Waders

In honor of Halloween

Three days to get used to The Change and three streams to drain when I got home.  When we go see the vet on Saturday for his yearly, in addition to pushing the stress peeing idea, I'm going to float the hormonal theory of sudden incontinence, apparently when a dog gets fixed and his hormones change, he can lose control of his bladder, it seems that hey need a bit of testosterone to keep that in check and he doesn't have anymore. Its been months since his surgery but it takes that long for the hormones to balance out and I think they are tilted in the wrong direction.

Incontinence is treatable!

So that I would not spend too much time obsessing on dog urine, Rocket and I took a long walk downtown to the museum district. We haven't been by there in a long time so it was nice change for us. We climbed on many retaining walls and sniffed many interesting sniffs. We or rather I  sniffed at the Christmas trees they all ready have displayed in their museum store windows - but it was a much different snif it was closer to a tsk.

Here is Rocket holding the very world on his shoulders

So calm, so collected. He likes the smell of dog urine. Sigh.

Making the heart grow fonder

 Sunday I came to a decision : I can not come home every day for lunch forever.

I knew that eventually that this would have to happen but I was very happy to just let it happen organically. I didn't want to set a timetable or arbitrarily make a date on the calender and say "This is the last day". I wanted it to just happen, and it did.

Sunday I packed a lunch for myself and took it to work and as it turns out, spent part of my lunch hour getting a flu shot I had forgotten about - I was still able to  go back to my old stomping grounds at the foot of Dix Hill and ate my lunch while I watched the leaves fall and the birds and squirrels cavort.

And spent the rest of the afternoon praying fervently hat they dog wasn't destroying the office room. Needless to say I rushed home - Totally broke all the "rules" about not adding to the dogs anxiety by quietly coming home, visiting with the cat, going to the john, changing clothes and generally completely ignoring the dog for twenty minutes ( I haven't been able to do the full twenty) and then going in and non-greeting the dog with no eye contact and  no speech. Its completely unfriendly, but apparently, rushing into the house and racing to his side to greet him with high pitched baby talk and excitement, is not helpful and only adds to the anxiety the dog feels. Sigh.

Monday, I was (very quietly) greeted by pee. Not a lot of pee and clearly, it had been there for a while, but he hadn't destroyed any furniture or hurt himself so I took it as a win. I will have Natures Miracle on hand for the rest of my life, but its a trade off I'm will to deal with.

Monday I fixed my lunch and planned on spending my lunch hour reading my kindle and communing with nature through my car windows. Instead I spend my lunch hour at Sam's waiting or Rockets meds. The good part of this, was that I could not go home, I was trapped where I was and there wasn't anything I could do about it. The flu shot and the paperwork ate time on Monday and Sam's ate my whole lunch hour Tuesday.

I again spent the afternoon praying the dog wasn't destroying anything or hurting himself. I got home and found that he peed again, but this time he seemed to hold it longer because, well, you don't really want know how I figured that out, but I see progress. I do not think that I can with hold anymore water in the morning than I all ready am, he must have fluid! He does get wet food mixed with his dry but I still offer a little of the real stuff because I fear dehydration and kidney damage more than I fear a wet floor.

Saturday Rocket goes to the vet for his yearly and the Vet and I are going to talk about upping the dose of his new med and maybe upping the prozac. I really want us both to have peaceful afternoons.

Kitchen

That's what $17,645 looks like. I think looking at the picture, that I would need the doors to be a darker brown to match the dark in the back splash. I love the quartz counter top but in a perfect world it would be concrete mixed with recycled glass. All the wood would be bamboo, all surfaces an hardware would be as green as possible.

I don't have $17,645. I hate my floor, HATE. I hated it when I moved in twelve years ago and I have not become ambivalent in my opinion  over the years - I have tried to try to cover it up. It should be a good, heavy traffic tile. The wall paper could be replaced. The cabinet doors need to be sanded and then sprayed a different color.

I can't afford any version of the above pipe dreams, but the floor needs to be replaced. because its awful. Maybe I can work on that and then move to the wallpaper sometime after that.


I need an HGTV show to come in and make it gorgeous. How does one make that happen?

Weekend

I was causally thinking about what I was going to wear to work on Monday and then about what I was going to make for lunch and then more immediately, my shower. Life was good.

And then I remembered that Strangers were coming to my house Monday night to talk to me about kitchen renos!  There is zero chance that this is going to happen, but its free and I like free. They are going to take lots of measurements and I think its always a good idea to have those handy - and if someone else wants to do it?  More the better.

Instead of making lunch or deciding on what I am wearing to work Monday I through myself into getting the kitchen to a condition that I would not be embarrassed to have strangers in. Not for the upcoming holidays, not because I should have a clean kitchen. not because people I care about are going to be in the space - Strangers I don't care about are going to see it and I wanted it to look nice for them.

Mostly I don't want strangers to eat out on the condition of my kitchen. The last thing I want to do is to became a meme at the Home Depot. So I was on my knees cleaning my floor and scrubbing the doors of  my appliances. It got done.

