We got a dog: Faith the American Eskimo.

This is our new puppy, Faith! Mom and dad brought her home last Sunday, a bit of a shock to me. I had thought our landlord had told us no more pets after our last dog died some years back. Mom and dad don't seem to care, and dad even has a smart ass response to give the landlord if questioned (Landlord apparently only told the upstairs people no pets, not exactly us... I remember differently though). Even if the landlord threatens us, Dad said we would move before we get rid of Faith.

About that name? Mom named her it. "...because everyone needs a little Faith!" I'm not crazy about the name, but it seems to fit. She's been very smart, too; Climbed out of the box we had for her the first night onto the love seat in the living room. She wouldn't get down from the love seat on her own, so it contained her for a bit. However, she did learn to get down when she needs to, usually by tumbling down. Also in one incident where during the night, she pooped the love-seat and got so upset by it, she jumped down off it and somehow climbed up the couch just to get away from it.

Faith loves to be up high so she can see everyone, and gets upset when someone leaves the room or she doesn't sense them anymore. As such, getting her to sleep is quite the pain! Mom usually is the last one up, so she's the one who ends up suffering. The pup will fall asleep in your arms, but if Mom tries to put Faith in her playpen we got her for the nights, she'll wake up later, barking and crying. Mom spent a lot of nights sleeping on the couch with Faith in her arms. :P

She seems to do okay with other dogs. Our neighbor's dog, Freckles, has been whining for her. Even got into our yard a few times through the fence to come and play with her. She just seems to feel a bit self important around him though. Probably likes the attention or something. On Thanksgiving, we brought over to my aunt's. They have a huge dog named Ernie, and I THINK he's some sort of shepherd dog... The big lug just played protective of her while she was snapping at his maw. Was funny to see Ernie jump back at Faith's little yips though. He shared his toys with her, and when she got in trouble for trying to bite a stone, Ernie tried to run interference by going up to the scolder and licking their face a bunch so she could get away. :P

When we first got her, I didn't really feel all that excited though. All I could think of was bad things that could happen; her getting taken away, mom unable to keep up with her once and she gets hit by a car, eating something poisonous... Everything seemed dangerous or sad, like all those pet related movies I saw as a kid where these heart-wrenching moments would happen. Makes me wonder if I got so pessimistic, it's all I see...


It also made me miss my old dog, Buddy. I don't have a picture of him in a digital format, sadly, and the scanner is too annoying to use, so it's doubtful I'll be posting images of him. But he was my first dog who died 7 years ago mainly due to old age. He was having so many problems, was I think 15-17 years old (hard to remember), so we had him euthanized. But we didn't want him to go out alone, so all of us were in the room when the doctor injected him. I looked him in the eyes as he died... Definitely was one of the most painful moments of my life. I still consider us murderers for doing that, to be honest, even though I know many feel it's the right thing to do. I still don't think it was, but don't know what else we could have done. Even if we got him surgery there was only a slim chance for him to live.

Blah blah blah, sad sad sad, I just get a little sad when I see Faith. She's nothing like him or anything; different gender, eyes and general appearance. I just hate how it feels like I'm replacing my old bro.

I got a one-time job: running the election polls.

Thanks to my aunt and grandmother, I was able to get a small one-time job for extra cash. You know on election day when you go to vote, you have people running the polls? That was me. Normally my grandmother does this sort of thing, but due to her falling down and hurting herself (something I neglected to talk of in my last entry), she was unable to this year. My aunt got a call asking if she knew someone interested in replacing her, so she thought of me!

I first had to take a "training class" to learn how to run the polls and what to do in various unlikely scenarios. The speaker asked us to turn to a certain page in our manuals we were given, but due to a copying error, some pages were wrong. A bunch of old people started shouting at him, "THAT'S THE WRONG PAGE! IT'S PAGE x!!" And then others were yelling that previous people were wrong while the speaker got all pissed off saying it didn't matter. Meanwhile, me and this Indian lady were laughing out asses off at the ridiculousness of people. After things settled down, we learned how to set up a polling machine and watched a boring power point, the end.

Actual election day was a bit tiresome. Had to be at the election place by 5:15 in the morning and stay until roughly 8:30pm at night. Still, I was going to be paid 200 bucks for 15 hours of work (plus one hour lunchbreak) and during down time, I was allowed to play on my 3DS or walk around bullshitting. My responsibilities were also rather simple: Help with set up, get people's names and have them sign a book and a slip of paper, and occasionally work the machine by taking slips of paper from voters and pressing one button. When an error occurred or one of the few unlikely scenarios the training place warned about actually happened, I would refer to a guy on my team who knew everything.

Yeah, I worked with a team. I had a sleepy old guy who suffered a stroke once, so wasn't always doing his job correctly despite knowing it. He did the least amount of work, but I really can't complain other than he ate like a beast and farted nasty farts. Then there was a 42 year old woman who was really fun. It was her first time doing the polls as well. I talked to her a lot. Finally there was kind old guy who knew everything and pretty much said we could take breaks whenever we want.

At the start of the shift, I mainly was the guy that filled in for everyone whenever they needed a break. Smart guy was running the polls, while the other two held the books. Eventually, sleepy guy hardly did anything other than eat, so I would take over the poll book AND play substitute. At one point, the woman took both books while I ran the machine because smart guy needed breaks sometimes. All this though? Hardly any work really. At worst, I might have forgotten to number or initial something in the book so had to go through a bunch of slips of paper to find where it was.

