Consistently, predictably, dependably, unwaveringly ERRATIC

One of the most important things I meant to post about - it was about six weeks ago now, on the 16th October, that the Boyo died. He made it to thirteen years old and he was happy. He was skinny and his breathing was dreadful at night and my god, the amount of snot he produced - but he still loved his food and his walks and pouncing on the squeaky ball. Friends of mine came over on the Saturday and he had lots of pats and cuddles and he even played fetch with one of them rather than just having the ball tossed for him to catch. But he just kept getting weaker and his symptoms got worse.

( The vet came to us )

Ow, fuck, everything hurts.

Melbourne was amazing but my body is exacting revenge in no uncertain terms. Swollen lymph nodes, sore muscles, aching joints, my bones hurt. My brain is gone. I hope it doesn't seem like I'm ignoring anyone but I have so very little energy right now (and EVERYTHING HURTS, ow, fuck) and that energy is going into looking after the greyhound - now to be known here as Miss Shadow and things are going pretty well with her at least! Except that we have learned that her boredom threshold on rainy days in pretty low. We have learned this at the expense of several plastic folders, the corner of a nice cane chair (we were out for that one), the corner of a old wooden bookcase and her collar. While she was wearing it.

( See the face of innocence? )

Greyhound will be here on Monday!

She's recovered nicely from her desexing and it was just a matter of when transport could be arranged. I thought she'd be stuck in kennels until then but it turns out she's taking part in their fostering program at a women's prison. I think those programs are fantastic so I'm quite pleased by that.

The Boyo seems particularly bored by life tonight since Mum is out (he makes me feel so special, really.) Let's see if he's bored on Monday!

The cat will be thrilled, I'm sure.

Haven't been around much, I know, partly for computer reasons (but we now have two working computers - we hope) and partly due to considerable reaction-fatigue/exhaustion and then inexplicable exhaustion and feeling rotten last week. But things are picking up and amongst the overdoing it and expensive dentist visit, several good things have occurred:

1) I AM GOING TO SEE FALL OUT BOY AFTER ALL!!! Not in Sydney but thanks to the kind offices of shinetheway, therathasspoken and why_am_i, I have a ticket to the Melbourne show and places to stay down there. Having found some discounted train fares as well, I'm all set! AND VERY EXCITED!!!

2) Finally managed to get Mum out of the house a few night ago to see The Hobbit before it disappeared from cinemas entirely. (I didn't want to go without her since she did want to see it but it was getting exasperating. Prebooking is the key.) I didn't love it immediately the way I did LOTR but I really enjoyed it. Loved Thorin, Killi was gorgeous, Gandalf remained magnificent in every way, Bilbo was quite delightful (and really, I sympathised - who wants a bunch of strangers eating everything in the larder and tossing the good china around?) I was impressed with how much information they managed to weave into the film. Shame Galadriel was the only woman.

New Zealand remains spectacular.

I have never seen such an amazing collection of noses. And not just the dwarves!

The cat is currently going through his summer moult and shedding even more suffocatingly than usual. This means we have been treated to several renditions of the hurkhurkhurk hairball cough (although no hairballs have yet made an appearance, fingers crossed this continues.) What does this have to do with The Hobbit? Well, the night after watching it, I heard the cat and realised that he sounded a great deal like Gollum spitting out his name. Now, whenever I hear Gollum coughing out, "Gollum! Gollum!" I'm going to be waiting for the hairball.

I cannot believe it's been twelve years since I first saw The Fellowship of the Ring. I turned to Mum at the end in great indignation, saying, "They can't end it there! It's just getting really interesting!" I hadn't read the books beforehand although I'd tried. Mum had an old omnibus paperback with miniscule type that somehow wasn't very inviting. After I'd seen the films, I bought the hardcovers with Alan Lee's art and they were wonderful to read. I did try to read The Hobbit after that but I couldn't get into it. And when I heard they were going to make a movie out of it ... well, I figured I'd try the same thing.

Didn't anticipate three movies! But I still think I'll wait. In the meantime, we watched The Fellowship last night and we're planning on The Two Towers tomorrow night. *g*

3) Doggy! After the first two dogs I looked at were adopted, I saw a pretty light brindle greyhound on petrescue and enquired. She hadn't been tested for cat tolerance at that point but the rescue co-ordinator, L, invited me to send in an application just in case. Unfortunately that hound finds cats a bit too exciting so that didn't work out but our application was approved and L said she'd let us know when they next had a cat-friendly, dog-friendly female. I still lurked obsessively around the greyhound rescue websites but given the dentist expenses I decided there was no rush. And today, I got a call!

