Every morning in Prospect Park there are off-leash hours until 9 am. The chances of me actually seeing the world before 9 am are generally slim to none, but yesterday morning at five am I was staring at the ceiling wide awake and completely miserable. So I got up. I made myself coffee and quietly snuck Matty and Leeloo, their leashes and some poop bags out of the apartment.

Tino was sleeping, and I really didn’t want to deal with him, either. He’s horribly leash aggressive, and we aren’t sure what to do at this point about it. When he sees another dog he starts growling and barking and choking himself at the end of his leash, and it sounds horrible and scary. I know all he wants to do is play, but it’s hard to explain that to someone who has a tiny puppy on the end of their leash that’s cowering and piddling itself in fear. It’s something we’ve been working on, but we haven’t seen a lot of improvement in. If you have ideas for me, let me know.

Anyway, Matty and Leeloo, the dream team, headed out on their walk, and they were pretty jazzed just getting out there, seeing the sights and smelling the smells. I got to the meadow area of the park and unsnapped their leashes, and it was a few seconds before they both realized they were unteathered. Leeloo kind of jumped up and down a few times, and then looked at me like, “Really?!” and then she was off, gone, sprinting down the field, running for the pure joy of running. I never see her so happy as when she’s barreling at full speed. We’ll definitely have to go again.

Oh, one more thing before my mini moving hiatus!

In April I blogged about a small company run by a dog-mom who, like me, has three dogs.  She came up with a new and improved approach to dog beds, and Molly Mutt was born. Remember? It turned out to be a popular post, so I asked Molly if she would offer a coupon code to The Amber Show readers. She said yes! Use the code “theambershow” at checkout to get 15% off any purchase now until August 12, 2009!

Thanks, Molly!

For Google: Molly Mutt Discount Code

She’s one of those “Let’s go let’s get it done, no nonsense, Let me tell you how it is” kind of ladies. You know the kind. Every church and temple has one, every ladies group has one, every office has one. She’s friendly, and she does things quickly.

She is a real estate agent who called me back to tell me that two dogs would be fine but THREE, the owner said, was too many. She sighed. “I have two dogs myself. I know where you’re coming from. He doesn’t get it.”

“They’re small!” I said. “They sleep a lot! We’ll pay an extra deposit for them, too! We’re homeowners! We know about wanting to keep your rental nice.”

“What? Do you own a home up in Connecticut?” she asked. How she knew I have no idea.

“We own two! Trust me, we’re responsible people!”

“I’m going to call him back and tell him that. He should consider you. You know?”

“I know!”

“Amber, I like you!” she said. “I’ll be in touch.”

I have a feeling she’s going to win this argument.

I opened the door to let Leeloo in and saw her head was split open. An inch long section of brain was oozing out of her skull as she stood there, frozen in place, quivering. I screamed and reached for her, and after a moment’s hesitation, she rushed to me, passed me, and into the living room to play with her brother. I barreled after her to keep her calm and examined the injury closely. Slowly, it grew feelers and continued to slime it’s way across the top of her head.

Stupid slug.

I realized after that the frozen-in-place awkward stance with the quivering was her finishing up a pee.

Yesterday we went to Connecticut to continue dealing with the basement of my grandma’s house. The second it was legally ours we emptied our storage space and deposited half our earthly possessions down there. A lot of my things were already there from when I lived with her before, from ’02 to ’04, and now it’s all a mix of stuff that we don’t really need but can’t quite throw away. What’s the word for that? There has to be one.

Junk, probably.

We took the dogs with us. Every time we go they are absolutely thrilled with the huge grassy backyard full of new smells to roll in. We found a partially deflated ball in the woods, probably from a neighbor, and Tino played with that. Grandma found Matty an old tennis ball in the garage and threw it for him.

The cool thing about my dogs is that they know better than to poop on the nice grass. They all politely trotted to the wooded area to hide themselves, and pooped in the piles of decaying leaves. They don’t know not to roll in animal pee, though.

Needless to say we didn’t get as much work done as we could have, but that was fine. It’s been ages since I “went out to play”, and it seemed much more important to goof off in the fresh air.

Rob found the handle of a paint roller in the garage, and we played a round of stickball. Matty was both infield and outfield, trying to get his tennis ball back. We tried to make Leeloo and Tino in on the game, too, but they just blinked at us when we called them, and then went back to zoning out in the sunshine.

It was a really good day.

