roving packs of dogs

My neighborhood has roving packs of dogs. Some of them have collars, some of them don't. Either way, it was slightly disconcerting to me one morning as I was reading the news outside with Worf. I don't quite know what to make of this. Neighborhood curiosity? Potential threat? Hilarious daily goings-on? I settled on the latter of those three. However, it has reminded me that I need to be sure not to settle in too quickly and get comfortable too fast. Balance is something I've striven for my whole life, and this is an excellent opportunity to test out newly-learned skills.

A good friend reminded me today of one of my initial goals of this project, which was to probe the depths of the relationship between ourselves, the Universe, and God, but on my own (at least for awhile). One more reason to not get too comfortable too quickly is to ensure focus on the big picture. In times of great upheavel, an argument can be made that focusing on the forest instead of the individual trees is important, or else things can become very overwhelming. That leads to frustration, and then things can get out of hand. That's when shenanigans happen, and nobody wants shenanigans.

Oh, so another going-on. A former co-worker of mine at NIH put me in touch with her son who lives in Albuquerque with his boyfriend. So we had emailed back and forth and on Friday I drove to ABQ and stayed the night with them. They are super awesome (I haven't asked if it's alright if I put their names in my blog) and I think that we can get up to all sorts of fun stuff in the future. They informed me of something I was happy to hear; they said that the gays here are more of the hippie variety, and not the circuit party variety. Good times were had by all. ABQ seems like a neat city, I look forward to getting to know it better. So, yeah, fun!

I slapped a collar on Worf and gave way to the inevitable; he is growing up and doesn't want to just stay inside all the time anymore. He has limited privileges now; if things go well, those might be extended.

I invited some of the dogs from the roving packs in to pose for my own personal interpretation of the art classic "Dogs Playing Poker." They kindly accepted, and are now ready, so I must go. Tot ziens!