The Puppy Chronicles, Part 3

Do you remember that '80s movie with Tom Hanks and Shelley Long, "The Money Pit?" It's about a couple who buys what appears to be a nice house, only to find out there are tons of things wrong with it and they're forced to spend tons of money on it.

Well, that's what Mia became during her 3rd week with us.

First of all, as I mentioned in my last post, she had to have surgery to fix an umbilical hernia. We had to pay for the surgery and the pain medication. Cha-ching!  She came through the surgery well, though she had to endure the "cone of shame" afterwards.

Next, via a stool sample, it was determined that she has a parasite that is common among puppies.  So, we had to pay for some medicine to treat that. Cha-ching! Cha-ching!

On Sunday, she overexerted herself while playing with Yadi.  She tried to jump up the step into the kitchen (our family room is sunken and about 6 inches lower than the kitchen), mistimed her jump and hit the step.  She yelped.  I went over to check on her and she yelped again when I picked her up.  After that, she was moving around kind of gingerly.  Later on, she started crying and yelping and making terrible noises.  We thought that maybe she had hurt her paw or something, so we called the vet.  The vet - who is new to us but is awesome - came in on a Sunday evening to check on her and make sure she was okay.  She was examined and x-rays were taken and it was determined that she just overdid it and tweaked her tummy.  But we had to pay for the emergency visit and the x-rays.  Cha-ching! Cha-ching! Cha-ching!

So, it's been an interesting week, filled with lots of veterinary bills, a few more accidents and a better relationship with Yadi.  He's snapping at her less and playing with her more, which is a treat to watch.

So, while our new puppy may be a money pit, she's so cute and has such a great personality, it's worth it.

Let's just hope we can go a while now without any more visits to the vet.  He's a nice guy, but I'm not interested in putting his kids through college just on our bills alone.  :)

Thanks for reading!

The Puppy Chronicles, Part 2

Mia has been a part of our family for a week and a half now.  Everyone is settling in to a new routine.  Mia has adjusted to her new home and we have adjusted to frequent potty trips outside and frequent accidents inside.  Having a puppy is not unlike having a baby, though at least the baby has a diaper and doesn't pee or poop on the rug.  However, she's so cute, it's hard to get too mad at her when she has an accident.

A few quick stories about Mia this week:

• She has discovered one of her favorite places to rest: on the air vent in the family room and kitchen.  I guess that cool air feels good on her belly and her fur.  Here's a picture of her relaxing on one of the vents:

• On Friday morning, I let her out of her crate before going to work, so that she could have a little freedom before getting cooped up again until someone else in the family woke up.  She followed me around the kitchen as I made my lunch.  I then noticed her sniffing around where her food normally is in the kitchen. (It had been put up on the kitchen table to keep Yadi, our other dog, from eating it.)  I went over, grabbed her food, and put it down so that she could eat, only to turn around and see her peeing on the kitchen floor.  I picked her up and took her outside as part of our normal routine to train her to go potty outside.  When we came back in, I grabbed some paper towels to clean up the pee and some spray to neutralize the scent so that she wouldn't pee there again.  As I did so, I looked over my shoulder to see her peeing again, this time on the rug by the front door.  So, I grabbed her and took her back outside again.  Before I could clean up one accident, she had another and I kept running her back outside.  It was like a bad comedy routine and I'm sure that any of my neighbors who witnessed the outside portion got a good chuckle out of it.
• On Friday night, we went out for pizza.  Before leaving, I put Mia in her crate in the basement and she did her usual barking, crying and whimpering.  When we got back from dinner about an hour and a half later, we were surprised to be greeted at the door by both Yadi AND Mia.  Apparently, her crate door must not have fully latched and she managed to get out.  Somehow, she also managed to get all the way up the stairs and nudged open the door from the basement to the kitchen, which must not have been fully closed.  We couldn't believe it!  My wife put her on the middle of the stairs to see if she could go up them.  She could, but it took a ton of effort and about 20 seconds for her to get up just one step.  For her to have made it up the entire flight of stairs must have taken a long time and a lot of energy.  Needless to say, she was pooped and took a long nap after we got home.
• We noticed a hard spot on her belly and, after getting confirmation from the vet, it was determined that she has a hernia.  She'll be going in for surgery on that this week.  Less than 2 weeks with us and she's racking up the vet bills.  Cha ching!
• Yadi is still not too sure about Mia.  In general, he keeps his distance from her.  Mia often comes over to him and tries to get him to play.  Most of the time, he growls and snaps at her.  However, there have been a few times when he's decided to play with her and it's a treat to watch the two of them go at it.

