bad news

Yesterday we had Blondie put down.

I have had this horse for 23 years (I bought her as a 4 year old), she gave me two beautiful babies, one of which I saw being born. We have shared many many rides, and she has been a favorite with all our neighbors for all that time. Except for the two trips to be bred, she has never been away from home. When she ran and kicked up her heels, she was poetry in motion. She never offered to bite or kick, and anyone could ride her.

We still don't know exactly what was wrong with her; the only way to find out definitely would be to take her to the equine facility in Ohio, and by then she could neither stand nor walk, so a trailer ride was out of the question. She did have a hoof abscess, and both the vet and the shoer were unable to find "the spot" from the sole of her foot to relieve the pressure. Two days later the abscess broke through above her hoof, at the coronary band, and usually once that happens the horse is sound immediately. But she still was down, only rose briefly to relieve herself and then she tried to lie down, but actually collapsed to her side. It was unsafe to be with her in the stall once she was up, since she could fall anytime and anywhere, including on top of us. I used epson salt poultices on her foot, but each time I changed them they gagged me, and the smell would linger on my hands for hours. It was draining on both sides of her hoof and at the heel, and as the days passed, it became apparent that she would eventually slough off the entire foot. bloodwork showed her kidneys were failing, although she ate and drank all the time, and would nicker at us. Her pupils were unequal in size, and she had mini-spasms for no apparent reason. And a horse who lies down all the time can't live. I think she had either spinal or brain damage or had torn up her hip in a fall while running, and at the same time formed the abscess from a stone bruise, puncture, something. She developed pressure sores on her hocks, elbows, thighs, stifle from pawing and spinning herself around while laying prone, so no matter how much bedding we forked under her, she would end up laying on the bare stall mat. I know the sores hurt terribly, but they were largely in places impossible to bandage. Late Monday night I gave her another shot, and as she lay there, it struck me that she would never be better, not even to amble around the paddocks; that I could see the weariness and pain in her eyes, and I realized she had given up. When the vet came last night, I stroked her and rubbed her ears, and it was over very quickly. N and I left, and a friend with the equipment came to take her for burial.

I feel very fortunate to have been owned by Blondys Girl.
But no, 23 years isn't enough time, for such a friend.

Blue

We're feeling a little down for some time about Blondie, the grand dame equine of our barn. Back in late June/early July, while bringing in the horses from the paddocks, we noticed that Blondie's "gimpy" leg, the left hind fetlock and pastern, had become more swollen and she was pretty lame. When I checked her in the morning, she was putting weight on it very gingerly, so I gave her two butazolidin tablets. Later in the day, I saw she was down and we couldn't get her up (outside of foaling, I've never seen her lying down). When the (replacement) vet arrived, he gave her banamine, dexamethazone, an antibiotic, and took two xrays of her pastern/fetlock. Temp was up a bit. But the hoof itself showed no tenderness, so probably not an abcess. Maybe a snake bite? He left me banamine and syringes/needles, and said to keep up the bute and give her two IV injections of the banamine a day. Her stall had just been cleaned (in fact, that is why she was out) but we raked the sawdust level and then bedded her down in hay. The next day the vet said the x-rays showed no ringbone, best of all no bone cancer, not even much in the way of arthritic changes (exceptional in a horse 27 years old). We kept on and also wrapped both hind legs with standing bandages. As soon as our regular vet got back from vacation, we called him. His thought is that Blondie had been dashing about and slipped, and did a partial split damaging her hip, and also twisted her foot, but rest is the only cure, and keeping her comfortable. It is, of course, brutally hot just now, the flies are thick, and I don't care what the ads say, there is no fly repellant worth a hill of beans. We put a stronger fan in her overhead fan support.

But today she seems much improved! She is up and standing on both hind legs (well, those and the front ones, too) the swelling is way down, she drank half of her water bucket, and nickered when I came in with fresh hay and grain. She got pretty tired, and laid down again, which for the legs/hip strain is the best, if we can avoid GI bleeds caused by the meds, and pressure sores from laying down, and colic because horses need to stand to help digestion and elimination. Keeping our fingers crossed.

Do you think a little cool weather would be too much to ask for? Well, maybe so...

What's new?

Well, let's see what is new these days.
Golf--Why does it look so easy on TV, and so hard when I'm just trying to look like I know what to do? If I could get the drive right, I don't care if it only goes 100 yards. Already my thumb hurts and my knees are creaking. At least a new pair of golf shoes are on their way. Everybody else has shoes that resemble sneakers. Mine resemble old lady orthopedic shoes..

