Relocation

Prada and I flew back to Oregon this last Tuesday after a long first semester together at UAH. It’s good to be home, and Prada’s thrilled with all the new people and places to explore. It’s hard to tell if she remembers my family or if she’s just excited that there are more people to love on her, but either way she’s quite happy. The cat, on the other hand, is quite upset by the invader’s presence. I’m trying to train Prada to ignore him, regardless of what antics he pulls off, but I’m not holding my breath on that one. We’ve exiled him to being outside unless Prada’s shut up in my room or not at home to avoid fireworks. A couple of times they’ve met on opposite sides of a floor-to-ceiling glass pane beside the door and I’ve used those opportunities to exercise the “leave it” command. Prada seems a trifle affronted that I would distract her from investigating the furry squeaky thing but is more or less obedient, so I’m hoping at some point she’ll become that dog the cat can walk over while she’s napping and not even lift an ear but I suspect it’ll take more than five weeks to get to that point. So far we’ve visited my old community college to crash a Bible study meeting that I helped start a few years ago, and gone shopping with a couple of friends. Prada behaved herself quite admirably during those escapades, although since her eating and parking schedule is slightly skewed from the flight I’ve had to be a bit more attentive to her during shopping trips to ensure I get her outside in time. So far no accidents, though, and she’s quickly picking up on the routine. I’m hopeful we’ll be back on schedule by tomorrow or the day after. Tonight she’ll get her first stage debut. In previous choral performances I’ve left her at home or in the audience because I was uncertain as to how she’d react to crowds, stage lighting, and the proximity of the mic’ed performance. I’ve had her on stage for dress rehearsals, though, and she hasn’t gotten into any trouble or really done anything but sleep and shed on choir dresses. Tonight I’m going to my old high school choir’s Christmas performance and they have a traditional Hallelujah Chorus sing-along as their finale. Mrs. Caruthers invites anyone in the audience who’s ever performed the Chorus to come join the choir on stage, so I’ll be headed up to sing with them and Prada’s coming to since I won’t have anyone to puppy-sit in the audience. I don’t think we’ll have any difficulties with that, though.

Crunchy grass has been quite a novel experience for her, though. We’re in the middle of a 20’s and below cold snap here, minus our usual rain. The grass out in the yard is crisp and frosty and crunchy under her paws when we go out to park and I take it from her reactions that this is not something common in New Jersey! She was a trifle put off by it at first but nature called strongly enough for her to get off the porch and do her business. Afterwards, though, she wanted to sniff around and check it out, and if it hadn’t been in the mid-teens temperature-wise I might have indulged this but I was cold! She is also learning how to deal with our wood floors inside the house. Makes playtime quite amusing for us and befuddling for her. Fortunately we have enough rugs for her to set up a reasonable pattern to avoid crashing into walls and furniture.

Since it’s so cold out I’m not much in to taking walks outside with her so it will be a bit of a trick making sure we both get our exercise without freezing to death. Yay for malls and community colleges and big department stores, I guess. While this might not be her most physically taxing month ever I’m planning plenty of events with friends to make sure her mind is kept quite busy so I’m not too worried about that, though.