Update (this was in my last journal, but I don't think it was seen:
LEASE HAS BEEN SIGNED! Money has exchanged hands, utility company has been notified, & Kwan's a relieved rat. I move next week. I've started packing in earnest.

My poor old dog Maddie (who loathes moving even more than I do) knows a move is eminent, is completely traumatized & clingy, & is trying to give me a guilt complex. I expect I'll be forgiven when she realizes she's a single dog once more.

Today Maddie got a metric crapload of attention. It was a warm, windy day, perfect weather to give her a much-needed trimming, and I wanted a break from packing & re-arranging stuff.

I've long put forward that Maddie has cat-hair instead of real dog-hair. She's half border collie, so there's a surprising amount of variable hair lengths. There's also a surprising amount of hair. Her coat is very fine, especially on the ears, and has a bad habit of floating mid-air once shed. It makes finding cobwebs on the ceiling rather easy, but I'd gladly trade that dubious advantage for a heavier, coarser, more dog-like pelt that obeys gravity.

As a result of all this, Maddie gets ear-trims throughout the year, and an occasional full-body trim. Now with summer coming on, she is shedding with a vengeance. She's been looking particularly rough, wild, and feral. Time for a trim.

This involves cutting the fur by hand with scissors. I wish I could use an electric trimmer, but her fur has destroyed---I do mean destroyed--three of them. Look--I've shaved/trimmed horses, donkeys, and mules more times than I can count, not to mention steers, lambs, and goats. I'm no base amateur when it comes to shaving an animal. I know how to use & care for electric trimmers. But Maddie's damned hair is like kryptonite to those things.

So a 10-minute task is turned into an ordeal lasting over an hour. It's an ordeal because of me having to spend all that time bent double with dog-hair flying all over my face & into my bra & up my nose. And trying to get the damned dog to stay still, already (it's not like Maddie gets excited or fidgety--she just wants to supervise, which involves constantly moving her head about, which moves the rest of her, and usually right when I'm cutting).

Maddie enjoys the attention, as she gets many scritchies & several play-breaks for being good, not to mention a treat at the end. But due to her constant craning about, or refusing to keep still during crucial times, she always comes out looking like she's been trimmed with a weed-whacker. And the sad part is, that's an improvement.

By the end of it all, there was enough hair & fuzz swirling about to make myself a few emergency backup dogs. The wind blew most of it over the fence & into the desert. At every play-break, it was quite a sight watching all that hair go up, up, up into the sky.

And then birds started dive-bombing the fur. I thought they must be disappointed that there was nothing to eat, just fuzzy stuff--but then realized they were after the hair all along. Nest-making time! Evidently it's the en vogue thing in the avian world to give their offspring a home that smells like an aging spazzhund.

What with the wind & the birds, I figure I've got my dog spread over an area of 3 cubic miles by now.