Rainy Day

It's a rainy day here in Florida as Tropical Storm Fay passes overhead. As a result, my usually too busy life has slowed down and I actually have some free time. For the past two months, life has been a blur. Seven weeks ago, we moved out of Gainesville and began spending our weekdays scanning endless pages of evidence for one of my dad's cases down in Vero Beach. This completely mind-numbing (and finger numbing from pulling staples) job is definitely the worst job either of us has ever had. However, the dogs are having a fantastic time. While we are working our fingers to the bone, they are spending the day at the luxurious Pawprints dog daycare in Vero Beach. It's an amazing facility with a large indoor space, a multi-acre outdoor area, and a swimming pool just for the dogs. Then, after nine hours of playing in this doggie heaven, the pups get to come home to our family friend's house and swim in the pool for a couple of hours. To round off the perfect day they get a portion of the meat from dinner every night, then settle down on the pillow-top king size bed with us for a good nights sleep. 

On the weekends, we have another lovely job: pulling cattails at my parents house. Since it is illegal to bring any type of mechanical equipment into the lake, we get to dig out each deep-rooted cattail with a shovel and our two hands. Thank God we got hip wader boots, because sinking up to our knees in stinking black muck with nothing on but water shoes was a really unpleasant way to spend our first weekend on the job. Really, it was the vicious attack on my foot by a blue crab that convinced us it was time for a trip to the store to pick up some boots. Once again, the dogs are in heaven while our backs are breaking with hard work. They spend their weekends swimming and splashing in the mucky lake and running and playing in the backyard. After a quick bath, they retire inside where they are petted, cuddled, and stuffed full of treats by Grandpa. He has even been known to make them their own beef or turkey stew to go over their kibble.