Dogs--Man are they strong. They have gotten out twice, going under a gate where the dirt has been pounded down. Zoom! Once we had to go after them, and once they appeared on the front doorstep, pleased as punch with their romp. Maggie just turned one year old, Raven is 17 months. Raven weighs 110 lbs, and Maggie is taller, longer, and has better conformation (Raven is pigeon toed in the back), I'd guess her weight at 130 or so. They are greatly enjoying the pool, although I think 76 is MIGHTY cold. They are in desperate need of some firm basic obedience work, most likely with a trainer. Nothing elaborate, just, say, walking on a lead without ripping my shoulder out of its socket?

The weather continues to be thunderstorms with hail and torrential rain. Then it will be overcast, the humidity so high I can squeeze water out of the air. Also, the bug season has scarcely begun, and already I have to use my teeth as a bug screen when I drive the Miata with the top down.

We celebrated our 38th wedding anniversary on June 6th, it hardly seems possible. I heard the story of a couple who decided to invite two other couples to celebrate for all of them their long-standing marriages. The party was all planned, but before it happened, the other two couples got divorced! Ya just never know...

We've been watching the sci-fi miniseries "The Taken". Never saw it when it originally aired, but from snippets here and there we decided it looked interesting. My only problem is, if we go too long between viewing the episodes, I lose all track of who is who, given that it is a four generational cast, and younger versions don't much look like their older characters, it's confusing. But good.

Sleepy sleepy. Have a safe weekend, and stay away from those bleepity bleep Fireworks stores. Talk to any ER doc or nurse if you still think they are harmless.

Just as I am

Can't seem to shake this headache, it even wakes me up at night. I went to the driving range yesterday, and did OK for someone with two golf lessons. It was a lovely day, but the club swimming pool is directly behind the driving range, and I couldn't help thinking how good the water looked, and how much fun the swimmers were having. Today I feel like I've been rode hard and put up wet.

Update: back at the old homestead, torrential downpours (RED on the weather channel) have completely swamped the driveway and are beginning to fill the garage. The ditch/grate in front of the garage door is barely running. The floor drain inside the garage can't keep up. Once the garage water gets to the inner door, it rapidly floods the entire downstairs, so three of us are out there in a monsoon, bailing water out of the ditch and pouring it down the street. Finally get that mostly under control BUT the downstairs bath...... 3 inches deep in water. Coming in under the walls, under the tub and shower, and rapidly goes beyond the door and into the carpeted bedroom. It is now nearly 3 am, I have a huge fan and heater blowing on the carpet, after blotting up gallons of water with every towel and throw rug we own. The bath itself got partially mopped, before the mop head snapped off, cheap made in china crap.

I have 4 laundry baskets filled with wet towels and throw rugs, and so of course, the dryer, which worked fine yesterday, now refuses to produce any heat. So tomorrow it's out to a laundromat before Monster Mildew sets in. See what a great life I live?

So anyway, on the blog "sweetney.com" , I'm posting a "Just as you are" photo, lying here in bed with the laptop. Can you tell how lovely my beamish face looks, after therapy for rosacea, and laser removal of yukky spider veins? No? Ah well, another conceit blasted away. Well, can you tell that I am suicidally depressed? No? Just goes to show ya......

Xanax

Today was the therapist, and we went over the mind set that I had at the time of the two suicide attempts. I still don't fully know how I got from vague plans to spur-of-the-moment action. It makes me anxious about the future, to whether I can trust myself to just shuffle along in a gray haze without haphazardly setting a self-destructive scene in motion. So I "check in" with myself, looking for Telltale Signs. It's debilitating to second-guess my everyday actions and thoughts. Should I stop watching tear-jerker movies? Violent movies? Stay away from headline news? Should I be extra watchful when I read mysteries where suicide is a plot element? Is it a significant thought when I learn of an acquaintance's suicide, and my first thought is "How did they do it?"

So wearying.

First golf lesson tomorrow, don't know why I agreed to it. The golf shoes I bought are UGGGLY. My 15 minute attempt at hitting practice balls in the front yard showed me that I can get 30+ swings on 12 balls before I have to go find them. And that finding them is quite challenging, since they can be found anywhere in a 360 degree circle from where I stand. I did get a swell orange "Titelist" visor, bright orange, looks soooo great on my flame red hair that stands up around it a la Albert Einstein. Now all I need are plaid pants.

This weekend we got all three horses curried, clipped, washed, stalls cleaned, water buckets scrubbed, door name plaques up, the whole barn sprayed for flies, auto fly dispenser refilled, aisle cleaned, grain bought and put away, stall fans re-installed, etc etc ad nauseum. The farrier came as we were putting the final bits away, and, I'm sorry to say, did a very perfunctory job, having left their feet too long last time. Think I'll have to try another shoer.

