I hesitate to say that the past weekend was a bit surreal for me when it seems that most of what I experience as of late seems to occur in a bit of a haze.
First of all, I am on dog-duty. My parents are off enjoying some mini-vacation time as my dad is presently "between jobs." Honestly, dog-duty is pretty easy. I just need to make sure that the pups are fed, watered and given ample opportunity to go outside and relieve themselves.
On Saturday, I had my first experience with judging for a regional History Day event. It was much longer and more arduous than I anticipated, but I have to say that I really enjoyed it. Obviously, it is a little hard to dash the hopes of adolescents who do not make the cut for the state competition, but you just cannot advance everyone to be nice.
I did experience many flashback moments to my days as an exhibitor, but I was really impressed with the level of quality for supplies and decoration available to today's students. Did you know that they now MAKE poster boards for this kind of thing? That is, they manufacture cardboard tri-fold display boards for purchase. Back in my day, we had to enlist the help of someone's father to help construct our board out of wood. It weighed a TON and was extremely cumbersome to haul into competition.
But back to Saturday. Every interview is given 15 minutes, and my team had nine exhibits to judge. We have to take notes and copies of the papers they give us to assist in our decisions, but it all takes quite a while. Once interviews are over, the pace really picks up as decisions must be made and comments must be completed.
By the time all was said and done, I had been at the event from 8 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. My hand was sore from writing and my head was spinning with more thoughts and suggestions I could have shared with the participants if only I had the time.
The rest of my day was rather calm, but by 8 p.m. I could no longer keep my eyes open. I believe the dogs may have been rather shocked my our early bedtime, but we were all snuggled in by 8:30 p.m.
Sunday was a day to relax. No shower, no visitors. All was well until the afternoon when the dogs had their second feeding of the day.
About ten minutes after eating, Pippi threw up her entire dinner. She otherwise seemed OK, but I had to utilize a good degree of cunning and trickery to keep all of the dogs from coming near and potentially consuming her vomit. Do not ask me why this would be appealing to a dog, it just is.
Next on their agenda was a mini rawhide treat known as a Dingo. As Pippi's stomach was a bit of a wild card, I opted to leave her out of the fun. Unfortunately, she was not cool with this idea. I opted to give her a smaller and blander treat instead.
I did not reckon with the possibility that Lena would notice this and temporarily abandon her Dingo to also receive a regular treat. I also did not reckon with the fact that Thor is a greedy little dog.
When Lena left her Dingo on the rug to check out the possibility of getting a treat as well, Thor quickly swallowed his entire Dingo whole and snatched up Lena's slightly soggy one. He then went on the lam, but I found him and extracted the stolen item and returned it to its rightful owner.
In his haste, Thor had not completely swallowed his first Dingo and began to gag. At this point, I began to contemplate the possibility of bringing him into the emergency vet. Or performing the doggy Heimlich. To my relief, he managed to work through it and soon returned to his normal self. I was not relishing the idea of taken my unclean pajama-clad self into the vet clinic, so I was happy to be able to continue my day of sloth.
After this drama, I returned my attention to the other dogs only to find that Lena had again been negligent and allowed Pippi to gain control of her Dingo. Not wanting a repeat vomit performance, I chased Pippi down and retrieved the now completely soggy treat. In order to save everyone from future problems, I disposed of the Dingo.
The rest of the evening was a bit less exciting, although we did stay up past 8:30 p.m.
Only two more nights of this before I can return to the relative peace of my own home with just one crazy dog to watch.
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