Looking forward to 2011

As always, time gets away from me and before I know it, I've neglected the blog. I post so much on Facebook that I simply forget this.

So far, the new year has been flying by faster than a freight train! Here it is the 14th of January already! The semester finished, I invigilated two exams, graded those for my own students, calculated grades, dealt with all the snafus, attended Professional Development, hosted a BBQ for our friends, and got a DOG. Yes, a dog now lives with us in the Al Khor villa!!

This sweet little dog came to us via our good friends, Jeremy and Ellen! She had been on the side of the road for several days and they ended up taking her in. For whatever reason, I contacted Ellen and when we happened to just be in town a day or two later, I suggested to Nelson that we stop by and say HELLO to Jeremy and Ellen. And in the process, meet a canine! It has been a long time since we had a dog or a pet of any kind (not counting my failed attempts at owning a horse here!). It has been difficult for two animal lovers like ourselves to survive without a pet. At first, we didn't want to subject a pet to the apartment living in Al Zuhoor 2, where there was basically nothing but asphalt and pavement. When we first moved to Al Khor and Nettie was with us, she had cats, so that wasn't the right time. Now that my contract has been renewed and the decision has been made to stay, the time was/is right. Nelson pretended to be his grumpy old self, but it was hard for him to deny that he liked the little pup and admired her good behavior and her high intelligence, in addition to her sweet nature. She fit. And fit is very important! And so, she came home with us.

She is a shiny, black color with a little white freckled front on her chest. She is a saluki mix. We're not sure how old she is. We need to get her to a vet for all of her vaccinations and maybe a vet can give us a better idea how old she is. We suspect she might be 8-10 months old? Though Ellen had named her Pita, she didn't respond to it, nor did she respond to some of the prettiest and neat names suggested to us.....we thought Habibi was cute. Nope. Friends suggested Leila (which is Arabic for night or dark beauty). Nope. Nelson couldn't remember that one all the time either so he also went through a few others in the process: Lola, Lula, Lulu....nope to them all. The only thing she really paid attention to was NO. :) So, we tried NOLA. In spite of being worried she might get confused with NO being in her name, she responds well to Nola. We reasoned that if you think about it, NO means No and LA means no in Arabic, so she is a double negative which makes what? A positive! So, Nola it is!

We have had a good time getting to know each other this week: she thought the planters were built just for her to play and dig in. So, we built a "litter box" for her to dig in and do her duty in. She is using it and if we watch carefully, we've been able to salvage the planters and keep her out of them. She loves fetching a tennis ball. She seems to have been crate trained so no problem there. But she did have a nap with me on my bed the other day and I can foresee that eventually, she will be free to choose who she cuddles with at night. For now, she spends her nights in her crate. She has also had a bath this week, been wormed, etc. She fell in love with my sandals and while I managed all week to keep them away from her, I forgot last night and in two minutes flat, she had the one chewed apart. Oh, well....just a shoe and my fault. We did catch her and she "got" that she was in trouble, especially after she got a time out in her crate! She had been in the crate all day because we were in town, so she was very unhappy. When she finally settled down for awhile, we let her back out to be with us. :) It's too hard to remain mad at her when she is so sweet and loving!

Today, she is sleeping peacefully behind the Pajero in the sunshine. We think she is not going to let us leave with out her today! Which is ok as we are taking her to a local QAWS event (Qatar Animal Welfare Society) for some socialization and fun. They have agility equipment, which Nelson would like to build again here, and we thought we'd see how she responds.

In any case, I will post some photos here for your enjoyment. Nola will be keeping Nelson company while I travel home to the U.S. for about 13 days to visit the kids and maybe, maybe bring Joey back with me this time! Inshallah!!

Here are links to my most recent Facebook photo albums:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=604968&id=620235789&l=3efae0308e

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=603305&id=620235789&l=3b1a3f43b9