I went to bed.

honestly! She makes it sound like I'm killing her! I've tried putting a blanket over the kennel, not putting a blanket, putting a clock next to hear, playing the radio, running a fan, giving her a smokey bone, no bone, giving her a snuggle toy, no snuggle toy. NOTHING WORKS. Currently, the vet has prescribed valium. The vet says now, portia is in a habit of making a scene and we need to break the habit so that she learns her crate is a happy place, where she gets to snooze uninterrupted.

Let me tell you, you wish you were as committed and stubborn as portia. loaded up on valium, she still manages to put in 45 minutes of protestations before finally curling up and going to sleep.

Shout out to Heidi
Heidi is my tech guru. Heidi always knows what's up and coming. She got me blogging. She got me signed up on twitter. Heidi has her finger on the pulse of the world. She also got me hooked on Torchwood, insisting that I must watch it even when I pishawed her the first time. She was right. I love it. She's the only person that I can discuss old movies with and also lives close enough to Vulcan that I can email her a week before the Star Trek convention and ask if she'll go with me. She helped me decide between a mug that would change when hot liquid was added [to showcase the original Star Trek three - Bones, Kirk and Spock - transporting out] and a com badge. And Ashleigh totally loved the com badge. So Heidi was right.

So shout out to Heidi!

Switcheroo


I talked about it for years. Hemmed. Hawed. And finally, I made the Big Switch.

I got a mac computer.

I'd been interested in getting one for a while and almost got one a couple of years back but due to the price difference I ended up getting another pc. But lately at work, all of our computers had gone beserk-o. Chant's computer crashed, then Char's, then mine. Again. Third computer in 4 years. It's not like I beat them with a bat on a regular basis, they just got fried. This last time we had a computer guy in the office trying to salvage my hard drive at work. And so I started bombarding him with questions. And then he said that he fixes pc's all day and then he goes home to his mac. And he never gets service calls for mac. This was so interesting to me. But there was one thing holding me back. I have to log on to the government servers for my job using Nortel VPN and Citrix. I also need to use Summation [a litigation database]. And none of them work on macs.....

But, then computer guy told me an amazing fact. Macs come with a program called bootcamp. You get a valid copy of windows and bootcamp will partition your hard drive and you can run one part on mac, and the other on windows! I could have both! Plus I LOVE the commercials. I'm so easily swayed!

So I got my new macbook. His name is Percival. And he is very small [less than 5 lbs] and he is very cute. And I love his keyboard [which normally are a deal breaker for me as I have nails like eagle talons]. But my long nails aren't a problem on Percy's mac keyboard. I got my new copy of Windows Xp with SP2 [as that is what bootcamp requires] and partitioned by 250 GB harddrive with 32 GB for windows and the rest for mac.

Now, when I turn on my computer, I can chose if I want to boot up in Mac O/S or Windows. If I need to work, I boot up in windows and logon to vpn and then citrix. When I want to fiddle with my personal email or write or listen to my music, I fire up the mac O/S.

I'm still getting used to the mac O/S, but so far, it's been a pretty easy switch and I'm very happy with Percy. I'm still transferring over my files as I need them, but that's been a piece of cake too. My ipod, Mr. Big, is 80GB, which is the entire size of my old PC. I could have transfered all my files over at once, but once I moved my music and my writing, I figured the rest could wait. I didn't want to junk Percy up with all my old crap. Only shiny new crap!

And there you have it. I'm a mac convert!

The Order of Things
Portiacakes has been OOC [Out of Control] lately. It's crazy. We can hardly leave her alone, even when we are in the house. Counters, carpet... nothing is safe. So I made an appointment for a behavioural consult with my vet to see what's going on. I explained what's been happening:

Me: She jumps up on the counters all the time!
Vet: When you aren't at home?
Me: No! Right in front of me! She counter surfs!
Vet: what happens when she sees you?
Me: Well, the time she ate the cookie dough, she just hastily ate four more cookie blobs as I hustled over to her and then jumped off as soon as I got there.
Vet[shocked]: RIGHT in FRONT of YOU?
Me: Yes.

Then we chatted about where Portia slept [my bed], Portia's schedule, Portia's habits, Portia's likes and dislikes. And it all boiled down to this.

Vet: Here is what's going on. Portia's a bitch. You're a Pushover.
Me: [wide eyed innocent stare]: Oh.
Vet: She knows no matter what she does, mummy will still love her and give her snuggles.
Me: Well......

So, I'm trying to make some changes. No more Portia's jumping on the bed. Portiacakes has to sleep in her own bed. Portiacakes not allowed to have free reign of the house while we're gone. Right now, because of the construction in my basement, she gets the hallway upstairs. No office, no spare room, no Mummy Jennifer room, no Mummy Margarita room.

This weekend, I have to dig her crate out and start crating her at night again. Sniff.

But I've got to be strong! I've got to be tough! I'm alpha dog, dammit! and Alpha dog doesn't whine!