Working women and the dogs who thwart them

As some of you know, I am lucky enough to have a great part-time job. While I would prefer a full-time position at my company, I am grateful in this economy to work the 20 hours a week I do. The cases I handle are interesting and often, quite frankly, fun.

While I am only in the office 2 ½ days per week, I am always connected to the office by my laptop at home. In order to work from home, I have to connect via a VPN, which requires me to input an access code that I get from what I call “the egg.” The egg is supposed to look like this:

Instead, today, the egg looks like this:

See, my dog is really mad at me. Back in September, I started this new work schedule. Prior to that point, I had been available to my puppy pretty much all the time since she came to live with us. Believe it or not, she loves me. A lot. And when I began working my grueling schedule of 2 ½ days per week in the office, she rebelled.

It started with toilet paper. Out of nowhere, about three days after I started disappearing from the home in order to earn money for her damn kibble, she started eating toilet paper. She would remove it from the holder and shred it all over the house. This was annoying, but given the fact she wasn’t gunning for my precious shoes, I overlooked it.

Next she started coming after anything I left on the bedside table. She got after a few books, and yesterday I came home to the chewed up access egg. So, literally, my dog ate my homework. She ate my ability to work from home, and even though I am only required to put in 20 hours per week, the fact is that I do quite a bit more from my home office, also known as my bed.

As if that were not bad enough, she also attempted to destroy my favorite pair of earrings, which Tom bought me on an ill-fated trip a couple of years ago. The trip was ill-fated for several reasons, most especially because all three of us (Tom, Jake and me) got sick. Tom was sick for at least two or three days before we left, and Jake was fine when we got to the airport (see photo)

but then vomited on the plane (more specifically, he vomited on me on the plane). And, the day after we arrived, I got sick.

Since Tom is just about the nicest guy ever (apologies to any ex-boyfriends or husbands who may be reading), he went into town and bought me a beautiful pair of earrings as a get-well gift. I wear them all the time and get many compliments on them, at which point I always tell the complimenting person the story of my wonderful husband and the fact that these are get-well earrings (I do this because Tom has gotten a bit miffed in the past if someone compliments me on something he has bought for me and I don’t instantly give him “credit”).

So, my dog is clearly retaliating against me for working “outside the home,” as it were. Margot is not your average dog. She is wicked smart, and as Tom says, “totally devoted” to me. I do the best I can to be with her as much as possible, but things just aren’t the same as they used to be. I can’t walk her every day, I can’t take her everywhere in my car anymore, but I am doing my best. Her hostility about this change in circumstances is clearly being manifested via her sudden need to chew things up that are very important to me. Yes, toilet paper is important to me, and don’t pretend it isn’t to you as well.

Yesterday, upon coming home to the chewed up access egg and earrings, I was upset. I was secretly a little pleased, since I was suffering a bit from bloggers’ block and needing a subject to write about, but mostly I was mad. I sat down with her and tried to explain that I need to work for my own sanity, and I did not put myself through the hell that is law school so I could sit around the house all day, baking cookies for her and Jake and Tom. I also reminded her that I needed to make a living, and that it wasn’t cheap keeping her in chew toys and Paul Newman treats.

She just looked at me, nonplussed. She thinks she is a princess and that the world revolves around her needs, and other people fulfilling them. My dog has no respect for the liberated woman, but then again, a lot of people don’t, as illustrated by this bus in London that was driving around a couple of days ago.

I have not forgotten that this is supposed to be a blog that shares fitness tips and healthy recipes, so let me try to remedy my lack of writing in those areas today with two fitness tips.

Fitness tip #1: get off your ass and get some exercise, every single day.
Fitness tip #2: see Fitness tip #1.