So as I try to sleep tonight, I'll need a little help from my blue oval friends, along with a sleep mask and a CD of nature sounds. If you ever want to try sleepy-time music, I recommend ocean sounds. Under NO circumstances should you listen to Yanni or Kenny G, I find they make my ears bleed.....

A long time ago

When I was a little girl, maybe 8 or so, we lived next door to a family with two boys. Chuck was about my age and his brother Steve was older. I hadn't played much with boys, and these two were great guys, endlessly inventive in devising games, and didn't fight much, and even more incredibly, never told me to go home. The best time was when their father let me come along one night when they went surf fishing. It was wild being on the beach at night, the vastness of the sea, the loudness of the surf (not competing with screaming kids, blasting radios), the lights of ships waayy out on the horizon, how fast they moved. I had never fished at all, other than a worm on a hook in a pond, but Mr. C was endlessly patient, baiting it and casting it and showing me how to feel for a bite. I'm sure he got very little fishing done himself that night, and I don't remember us kids getting anything either, but we all climbed back in the car and promptly fell asleep on the ride home. Such a simple gift.

Mr. C developed a brain tumor a few months later, and died in a matter of weeks. The boys and their mom moved back to Virginia where she had family, and although they promised to write, they never did. I still grieve some when I think of them. I'm sure those boys grew up to be good men. And I've gotten pretty good with surf fishing, all in all.

Guilty!

I don't know why I feel guilty when I don't post for a while, I think I must have a guilt-gene defect that causes me to go to "TSK, TSK land" over faults that only I perceive. If I ever become a total hermit, it will be because I short-circuited trying to meet unreasonable expectations, even if they only existed in my own mind.

This last week has been a housekeeping nightmare. Maybe it's a spring cleaning thing. Maybe I'm on a straight shot to a fussy old age, going around picture straightening, wiping dry the kitchen sink, and washing the tires of my car every time I drive it. But lately it seem as if everywhere I look, I see some chore that has been let go too long already. And let's face it, I don't have the stamina to go on and on, vacuuming, scrubbing, tidying, and more. I get so tired so fast, I hate to even start a job knowing how beat I will be afterwards. I guess, at 57, I can't tell myself I'm "middle-aged" unless I plan to last until I'm 114.

And if I DO last until I'm 114, I am 100% certain I still won't have all the laundry done.

Mayday!

I've been running into a problem posting here, but I think I've figured it out. I re-uploaded the two posts below and they seem to be appearing OK now.

Welcome to May! I am SO glad to see spring, except for the "shower" part. The dogs are FEEEElthy, and even worse, they have these sticky seed pod thingys stuck to their coats, hundreds of them, and they take a really determined effort to pull them out. I think the dogs need to be Teflon coated.

Although Maggie, the Landseer, very seldom barks, Raven, the black Newf, kicks up a huge racket at everything: kids walking down the road, passing dogs, or just hearing other dogs bark. Her bark is, er, LOUD. So I got a "bark deterrent" collar that sprays citronella when she barks. So far it is working great, one little "woof" and then silence. I din't want to get a shock collar (I'm not sure it would even work with all that hair), and the "distracting noise" bark breaker I used years ago never did really work. Keeping my fingers crossed.

The dog I had years ago was a rescue Rhodesian Ridgeback, Simba, a lovely dog. He was big-- the size of a Great Dane, and we got him when he was 6 years old. He lived in the barn with the Newf we had then, and they were great company for each other. But Simba didn't like the horses, and he would stand inches from their faces and bark and bark. They are very tolerant, and just went on munching or dozing. But one day I heard Simba arfing away, then a yelp and ki-ying. I went out and here Blondie had kicked him, right in the head. (No horse shoes on). He was bleeding from the nose, and I took him immediately to the vet, who did x-rays and kept him overnight, but determined he was unhurt, and had just had his bell rung. When I took him home, Blondie was in front of the barn, and Simba swung a WIIIDE arc around her to get back in his doggy door into the barn. Blondie ignored him.

He never barked at the horses again.

(Here is where you must imagine a photo of Simba, which I cannot find ANYWHERE.)

Rachel time

Rachel was about 12 and had gotten off the school bus and started the trek toward home. As she approached, she first noted that our horses were screaming and neighing outside in the paddock, and that the cause of all the commotion was standing in our front yard--three strange horses. So thinking quickly, she opened the gate into our back yard and put a handful of grain in a bucket to rattle. They obligingly entered, and she shut the gate. Then she called me at work. I didn't recognize the horses she described, but I told her to keep an eye on them (and protect the blueberry bushes), that someone would probably be along soon, and I was on my way.