I'm sure we'll have more adventures to recap in my next blog post.  Until then, thanks for reading!

The Puppy Chronicles

Long time readers will recall that, when I started this blog, my family had 2 dogs, both shih tzus: Allie and Yadi.  Less than a month later, we had to put Allie to sleep, a sad event that made us a one dog family.

Well, guess what?  We're now a two dog family again.  Everyone, meet the newest addition to the Golden family: Mia!

She is another shih tzu and we just got her yesterday.  She is 9 weeks old and only weighs three pounds. 

So far, she's doing great.  She's been hopping around, exploring the house and getting to know us.  So far, she seems fascinated by almost everything, but especially the HVAC vent in the family room.  The air came on and blew her fur.  She jumped back and then looked the vent for a while, before cautiously getting close enough so that it would blow her fur again.  This routine repeated three or four times. It was pretty funny.

Yadi has taken the addition of a second dog well so far.  He's mainly been keeping his distance from her and observing her from afar.  However, this is sometimes difficult because she likes to follow him around.  He has, however, figured out that if he wants to get away from her, all he has to do is jump up on the couch because she can't do that.

The kids are excited about having her and my daughter has even been quick to help clean up the potty accidents.  We'll see how long that lasts...

In the coming weeks, I'll report on her progress, antics and relationship with her big brother, Yadi.  I hope you'll take the time to read the updates as I post them.

Thanks for reading!

Choose Love and Acceptance over Hate and Intolerance

It seems like you can't turn on the news these days without hearing stories of shootings, murders, terrorist attacks and hate crimes.  Everywhere you look, it seems like hate, anger and intolerance are winning while love, forgiveness and acceptance are nowhere to be seen.  Terrorist attacks are becoming an alarmingly common occurrence in Europe, while shootings and murders are approaching all-time highs in many large cities in the U.S.

What's behind all of this death and destruction?  There's no simple answer.  However, there are many things we can point to:

• Poisonous vitriol from our politicians - on both sides of the aisle - stoke the hatred of those with whom we do not agree.  The result?  People dislike and distrust people who don't march in lockstep with their own beliefs, which can cause a man to go on a shooting spree at a charity softball practice trying to kill people he disagrees with politically.
• Social media gives the ugliest views in our society an easy way to spread easily.  People hide behind anonymity and say things to people that they'd never say face-to-face.  People discard opposing viewpoints and begin to live in an echo chamber that reinforces that they are right and others are wrong.
• Racism, sexism, classism and many other isms allow people to stereotype others into one bucket and then casually make generalizations that dehumanize those individuals. All minorities aren't uneducated and violent.  All poor people aren't lazy. All homosexuals aren't promiscuous, bad people.  All addicts aren't losers who just have no self control. 

Each and every one of us is on our own journey.  Each and every one of us is battling demons that no one else may know about.  We're all trying to do our best to make our way in this world.  Some people have a battle that is readily apparent, be it a handicap or a health issue that is obvious.  But many more of us are fighting battles that others may know nothing about because those battles are fought behind closed doors.  People battling depression, anxiety disorders, bipolar disorder, addiction.  They may seem okay to you, but you have no idea how hard it is for them just to get out of bed in the morning and make it through the day without relapsing.  People going through marital difficulties who are watching everything they ever dreamed of being torn asunder. The single parent who didn't necessarily plan to be a single parent but is doing their best to raise their child while bearing all of the load of parenting.  The person who is dealing with the death of a loved one.  You have no idea what they are going through in the mornings or evenings, when they're not at work or school.

