Yup. I got stung. Again. Some of you might remember this little adventure just before we moved: When Moving Preparation Goes Wrong.
Well, this morning at exactly 7:00 am (I checked my phone when it happened) another of the buggers stung me on the outside of my left hand, near base of my thumb. Ouch!
We were walking the dogs, and it was pretty cool. I noted a vibration in the cuff of the outer shirt I was wearing and wondered what it was. I reached down to move it when suddenly it hurt, and then something - a wasp, probably, but perhaps a yellow jacket - flew off.
Thankfully I am not particularly allergic to these things (yet) and all I have is some minor swelling and a tiny bit of pain. Not a big deal.
Except...
What is it about me that get me into these situations? I've seen plenty of wasps flying around our area, and never noted a nest. I've been careful as a result. But at 7 am when the temperature was perhaps 9 degrees (Celsius, for my American readers... it's not that cold) any self respecting wasp should have been asleep or catatonic, not flying into the cuff of my shirt and stinging me for trying to let it out.
Sigh.
Just my luck, I guess.
Showing posts with label whine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label whine. Show all posts
Monday, October 2, 2017
Wednesday, August 23, 2017
It appears humans really are all the same
There's an old saying:
It happens that I don't get the New York Magazine. It also happens that I only get one dead tree edition of anything, and that's Science News, a publication where that journalistic philosophy doesn't apply.
But I do read the news online, using Google News as my aggregator. When we moved to Vancouver I adjusted my feed. Google News tracks what you read and click on to build things, but it also lets you pick places you are interested in, and I am pretty sure it also taps your physical location as well.
The current political situation in the US is such a disaster that I can't stop clicking on articles about the latest idiocy committed by the orange menace and his rabid followers, so my feed still has a lot of US based news in it. With luck that will drop over time, possibly because of an impeachment. If that happens, the feed should naturally shift towards more Canadian news.
However, tying this post back to the introduction, Canada suffers from "If it bleeds, it leads" syndrome just as much as the US does. There is a difference, though: Canada has a lot less violence overall, and only about 10% of the population of the US. As a result, the news media here has to go farther afield to find blood, but they do it.
Every morning in the local sections about Vancouver and Richmond, I scan headlines about bodies found, gun shots, accidents, and so on. These are local news sources, and there probably isn't that much local news every day, so they fill their pages with whatever they can get. Blood first, though.
Sadly the national news does the same thing. I read about violence in Victoria, murders in Manitoba, and serial killers in Saskatoon. (Yes,some - ok, a lot of - liberties were taken with the truth in that sentence, but I like it.)
It's actually rather depressing, but reality is a bit different from what you might think (and in particular from what the idiotic minion in charge of the US Justice Department wants you to believe):
Despite all of that - actual information! - people in both the US and Canada believe they are always in danger, and worry about highly unlikely events for no reason at all. And in both countries it plays into the hands of politicians wanting power to exaggerate those fears.
I'm tired of that.
In the US the deluge of crime and bad news - due simply to population size - means that if you live in Florida you probably don't read about murders in Oregon unless something really awful happened. And in big cities you don't read about every murder that happens just for lack of space in publications to document them. (Again that is due to population size, not overall crime rates.) So while"if it bleeds, it leads" is still true, there is other news on the front page, at least some of the time.
Here in Canada, though, we read about every murder, shooting, major accidents, and so on all over the country. The simple act of listing them all out in headlines can make you think that crime and death are rampant. It's actually a bit depressing.
I'm trying to figure out how to deal with this. I mean, the political headlines from the US are depressing enough, but add in the major crimes in cities 3000 miles away, and suddenly the news is just an awful read. I don't have any answers yet, but I am open to suggestions.
And yes, it really is safe here. It's lovely, and safe. Just avoid the news.