When the elderly man came walking up 20+ minutes later and saw his horses inside a fence, Rachel said he nearly dropped to his knees in thanks. He had been following them for FOUR hours. Each time as he would get close to them, they would casually meander a bit further along the dirt road. No one offered to help him or would approach the beasts, and they wandered nearly 5 miles and across a busy highway too. After he got his breath back, he called a neighbor to bring his horse trailer and they loaded and hauled them home. The horses didn't look the least guilty as they were loaded, very calm, like this was a regular excursion for them. He told the kids that they could come and ride anytime, but liability being what it is these days we passed.

I only needed rescue once, it was while I was riding Willie. We approached a flat bed truck parked at the edge of the dirt road, no problem. BUT THEN!! There was this horrible pile of PLASTIC just past the bumper of the truck on the ground, and he just knew it would chase him down and eat him. So in a remarkably athletic move, he LEAPED upward and spun to the left, (Surely the equal of a Lipizzaner "airs above the ground") leaving me (not a trick rider, alas), in a Wiley Coyote moment, astride...Thin air? As I hit the ground, I thought, I'm getting too old for this. My hitting the ground was Willie's cue to gallop hell-bent for leather back home. Fortunately, he got distracted by some lush green grass in a neighbor's yard, and paused to sample. Even more fortunately, a neighbor had seen us ride past thataway, and shortly after, saw Willie fly past sans rider, thisaway. He got in his car and followed the dust trail and found me assessing damages. He chauffeured me back to my faithful steed, and I limbered up walking him back to that treacherous pile of plastic, at which he had the grace to look a bit embarrassed. I then dragged my aching butt back into the saddle and completed an abbreviated ride. The next day I couldn't lift my right arm any higher than my shoulder, and I had some interesting bruises too.

Times past

I've been doing some reading and some random photo browsing, and it has led me to a topic familiar to all moms; bragging on our kids. My goal is to relate to you here little snippets that I remember from their childhoods, things that may be forgotten for all time as I get older. I promise to keep to a minimum of cuteness.

Our daughter Rachel and our son Christopher were born one year and nine days apart, which was rather like having all the work of twins, without all the free diapers and discount coupons. Anyway, this story occurred when Chris was around three, riding in the car on the way home. Traffic was, as usual, bad. ( I wonder why they call it RUSH hour, don't you?) The husband has always found relief from dealing with brainless drivers by turning the air blue with invective inside OUR car where the only one listening would really rather not. So a few days before, husband and I talked about cleaning up the language when the kids are in earshot. You know, (try to) set a good example. So on this particular journey home, an idiot driver in the right turn lane beside us at a red light, floors it when the green comes, and whips his car in front of us, cutting us off. Husband takes a breath, then lets it out with a muffled Sheesh!. Then from the back seat comes a clear sweet little voice that says "Stupid bastard". Muffled snorts from the front seat, til we could get settled and tell him that those were "big people words" that must not be used by kids.

this and that

Hello... could you see your way clear to leave me a comment? Maybe some suggestions, whatever moves you. Is this stuff boring? Just a quick comment SO IT DOESN'T FEEL SO DAMNED EMPTY HERE. Thank you, we now return you to our regularly scheduled program.

Little old Morgantown, WV is undergoing a real boom time now. I don't understand why, really, but everywhere you look there are big construction projects underway, shopping centers, housing of all kinds, huge hospital remodeling and expansion, a huge power plant. If someone hadn't been back to Morgantown in, say, 6 or 7 years, I think they would be shocked. I don't know where all the $$ is coming from, but I sure hope it doesn't dry up before they're finished. My parents used to live in a development where the owner tried to add a bunch of townhouses, and for all the years they lived there, those townhouses sat off to one side, half completed, and ever so slowly fell to rubble. The brambles and scrub growth now has even obliterated the foundations. Anyway, I found the sight of those failed plans sad. When I see ancient farmhouses all tumbled down and derelict, at least you can imagine them having once had families in them who were grateful for the shelter offered. Half constructed stuff leaves me with more of a sense of waste and futility.

