Dog and Blonde Dog

...courtesy of the Maternal Unit

Halloween

I am no longer allowed to watch scary sh*t. My overactive imagination ran away from me last night after watching several of my favorite scary movies (“The Descent,” “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” and “Paranormal Activity”) before watching all of Season One of “Paranormal State.”


Yes, I am well aware of the fact that the show Paranormal State is a lame docudrama/mockumentary, but I can’t help myself. I love to be scared. I love wondering what is going on, and if there’s something I am not clued into because I lack capacities to tap into it. Hell, I love wondering what my dogs are staring at when they stare into the distance of a blank wall.

Well, last night I might have overdone it.

Because Dog had knee surgery, she is unable to go up and down stairs. The basement in our house does not have stairs so I can take her directly out to the yard so she can relieve herself. I have been sleeping in the basement with her because I hate the idea of her being sad and lonely in the dark and the crate with the cone of shame. So, I slept in the basement. Last night was Halloween. Every single noise I heard became an encroaching malevolent spirit.

I quivered in the dark, awaiting the blankets to get ripped off of me. I heard the baseboards creak to life and imagined the moaning voice of a trapped ghost imprinting itself onto an EVP. When the room cooled (because the heat is electric, natch), I pictured a violent poltergeist swirling in black smog above me. Blonde Dog whimpering in her sleep from the foot of the bed became a warning sign that some spirit was ready to pounce. I heard footsteps above my head. I heard gusts of wind. I heard a cat meowing in the distance. All of this set my teeth on edge. All of it is explainable. (My dad got up to go to the bathroom. The trees outside were dropping leaves in the blustery October night. Oh, and we have a cat in another room.)

All in all, I think I slept a total of twenty minutes. I kept dreading 3am. I couldn’t bring myself to get up and go to the bathroom (all of ten feet away), convinced that something was going to get me. I kept telling myself, "Its OK. Dog and Blonde Dog are both sleeping. They wouldnt let something get you; theyd totally let you know something was there- especially since its bigger than a squirrel." It kept running through my head, but it didnt pacify me- especially since both dogs are really giant chickens, and one of them is injured and PO'ed about being back in the Cone.

So, as much as I love to be scared, I think I overdid it this time. I have put in place a moratorium on scary forms of entertainment. The bags under my eyes are tired.

Nap Time

October is almost over. How did that happen?! It went by so fast! I guess time flies when your dog has surgery, and then your dad has an “atypical cardiac event,” and then more people get laid off, and then you’re taking care of your dog that has had surgery again.


I often find myself wondering why time passes as it does, flying by in fun times, and dragging on forever at others. This usually happens when I am given uninteresting assignments to do, or not enough work to occupy my spastic little brain. It’s this spastic quality of mine that leads me to long, dramatic nap times wherein I dream about awesome things like being a mermaid who lives in a sunken pirate ship somewhere near Tahiti. (Mermaid Me also wears a coconut shell top and miles of pearls. Mermaid Me has a friend in Mermaid JD, who wears lots of emeralds so we don’t get our accessories confused.)

That might have been the best dream ever. The pirate ship I lived in was in this very pretty lagoon where there were lots of exotic fish. My pirate-ship/apartment was also home to Mermaid JD, and a talking shark that resembled the white in Finding Nemo. He cooked for us, though, and we didn’t mind that he liked to eat fish and had no friends (“Fish are food, not friends!”) outside of us. Apparently, Mermaid Me could play the ukulele, which is pretty awesome because real life me can’t carry a tune in a bucket. There was a big rock that jutted out of the water that I liked to sit on and play, half in the water and half out. Not much really happened in the dream, but it was pretty sweet.

Vivid dreams are some times disappointing. I have them, and then I wake up to my reality. It’s like expecting to get that one seriously amazing Christmas present you really, really, really, really wanted when you were a kid, but instead you open your last gift and it’s a sweater.