I could have done this at my leisure during any of the many, many hours I spent watching TV or sunning myself in the yard with dog, walking the dog or aimlessly going to the store with the dog. Did you know that Home Depot is Dog Friendly? You can bring your dog when you go to buy whatever it is you need at Home Depot - Which for me right now, is the Santa Vader or the Christmas Giraffe . Sadly, they will not be coming home with me, so I have to visit them. This is how I ended up with the kitchen consult.

I also learned this weekend while I was puttering around not cleaning my house, that it is much easier to mow your leaves than to rake your leaves. Much. I am giving away my rakes.

Made with #Pixlr # - http://pixlr.com/mobile

Friday Cat Blogging

Pints for Paws

Rocket and I had a night out at a bar! Rocket and I went to a fund raiser for Cause for Paws and we had a lovely time! If you are at all interested in current  Halloween fashion trends among the four legged population, and really, who isn't - This Year is all about Amphibians, Shell fish and Sea Creatures! In the costume contest that we did not win, were a : Dolphin, frog, octipus, crawdad, dragon and a lizard. Rocket coming dressed as a Ralph Lauren model and another large dog dressed as a Rock Star didn't have a chance. The pet costume industry has a serious bias against large breeds! The winner was a tiny dog dressed as a crawfish.

If they had a Mr. Best Dressed or a Mr. Congeniality though, young Rocket would have won hands down.

He and I both are now exhausted

Taking into my own hands.

Rocket has seen some improvement. He has dialed back the gorging to snacking! The wonders of modern veterinary pharmacology! But, its  still not good enough. I wanted him to become an futon anorexic.  I'm afraid that this might not be possible in the short term. I am taking it to the next level. If I can't make him want to stop eating my futon, I can make it as difficult as possible. That is sheets of a  particularly unpleasant carpet protector with the pointy side out.

Very low tech, but I  hope an important deterrent to his afternoon  futon centered freak outs. I called the vet today to register my lack of complete satisfaction with his new med and to ask if maybe we could up the dose a bit, as it stands, it has kept him from chowing down like he did Monday but he's still snacking and I want him to go on a diet. A crash diet. I was unable to speak with the actual vet but I made sure that my comments made it to his chart and I am going to call back to speak with someone with a prescription pad.

I can't be there to catch him in the act so I have to do something to make it as unattractive and painful a process as possible. I want him to think of eating that futon as a bad, bad thing that he doesn't want to do anymore. I don't want to hurt him badly, but a little discomfort can be an object lesson.

Learning about the neighborhood.

Well, he didn't chew on the futon as much as he did Monday. He also seems a little hyper and more restless - he isn't a restless dog, he takes naps. A lot of naps, he's pretty much wide awake right now. I did notice while I was writing this that I too a look around and didn't see him.

I can always see him, he is always in the room with me . He was not in the room with me. He was in the office, on the futon, in the dark, chewing on a bone. he was not chewing on the futon.

After I moved the futon around to hide the new chewing, I noticed that Rocket seems a little "up", he is always happy to see me but he usually doesn't go on a victory lap around the house in my honor. I took him to the park because I decided that he needed to o o the park. He got there and ran like he was being chased by the devil. He ran flat out. He also met a couple of new dogs and chased them. At some point some dog  bite or nipped his sides and now he as boo-boos on both flanks. I believe it might have been the totally adorable spaniel who mounted him - Rocket pulled away and I think the spaniel dug in with his claws a bit.

We left the park and went for a walk, he wasn't ready to go home and I wasn't sure I wanted him to go home in the state he was in. So we walked and discovered a whole neighborhood I didn't know was there. I had always assumed that the world fell off at the edge of the dog park and so there was no reason to  go beyond the parking lot.

It turns out there is a little shopping center and a takeout/dine in grill. The Brookside Market and Grill  where they serve Mediterranean food and have a large selection of international foods in the market, and it is also a convenience store. I looked them up on Yelp and the reviews were very positive  and now I want to go there to see if I'll like them too. On Face book they have their menu and it looks interesting. I have wanted to try out Shawarma after seeing it on many Food network food porn shows and now I can and close to home! Yay!

F%^&*ed to Fixed

I came home to a wonderful welcome form Rocket!

My first reaction was to stand in the doorway and scream. And then I came into the room and screamed at Rocket. And then I got on the phone to the vet to scream at them. Clearly Plan A is not working anymore and its time to move to Plan B.  And NO I can't afford a NC State Vet School Behaviorist! My insurance doesn't cover that and I can't afford it on my own. Hook me up with a chemical restraint.

This is in addition to his Prozac.

The vet asked me if I yelled at the dog when it happened and I was like "Yup. Screamed like a banshee", she said "Oh. You should never do that! You just ignore him when he does things like that! Screaming makes the anxiety worse." I was like vet please lets talk about my anxiety! I;m going to have a stroke here! "Ignore him when he does a bad thing!?" NOT.

We took a trip to Sam's and got the pills and fed me then home to fed him and then we went to Wallyworld for duct tape and  a new futon cover.