I looked up the registration papers for my three horses. Blondie is the oldest, of course, as Willie and Maybe are her kids. I bought Blondie when she was 4, at the Quarter Horse Congress in Columbus Ohio, in 1986. I was, at the time, unemployed, having lost my research assistant lab job when the professor for whom i worked decided to trade academic research (ie, getting federal grants) for the security of doing research for Ciba-Geigy, a pharmaceutical firm, where the money is great, but your freedom to pursue a given line of research is greatly curtained in the search for a rosier bottom line. Financially, not the optimum time for a major equine purchase. But I digress. I went to the show in Columbus, saw an ad and went to see the mare, gave them a deposit, and returned to Morgantown to get my horse trailer and return to Columbus in the wee hours of the morning to load Blondie. Bless her heart, I know it was a tiresome noisy 5 hour ride to WV, but she traveled like a trouper. When she was nine I took her back to the original owners and bred her to First in Command, a champion Paint stallion; Willie was the result. He is a solid bay, no Paint markings, just a white strip on his nose, and so is registered "for identification" purposes. He's a little high strung, but sweet. Two years later Blondie went to a small town nearby where a guy with a a nondescript stable had a gorgeous Paint stallion, Amigo, with a famously cool steady disposition. The result was Maybe, who is a blue eyed Paint who was so spooky by 6 months of age we took her to a trainer with instructions to either settle her down or sell her down the road. Much to my surprise, after 3 months, she came home a different horse. I could catch her in the field and halter her, tie, groom, clip, blanket, and work around without her trying to throw herself at the gate or rear and strike. When it came time to break her to ride, she went back to the same trainer, and we were well satisfied. At the time. Now? Well, I'd say she needs a little remedial brush up on manners.

Anyway, as I said, I looked up their papers because every spring we have this debate about how old they all are, and it turns out that Blondie is 27, Willie is 17 and Maybe is 15!!

It doesn't seem possible. All those seasons, all those trips to the barn, the nickers and the careful sniffing Blondie does when I go in her stall, the eager way she eats, how protective she was of the little ones.....That all happened DECADES ago! Blondie is not just "aged" but ancient! Assuming no upsets, though, she could live another 5 or so years. However long she has, when she leaves it will leave a hole in my heart. She was there through some very bad times for me, and although people with only house pets think it is strange to get so attached to a horse, I am heart tied to her, to all three of them.

Here they are,,, Blondie (waving "hello" with her tongue), Willie, Maybe, and then a huddle of the Three.

OK!

All the horses are mostly full-haired, the dogs have shown great restraint in that they have not eaten any of the trash blown into the barn area, the cats are all bright eyed and bushy tailed (especially since all the windows are open now). So I will cross my fingers that this may be a month without a massive vet bill. Especially since this is the month for Uncle Sam to get his outrageous payoff. Don't you think that if a taxpayer making regular payments/deductions still owes money for last year, that when they obligingly send it off, they should get back some token from Uncle? I mean, I donate to several charities, and I'm always getting address labels, notepads, and so forth from them. Surely Uncle could send us, say, a bookmark? It could include a list of all the foreign companies that have contracts to sell to the U.S. materials and equipment that used to made here, before outsourcing drove all the manufacturing capability overseas. It could be laminated, so it would last.

Bet they could get them made cheap. In China, of course.

Movin' right along

I finished the kids' taxes, although I had to buy a new flat-screen monitor. I made a huge error when I decided to be a good greenie, and put "none" for the screen saver, and instead set the monitor to power down after one hour. So everything was fine, I went to eat dinner, and when I came back, the "sleeping" monitor refused to wake up! After much fiddling around, my son found that if he turned off the overhead lights and shined a penlight obliquely at the screen, he could just make out the images on it, so he tried changing the contrast, brightness, etc. but the screen remained obstinately dark. Hooking up his monitor temporarily at least reassured me that the entire computer had not crashed. Somehow, buying a new monitor just doesn't make me come all over warm and fuzzy. It's more like the feeling I get when I'm grocery shopping... so much money for so little pleasure. Just think, if you didn't have to eat at all, how much time, effort and money you would save. Maybe we could just plug in a recharger, and sit idle while we got a boost. No dishes to wash, no leftovers to store until they are green and fuzzy, no kitchen grease to coat the entire house with Essence of Fried Onion. I can get behind that.

The farrier came yesterday (this is the correct title for a blacksmith who works exclusively on horse hoofsies, in case it ever comes up in, say, a crossword puzzle) and as I ran a swift brush over them, I was appalled to see that all that loose hair isn't from just shedding their winter coats. No, of course not. They all three have "rainrot" a skin condition caused by an actinomyces organism, somewhat of a mix of a bacteria and a fungus. What it looks like is, well, mangy bare naked crusty oozy skin. Highly contagious, and probably part of their natural flora run amok in this G**damned wet weather, hot then cold then hot again, all with 100% humidity. I'm going to try some home remedies before I call in the vet. As nasty as it looks, it is not itchy or painful, just disgusting. Tomorrow I will use Betadine scrub, then Betadine solution, and light blankets and TRY to keep the stalls picked out and dry. The blankets will at least hide the worst of it. In addition, the old mare (24?) was turned out for a couple of hours yesterday, and today her right rear pastern is double in size, and she is very lame. This is chronic for her, and she gets meds for it, but she looked like she was really enjoying kicking up her heels yesterday, it's so sad that she has to suffer afterwards.

