what´s up Jill?

Goodness, what have I been doing in the last few weeks? Hmm, not a whole lot. Here are some updates:

The puppy is fat. I was giving her too much food, so she is on a diet (who knows how much food to give a puppy?) She is well into her biting stage, which had better be short lived. T gave her a doll which is a baby in a rat suit (it looks as weird as it sounds) and Seca loves it. She tries to tear it to pieces. I also gave her a water bottle the other day. Not as big of a hit, but she isn’t to the point she can destroy that, so its yet another toy for her.

I taught the people at my work how to do a topo study with the abney level, and we went out and did a practice one. That was a hard hike getting up there. It was 1.5 hours of what felt like straight up, it looked like a waterfall was going down my face, it was such a hot and humid day.

The next week I did a full day on how to design potable water systems. Now, Seca was good all morning, but in the afternoon decided she no longer wanted to behave. While I was talking in front of everyone she wanted to play, and was biting me. Thankfully T showed up to play with her, so I was able to shut her out. Oh, one note about my office; there is a front door and a back door. Before T showed up I tossed Seca out the door and a minute later she was back at my feet. She’s not stupid, she ran around out back!

Other things: It looks like one of the trainings for the next group of trainees will be in my site. My boss came to talk to me and then someone came to try and find host families for the newbies.

Then came THANKSGIVING, otherwise known as I am never doing this alone again. I made a whole lot of food, and it took me a full day of shopping to get everything, mostly because I kept forgetting things. I made chicken instead of turkey- easier to find. I then made corn (one thing that came in a can), baked green beans (no frunions for green bean casserole, mashed potatoes (from real potatoes), stuffing- no stovetop here, vegetable gravy, crescents, and three pies. Why three pies? I had intended two because I was cooking for 10 people minimum, and then had too many apples for two pies, so I improvised a third. That was a lot considering I made them all today, because I got too lazy last night to bake.

At one point I got a little nuts because people were like “I’m hungry!” And I wanted to tell them where… ok, almost lost my PG rating there. Anywho, I got a little annoyed. The food was really good though. I ate with my host family at 2:30pm (a little off from the 1pm time I wanted to have it done), and then reheated everything at 5pm to give it to my coworkers.

So, it’s the next day and my dog almost got me killed. We went and walked a new route and this one “perro bravo” –aggressive dog, comes out barking and charging. I get to her to stay back and as soon as I get this done I hear more barks from behind me. I look and there are three dogs barking like crazy. By the grace of God they were behind a fence. But by the time that I turn back around, two more dogs have appeared and their fangs are awfully large. They stayed a few feet away, but still scared me. Now, at this point there are several people just doing their normal everyday thing. No one stops to even look at these six vicious dogs. Eventually I call out for help and am all but crying on the street. In seconds the dogs go away when someone takes 5 seconds out of their life to make sure I don’t get mauled to death by these dogs. If you have a vicious dog, keep it off the street people!

If you think there are too many puppy stories, I will point out that I could be telling adventures of Jill´s stomach stories, which aren´t nearly as happy.