MUN Part II: Puking and Cafe Murano and Finding the Room!

The conference lasted four days and it was very well run.  A trifle long, but well run.  I had brought one of Coach's nylabone's but had accidentally left it at school, so we did a Petco run after lunch one day and came upon a fabulous find: The Kong Comfort Wubba!

I had been searching for these all over the place.  Michele had looked for them, I had looked for them.  Tampa has no comfort wubbas! They are one of the only approved toys that is a not a stuffed toy, yet has a stuffed toy feel.  So I got three.  For future puppies!

Here's a photo of Coach with his green wubba.  It's a fuzzy kong with legs hanging down.  It does not squeak.

Coach is standing in the wheel well of the van looking out the open door.

 Getting in and out of the Berkeley van required that Coach become very comfortable with a very high step up and down.  He didn't have any problem with it.

So we headed back and Coach seemed content with his wubba.  We saw the kids off to committee sessions.  

Michele and Coach are sitting in the lobby area as two of our students stand and look on (Max and Jake).

After the kids went to committee, Michele and Tim and Claudia and I would find tables in the coffee shop of the Hilton and set up and do school work.  That's where the small incident occurred.

Michele at a table in the coffee shop with Coach underneath.

It started out as nothing.  We were sitting and chatting and Coach was between us and another table.  There was a teacher at the table next to us whom we knew and we were talking with her.  Coach had his wubba.  All of a sudden he stands up and looks at me and then looks down and does a little bit of a hunch hunch with his back.  

There is the faintest sound of gagging.  Just distantly heard. Like a dream almost.  I stand up.  Then I sit down.  Then I look at Michele.

"Coach is throwing up.  Get us some napkins."

"Please." I added this belatedly.

"Oh no!" Michele pops up and runs for the napkins at the coffee station.  

Now I have a decision to make.  I can try to run Coach out of the hotel, which would take us through the lobby and in front of the front desk.  Or I could leave him where he was: on tile, hidden from view and relatively quiet.  

I went with hidden from view and on tile.  The teacher at the other table looked on in mild horror as Coach very calmly puked up a green hairball.  It was the fuzz from the green wubba.  I grabbed it in one swipe with the napkin from the tile floor and set it carefully on the table.  I glanced around and not one person has noticed or heard Coach throw up.  

Close up of Coach under the table.

Coach looked up at me again as if to say, "I'm not done," and yakked up a smaller green fuzzball.  Then he went to sleep.  Wubba forgotten in his post-puking haziness. The wubba was taken away and disposed of.  Poor Coach.  Jam loved his wubba, he would chew on one leg and just get it soggy, never  damaging it.  But in Coach's case, he was a nibbler and the wubba wasn't a good toy for him.

Afterwards, the team went to Cafe Murano for dinner and we had such a fabulous dinner that we went back the next night.  They were wonderful with Coach as well asking if he needed a water bowl.

I did put together a little video of Coach's zoomies when he first got to the room, how he managed with all the foot traffic around him and how he quite amazed me with his ability to find our room.  I would say find our room when we got off the elevator on our floor and he would take me to our room.  He would do it even if Michele walked past the room.  He was great!

Here's a shot of the whole team.  They were a great bunch to travel with.  Very fun and always upbeat. You can't ask for more then that when traveling!  And we took home an award as well.  Yea team!!

The whole MUN team, Mrs. Timothy and Coach.

Coach's MUN Trip Part 1

Every year  I take our Southeastern Guide Dog puppy on a Model United Nations conference so that the puppy can experience a hotel room.  Usually we take them to the KnightMUN conference at UCF so that they only have one night in the hotel.  However, this year Homecoming was during KnightMUN, so we didn't go.  That left GatorMUN or FHSMUN.  These were all multi-night conferences.  Since Michele and I usually room together and she could only go to FHSMUN, we opted for the FHSMUN conference so that I would have a back-up person if I needed one.

Coach in front of the Hilton Altamonte Springs sign.

We were taking two vans to Altamonte Springs, which is on the other side of Orlando, for this tournament which was going to take place in the Altamonte Springs Hilton. I would like to add a little note here that if you need to stay somewhere with your guide dog puppy, that choosing a Hilton would be an excellent idea.  When we arrived with nine students, four adults and one black goldadore and all of us trooped in through the doors (Tim had already checked us in) and decamped in the lobby for Tim to hand out keys, as kids started to peel out and head for their rooms, Michele and I and Coach became more and more visible. Yet at no time did one hotel employee do anything but smile and look welcoming.  In fact, the entire time we have been here, every employee has been friendly, welcoming and happy to see us. I highly recommend the Hilton.