If you would like to advertise on my page, now is the the time to set it up for May 1st!  See here for more information, and email me (theambershow at gmail dot com) for details.  We’ll have your ad up first thing Friday morning.

My coffee is organic, fair-trade, shade grown and whole bean. Always. I’m a total hipster snob about it, I know. I also love micro-roasters, which, like a micro-brewery would for beer, make small artisan batches of coffee instead of churning it out, loveless style, in a big factory. Also, I have always loved small business, especially ones that employ eco-friendly, socially conscious practices, so I was pretty excited to find out about Good Dog Coffee, which is a micro-roaster based in Maryland. They brew coffee that hits my four requirements, and they teamed up with Manos por Patas [the organization in Puerto Rico that helped us rescue Tino] to make a “Sato” blend ["Sato" is the slang term for strays in Puerto Rico.] A portion of the proceeds goes to help them.

I waited until I’d had a few cups before I talked about it, because I didn’t want to endorse a product that sucked. This is why the bag in my photo is opened and rumpled, not pretty and smooth. This is serious journalism going on here!

I love the coffee. It’s up there with some of the best I’ve had, and the price, $12.95 per pound, is exactly what I would feel comfortable paying for a coffee of this quality with the proceeds going to charity.

Greetings from Puerto Rico!

I thought getting wi-fi would be easier than it has been, so I didn’t bother posting the “I’ll be away for a few days” message. Turns out it’s available in the rooms for $15 a day, which I’m NOT paying, but there’s free wi-fi in the lobby of the resort we’re staying in. Because of this, it is only now, after my first full day of basking in the sun, that I’ve had a moment to come sit and type away.

It’s beautiful here: 80-something and sunny, and with palm trees and blue water and shit. Tropical stuff. It’s great. There’s a part of me that is so, so heavy, though. It was just about a year ago, here in Puerto Rico, that I first laid eyes on Tino, broken and abandoned. It was the single most painful moment of my life; he absolutely broke my heart.

Of course his story has a happy ending so it was worth the pain, and through coming in contact with all the people that helped save him I have learned so much about the plight of dogs here in PR. (Oh gawd, I hear you thinking, there she goes again.)

I am glad to know, but I’m disgusted with the Puerto Rican government for letting this go on, and for their callous treatment and dismal standards of conduct in regards to these animals. I actually feel a bit guilty being here supporting the tourism business (although I’m not paying for this trip, and, in the end, family unity won out).

Of course, then I think: who says things like, “I’m disgusted with the Puerto Rican government?” Me, apparently. I don’t talk about it too much because it’s impossible to do without sounding like a total jackhole, but learning what I know changed me forever. I am glad to be informed; on the other hand it is a horrible thing to be informed of.

Speaking of dogs, I miss the trio terribly. I’m having fun, I love Rob’s family, but I miss them so badly. Carissa is watching them and house sitting for me, and I sent her three or four excessively long emails detailing how to feed them and care for them. I’m a nervous mother! I stopped short of writing down the lyrics to “The Song for Chubby Dogs”, which I sing to them daily, but I considered it. (I’m not kidding.) They can live without the song for a few days, I’m pretty sure. (Oh, I hope! Maybe I should call her and sing it, so she knows the melody…?)

A lot of people asked if we are going to bring home a fourth dog this time around. We’re not, we have a lease with a landlord that had to be talked into accepting three dogs, but if we still lived in a house… maybe. I’d be tempted to snag one of these little girls. They look like Matty Minis!

I don’t know if I’ll be blogging anymore while I’m here. You can keep up with my twitter feed if you miss me, and I’ll be posting flickr photos when I can, mostly via mobile uploads with my iPhone.

If I don’t check in before then, happy New Year!

I went to Jen’s mom and dad’s house last night for a Christmas Eve dinner. I want to be her parents when I grow up. Her dad cracks these absolutely horrible corny jokes that make everyone groan and laugh, and her mother rolls her eyes and sighs, “Oh, Bill.”, but you can tell that she’s amused, too.

They’re the kind of house that has special dishes just for Christmas, and we got to drink out of crystal goblets. Everything was all cozy and Christmasy.

This morning we stayed in bed and let the dogs pile in, too. We skipped the gifts this year, but we went out to dinner in Manhattan and saw the tree at Rockefeller Center and the Macy’s window displays. Tomorrow we leave for vacation until the 31st.

For the first time in my life I hung out with JUST my husband on Christmas, and it was so nice. My family kind of disjointed and no one seemed to be doing anything, but it turned out to be alright. We had fun together.

I hope your Christmas was good, too.