Doggie Treats.

For the longest time since our lovely Puzzle left us, I've been trying to get my mother to get another dog. I firmly believe that all girls should have a reliable cuddle around accompanied by a wet nose.

And I firmly believed that till this weekend, when I dog sat what I thought were two wonderful little creatures. Could I have ever been so wrong.

We picked up the two dogs, Gunner, a Labrador retriever, and Boo, a small white lapdog, and left for the beach house. Boo was in a little kennel and Gunner lying on the car floor. At first Boo was whining but soon calmed down but Gunner, on the other hand, never did. Unless I was petting him he was showing his worry and repositioning himself around the car. We finally got to the beach house around 11:30 at night.

We let the two dogs sit in the living room after a walk, the small space being big enough for the kennel and Gunner to lie down. But Boo, as we soon discovered, likes to hump everything in sight and is also the dominate dog. Who thought a small little thing could be so awful! Every five seconds, literally, Boo would attack Gunner and I'd have to pry Boo off and tell him no, to which he rolled on his back and whined. "Please, I'm cute! Don't say no to me!"


Eventually I was fed up and put Boo in his kennel and made a bed for Gunner on the bottom bunk of my bed and showed him it was going to be his new place for the next few days. Boo was whining and Gunner did not stop pacing the whole night long. Under the bed. Whack, whack his paws on the wood frame. Scratch, stretch on the blanket. Step of the bed and make me sway above. Then click click click click on the linoleum floor. Waking up Mom with a lick in the face and then seeking more attention out with Boo and starting a whine fest. An endless cycle for a number of hours.


Around four I finally fell asleep, only to be woken by the sound of something being shredded. Gunner had gotten hold of an SOS pad from under the sink and was pulling it apart next to Boo's cage. I bolted out of bed and took it away, luckily before he had eaten any of it, and woke up Mom who had also just gotten to sleep.


After a walk and breakfast Boo was still humping the hell out of Gunner so I had had the last straw and packed everything up. We were back home, dogless, at 10. A whole twelve hours.


Needless to say, my desire to get a puppy has been slightly driven out of my mind.



Right now I'm having a conversation with a young sophomore at Hendrix who is vastly underestimating my worries about France. "You make your own meals and live really far away from your family." I think it takes a bit more than that. But yes, I adapted, although with lost of struggle, to Southern Culture. Who knows how hard it will be to adapt to French?

Adapting to Southern life was really hard for me and often times still is. My freshman year was pretty up and down and I often considered dropping out of Hendrix. I wasn't where I really wanted to be, as last minute I had gotten somewhat stuck with Hendrix. I can't say I made the best choice in going there but I can't say it's the worst either. And I think most graduates say that about their respective places. Hendrix so far has given me a pretty good education, a much better one than any of the other schools I could have gone to. But it's far away and frustrating. Especially the other people. Not that I don't love a good number of them and hold them dear but there are plenty that have made things... difficult. If you know what I mean.

But as for adapting to French life, if I can handle all of the various hardships Hendrix has thrown my way, I think I can handle French disasters. Unless of course there is a strike, in which case I'm probably going to call it quits and go somewhere else.