bonny, Pork Chop looks beautiful.

Our shelter (Friends of Homeless Animals) allows Foster with Intent to Adopt, which sounds like what you're looking for. With no hard feelings if it doesn't work out. We aren't happy when an FIA fails -- we really like to see our animals get their forever homes. But better for an FIA to be returned within a week or two than for the animal to get settled in and then returned a year later.

WindSparrow, your supervisor's nonchalance is disconcerting, to say the least.

I may have talked StW into a productivity reward system based on booty. We'll see if we get to test it out tonight. I'm highly motivated, anyway.

I asked a friend if I could do laundry at her house, and I think she's going to come pick it up on her scooter and do it for me. How the hell do I pay *that* back?

How the hell do I pay *that* back?

What does she need/appreciate that you can make/do? Bake her cookies/banana bread/homemade granola? Walk her dog/train her dragon/bellydance in her living room?

(I'm currently trying to barter with a friend who just harvested 4 frames of backyard honey -- I told him if he gave me honey, I'd make granola for him with his honey. I'm willing to pay for it, too, but sometimes barter is better than $$ if someone needs/wants something.)

Will have to ponder... I think she's vegetarian but not vegan. I'm scared to walk her dog, he's over 100 lbs and a handful.

Unrelatedly, I have been fighting a headache since Sunday night -- it keeps receding and coming back. Never felt like a migraine until this morning, when I got nausea and photophobia. The weird part is that I'm not having the same pain pattern my migraines usually have.

Anyway, I'm trying to edit at home, but even the light from the laptop screen (which, yes, I realize I'm using to post this) is bothering me. I've moved on from tylenol to migraine meds (mine is just Fioricet, which is a very old drug and works 75% of the time for me) and now to a quarter of a percocet.

What I've got big time is painful knotted muscles in my neck and shoulders. But it's a chicken and egg thing -- I can't remember if the muscle pain came first or the headache came first.

And finally, just for full disclosure, I'm pretty sure I brought this on myself by eating too much gluten. The cause-and-effect dealie is kind of amazing to watch. Until the effect whammies me.

So I mentioned this issue to a supervisor on Monday. Her response was, "Do we really need to post it? I mean, if everybody knows..."

the fuck what? Isn't that, like, THE LAW?

Thanks so much for your Pork Chop thoughts, everyone.

I wrote to the foster without mentioning the fee and she said that I can definitely take him for a trial period over the weekend. And, that there are two other families looking at him, but she won't contact them until after I've had my turn. That is a huge relief.

I guess I was concerned about the trial period because I'm transporting him over several state lines. This foster does not generally allow out-of-state placements, so they are doing this because it's me and I don't want to take advantage of that latitude.

At any rate, one of my besties is coming with me (hopefully) which will make the trip even more fun and less stressful.

I think my biggest concern was that I wasn't going to be able to properly separate, to judge her on her own merits.

Brenda, I've already resigned myself to this happening...a lot. I think I could wait ten years and still have the comparison issue. Fortunately, I'm aware of it, so perhaps I can be fair in the overall scheme of things even if I am not in individual moments.

You also bring up something that hadn't occurred to me. Another friend asked if it won't be too painful for people to think the new guy is Bartleby. She thinks they look so much alike that it will be a problem.

I know the conformation is similar, but I can't see Bartleby in him at all. Different contrast color, more balanced conformation (PC's legs are equal in length, Bartleby's back legs were longer, so he always ran in a diagonal since his back legs overtook the front) and the eyes are completely different. Bartleby's ears stuck straight out, etc.

Still, I think she has a point and I'll have to come up with a little elevator speech to deal with that eventuality.

Yay, trial period!

Pork Chop doesn't look anything like Bartleby, except for similar coloring.

My previous dogs were large and mellow and loved everyone. Mr Peabody is small and hyper and only loves me. My feelings about them are entirely different.

Oh yay, trial period!

Vlad is turning eerily into Tzepesh. A lot of similar mannerisms, the same need to be by Pete if at all possible.

No email from the HR person. Aaaaaugh. I think I will send him a upbeat and polite inquiry after we get done feeding the cats.

My loving feelings for the many pets I have had are all different, just as my feelings for my kids are different. I can love Zoe and it will be different than the love for Brandy, and Georgia, and Ladyjane, and Bianca, and Schwartz, and Martha, and Ralph, and Mr. Stephens, and that is just the pets in my adult life. Well, there was actually 2 Marthas because I wasn't successful at calling the dog after her anything else. Zoe just doesn't seem to notice that I call her Brandy half the time.

Just like with people the relationships vary, but it doesn't make one necessarily better or worse than another.