Le Chien

The Dog. Today was an interesting and fairly busy day. I got up late, goofed around, got dressed, played with the kids my mom babysits, and finally made it to the gym. Today was the last weigh-in for The Greater Greenville Shrinkdown, a program my sister and I joined in order to lose some weight. I, surprisingly, lost another pound over the last two weeks. I wouldn't be terribly proud of that normally, but considering that I recently spent a week vacationing in Florida, where my best friend and I did a reunion tour of our favorite restaurants in Gainesville, one pound loss is actually great. That brings my total so far down to 8 pounds lost! Over the 8 week program, the 4,774 Greenville County participants lost a grand total of 12,080 pounds! An amazing success. My sister (J) and I later got our celebratory latte, with skim milk of course. We allow ourselves one each week that we are victorious. Before the reward, however, we had a very nice workout. We did resistance training focused on upper body, and then finished things off with a 30-minute brisk walk on the Treadmill.

While we were leaving the gym, Mom and Dad called to say they were headed to the mall, so we drove over and met them there. We did quite a bit of shopping. Me, Mom, and my sister bought new bathing suits to wear to the Y and J and I found a good deal at a shoe store for some leather slip on shoes. Mine are lilac. I'm sure they don't sound all that appealing, but they are actually quite cute. The are even cuter at $7.50, since they were already on sale, and then buy one get one half off. Dad got a gym bag, and we did some other browsing here and there. WE stopped and ate at Wendy's on the way home since it's one of very few restaurants open here at the late hour of 9:30 PM! That's one of the many things I miss about Gainesville. Long gone are the glorious nights when we could order pizza in the dorms at 3:30 AM.

Now I'll actually get around to talking about the title of this entry...the dog. When we got home I went out to make sure that Socrates, my Bassett Hound for those of you who don't know, had some food for the night. It was very dark outside as I walked out to his pen in the back yard. As I walked I thought I heard a jingling noise, so I stopped and my heart started to race, but then the noise stopped. Then I took a couple more steps, and definitely heard it again, so I looked around, and saw something as dark as a shadow move in the night. I jumped, and started to run when it dawned on me that what I was seeing was only a scared little dog. He turned out to be only little more than a puppy, and he was more afraid of me than I was of him. After talking to him in a soothing voice, and calling him, he finally timidly came up to me, wiggling frantically. He turned out to be a coal-black poodle. I think he's full-blooded, but I'm not sure. I was hopeful that I'd find his owner once I saw he was wearing a tag, but it turned out to just be a rabies tag. The only numbers on it belonged to a vet; I called the number and left a message in case they have the dog on record or something. In the mean time, I fed the poor little dog, that acted as if he hasn't seen food in quite some time, and put him out in the pen with Socrates. They seemed to be getting along well. I guess we'll have to figure out what to do with him in the next couple days. He's really cute and seems to be well mannered, I think he has even been taught to sit. Anyone want a cute, black, poodle?

On a financial note...I requested a deferrment on my student loans today. I will find out in 3-5 business days whether the proposal was accepted or not. I really hated doing that, I would like to get paying them so that I can get them paid off sooner, but I just can't afford them right now. Hopefully I will get a job soon, and be able to get paying, but I guess I've got the rest of my life for bills...