What I have learned from Hugo

Hugo

I have now had a puppy for 10 days.  I got Hugo when he was just 8 weeks old, still very much a baby – even in dog time.  I didn’t know anything about caring for or training a puppy, but it’s amazing how fast you catch on.  My colleagues and friends have shared their wealth of puppy experience, and Boris gave me the Perfect Puppy book.  So I have learned to look after my puppy, but – more to the point – I have learned a lot about myself.

• I do not enjoy having something (or someone) 100% dependent on me.  As much as I adore Hugo, I can’t help resenting him.  I don’t mind getting out of bed at 5am to take him outside – the sun is already up and I love mornings.  I like going for walks and I like him sleeping at my feet whilst I work.  Hugo has even come to pubs with me.  What I resent is my loss of freedom in general because I always have to consider Hugo’s needs and, most of all, that I have only managed to go to the gym once in the last 10 days.  That is not okay.

• I will never again wonder whether my decision to not have children was the right one.  My experience with Hugo has shown me that I am not maternal.  I don’t have the requisite patience and I am a bit too self-centred, amongst many other less than attractive qualities, I am sure.  I like children and I like puppies – but that doesn’t mean that I have to have one of my own.

• Hugo has melted my icy heart.  I seem to have regained touch with my emotions over the past 10 days, and I have been willing to show weakness and need, and to ask for help.  And a puppy is not what I need.  Back to the search for a real boyfriend…

• Watching a puppy learn and grow is wonderful, and the speed at which Hugo is doing both is astonishing.

However, when all is said and done, I want my life back.  I want to get up at 6am and go straight to the gym.  I want to be free to go wherever and whenever I want to go and not need to wait for someone to look after my puppy.  I am sure it would be deeply rewarding to raise Hugo to become a companionable adult dog, but it’s just not for me.

I had had Hugo exactly one week when I realised I would have to consider giving him up.  I took action the next day – posting on expats.cz and starting to tell people.  I am hoping to find people that will give him the love and attention that he deserves within the next day or two.

I am glad to have had my brief puppy-raising experience and I feel my life is a little richer for Hugo having been in it.  But I really am done.

Bird Flu Redux

I can’t resist writing about this: Human noses too cold for bird flu.

All of that panic in 2005, 2006, and 2007, and it turns out that we can’t even incubate the virus properly because human noses are generally not the same temperature as bird guts.  Or something like that.

Long-time readers (if there are still any around) may remember that this Max never bought into the panic.

My first bird flu post in November 2005 decried the $7.1 billion that then “President” Bush had pledged to fight bird flu.  It also pointed out that War Secretary Rumsfeld had declined to sell his shares in Gilead Sciences, owners of the patent for the antiviral drug Tamiflu.  Instead Rumsfeld announced that he would not participate in government when it was dealing with bird flu related issues.  What a guy.

My post in December 2005 shared information from MedPage Today of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, which basically told people not to panic and not to take Tamiflu unless they actually had a normal human flu.  That page is still there, with the title Avian Flu Deaths Linked to Tamiflu Resistance.

I then left bird flu alone until February 2007 when the H5N1 virus hit a turkey farm in England.  The authorities there announced that they were going to kill 159,000 turkeys to prevent the spread of the virus.  And I wrote that by February 2007, only 165 people worldwide had died of avian influenza and the virus had not mutated to pass from human to human.

And now we know why.

Of course we also now have a new flu to instil panic, which may or may not turn out to be worthy of that panic.  Here are my 2 favourite things about that virus:

“They said we would have a black president when pigs fly.  One hundred days in… swine flu.”

and today this:

Swine flu fears could delay Hajj.  Oh, the delicious irony.

Off to a good start

This is the first headline I have seen in ages that has inspired me to write – as you can see from my complete lack of recent posts.

Everyone was celebrating Obama’s inauguration on Tuesday evening. I was at the big party at Jáma celebrating along with everyone else. But when I was interviewed by a journalist from Lidové noviny, I made it clear to her that I would not believe in Obama until he had actually done something as president to make me believe. I personally was not there to celebrate Obama’s inauguration; I was there to celebrate the fact that George W Bush (that motherfucker) was no longer president.

And on his second working day, Obama has ordered the closure of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. Wow wow wow – I may start to believe sooner than I had expected.

Max resigns herself to voting

Books Burning by Catherine Jamieson

Please have a gander at this: Women Against Sarah Palin

…and then VOTE OBAMA.

Vote from Abroad

I am not being a good anarchist this voting season, but I cannot look at the McCain-Palin ticket and do nothing.  I absolutely loathe McCain – as everyone knows by now, but the thought of right-wing religious nut anti-woman Sarah Palin in the White House literally makes me vomit.

* Thanks to Sweet Potato for sending the WASP link.

19 1/2 hours with Jono

Jono arrived at my house last night at around 10pm. We had prep to do before his doctor’s appointment at 8 this morning so we went around the corner to my local. We drank beer as we filled in the medical history questionnaire and then talked about what our Monday would entail. If only we had guessed…

The pre-ordered taxi was waiting outside my house at 7.30 and got us to the insurance doctor’s office in the hills above Smíchov right on time at 8. There had clearly been some miscommunication amongst the insurance company, the doctor and my assistant, but we managed to sort out the paperwork and in the end the doctor approved Jono for his life insurance.

We got back to my office in Smíchov just after 9. My assistant had already talked to the insurance agent and she sent us straight off to the insurance company, which was nearby, so that Jono could sign the life insurance agreement. So far, so good. Things were going smoothly and we thought we had them under control.