Photo blogging the experience - How To Fix or Conceal the Damage to Your Chewed up Futon

 Stuff the stuffing back in, don't be afraid to not get it all back in.

First tape the wound shut, make sure its secure.

Seal the area completely and as strongly as possible, it needs to hold.

Make sure the outer layer is also sealed and secured to contain the damage.

Cover the area to keep the wound clean and contained and the scar hidden from view.

Clean the room of evidence and hope for the best. And that the chemical restraints hold.

Doing nothing and liking it.

You know what this weekend was? This weekend was "Diana does nothing all weekend and really, really enjoys herself" It was heaven.

I did start to feel a little guilty about all the nothing I was getting done, so I took the front horizontal planter out of commission and  decided that next year the shoe trees slash planters will be attached to the pallets with zip ties instead of the metal hooks they came with - and this is not just because I lost some in the transition process, they will turn up ( next time I till the garden). The planter in the back yard might stay where it is because it was my first try and was a learning experience and there are a lot of staples involved and I think it is in every ones best interest if  it can stay where it is. I will empty it out after my chives die back, but is in a good place and can winter there.

Saturday I was so lazy I didn't even take the dog for a walk, I ran errands and he came with me. I count this as enrichment because he gets to see new things and watch new people! Yay! Also it keeps him excited and that ultimately, makes him sleepy so it feels like he had a much more full day than he actually had.

Later we curled up on my chair and watched a lot of TV.

Sunday we slept late and watched more TV and later, I took Rocket for a longer than anticipated walk around downtown. And then we watched more TV, I took a shower and then we watched more TV.

A super good weekend all around. Next weekend I see oxtail stew getting made.

Friday Cat Blogging

Kitty smile!

Live and Learn

And we're open for business! Yay!  Well, "we" were always open for business "we" went to work everyday. The woman down the hall with the same job description as me but with a different payer source, had been out since the first. I'm hoping she doesn't ask how long I was off for because I can't tap dance well enough to dance around the fact I wasn't furloughed for a minute. If I were her, I would hate me.

On to happy news! My washing machine washed a load of laundry! All the way through! All by itself!  And they came out all but dry! It was just like old times! So exciting! I'm like "OMG! I can do my laundry anytime I want!" I spent two months with a cranky washer and suddenly I'm Helen Keller learning W A T E R.

It did make it clear to me that the machine was ill for quite a while before it started to show symptoms. The laundry hadn't been nearly as wrung out as it should have been, and while I noticed the difference, I decided that it was my imagination and it never was that not wet coming out of the machine. Yes, yes it was, it was that not wet. It actually borders on the damp when it comes out, not wet but damp. It had been wet for a while.

Thinking positively, I now have a new timer and a newish control panel so it should  (Please Jesus!) work for at few more years or until a really spectacular appliance sale comes along. Its all but a new machine now having a had heart and brain transplants. So for the cost of a low end, stripped down new machine, I didn't have to get the old machine out and a new machine in - major score there, and I got  to keep using my old bells and whistlers machine. I did learn a lesson though: Do not let the repair service order the part, get the part number, its on your paperwork as well as on the machine, and order the part yourself online. You will get a much better deal than if  the service company orders the part for you.

Happy Friday.

Just say No Comment.

I ran into these little boys while walking with Rocket and we had a nice chat and one asked if Rocket was neutered - points for vocab for that kid, but he said Rocket didn't look fixed. I was like, how do I have the conversation without sounding like a perv? Have my vet sin a statement contesting to the fact that  he had huge out sized balls prior to his surgery? The vet was impressed and shocked by the brass ones that dog was carrying around. Now, he is not even  shadow of what he once was, he is down to a tiny, nickel plated ball-ette now.

I was like Dudes, I can't really talk about the relative size my dogs former genitals with you, I'm pretty sure there are statutes in place against forty-five year old women having those kinds of conversations with eleven year old boys.

Post fix he looks much more sleek. Much more like a seal. A tall seal, a seal that grew legs and needed long ears to be symmetrical! That's his Halloween costume! He's a Land Seal! Ta Da! He looks fixed damn it.  Ask him, I know he's noticed the difference.

Speaking of the dog, he has taught me a trick.  He goes into the kitchen and I take him outside and he pees. Super. Then we go back into the house and go back to whatever we were doing. As soon as we're settled, he goes back to the kitchen and rings the bells on the door to signal he needs to go back outside. We retrace our steps and he voids completely. Why he couldn't do this on the first trip there is no answer. I don't rush him or hurry him along post potty, he wees and heads back to the house.

He is also making the couch look much more comfortable than I ever thought possible. I've had I for fifteen years and its never been more than a prop - but now,  thanks to Rocket, its functioning as a real couch for the first time in its life, I'm discovering after fifteen years that its actually really comfortable and nap-ready and it can do more than hold up  festive throw pillows and function as a enormous dust catcher. Oh that Rocket! Is there anything he can't make better?  He's is truly a magical land seal.