Note: This is a secret post. That is, I am not emailing an announcement about this one because I've written a lot of posts lately, and sent email about them. I don't want to drive people getting those emails nuts. This will get announced on FB, and on G+. And I need to think about twitter too, I guess... hmmm. But I won't email the announcement list. If you find this post you are thus a member of a very select club. Congratulations. Being a member gets you absolutely nothing, but you're in. Yay! You can join the club by getting in touch - email, DM on FB, telegram, phone call(!), whatever - and giving me an email address where you'd like to receive notices of new posts. Once school starts I'll almost certainly post less often, so you shouldn't get flooded with email. Thanks!
If it bleeds, it leads.According to the internet (and specifically this site), that phrase was first used in an article in the New York Magazine in 1989. I guess it's not really that old then, but it sure feels that way.
It happens that I don't get the New York Magazine. It also happens that I only get one dead tree edition of anything, and that's Science News, a publication where that journalistic philosophy doesn't apply.
But I do read the news online, using Google News as my aggregator. When we moved to Vancouver I adjusted my feed. Google News tracks what you read and click on to build things, but it also lets you pick places you are interested in, and I am pretty sure it also taps your physical location as well.
The current political situation in the US is such a disaster that I can't stop clicking on articles about the latest idiocy committed by the orange menace and his rabid followers, so my feed still has a lot of US based news in it. With luck that will drop over time, possibly because of an impeachment. If that happens, the feed should naturally shift towards more Canadian news.
However, tying this post back to the introduction, Canada suffers from "If it bleeds, it leads" syndrome just as much as the US does. There is a difference, though: Canada has a lot less violence overall, and only about 10% of the population of the US. As a result, the news media here has to go farther afield to find blood, but they do it.
Every morning in the local sections about Vancouver and Richmond, I scan headlines about bodies found, gun shots, accidents, and so on. These are local news sources, and there probably isn't that much local news every day, so they fill their pages with whatever they can get. Blood first, though.
Sadly the national news does the same thing. I read about violence in Victoria, murders in Manitoba, and serial killers in Saskatoon. (Yes,
It's actually rather depressing, but reality is a bit different from what you might think (and in particular from what the idiotic minion in charge of the US Justice Department wants you to believe):
- In 2015, the murder rate in the US was 4.88 per 100,000 people. Wikipedia puts that at 94 out of 219 countries. There are 93 countries with higher murder rates.
- In 2014, the murder rate in Canada as 1.68 per 100,000 people, and the same article puts that at position 158 out of 219.
- Due to the population difference, the actual numbers are starkly different: there were 15,696 murders in the US in 2015, and 604 in Canada in 2014.
- Violent crime rates in the US - and, indeed, just about all crime there - have been steadily declining for 20+ years now.
- Similarly, crime rates in Canada are mostly dropping as well.
Despite all of that - actual information! - people in both the US and Canada believe they are always in danger, and worry about highly unlikely events for no reason at all. And in both countries it plays into the hands of politicians wanting power to exaggerate those fears.
I'm tired of that.
In the US the deluge of crime and bad news - due simply to population size - means that if you live in Florida you probably don't read about murders in Oregon unless something really awful happened. And in big cities you don't read about every murder that happens just for lack of space in publications to document them. (Again that is due to population size, not overall crime rates.) So while"if it bleeds, it leads" is still true, there is other news on the front page, at least some of the time.
Here in Canada, though, we read about every murder, shooting, major accidents, and so on all over the country. The simple act of listing them all out in headlines can make you think that crime and death are rampant. It's actually a bit depressing.
I'm trying to figure out how to deal with this. I mean, the political headlines from the US are depressing enough, but add in the major crimes in cities 3000 miles away, and suddenly the news is just an awful read. I don't have any answers yet, but I am open to suggestions.
And yes, it really is safe here. It's lovely, and safe. Just avoid the news.
