hello from laryngitis-land

this post is going to be long and boring for everyone, but i must speak because i have not spoken an audible word today and i have a lot of talking to catch up on. this inability to speak began last night after teaching my four dog obedience school classes. i spent the day shrieking to be heard over the intercom, the public, the parrots, the barking dogs, and the iranians in my class. then i mysteriously started to lose my voice. the funny parts about this are: a) nathan seems oddly freed by my inability to speak and b) i still managed to sell a class today without the use of my voice.
i did this by taking missy's dog indi to work with me and setting up my arena as though class were being taught and then just spoke to the people that came up to the training area. just being in there with a dog seems to bring the interested people to me (or most of them anyways) so that i don't have to talk to every jackass in the store to find someone who's interested.
now here's the crappiest part of the day. i was in the office with my boss and my fellow trainer (jenn) when jenn told the boss that she plans to take three weeks vacation in december around christmas because her husband is getting home from bahrain or wherever the craptastic navy has sent him for the last few months till then. so i said "i thought it was too early to bother you about that, but i also will have to take vacation in december over christmas, because my husband's and my good friend marcello's parents are coming to mobile from japan and we've been wanting to meet them for years, so we've been planning on going there for christmas."
my boss basically said that one of us was allowed to be gone at a time and she would let us work it out between ourselves. now, i know jenn isn't giving up her christmas, and i don't expect her to, but i'm not either. in fact, she came up to me later to say that if she had to quit her job to take christmas off, she would. at which point i told her that i was planning on doing the same thing. at this, she insinuated that her reason for wanting vacation was more valid than mine.
so, i might well be out of a job this week. i'd better start looking for a new one. i suppose i can put all of my efforts back into real estate. i just wasn't planning on actively practicing again till the fall.
and by the way, this part is for missy only, but all are welcome to read if you have no life. indi did just fine today. she behaved herself even when a crapper spaniel growled at her for no good reason. you will have to teach me the way you work her though, because she wasn't too attentive to me, which i can hardly fault her for because it was very busy in the store, her mom was gone, she was confused as to why she was in the store at all, and it was all very exciting. i'm sure she'll be more attentive next time, but i also don't want her to actually regress due to working with me. oh, and i didn't mean to smirk when you said she didn't know a hand signal for sit; if i had full use of my voice, the smirk would have sounded like me saying "how do you get her to do it without the collar on?" but now that seems dumb...i'm sure you just tell her to sit. i didn't really get to work with her (even though, believe it or not, i really want to next time) because she was a people magnet, and my job is to talk to them, so i had to.
okay, world, that's over. after work, i came home to a clean house, because my husband is the best, and then we went bowling with chance and missy and then we went out to dinner. all without my voice, so i couldn't retort to any of chance's comments, and i couldn't be mouthy at all. it was a very difficult adjustment for me. in fact, it was for suck.
and that was it. it is 10:39 and i can't sleep because my throat hurts. so i'm blogging. i think i'm done now.
oi oi