And the DH twisted his knee yesterday when the other mare tried to yank him off his feet while they were firmly planted in mud, in her effort to get through the gate a second or two faster. Just between you and me, he should have used the chain lead under her chin for better control, and also should not have tried to hang onto her. Believe me, in a contest of strength with a 900 pound horse, any control a puny human has is strictly a product of headology, as Terry Pratchett puts it.

I, in keeping with the general theme of our family vis a vis illness and injury, have managed to catch a cold. Last night, every time I tried to lay in bed, I began coughing uncontrollably. Then when I sat up, the coughing stopped and I got the hiccups. Every. Time. Not a fun night.

But enough whining. I made bread and brownies yesterday, and I am off to sample both. TTFN.

Monitor my blood pressure

Today I began doing the kids' tax returns, using Turbo Tax. I got stuck with Rachel's, because Ms. Pack Rack's habits do not apparently extend to keeping mail that says "Important federal tax information, do not discard!" on the envelope. No 1098-E for her student loan interest payments,so a slight delay until a duplicate can be mailed. Then I will begin on our taxes, which are a pain to collect all the charitable donations, and all the medical payments. Such a pain.

Right in the middle of it, the flat screen monitor died. Piece of junk. I write this on my trusty MacBook.

Also it has been pouring all day,and I am beginning to feel, well, moldy.

Friday we are driving to New Kensington to see Suzanne again. If the weather will cooperate, it will be a good drive in the new Lincoln. Or, it will be pissing down and I will be a frazzled wreck, strung out on Xanax to keep from tearing my face to tatters, and my nails to snaggly crusts.

Ah well, spring soon.....

March the WHAT!!??

Geez I cannot get to sleep tonight, not even with a boring book and a cookie.

This last week has been stressful, so maybe that is part of the problem. On Monday the 10th, DH's sister-in-law passed away suddenly from an embolism, and he flew out to Portland to help his brother, and just returned this morning, after an all-night cross continental flight in BAD weather. His brother is in poor health, as well as being deeply affected by the loss of his wife of 30+ years. Theirs was a very close marriage, maybe too close.... Like my parents, they focussed on each other to a high degree, doing everything together with the total exclusion of any friends or family. And like my dad, when mom passed, he seems to be totally rudderless. All of which ended sadly for my dad. I hope B does better, he's much younger (59), and he lives in his step-son's house, so we're hoping that he won't just slip into depression to the point where he won't take care of himself.

The weather here is and continues to be a trial. It has rained so much, our house, while not in danger of flooding, is surrounded by a 6 inch deep swimming pool on all sides. We don't dare let the horses out into the paddocks with the footing as mired and mucky as it is, with our vet bills we surely do not need any lame horses. And the dogs literally do not have the brains to come in out of the rain, so the only way to keep them dry is to shut them in the barn, which is so boring they destroy whatever is within reach. Think about it, would you think a dog would CHEW on a pooper scooper, to the point of demolishing it? It wasn't clean either.... I can't leave the halters hanging on the stall doors, where they might conceivably be needed in an emergency like a fire, because the dogs, when standing on their back paws, are 6 feet tall. Oh well, maybe spring will come eventually.

Did I tell you about Gracie and her eye problems? I know this will be SO interesting. Anyway, this cat has been squinting out of her left eye for weeks, it would look bad one day, then clear up almost completely, and then flare back up again. My daughter said she could see a long scratch on the cornea, and she (the cat, not my daughter) had been scratching at her ears, although they looked OK to me, but maybe she missed and nicked her eye with a hind claw. So we take her to the vet (which she fights and cries and messes the crate) and he says it is a scratch and sends us off with an antibiotic ointment, for twice a day. We do the ten days, during which time we learned of ever more remote places an indoor cat can hide, especially a gray cat. But at the end, it actually looks worse. So back we go, and this time he sees all this icky matter under her lower lid, infiltrating red streaks and pus in her inner eyelid. So he keeps her overnight and does surgery to clean all the gunk out, remove a fine bit of the inflamed tissue to send for biopsy, thinking cancer. But yeah, it is not cancer, and she comes home looking almost normal again, with steroid drops and antibiotic drops, twice a day for, yes you guessed it, ten days. But the eye is looking great, so we persevered. The final conclusion was that there was some "foreign body" in her eye, now removed, that caused it to begin healing and then flare back up again. She did have an ear infection too. The total bill ran some $400 +.

This is of course in addition to the $$$ spent on Raven, the Newfoundland, in THIS Post, and believe you me, we NEVER permit the dogs back in the tack room, and all the meds are on a shelf 6 feet up.

