Saturday, June 11, 2011
We started out around 8:30 am (I woke up at 6 so I had time to do a few things before the doxie transport got underway). Elisabeth, the foster mom and coordinator texted me that they would be arriving about 15 minutes early, and Lauren called to say that she didn't hear her alarm. I called Beth and she wasn't dressed yet :( I took a deep breath, told Elisabeth, 'ok', told Beth to hurry and told Lauren to meet us at the pick up place. We actually ended up having enough time to grab Tim Horton's on the way :) We all met up and we all fell in love with Rosie, immediately! Here is a puppy who is being handed off to a bunch of strangers, and she couldn't care less. She immediately came to us, gave us kisses, snuggles and happy tail wags. We talked about just taking her home and calling Lyn and saying, we couldn't let Rosie go, but Elisabeth frowned upon that, so we put Rosie in her little crate and set out on our little adventure.
I sent pictures to Lyn and we texted almost the entire trip. I could tell how excited she was that the trip was underway.
We stopped at a rest area so that Rosie could piddle and have some water and a cookie and of course we all played with her and took more pictures. She eats cookies so funny. I broke off one piece, she took it in her mouth and then I was breaking off another piece and she dropped the first one to "help" me; ate that one and then the first one. This went on for several bites. It was just so adorable.
Back in the crate and in the car, we could hear her little tail wagging (she did this the first part of the trip, too) and she sounded so excited, like she knew this was an adventure. She was in the seat next to Lauren and would lick Lauren's hand through the crate door.
When we arrived in Columbus, Lori and her mom were already waiting for us. We handed Rosie off after a few more pictures and then they were off. The girls and I decided to hang out in Columbus for awhile. We went to a nearby restaurant for an early lunch - it was 11:00 am by this time. I was so sad to have let Rosie go. You all know that I truly love Velvet to pieces even though I kid about her being so unloveable; but Rosie kind of made me wish I had a loving dog :( So that of course put the idea back in my head again of getting a little brother or sister for Velvet. One who would love me, not just my ability to serve food and bake treats.
After lunch we went to a little shop that had really unique items amongst a lot of lotions, serums and make up. We hung out there for a long time and the girls both purchased a substantial amount. At checkout, Beth realized she was overcharged. One of the items she had that was $10 was on her receipt as $20. The manager wouldn't correct it. She said $10 was under their cost. Well, where we come from, if an item is marked wrong, the store honors it no matter what. They wouldn't, so Beth stood her ground and returned all of the items she was going to purchase! I was very proud of her. She stayed calm and matter-of-fact about it. The manager was clearly upset about it, yet she still didn't offer to sell the item for the amount it was marked. Bad business. We would've ordered from them in the future from their website because we liked the store so much, but not now.
Next, we headed out to find The Container Store. If you're unfamiliar with this particular store, you really should check them out, at least online. I really wish I had thought of this concept. An entire store of items to put other items in! They have containers for things I didn't even know I needed containers for! Lauren, who is the organized one of our group, has bought from them in the past and was just on cloud 9 to be in their store and be able to purchase without paying shipping. Beth, was in need of new luggage for our upcoming trips and also loves office supplies, so she was in seventh heaven, too :) We watched a presentation on how to more efficiently pack for a trip and thus reduce the cost of checking luggage. If you stayed for the entire presentation, you could enter to win a store gift certificate. Well, you'll never guess who won ... ME!
I was so excited to win something! We must have been there for several hours because when we got back on the road it was after 3:00. I didn't have a map from this area, so Beth said we'ld just wing it. She got us back out onto the right highway, and we were off.
Here are the pictures for the story so far plus one video that I'll explain later.
Part 2
So we were driving down the highway and having a really good time when Lauren got a call from John (Beth's boyfriend). He had just gotten home from work and found several inches of water in the hallway between their two apartments and it seemed to be coming from Lauren's apartment. So, Lauren called Rob at work and he rushed home to find that the hose to the washing machine had split and there was approximately 3 inches of standing water in their apartment. We drove home as fast as possible. The carpet in both apartments was drenched. Lauren called their insurance agent who said they would send someone out in a few days and told her they don't cover the carpet or the walls; that's up to the landlord. Rob had been dealing with the maintenance man who told him the landlord's insurance wouldn't cover it, that it was up to them. Finally, we got hold of the property manager who hired the guy they use to clean their carpets to clean up this mess. He showed up several hours later with his drugged out girlfriend. The equipment he had was not meant for this type of job, so it took forever and was not very efficient. He didn't have a clue as to what he was doing. During all of this, we had been taking turns holding Julia on a leash. I thought I would try to take her to my house for a while. The last video you saw (mostly heard) was me trying to introduce Velvet to Julia. It was a disaster, so I took Julia back home and left Velvet howling out of control. After about 6 hours of dealing with this disaster, we were all exhausted, tired and hungry. I went home. Rob, Lauren and Julia stayed at a pet-friendly hotel and Beth and John toughed it out at their apartment. We've spent today trying salvage items from Lauren and Rob's apartment. Because the job wasn't done right, now everything is wet, the walls, their clothes, furniture. Beth and John's apartment and the outside hallway smell like mildew because the guy did an even less efficient job on their place. Its just so devastating. I feel so horrible for them. Beth and I are set to go out of town tomorrow, so I hope they can get this resolved soon. So what started out as a wonderful, fun, adventurous day, turned into a horrible nightmare.
This one is a truly unique brightly colored sweater.
