And Then There Were Four

Greetings All!

Once again, it has been over a month since my last post. Among the usual reasons for the long delay are the two dogs passed out at my feet. That's right, folks, in case you missed the recent pictures on Facebook, we have acquired yet another stray dog. I certainly don't want to sound like a broken record and go into the difficulties of raising a puppy as I did in the last post, so I'll keep it brief. Jack has been the opposite of Lucy in many ways: whereas she had trouble not peeing in the apartment a lot at first, he was very resistant to going potty at all; unlike her insistence on pulling when walking, Jack likes to hang back a bit; where Lucy is generally skittish around a ton of people, Jack is relaxed and confident. We've very thoroughly entertained by watching the dogs' relationship grow and develop, although we do wish they would decide who was the "big dog".

We received a airline approved crate in the mail from Mike and Audra who have graciously offered to adopt Lucy! Although Lucy doesn't have a New Yorker accent, we're confident in her being very happy to be a big city dog with such good parents. However, we're still working out the details of travel. Who would've thought flying a rescued dog from Taiwan to the States would be a challenge? Regardless of the difficulties, we won't rest until Lucy is safe and happy in New York : )

Now that I've got the puppy update taken care of, I'll move on. On Saturday, we will have been in Taiwan for 9 months. This is very difficult to believe, as we are still caught off guard by things we see, both beautiful and shocking, every day. We continue to learn things every day, from our students, friends, coworkers, and complete strangers. Although we've been terrible about doing any formal learning of Chinese, we still pick up little bits here and there. As we learn, we both hear and understand much more all around us. To think at some point I could be fluent in such a completely alien language is thrilling, but in order to do that, I need to step up my learning pace. Perhaps next month : )

With each lesson I learn, I try to mentally log them in order to share them here, for anyone who remains interested in our adventures. Here are a few:

- As we learned on this past Sunday, always check the weather forecast before taking a scooter ride into the mountains with your dogs. We drove nearly an hour out to a waterfall (previously mentioned in posts) only to have it begin raining quite hard as soon as we arrived at the waterfall itself. It didn't take long before we were all soaked and ready to go home. We ended up having to wait until the rain let up enough for one of the men at the temple to drive us up the rather treacherous hill on the back of his 4X4 truck (this was in itself an adventure). The dogs weren't thrilled about it, but we made it safely to the top after having all four of our hearts going pretty quickly. The drive down the mountain was relatively dry, but once we got to the bottom, another wave of heavy rain hit. In the end it took us about 2 hours to get home, and another 45 minutes to get the dogs blow-dried (a feat in itself).

Lesson: you have never multitasked until driving in traffic on a scooter, in a torrential downpour, while encouraging a soaked dog to stay on said scooter.

Lesson learned.

- As I mentioned earlier, the crate that Mike and Audra sent for Lucy arrived at our school yesterday. We then had to devise a way to get the rather large box back home via scooter. I thought perhaps I could simply carry it the four blocks or so to our apartment. Sara, however, suggested that we put it on the back of the scooter and tie it around my midsection. So we did. Although I only got to see a few other drivers' reactions, I could hear Sara laughing hysterically as she followed me on a scooter the entire way home.

Lesson: how to transport a large box on a scooter while getting even more funny looks than usual.

Lesson learned.

(Yes, that scooter is light purple. Big deal! Wanna fight about it?)

- yet another skill I've learned is how to eat a big bowl of rice, tofu, and veggies faster with chopsticks than I probably could with any other utensil. With two pups that are still working on being fully housebroken, we are forced to really squeeze in a lot to our 40 minute "dinner" breaks between 6:05-6:40. We hurry home, one of us takes the dogs out, one buys food from a noodle shop across from our place, and then we hustle back to school to chow down. This limited time frame for food consumption, combined with my predisposition to shovel food (thanks to being raised in a large family where seconds was a privilege granted to the fastest eaters), I now really have to make an effort to slow down when eating in a relaxed setting.

Lesson: how to master chopstick use.

Lesson Nearly Learned (I haven't caught any flies yet).

Well, it is getting time for these dogs to take a potty break and for me to hustle off to work. As always, thank you for reading. Perhaps you learned something. Perhaps you got a laugh out of our experiences. Perhaps you got nervous when I talked about our truck ride up the treacherous hill (hi, Mom). Anyway it goes, I miss you all and hope to hear from you all soon.

Until the next time, stay safe and do your best to appreciate all the amazing people and things in your life. I certainly know I do.