Coach did great on the elevators (he's an old hand at elevators) and he was very excited to see the room.  He also enjoyed the full length mirror, but not as much as some other puppies have in the past. Because we usually do this trip in Oct, when we have a tiny puppy, we bring a crate for the puppy to sleep in.  This time we just had Coach on a tie down.  So the first night was quite a trip.

It began with Coach being a little confused about where was Fred? Because when he goes to bed at home he usually sleeps on Fred's side of the bed when he is on tie-down.  When we turned off the lights, Coach went into high alert.  Uh oh.  That's not good.  The light was streaming in under the hotel hallway door and shadows could be seen walking past the door.  Coach was watching.  Intently. Then someone went into their room. We could hear the door shut. Click.

Coach let out a loud big boy bark. EEEP went my heart.

"No! No noise Coach."

"Down."  I tried to get Coach to go down, which is very hard to do when you are lying in bed, yet half leaning out over the side of the bed trying to grab the leash and give a correction.  Hmm.

Coach jumped up into a sit. The air conditioner had just turned off with a thump!  Coach let out a half hearted mini-bark.  In my head all the people in our hallway had just poked their heads out and were talking to each other:

"Did you hear that dog?"

"It's coming from room 626!"

"We should call the front desk and tell on them."

"It's outrageous!!"

This is worse than the ukelele playing kid in the elevator!  And what the hell was he up to?  And where was his high school advisor?  And what were they thinking allowing him to bring a ukelele? Seriously! Oh, back to barking...What should I do?  Would I ever get to sleep?  Would he ever calm down?  Would people ever quit walking up and down the freaking hallway?

Wait a minute.  We have extra pillows! I got up and turned on the obnoxiously bright lights and took the multitude of extra pillows that they stuffed onto our bed and pushed them under the door so that all the light and sound was blocked out. Problem solved!

Photo of the three pillows stuffed at the foot of the door.

Coach sitting by the side of the road.

Coach relaxed and went down. I relaxed and went to sleep.

Tomorrow: Dinner at Cafe Murano and puking.

Don't forget! If you have been following the blog for a while and you have a favorite post, you have an opportunity to to nominate it for your favorite pet blog for the 2^nd Annual BlogPaws “Nose-to-Nose” Social Media Pet Blogging Awards!  March 8th is the deadline.  Click on the following categories to submit an entry:

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A Lesson Learned

Thursday was one of those busy days.  A day you just can't predict.  You think you have it all prepared, but then it goes INSANE.  

Usually, Jammy and I walk into school, past the speeding students and their sometimes equally speed demon parents and I was thinking about the morning's schedule.  MUN (Model United Nations club) had a Frosty sale at lunch.  We had never attempted this before and it was uncharted territory.  I needed to leave right before lunch and go with one of the senior students to Wendy's to pick 200 frosties and then get them back on campus in time to sell before the kids got out for lunch at 12:30.  And I had a lunch meeting to review student library proctor candidates with my head and assistant head student library proctors at 12:35.

But first I had a ton of grading to do.  That meant sitting on the main floor of the library and grading the works cited as I also kept an eye on what was going on around me.  They call it multitasking. Librarians are whizzes at it.  Usually Jam and I have our morning walk at 10 when we go to convocation, but we didn't go to convocation on Thursday for some reason.  I don't know why.  Perhaps I got caught up in my grading.  For whatever reason, we had a pee break, went back to work and about the time I needed to fly out to the Wendy's, I left Jammy with Christina.

Jammy is sitting in front of Christina in the library workroom with his head tilted to the right.

 He wasn't quite sure what was going on, but he knew something was up.  I was a bit stressed about the whole deal.  Alex and I drove to Wendy's and when we got there, we found only one person working the cash register.  All I needed to do was go up and ask for Charlie, but since there were three people ahead of me in line, I could very well barge up and say, "I just need Charlie, now, get outta my way!" and have them get all up in my face about cutting in line and being there first.  Especially when I had a student with me.

So, I patiently stood in line.  Right.  I stood in line, but NOT patiently.  I was toe tapping and looking around and trying to figure out which person back there was Charlie, because the minute I identified him, I was going to laser beam him over to me.  Seriously, what was he thinking putting only one person on the counter at lunchtime?

And then the VERY WORST THING HAPPENS: coupon lady appears.  I was next in line.  I was so close.  There was this blonde in front of me and she had just started to order when her friend comes out of the bathroom and steps up next to her.  (Oh yes, she did, and her purse was big and filled with coupons.) The blonde turns to her friend and says, "What do you want?"

Well, I wanted to poke her friend's eyes out.  But that was before her friend pulled out the ginormous wad of coupons. The old lady behind the register, who you know is on her third day at Wendy's, lets out a little moan.  "I don't know how to do coupons!"

