My Photo
Name:
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Monday, November 21, 2005

Bleary Eyed

Friday night we drove out to Palm Springs (well, "drove" is really too strong a word; what we really did is get in the car and sit on the 10 Freeway, watching "drivers" in other cars sit and watch us sit in our car watching them) to pick up our new puppy. Why Palm Springs?

Well, it goes back about 12 years ago, when we got our first dog -- a Wheaten Terrier. Wheatens, in addition to being terminally cute and very good with kids (our daughter was six at the time and terrifed of dogs), are hypo allergenic. This means that they don't shed and don't have dander. This means that my wife could actually be in the same house as them.

And, did I mention that they're also terminally cute?

In any case, we got Jasper and fell in love. Ten years later, when he died, we weren't ready for another dog. But this year we felt that we might be and started badgering the breeder to reserve us another one whenever she had litter. [To be precise, she doesn't have the litter, her main dog does. But I assume you can figure out what I mean.] It took a while but, on September 3, her dog Lily had a litter and, guess what, they were terminally cute.

In any case, the breeder has (in the ensuing 12 years) moved to Palm Springs so, there we were, staring at the car in the "fast" lane this past Friday night. We eventually got out there at about 9:30pm (we had started at 3:45 but stopped off for some great Chinese food at a mall devoted only to Chinese food and stuff) and collapsed into our motel room bed.

Saturday morning, Renton was ours.

There will be no prizes for people who recognize where we got the name "Renton" from but let's just say that we have the only dog that I am aware of who is named for a drug addict. It makes for interesting conversation when the puppy isn't being terminally cute.

But Renton is, as I'm sure I mentioned, terminally cute all of the time. So we don't have to explain the name very much.

Since then, he's gotten up at 5:30 Sunday morning and 3:30 and 5:30 today. So, I'm really really looking forward to teaching until 10:30 this evening. This is me -- bleary eyed.

And, hence, the title of this post.