You win some, you lose some

Last night was a good night! Guinness was moving around at 3 AM, so we let him out. Then he whined a bit when we put him back to bed. Hershey slept with us all night. He has not been on our bed in days, maybe weeks. He always sleeps downstairs. We think he does that because it is cooler. Our trick of a treat at our bedside when he awakens us at 5 is working! He didn’t get up until 6:30 today. Guinness insisted on his breakfast at 6:30 also. Grant tried to take him outside while Hershey had his breakfast in the kitchen, but Guinness escaped, ran back in, scooted under Hershey and started sharing his breakfast. That was scary, because Hershey had his thyroid medication and his antibiotic in his food. Since he was bouncing off the walls this morning, after some playtime in the yard, I took him for a prom. He refused to go up the stairs to go inside; he wanted more playtime. I had to carry him.

This afternoon, I drove to Niagara Falls to call an 800 number not accessible from Canada and to pick up our US mail. The trip exposed problems as well as solved some.

A routine for loading two dogs into the car is beginning to become smoother. I hold a very excited Guinness on leash while unfolding Hershey’s ramp, positioning it, assisting Hersh with his approach into the car, yet keeping Guinness out of the way. The easy part is picking up Guinness, placing him in his crate, pushing it into position, then closing the ramp, and sliding it into place. After making sure we have towels, water, toys, snacks, we are off.

I stopped at a Tim Hortons drive thru in Grimsby for lunch. As I pulled out my wallet, I was glad that I had picked up $40 cash at the grocery store self checkout yesterday. There was only a $10 bill inside! I had never taken my cash from the machine!

Just beyond customs, a ding sounded on my dash indicating that the tail lights had a problem. I had already planned to stop at the dealership on my way home, as the rubber weather stripping is hanging out of the driver’s door.

We picked up the mail, had a potty break with successful exit and entrance to the car. Since it had been raining, I had to cover Hershey’s wounded paw with the plastic boot. Guinness found the gauze tie to be fascinating adding another challenge to the day. Once they were settled in the car, I used my cellphone to contact SBC. The call extended to more than thirty minutes, involving being passed to five people before reaching the person who could remove a $200 surcharge the phone bill. I wonder how much my roaming charge will be.

We stopped at the car dealership where the canine exit from the car was less than perfect: Guinness jumped nearly three feet to the ground! He must have thought, “If Hershey can jump, I can too.” He is too young for that high a jump as it could stunt his growth. I wandered around the property with the dogs. Hershey was off leash, and absolutely perfect! He was setting an example. Meanwhile, Guinness was picking up every piece of litter he could find. It was good exercise for me to bend over repeatedly to remove the trash from his mouth. I think he might be catching on to what “Drop it” means. It took less than thirty minutes to fix the door and the tail light.

Before going home, I drove directly to the grocery store, hoping that someone would have found my money and turned it in. There was no record of it in their notebook, so security looked up the video. The supervisor told me that she and her husband had left $100 in the machine a month ago. Since both heists happened at the same time of day, she wondered if someone could be watching for money to be left. The video showed me checking out, leaving my money, two people using that self checkout after me and two employees opening the bags for the next customer without any of them noticing the money. The third customer took the money, scanned her groceries, and used my cash for her purchase. She was not the same person who took the supervisor’s money. It was a couple who took her money, which she found particularly annoying. She was very apologetic that they could do nothing about it. I told her, “I am grateful it was only $40 instead of $100. Hopefully the person who took it needed the money more than I did.”