Note: This is a secret post. That is, I am not emailing an announcement about this one because I've written a lot of posts lately, and sent email about them. I don't want to drive people getting those emails nuts. This will get announced on FB, and on G+. And I need to think about twitter too, I guess... hmmm. But I won't email the announcement list. If you find this post you are thus a member of a very select club. Congratulations. Being a member gets you absolutely nothing, but you're in. Yay! You can join the club by getting in touch - email, DM on FB, telegram, phone call(!), whatever - and giving me an email address where you'd like to receive notices of new posts. Once school starts I'll almost certainly post less often, so you shouldn't get flooded with email. Thanks!
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
What Has Jeff Been Doing?
Here are two images. That do they have to do with each other?
The first:
The second is of the flowers sent to my home by the oral surgeon and the dentist, thanking me for letting them treat me. Really. That's what the card said.
The second:
Ignore the colors being screwed up in the second image. The flash was on and I didn't get a shot without it. It's the content that matters in any case.
So... how do those images relate?
<Insert Jeopardy "waiting for an answer" theme here while people scribble frantically on cards. Or something.>
OK! Time's up! Here's the answer, but it's not phrased as a question.
The first is an image of the tools used by an oral surgeon. I had a tooth removed and an implant stuffed into my jaw to replace it. (Note the covered hypodermic needle on the right edge of the image, in particular, if you doubt me.)
In response I have a couple of questions:
- Am I spending too much for my dental care?
- Are these guys hoping to get me back to replace more of my (admittedly bad) teeth?
- Should I go looking for a cheaper provider?
- Yes, the surgery went fine. No real pain, no swelling, no bruising, etc.
- The implant has to sit for 3 months before they can install the peg and the fake tooth.
- I've had bad teeth ever since I had braces as a kid, as far as I know. Correlation appears to be a fact between braces and gum recession and bone loss, at least in some cases, but causation isn't clear.
Finally, always remember: Teeth suck. Jeff's teeth suck absolutely.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Revisiting Alien In A Different Way
I don't want to over-share, but I have a better appreciation for what happened to Executive Officer Kane - played by John Hurt - in Alien, just before the beastie popped out of his chest in that iconic scene.
I spent Sunday (starting at 4:45am) wondering if the same thing was going to happen to me. By bedtime, whatever it was had passed, with nothing more than occasional - if semi-painful - discomfort.
I wish I knew what it was. Maybe it was mild food poisoning, maybe it was a mild food intolerance, maybe it was an alien foetus, incubating within me, but that died for some reason before piercing my chest. If that latter is what was going on, then I hope the old phrase "this too shall pass" is true.
I suppose said alien infant could still be in there, lulling me into a false sense of security before killing me in a spectacular fashion, but I doubt it.
Whatever, I am glad it's over now. It was an awful day spent doing absolutely nothing. I felt like a slug.
I spent Sunday (starting at 4:45am) wondering if the same thing was going to happen to me. By bedtime, whatever it was had passed, with nothing more than occasional - if semi-painful - discomfort.
I wish I knew what it was. Maybe it was mild food poisoning, maybe it was a mild food intolerance, maybe it was an alien foetus, incubating within me, but that died for some reason before piercing my chest. If that latter is what was going on, then I hope the old phrase "this too shall pass" is true.
I suppose said alien infant could still be in there, lulling me into a false sense of security before killing me in a spectacular fashion, but I doubt it.
Whatever, I am glad it's over now. It was an awful day spent doing absolutely nothing. I felt like a slug.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
A Very Long Night
Last night we went to bed just before 11:30pm. Everyone had settled down - both of us and all three dogs - when that changed. Skookie and Cruzer - our two younger dogs - started barking in the general direction of the street. Odd, but maybe a deer walking around.
Then I noted the flashlights - obviously flashlight beams not car headlights - down on the road. And deer don't carry flashlights, so I got up and looked out the door. I saw two guys (this is from 200+ feet away, in the dark, heavily covered with redwood trees, so no real details were visible) walking the road, like they were looking for something. I watched for a couple of minutes and they seemed to be stuck in front of our house. Clearly on the road, but not walking in either direction along the road. So I let out the dogs. Much barking ensued, but the interlopers did not move on.