I have no grand solutions to solve the world's problems.  But here's an idea: let's all try to choose love and acceptance over hate and intolerance.  Let's love, care for and accept people in spite of their religion or marital status or sexual orientation or addiction or handicap or income level.  Let's look for common ground instead of focusing on our differences.  We're all in this world together and we're all trying to make our way through it as best as we can.  We all have enough problems to have to add worrying about people hating us or seeking to harm us because of our background, religion or personal struggles.

There's a quote I saw several years ago that has always stuck with me:

"Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle."

If all of us try to do that, think about the impact it could have on our schools, our places of business, our communities, our nation, our world.  I realize this sounds like some sort of utopian, hippy claptrap, but it's not. Nearly every religion on earth espouses treating others with respect, doing more good than harm, The Golden Rule, etc., so it's not like this is some sort of new age hullabaloo.  Jesus told us to love one another, so why do we have such a hard time doing it?

So, my challenge to you, dear readers, is to do what you can to be more open, accepting, tolerant and loving of your fellow human beings.  If each of us can do that, perhaps we can make a dent in the violence and hatred in our world and make it a better place for all of us.

Thanks for reading.

Vacation 2017 - By The Numbers

Another successful Golden Family Vacation is in the books.  This year, we enjoyed the white sand beaches and emerald green waters of the Destin/Ft. Walton Beach area of Florida, with a side trip to Atlanta on the way home.  Rather than bore you with a play-by-play recap of the trip, I thought I'd tell you about it in a little different way.

Here's the story of our vacation, by the numbers:

Number of days away from home: 10
Number of miles driven: 1,944
Number of hours spent in the car: 39 hours and 55 minutes (that includes driving around Destin and Atlanta)
Number of states visited: 8 (MO, TN, MS, AL, FL, GA, KY, IL)
Number of different state license plates seen: 42 (including D.C. - the only states we didn't see were HI, ID. NV, CT, DE, RI, VT, NH, ME)
Number of days we went to the beach: 5
Number of days when there was a red flag (and big waves) at the beach: 3
Number of times I got knocked down by said big waves: 7
Number of pairs of sunglasses lost in the gulf due to said big waves: 1
Number of planes that flew past beach with advertisement behind them: Approximately 30
Number of planes that flew past beach with marriage proposal behind them: 1
Number of days we went to the pool: 6
Number of pools at our complex: 4 (kiddie pool, adult pool, pool with waterfall and lily pad/ropes course deal, and lazy river) - This is place is awesome.  Ping me if you want the name of it.
Number of tattoos seen at beach and pool: Too many to count (I'd say roughly 40% of the people had at least 1 tattoo)
Number of disturbing tattoos seen at beach and pool: 2   Allow me to explain.  One guy had a tattoo of Michael Myers, his knife and the jack-o-lantern from "Halloween".  Picture a combination of these two pictures, side by side:

 

 

Look, "Halloween" is my all-time favorite horror movie.  But I'm not getting a tattoo of a serial killer - real or fictional.  But what I guess what made it more disturbing was that he was at the pool with said tattoo while playing in the water with his two toddler daughters. 

 

The other guy had a full back tattoo of a big sword surrounding by skulls....and he was at the beach with his two kids under the age of 5.  I'm not a big tattoo guy, but whatever.  People can do to their bodies whatever they want to do; I really don't care.  It just struck me as weird to have such violent images permanently emblazoned on their bodies when they have little kids around them.  Michael Myers scared the CRAP out of me when I was a kid....I can't imagine what it would be like to then see that image on my dad's arm every day.



Number of rebel flags seen flying: 4 (which was honestly less than I expected to see; this excludes the miniature version that is still part of Mississippi's state flag)
Number of times we played mini golf: 2
Number of times we rode go karts: 2.25 (The first time we attempted to ride them, it started pouring down rain, so we only got to go around the track once.  We got a refund and went back the next night to ride them)
Number of times I had shrimp for dinner: 4
Number of times we went to the outlet mall: 1
Number of dollars spent at said outlet mall: I'd prefer to not say.  :) (Let's just say that there was a North Face outlet and they had a lot of stuff that was 50% off.)
Number of roller coasters my daughter and I rode at Six Flags: 9 (including a stand-up coaster and her first flying coaster)
Number of roller coasters my son rode for the first time: 5 (including his first stand-up coaster)
Number of bad sunburns suffered by Golden family members: 0 (woo hoo!)
Number of family members who caught a cold during our trip: 3 (boo hoo)

There you have it - a quick recap of our family vacation. Thanks for reliving it with me!