"Oh. My. Freaking. God." But I say this inside my head where a little mini me is screaming and pulling out big tufts of hair.  "I just need to talk to Charlie!  I don't even need any food!!!!  Where the hell is Charlie?!!!"

So, three-day-old cashier says, "Charlie, I need some help!  I don't know how to do coupons."  And this tall man comes over and I try to laser beam him with my eyes, but it doesn't work.  The coupon lady has him in her talons.  She is throwing all this coupons on the counter and talking in coupon gibberish.  It's like Klingon for Trekkies only you get food as a reward.

Sure enough, Charlie starts punching buttons and things beep and three-day-old cashier watches with her big eyes as it goes in one ear and out the other.  Charlie looks up and I laser beam him again.

"Hi, I'm from Berkeley.  I have the 200 frosties."

"Oh yeah. They are out back.  Have you paid yet?"  I look at coupon lady.  She looks back at me and offers me a coupon.  "No thank you. No, I haven't yet."

"Well, let's do that and get you out back to get your frosties."

So we pay and go out back and he has 7 boxes of frosties to go in my Honda fit.  Mind you, we brought 3 coolers to put the frosties in, because we were told to bring coolers.  But the Honda Fit will fit a full size llama in it, I kid you not!

Photo of a Honda fit with a llama in the back seat.  The head is poked out the window.

And you didn't believe me.  I think sometimes, dear reader, you think I drift into hyperbole!

Anyway, back to the story, we here we have three coolers and 7 boxes of frosties and the frosties are melting and they are all very precariously placed in the boxes, not tightly placed or snugly placed, but loosely placed with room to move and dance around.  And did I mention that the tops are pretty open?  So they can slosh out if they feel like it?  Yea.  Great.

I'm really relaxed about this whole thing.  Oh, and Alex.  He's about 6'5".  No worries.  We'll make it.  You know how I drive right?  I can handle this.  I can drive really slow and take turns in a calm manner.

Quit laughing.

We make it to the school.  We sell the frosties.  I make my meeting.  We select SLPs.  The upshot is that Jammy is without a walk for a long time.  I am bushed and completely stressed and drained.  So when I take him back, I just go into my office with him.  I go into my office, because there is a speaker in the library who is currently speaking to 65 fifth graders on how her family emigrated from Cuba to America, which is a serious subject.

I sit in my chair and I lean over to Jam and I reach down and start to remove his coat.  This signals to Jam that play time as started.  And since he has been cooped up ALL DAY in the office, why should he spend one minute more in MY OFFICE?  So, he takes off. And because he is a big boy and doesn't run off, I didn't have him on a tie down.

SO HE CAN.

AND HE DOES.

Do you know about the puppy crazies?  Labs are particularly infected with them.  They will kick up their heels and then it's like their back legs spin in circles they move so fast.  Jam was GONE.  He was naked and gone.  I leaped up and was out in the library and every high schooler was staring out towards where the speaker was because of course, that's where Jam went.

He ran right to the back of the library.  Past all the high school kids and the tables, past the books.  Into the second study area and there was the big open space with 65 fifth graders.  Here was the big open space for Jam to do some wheelies.

And so he did.

Several of them.  To the delight of every one of the 65 fifth graders who had turned around to watch him pop a wheelie.

By this time, I had made it back to where he was and he saw me.  Jam blew past me to the left and went through the Spanish teacher's legs (his wife, a professor at USF was our speaker).  Jam danced around the tables and weaved in and out of the chairs as students and library personnel tried to reach out and grab him.  All us not saying a word, in deference to the speaker, who was still speaking.

It all came to an end for Jammy when he got close to Clay, a junior, who knows all of Jam's tricks.  Clay reached out and grabbed him and caught him.

There was a huge sigh of relief.

And a lesson learned.  No matter what.  Never skip the morning walk!!!

KnightMUN: The Hotel Experience

The weekend was our annual hotel experience with the Model United Nation's club at my school. We took Bingo last year and it was the perfect hotel experience and the kids seemed to enjoy it as well. The conference is called KnightMUN and is held at UCF's campus on Saturday and Sunday, which means a VERY early rising on Saturday morning and a late return on Sunday night.

4:20 am

The alarm should have gone off at 4:20 am, but it didn't. It was on the 5 days a week schedule and this being a Saturday...I woke up at 4:50.

"Holy crap! Berkeley! Downstairs, eat, poop, out the door!"

We managed to be on the road in 20 minutes. I had packed and showered the night before. 8-)

Fortunately for us, we weren't the last ones to arrive. I won't tattle on anyone (faculty or student!), but I did rest a little easier knowing that we had a little time to chill. Here's a shot of Her Royal Highness (HRH) Berkeley in the car waiting for that last student to arrive so we can get on the road.



