Update on my doggie!

Little update...

My doggie is home now (we got her before dinner last night) and she was in a lot of pain when we brought her home. She was all whiney. I got permission to up her pain meds, and she seems to be doing better. She is all stitched up in the back legs and tail and under her tail. She hates the e-collar and while I am home and can watch her that she's not licking the drains and stitches, I am letting her keep it off. She's eaten a few times since she got home and got her to drink some water.

I have to take the photos I've taken to animal control today to add to our report and I need to get my DH to go over to their house this afternoon and present them with the bill and what we would like them to do (pay it). The total is $810...so far.

Her spleen became enlarged during surgery (they think from the anesthesia) and if that resolves itself, we're good, but if it doesn't that's a $1000 removal and major surgery so it doesn't burst.

We'll see.

Oh, and not sure if I mentioned before that one of her canine teeth was knocked out and they had to stitch up the hole there so stuff didn't get up into it.

Oh bad, bad day so far! My poor doggie!

I almost never talk like that because I feel like it's tempting fate, but I have to tell you what has happened today.

This morning, we tied our dog to the deck like we do every morning (very long leash (several leashes actually) so she could do her biz while we get ready for the day.

Suddenly, I hear a major dog scuffle and hear barking that is not my dog. Then it starts sounding like fighting. I am telling my DH that I think there's a dog hurting our dog, but he thinks they're playing. Suddenly, you could just tell. And our dog was UNDER the deck with this dog about twice it's size, a huge boxer, and I started panicking. DH is trying to scare the dog away, but we are both freaking out. Then the dog comes out from under the deck and it's silent. And this dog is white...but covered in blood. I started yelling at DH that he let that dog kill my dog, wahh wahhh, and I tell him I cannot go out and see, he has to go out.

He went out and finds that she is badly injured, but not dead. She was bleeding pretty badly.

We took her to the vet and the running tab so far is about $800. I am just sick. I am sick that my dog is hurt, that this dog, who I've already asked the owners to keep on a leash (no leash laws here) hurt my dog, and because we had some unexpected (actually vet for my cat and medical) bills had already come up, I am just scrambling trying to put together enough to pay the vet. Bah. Figures.

I called the cops this morning and they sent an officer out. They went to their house to tell them what had happened and to keep their dogs in, but they didn't answer although both cars were there.

Animal control came out and took our statement and said that they will serve them today with paperwork saying that they are taking them to court to prove the dog is a "potential danger", but the police won't take a report because the dog didn't hurt a person.

I guess the next step is to sue these people for the vet bills, but I don't know...

DH is home with me today because I made him take her to the vet and all of that since I was too shaken up and had to get the kids to school.

I am glad this didn't happen while I was home alone, I get very squeamish and would have totally panicked.

The vet says that she has OTHER problems, too. What we were told by a vet years ago was inoperable cataracts is apparently actually GLAUCOMA, which is treatable...dammit, and she has some something something sclerosis in her hind legs. She's an old dog, maybe 10, 11 years old, but man, it's just racking up.

Oh, and she's been in surgery all morning for deep lacerations to her hind legs and under around her tail, and that damned dog knocked her tooth out, too, I guess she must have been trying to defend herself. My poor blind dog.

What a great deal on GHB for your kids at Target!

Aqua Dots are still on sale at Target! I looked at my ad for tomorrow, and sure enough, they are on sale.

Ugh my cat is in bad shape!

My cat was scratching her ears up a month or so ago (more probably), and I thought it was ear mites. Took her to the vet and she tested negative for ear mites. They gave us antibiotic and a shot of cortisone and said that she would get better. A couple of weeks later, the ears were healed, but she started scratching at a spot on her neck (right under the collar on the left side). Just scratching it RAW and bloody. Took her back to the vet...which is no easy feat because she HATES the cage and going anywhere and she throws up and poops in the cage every single time we leave the house. I got scratched pretty badly last time, too.

The vet shaved the area and did a fungal culture. They also did cytology on a lump she has from the cortisone injection she got the first time we went to the vet. That was negative. Still there, though.

Basically, the put her on a prednisone taper schedule and an antibiotic. It started to heal. But she keeps scratching it. This was a couple of weeks ago that we did the vet last.

The vet said that she MIGHT have some sort of allergy. I just switched her to the Blue Buffalo organic food for sensitive skin (all whole).

She just scratched it back open last night and it was pretty bloody. I cleaned it and put neosporin on it, but I am just at a loss. She can't do the e-collar because the area in question is where the ecollar would go.

The vet did say that the fungal culture showed that something that is a soil contaminate (gypsum?) grew, but my cat has been outside ONCE and that was about 6 years ago by accident. I guess we could have brought it in, but the doctor thinks it's a fluke and totally unrelated.

My cat has always had runny eyes, too...which could indicate allergies, although a vet many years ago said it was nothing.

I am just tired. We've spent $500 at the vet in the last 6 weeks and are no closer to figuring this out or clearing it up.

I wanna put my tree up now!

I really, really, really want to put my tree up. I got a fake one this year after having several years of dead in 2 weeks trees because of the heater on constantly, etc.

Is it really totally bizarre if I put my tree up now? Like right now?

I'm pretty sure that if there's a hell, I'm going to it

BUT...my MIL has been here for about 3 weeks. Yeah, I am not kidding. And she's not leaving until the Saturday after Thanksgiving!

