top 10 reasons to have my family visit

10. You get to play the game, How many computers fit into one house?

9. My mom will do your dishes.

8. You can play Halo with Alex until your eyes bleed.

7. My dad will change the tail-lights in your car.

6. You get to play the game, Who cooked this meal? and the answer is never, You.

5. My mom will clean your bathroom.

4. You get to play the game, How many types of transportation can we use today?

3. My mom will do your laundry.

2. You get to play the game Robo-Rally!

And the number one reason to have my family visit: for the fun of it. We had a good time visiting together, and visiting other friends. It's always a blessing to have time with family. I'm ready to have our house to ourselves again, but I bet our puppy is wishing that someone was still home with him!

Happy Holidays!

Hey, remember last year when I said that I was going to write a monthly letter about what was up with us? Wasn't that a funny joke? The blog certainly makes it easier to keep you all a little more informed about happenings here, and it's much more fun to write. So, nevermind that snail mail stuff. Here's your 2005 Interactive Holiday Letter!

This has been a pretty eventful year. We started out in our apartment, with me in rehearsals for the GSVLOC's The Gondoliers. That was the last G&S for me--after three years of huge casts and disorganized crews, I decided it was time to start working for some different theatre companies. Which turned out to be a good decision, because I very quickly had two other opportunities, with In the Basement Productions and Mu Performing Arts.

In April, after the show closed, we started looking for our house. We took turns being discouraged by seeing lots of houses that we didn't like. It was pretty easy to agree on which house we wanted to offer on! Thanks again to our real estate agent, Dan Lindstrom. I started rehearsals for Machiavelli's The Mandrake, with ITBP. Adam took a trip to Arizona, to visit his college friend Michael Stenner. We closed on our house on June 10th, and moved in at the end of the month. The Mandrake closed, and we continued to unpack and argue about home furnishings. Adam started his research into what kind of dog he wanted, which led us to a dog show in Albert Lea as well as What Kind of Dog Are You?

In August, we took a trip to Indianapolis, IN, to visit with our friends at GenCon and to be in Erin and Scott's wedding. They had a lovely ceremony at Deer Park Manor in Bloomington, IN, which actually had a herd of deer wandering around. The reception was a lot of fun, with good food and funny speeches and a whole flock of dancing toddlers. When we got back from IN, I started rehearsals for Happy Valley, with Mu. This is an Asian American theater that I really wanted to start working with. I feel lucky to be involved in their work.

Happy Valley closed on October 2nd, which was our first wedding anniversary. We were going to go out to dinner on Monday the 3rd, and drove to Gasthof, our favorite German restaurant, only to have the empty parking lot remind us that they're closed on Mondays. The exact same thing happened to us on our first official date. Next year, our anniversary will fall on a Monday, so we figure we can complete the ritual of driving to Gasthof, and finding it closed, for at least one more year.

With no more shows on the 2005 agenda, I could finally devote my time to interior decoration. So far, I have rearranged the books on the bookcases 8 times. That process was rudely interrupted by our family vacation to Zion National Park. Adam and I flew to Las Vegas to meet up with my parents, who drove from Madison, and my brother and sister-in-law, who drove from San Diego. We spent two days in Vegas, during which I was ill and Mother was getting over a cold, and then four days in Zion, during which Amanda had a cold. Aside from the illnesses, it was a really fun trip, and some very welcome time off.

Our biggest change this year was the adoption of a puppy, Arrow. He was born on October 20, just five days before Adam's birthday. He's eight weeks old now, weighs in at a hefty 12 pounds, and just had his first shots at the vet. He and Lane the Cat are competing to see who can ignore who the best. Arrow's godmother Sara is moving to Korea for a year, so check back as we post massive amounts of pictures for her, and for everyone else, too. Puppy pictures--some of the joy, none of the poop. That's a win win situation!

I'll be taking off of work for the rest of the week, to prepare the house as the Lam Family descends up on it. My parents will arrive on the 23rd (Happy Anniversary to them!) and Alex and Amanda fly in on the 24th. Hopefully we'll still have snow on the ground, so the CA kids can have a White Christmas. I know how much they miss the frozen tundra. A very happy holiday season to everyone! Stay warm and healthy. God bless us all, each and every one!

With love,
Adam, Mel, Lane and Arrow

Arrow

This is my dog Arrow. Arrow showed up here Friday about 1:30 or so while my wife was home. Since then he's been slowly becoming more at home, as well as peeing on our stuff.

Arrow's life so far goes like this:
1) wake up
2) pee / poop
3) play for 30 min to 1 hr
4) go to sleep for 2 hrs or so
(repeat)

So far I'm pleased the nocturnal third of that cycle has been stretched enough that I've only been haveing to get up once (generally around 4:30 am) to let him out. I stick Mel with taking him out when he gets up again at 7:00 am. I try to arrange it so the pee and poop happens outside, and have generally been batting around .800 at that.

