Greetings, folks. I'm sorry I've been all gloom-and-doom recently. The biggest problem I have is the largely uncertain future of my line of employment. Can I get a show of hands as to who's seen Blazing Saddles? I'm starting to feel like a poor citizen of the town of Rock Ridge. See, the previous director of the Department of Racing had resigned or retired or something a few months ago. Within a couple of days, I saw a couple of the high-up mucketymucks at the track giving this small guy in an important-looking suit the nickel tour of the track. "This is the paddock, where the dogs are weighed in, and out here is where they take urine samples," etc., etc... basically the same brochure I prattle off whenever I have someone new at the track.

I asked someone, "Who was THAT?", and I was informed that was the new director of the Department. And he'd never even SEEN a dog track before. DOES ANYONE ELSE SEE A PROBLEM HERE? This guy has the power to end our existence with his signature, and he has NO IDEA HOW OUR BUSINESS WORKS?!

Hence, I draw the correlation to Blazing Saddles. This guy -- and I've got nothing against him personally, I don't even know the man -- was installed by those in the state government who would rather see our business go away. It unfortunately appears that he'll sign whatever they give him to sign. Case in point... we've been under a statewide quarantine now since April 3rd or 4th. Granted, at the time it was a good idea... there was a strain of kennel cough moving about the country, and a quarantine is the surest way to block that. But it's been dead and gone now (the virus, I mean) for almost a month, and the fact that we've got dogs to bring in from Kansas, dogs that have been ready to go really since they imposed the quarantine, is starting to wear on us. We've got a small group of dogs that Mark was on the road with when they imposed the quarantine, and we had to call to see if they'd let us bring them into the state or if he had to turn around in Texas and go back with them. They let us bring in that one group, but said we couldn't turn in their papers until the quarantine was lifted. So now THEY'VE just been sitting here treading water, going to morning schooling over and over. God knows they'll be ready to fly when (if?) they lift the ban -- shit, one of them got hurt, rested up, healed, and is back working again already. But every time we ask about when they plan to lift it, we get the runaround... "We'll let you know on Monday... well, we ought to know by the end of the week... Uh, we think they're going to take a look at it after the weekend... I've heard them say Wednesday... they might lift it next Monday..." and so on. Each time we ask it seems like it's always three days from now.

Completely aside from the fear that we're going to be mismanaged into the ground, there's the neverending threat from anti-dog-racing groups (although they're not concerned with horse racing, I've noted). Elections are a scant 18 months away, next November, and if the forces manage to get an initiative on the ballot to ban dog racing in Arizona, we lose. Hands-down. Our meager bid to get slot machines in racetracks went down 80-20 in last year's election, while the bid for tribal casinos to get more slots and to add blackjack squeaked through at 51-49 (it was actually 50.8 to 49.2). 80-20 isn't just a defeat... that's a humiliation. I mean, bills for teacher salary increases and generally good things like that still get approved 70-30, and they call that a landslide. If that's a landslide, what's 80-20... a catastrophic earthquake?

Anyway, in 2000 the anti-racing forces went after Massachusetts, and it looked bleak. The only reason it was voted down (51-49) was because the pro-racing groups pointed out that the people sponsoring the bill (actually, it was called a "Question" on their ballots) were based in Idaho, and I guess there's a really strong sense of local loyalty in New England. Thus, several people voted it down solely based on that fact. The way it was set up, though... if that Question had passed, they would have had to shut down by the end of the year. That's, what, 7 weeks? I can't see why they'd word it any different if they were to get it on the ballot here in 2004, and I've got a sinking feeling that we're in the crosshairs, given our vulnerable state after going balls-out trying to get slots. After the sound defeat we experienced, it's clear just how much we're disliked in this state. I've always said, if you asked 10 people on the street how they felt about dog racing, 8 out of the 10 wouldn't know enough about it to form an opinion, but 9 out of the 10 would vote against it in an election. All anyone's ever heard is negativity about what we do... and I'm not trying to say we don't have problem people, though we'd like to think we've got most of them taken care of by now. If anyone ever wanted to come down and observe how we operate OUR business, or my grandpa/aunt's kennel, I'd think we could change your mind about how this business works, because the vast majority of people are like us... but we're indelibly stained by the actions of those who you read about in the newspapers.