I put on a bathrobe, grabbed a flashlight, and stepped out onto my deck. I shined the light down at them and called out, asking if they were "OK down there".
They responded that they were fine, and something along the lines of "don't worry, we're locals".
Really? Somehow that did not engender calm on my side of things. Strangers on the street at 11:30pm, in the woods? Not a normal thing in my 20+ years of living here.
So I called the dogs and went back inside to ponder my options, and watched for several more minutes. The guys eventually started down the hillside on the opposite side of the street, towards a couple of old cabins down there. (I know the property owner... they don't live there, visitors aren't common, and certainly not at that time of night.) They walked down the hill and wandered around the cabins for several minutes. Did I mention it was 11:30pm on a Wednesday night, in the woods, and they clearly weren't the owners of the property, who would have called out to me right away on learning I was awake?
What should I do?
Call the sheriff? Well, yes, but...
So what did I do? I got dressed, grabbed my flashlight and cell phone, leashed up the dogs, and went for a walk.
I got to the place where the guys went down the hill and shined my flashlight down at them and waited, up on the road where my wife could hear whatever transpired. I could clearly see their lights down there, moving around the woods.
In a few minutes the guys realized they were being watched and started climbing up the hill towards me. There were actually four of them I then learned, as they spread out a bit on the path. My threat-o-meter went up another notch. just how stupid am I to be down here?
They get to the road and a rather tense conversation ensues. I ask who they are and what they are doing. They tell me they "shot a deer" earlier, are tracking it, and the "last blood" is down the hill.
Well now, isn't that interesting? Suddenly I have a whole new set of worries. Shot? With what? When? In this neighborhood? Are any of you carrying a gun now? Should I be running for my life? Should I just call 911 standing right here? What the *&^% do you think you're doing? But I remained calm - at least on the outside - and said none of that. And I was glad to have two largish dogs on leash with me, one of whom was picking up on how tense the conversation was and growled, as if to make a point.
Instead of panicking, I ask if they own the property - knowing they don't, but wanting to drive the point home. One responds, saying they don't, but that he grew up on a neighboring lot.
I say something like, "Look, it's 11:30 on a weeknight and you guys wandering around here is keeping my dogs - and me - awake." They apologize and say they were just trying to find the deer. Apparently they didn't think about the neighbors. Some agreement is come to - silently... I'm fuzzy on the conversation at this point - and they start walking up the street. I wait until they get out of the way and then go the other way, towards my driveway, with the dogs.
Nothing else exciting happens. I get home just fine, get the dogs off leash, and tell my wife what transpired. The guys have clearly left... the flashlights are gone and you definitely need them down there to avoid tripping and hurting yourself.
It's about 12:45pm. Now we can all get some sleep, right? Alas no.
I get back in bed, but am now too wired and hot to sleep. Not going to happen. So I get out my kindle and start reading. Anne conks out (good!) and the dogs settle, sort of.
Sometime later - not sure how long... I thought it was about 1am, but I'd clearly been reading for more than 15 minutes - Cruzer throws up. I leapt up in an attempt to get him outside before disaster struck, but was too late. I sent him out anyway and got started cleaning the mess up. That woke Anne up, sadly.
Cruzer actually tried to avoid a problem and managed to throw up in the sliding door track, missing the carpet entirely. Fantastic. But it takes several minutes to clean it out of there, and find more out on the deck and get that cleaned up too. Whee.
Get back in bed, really awake again. Read some more. Cruzer doesn't want to settle, and comes over to my side of the bed, begging for attention, or something. Odd behavior for him, but if he isn't feeling well, it might be explicable. (And remember, I'm not exactly at my best at this point either.)