HR Truths

Those of you who have followed and read this blog know that I work in Human Resources and have more than past 20+ years.  During my time in HR, I have dabbled in virtually every area of HR - recruitment and talent acquisition, benefits, compensation, employee relations and labor relations.  During this time, I have noticed some truths that I think anyone who has worked in HR for any length of time can relate to.

1. There are people who put forth more effort avoiding work than they would expend if they just did their job.  Some of them come up elaborate reasons for missing work, be it fake illnesses to be off work "sick" or feigning relationships to the recently deceased in order to get bereavement leave.  (Yes, I've actually seen that one.  Caught the guy, too!)  Others have no problem coming to work, but then spend much of their time "at work" doing things other than work.  Honestly, some of these folks expend more effort and brain power trying to NOT do work than they ever would if they just came in and did their jobs.

2. There is an inverse relationship between how strenuously an employee insists that he/she is "a good employee who just wants to come to work and do my job" and how much of a headache that employee actually is.  I cannot count the number of times I've heard the "I'm a good employee.  You know that.  I just want to come to work and do my job" speech from an employee who is nothing but a pain in the butt who often falls into category 1 above.  If not in that category, they are the employees who seem to thrive on conflict and drama.  Very seldom do I ever get that speech from the good employees who never miss work, always do their job and never cause any issues.  The more often an employee says it, the worse of an employee he/she probably is.  To paraphrase Shakespeare, "Thou doth protest too much."

3. A career in HR means dealing with more abbreviations than you see in almost any other career. DOL, OFCCP, NLRB, FMLA, ADA, EEOC, FLSA, DOT. HR is a veritable cornucopia of abbreviations.  And those are just the common, nationwide, government agency abbreviations.  You have to then throw on top of those things like STD, LTD, SPD and PIP, as well as the many company-specific abbreviations that nearly every company has.  Alphabet soup indeed!

4. The best part of working in HR is the "H". It's the people you get to work with, partner with and help through the various issues that arise every day.  It's finding that future gem of an employee and hiring them.  It can be helping to develop said gem to reach their full potential.  It's helping someone dealing with a personal crisis and doing what you can to help them pull through that crisis. It can be extremely rewarding.

5. The worst part of working in HR is the "H". It's the aforementioned problem children (see items 1 & 2 above). The people who don't come to work.  The people who don't play well with others.  The people who can't follow the rules.  The bad drivers, bad actors, bad supervisors, bad employees.  There is an HR saying that 20% of employees take up 80% of your time and it's definitely true.  A given supervisor certainly has to deal with their respective problem children, while HR gets involved with ALL of the supervisors' problem children.  It can be extremely exhausting.

There you have it - 5 truths to which anyone who has worked in Human Resources can relate.  A career in HR is many things, but boring is certainly not one of them.

Thanks for reading!

Sounds of Summer

Memorial Day weekend is here! As this weekend marks the unofficial beginning of summer, I thought it would be a good time to share my "Sounds of Summer" playlist.  These are songs that, for one reason or another, say "summer" to me.  I love to listen to these songs while washing the car or driving with the windows down and the sunroof open.