The fun part...she speaks very little English, and is somewhat disabled because of a botched knee surgery from many years ago.

I am losing my mind. She's pretty much no help while she's here AND I have to constantly worry about what she thinks about everything. She is constantly running after me and my kids with food trying to make us eat it, although we will say "no thanks" (and yes, she does understand that, we do communicate some).

I NEED MY @#%$&*& SPACE! She showed up during a week that I was finalizing plans on a huge conference, and I am pretty much gone most of the day. But when I come home, I want to be ALONE. ALONE. I want to, some days, just veg out. But then she insists on speaking to me.

When my husband gets home, no one else but her can talk to him. She will talk right over me and the kids and just talks about the same shit all the time.

Of course, my kids are always underdressed, can't believe I let my son go around the house with no socks on (he's 5 and it's 74 degrees most of the time inside). Can't believe I let them drink water with ice in it...they will likely die of pneumonia.

She actually will call the pets "come Mysti" and gets them all riled up, but she's terrified of the cat AND the dog and keeps telling my husband that cats carry disease and not safe around the kids. He knows better, but SHUT UP.

My favorite part is that she tells him EVERYTHING that she observed that day.

I have NO secrets from my husband, but it gets on my damned nerves that she tells him how many times I was home, gone, what I ate for lunch, if I changed my clothes 3 times, if I was on the phone for a whole hour...

MY GOD, I AM NOT SURE I CAN TAKE ANOTHER DAY.

My kids are both in school and STILL I am geting no peace.

CALGON...TAKE ME AWAY.

And now...I am sure I am going to hell.

I'm so excited!

We have been wanting to take a vacation, and we haven't been on one in a few years, all of our travel is usually for work.

The kids want to go to Disney World, but that will have to wait for next season or something.

But, we are ALL going to the Grove Park Inn for 2 nights the day after Xmas. I know that's not far away (it's in Asheville, about 90 miles away), but tickets to Biltmore House holiday displays are included and also the Grove Park Inn is where that huge gingerbread house competition happens and they will have all of them still on display. It's a beautiful Inn and I am SO looking forward to getting away and checking it out!

Since we don't vacation much, this is a huge treat. And I am sure it will remind me that we need to vacation more!

Kanye West's mother died of plastic surgery complications

So sad!

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20159597,00.html

Why is AF playing peek-a-boo?

We were out to dinner on Thursday night and I felt like I was going to start AF, and I went to the bathroom, and there was the normal, telltale streaking that signals the start every month. I put my DivaCup in and worried (since this is my first month using the cup) that I'd have too heavy flow or something. But...later there was nothing. Next day...nothing. Saturday nothing, Sunday nothing. I've had SOME mild cramping but nothing major.

NOW...I know what you're thinking. And it would be possible except that DH has a vasectomy that has worked for the last 5 years, and we haven't had a bunch of relations this month because I've either been sick, too stressed over a major planning event, and my MIL is here for the month.

What gives? Could the stress have totally messed this up for me? My boobs hurt and I am so bitchy I just can't WAIT to start my period!

Stacy Peterson disappearance

http://www.abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3810718

The gist of the story is that a 23 year old mother is missing. Her husband, a police sargeant is a suspect. He maintains that she left him for another man and had called to tell him as much the day she went missing.

His third wife drowned in the bathtub during a divorce and right before a property hearing. At the time, they ruled it accidental, but the coroner had said it was suspicious. The third wife had told people that if she ever died or went missing, to look at him because he did it. Apparently, they had a very long history of domestic violence reports and medical records indicating as much, too.

This does NOT sit well at all with me.

Small-minded people get my goat!

The biggest issue I have with this is the ASSumption that I give a shit.

A mom in my son's K class emailed me this (and to the rest of the classroom moms) to protest the movie "The Golden Compass"

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/compass.asp

Really? This is what we worry about? And no one gives a second thought to whether someone else cares at all about this or, WAIT, what if I am not Christian? CAN'T BE!!!

Oh NO she didn't!

We have had some somewhat volatile times on our PTA board, but the {expletive} is about the hit the fan.

There was an issue between two committees (not being specific lest I bore you to death with the details), and this morning the words "well, why can't she do it, she doesn't work?" were uttered to me by another member of the board about the other.

WHOA. I said that that was not a factor at all in this issue, but man, my blood was boiling. I had to stay professional and nice, but that woman was talking about ME when she talks about a mama who doesn't have a job outside the home. I don't. So obviously she was trying to make a point, even to me, who spends about 40 hours a week on NON-PAYING volunteer work.

We have a board meeting tomorrow and I am scared that the shit is reallllly gonna hit the fan.

Study shows that breastfeeding does NOT cause sagging!

FINALLY!

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071101170723.htm

An old computer as a Christmas gift?

I recently replaced my Apple iBook G4 with a new MacBook. My DD has been wanting her own computer. She uses our family iMac which is in a central location. One problem with that is that the kids often want to play games, etc at the same time. I don't like giving up my computer because I end up with strange settings and downloads, etc on it.

I am having a hard time deciding whether to give DD my old iBook (still in nice condition) or do something else with it.

My biggest concerns are (not in any particular order):

--I worry that I won't be able to monitor her computer use as well if she is more portable.

--Is it too extravagant a gift? I know I am not PAYING $1200 for it now, but that's what I paid for it when I originally bought it a few years ago (she doesn't know this, though).