While reading - first session and second - we have low, loud overflights by (I think) two helicopters and at least one large jet. And when I say low I mean low. Disturbingly so, for the Santa Cruz Mountains in the middle of the night. And rare for our part of the world.
Finally I turn off the kindle and try to get some sleep. It's maybe 2 or 2:30... I'm honestly not sure. And I did sleep, a little, in fits, but not much.
The alarm is going to go off at 7am, so I am not going to get anything like a full night's sleep. Even worse, though, is the canine alarm, which went off at 5:45am. (I think. Can you say "groggy"?)
Both Skookie and Cruzer wanted out. That is very unusual. True, Skookie will always change sides of a door, but she waits until the alarm goes off before making her desires known. And Cruzer is an idiot and sleeps until thrown out or walked, so to have him squeaking at the door is odd. I got up and let them out. No barking. Fine. I went back to bed, waiting for Cruzer to start squeaking that he wanted back in.
But he didn't do that, and I actually dozed a bit more, only getting back up at 6:15am to figure out what had happened to him, since this is definitely not normal behavior. I look out the door and there he is, eating weeds in the dog run. OK... his stomach was bugging him a few hours before, so maybe that's what he needs. But he doesn't ask to come back in. Fine. Leave them out there and go back to bed, hoping for another 45 minutes of slumber.
Ten minutes later Skookie barks at something - probably a deer, but who knows - and I have to get back up and bring them both in before they wake Anne up (again). I managed to accomplish that, and got back in bed, yet again. This night is starting to feel like an exercise program. I wish I was making this up.
The alarm goes off at 7am, as usual. I listen to the news for a while, and then get up to feed dogs and make coffee. On the way to get the dog food I discover that Cruzer has thrown up again sometime in the night, this time down in the laundry room. And his behavior shows me that he is worried about being punished for it, which is something we would never do, but maybe his previous owners did. No way to know. I clean it up. No harm done, but I am keeping an even closer eye on him now.
The dogs follow me upstairs as usual and all go to their food bowls, so I think everything is fine, but as I get started making coffee, Cruzer turns up in the kitchen, long before he usually does. Odd.
I go look at his bowl. It is essentially untouched. He's not eating. This - combined with the other odd behavior and midnight vomiting - has me concerned.
I finish making coffee and get my morning banana. This is something Cruzer lives for: his morning bit of banana. (Honestly.) And he looks at me in something like the usual, expectant way, so I pull a bit off and toss it to him, just as I always do. And it bounces off the top of his head and lands on the floor. He doesn't even turn towards it... just looks at me. This is very wrong.
OK... now what? Anne finishes up her morning stuff, and we start the usual dog walk ritual. This is required every morning. It's not far - Leah, the 14 year old, isn't going far - but it's something, and we have to do it, regardless of anything else going on. It's important. And it's still just as important this morning too, so we head out to the garage to leash up.
And in the process I register just the tiniest little hiccup in Cruzer's stride as he goes down a stair. A back foot is held up just a bit longer than usual. But I am sleepy and unsure and out of it. We walk.
As we start down the driveway I wonder: we're getting some patching done on our driveway, and there is some fresh asphalt down there. Is it possible Cruzer got some of that on his feet last night when we walked down to confront the guys, then licked it off his feet and made himself sick that way? Seems possible. So we decide to change course and not walk on anything with new asphalt on it. Easy to do, and we encounter lots of new smells.
We get down towards the road and there are two guys walking on it. At 8am. Last night's meeting was in the dark, by flashlight, and way too late, but maybe these are two of the guys that were there. So I ask.
Yes, it's them. And they really are sorry about waking us up.
A brief conversation follows - with my wife there - and we learn that they'd shot the deer with an arrow - not a gun, good! - and were still trying to find it. And as much as I hate to say it, they look like hipsters. One has a big, full beard, and at least one had big, thick, dark, plastic rimmed glasses. Hipster hunters, I think. Really. Or so it appeared. (Google it. Turns out to be a real thing.) We said goodbye and kept walking the dogs back towards the house while they kept trying to figure out where their deer had gone.
