Flower

Tuesday stank.

After all the business of voice recording, grocery shopping and floor cleaning, Grayson and I took Flower to the vet at 4:30.

She has heartworms.

She tested negative a year ago, but I didn't put her on preventative, so it's my fault. I feel terrible about it.

Soooooo, we began a regimen of ivermectin shots every two months for the next two years. And after every shot, she has to be kept quiet and sedate for a week. And we have to keep her from doing much running or rough play. The idea is that they give her just enough medicine to kill the larvae in the blood, without actually killing the worms on the heart itself. If they kill those off too quickly, the worms break up after they die and can begin to clog up the blood vessels in the lungs. so we are just keeping more from developing into adults while we wait for the existing worms to die of old age in their own time. I don't like the idea of those horrible things twining around her big, loving heart. But the vet said this is the safest way.

She also really needs her teeth cleaned, but they have to anesthetize her for that, and we can't do it for several months at least while she's in treatment. We'll just monitor her and see how she does with the treatment and then the vet can decide if she's safe to anesthetize.

At the risk of sounding really sorry for myself, I just didn't need this now.

I'm doing okay. Grayson and I get through the days and mostly stay on top of things. But it's not easy. The dogs complicate things, but when Flower has her big soft head in my lap and looks up at me with those big brown eyes, or when Kobi bounds up onto the bed to lick me awake at 6:30 in the morning, it's worth the inconvenience to have them with us. Our home is much more of a home with our dogs around. I feel terrible about Flower's condition. I'll do whatever we have to do to get her healthy again.

Back online

Hooray! I'm back online. Gray got the new power source for our home computer and hooked it up, but we weren't connecting to the internet until today. I called the Cox automated service and talked to a very nice robot lady who got us all fixed up. Amazing. Technology at work for you.

Grayson is home "sick" today. Looks to me like he feels fine, frankly. But also frankly I needed a day to get some stuff done, so it worked out just fine. He gets a day off and I get a day to run errands and take care of details that I haven't been able to do during the week.

I have another proud moment to acknowledge: Yesterday it was cold and rainy, so I left Flower and Kobi inside the apartment all day instead of taking them to the old house to play in the yard. They were in the house for ten hours. Nothing for it, that's how long my day is. I leave with Grayson for school at quarter to eight, and get home with him at six. I was afraid they would have pooped and peed on everything, but amazingly enough, they did not. There's hope for the future! Now, granted, Kobi peed sometime between their walk at 5 a.m. and 7:30 when I got up with Grayson for the day. But she peed on the puppy pad, so it's forgiveable.

Yes, I was up with the dogs at 5 a.m. I fell asleep on the sofa last night and didn't take them for their usual 9:00 walk before bedtime. So I paid the price. I had Flower's nose in my face at 5, and there was no telling her to wait. So I got up and tramped around the complex with them. Let this be a lesson to me. A tired 9 p.m. walk is better than a tired 5 a.m. walk.

Speaking of walks, here's a video of us walking the dogs. It's fairly typical of how it goes. We were trying to capture video of Kobi doing her amazing pee contortions, but met with only very limited success. One of these days we'll get a really good video of it and win a million dollars.

This weekend we got Grayson's hair cut. We've been meaning to do it for weeks. I was surprised at how short he wanted it. But he was certain, so we had it all clipped off. He looks very cute. He has ears! I'd sort of forgotten.

Today's tasks: get Flower to the vet (she's overdue for shots), buy dog food, clean the floors in the old house, call the realtor.

Oh, nevermind... I just got a call from Emily at Frontier Country, the organization I did the filming for a few weeks ago. Their videographer's hard drive crashed and they lost all the voice over I had done, so I'm going in at 2 today to re-record everything. Thank god it's not the filming part. Ug. Once is enough for that stuff. Guess I won't get the floors done after all. Got to get the dog to the vet at 4:30, so there won't be time. Man, sometimes I think we'll never get this house listed, much less sold.

One perfect fall leaf

I was driving through Norman at lunch with a friend and we both saw this amazing tree and said "LOOK at that tree!"  

After lunch I went back to photograph it and collect this beautiful leaf. Can you believe the color?  The whole tree was covered in these.