Pets (FurKids)

Hi Ho, Hi Ho

It’s off to the Brickyard I go.

Indianapolis, I am almost in you.

Work gig, several days worth, and while I am not a fan of the Indy 500, it will still be a little bit fun to walk the track once.  I would be way more excited if they’d let me drive.  Like a fucking maniac.  I mean, really, that would be something worth writing about. Amirite?

The animals are all freaking out from the hustle and bustle of suitcase and packing and running around.  I always have to be careful not to leave the suitcase open on the bed.  The cats think that is an open invitation for exacting revenge on me for leaving.

Did you guys see this shot today? Someone with a good camera and view of the Bay Bridge out his office window took this.  Click the link and see it bigger.

Here’s the original link with the whole story.  Awesome shot. Maybe the best lightning pic EVER.

So, cheerio, more later, have a good week, etc.

xxoo

The weekly drama

HAH!  no drama to speak of this week.

From last week, my son booted the baby mama out, which I really hate, but will get used to, I suppose.  I didn’t have to live with her.  I worry that I won’t see Katie as much and she’ll be subjected to crazy people, but maybe not.  I feel bad for all of them.  The rise in childhood obesity corresponds exactly to the rise in divorce rates.  I read that somewhere.  On the internets.  So it must be true.

Goob is doing fine, blood sugar is fine, surgery is healing nicely, and he barked enough last Friday to incite our neighbor into even greater deeds of spying.  Crazy old man.  Jeebus.  On a ladder into our yard.  Peering non-stop through the fence.  Wiggling the bushes when we get to close to the fence line like he’s backing up not to get caught.   I flip him off a lot, don’t suppose it helps but?  Next I’m going to post a bible verse in big letters to the back of the house just for him.  About a spy being as bad as a murderer.  That should fan the flame a little.  He’s really starting to bug us.  He’s older than dirt but in good shape.  The little bastard will probably outlive me.  I think he’s pushing 80.  At least.  I’m going to swim naked a lot this summer in hopes of giving a heart attack.

Here he is, on a ladder on his side of the fence, looking into our backyard.  He’s an old perv, I think.  Maybe the naked swimming is a bad idea.

 

 

 

Goob Progress

Labs came back, the big cancer was benign, and the spleen was granulated but benign, whatever that means. Was nice to get some good news for a change.  Gunnar’s mouth is back to normal, he’s eating and pooping (still loose but ? ) and we found out something weird but interesting.

His behavior had become odder over the last couple of months – chasing the shadow of his ears, freaking out over any flickering light and wanting to get it, really OCD-acting.  He’s always been flaky but this was getting out of hand.  Turns out the big cancer pumps out whatever the opposite of glucose is so he had low blood sugar and wasn’t running on all his cylinders.  Isn’t that weird?  He’s behaving almost normally now. Of course, normal for Goob would be not so normal in a different dog ..

One bad thing out of all that – they shaved off his nipples when they prepped him for surgery.  I’ll bet that hurt.  He had explosive diarrhea all over the prep tech so she was probably paying him back.  Still, they do all need to be able to deal with poop.  I’m trying to decide whether it’s worth pursuing.  I’ll probably talk to the doc when he gets his staples out next week.

 

Good boy, Laddie

Here’s the finished product from class today.  I like how it turned out.  I went through 2/3rds of a bottle of great wine while painting it.   It’s the Goob!   If any of you read Terry Pratchett, you might remember the big gorgeous but really dumb dog who would tell himself, “Good boy, Laddie!”  I say that to Goob a lot.

 

Quotes from the book I think Laddie was in:

“He tended to smile a lot, in a faintly puzzled way. This gave people the impression that he was slightly more intelligent than they were. In fact, he was usually trying to work out what they had just said.” ~Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
“…inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.” ~Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
“If the abnormal goes on long enough it becomes the normal.” ~Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
“Ordinary laziness was merely the absence of effort. Victor had passed through there a long time ago, had gone straight through commonplace idleness and out on the far side. He put more effort into avoiding work than most people put into hard labor.” ~Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
“People who didn’t apply themselves to the facts in hand might have thought that Victor Tugelbend would be fat and unhealthy. In fact, he was undoubtedly the most athletically inclined student in the University. Having to haul around extra poundage was far too much effort, so he saw to it that he never put it on and he kept himself in trim because doing things with decent muscles was far less effort than trying to achieve things with bags of flab.” ~Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
“The moments that change your life are the ones that happen suddenly, like the one where you die.” ~Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
“People who used magic without knowing what they were doing usually came to a sticky end. All over the entire room, sometimes.” ~Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
“The universe contains any amount of horrible ways to be woken up, such as the noise of the mob breaking down the front door, the scream of fire engines, or the realization that today is the Monday which on Friday night was a comfortably long way off. A dog’s wet nose is not strictly speaking the worst of the bunch, but it has its own peculiar dreadfulness which connoisseurs of the ghastly and dog owners everywhere have come to know and dread. It’s like having a small piece of defrosting liver pressed lovingly against you.” ~Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
“It was always best, [Victor] had learned, never to try to follow the plot of any click you were in, and in any case Soll wasn’t just shooting back to front, but sides to middle as well. It was totally confusing, just like real life.” ~Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
“Messin’ around with girls who’re in thrall to Creatures from the Void never works out, take my word for it. You’d never know what you were going to wake up next to.” ~Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
“’But look, that can’t be right,’ said Ginger, in the small voice of one trying to be reasonable while madness is breaking down the door with a cleaver.” ~Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
“What was it they said about the gods? They wouldn’t exist if there weren’t people to believe in them? And that applied to everything. Reality was what went on in people’s heads.” ~Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
“Reality didn’t have to be real. Maybe if conditions were right, it just had to be what people believed…” ~Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
“The rope continued its swing. There was a noise exactly like a rubber sack full of butter hitting a stone slab and this was followed, after a moment or two, by a very quiet ‘oook’.” ~Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
“Poets long ago gave up trying to describe [Ankh-Morpork]. Now the more cunning ones try to excuse it.” ~Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures
“It’s very hard to be bad at acting in moving pictures.” ~Silverfish
“Gosh. Isn’t life interesting when you see it from someone else’s perspective…?” ~Victor Tugelbend
“Everything looks interesting until you do it. Then you find it’s just another job. I bet even people like Cohen the Barbarian get up in the morning thinking, ‘Oh, no, not another day of crushing the jeweled thrones of the world beneath my sandaled feet.’” ~Victor Tugelbend
“And don’t you go around using that calm and reasonable tone of voice with me. I hate it when people go around being calm and reasonable at me.” ~Ginger Withel

 

In other news ….

I am exceedingly tired of looking at Tim Minchin.  So here’s a post to push him down the page.

I came across a really great tweet today and I’ll share but it occurred to me that the people who read this blog (that I know about, anyway) already know this.
To wit:    @SocialMedia411: We go to LinkedIn to look for reasons to hire someone, then go to Facebook to look for reasons not to.”

I thought that was very succinct.    Keep those filters working, folks!

Bob is gone this week, took his middle son to Seattle, mainly so he (Bob) could go on a road trip.   Can’t say as I blame him.   It feels like it’s been ages since we’ve been anywhere.  I’d love to get out of town, but last year I promised Cheetah I wouldn’t leave her with anyone else until she dies.  I told you all this, right?    She’s looking mighty healthy at the moment, which is 95% good news and 5% Oh-My-God-I-Have-Cabin-Fever.

Cheetah’s annoying half sister, Ray Lynn aka RayMo aka Mo, was born in 1995 and is a year older.  Two weeks ago the new vet said Ray Lynn (Rae Lynn? RaeLin? sigh) was in exceptionally good shape for a cat of that age and didn’t actually believe me about how old she was until she saw the  age marks in the iris when she looked closely.  So there are some good genetic factors there that are keeping us off the road, and probably will for more years than I care to think about.  Perhaps I will reconsider our stay-at-home agreement, but for the moment, one of us will always be here.  Too bad Andrew has a family of his own to take care of.  I miss that handy resource. 🙂  I always trust him with our animals and he’s not afraid to give Cheetah her shots every day.

Hah.  I just took a break and fed the dogs whipped cream out of a can.  Sissy is perfectly willing to just open up and have me squirt it into her mouth sans contact with the nozzle, but Goob was another matter. It was the tail end of the can, so we practiced.  He still wants to lick it and put his mouth all over it, so he doesn’t get to participate much in the whipped cream experience.  He didn’t get any better at it by the time the can was empty.   He’s always such a dork compared to Sissy.  I wish I could take a picture while I’m doing this, but it is just too delicate a process, if you know what I mean.  Plus, you know, PETA.