As we get towards the house I realize that Cruzer is actually limping. Barely, but his right, back leg is definitely not right. We stop, I take Leah's leash from Anne, while she looks at Cruzer's foot. And between two of his pads she found an entire, small, pine cone. Buried so deeply he couldn't get it out himself. That had to hurt. He probably picked it up in the middle of the night, walking along the road.
And he probably spent all night in pain, possibly trying to dig that thing out from time to time, and the worry (he worries a lot, believe me) made him sick. That's at least as likely as the asphalt theory. And he ate his breakfast when reminded it was there by me drizzling a bit of oil over it to make it more attractive. Bah. Poor dog.
As expected, the hipster hunters have wandered off again. I have no idea where their deer went, and apparently they don't either. I hope it isn't suffering.
There ends the story so far. Cruzer and I are getting by on very little sleep. (I, thankfully, have coffee.)
But it is going to be a very long day.
Then I noted the flashlights - obviously flashlight beams not car headlights - down on the road. And deer don't carry flashlights, so I got up and looked out the door. I saw two guys (this is from 200+ feet away, in the dark, heavily covered with redwood trees, so no real details were visible) walking the road, like they were looking for something. I watched for a couple of minutes and they seemed to be stuck in front of our house. Clearly on the road, but not walking in either direction along the road. So I let out the dogs. Much barking ensued, but the interlopers did not move on.
I put on a bathrobe, grabbed a flashlight, and stepped out onto my deck. I shined the light down at them and called out, asking if they were "OK down there".
They responded that they were fine, and something along the lines of "don't worry, we're locals".
Really? Somehow that did not engender calm on my side of things. Strangers on the street at 11:30pm, in the woods? Not a normal thing in my 20+ years of living here.
So I called the dogs and went back inside to ponder my options, and watched for several more minutes. The guys eventually started down the hillside on the opposite side of the street, towards a couple of old cabins down there. (I know the property owner... they don't live there, visitors aren't common, and certainly not at that time of night.) They walked down the hill and wandered around the cabins for several minutes. Did I mention it was 11:30pm on a Wednesday night, in the woods, and they clearly weren't the owners of the property, who would have called out to me right away on learning I was awake?
What should I do?
Call the sheriff? Well, yes, but...
- The response time to my area is forever, probably more than an hour. Even if I called right away these guys would be long gone before the sheriff arrived. If the sheriff arrived at all.
- Last time I called about something vaguely like this - someone shooting repeatedly on the same property - I was asked if I "heard screaming or saw blood". I answered "no" but that I could still hear shots being fired, lots of them. And I was unsurprised when the sheriff's office dispatched exactly no one to the scene. Ever. (In the end I think it was someone target shooting, in the woods, in what amounts to a residential neighborhood. Yes, we have big lots up here - you cannot see most of the nearby houses - but still, a very dumb thing to do.)
So what did I do? I got dressed, grabbed my flashlight and cell phone, leashed up the dogs, and went for a walk.
I got to the place where the guys went down the hill and shined my flashlight down at them and waited, up on the road where my wife could hear whatever transpired. I could clearly see their lights down there, moving around the woods.
In a few minutes the guys realized they were being watched and started climbing up the hill towards me. There were actually four of them I then learned, as they spread out a bit on the path. My threat-o-meter went up another notch. just how stupid am I to be down here?
They get to the road and a rather tense conversation ensues. I ask who they are and what they are doing. They tell me they "shot a deer" earlier, are tracking it, and the "last blood" is down the hill.
Well now, isn't that interesting? Suddenly I have a whole new set of worries. Shot? With what? When? In this neighborhood? Are any of you carrying a gun now? Should I be running for my life? Should I just call 911 standing right here? What the *&^% do you think you're doing? But I remained calm - at least on the outside - and said none of that. And I was glad to have two largish dogs on leash with me, one of whom was picking up on how tense the conversation was and growled, as if to make a point.
