My new job at the AEF Center was great. The hours were good, people were friendly, and I could live a normal life. Only bad thing was...I had no one to live for. Seko was gone. I was very hurt and very angry at the same time. I took a lot of that anger out on Gizmo. For the first month I was the worst father to him. I was angry at everyone and very sad. Eventually I sent Seko a card telling her I missed her. She replied with a laundry list of things she'd done wrong in her life and told me I needed to stay 'with my people'... that is...Christians. She told me not to contact her anymore. When I read it I wanted to die. I was drinking heavily. Once I stopped trying to crate-train Gizmo we began having a normal relationship. I entered him in puppy training at a local PetSmart and on the first day he showed his true Yorkie personality. We had our introduction to the class and I was the only one in the class who brought my doggy. We were in a back room sitting on metal chairs and I picked the front of the class to sit. Tanya, the teacher, was going over how to use play toys and, standing three feet in front of us, she held one as she explained. Gizmo, of course, oblivious to Tanya's message, and the rest of the world other than himself for that matter, just wanted that toy! He sat below her on his haunches being cute and whimpering and trembling in front of the entire class as Tanya kept talking, playing cool. I was a bit embarrassed and then, cool as ever, Tanya just dropped a toy to Gizmo without a break in her lecture. He grabbed this toy and, like a shark, thrashed that toy all over the front of the classroom, banging it on the metal chairs, making a huge racket as Tanya tried to talk...WHAM!!! WHAM!!!. He was the baby of the bunch and soon became one of the favorites (no credit to his introverted Daddy). As has been the case since his adoption, everyone knew who Gizmo was...I soon became 'that guy who lives with Gizmo'. To the right is Gizmo in a particularly playful mood on the day I had him fixed, or as he grudgingly calls it "Castration without Representation".
