He Knows What He Wants

You would think that after having us over for dessert and letting us talk Ken into unconsciousness, that Ken and Linda would forgo having us over for a full-blown meal.  But they are made of sterner stuff than that (and I think Ken had a nap that afternoon!).

Below is a photo of Greg preparing a salad dressing, but the photo contains a lovely shot of Ken's homemade foccacia appetizer!

Greg in the kitchen making dressing.

Many of you may remember that Jam is a bit stubborn.  You might recall that on our ride home from Southeastern Guide Dogs on the first day, Jam tried for 55 minutes to sit on the seat with Fred.  It was only during the last five minutes of the ride that he finally settle in for a nap.  Sigh.  He is a supremely stubborn boy.  We are STILL working on his sock addiction, which has turned into a full blown cloth addiction.  Although now, we have gotten him to release the offending cloth item, which he never did before.  I consider this progress.  Remember, baby steps and consistency.

So, it was with those two thoughts in mind that we realized we had the perfect exposure for Jam this evening: trash can surfing.   Take a look at the next photo and look for the trash can.

Fred and I are at the breakfast table with Jam lying down at my feet. The trash can is at the lower right of the photo.

Yeah, you think that leash is tight, but it isn't.  Jam has just enough room to lunge for the trash can over to the right of the frame.  Ken has been peeling and cutting and putting lovely, stinky things in there all night. When we first rounded the corner, Jam caught me off guard and lunged and got a wad of paper towels soaked in pork juice.  YUM!  Which I then had to dig out of his mouth.

Sigh.

So, we set up the exposure.  I would sit with the loose leash and Jam would watch Ken peel something and toss it into the trash.  Then Jam would go for it.  I would correct him and he would stop.  Then Ken would peel some more.  This happened about every 2 minutes.

For the next 30 minutes. 

Sometimes Ken would walk away and Jam would just lunge to see what was in there that perhaps he had missed.  Honestly, MR. HARDHEAD!  You weren't allowed to see inside that trashcan the last 29 times.  Do you think you are going to see inside now?

Dinner was a salad with pecans, pears and a light vinaigrette, a lovely pork tenderloin with roasted veggies and potatoes and Fred made a rice pudding.  Mmmmmm!

Jam, finally relaxing, after a hard night of trash surfing. Linda is in the background.

 Did I mention what nice friends we have?  We are truly lucky to have such a lovely circle of friends to help us raise our puppy.

Chicken Biscuits

We have fundraisers at school.  Usually by what they call Break Sales, meaning we have a break in the morning and kids bake brownies, etc. and can make about $75 to $100 selling them to students who want a mid-morning snack.  This money goes to the selling club's charity of choice or to whatever project or trip they are trying to raise money for.

The Student Library Proctors have been doing chicken biscuit sales from Chik-Fil-A because they give schools a deep discount and you can earn about $300 from one break sale.  Quite a big difference.  However, there are several problems with chicken biscuits:

1. Chicken biscuits are like crack.  Kids go nuts for them.  There is practically a Who Concert mass stampede out the door of the auditorium to get to the mall to buy tickets to get a biscuit.  Honestly, we have about 15 students working the chicken biscuit sale and we are all VERY TENSE and NERVOUS when we hear the pounding feet of 500 students coming to get 350 biscuits.
2. Each biscuit comes in its own wrapper, which some students wad up and throw on the ground.  So there is a protocol that requires our biscuit sellers to go around and make sure the ground is picked up, so we can have another sale.  If it is too messy, no more biscuit sales.  My theory is that the lard in the biscuit temporarily knocks out any thought processes and causes an almost epileptic jerking of the arm with the first bite.  Usually, the student has the wrapper in his hand with this first bite and involuntarily crushes the wrapper when he has this temporary seizure.  After swallowing the first bite, his brain comes back on line, the hand releases, and the wrapper drops to the ground, without the student even realizing what is going on and that he had anything in his hand.  He continues to walk and eat his biscuit in a pleasure filled daze.
3. Evidently the lard also affects proper chewing as great hunks of bread may fall out of students mouths and land on the ground creating a landscape of breadcrumbs that would be useful in finding Hansel and Gretel if they wandered aimlessly around in circles!  Seriously, how can that much biscuit fall on the ground?  It literally covers the floor.
4. We have to go get the biscuits and bring them back, which means someone's car is going to smell like fried chicken for a day.

Friday was chicken biscuit day.  Friday is also Jam day.  Jan has the big SUV in which all the heater units filled with 350 hot chicken biscuits fit.  So Jan, Jam and I drove down to Chick-Fil-A.  They stayed in the car while I got the biscuits. The trouble didn't start until we got the biscuits out of the car.

We had two big heaters and one small one.  Jam ran over to the small one and started to sniff and then jumped on top of it and tried to dig a hole into it.  Eeeek!  I hope that doesn't leave a mark!  Squashed biscuits for some kids. 8-)

Thankfully, it didn't.  We put Jam on a tie-down further away from the unloading area and got the biscuits over to the mall where we would be selling them.  And we waited.  And Jam waited.  For about 45 minutes as biscuits were handed out and the biscuity smell wafted around him, Jam just slept and was quiet.  But when we got up to police the area and there were wrappers and breadcrumbs out and about: Fuhgeddaboutit!!

"No! No! No! No!"  That was me walking through the mall trying to keep Jam from scarfing up all the breadcrumbs.

Then we got back to the library and Christina had a biscuit on her desk.  Jam saw it.  Saw the silvery gleam of the wrapper indicating chicken goodness.  We walked back out to the main library.  Jam sat with a sullen stubborness and faced the offices.  Silvery wrappers danced in his head.  Whines emerged from his mouth.

"No noise."  He stood.  He faced the office.  Clearly, a busy wasn't on his mind.  "Oh no.  You are not faking me out. Sit. Down."  

ALL.  DAY.  LONG.  Every trash can was a danger zone and we couldn't get near them because he was going to look in them for wrappers.  Kids smelled like chicken biscuits.  The campus smelled like chicken biscuits.  It was a long day for Jam

It was a longer day for me.