Instead of panicking, I ask if they own the property - knowing they don't, but wanting to drive the point home. One responds, saying they don't, but that he grew up on a neighboring lot.
I say something like, "Look, it's 11:30 on a weeknight and you guys wandering around here is keeping my dogs - and me - awake." They apologize and say they were just trying to find the deer. Apparently they didn't think about the neighbors. Some agreement is come to - silently... I'm fuzzy on the conversation at this point - and they start walking up the street. I wait until they get out of the way and then go the other way, towards my driveway, with the dogs.
Nothing else exciting happens. I get home just fine, get the dogs off leash, and tell my wife what transpired. The guys have clearly left... the flashlights are gone and you definitely need them down there to avoid tripping and hurting yourself.
It's about 12:45pm. Now we can all get some sleep, right? Alas no.
I get back in bed, but am now too wired and hot to sleep. Not going to happen. So I get out my kindle and start reading. Anne conks out (good!) and the dogs settle, sort of.
Sometime later - not sure how long... I thought it was about 1am, but I'd clearly been reading for more than 15 minutes - Cruzer throws up. I leapt up in an attempt to get him outside before disaster struck, but was too late. I sent him out anyway and got started cleaning the mess up. That woke Anne up, sadly.
Cruzer actually tried to avoid a problem and managed to throw up in the sliding door track, missing the carpet entirely. Fantastic. But it takes several minutes to clean it out of there, and find more out on the deck and get that cleaned up too. Whee.
Get back in bed, really awake again. Read some more. Cruzer doesn't want to settle, and comes over to my side of the bed, begging for attention, or something. Odd behavior for him, but if he isn't feeling well, it might be explicable. (And remember, I'm not exactly at my best at this point either.)
While reading - first session and second - we have low, loud overflights by (I think) two helicopters and at least one large jet. And when I say low I mean low. Disturbingly so, for the Santa Cruz Mountains in the middle of the night. And rare for our part of the world.
Finally I turn off the kindle and try to get some sleep. It's maybe 2 or 2:30... I'm honestly not sure. And I did sleep, a little, in fits, but not much.
The alarm is going to go off at 7am, so I am not going to get anything like a full night's sleep. Even worse, though, is the canine alarm, which went off at 5:45am. (I think. Can you say "groggy"?)
Both Skookie and Cruzer wanted out. That is very unusual. True, Skookie will always change sides of a door, but she waits until the alarm goes off before making her desires known. And Cruzer is an idiot and sleeps until thrown out or walked, so to have him squeaking at the door is odd. I got up and let them out. No barking. Fine. I went back to bed, waiting for Cruzer to start squeaking that he wanted back in.
But he didn't do that, and I actually dozed a bit more, only getting back up at 6:15am to figure out what had happened to him, since this is definitely not normal behavior. I look out the door and there he is, eating weeds in the dog run. OK... his stomach was bugging him a few hours before, so maybe that's what he needs. But he doesn't ask to come back in. Fine. Leave them out there and go back to bed, hoping for another 45 minutes of slumber.
Ten minutes later Skookie barks at something - probably a deer, but who knows - and I have to get back up and bring them both in before they wake Anne up (again). I managed to accomplish that, and got back in bed, yet again. This night is starting to feel like an exercise program. I wish I was making this up.
The alarm goes off at 7am, as usual. I listen to the news for a while, and then get up to feed dogs and make coffee. On the way to get the dog food I discover that Cruzer has thrown up again sometime in the night, this time down in the laundry room. And his behavior shows me that he is worried about being punished for it, which is something we would never do, but maybe his previous owners did. No way to know. I clean it up. No harm done, but I am keeping an even closer eye on him now.
