Too True!

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Snow Day Video

We’ve had quite the dump of snow in the last twenty-four hours. Sweetie braved the roads. I stayed home to be safe and keep the pups warm. But they had to go out, and that gave me a chance for some pictures and video. Enjoy.

 

Wondering

Nina II

I’ve been gone two nights now. I wonder if the pups think the coyotes got me? I am missing them so much. So I just close my eyes and pet them in my mind. Daisy’s thick fur gives under my palms. I can feel her old lady moles on her head. Buddy rolls over so I can rub his strong belly and then he lays his face in my lap, tilts his head and raises an eybrow. Nina  jumps up next to me and I cup her small face in my hands and wipe the sleep out of her eyes before she bounds off to grab a toy to play fetch with.

For now I have to make due with Nina II – who Sweetie and Ali got for me last week for my one-night stay after my ablation.

PS – In my boredom yesterday, I tweaked the sidebar and added a subscribe button, if you are so inclined.

PPS – In clearing my spam filter this morning, just as I clicked “clear all spam” I saw a small comment right at the top of the filter from “Ashleigh” commenting on And we get? Just as it disappeared into the ether, I saw that it read, something like “Over promise, under deliver.”  I just wanted to acknowledge her comment and invite her to comment again. Spammy is good, but every once in a while he makes a wrong turn and pops real people in there. Just ask Steve Nielson.

 

Pet Cuteness

Every morning the Dogs go out to do their business. Every morning the ritual goes thusly:

After they’ve had an appropriate amount of time to do what they need to do I let them back in and I gather them around me for dog biscuit distribution. But Buddy, my rottweiler-shepherd mix, also has another thing that he does when he first comes in: goes into the family room to pick up his toy. It’s a plush ball, pink with purple spots. It’s really seen better days. One too many cycles in the washer and the sqeaker no longer works. It’s ratty and sticky from dog saliva. But it belongs to him and if he can’t find it, he gets anxious.

This morning: Buddy goes to family room as usual, picks up his toy. Daisy and Nina dance around me for their bones and I call Buddy to come on over. No one gets a bone until all are sitting in front of me. Buddy comes over with his toy still in his mouth and realizes he’s going to have to let it go to get a bone. Rather than drop it in the middle of the kitchen, he turns around, heads back to the family room, drops it there where its safe and then comes back to sit with the others for his bone.

Serious cuteness. At least to me.

 

5 Stars

Seriously. I got one of these the other day and used it today. It rawks.  Cleaned my sofa and love seat like a charm. Beats rollers and the vacuum cleaner all to heck. Whee!  No need to throw it away either. Just remove one of the rollers, get rid of the fur and put the roller thingie-ma-bobbie back in and you’re good to go for another round.

Right up there with the Furminator.

 

Daisy update

So…Sweetie took her to the vet and I got regular voice mail updates.

Here’s what Dr. Minor (the best vet in all of Nevada) said to Sweetie:

“Yay! She made it! She’s got arthritis!” 

Yes, folks, that’s a victory. Our neighbor’s antifreeze didn’t get her. She lived. And now she’s old. And she has arthritis! Yippee!

Better yet, her blood work? NORMAL…even her kidney function looks better than it ever has.

So…we’ve got her on Deramaxx, and already she seems to be improving, pain-wise.

Doing the happy dance, we are.

 

Daisy

Daisy, back in her youth, on one of our camping trips to Mt. Rose

She’s not been eating as much as she usually does, and last night she didn’t get up and come to bed with me as she has done every night of the last eleven and a half years.  Sometime in the night she made her way into the bedroom and settled on her comforter and pillows on my side of the bed. It’s her spot, and she’s the only pup that is allowed to sleep uncrated. This morning, while Nina and Buddy have risen, shaken the sleep out of their ears and headed out the back door, Daisy is still laying on her comforter and pillows. No amount of cajoling from me or Sweetie seems to make a difference.  She just wants to stay there and sleep. This is not like her. At All.

I think it’s time to take her to Dr. Minor and get some bloodwork done. I need to know if her damaged kidneys are finally doing what we expected six years ago. Or is something else at work here? Or is it just old age?

