New House Member

I got a puppy by proxy last week! Technically she's my housemate's dog, but since we're all there together, it's almost like I have my own dog. She's an akita/lab/border collie, about 8 months -- the 'mate was hoping for a pre-trained adult dog, but this one was confined to a kennel and so sweet that he couldn't say no to her.

We have the cats locked up for now, because she's still a little excitable about new things, but she has seen (and chased after) them. She chased my housemate's cat down the hall, up and across some bookshelves, and to a cat tree, where she proceeded to bark... and bark and bark and bark while the cat glared and growled. The cat now runs to my room, into my closet, and up a chest of drawers and some shelves to the top shelf of my closet whenever the dog is out and about in the house.

My cat hides under the bed and tries to make herself as small and quiet as possible. I figured with the 'mate's cat up on the shelf and my cat under the bed, the dog would be okay nosing around my room while I changed yesterday. As I started to pull on my pants, the dog found the cat under the bed and started barking and trying to scooch under the bed to get to the cat, so I had to drop my pants so I could pull the dog out from under the bed. 

My housemate runs into the room to see his topless housemate, with her pants around her ankles, clutching his yipping dog. If it weren't for the fact that the dog was still lunging for the bed and he knows my cat hides there, it could have been bad!

Devil's Slide

On the way home from work yesterday, I drove down the coast highway over Devil's Slide, which I haven't done in awhile. First, it takes about twice as long to get home that way. Second, parts of the hill the highway is on keep falling into the ocean.

But yesterday was nice, not too hot, not too cold, so I put the top down on the car and let the wind whip my hair up into a huge, un-tanglable (yeah, I know that's not a word) mess. This was the first time I'd driven Devil's Slide in the convertible. I'd always been in my beat-up CRX, hoping the car wouldn't lose a critical part while navigating the curves! With a sounder machine and an open roof, I actually had a chance to enjoy the ride and take in what is truly a breathtaking view -- waves crashing up against sheer, high cliffs, the seemingly endless view over the ocean. I was truly in awe of what nature is capable of producing. I'm glad I made the detour.

Since I was passing by, I headed out to Pillar Point Harbor to see what Captain Dan had on the Seabird. I buy fish off the Seabird, because Dan has a friend, Ron, who has a dog I like to play with. Alas, Ron, and therefore the dog, weren't there that day! Capt. Dan had a couple of 30+ pound king salmon, way too much for my housemate and me, so I opted for a couple of the live rock fish they had swimming around in a couple of barrels. They pummeled the fish to death for me so I could get them home, and instead of paying the couple of bucks to have the fish cleaned, I decided to do it myself.

I got the fish home and started scaling. Rock fish have large, thick scales that are pretty stubborn to remove. And then came the gutting. I haven't actually cleaned a fish in over 20 years, and the last fish I cleaned was a rainbow trout, much daintier than a bass! The guts were clinging to the fish with incredible tenacity, and everything was kind of slippery. I tried to sever the connective tissue with my knife, and failed miserably, so I just wrapped my fingers around them and yanked! Guts and scales flew everywhere -- counter, walls, floor, my shirt, my face, my hair... I had on gloves, but the ick managed to work its way down into them. I smelled like fish guts the rest of the day. Next time, I'm dishing out the two bucks for the professionals to clean the fish.