The dogs follow me upstairs as usual and all go to their food bowls, so I think everything is fine, but as I get started making coffee, Cruzer turns up in the kitchen, long before he usually does. Odd.
I go look at his bowl. It is essentially untouched. He's not eating. This - combined with the other odd behavior and midnight vomiting - has me concerned.
I finish making coffee and get my morning banana. This is something Cruzer lives for: his morning bit of banana. (Honestly.) And he looks at me in something like the usual, expectant way, so I pull a bit off and toss it to him, just as I always do. And it bounces off the top of his head and lands on the floor. He doesn't even turn towards it... just looks at me. This is very wrong.
OK... now what? Anne finishes up her morning stuff, and we start the usual dog walk ritual. This is required every morning. It's not far - Leah, the 14 year old, isn't going far - but it's something, and we have to do it, regardless of anything else going on. It's important. And it's still just as important this morning too, so we head out to the garage to leash up.
And in the process I register just the tiniest little hiccup in Cruzer's stride as he goes down a stair. A back foot is held up just a bit longer than usual. But I am sleepy and unsure and out of it. We walk.
As we start down the driveway I wonder: we're getting some patching done on our driveway, and there is some fresh asphalt down there. Is it possible Cruzer got some of that on his feet last night when we walked down to confront the guys, then licked it off his feet and made himself sick that way? Seems possible. So we decide to change course and not walk on anything with new asphalt on it. Easy to do, and we encounter lots of new smells.
We get down towards the road and there are two guys walking on it. At 8am. Last night's meeting was in the dark, by flashlight, and way too late, but maybe these are two of the guys that were there. So I ask.
Yes, it's them. And they really are sorry about waking us up.
A brief conversation follows - with my wife there - and we learn that they'd shot the deer with an arrow - not a gun, good! - and were still trying to find it. And as much as I hate to say it, they look like hipsters. One has a big, full beard, and at least one had big, thick, dark, plastic rimmed glasses. Hipster hunters, I think. Really. Or so it appeared. (Google it. Turns out to be a real thing.) We said goodbye and kept walking the dogs back towards the house while they kept trying to figure out where their deer had gone.
As we get towards the house I realize that Cruzer is actually limping. Barely, but his right, back leg is definitely not right. We stop, I take Leah's leash from Anne, while she looks at Cruzer's foot. And between two of his pads she found an entire, small, pine cone. Buried so deeply he couldn't get it out himself. That had to hurt. He probably picked it up in the middle of the night, walking along the road.
And he probably spent all night in pain, possibly trying to dig that thing out from time to time, and the worry (he worries a lot, believe me) made him sick. That's at least as likely as the asphalt theory. And he ate his breakfast when reminded it was there by me drizzling a bit of oil over it to make it more attractive. Bah. Poor dog.
As expected, the hipster hunters have wandered off again. I have no idea where their deer went, and apparently they don't either. I hope it isn't suffering.
There ends the story so far. Cruzer and I are getting by on very little sleep. (I, thankfully, have coffee.)
But it is going to be a very long day.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
How to Mess Up Your Life
This is simple... just remodel a kitchen. Really.
If it goes smashingly well - as ours has so far - you will still find yourself out of your kitchen and with strange people crashing around in your home for a minimum of 5 or 6 weeks. Add a dog or three that cannot be allowed near the construction area because there are always doors that are left open and distracted workers there, and suddenly you have a routine of doing nothing but making sure progress continues unimpaired because anything else is impossible.
In other words, I am still here, just distracted. For a while longer. Whee.
If it goes smashingly well - as ours has so far - you will still find yourself out of your kitchen and with strange people crashing around in your home for a minimum of 5 or 6 weeks. Add a dog or three that cannot be allowed near the construction area because there are always doors that are left open and distracted workers there, and suddenly you have a routine of doing nothing but making sure progress continues unimpaired because anything else is impossible.
In other words, I am still here, just distracted. For a while longer. Whee.
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