I got the clippers out and gave the horses a half-assed haircut, removing 10 inches at least of scraggly mane. And oh yes, the dogs were grabbing up mouthfuls of hair as soon as it hit the floor and carrying it away to eat, wouldn't that make a lovely blockage in their guts? Roto Rooter to the rescue... Now they look like the new kid in school with the cheap haircut, but at least I can see to put the halter on without having to fight my way through dreads. They are beginning to shed out their winter coats, and thus look like they've been groomed regularly -- with a weed eater. Or chewed by moths. So with itchy coats, when we are forced to let them out at least long enough to clean stalls, they take advantage of their freedom to completely ignore the new, deep pile of clean sand we had delivered just for the purpose, and instead perversely roll in the muddiest spot, so they look like a tribal sacrifice to the God of Mud. And when they're ready to come back in the barn, they stand just outside the gate and stamp their feet and paw the mud until all the gravel disappears and the result looks like it's fit for pigs. This area, of course, is what I have to get through to halter them, one by one, and lead them back to the barn, hoping that I won't have my rubber boots sucked right off my feet, never to be seen again.

Just call me "Desperately Seeking Sunshine".

I'm BACK

Did you miss me? No? Well...

I returned from a great time in Florida on Monday the 18th, scooting through Atlanta and Dulles just in front (or was it behind, or between?) a bad storm system. If I had picked THIS weekend to go, I'd probably still be at an airport, somewhere.

I haven't flown since, um, 2004, when we flew to Vancouver to go on an Alaskan cruise. At any rate, not since all these "security" measures were put in place. It was surprising how difficult it was to find specific information on the TSA website about what you could carry on the plane. For instance, I wanted to know if prescription drugs needed to be in their original bottles? Because I keep mine in those one-day-at-a-time dispenser thingys. The answer is no, if you're wondering. I got all flusterpated when I left Ft. Myers in the wee hours, all the people in the security check-in line kept edging me ahead, and I didn't put my laptop in a separate bin, and I forgot to take my shoes off, and then I laid my boarding pass in the bin with my coat, and thus had to be "patted down" while in the scarecrow position, I mean really, you could see my boarding pass there on top of my jacket, but after it went thru the Xray thing they wouldn't let me pick it up to show that yes, I actually was trying to get to Morgantown WV on purpose, until I had been searched. Sigh. I got up at 2:45 am to get to catch a 6 am flight. Once I struggled into my way-in-the-back window seat, a nice lady got in the aisle seat and then disappeared completely when the 400+ pound man came and sat? or crammed? into the center seat. Waaay too much infringement on my personal space. I can only hope the lady in the aisle seat survived and went on her way, since I certainly never saw her again. Maybe she wondered the same about me. Xanax to rescue, and claustrophobia more or less vanquished.

I haven't been back to Florida since 1983, when I went to visit my folks in Ft. Lauderdale with a three-year-old, a two-year-old, and a plaster cast with steel pins through it on my left arm. Have you ever had to change diapers in an airplane john with only one arm? Anyway, I am glad I went in February, the weather was perfect, the sky at dawn and sunset and star-studded night were glorious, and the company was well worth the effort. I missed my friend the minute I left her, we still had so much catching up to do. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times we have gotten together in the 40 years since I graduated from North Miami Senior High.

Here we are:



Not bad for a couple of old broads, huh?

Better Late Than Never

Gosh, I hadn't realized it had been so long since my last post. There isn't much new here, we're just trying to stay warm (low last night of 8 degrees) and get stuff done.

When I worked full time, I did a certain amount of "housework", but I had a regular house-cleaning service come every other week. When I retired, I stopped having them, partly because they weren't doing a very good job, even by my slacker standards, and "things" were turning up "missing" too often. And really, if I were home all day every day, I could easily do it all myself, right?

But I had no idea what a time-consuming chore it would become. Before, three women would come for 2 hours each = 6 hours. Maybe I'm being more thorough, but I would guess I spend a good 12 hours per WEEK on housework. And the worst of it is, it's all to do over again in a week or so. Here's an example:


That's mud, tracked in on ONE pair of boots to the landing by the front door, a couple of hours after I scrubbed every inch of it. The whole outside world is mud.

I'm off to Ft. Myers Florida tomorrow for a swell weekend with my BGFF. Taking WAAY too much stuff with me, hope I can lift the suitcase. I promise to post after I return!

System Overload

Getting older is damned hard. I feel like I am deteriorating in all functions at the same time. I went to my regular doctor last week, and I told him I felt lousy all the time, nauseated, GI icky, pain in my joints, blurry vision, my skin is itchy and painful, you name a part and I feel rotten there. I was hoping for at least something I could take for the nausea (like phenergan), because there isn't anything OTC that works worth a damn. I mean, what, Pepto Bismol? Emetrol? I toss a slug of them down, and it comes right back up, none the worse for wear. I have grown so used to feeling queasy that some days the first time I become conscious of it is when I realize I am clenching my teeth to the point that my jaw hurts. Anyway, doc's response was to have me discontinue everything I've been taking that isn't "critical", so now I don't take multivitamins, glucosamine, omega-3, aspirin, Zetia, or antibiotic. Result? The nausea is worse. Much worse. Go figure.

