Quickie

Having just realized I haven't updated in a while...

First off - Bill, I know you're trying to get hold of me. I've been scrambling around like a madwoman this week. I should be mostly available Sunday, except for possibly needing to be at the airport from about 2-3:30pm EST.

Yikes! Checking back for the last entry, so much has happened it feels like a whole different life.

The big changes:

1) PET scan results came back. The primary tumor is bigger - much bigger (it was about the size of an orange to start with). Worse, it's metastasized into the lungs, and possibly the brain - though we have no proof of the latter.

2) His doctors universally agree that there's nothing left they can do for the cancer. The remaining prognosis is a few days to a few weeks.

3) Dad W. spent most of the last week in the hospital with aspiration pneumonia - he had a crash of his condition that had to be seen to be believed. He is now recovering from that, but nobody is sure where the improvement of the departing pneumonia will meet the decline from the progressing cancer. He's currently sleeping about 22 hours a day, and is only intermittently coherent when awake.

4) We did (finally!) manage to get the various useful end-of-life legal documents done, signed, and attested to. This was, in fact, almost two full days of work, due to the intermittent coherency. It takes an unbelievably long time to read twenty pages of legal documentation to someone, and make sure they understand it, when their coherent periods are about five minutes long.

5) Dad W. has been moved to a nursing facility around the corner from our house (literally less than 2 minutes away). We had to ditch his supplemental insurance to do it, but heck - it's not like he has other things to spend his retirement fund on, right? There was no way he could come back home - not without completely renovating our downstairs - and he didn't want to stay in the hospital until he died. Plus, the new place allows me to bring the dogs to visit (one at a time).

6) We've called in Hospice, and they sent their first evaluator today. It was a little surreal, but I did like the guy. I had to grind my teeth a couple of times - such as when he asked Dad if he'd discussed end-of-life issues with his family, and Dad replied "I've tried, but they don't listen!" As if he hasn't been dodging that subject with all the agility of a fencer for the last six months. Or likewise, when they asked about problematic issues, and he said he had a problem with how dependent he's become. This from the man who will ask me to push the nurses' call button for him, because it's too much trouble. (It's strapped to the bed about 2" from his left hand.) Dad finds it disturbing when he can't do something - but he sure as hell has no problem with me doing stuff for him if it's even a tiny bit difficult.

And now the dilemma of the week. As of this morning, I have legal authority to take Rascal to the vet and have him put down. I feel, very strongly, that I ought to do this. In my opinion Rascal should have been put down three months ago. The poor dog has no quality of life left. On the other hand, there's no doubt at all that Dad W. would disapprove of this decision wildly - and what the Power of Attorney is for is letting me make the decisions I believe Dad W. would want.

On the gripping hand - Dad W. is so turned inwards by this point that he doesn't talk about the dogs or ask about them at all - ever. If I bring Scooter by to visit, he enjoys the visit, but unless I bring up the dogs, he doesn't ask after them. Am I obligated to keep this poor, ancient, decrepit dog alive because Dad W. would want me to, even though he doesn't seem to care, wouldn't ever know, and chose freely to give me the legal power to do otherwise?

I guess that wasn't such a quickie after all. Posting will probably be uneven for the next little bit, for obvious reasons.

It's Official

August 21, 2009

That's my test date for my black belt. Sensei and I have been talking about the end of August for a couple of months now, but last week he finally said that August 21 was the date. For the last several weeks (barring the family reunion, when my cousin took over duties (Thanks, Jim!)), I've been having a extra private session each week with Sensei. He seems very confident for me - which is good, because my confidence seemed to fly out the window as soon as he gave a specific date.

This last session we started the stress testing of Sanchin kata. Just Sensei, thumping me at about 2/3 power right now (as opposed to the four people who get to have at during the test). I'm middling pleased with how I did - no faltering or loss of concentration - but I did get rocked back on my heels with a couple of the ab punches, so that's something to work on.

That was yesterday. Today was regular class which was primarily sparring. This was fairly painful, since I had plenty of nice fresh bruises to get re-thumped. And of course, I had given my e-balm to Sensei D some time ago, to see if it would work on his burn scars, which react badly to most moisturizers. E-balm, is short for Everything Balm, which comes from Goodies Unlimited, and is absolutely wonderful stuff. Works on most skin problems, non-toxic enough you can even use it on canker sores inside your mouth, and the best stuff I've ever found for bruises. Takes a lot of the tenderness away, and seems to speed up the healing process. Since I'll be adding new bruises to these this weekend, I think ordering more balm was warranted.

So for the next three weeks - lots of practice, lots of getting thumped, more practice. My neighbors are getting so used to seeing me waving weapons around in the front yard that they've stopped even noticing.

In other news, Nicky's hind end paralysis, after a brief rally, seems to be here to stay. Other than the dragging rear he seems to be fairly happy, so we've ordered a doggy cart to see if he'll deal with being a wheeled critter. If it works, he should have several more years. The cart was shipped today, and should arrive sometime next week.

Organ is going well - I played half the service on Sunday (and received half the pay, my first organ paycheck!), which went quite well. The painist who played the other half (who is an intimidatingly awesome player) was quite complimentary, as was pretty much everyone in the congregation. Now I get to ease off until after Labor Day, which is good because, you know, there's enough on my plate just this second. I'll still put in my daily practice, but I'll back down to an hour, instead of two or three. More practice time for kata!

Three and a half weeks - Eeeeek!

