Personal shopper

I’ve been making a list tonight and checked it at least twice.  I’m taking it with me tomorrow for my first-ever appointment with a personal shopper.

At the local Apple store. 

An hour with a concierge to ask those questions and test drive the gadgets. 

My craptastic desktop PC is dropping some hints that something else may be going wrong – after all, it’s been eight whole months since the hard drive failed and it must be time for some attention, huh?  I looked at my finances and decided I’m about ready to take the plunge that I blogged about a few months ago.   

I’m gonna get an iMac.  With wireless mouse and wireless keyboard.  And an Airport.  Wireless printing, even! And finally, freedom from the horrendous amount of cables and wires and clutter that come along with the PC experience.  

If only it could scrub toilets and take out the trash. 

Heck, for all I know, it can. 

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Genius

Okay, I know he’s not a genius.  But Jasper’s been busy this morning as I’ve been sitting here at the PC catching up on things.  (That little unhappiness-of-the-tummy on Sunday that I thought was just something I ate?  By Sunday night it was accompanied by a temp of 101.5F and overall achiness.  I’m better now but yesterday wasn’t very productive.)

I looked up a few minutes ago and saw that Jasper was in the living room.  And discovered that he had gathered his big soft toys into a group in the middle of the floor.  Honest.  The big toy was near that spot earlier, but the others were scattered around the room. 

I summoned Jasper over for a picture – by shaking the little triangle-thingie at him and dropping it near the big soft toy pile –  but he was more interested in asking me to pick him up than sitting still.  I finally got this shot of him near his pile of cuddly buddies.

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Furry scurry

Jasper and I have signed up for the Furry Scurry next weekend. We’re going to raise a few bucks for the Denver Dumb Friends League while enjoying a morning out in Washington Park with a few thousand old and new friends.

We’ve had quite the week, kind of a personal furry scurry. Little Jasper has had to adjust to a whole new world. Instead of living in a house on 10 acres in the country with lots of other dogs and a few people, he’s now living in a condo in Denver with one crazy old lady. Instead of hearing just birds and country sounds when he goes outdoors, he hears all the big city background noises that people can be so oblivious to. And he often rides in an elevator, which was a whole new experience too.

He’s met lots of new neighbors and visited his new vet and new groomers – all very pleasant experiences.

The worst thing, is that now and then he is left absolutely alone in the condo. Which causes him to yip and yap for quite awhile. Or so the neighbors tell me.

Ouch.

So far everyone I’ve spoken to is understanding, and I hope he eventually will mature and learn that the barking doesn’t help and that I will always come back. And when I come back I will free him from his “prison” – which is a room outfitted with his crate (into which he can come and go), toys, water and snacks, and a puppy pee pad, and a gate across the door which he can see through.

Early last week I had some kind of tummy upset bug, and now this morning don’t feel so good – again.

I think Jasper and I will go outdoors for a leisurely ramble and then come back indoors for a Sunday morning nap. The fajitas I ate last night, when we went out to celebrate the 23rd birthday of my nephew first cousin once removed? A good idea at the time. But perhaps not the best possible choice after all.

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Jasper and me

The puppy’s home. I’m calling him Jasper – a name with an interesting heritage* and also a nice mineral. We are both still resting up from yesterday’s epic travels, and I have things to do besides play on the innernets so this will be short.

Jasper is cute as can be, with beautiful markings, including a lot of white. The colored parts of his coat shade from a lovely red down to almost black such as at the tips of his ears.

He’s also sweet and friendly and amazingly poised. Yesterday he was driven by his humans down to a new place (SUX), where he was playing around on some grass outdoors when this new person walked up. Then eventually his mom and grandma left him with this lady.

And the day got stranger from there!

He was in and out of a new building with noisy big sliding doors, and got to ride around awhile in a rental car, and then back to that building.

Next, it was into a carrier that he didn’t like much but put up with. Ending up under a seat in a very noisy contraption in which he experienced very odd sensations.

(The Lynx turboprop planes are brand new and comfy and this flight was so sparsely passengered that the flight crew just *might* have looked the other way when I took him out of the carrier and let him snooze on my lap for a lot of the flight. But since that would be against the rules I must assume they just didn’t *see* me doing that.)

And then being carried in that carrier through a big noisy place (DEN) and onto something she called a “shuttle bus” and then into yet another car…

That’s a lot of excitement for a six pound 4-month-old fella to handle. But he took it all like a little champ! He’s well on his way to being housebroken and I will forever be grateful to his breeder for producing such well-socialized pups. He’s used to car rides and house noises and meeting strangers. He’s also cool with going into his crate at bedtime and just generally being sweet and adorable and busy keeping me wrapped around his little paw.

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*Derived from “Casper” who was one of the Three Wise Men (he brought the gold), it’s not all dignity and honor which would be boring anyway. A “jasper” in 19th and early 20th century British and US slang was variously a villain, a troublemaker, or a guy who brought bad luck.

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What the fuss is about

This is my puppy at his home in S.D. this afternoon, after his big road trip to and from the Minneapolis airport, and staying overnight away from home. He was more interested in playing with his brothers than sitting still for a picture or having his hair combed up into a topknot, but L got some quick snaps and emailed them to me.

I’m going to fly to a city not far from their home next weekend (not Minneapolis). L will bring him to me at the airport, and I will fly back to Denver a couple of hours later with the pup in the aircraft cabin. No more cargo for this guy! We’re flying on Frontier, my hometown airline which I hope emerges in due course from Chapter 11 reorganization, because it’s also my favorite airline.