I am still trying to sell our many many books on ABEbooks.com and orders have been dwindling this month. Today I got an order for a $2 paperback, an ex-library one no less, so the condition is only fair. But the guy ordering it is in the UK and the shipping charge is $9 ! I mean, why bother? I guess the dollar is doing so badly compared to the pound that this must seem like a bargain? I still have thousands of books to enter in the database, and when I feel bad this is the last thing I want to do...

And the rotten weather! The temperatures have been OK for January, but the last three nights the WIND has howled so much I can't sleep. We have trees down, part of the screen around the pool wrecked, trash can lids disappear, and why don't they sell the lids separate? The fireplace chimney funnels the sound down to the bedroom while also imparting an echo-y other-worldly WHOOOO to it, and the power, cable, and phone have all gone out over and over. Can't we send for some boring old drizzle?

I know, this isn't a very uplifting post, and that I am repeating stuff I've written before. And at the same time, I know that it doesn't really matter because the main proportion of readers here have surfed in via BlogExplosion, and are only waiting for the thirty second timer to release them, and they won't be back. So if that's you, your thirty seconds is almost.....

Dogs + horse meds = vet

The formula above sums things up pretty well. Yesterday, between dog breakfast at 9 am and us going back to the barn at 11 am, the dogs managed to paw the door to the tack room open. In addition to making a mess of plastic bags, insulation, and whatever was in reach, they got hold of a tub of "Equiease", a palatable horse supplement that we give to the 24 year-old mare to help her with aches and pains. The active ingredient is aspirin, and dose is 2.5 grams in a single scoop, with around 55 scoops in the tub. There are 10 or so scoops missing, as nearly as we can estimate, which for a dog is a HUGE dose of aspirin. How much they ate versus scattered on the floor is unknown. We called our vet, who is of course out of town. Then we called the horse vet, who said to make them throw up, so we squirted two 15cc doses of hydrogen peroxide down each, and shortly received three enormous puddles of ex-breakfast. We kept an eye on them all day, hoping that all that food in their bellies prevented the aspirin from being absorbed. Maggie, the 7 month old, seemed fine throughout: excited, hopping about, moving well, normal. But by 11 pm, Raven, the 13 month old Newfy, was subdued, reluctant to get to her feet or walk, very fast respirations. A call to the emergency clinic, and off we went, where they kept her overnight to give tummy meds, IV fluids, blood work, etc. She came home this morning, and seems pretty subdued, but not distressed, so hopefully there will be no further problems; she also came home with a bag of meds and instructions for a repeat blood work-up next week.

Cost? The tub of supplement =$50. The vet visit = $400+

There is a new latch on the tack room door.

Ding ding! Tax time!

I started the annual Gathering of the Papers today, in preparation for The Submission to the Great IRS. I don't actually DO the taxes now, because we always end up paying, and I don't want Uncle Sam to get money (more money) from us any sooner than legally necessary. But I like to get things organized a little at a time so I don't have to dig through 16 months worth of unread magazines to find that receipt.

So today I started to gather the checking account statements together. We hardly ever write checks anymore, we mostly pay electronically, and we track the balances online too. So the statements are really only necessary to document charitable contributions, medical co-pays, and so on, and thus when an envelope comes from the Bank, we don't open it, just stow it in a handy wicker basket until the end of the year.

I started noticing several months ago that we seemed to be getting a LOT of mail from the bank. Like, daily. Usually three envelopes a day. We'd joke and call it our daily bank correspondence.

Tonight I opened it all, and within the first 4 envelopes it was plain what the situation was. We have three accounts at the Bank, a checking and two savings. Somewhere in the inner workings of the accounting office, a wrong entry was made, and starting in mid March of 2007, they have been sending us a DAILY account statement. NOT monthly like any sane place would do. I counted the checking account statements for 2007, and there are---tada---207 of them. We actually wrote fewer than 100 checks for the entire year. The mailings came to around 33 cents in postage, times three for all three accounts, times 200 for the year= around $200 in postage alone. Why not deposit $200 in our account, keep all the statements, and I'll swing by in January and scoop the lot?

Far too sensible. Tuesday I'll go to the bank and see what can be done for this year. Meanwhile, the wicker basket is straining pretty badly to hold all this vital information, but heaven forbid I pitch any of it, an audit would certainly follow, right?