While Bob is gone I am experiencing deep, deep joy in letting my messy banner fly.  I always keep it in check (which requires HEAVY and CONSTANT policing on my part) when he’s around, but with him out of the picture I am dropping things and letting them lay. Lie.  Whatever.   I’m delirious with it.   I am, by nature, a completely messy person and apparently always will be.   I thought I’d get over it if I held it under tight control for a long time but noooooooooo, it’s always hard and I always love letting loose.  If I lived by myself one would need a shovel to get in my front door.  Probably.  Actually, when I DID live by myself last time I was fairly clean.  But it was out of fear that the landlord would come over because he felt sorry for my cat and was compelled to let her in and out while I was at work.   Little did I know that his son who had lived there previously was one of those people who would let garbage bags pile up inside the house.  So I looked like an angel by comparison.  Probably even on my worst day I’m an angel in comparison to that.  But in the dark recesses of my mind I see my crazy [depressed, addicted, addled] oldest sister’s crap pile of a house before she was incarcerated into long term care.  With the garbage bags and the dog poop and the dirty dishes and overflowing ash trays.  And I am motivated to stay on the side of godliness.

In other, other sad news, we attended a funeral in Idaho this week.  My 54 year old cousin Karma shot herself.  It was a terrible funeral — so, so sad and we all cried our guts out.  She was the first person in my generation to die in the family on that side.  I spent weeks every summer with Karma and her two brothers growing up.   I hadn’t seen her in ages, and didn’t even know she was in such rough shape.  That’s sad, too, the way we have all fallen out of touch, and I attribute some of my grief to that.   I spent two full days after the funeral with my other two sisters, walking, and talking, and drinking beer and watching old movies.  It was healing for me and I’m glad we had the time together.

Ug, I am tired of being sad.  I will leave you (and me) with a happy dog picture.  Her name is Ruby and she is a random dog in Sacramento via Facebook. Better looking than Tim Minchin, for sure.

 

Cats, babies, etc

Mr. Long, the aforementioned abscess sufferer:

The wound

Not being too bothered by it:

And now, more baby pics

This yellow blanket was from my Grandma, and I used it with Andrew until the backside shredded.  So.  One picture with Katie and I will try and throw it away. 🙂  She’s on her daddy’s lap.

In one of the hideous gamer t-shirts I bought her.  Level 1 Human indeed …  She is so cute it chokes me sometimes.  If I ever explode, that will be why.

And her momma bought her some new little boots, with which she seems quite taken:

 

Dang

We had to take Mr. Long to the vet this morning.  He had a baseball sized lump attached to the side of his face.  He didn’t care if I touched it, which was odd, and he was starving and ate a lot.  But it was an abscess.  So he has been operated on successfully, is coming along just fine and we have to go pick him up in a couple of hours.

I SO want him to be an indoor cat, but the old lady cats we have HATE him to come in the house.  They attack him, and pester him, and stalk him.   And he’s more of a lover, not a fighter, so he ends up being exceedingly henpecked.  Poor thing.  Now he’s going to have to live in a room by himself for a week while he’s collared and has the drain in.  This has been a very expensive animal month.

Lewi had to go to the vet and then straight to the Dog Ophthalmologist.  Really.  Who even knew there was such a thing.  He’s doing much better now.  Me, not so much.  I have to put four sets of things in his eye twice a day, with 10 minutes in between each drop. That feels like pretty much all I do every day now, is put drops and goop in Lewi’s eyes.  And clean them out.  At least he’s very good about it.  I give him tiny treats each time so he’s always thinking about that instead of the drops.

Sissy says, “Put a drop in my eye, too, so I can have a treat!”

 

Lewi says, “Ready!”

And here are a few gramma and baby pics.

 

 

 

 

 

Cute little thang, ain’t she?  I just stare at her a lot.  Completely enamored.

I got to do face time with her lovely little cousin? 2nd cousin?  My niece’s baby Gwyneth.  She was also quite delightful as is her beautiful mother.   It was fun.

I feel good today, abscessy-cats notwithstanding.