Puppy Power!

The great debate has been settled.  DotNet is a girl :)  One of my colleagues suggested shortening her name to Dnet...I think that sounds good.

It looks like I will be keeping the adorable little one for at least another week until she gets her distemper shot.  There is great debate in my mind and heart about letting her go as she really is such a cute and loving puppy.  I've taken the role of mommy now and she follows me around the office hallways and at home.  Last night while I was working in the kitchen, I lost track of her and discovered that she was sleeping under my chair :)
 
In the meanwhile, Smokey is still in his kennel.  The one day that I decide to let him out to play in the yard, what does he do but almost immediately locate a spot in the fence he can fit through and disappear for an hour.  Upon his return, I discovered that he had rolled in the sewer or cow manure, take your pick...maybe both :-P~  I'm afraid that he is really a street dog and while I love him with my heart, I don't think he would be a good dog to have around other people. 

DotNet

It was an interesting day today.  This morning a colleague gifted me with an one-month old male puppy (I guess I'm the animal rescue person of our compound *LOL*)  She had given him a bath since he was dirty, which was a bad step because it is too easy for the poor fellow to catch a cold when he is that young, so we blasted him with one of our heaters until he was warm and dry :)

Then Didem and I ran over to Ardi Supermarket and I purchased a baby bottle and fatty milk.  Then I spent about 30 minutes bottle-feeding the starving little guy.  I have some pictures that my boss took and will post ASAP b/c he is absolutely adorable.

Well, at least we think it is a he!!!  As I told our chief, there weren't any experts in identifying the gender of dogs in our office.  In fact, when our boss asked what gender the puppy was, Didem and I both said that we hadn't really examined his underside and Didem promptly picked him up and let our boss decide *LOL*  I am pretty sure that it is a boy as his underside looks similar to Smokey's when I took him home.  Smokey btw is green with envy but got a nice snack of leftover chicken for staying in his kennel one more night while I decide what to do with DotNet.

Yes, we named him DotNet after the current software release that my project is working on :)  Most people don't understand the meaning of the name but it puts a smile on the IT-geeks' faces in my office *chuckle*

Smokey Update

Smokey is doing well but going a little stir-crazy in his kennel.  I let him out of the kennel with a leash to roam around the garden last night for about 15 minutes and he was happy as could be :)  His appetite is enormous and he thoroughly enjoys scarfing down the cut-up hotdogs I've been treating him with when I get home from work.  I can't wait to give him a bath though because he looks unbelievably scruffy!  Actually, he looks a bit wild because he has tuffs of hair coming out and is still dirty because I was advised not to give him a bath yet because of his wounds.

I discovered what was wrong with his ear and he is no longer looking like he has a severe cramp in his neck *chuckle*  Actually, it was quite cute watching him flop his ears back and forth.  But the problem was that he received a bite near his ear and possibly some of the blood went into his ear canal.  Then he scratched so much that he opened a sore on the lobe of his ear...making things even worse!  But the vet gave me antibiotics and cleaned his ears out (again!)  Now I have to apply the medicine and give him a little ear massage each night when I go home.

Fresh Soup Anyone?

I have to share the story with you because it is so funny!!!
We have a semi-restaurant in the UN compound called the "Terrace Lounge" which serves sandwiches, pizza and pasta for lunch/dinner.  They started having daily specials and today, they had chicken soup.  Now, I've had the chicken soup there before when it wasn't on special, and it was Cup-o-Noodles style (out of a packet!)  So, just to make sure that the special was 'special', I asked if the soup was fresh.  The waiter said yes, it is fresh.  Then he thought for a minute and said that it was from the packet.  So, I said okay, it's not fresh.  His response was yes, it is fresh out of the packet.  Fresh Cup-o-Noodles!!!

It reminds me of a similar incident in one of my favorite restaurants in Pristina, Pinocchio.  On the menu, they listed fresh orange juice which happens to be one of my all-time favorite drinks.  I ordered a fresh orange juice and to my surprise (I really shouldn't have been surprised but you do hope!) the waiter came with bottled orange juice.  I looked at him and said, "no, I wanted fresh orange juice."  He told me "it was fresh when it was bottled"  *AGH!*

Rain, Rain, Rain :-P~

Agh!  I have CABIN FEVER!  It has rained for almost three weeks straight...okay, except for five minutes of sunshine here and there.  I am ready for sunshine like you wouldn't believe!!!  We are still on vehicle restrictions in Kosovo so even a day-trip down to Prizren for fresh fish is out of the question.  So, weekends are being spent inside drinking hot chocolate and surfing the internet.

On a good note, the rain is making everything incredibly green!!!  My rose bush and pansies are doing wonderful...but I never did get the vegetable garden planted because of the weather.  Maybe I will try to do it this weekend...or else it will be getting too late!!!  I bought seeds for lettuce, radishes, peas, and beans...all of which are difficult to find during the summer. 

I remember when I first arrived in August of 2000 for a visit.  The only vegetables that were available were tomatoes, peppers, onions, cabbage, and cucumbers.  Now we have two kinds of peppers *LOL*  No, just kidding.  Now it is possible to find almost everything...except that you usually only have a choice of one kind of thing.  What I mean is if you want lettuce, you can have butter leaf lettuce...if you want tomatoes, you can have regular big tomatoes (or if you are lucky, they might have some mushy cherry tomatoes).  The vegetables also usually sit outside the markets in the heat/sun all day so that by the time you go shopping in the afternoon, the lettuce is wilted, the carrots are soft, and the tomatoes are mushy :-(

Butt Whuppin'

Smokey escaped out of the yard last night and because the weather wasn't so good, I chose not to chase him around in the rain and mud.  Emin says that he saw him around 11pm when he opened his window for fresh air but thought that I was out walking him as I usually do at night before going to bed...so he didn't think twice until he saw him sleeping outside his window in the morning.  When I saw him, I hardly recognized him!  He was smelly (I mean SMELLY!), muddy, and beat-up.  His nicely groomed fur was muddy, matted, and more tuffs of winter fur were coming out *yuck*  When he came into the house, he went straight to his water bowl and noisily slurped up an entire bowl of water....then went into the living room and passed out on the floor (long night, I guess!!!)

I've had Smokey since he was one month old so he is more familiar with people than wild dogs.  The vet says that he probably thought he was king of the world until some street dog whupped his butt over a female dog in heat :-P~ 

Anyways, the poor guy is in kennel quarantine for the next 10 days due to a large bite on his back leg.  He also has something wrong with his left ear but no visible marks...we just know it is bothering him because he keeps tilting his head to the side and shaking his ears.

May Day

I saw something new this year for May Day.  The Albanians in Hajvali and near where I live in Gracanica celebrated the coming of spring/May Day.  They lit fires Friday night and were dancing, jumping, and celebrating around the fire.  It was an unusual thing for me to see but I guess that the origins are quite old...coming from the pagan worshippers in Turkey prior to the rule of the Ottomans.  In old times, it was the Shaman that danced and leapt through the fire while communicating with the spirits.  During the ceremony, he would make predictions of the future.  I also heard that it was a pagan ceremony to pray for fertility, both in crops and family.