Also provided was fresh and tasty bagels in the morning, with pizza at lunch time. I ate like a pig between that, granola bars I brought, and buying chik n fil-a on my lunch break. Despite the long hours, this job was incredibly easy. When things got boring, I'd play on my 3DS or chat with the team. Most the voters were pretty polite too, sans like 1-3 people that were either impatient or felt they were holier than thou. Also one guy who was running for mayor got all pissy when he visited and saw something that hardly mattered out of place. (Crooked sign, OH NOES!)

Easiest tax-free 200 bucks I ever made. Only problem is it won't get to me until a month later. Ah well.

Life Update

I realize it has been awhile since I actually made a post about what is going on in my life. Mostly it has been terribly boring, but I do have a few things to talk of.

First off, I have gotten back into NEStalgia. That can be seen both as a good thing and bad. The good in it lets me make more strategies for the game, such as the skill tree builds post I made (which by the way, is under construction until a more definite balance is made with them). The bad is it takes away from things I SHOULD be doing in my life, such as finding more places to put applications in for a job, and other lifely responsibilities.

Yes, I am still unemployed, collecting no benefits whatsoever. Because I quit my last job, I am ineligible for unemployment, I'm not disabled in any legal fashion, and I really am not poor, per se, because I live with my parents. Sierra tells me that certain government benefits have toned down, and no longer look into the fact you live with parents/guardians after a certain age. I technically could be eligible for food stamps, which I rather not resort to. I feel others deserve it more than I. This opinion may change should I feel my parents could use more help in the bills...

My sister has officially moved out as of Sunday. I spent the day being general labor for her, which left me awfully tired. With her being so nervous and tired, Sis was generally rather annoying, irritable, and not very direct in her orders on where she wanted her things. Some bad decisions were done by her roommate as well, such as buying an L-shaped couch for where they want their living room to be.

Made quickly in paint.

It's the only space that can be considered a living room unless people want to go to the dreary basement. As you see, the couch blocks the secondary room. They cannot put the TV in the empty room because it's full of windows and the TV is to be mounted on a wall. Radiator is an immovable object. Putting the couch in the empty room would be rather far from the television. They also are not allowed to knock down any walls so they can't just make it one big room either. Sis didn't want this couch really, but apparently agreed to having a couch or something, she wasn't very specific on this when I asked her about it. Essentially it's the cause of a fight they had, and who knows how it'll be decided. The L Couch was also the cause of a dispute between my father and sister when we were bringing in her hope chest. She expected us to slip by the small gap with the hope chest and put it in the empty room. Dad then asked her just to move the couch out a bit so a walkway could be made, to which she couldn't figure out. Dad then threw a hissy fit, shove the tv box out of the way, and pulled the couch out so we could get the chest in.

The whole idea of my sister moving out leaves me with several different emotions. The downsides are mainly that when a blizzard occurs, I'll be left alone shoveling. Of course, there was some years back where that was true when Sis wouldn't lift a hand up to help, but that changed when she needed someone to help her to her car. Now I'll be the only one to shovel since dad usually works during storms and mom doesn't have the strength to do actual shoveling.

Also on the bad, it makes me feel compelled to leave the house when I'm in a horrible financial situation as it is. Granted, Sis is older than me by almost 3 years, so I suppose I can make that my own deadline. I don't actually HAVE to leave, my parents are nice enough to support me as needed so long as I follow their rules and help out around the house... It's just something I feel I SHOULD do.

The good sides of Sis leaving generally revolves around space issues at home. Her room becomes available and will become a Den of sorts. It'll be where dad can have a quiet room to read, mom and I can exercise in private, and what I may make of a place to hang when friends come over. Video games and movie spot! Parents plan to have the big screen television that currently is in the living room to be placed downstairs while the living room gets a flat screen tv mounted on the wall. The wii would be moved downstairs as well, which works for me, my wii won't be subjected to my mother's cigarette smoke anymore.

Besides having a den, my sister's crap that gets left all around the house no longer is here! She essentially took over the love seat and coffee table in the living room and parts all around the kitchen. She also had so many different types of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash in the bathroom (though mom contributed to that too) so we were surrounded by half-used bottles when showering.

I suppose I will miss her too, since despite how she would drive me crazy, I still love her. She helped a lot too, such as getting groceries (which now falls upon me or my mother on her good days), cooking dinner when mom did not feel well (I can cook too, but I'm not very fast or as good as either of them), and helped with any problems I had (though usually butting in instead). I won't miss those days when she had a bad day at work and comes home all moody and demanding, or her weird moments of just bothering me because she has nothing better to do at the moment. Course, I still will have to put up with her dropping in, which I KNOW she will do, but now it's at a much lesser degree.

Two more things. Due to really shitty pockets, my Nintendo 3DS fell out of my pocket and into a puddle of water while helping Sis move. I was very quick to grab it so it was only in the puddle for less than 3 seconds, but I freaked out nonetheless. I did my best to wipe water off of it, and with Sis's instruction, blew into the crevices to evacuate water from its innards. I also let it sit in rice to absorb moisture out of it. As of today, it is working all right.

Also, in a previous post, I mentioned how I was trying to find a home for this cat. Sis's boyfriend did find a home for him out of state, but then the person had to back out on it. The cat now resides at Sis's boyfriend's place. I feel bad for this poor cat to be bounced around like this, but at least it is out of the cold and being taken care of. We'll try and find it another home soon.

That about sums up the news of what's going on.