They have a small, black, female greyhound, barely two years old and would we like her? And if so, would we like to foster for six weeks with a view to adopt or have someone else do the fostering/acclimatisation period and just have the usual two-week adoption trial?

Well, after discussion with Mum we've decided to foster (they supply food, leash, collar, muzzle, even bed and winter jacket if needed, for the six weeks, plus instructions and support) and our hound will be here in about ten days! (She's being desexed early next week so it depends on the stitches used/general recovery.)

She has a glossy black coat with white toes and a white tip to her tail and a little white patch on her chest and in one of the photos they sent it looks like a lopsided heart.

A few days of cooler weather, being awake during daylight hours, a little bit of energy and I want to do All The Things! I keep getting up to do All The Things and have to to remind myself to sit down, rest, take it easy, because if I do All The Things today, I won't be able to do A Single Damned Thing tomorrow.

But I've still made major progress on my bedroom. Not just a quick dust and tidy up but a thorough clean out. Also started reading The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders, one of my other birthday books! Brain fog lifting slightly ...? I still want to do one more Snowflake post but not tonight I don't think.

Tomorrow's going to be on the unpleasantly warm side (though not scorching) so I won't expect Many Things but maybe a Few. I hope!

P.S. We might be adopting another dog. Who? When? Where? Not sure yet! 

I keep thinking I've made posts in the last few weeks then looking at my dw and realising I just thought about it. Clever girl. But as the weather heats up (37C today, it has not been fun this week) and the mayhem of December descends, I feel that happy things will be needed. So I will try to post them even if can't manage actual coherence.

I was looking at cute animal vidoes on Youtube a couple of nights ago (happy things!) when I decided to look up dalmatian smiles. Why, I'm not sure. I didn't expect the lump in my throat but I was smiling as well after watching them because ... well, watch them yourselves. How can you not smile back at these crazy dogs?!

Most 'smiling' dals I've met have even smiles like Rupert here. He's also a good example of why people who aren't familiar with dalmatians or doggy body language can find the smiling quite alarming!




This dal wriggles and dances the way Lady Muck did when she smiled. And she looked more like Elli, with a narrower head and mostly white face. She had fewer spots on her ears and more on her body but with asimilar mix of large and small spots. But her smile was not even like this!

And yes, I sounded just as silly when I asked Lady Muck to 'schmile!' for me. She had the craziest, twisted 'schmile' and she'd suck in too much air and sneeze and smile some more. Our morning greeting was me asking for a smile and I usually got one. I'd often give her a good ear rub 'n' scritch as well and she'd moan and groan and schmile and schneeze and it was quite hilarious.

This was the only 'crooked' smile I found (and I even hear a familiar whine!) Watch this and imagine the nose twisting even further, more teeth showing, and multiple explosive sneezes. She looked utterly demented - but as Mum and I said to each other, in a way that made it a great smile because you couldn't help but laugh and smile back!

 

I do miss silky ears and schmiles. But I still call these videos happy things.

We buried Lady Muck's ashes yesterday. We would have done it sooner but Brother was going to try to come over for it. Didn't work out.

We buried her under the willow tree and we were standing there feeling a bit weepy - and The Boyo decided it was time for a good roll on the grass. He was thrashing around with great enthusiasm, looking perfectly ridiculous and we had to laugh.

The house still seems very quiet. The Boyo seemed a bit subdued at first but I think now it's just the quiet of only one dog. And said dog doesn't care about cucumber ends or apple cores which is weird. I'm used to being rushed as soon as I start to chop those things ... (our last dalmatian adored cucumber peel, mango skins and half-fermented persimmons. Dogs are strange.)

( Our vet clinic is made up of lovely people. And the cremation service was pretty great )

It was warm and sunny for a change yesterday. It seemed like a good time to say goodbye.

Thank you again to everyone who commented two weeks ago. You really helped me deal with this.

... and euthanise your pet?

( Icon is horribly appropriate )

I'm in the bathroom, quietly getting ready for bed, when I hear desperate scrabbling and thumping outside the door. Recognising these sounds as Lady Muck falling over and having trouble getting back up, I might not have been immediately alarmed, except that she had been peacefully asleep when I last saw her and she had no reason to come down the hall.

Yanking up my underwear and dashing out of the bathroom, I recognised her particular form of staggering as that which happens when she really needs to go to the toilet and has only just realised it. Hence why she came down the hall - she needed to find someone to open the back door. Having cleaned up one mess a couple of nights earlier, I was not inclined to do so again and rushed her through the house and out the back door. Just in time.

And that would be why I was standing in the back yard at 2a.m. wearing nothing but a pair of panties. It was a trifle chilly.

Poor old dog is very wobbly now. She woke me up twice last night by falling over and needing help. Mum says she was quite listless this morning but she's perked up again ...