Jono and I stopped for breakfast at Café Savoy and then went on to see P at the bank at Náměstí Republiky. We got there at 11.15, giving us at least an hour before we would have to leave to go to the developer’s office to sign the final purchase contract for our flat. P examined the insurance documents and then had further bank documents prepared for both the insurance company and the developer. Together we looked at the amendments to our future purchase contract, which changed the actual purchase price of our flat. We went over the list of what else we still needed to do to draw down the mortgage. When we were finally done with all of that and Jono and I were free to go, P called us a taxi and I called Filip to tell him we’d be a few minutes late.

Our taxi driver was a genius and we really did arrive at the developer’s office in Podolí only a few minutes late. We sat with Filip and went over the amendments to the future purchase contract and signed those. Then we discussed the price adjustment. Then we were ready to sign the 8 originals of the final purchase contract. Suddenly Filip informed us that our signatures on 4 of them would need to be notarised, but that we could all go together to the notary down the street. But I quickly realised that I couldn’t do that because I didn’t have my passport with me. “Sorry, guys…”

Filip suggested that Jono and I take the agreements, go home for my passport, and go to a notary near my house to sign, and then he would add his notarised signatures tomorrow or the next day. So off we went. We took the tram from Podolí back to Žižkov, on the way deciding to go to the notary I know in Smíchov, which is just over the road from the insurance company. The idea being that we could finish up at the insurance company afterwards.

The notary’s office was a bit crowded, but I think we were in and out in about 30 minutes. We crossed the road to the insurance office. Our agent was no longer there so we sat down with someone else. We needed the insurance company to complete the vinkulace – the document that confirms that the bank is the beneficiary on Jono’s life insurance. The woman went through the papers we had, made some copies, asked us where we wanted the vinkulace sent, and told us it would take a month.

I challenged her. A month?!!! No one had told us it would take a month and there was no logical reason why it should take a month.

She tried to explain. They would have to send the paperwork to Brno, no one in their office was authorised to complete a vinkulace… But then she admitted that there might be someone in their office in Vinohrady. I asked her to call and find out. After two or three phone calls, she determined that there was someone at that minute in their office at the ass end of Prague 3 – way out near the end of the number 9 tram line. In other words, back the way we had just come from, but farther out. Off we went.

“What if we get there and she’s not there anymore?”

We walked into the insurance company office at Chmelnice. It was quiet and kind of dark. “Dobrý den, we’re looking for Mrs Procházková.”

“I’m Mrs Procházková.” Jono and I looked at each other in hope and amazement – this might just work out after all.

We sat down and Mrs Procházková looked over our paperwork. And then suddenly, “What’s this? You just signed this agreement today? It won’t be in our system yet. I’m afraid I can’t do the vinkulace until the agreement is in the system.”

A calm and civilised discussion ensued. Mrs P advised us that if we encouraged our agent a bit, she would be able to get the life insurance agreement into the system within 7-10 days. Then once the agreement is in there, Mrs P will be happy to do the vinkulace on the spot for me. A reasonable result, we thought.

About 20 minutes after we had left Mrs P, Jono got into a taxi and I stood waving him off as he headed for the airport.

Oh, and Filip and I agreed to meet at the flat for handover this Wednesday.

A Tribute to Arms

Hiatus

I am not saying that I won’t be writing at all; it’s just that I want to explain why my posts may be few and infrequent. Bottom line: I’m busy.

I have a new job, which I officially start on 1 July. However I am already getting my feet wet and, as I am not tall, the water is lapping at my ass. I have been to Berlin for meetings and I think I am going to Warsaw for a party in a few weeks’ time. All this whilst I remain not quite discontentedly in my old job until 30 June.

I am also trying to arrange a mortgage and to keep up with some of my friends. And the weather has turned beautiful and warm, which gives me even less incentive to stay inside at my computer.

Thank you for reading my blog. I will be back…

Hating the haters

My choice has been made – I will be voting in California in November.

I don’t know that I will cast a vote in the presidential election. If I do, it will be only because I despise John McCain and not because I believe in anyone else. Sad, but true. But the reason I will bother with the whole rigmarole of absentee voting is so that those bigoted homophobic motherfuckers won’t be able to pass their bigoted homophobic proposition to ban gay marriage in California’s constitution.

Just yesterday, the California Supreme Court struck down the state’s law against same-sex marriage and declared that registered partnerships are not good enough.

“In contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual’s capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual’s sexual orientation,” Chief Justice Ronald George wrote for the majority in ringing language that delighted gay rights activists.

Massachusetts in 2004 became the first, and so far only, state to legalize gay marriage; more than 9,500 couples have taken advantage of the law. But the California ruling is considered monumental by virtue of the state’s size — 38 million out of a U.S. population of 302 million — and its historical role as the vanguard of many social and cultural changes that have swept the country since World War II.

California has an estimated 108,734 same-sex households, according to 2006 census figures.

yahoo/AP

One of the precedents cited was the California Supreme Court’s 1948 ruling that overturned the ban on interracial marriages.

The decision on same-sex marriage should be a happy ending and we should all rejoice that any couple who are lucky enough to find that kind of love can enshrine it in any way they want. We should all look forward to being invited to gay weddings where the décor and flowers, etc will all be in immaculate taste.

But instead, enter the small-minded, holier-than-thou, overly religious, freedom-loathing, malignant bigots that want us all to live based on their twisted code of intolerance and hatred. I really wish it were possible to convince them that they don’t have the right to tell other people how to live and that if there were a god, s/he would not be on their side.

Max is away

President Gas 2008

a contemporary twist on a classic by the Psychedelic Furs;

I found it on Crooks and Liars