In alphabetical order:

• "Anything But Mine" by Kenny Chesney - I'm not a big Kenny Chesney fan, but I like this one.  It's about a summer romance as summer comes to an end and talks about sand, a boardwalk and sunburn.
• "Blister in the Sun" by Violent Femmes - Yes, I know what the song is really about but it's catchy and poppy and it mentions the sun so it makes the list.
• "The Boys of Summer" by Don Henley - I realize this song is actually about the end of summer or fall, but it always makes me think of summer.  One of my favorites from the '80s.
• "California Dreamin'" by The Mamas & The Papas - Another song that is actually not about summer - "all the leaves are brown/and the sky is gray" - but it still makes me think of summer because of the sunny sound and the idyllic vision of California that it paints.
• "California Girls" by The Beach Boys - The Beach Boys are the quintessential "summer" group and this one is one of my favorites by them.
• "Californication" by Red Hot Chili Peppers -The whole song is about the myth that California represents - sunshine, Hollywood, etc.
• "Centerfield" by John Fogerty - It's not summer without baseball and this is a great song about our National Pastime.
• "Cheeseburger in Paradise" by Jimmy Buffett - This one is pretty self explanatory, even if I'd forego the kosher pickle and mustard and I wouldn't want mine medium rare.
• "4th of July" by Shooter Jennings - It's a summer road trip song that references the holiday at the very core of summer.
• "Good Vibrations" by The Beach Boys - Perhaps their greatest song, I remember them performing it live at the VP Fair under the Arch back in the early 1980s.
• "Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles - A gem from George about the long awaited warmth of spring and summer after a long, cold winter.
• "Interstate Love Song" by Stone Temple Pilots - My favorite STP song and 3 minutes of sunny rock perfection.
• "Island in the Sun" by Weezer - Another one that is pretty self explanatory
• "John Deere Green" by Joe Diffie - A song that paints a great picture of summer in a small town.  Also, Joe Diffie is about the greatest name for a country singer ever.  There's no way a guy with a name like that could've been a rock singer.
• "Knee Deep" by Zach Brown Band with Jimmy Buffett - "Knee deep in the water somewhere/Got the blue sky breeze blowin' wind through my hair/Only worry in the world is the tide gonna reach my chair"
• "Long Hot Summer Day" by Turnpike Troubadours - It's a song about life working on a towboat on the Illinois River during summer.  It's also been the walk-up song for Cardinals' player Matt Carpenter for several seasons.
• "Margaritaville" by Jimmy Buffett - A no brainer, especially since an entire brand (restaurants, radio station, etc.) are built around this song and the summer vibe it creates.
• "Mud on the Tires" by Brad Paisley - Summer time, country style. A pick-up, a lake out in the boonies. Crickets. The sun not setting until 9.  I didn't grow up in the country or in a small town, but if I had, this is how I imagine summer would be.
• "Peaceful Easy Feeling" by Eagles - "I want to sleep with you in the desert tonight/With a billion stars all around"
• "Santa Monica" by Everclear - Wanting to feel sunshine, live beside the ocean and swim out past the breakers.  Need I say more?
• "Summer of '69" by Bryan Adams - Another '80s gem that never fails to take me back to summers as a kid.
• "Summerhouse" by Better Than Ezra - This is probably one of the lesser known songs on this list. The lyrics are actually pretty dark (it's about a murder, after all), but it talks about summer and the titular abode, so it makes the cut.
• "Surfer Girl" by The Beach Boys - It's about a girl, the beach and surfing.  Enough said.
• "Take It Easy" by Eagles - While there's nothing explicitly about summer in the lyrics, this is one that always makes me want roll down the windows and crank up the radio.
• "Three Little Birds" by Bob Marley - It's nearly impossible to be in a bad mood while listening to this reggae classic.  My wife and I danced to this on our honeymoon when a live reggae band played it at a club.  It reminds me of that week we spent in paradise. 
• "Toes" by Zach Brown Band - The whole song is about a trip to Mexico and having your toes in the water and your ass in the sand.
• "Water" by Brad Paisley - Swimsuits, skinny dipping, a wet t-shirt contest, shades and a cooler full of beer.  This one also has the great summer vacation lyric of "Drive until the map turns blue."
•  "Your Love" by The Outfield - It's an '80s pop/rock gem whose first line mentions vacation.  This is another one that transports me back to being at the pool during the summer as a kid.

There's my list.  It spans decades and genres but all of these songs say "summer" to me.  What songs would make your list?  Let me know so that I can expand my playlist.

Thanks for reading!