Fourth of July Weekend

Happy Fourth of July Weekend everyone!!! Gregg and I decided to spend the weekend being productive – in a wholistic way. On Friday, we got to hang out with Stacie, Evan and Sam. They were in Philly for the weekend and drove to Lancaster. It was Giggs’ first doggie play-date and given his hostile response to other dogs, I was not optimistic. But Stacie was very patient and came armed with a million treats and bones and toys. By the way, Stacie, Giggs has not let his rawhide bone go for the past 24 hours. Thanks for that!!

When Sam first walked in the door, Giggs started barking and this did not stop for the first 15 minutes. After that, he decided that he would walk over to Stacie who was sitting with Sam and accept some delicious salmon treats from her. It took 30-45 minutes of bribing Giggs with treats and threatening to spray him with water if he barked, for him to calm down enough to let him off his leash. After that, Giggs seemed to perk up, stopped barking and ran around the house checking to see where Sam was. However, the play-date was a little disappointing for Sam because Giggs refused to play with him. Poor Sam, he tried so hard. He sniffed Giggs (in some unmentionable places!!), he lay down, he rolled over – he tried to be as unthreatening as possible. Just for the record, Sam is 45 pounds to Giggs’ 7, so rough play might rightly have scared Giggs. A wagging tail from Sam is enough to knock Giggs over. However, Giggs did play when we took them outside – probably the space to run made him feel safer.

After a couple of hours when we were sure things were calm, we left the dogs at home (we separated them) and went out to get lunch. We went to the Iron Hill Brewery – it is a chain but limited to the PA, NJ, Delaware area. They brew a lot of their own beers. It was very nice catching up, I had not seen Stacie for almost a year – since APSA last year. Unfortunately, Stacie, Evan and Sam had to leave shortly after lunch but it was a great day for me nonetheless.

On Saturday, Gregg and I worked on our dissertations. I have to write a chapter on tragedy before APSA and Gregg is working on a chapter on our current President. The weird thing about writing a chapter of my dissertation for a conference is this: I have dual goals in mind. On one hand, I feel that if I reach 25-30 pages, I have a decent paper to present. On the other hand, it is not complete until I have covered the material I want to cover – and that has no page deadline. Right now, I am focusing on the first goal rather than the second.

We also walked 3 miles apiece on Saturday. We have made a new resolution – to exercise a little every day. The reasons for this and the best way to achieve this goal is something I will discuss in my next post. It was a big day for me – 3 miles for someone who never walks at all is a challenge.

Our goals for Sunday are more of the same – exercise a little, write a little, play with Giggs (which is part of our everyday lives now).
But this has been a fabulous weekend – hang out with friends, exercise (which is a new thing for me), play with your dog, and some work done on the dissertation. This is my idea of a well-rounded weekend.

What did everyone else do?