Going to the Breeder

Today, we (meaning Me, dad, mom and jerkatronic - I mean brother!) went to see a Golden Retriever Breeder somewhere in Detroit. The car ride took forever, Jerkatronic was being a Jerkatronic, and I was bored. The High Way was making me nervous. The passing was making me twitchy. Because of my gender, I was (and am) increasingly annoyed and irritated. We turned off the free way and in to a small, quiet suburb, far too small for the ranch I was thinking we where going to. We stopped in front of a very small blue house, walking in with another family that was looking for a dog. At the door, we where greeted by a friendly man who welcomed us and pushed a few happy goldens (golden retrievers) out of the way so we could all come in. The room was quite large, taken up mostly by 7 Goldens and about 8 tiny puppies. I was astounded that -none- of the dogs barked or jumped at us, simply wagging their tails and rubbing their heads in to our hands. Very friendly, laid back dogs.

The breeder talked at us for a while, going over how she bred her dogs, what she looked for in her dogs, etc. Slightly boring, but good information. While she spoke, I contented myself by petting the dogs, who discovered quickly that if they wanted pets they should croud around me. At one point I was sitting on the floor with two old goldens, a mother golden, and the only male of the dogs, all trying to get pets at the same time. It was heaven. After she told us about the litter of puppies, she told us that they actually had two litters, one in a different room. We went in there and saw another litter of at least 9 pups. Where we in heaven? I think we where.

Anyway. Getting to the point of this so-far pointless post. After going over Puppy information, we (meaning Dad and Mom) decided that we where not going to take a chance and go to see other breeders. These dogs where amazing, they had no diseases in their bloodlines, and the puppies where still for sale. So. In two weeks, we are going to see which of the pups is best for us. Dad already decided that we needed another Male dog, and there are two males. And, two weeks after that, we are going to take home a dog.

On the way home, we brainstormed pet names. The Jerkatronic suggested Kirk, Scotty, and Arthas, all WoW and Star-Trek related names. We already have a cat named Spock, and the Jerkatronic -tried- to name Summer (other cat) 709 or whatever that girl in Star-trek is. Yes, I did hit him. Hard. Mom suggested Sam, Binky and Mort, all of which we turned down. I suggested Sky, Skypaw and Willow. Dad thought about it for a moment, first suggesting Fetch and then, after much thought, Echo. All of us liked Echo, just for the sound of it. Mom said that Echo was good because it was pretty. Dad liked the meaning of the word. Jerkatronic said it was fine and shut up, he was listening to the radio.

My reason for liking the name Echo? Simple. An echo is a sound that bounces back at you. A sound that regenerates. We just lost Jamie, and getting a puppy shows that we bounced back from something hard. Just like an Echo, we bounced back form losing our dog and we are getting another. Starting again.

Too poetic for you? I thought so.

A book.

I just read/finished a book about ten minutes ago.
Buddha Boy, by Kathe Koja
It's not that long, only 117 pages. But it's not a fairy tale or anything. It's really good.
Not full of action or anything. But.. It's got a good moral to it.
So.
Read it, ya?

~We're all gods inside~

Part of random story.

Prolog



“Luna?”
“Yeah?”
“I think we, uh, died.”

That was my welcome to death. I don’t know what, or who, killed us, but now we where dead and we weren’t going back. I looked over to my best friend, Ayla or “Luna”, and gave her the “what now?” look. She around at the endless darkness, finally saying, “Well. We’re not in Heaven, thats for sure. But I thought Hell was all fiery and red, not just... black.” I was about to agree when a deep voice penetrated the darkness.
“You’re not in Heaven, or in Hell, New Ones. You are in the Realm of Judgement.” If it hadn’t been so freaking scary I would have laughed at the name. Realm of Judgement? Really?
“Make fun of the name and die. Again.” Ok. So the guy with the weird voice could read minds. That was just great. “You are here because you have been chosen. You will not be cast in to the pits of Hell like the other sinners. You two New Ones will take on jobs of great importance, treading in-between Heaven and Hell.” The voice continued.
“Great,” I muttered to Luna. “Back to Earth for us.”
“Actually, for once you are right, New One. Your new roles will take you back to your old world, Earth. But before I tell you your new roles, I will ask you both -- would you give up your relatively peaceful new lives to take these roles?” I looked at Luna, who looked up at me. I could tell she was just as torn up as I -- it sounded like a good deal, to get a little action in death. Of course, we could get the roles of Skeletal Horse Manure Collector or something crappy (Seriously, no pun intended) like that.
“You might want to take in to account that if you decline, you will have your souls torn to shards and cast in to a pit of flaming tar.” Ok! That decided things. “Good,” purred the voice. “Then I will send you both to training. At the end of your training, you will be sent in to the field.” And with that, the darkness began to change to red stone and fire.
“Wait! Tell us what our jobs are at least!” Shouted Luna in rage. I sighed.
“Forget it, Luna. He, she, it’s not going to listen to us.” Looking around, I examined our surroundings. The ground was dark, hard red stone and sand. It stretched in to the distance, without any hills or mountains. The horizon was made up of plumes of fire, with red smoke making up the sky. Very red. Still, looking at it all, I realized it didn’t really scare me. At all. It didn’t scare Luna, either. She snorted a half laugh, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Hey look, Lupis. The fire is 2-D.” She noted, pointing at a plume of very flat fire.
I was thinking worse and worse of whoever ruled this world, and I was going to voice my opinion, but was cut off. Again. This time it was a burst of raging fire in front of us, which died down to reveal two bat-winged Demons. They looked like humans, but with glowing red eyes, wings, and grey skin. Very typical. One of them approached me, and one approached Luna. As one they nodded to us, then spoke in unison.
“You are going to be taken to training. Come with us.”
My response?
“Hold on just a minute! Are our training in different areas? Will we train together or apart?” The demons didn’t seem to know how to answer that for a moment.
“If you insist, you will train side by side at first.”
“Last question. What are our jobs?” I asked. The demons exchanged a reluctant glance, then answered.
“You, little New One,” the demon in front of me said, “Will be the Receptionist. You will decide what soul will go to Heaven and what soul will go to Hell.” The other demon looked at Luna.
“You, little New one...” he paused for a moment. “You will be Death.”

