Why we stayed home from Cynosport World Games 2008.

Do you subscribe to the USDAA email list? My non agility friends, I am thinking you likely do not. Right now, they are all bitching and moaning, like good agility people do, over where the Nationals should be held. East coast, west coast, no coast, Canada, somewhere that's not Arizona. Even though I am one of the privileged just down the street people, being over here on the left coast where we can practically see our next door neighbor, Arizona, and I had both dogs qualified and ready to go, the whole thing of driving to Arizona and a week off work, too far and complicated and pricey. Who knows where it goes next, and if Team Small Dog ever makes it there.

And now, all the money saved by skipping it goes to the House. Which has a case of the termites and needs So Much Work. A nice way to say it is deferred maintenance from the great real estate search for the ranch. Basically let the house go in the shitter because thought we were moving to the dream ranch. Which never materialized. Now, instead of looking for new property, I have termite guys come over and they all disagree on our termite types and prices but basically, the thing they all say is, move out of the house for 3 days to turn the house into a toxic yet colorful circus tent full of Vikane gas.

Now THIS will be a super fun and easy thing to do, move the menagerie of dogs, one of whom has separation issues that give her the charming personality of a rabid racoon and one which is an untrained, booty shaking chihuahua and then there's the rest of them and a semi feral yard cat that would have to go somewhere too. But think about how festive the house will look during those 2 days after the laborers kill all our plants wedging a giant and poisonous striped tent over the entire house! Move the animals where? Didn't figure that out yet. Where do you move for 3 days in a town full of No Dogs Allowed motels, with a pack of animals, some of whom have emotional issues and really like to just stay home. Maybe not a fun stay, at a seedy boardwalk motel with our crew. Did I mention the semi-feral cat? Every few years gets in a crate and goes to shot clinic for a shot, only time she's ever left the yard.

Once we've gassed the bugs, then the fun and money parting with will really start! Because the whole front porch recently rotted off, and the front door lock broke and doesn't open from the outside anymore. Did you ever come to my house and wonder why I shunted you up the driveway and in the backdoor? Where the electrical doesn't work so it's super dark and creepy? With open and exposed roof gutter drains that the roof fiasco crew never finished? Yes, you come in that way because if you step on the porch, you might fall through the rotten holes that Gustavo is obsessed with and does an OCD check on each time he comes in the house, check hole one and hole two and hole three. Checking for bugs or checking for vermin or just plain old checking, I dunno. Not that you could enter the broken front door, even if you made it up on the porch without your leg crashing through to the animal fun place known as Under the House. Where, for all I know, also live rabid racoons.

Then, when the porch is removed and maybe the porch remover and rebuilder can also pull out all the rest of the rotted termite wood all around the house, the stuff that Joel Warner didn't see during the House Painting Fiasco. The porch remover and rebuilder can tear out the bedroom wall for sliding glass door and the tiny little lily pad of wood that I call Deck but you call short box sticking off house and taking up whole backyard. And House Painting Fiasco Redux starts again at the end of things with the wood. This time, I will hire guys with paint sprayers and their own scraping equipment for House Painting Fiasco Redux. Maybe won't be a fiasco. Maybe will look just fine. As long as the paint actually sticks to the house this time. Hopefully the new sticking paint is going on the porch too, hopefully the rotten porch is actually removed and a new porch is built. That is my hope, but I learned during Roof Fiasco you don't always get what you want. Sometimes, you just want a roof and what you get is the contractor's beloved Jack Russell dies and his kid flakes and then it rains inside your house.

So the Nationals are moving where? No one knows. I like the idea of Arizona. Maybe they all get qualified this year again, even though it's harder. New and improved rules. Let's just say. Even Gustavo could go. And it costs the same as what?

Well, when me and my new friend Chris, the dryer fixing guy who used to show collies in the breed ring, were shoving thing around on the kitchen floor, really started thinking about the sad state of the kitchen floor. Chris just walked away from dogs and dog shows when he learned how political it was. Doesn't own any dogs now. Never did any agility. His love was confirmation and handling those collies. I had never even heard of the rare White Collie until I met Chris. Who I only knew for like 10 minutes and eighty smackeroos, which is all the time and money it took to give me the news about the sad demise of the dryer. The washer is it's conjoined twin. Can't replace one without the other. The super expensive motor nearly the price of the nice new one from nice lady at Sears, Julie of the messy hair. I like clean clothes. I like to have a front door that works. And paint that is actually attached to the outside of the house, instead of falling off into clumps that might hurt a baby termite's delicate little wing.

I am pretty sure USDAA Nationals 2009, in whatever location it will be in, costs that much.