About his name. Winston? Rusty? Ozzy? Or . . . ?

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Christmas has been cancelled this week

Northwest Airlines can kiss my grits.  They accepted my puppy for shipping.  VIP shipping, yet.  They literally took his crate from the hands of the breeder’s husband at the Minneapolis airport.

AND THEN THEY DIDN’T PUT HIM ON THE PLANE.

Thank goodness L, the breeder, called NWA to confirm that both puppies they shipped today (mine and a dog headed for another city) were on their way.  Because that’s when they told her, well, we didn’t really get that little guy on the plane.  NWA gave her some convoluted tale about there being “too much cargo” on the plane or something – although I’m damned if I can see how one tiny puppy and his plastic crate could overload a commercial jet.   That would have been Flight 563 from Minneapolis to Denver, just to be specific.  And that’s Northwest Airlines, NWA, just to be really specific.  I suspect some ramp rat was sneaking a smoke break or something instead of tending to business, and the pup was left off the plane by negligence.  But we’ll never really know.

Because bad weather’s moving in up there and they were making noises like the later flight might get scrubbed, L called her hubby who was on the road headed home and told him to turn around, go back to MSP to get the pup and bring him home.  A four hour drive to South Dakota.  Where a serious snow storm is moving in as we speak.  Blizzard warnings are in effect for their area, according to weather.com.  I pray they have a safe drive home this afternoon and evening.

I am so disappointed.   It will probably be another week now before I get to bring my puppy home.

Another bad experience with Northwest Airlines.  I haven’t flown NWA for nearly ten years, just to avoid crappy experiences.  And now I get to have one without leaving home.

Damn.

UPDATE on Friday morning:  L’s hubby went back to the airport and picked up the pup, but didn’t get all the way home to SD last night.  Blizzard conditions, interstates closed.  He and the pup stayed overnight somewhere about an hour from home and will get home after the roads are reopened, which I hope is later today. 

L told me this is the first time they have ever had to come back home with a puppy because of shipping problems.  I’m so glad that the pup is with someone he knows and not Lord knows where in whatever kennel accommodations NWA would have put him in if he had been left at the airport!  But just consider how much trouble NWA caused by accepting the puppy for VIP shipment and then not putting him on the flight.  What a mess.

And thanks to everyone for the good wishes about the new puppy, and the condolences on this setback.

MUCH LATER SECOND UPDATE:  NWA’s story to L’s husband when he went back to pick up the pup, was that the live animal cargo area in the aircraft was not heated due to a mechanical problem so of course they couldn’t load any animals into it.  And of course there is no way to know if that was just a convenient cover story, or the truth.

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Like the night before Christmas

It’s early morning. I’ve had breakfast and coffee, read the newspaper, checked my emails and it’s time to head for the shower and get dressed, and then out of here. 

My stuff to take with me is stacked on a table:

• Trusty old nylon attache case
• Purse
• Tote bag with leash, toy, soft old towel, puppy treats, water bowl, water bottle, and so forth

Because late this afternoon I’ll head out to the airport, to PICK UP MY PUPPY.

I really feel like a kid just before Christmas.  And not just because we’re having a spring snow storm today.

To paraphrase the Chipmunks, “Hurry, puppy – I can’t wait!”

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Customer service

Thanks to Cambridge Soundworks’ customer service guru, Chris Cooper, for posting a comment below and for being so helpful in our phone conversation. 

I’m OK with the radio I’ve got.  It seems to work just fine.  And now CSW knows I’ve got it.   Chris said that if they can’t fix a radio sent in for repairs, they may ship the customer a refurbished unit of the same model instead.  But that wasn’t stated on this service invoice, so this may have been a genuine mixup.  Chris asked me to send my “bonus” kiddie music CD back to them at their expense, which I will.  In case they hear from another customer asking “where’s my Mommy and Me CD that was in the radio I sent you to repair?”

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Must have been a hard day at the repair shop

A couple of months ago my fancy clock radio went on the fritz.  I blogged about it here. 

I sent it back to Cambridge Soundworks in Massachusetts for repair, via FedEx.  And waited. 

Finally, two days ago a box was delivered to me from Cambridge Soundworks, containing my radio.  Oddly, in the box with the radio was also a cardboard envelope with a CD of some kiddie music or something.   And when I plugged it in to check it out, none of the radio station presets were the same as they used to be.  But I didn’t have much time to spend messing with it, and it seemed to work OK.

A few minutes ago, intending to flatten the shipping box and take it out with the rest of the recyclables, I pulled the shipping document out of the plastic sleeve on the outside.  And read it.  I noticed that although I’d given them my correct phone number, they had garbled it on the paperwork. 

Then I read the description of the repair:  “removed and returned 1 CD unit”. 

Huh?  The CD and radio on my unit worked just fine; it was all the clock and timing functions that were haywire.  (I think that static electricity had fried those circuits.)

Uh-oh.  I fetched my records, which include the serial number of my radio, then looked at the back of this one.   Not a match.

They sent me somebody else’s radio.  One that had been sent in for repair with a broken CD player – which still had a CD in it, and which they carefully packed up and sent along with the radio.  To me.

I’ll call their customer service line tomorrow.  This could be a fun conversation.  Because I am *not* spending another dime to send anything to anybody after the co$t of shipping my radio by FedEx and the $65 repair fee. 

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