Day Off in San Antonio
I was all set to pick up four orders tomorrow, but I was in town a day early and had run out of River's food last night. This morning, when I usually wake up early to give him a meal and his medication, I had no food to give him. I thought I'd just sleep in, but River didn't forget about his morning feeding, so he relentlessly stared at me. I couldn't sleep with his watchful eyes intently on me, so I got up. I tried hiding his pills in a piece of banana, but he deftly spit out just the pills.
Then, as I was making my own breakfast, I thought I'd try hiding his pills into a small piece of cheese. And that worked. He got the pills down, but still didn't get his morning feeding.
I contacted Bea who runs the local company called My Konavore. I told her I was in town early and asked if I could meet up with her and get five meals instead of four. She was very accommodating and we arranged to meet up in the parking lot of Whole Foods for the exchange.
The food looks glorious. Such an improvement over the processed patties I get from Petco, or even the frozen meat patties I serve him regularly at home. I was jealous of his gourmet meals.
Bea forgot to bring her credit card reader so as she was loading the meals into my car, she told me I could pay her through PayPal when I got back to my room. So trusting! What a lovely woman and a great company. I strongly encourage anyone who lives in San Antonio and loves their dog, to consider feeding them using her company. She really went out of her way to make sure River and I were happy. And we were.
One of the meals was partially thawed per our discussion, and when I got back to the room, I fed River all of the thawed parts. It was duck liver and ground meat and bones and I could see in his eyes that he was thrilled to be given it. I'll give him the rest at dinner time.
As I was entering Texas yesterday, I saw a sign that says "Drive Friendly--The Texas Way!" I thought that was a good reminder to always drive nice, but I have to say, I've driven 6900 miles from one end of the country to the other and half way back again, and I've been honked at exactly twice. Once in Houston and once in San Antonio, so maybe Texas drivers aren't as "friendly" as they think they are. Honking at people from out of town isn't the Texan hospitality I am familiar with. Maybe they could work on being as friendly in their cars as they are face to face.
Something is WAY off about my Mini Navigation in Texas. There are roads that she's not aware of and roads she directs me to that aren't there. This hasn't happened in any other part of the country, but it happens here with great frequency. I have just gotten used to hearing her tell me to veer left when there's no road to veer to, or even hearing random directions like "Take exit 255" when I had just taken exit 255 a couple of minutes ago. I suspect that there is a whole lot of road construction going on here on a regular basis and it's been a while since Mini Nav has been updated, but this was happening way back when I drove Thumper, too.
Back at the room, River was getting restless so I took him out to lay in the sun for a while.
It was intensely hot out there, but he wanted to lie on the cement. There is an air quality warning in effect today and I can definitely feel it burning my sensitive eyes. He only stayed out there for about half an hour and then when he took refuge under a shady tree, I led him back to the cool room.
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| Love me some sunshine!! |
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| Ok, that's enough! |
It's amazing how small I can make my world. The fifteen minute drive to pick up River's food was the big event of the day. Other than that, I pretty much hermitaged and took walks with River. I love having a day like that when I can. River pretty much slept for the next few hours and I wiled my time on Spotify, YouTube and flipping through the channels on TV. I was embroiled in a reality show called Catfish on MTV, when I could suddenly feel River's eyes peeking at me over the horizon of the foot of the bed. I don't know how long he'd been doing it, but it just sort of became part of my awareness.
I asked him what he wanted. We have a system. I go through a list of possibilities and if he continues to stare at me after I say it once, that means 'No.' And when I say the one that he's thinking of, he responds by leaping into the air. So it's pretty easy to figure him out with patience.
I ask, "do you need to poop?"
nothing
"want to go for a walk?"
stare
"you need a circle? (our word for a quick trip to pee on the nearest tree)
sustained eye contact
"hm... well I know you can't be hungry."
YES, he leaps into the air and begins dancing when I say OK and get up to get his food ready.
Our communication is not amazing. That's just adaptation and connecting. But what's amazing to me is that when I looked at the clock as we were headed out the door for dinnertime, I noticed the time: 6:01pm! Even crossing through time zones and an mercurial lifestyle, he still knows dinner comes at six.
Our outdoor feeding then became a long stroll around the property. First order of business was another twenty minutes of laying down in the concrete in the hot sun. Full of duck and sufficiently baked in the sun, he then very leisurely strolled 3/4 of the way around the property and then circled back, slowly but thoroughly examining everything in both directions.
Along the way, I noticed that he avoided the grass and walked instead on the hot concrete. I wondered if it had anything to do with the fact that I had noticed whenever we've been in Texas, he ends up getting really itchy. I wonder if he noticed that, too, and is avoiding the Texas grass because of it.
After the walk was over, I put a splash of apple cider vinegar into a cup of hot water and doused River with it by hand. He seemed to like it. I splashed his tummy and let it run down his legs and dripped it along his spine and massaged it into his skin. I made sure to get the sides of his body and then his chest and front paws. I got some on my finger and stuck it into his ears and rubbed a little on his face, too.
He didn't mind it. in fact, he was licking it off the parking lot, so I put some in my hand and let him taste it off of there. He liked it and I let him continue to lick the cup as I rubbed it in and lightly dried him.
The idea is that vinegar keeps bugs from biting him because they don't like the smell. And I like that it's also fine for him if he wants to lick it off. But he didn't seem to do much of that, either. Just a little bit, because I left him a bit wet. But he fell asleep pretty quickly.
I spent the evening making hummus and putting together some wraps with the stuff I got at the store yesterday. I put them in the refrigerator for lunches. And then I had some sausages and potato soup for dinner. I also had a big salad using up the last of my fermented beets.
And that was the last of all of my fermented veggies. I took five and a half jars of veggies and that lasted me the first month. I'm kind of relieved that they're gone. It was a bit of a hassle to always make sure they were within a certain temperature range. I was using a lame, cheap "cooler" that I purchased a few years ago for these trips. I learned that it doesn't hold water any more, so using it with ice was messy. I eventually formulated a system, wherein I used the jars that were empty to hold ice. The ice could melt while doing its job of keeping the nearby jars cool, but the melted ice would remain safely in the jar, to be discarded upon safe and dry arrival at our next destination.
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