Trick-or-Bust

I had ONE trick-or-treat attempt this evening. I say "attempt" because the doorbell rang when I was in the kitchen and Nacho started barking and jumping around. I put Nacho outside so he wouldn't jump/lick/love attack some poor little goblin. By the time I got to the door with some candy, all I saw was a little blue dress running away.

Kind of sad. I had a few last year and I was expecting a handful this year. At least I only bought one bag of candy I like.

Happy Halloween.

Dog beds

I had a party chez moi about a week and a half ago. A friend from Austin drove up along with her 9 pound dog, and she brought her 9 pound dog's bed.


My 52 pound dog has a bed, but as you can see in the photo, he LOVED the little bagel bed - so much that I decided to get Nacho an early Christmas present.

The bed is pretty comfy. I tested it out, and sometimes I want to curl up in it. I think Nacho likes it, but he is still getting used to it.

He still likes the crappy bed I got for him from Petsmart. I guess that is sort of like the kid whose favorite toy is the empty roll of toilet paper. The old bed is stuffed with old pillows because the original stuffing had to be tossed out after the diarrhea disaster of '07.

Inside scoop

The only comment I have about this law suit involving my former employer is that in my opinion, the former chief of staff was an annoying beyotch. I'm glad I wasn't deposed. For the curious, the case is available as 2007 WL 2947398 and will soon be published in a federal supplement near you.

DOJ, take 2

Yay me. I have a second shot with the DOJ Honors Program.

I'm not sure which division the interview is with, though. The notification email was quickly followed by another email saying,

"We have just learned that our notification system did not properlly (sic) display the components that selected you or provided interview information for the wrong component. PLEASE DO NOT CALL THE DEPARTMENT AT THIS TIME TO DETERMINE WHICH COMPONENTS SELECTED YOU. You were selected by at least one of the components you applied to. We will correct the problem in the system and resend a notification message next week."

Apparently their spell check program isn't working either. I suspect the interview is with the environmental law division, although it could also be with the civil or antitrust divisions.

Now I have to decide whether I really want to move back to DC. I've grown accustomed to life in Dallas. But environmental law in the Clinton Administration could be awesome.


**UPDATE**

It is with the environment division.

Baseline perspective

Today's New York Times has an article on air travel in Africa, and in Cameroon in particular. I can totally relate to the author's frustrations, but the guy's story really isn't that bad. His flights to and from Cameroon left on the scheduled day, he had the means to buy a ticket, he got a partial refund from Kenya Airways, and most importantly, he arrived at his destination.

I have some pretty bad air travel stories from the country that is near and dear to my heart. I flew more my second year because I was posted up north and air travel was more reliable than the train, which is pretty sad.* On one trip from Garoua to Yaounde we made an unscheduled stop in N'Djamena, which not only is in a different country but is NOT on the way from point A to point B. On a trip to West Africa for Christmas vacation, I got bumped from an Air Afrique (now bankrupt) flight because my elbows weren't sharp enough to push my way to the front of the line. The following day, when the next flight left, my elbows were sharper. And my final domestic flight when I was leaving my post never happened because the planes stopped coming to Garoua for some reason. Instead, I took the overnight train with all my crap in tow. I had stopped taking the train because on my last trip we got in a minor train wreck, but when faced with not being able to leave the country or take my chances, I opted for the latter.

Other volunteers have worse stories, like plummeting several thousand feet while in-flight or seeing bloody cow carcasses come down the baggage carousel. But this isn't a contest.

I think the point of this post is that it is all about perspective. Cramped in coach with no peanuts isn't really that bad. When things don't happen when they are supposed to, I just try to remember the time when I waited a day - a day! - for a bush taxi to leave my first post in Mamfe, only for the bush taxi to arrive at 4 PM and then tell everyone waiting that it would leave the following morning. Or if I'm ever uncomfortable, I just think about when I was smashed in the back seat of a two-door Toyota Tercel holding 7 other adults for the 5 hour journey over an old logging road, the only passable road from Kumba to Mamfe in the rainy season.

And if I ever think that I had it bad, I just think about the volunteer who was posted in the East province near the C.A.R. border. A one-way trip to the capital took three days. See? Perspective.


*If you think I omitted an option by road, I did not.

Fashion Victim

I'm unimpressed by fashion labels, mostly because I don't care and I think that designer clothes are a waste of money. However, I do notice them, usually because they irritate me. I especially dislike clothes or accessories where the label is the design, like when logos or letters form the pattern of a purse or something like that. On women, a Louis Vuitton handbag can be fine.* But men, as a general rule, should stay away from pattern-y fashion labels.

Today I was in for a treat. While waiting for the train on the way home from work, alongside me stood a confused gay** tragedy. The (thankfully young) guy wore: an unidentifiable brand of designer jeans, pattern-y Coach tennis shoes, a Louis Vuitton belt with a big gold "LV" buckle, an Abercrombie t-shirt, a Burberry shoulder bag, Dolce & Gabanna sunglasses, and, get this - a pattern-y Louis Vuitton baseball cap. Oh, and he had a gold Motorola Razr phone with a custom download.

I am not making this up. I wonder if all of it was genuine, but the sheer tackiness of the Louis Vuitton baseball cap makes me think the outfit was one big knockoff. Come to think of it, the gold "LV" buckle was a little too shiny. Maybe the $30 Abercrombie t-shirt was genuine.

But what is more depressing: that some would spend $1500 on an outfit that makes him look like a total slave/whore to fashion marketing, or that someone would buy a bunch of knockoffs so that he could look like a total slave/whore to fashion marketing?


*My boss has a Louis Vuitton handbag.
**Trust me. I have good gaydar. Especially when it smacks me in the face like a brick.

Toys

Nacho has lots of toys.

His favorite is probably the orange ball, although he likes all the ones I can stuff with treats (orange ball, blue ball, purple football , red kong). He's not a big fan of the green squeaky martian.

The nice thing about the stuffable toys is that they essentially serve as puzzles and give him something to do. The distraction can be welcome when I want to play on my computer, because cute as Nacho is, he weighs 52 pounds and is not a lapdog.


Nacho is pretty smart, though, and it doesn't take him long to figure out how to get the treat out. If only he had opposable thumbs, the process would be so much faster.


You may notice from the photo that Nacho's hair looks a lot shorter. He got a haircut last weekend and it turned out a little shorter than I expected. Just in time for summer! It should grow out before it gets cold, though, and shedding has *not* been a problem this week.