Lots going on recently.
work and retirement
The biggest thing is I am retiring from work on Dec 31st. It’s earlier than I had planned, but my work schedule has been increasingly terrible with no end in sight. In a way I am grateful for the bureaucratic inertia and stupidity that encouraged me to look at all my options again. It’s like Kafka only with a happy ending.
Because of the holidays, I’ve only got a few real working days left. I work this weekend, a half day next week, and the last two days. In all cases, the office will be abandoned as all the Normal Office People have taken off. I am also on standby duty answering emergency calls while the office is closed for Christmas but I can do that from the camper.
immediate plans
In January I will make a run to the DFW area to visit family before heading out. I’ll go back out west after that.
a doggo of my own
This is Muffin (nee Candy Corn), a 50-something pound pit/boxer mix I had walked many times at the shelter. Because of the holiday/weekend schedule I could adopt her now, ahead of my retirement proper. She’d been at the shelter for 10 weeks, and had been transferred there from the ELP city shelter before that. I think her eagerness and strength were a bit much for the average family perusing the used dog lot. She put her front paws on people when she had visitors and could easily push down a small child.
Once out of the pen she settled right down and rarely gets on people. If you are sitting or lying down, though, expect to have her in your lap. She is housetrained, responsive to small leash inputs, and nonreactive to other dogs. We were walking in the park 
yesterday and a loose beagle ran up on her from behind — she was relaxed and they goofed around for a bit. We walked by the dog park there and didn’t mind that other dogs ran up and barked wildly at the fence line. Mutual sniffing ensued then she walked off.
This is in line with my observations at the shelter: the most relaxed and attention-craving dogs were the pits. They looked stereotypicaly scary but were dying to be touched by a person.
Muffin’s other good habits: doesn’t tear stuff up, hasn’t gotten into garbage, sleeps right next to you, doesn’t bark except when people are around the camper, hops right in the van. Not farty. 🙂
This morning we went to a farmer’s market where she was well-behaved and got some love from strangers. Later we walked by the best local El Paso brewery, Deadbeach, and she walked right onto the patio. Arm twisted, I had an excellent sour beer as we sat in the sunshine. Bartender and a customer to see her and she did great.
Life is good.
a boondocking retirement 
Hey, I know this is tardy but I just wanted to congratulate you and Muffin. You’re both lucky to have each other, and Muffin is lucky you didn’t keep her her original name. I too volunteered at a shelter, here in the Boston area. The majority of dogs were, or course, pits and pit mixes. When I was growing up, mannny years ago, we had a pit in our neighborhood, back when neighborhood dogs roamed freely. That was pretty much everyone’s favorite dog. If we were scared of any breed back then, it was German shepherds. Then it became dobermans. Then it became rottweilers. Only later did it become pits. So I didn’t grow up with any sense of pits being dangerous, or anything to be wary of. So to see the shelters now filled with these amazing dogs breaks my heart. I remember a mother/daughter pair of American Staffordshires that came in to the shelter. My favorite breed by a long shot. Sweetest dispositions ever. Just as you mention about pits, this pair was the most relaxed and the most attention-craving. I wanted to adopt them soooo badly but I couldn’t persuade the other responsible party in the household. I was amazed by how long it took for them to be adopted. Sometimes, I just want to bonk people on the head. I’m very much enjoying reading about Muffin’s and your adventures in retirement.
LikeLike
Thanks for the kind words. We are having a blast. It’s drizzling a bit but we are about to brave it for a walk. Muffin doesn’t like the drizzle on her nose and keeps wiping it off with a paw. 🙂
I once had a retired greyhound that had raced somewhere near Boston, IIRC. Wonderful animal.
Yeah, when I was a kid the “bad dogs” were dobermans. A few years back I had a shelter dobie: beautiful, intelligent, and keenly loyal animals. Luckily no one had cut her ears, which were rather elegant and folded back like a grey’s.
LikeLike