"TFG," you ask, "why don't you ask the newsmedia to look at your side of the story?" I respond (and as a disclaimer, I'm just using this profession as an example, you can plug in most anything here): How many front-page stories have you seen about teachers who do an excellent job at what they do? Twice a year, maybe, and once on Teacher Appreciation Day or whenever they're pretty much obligated to make it front-page news, I'd say. Now, how many front-page stories have you seen in the past year about teachers who've done something wrong, especially teachers involved in sex scandals?... Counting each instance separately, meaning if a teacher appears twice or three times, each one counts... the number is up there... a dozen? 15? Point being, the bad-apples stories are what sell newspapers and make people tune in to the 10:00 pm news. The good-side stories are buried on page A15 of the Republic or "featured" between weather and sports on channel 10.

Anyhow... so, I've been forced to be realistic about it. I left school, left a scholarship, to join this business. I can't, however, just hope that things will turn out for the best, because I've decided I don't want to leave Phoenix again. If they close us down in Arizona, we'll have to move to Kansas or Texas or Florida or someplace where we can run our kennel with some success. And I don't think I want to go if that happens. I'd rather stay here and enroll at Scottsdale Culinary Institute. Why not just do it now? Because it's not that I don't like what I'm doing. I had begun to have creeping doubts about it, but I'm thinking it's just this pressure I'm feeling bleeding over into it and being misinterpreted. I can't complain about my setup... I've got 2½ days off a week (as do my uncle and my sister, so that's not a special perk or anything), and I've got my share of decision-making power. It's just the seeming lack of a future which has got me all up in arms in my head.

Anyway...

giving a little breather space as I change gears here...

I'm figuring my next dinner may fall on a Wednesday. I need some feedback on this. We're not running Wednesday nights during the summer, so that'll give me more flexibility to invite more people I work with. However, I'll still have Friday night through Saturday off, so a Saturday night meal gives me more prep time.

I'm looking at about a month from now, at some point before July 4th. I'm planning to make it a pool deal, too... eat dinner, get beat up by my brother on Cube for half an hour, then hit the pool after it cools off a little more. So far, I'm looking at making fried okra (Becky), sausage & peppers (something new I've never tried, but seems to be right up my alley), baked ziti (2x batch this time), and my clam chowder, which is probably my favorite thing to make since it turns out SO good... although the vegetable preparation for that one gives tedious a new name. (I have to dice a pound of leeks. Leeks! You have to CLEAN leeks before you can dice them. And then, there's the pound of onion, and all the celery and carrots and stuff... but like I said, it turns out SO good.) That's not my whole menu, though... I'm still very open to suggestions. I want to make some kind of a fancy-schmancy dessert this time around, too, instead of just throwing together some more orange salad.

anyway... breather space again...

I want to point out that a few people have asked me why I'm so open on here. I don't know. But I look back at it, and I see where it may have been a better idea for me to withhold at least some detail about some stuff. Nothing in particular, I'm not naming names, but those who mentioned it to me in private, you know who you are, and you're right. I see your point. I promise to give it a little more thought in the future.

A main reason for my break in posting was that my great-aunt Dottie (my grandpa's sister on my father's side) passed away on Thursday. I honestly wasn't too tremendously close to her, but a lot of people in the generations ahead of me in my family were deeply affected. Something like that always makes you sit back and look at the petty things you've been worrying about and say, "Well, maybe that was kind of silly for me to spend all that time worrying about something like that."

I guess that's about all. To tie it all in, a lot of the things I've been so stressed about have largely been stress about the business bleeding over into all other aspects of my life. I'm making a conscious effort, basically starting now, to separate them, though, because if I spend ALL day worrying about things, where does that get me? Laying in bed, groaning, unable to move with a paralyzing headache, in fact. (Editor's note: I don't think it was the caffeine.) So if I can leave work at the kennel, and try to enjoy my time away a little more, maybe things won't be so dark.