Daisy, hanging out, waiting for Nina to come within striking distance.

 

Our Kittehs

In reviewing my critter posts (link to the right), I realize I’ve done very few posts on the feline side of the family. In an effort to redeem myself, here are some photos and short bios.

Missy Maow

Missy:  Our matriach kitteh. Came to us via the Truckee Meadows Humane Society, Adopt-A-Pet at the Reno Petco on Virginia Street. Picky eater, needs to be In My Lap or Near My Body any time it is possible. Fierce sock monster. She and Daisy are about the same age.

Maya: Our spooky tortie. She came to us via kids outside the supermarket with a cardboard box full of kittens. I saw her. End of discussion.

Jezebel

Jezebel: Maya’s daughter. From a litter of four, she picked me. Talker. Oh can she talk. Constantly. Did I mention she’s a talker?

 

This is my life…

But in my world, the pups join in too.

 

Letting sleeping dogs lie

Well, that’s what’s happening in our living room right now. Sweetie and I spent last night in Reno at the Silver Legacy. Since we live so far out of town, when we do Dinner and a Show, it’s always easier to book a room as well.

After making sure the dogs had plenty of food and water, we left them in the backyard and headed for Reno, arriving at the hotel around 4ish. We dropped the car off at Valet Parking, checked in, and then headed over to Roxy’s for a pre-dinner cocktail. They’ve got a piano bar there and the fella tickling the ivories was a 60-something gray-haired dude whose every song sounded exactly the same. I wondered out loud if he knew Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” and Sweetie got up, popped a fiver in the guy’s jar and requested it. What a hoot. I cannot even begin to describe how he talk-sang the song in true lounge lizard fashion, and his La-Dee-Dah-Dee-Dee-Dah-Ah was beyond hopeless. Thankfully, Sweetie and I were sitting below him at the actual bar and he did not see my convulsions or hear my stifled laughter.  Then, just to assure us that “Piano Man” wasn’t the only Billy Joel song in his repetoire (not that we’d asked), he started in with his rendition of “New York State of Mind,” and while no one could have mistaken him for Billy Joel, the song actually suited his style much better and wasn’t too bad.  We chatted up two ladies sitting to the right of us at the bar and found out they were there to see Wanda Sykes like we were. One of them told us that earlier she’d been playing Blackjack at the same table with Wanda Sykes, but was too timid to say anything to her.

After drinking our cocktails (7 & 7 for me, Glen Moray for Sweetie), we dashed upstairs to change for dinner at La Strada, and dinner was all I’d hoped for. I had La Strada’s famous Porcini Mushroom Ravioli (melt in your mouth delicious, delicate seasoning), while Sweetie had to settle for the Cod (being as the Ono he’d immediately spied on the menu was not being served that evening).  The young couple seated next to us were from the Bay Area (Marin), and were there to see Wanda too. We finished off a bottle of chardonnay and headed for the Grande Exposition Hall and Wanda!  After three tries, we finally asked for help to find our seats and settled in. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a co-worker of mine and her partner sitting right behind us.

Wanda’s warm-up act was a funny guy named Keith Robinson. His stuff on parenting was hysterical, especially his bit about turning into his cliche-spouting father.  And I especially liked at the end when he spoke out against violence against women.

Wanda rocked. That is all I can say. Great show, great night. We got an after show drink and sitting in DrinX gave me an opportunity to people watch, both the people sitting around us and the stream of people walking to and fro outside.  We humans are such an interesting lot.

This morning we hit the Silver Legacy buffet though we probably shouldn’t have bothered…it wasn’t that pricey, but it just wasn’t that great, and neither Sweetie nor I can do much damage at those sorts of things.  I think we would have like Stirling’s Champagne Brunch better, but live and learn.

We headed home to our three dogs who’d spent the night in the backyard, rather than our bedroom, and they were mighty happy to see us walk through the gate. I’m sure they didn’t sleep well, because now they are passed out. Nina won’t let me get five feet from her, even though I’m sure she’d rather just sleep. But every time I get up to process the laundry, she stumbles after me.

Life is good. I’m feeling very loved today…all the way around.