The Rest of Beaglefest

I'm up and moving around. I no longer have a fever or the chills. I also have almost no energy, so it's one more day at home for me. Plus, I'm supposed to avoid being around sick people (right, that's why we sat at Quest Diagnostic for so long yesterday) and do you know anybody who isn't sick right now? Oh, and my mouth has little sores all over it (another side effect) and that combined with the metallic taste--not so good for eating. I tried a bowl of oatmeal, but only got about 1/2 way through it. Seamus gladly finished the rest. He's such an empathetic little dog.

But our Beaglefest report yesterday was interrupted by my fever, chills, et al (honestly, I got to shaking so bad I couldn't type; at Quest, Chris had to fill out the paperwork for me). And I know you are dying to know more. Did Seamus win most melodic howl? Last to come when called? King of Beaglefest? Alas, no. But that was totally his parents fault. We are bad beagle pageant parents. The first two of those competitions were over by the time we got there. And the third was just a drawing and you had to be present to win. Seriously, a drawing for King of Beaglefest? We thought it should be all about the backstory. Dog beats cancer. Dog teaches human all she needs to know to deal with her cancer. Dog and human travel from California to participate in Beaglefest, during human's chemo treatments!! We were a lock. But no. It was a silly drawing. And we didn't stay until 3 for the drawing. (We just told Seamus he won; and that was a mistake. His ego did not need that boost).

It was hysterically funny to see all those beagles and hear all the howling. Beagles truly come in all shapes (mostly fat) and sizes and colors, but there are some definite beagle traits. Like the love of food. This guy brought treats, so look how popular he was.
The had an off leash play area that was also very cute. It had a kiddie pool for the dogs, but Seamus did not want to bathe with the masses. So he made his own pool. This is a bucket where the dogs who did "Paw Painting" could wash off their paws after. Well, after Seamus got out of it. He stayed in just long enough to cool off and get his picture taken by a whole bunch of strangers.

They also had a "smooch-off" which I thought was interesting, because I've had 5 beagles in my lifetime, and not one of them has been a "kisser". Oh sure, they'll get right up in your face and sniff (food; it's all about food) but they don't lick. And sure enough, the smooch-off was a disaster. None of the beagles entered actually wanted to "kiss" the humans. Somebody needed to rub bacon grease on their face. I don't know how they finally picked a winner, but I bet that's not a contest next year.

So after about an hour of roaming around seeing the displays, petting a whole bunch of beagles, and letting Seamus go wild in the off-leash area, we'd seen what we needed to see and also realized it was darn hot and I wasn't supposed to be out in direct sunlight, it was dusty, there were an awful lot of people around (and you just know one of them was sick) and there was no place to sit down and rest for a minute (not even a little grass area; this is Phoenix). So we left. That's right, nearly 10 total hours of driving for 1 hour of Beaglefest. Totally worth it though, since we enjoyed the relaxing drive and it was good to get away and be "beagle person" instead of "cancer person." Which is, in hindsight, I think why we both wanted to go to this strange little event for the weekend. Plus, we stopped by and saw my dad and step-mom for dinner in Cathedral City on the way home, so that was nice too.

I'm not sure if Day 11 Beaglefest had anything to do with my Day 12 crash, but it's too late to worry about that now. I'll just know for the next 3 times that day 12 can be a rough one (although, next time they will be giving me another medication to keep the white blood cells up). For now, I've just got to avoid sick people for the next 7 to 10 days. I don't even know how that's possible. But I'll try.