I'm trying very, very hard not to mind that she destroyed four large, healthy astilbes and my beautiful clematis today. Not destroyed forever, I know the astilbe will come back next spring, but they had months of foliage left. The clematis? I don't know. It gets cut back in the winter anyway, maybe it'll be fine, but it had just started its fall bloom cycle. If it makes it I won't see it bloom again until spring. And the columbine will be fine, it's dormant now, but it didn't do it much good getting knocked out onto the ground. I nearly cried when I saw what the dog had done in her anxiety.

Once inside the house she's pretty well settled. She and the cats have a reasonable understanding: she gets too interested, they growl and hiss and threaten. If she stays far enough away and makes no sudden moves they ignore her. We can all be in the same room together, which is nice. She slept in the living room by herself last night without any problems which was quite a relief. I'm about to move the cat stuff downstairs again, but I think we'll leave the barrier up a few more nights. I'm heartened by the progress with the interspecies relationships.

John put up more fencing around our porch and we're going to try securing it off entirely tomorrow morning so that Miss Worrywart cannot get at the wood. I hope it works. I want this to work. I don't want everything to get destroyed. I don't want the dog to feel so frantic. I want her to be happy. But I can't live with an animal that is so unbelievably destructive in its anxiety, because it means we're not the right household for that animal. I talked to Pets In Need about what else we can do, trying to get some advice to help our new pet relax.

I just don't know what else to do. We're trying.

That's not the only volatile situation this week. I can no longer get anyone to prescribe the drug I'm taking. I was fine with the first guy until it transpired that he only meets with HMO patients on Monday evenings, and now I've got a class on Monday evenings. It's not my fault, I signed up for it when the schedule said Tuesday, but WHCC changed their schedule. My own family doctor refused to prescribe the drug because it's mildly addictive. Mind you, this is a drug I've taken before for more than a year, and no one acted like I was a drooling, evil drug addict. When I got seriously bent out of shape over a point blank refusal (I'm not a child, it's not something anyone wants on the street, and I'm being monitored by my therapist, for pete's sake) he belatedly offered to prescribe a non-addictive anti-anxiety drug. I told him I'd think about it, chiefly because I was so mad over the whole issue of having to find a new prescribing doctor that I wanted to scream. I didn't feel like making a decision.

But what's really pissing me off so badly I can hardly see straight is the airlines' new commission policy. They suddenly announced Tuesday via fax that they are capping agency commissions at $20 instead of $50. No matter how much your ticket costs, my agency will only ever make twenty bucks on it. American, who were the first to make the announcement, ended their fax by saying they will have no further communication on the subject. American? Up yours. I'm taking it personally. I think I speak for all my office when I say the airlines are nothing but greedy, loathesome slimeballs who screw the customer and the travel agents equally. We've had to raise our fees immediately, and we will now be charging for every change. Make a mistake on the date? Forget that you have to be in town by noon, not five? Every time I touch a ticket I'll be charging a fee, and we've always taken pride in offering the extra service for free even though our time is not free. Well, those days are gone for good, and you can thank the airlines. If you want to save the fee you have to deal with the Internet, and while that works fine for some trips it just isn't the hassle-free, safe experience it ought to be. Not to mention disenfranchising anyone who wants to pay cash.

Bastards.

And to cap off a rather fraught week I went to my first Speech 100 class tonight and didn't even stay a half hour. I hated it. Hated the teacher, hated the classroom set-up, hated the workload, and hated the thought of giving a speech every week. I tried to talk myself out of it, feeling that my general attitude might be coloring my response to the course, but in the end I simply admitted that I did not want to be in that class for three hours tonight let alone a whole semester of it. So I'm dropping the class, returning my book for a full refund, and just taking Philosophy this semester. I'm not going to sign up for anything else, either. I feel nothing but relief. I need the break, and there's no rush.

I received two belated birthday presents this week, so it wasn't all tears and outrage. Michael gave me an Egyptian mystery I've been wanting to read, and my dear friend Denise sent me all four Earthsea books. It's been just wonderful to reread them. Le Guin has such elegant, simple prose and her words weave a quieting spell. On top of that I've read three of the five Hitchhiker novels, and they're terrifically entertaining. Denise lent me the audio tapes so I can hear Douglas Adams' reading them on the radio. As for my other presents, I'm saving the three books Kymm sent me for our annual birthday exchange for train reading. I can never get enough paperbacks to see me through my continual perambulations up and down the peninsula.

And finally, I succumbed to long-denied gadgetry desire: I bought a Handspring Visor Deluxe. They are having a very good sale. I know I said I was done shopping, but you can't imagine how tired I got of having my data scattered here and there in three different mediums and three different locations. Having all my email addresses, snail mail addresses, and phone numbers in one place is going to make my life one hundred percent easier. Also, it's fun to play with. I realize everyone and their dog had a PDA starting in 1998, but I'm a late adopter. I only buy electronics when I become completely sick of doing things the hard way.

I'm looking forward to this weekend. I have nothing planned. What a fabulous thought.

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