NaNo update

NaNo begins in 15 days, and I'm beginning to have serious doubts on whether I can reach 50K or not. Last year, my first, was tough enough--I slacked there at the middle horribly, then had to rush to catch up.

My NaNo stats from 2011--note the slack there between
day 13 and day 21

St. Jorisbaai yesterday, storm clouds
in the horizon, no wind, water like
a mirror. Hot.

And that was the only thing I was doing.

Romy's Story

The last weekend of September I got a call from CARF. "There's a dog at the dump," the woman said. "We've been feeding her for a while, and we think she's ready to be caught and brought to the vet. Can you foster her?"

Romy, at the dump where she was
found

Uh, yeah. But--at the dump? The garbage dump? Who throws away a dog like garbage?

"The rescuer will meet you at the vet's Monday morning."

The rescuer called me Sunday evening, a lovely Dutch woman, wife of a Marine officer, unfortunately only stationed here in Curaçao for a few more years. Why can't people like these stay around forever?

When I walked into the vet's waiting room, she was holding a reddish-yellow dog, smaller than I thought, on her lap. Huge eyes, all sweetness. Her legs were stiff from fear, but she let herself be moved over to my lap and we cuddled while we waited. She was so dirty--he-llo, a garbage dump--that I got a rash all over my arms and neck. Nothing that a good shower didn't cure, though.

This time, my excuse is REALLY good

You've noticed I've been, uh, absent. You probably thought, "ah, life." Or "she's busy with the WIP." And you weren't wrong. But I've also been doing something different. I've been rescuing dogs.

Meet Sasha II (the story of Sasha I from last year is here). She lived under an abandoned truck in a vacant lot next to Goisco (the Curaçao version of Costco), and she was lucky that the business next to the lot (Rituals Coffee Shop) employs gold-hearted people that fed her and looked after her, as much as they could, for two months.

I say as much as they could, because she wouldn't let anyone touch her, she wouldn't come closer than a meter--even to these lovely people that gave her food every day. They noticed she didn't like kibble, so they tried different things: rice and meat (she ate the meat, spit out the rice), veggies, pasta, stuff with sauces, stuff without sauces. She grew skinny but not emaciated, and stayed relatively healthy thanks to them.