Wow.

Well! That was interesting.

I was looking at my mom's Flickr pictures and stumbled across the pictures of the Leopard Moths we have found.
I love moths. Butterflies are boring and usually ugly, but moths... Perfection. So when I saw the Leopard Moth for the first time, I was astounded by its beauty.



Besides the Leopard Moth, I have seen one other kind of exotic moth, I cannot name or find a picture of it though. We raised them from caterpillars, I remember. If I recall correctly they where/are huge moths with rich brown coloration. Lovely! (Edit: The moths we raised where Cecropia Moths. Look them up, very pretty, and they have the strangest caterpillars! Like little circus animals!)

Well, today I add another rare, beautiful moth to the list. The Luna Moth.



I've never seen a living Luna Moth in my life. I didn't even know they lived here. How gorgeous is it? I love the green wings, the brown, the yellow.. And it was big, not huge, but it had a 3-inch wingspan I hazard to guess. I first saw it when going over to tell mom about her Flickr photos, and then looking at the window.. "LUNA MOTH! LUNA MOTH!" We all freaked and went outside to marvel at it and take a few pictures.

Life is full of hidden beauty.

PS. To counter that last part, as we watched the Luna Moth, I heard something rustling the leaves by my feet. I look down and see a huge Garder Snake chowing down on a equally huge toad. It was... interesting. Not exactly a hidden beauty. And adding on to that, I think I saw that toad yesterday, while working outside. Good thing I didn't get too attached to it.

Fate is a very strange thing.

WoW post. Ignore if you want.

Lots of things in this post. I'll start with one of the most exciting things -- Tamable Worgen. Really, really awesome. I got one on both Rassaa, my Dwarf Huntress, and Bluefur, my Tauren Hunter. That picture above shows Bluefur and his new pet. Rassaa also has it, named Rhogar. The -best- pet in the game, and totally not supposed to be tamable. I love it. Strutting around in one of the cities, I got about twelve whispers about my Worgen pet. Alright, I'm a show off. But at least I was nice, actually two of the people wanted to invite me in to their guilds because, and I quote, "You're so leet." Bow before me.

Another thing. I've been playing Rassaa a lot, got her from level 75 to 76, nearly 77. Moved in to Sholizar Basin, I love the place. Funny thing, I was always worrying that I would find Loque'nahak, the rare spawn I sort of want and sort of don't, and not be able to tame him because I had my epic Worgen pet out.. But he is a -really- rare spawn. Really, really rare.
Anyway. I was questing, incidentally right next to one of Loque's rez points, and I kept getting this weird feeling that he was there. But I knew he couldn't be, because I camped him for months and never found him. But what the heck. Just a peek, I could just peek around to make sure he wasn't there.



Fate is a very strange thing.

Really, it wasn't as easy as abandon pet, set trap, tame. See, I had my worgen out at the time, and I was NOT abandoning my worgen. So that meant I had to run back to town, take a 1-minute flight path that seemed to take -forever-, put away my worgen, run back while freaking out that someone had probably found and tamed him by now, and then finally tamed him. And I admit, he is pretty epic. ( epic is my new word for awesome. )

Huh. I wonder what horrible death I am going to die tomorrow, with all the good luck I am having today.