"Play" seems to mean "Arrow bites hand." He's got sharp little puppy teeth, so when you come over to play with him consider using one of his toys in between your hand and his mouth. Not that Arrow won't still try to bite your hand, there'll just be a little something in the way. He's teething, so when he scrapes up your hand you're not allowed to be upset. We're working on 'ouch' as a command.
Thanks to judicious application of bacon Arrow has learned that when we go outside it's not just for the scenery. Know why so many dog treats are bacon flavored? It's because bacon is doggie crack. Mel decided she didn't want hers Saturday morning and that's all it took to teach Arrow that when we go outside he shouldn't just stand there, he should get to work. Now he turns and starts looking at me about halfway through fertalizing the rasberries, and as soon as he finishes he tears at me full tilt, ready for that bacon.
Another one we're working on is not freaking out in the crate. We have a wire crate to train him, because I've seen how it goes down when it's dog vs. sofa, kitchen table, banister, shoe, glasses, TV remote, gloves, roll of toilette paper, garbage can, etc. It's my parents who had to suffer for this lesson, and they have my thanks. The crate is still a little traumatic for Arrow, however.

Vet appointment Tuesday at 3:00. Thanks to everyone who suggested places! I didn't listen to any of you. The appointment is for a place at 3131 Lyndale Ave. When I called around places checking prices the cash varied from $177 - $380 for the stuff puppies need (+ neutering, $150 - $250). Perhaps you can guess which end of the scale this joint was on. After the vet I'll be looking to set him up with some puppy socialization classes.

I'll ask the vet about the lasers vs. bees debate. Weigh in for yourself in the comments...

Countdown to Doggie-dom

or, How I Moved Everything Off The Floor In One Week.

or, The Great Bottom Shelf Purge.

or, "You know he's going to eat those, don't you?"

The books. The shoes. The pictures. The gloves. The cords. The books. The socks. The hacky sacks. The papers. The rugs. The plants. The Xbox controllers. The DVDs. The cough drops. The pillows. The computers. The potato chips. The kitchen towels. The shoes. The books.

Getting ready for the Chewing Machine!

DoggieBlog

So we drove on up to Isabella and saw our future dog.

First, the trip. We left Saturday around 3:30 or so. I've driven through worse snow, but during the trip it was about as bad as I've been in this year so far. It had snowed all day, but not very heavily. It managed to put down about an inch, maybe two. The limit was 70 mph and we spent the first bit of it at 50-55. The roads cleared up about an hour out though, and we were able to pick up speed. We then stayed at a hotel provided by my parents as an anniversary gift (thx Mom&Dad!). It had a whirlpool in the room - basically a 3-person sized tub with water jets. The next day we made the last 1/2 hr of driving along some very entertainingly twisty roads. Also, according to our host, through the highest moose population in the state. He says they get about 20 roadkill moose a year. So then we got to hang around with Jason Cuff, musher + dog breeder, and his puppies from 11 a.m. or so until just after dark (what, about 4:45?).

So here's what you really want: puppy pictures.

6 puppies - 3 male, 3 female. What kind of puppies are they? Alaskan Huskies, or Racing Huskies, or sled-dog mutts. Through the years they've been carefully bred for athletic qualities, so 'mutt' doesn't really have the right connotation. They've been bred to win races, however, not dog shows. They are a mix of many different breeds.







This boy was our runner up. He was very pretty, also reserved, crafty, and determined. We think he may end up a handful to care for, and opted for a simpler dog.










The winner! Jason holds the dog that will be 'Arrow'. This one was smallest of the males, and most affectionate. The litter was born 10/20/05 (5 days before my own birthday!). Next weekend Jason will make the trip down here from Isabella and the dog will come to live with us.

If anyone has a vet they'd like to recommend I'd love to hear about it. Let us know in comments - thx!

What our dog might look like

Here are some relatives of our future puppy:

Are you my puppy?

The great puppy wait is almost over! We go north this weekend to meet the puppies and pick out which little guy will be moving in with us. We won't get to bring him home yet, but he'll be here around December 10.

We've started stocking up on doggie stuff, with more yet to come. We bought pretty dark green bowls and we've got a start on the toy box. My goal is to have enough chew toys that the puppy never has to look far for a toy to chew on. "Hmm, no toy within six feet. This table leg will do! Yummy!" No thank you. Chew toys are my friends. Until they get all drooled on and slimy. Then they're Adam's friends.

Somehow, though, we've stalled on the two biggest items: crate and bed-roll. [In my head, that was a really hilarious play on the name of the store Crate and Barrell, which is where we registered when we got married, and I thought it would be funny to mention it in reference to dog stuff, which we thought about registering for via Amazon wishlist, you know, because registering + dog stuff + clever word play = Mel is a big fat dork.]

The great crate debate [dork dork dork] centered on plastic versus metal, and was settled mostly by the question: Are we ever actually going to put the dog on an airplane? In other words, do we really need a plastic crate that is air travel certified? Pretty much no. So, we're probably going to get the wire crate. Of course, then I start looking at what you can do with them, and I totally want the one that folds up and has two doors and cleans itself and teaches your dog how to knit while you're not home. Hope you all like dog hair scarves.

Then we come to the bed issue, which culminated in, "Ooh, look at this one. It's nice and firm. Look, it's made out of recycled fleece from clothing factories. Hey, and it's totally machine washable. Where's the...it's how much?!" And when two DIY-ers start saying that, you know what the next phrase is about to be: "We could make one for less than that!" So, stand by for the greatest dog bed that Adam and I have ever made, kids. It's gonna be *awesome*. Until it gets all drooled on and slimy.