Orlando

We followed the bus to Orlando and met them at the Panera where we all had breakfast. Imagine the Panera staff's excitement at having 30 teens surge through their doors all famished and needing caffeine and carbs! Followed closely by teachers needing caffeine. Not a comforting sight. Then add to that, a small black dog. The Panera staff made not a peep. Good Panera staff! Good.

Radisson

We dropped the kids off at the conference, got them registered and then went to the hotel to register our rooms. Since I had HRH, Michele was already at the counter getting the rooms assigned. As I walked up to the counter I could see the hotel clerk's face get stiff and her posture go rigid. She turned from Michele to address me.

"We don't allow dogs in the hotel."

"She's a service dog for the blind. She's in training." I said and had HRH sit, which she did beautifully. She has a perfect sense of audience.

Michele looked up from the folder she was perusing and in her very clear, not to be messed with teacher voice, said, "We come here ever year with a service dog and there has never been a problem. It's the ADA. Look it up." Then she went back to her forms, dismissing the clerk.

The clerk glanced at me and I raised an eyebrow, signifying that I wouldn't mess with Michele if I were the clerk and she should drop the matter if she were smart, which she did. I love Michele.

Here's a shot of one of the MUN kids bringing in HRH's crate. Mitchell carried in her crate and carried it out. He's a big HRH fan.


Barnes and Noble

The nice thing about MUN tournaments is that for us, as chaperones, we get lots of work done because we spend the day in the bookstore. Here is a shot of HRH and Tim in the cafe of Barnes and Noble. They also were lovely about HRH and treated us very well.


I'm So Pretty

When we got back to the hotel room Berkeley got to experience the BIG MIRROR. Here's a snippet of her reaction. I have to say that Bingo was mesmerized by himself for at least 15 minutes. 8-)



Closing Ceremonies

The next day it was more of the same and HRH continued to be a little lady. It was only at the end of the day at the closing ceremonies, sort of like a toddler who has been up too long and needs a nap, she started to bark a little and be a bit crotchety. But the screaming, cheering crowd drowned out her little barks and all was good.

Soon we were on the road and homeward bound. Hotel experience, checked off.

Bingo’s MUN Tournament

It Begins

The day started off early: 4:30 am. It was supposed to start off at 4:30, bu the the alarm didn’t go off and I woke up at 4:41 and bounced out of bed panicked. I got the dogs downstairs in a flash, fed and watered and then Bingo and I raced to school.

Here we all are waiting for the bus driver to arrive.

Breakfast

Bingo got to experience breakfast at Panera with the kids. Panera was overwhelmed with 29 kids and three adults and a bus driver AND a dog descending upon them for breakfast. But they handled it well. After Panera, we dropped the kids off and headed to B&N to chill until lunch. Here we are chilling.

Lunch

Bingo got to have lunch with the Ellen, a former student and her service dog (a hearing dog). That was an experience. Bingo was not inclined to be calm about Ellen’s dog. He wanted to be excited and play and jump. When we went into the Thai restaurant, I let Tim, Ellen and Michele go first and I took Bingo in last to keep him under control. Tim walked up to the counter where the hostess told him that they didn’t allow dogs in the restaurant. Tim said, “They’re service dogs. It’s the law.” And then asked if we could sit in the other room. It was great. They were fine and took us to the next room where they had a bit more space. I was still feeling a bit uneasy about having the two dogs next to each other all through lunch, but Ellen sat at one side of the table and I sat on the other with Bingo on the outside. I told him to lie down and he did. That was that. No problem. Here we all are, one big happy group.

The Hotel

We stayed at the Radisson, which I have to say, has gone done a bit since last year when we were here (especially the vacuuming, I kept having to take things out of Bingo's mouth. They really need to vacuum the floors of the rooms!). I checked us into the hotel and didn't have an ounce of trouble with the front desk person. Bingo dealt with the marble lobby floors and the elevators just fine. He did great in the huge ladies room with the super noisy toilet.

When the days events were over and we went back to the hotel for the evening Bingo explored the room thoroughly as you can see from the photos. We had some of the boys help us get his crate up to the room and in the morning they helped us get it back down to the bus.

Second Day

At our local area meeting, I was chastized a little bit by Don for doing a weak scold on Bingo when he peed in coat. I was very nervous in front of everyone and my scold voice was very wimpy. So this morning when we were walking the kids to their meeting and Bingo was in coat and he started to hump to poo (his second for the day) I pulled out the super loud SCOLD voice, NO! and grabbed him! then I took the coat off to let him poo. It was 3 hours before he pooed. This must be the only time in history someone has scared the crap back into someone! That's a good thing, right?

Here's a shot of Tim and Bingo relaxing before Bingo got the crap scared into him.