Friday, October 30, 2009

My dog pooped her pants!


WHAT? How can that be, you ask? Ok - here's the back story...

This summer - Casey had some skin issues, and was chewing herself raw. You can read about it HERE, but to sum up: the one thing that kept her from chewing was a doggie diaper.

So you can see where this is going......

She's had another round of chewing herself raw, it getting infected, and being on all kinds of medicines. She stayed at the vets on Monday, D worked from home Tuesday and was home with her, and on Wednesday I putted the doggy diaper on her. No problem.

Now mind you - this isn't because she's in heat, or incontinent. It's just a deterrent so she doesn't chew on her wound.

And she didn't.

But Thursday, I got home, and she RAN.OUT.OF.THE.HOUSE. I had to run after her to try to get the diaper off of her. And when I did - yep! Full of poop!

My poor girl had pooped her pants!

Somehow, there was none on her. She was clean as could be.

I felt absolutely awful for her, for having to deal with that all day (or however long it had been), but it was so funny, I couldn't help but laugh!!

Gives a whole new meaning to the nickname "stinkbutt"!

AMW

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Street Corner Vets

Sorry about the poor picture quality, but a picture from the phone is the best I could do...
This is a scene I see every day. Coming off the interstate on my commute home, this man is standing in the same spot. Every day. With the same sign, same bike. His sign says "Disabled Vet. Needs Help"

I have no doubt that he's disabled. What you can't see in this picture that I saw every day throughout the summer, is that he has a prosthetic leg. The right one, I believe. In the summer, he wore shorts every day, no doubt to send the message home that he is disabled.

Most days, I see several people hand him money.

I truly have mixed emotions about this.

I do feel sorry for this man and his circumstances. I do wish I could help him. I'm sure others feel the same way, and thus give him money.

But I don't know his true circumstances. His sign doesn't claim that he's homeless.

I can't afford to give him any money. Not just because I don't have any extra to spare (which I truly don't) but also because if I do it once, I feel like he'll expect it again. Since I see him everyday. I can't help but wonder when he sees my car, if he thinks to himself, "I know she won't give me anything. I see her every day, and she never has."

There's the whole societal dilemma as well... Most local cities discourage people from giving the homeless money. You always hear that they'll use it on alcohol. I don't know if that's true or not, and it's not my place to decide what he's going to use the money for.

But I also can't help but wonder how much money he makes. He's on a good busy corner. Places himself there during rush hour. Holds up a compelling sign. And waits for people to hand him cash. Every day. And they do. Every day. He's obviously intelligent enough to know the best times to be there.

And he's not the only one. Being very close to a Veteran's Affairs hospital, there are these images on many corners near the interstate within a few miles.

It's obvious that I'm better off than he is. I have a car, all my limbs, a job and a home.

Should I feel guilty that I don't give him any money? Should I feel uncomfortable when he looks at me as I wait for the light to turn green? How do you all feel when you see people like this on the corners? How do you handle it?

AMW

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Non-bowling update

Well - I decided not to bore any of the viewing public with weekly bowling updates. Suffice to say there were good games, and bad games. And there will be more good games and more bad games. I jinxed Denise when I penned a whole post about great she was doing, and her being a superstar! She's done well, but no more 190+ games. Now she can back to that...

So, I'll have to think of some other meaningful things to post about. So far, I've got nothin....

I'll think of something soon, though!

AMW

Friday, October 2, 2009

Ever have one of those days?

Yesterday was one of those days for me.  It was a Murphy's Law day, to be sure....

It started when I jumped in my car to head to work, and it wouldn't start.  I was about 90% sure it was the battery, because we'd been saying for months that we were gonna check to see how old it was, and replace it if it was near it's expiration.  You know how that goes, though...  Time gets away and you don't check until there's an issue.  Like yesterday morning.

So, I decided to take the Jeep.  Which is still dressed for summer (the top and windows are off), and I knew it was gonna be a chilly ride, but I was thankful to have a spare car at the house.  First I had to get the cover off which had filled with a TON of water from the rain.  I was already dressed for work, and didn't wanna change, so I used a bucket to get most of the water out before removing it.  Only got a little wet, so it wasn't that bad.

Made it to work, only about 1/2 hour late.  But as is usual for the last two weeks, my computer wouldn't start.  It finally started and stayed running about 3 hours after I got there.  I've had this issue for a while, and was offered some IT support recently, so I took them up on it, only to find out that the IT guy was out for the day.  Oh well...

I made it home without incident!

I stopped by our local mechanic shop to talk about the dead battery issue, and David gave me a battery pack to take and jump my car.  No problem.  As I'm standing in front of my car to hook everything up, I realize I'm standing on an ant mound, and they are crawling  all over my legs!  YUCK!!!

Got the car jumped, take it back to the shop, and confirmed that it was, in fact the battery and not the alternator.  David suggested I run up to Advance Auto, since it would be cheaper and they would install it for free.  It's only a couple miles up the road, so off I went.  I turn off the car to go in (not in the best neighborhood) and proceed to buy a new battery.  The service guy said he'd be right out.

I went outside to wait, and that's when I realized that sometime that afternoon, my bra strap had broken, so there I was hanging out (literally) with one boob covered and one boob uncovered under my t-shirt.  And my strap was hanging out the bottom of my t-shirt.  I have no idea how long it was like that...

After 30 minutes of waiting for the guy to "come right out", I went back inside.  Seems he had forgotten about me.  Nice.  He made it out, and 45 minutes after buying my new battery, I was on the way...

I made it home again without incident, and proceeded to dress the Jeep for the winter.  Put the top, doors, and windows all back on.  This was extremely difficult to do with one person, since everything had sat for most of the summer rolled up.  So it wasn't expanded for easy installation.  It took almost all my strength to get it all attached, but I got it done...

I sat down for a few minutes to check my email real quick, and hadn't been sitting for 2 minutes, when the dog decided that was the best time to go ahead and get sick.  On the carpet.  She's usually pretty good, and will go toward a room with no carpeting, but not today.  So of course I cleaned that up.

In the meantime - D was at the doctor for right shoulder-ish pain.  Turns out, there is probably a touch of pneumonia in the right lung.  So we made the decision to cancel our weekend away in the OBX since the doctor said to REST, REST, REST.

Finally getting a few minutes to chill out, the front door bell rings.  It's our new next door neighbor stopping by to introduce herself.  I can't even imagine what she thought if she noticed that my bra strap was STILL hanging out  of the bottom of my shirt.....

Hopefully it will be a relaxing weekend and it will be what D needs to start feeling better soon!

And the next time I see "Murphy" heading my way, I'm gonna run over him with my car!  New battery and all!

AMW