Autumn

The following are from a hiking trip I made about two weeks ago with some new friends to Mt. Pisgah. The only good part about living in New England are as follows...

From one of the crests. That is Mt. Monadnoc in the distance.

Same shot, different vantage point. (I think I was standing...?)

This is the lake in the bottom corner of the preceding photos.

I love how my $200 phone takes better pictures than my $600 camera... oof.

Dog, Part 5

Dog had a successful surgery!

One of her knees has been fixed with a lateral cruciate ligament tie, and she is convalescing in her crate. She had been really good on Saturday about not licking her incision, so I let her sleep without the cone... until 2 am Sunday when I awoke to slurpy noises and a guilty furry face. She had licked out a staple, so the cone went back on and will remain until the staples are out.

Aside from her very undignified cone and awkward hobbling on three legs, everything is good for Dog. She gets scrambled eggs for breakfast, and boiled hamburger with rice for dinner; she lounges on her bed while watching TV with my mom; she even gets plain yogurt as a treat (her favorite!) Her pills come inside a little piece of hotdog or cheese, and she takes them without complaint. Such a good little patient.

Here's Dog, in her crate this morning, looking crabby because I turned the light on.

PS: Yes, they shaved half of her backside. And yes, that is a bald spot on her side where they applied a fentanyl patch. I cranked up the heat in the house so that her poor nekkid hind leg wouldn't get cold.

Dog, Part 4: Return to the Cone of Shame

Dog goes in for the first of two knee surgeries tomorrow morning. Though I had originally planned to wait until March to schedule it, several factors made me push the time frame up. The worst was watching Dog fall down the stairs because her hindquarters have zero strength/stability because both her ACLs and an MCL are shot. At first it was hilarious, and then the realization of what was happening set in, and I quickly went from giggling to feeling horrible. So, I called Dr. Vet, and made a plan. I asked Boss-Man if I could be in late, which is gratefully he said is not an issue ("I would have to be seriously evil to tell you no; like, Dr. Mengele level of evil to say no to you being an hour late so you can bring your crippled dog in for surgery"). Poor Dog doesn't know she's in for a second round of two-weeks-time in the Cone of Shame. I'm going to try to rebrand it the Cone of Destiny, to make it sound better for her.

Her ACL and MCL in her left hind leg are thoroughly shot, so they're replacing them altogether. It will be a long recovery time, probably, considering how old she is. But, she's in good shape, so she won't take forever. And she's a Lab/mutt mix, so she has what Dr. Vet refers to as "hybrid vigor." I like the sound of that.

Honolulu, Part 2 is upcoming. In just under four weeks, I will be scoping out paradise with my girl GC for a house I will never rent, and a job I will never apply for; Dog won't be able to travel after surgery. And I wont be able to afford to, either. However, there's nothing in the world that would make me choose otherwise; Dog deserves all the love and care she needs and thensome. Id rather have Dog than live in paradise, and considering where I live currently... that's saying something.

Dog, part 3

Dog's stitches came out yesterday, and thankfully, her biopsy results were negative, so there were lots of reasons to celebrate. Her vet said that knee surgery is a viable option, and that she recommends it happen in March. This will give me some time to get some money together and pay for it, and maybe by then I'll have figured out if I'm going to stay in the area, or if I'm going to move.

As contingency, I've been looking for a place to live. I started looking at condos, and thus far, am overwhelmed and disappointed. As a single person, my income is not very high. Which means that I can afford a hovel in the ghetto in the asscheek of West Nowhere. I went to see one and ended up laughing so hard after the fact because there was NO WAY I could live there, even though it was affordable. I'd be the only person in a neighborhood full of meth zombies. Yeah. So, that's been unintentionally hilarious.

But! The bright side of all of this is that Dog is OK. She won't care if we stay where we are currently, or if we move--- even if we're surrounded by dealers, pimps, whores, and addicts. She'll be happy wherever, so long as someone is there to rub her belly.

Oh, Dog...