Massive Updatery

Okay, I've been seriously lax, for which I apologize. My excuse is that about three million things have happened since my last post and I've been running around like a mad thing. My computer is beginning to make sad, forlorn noises at me, probably from the sheer neglect. I'll give the overview here, and then try to make more specific posts on each topic over the next few days - it should provide enough material for some time.

In roughly chronological order:

Nicky is not doing very well. He took a turn for the worse just before I left for my trip, and had slid even more by the time I got home. At this point he has no use of his hind legs, and frequently doesn't even twitch them when walking with his hind end supported. He's got some bad sores from scraping skin off dragging himself around the house (They're healing since I got home, and I'm not terribly pleased with my cadre of doggie watchers for letting them get so bad.) A lot of his fate is going to depend on if and how much he recovers, especially since is front end is so deformed (puppy-ricketts) that I doubt it will hold up for very long under the extra strain.

The World Tournament, on the other hand, went very well indeed. I brought home one very large trophy (3rd place kumite), and am generally pleased with how things went both for me, and for our dojo. Sensei appears to concur.

Visits went quite well, despite (and occasionally because of) their whirlwind nature. We got to spend another overnight in the Boston Museum of Science, which is all kind of cool, and was much more comfortable for Mommy this time, with a sleeping bag and a mat - bare floors with no pillow or covers was not a winner the previous time. I got to see my friend Beth preach, which I had not gotten to see before (she was ordained last spring). That woman can preach! I can safely say she's gotten over her fear of public speaking.

Our church organist's father died while I was gone. This was not unexpected. The timing was absolutely horrible for him, but actually pretty good for me (which makes me feel rather guilty). Because I wasn't there, I didn't have to do an emergency service - which I am not ready for - and because he is moving right now, he is in town more than he was intending to be in the aftermath, and therefore I'm not having to half-ass my way through any services, but will just be playing some individual pieces, which is not a problem. I expect it will be another six months to a year before I really feel comfortable taking over a series of services - I.e. able to play all relevant service music, and learn a service's worth of hymns in one week, plus enough of a repertoire of pre- and postludes to last several weeks.

The family reunion starts a week from tomorrow, and Rob did no laundry while I was gone, so I'm in a mad scramble to catch up from the trip and then get us ready to go again. I'll get to see both brothers, which is awesome, and I should get to go over my katas with my cousin Jim (a black belt in two different disciplines), which I'm much looking forward to.

And last, but definitely not least THE BOOK IS OUT!!!!!! Alien Hand Syndrome and Other Too-Weird-Not-To-Be-True Stories has hit the bookshelves. My mother reports that Borders (at least in her area) has it in stock. I have two articles, my first ever paid & published articles, in it. It's fun stuff so you should all run out and buy yourselves copies!

And that's the current rundown. I'll give each of these the full post it deserves over the next few days, but at least now you know what's going on.

Crossing Fingers

Well, yesterday was more interesting than we bargained for. At suppertime Monday, Nicky wouldn't come down the stairs, so Dad Wood put on his leash and dragged him down (I wasn't home, and I'm a bit ticked at him for this). That night, Nicky was more restless than usual, not moving around, but shifting and whining softly. In the morning, he couldn't get his hind feet under him, and if I lifted him onto his feet, he would sag sideways. Testing him at the vets shows that while he still has muscle control, he's lost proprioception - the ability to tell where his hind feet are. Without that, he can't place his feet properly or make corrections to keep himself upright.

The vet say he has a bulging disc and has put him on Prednisone. If it's going to help, then he should show improvement in the next 48 hours. If it doesn't help, then we start discussing whether we have the money for back surgery for a basset. Cross your fingers, please!

Return of the Routine

This is the first week in a month where I've actually managed to get back into my usual exercise routine, and it felt really good - sore muscles and all. Between Dad W. moving in, straining the tendon in my foot, having Aaron come down with strep, vacation, and other general life stuff, the morning couple of hours at the gym just hasn't been happening.

Most especially it's been an excellent week for karate. Tuesday was a straight up fight night, and I found a new strategy that's working nicely for the moment. We'll see how long it takes my fellow karateka to figure out what I'm doing. Essentially, I've been a consistent left-sided fighter for the last several years. I much prefer to kick left-footed, and in keeping that side forward, I've become more comfortable with my left hand than with my right as well (I'm ambidextrous in the rest of my life). Which has led to not using my right side adequately, and in particular never throwing my otherwise good reverse punch.

Well, in trying to even up and keep the right side forward, I discovered that precisely because I'm more comfortable and quick with my left, if my right side is forward, I do use my left reverse punch. Sensei is thrilled (he's been yelling at me to use my reverse for ages now), but hasn't yet realized why I've suddenly gotten the hint. Even better, because he's used to my left side being my preferred side, he keeps maneuvering around to my right and setting himself up *evil grin*.

We've switched from a Thursday to a Friday class, and not everybody has made the schedule switch yet. So we were missing several people Friday, and as it shook out, we had a brown belt only class - which meant we went over in detail exactly everything I've been needing to go over. I polished up the last little bit of both Kusanku and Kusanku Sai that I was dicey on (different spots, oddly enough), got a good viewing and critique of Tokumine no Kun (Bo kata) and Sunsu, and got to practice the last three self-defense sequences - which until Friday I could only practice with Sensei because the other brown belts hadn't been taught them yet.

Generally, I'm extremely pleased with how my kata are shaping up. I need to be careful on Tokumine no Kun - apparently my jo-length practice staff (for indoor practice) is giving me bad habits, like a too narrow grip - but my memory of it is solid. Everything I need to know is in there solidly now, it's just polish, polish, polish. Plus working on speed and snap.

I will say that ending up back where I started with Sunsu is driving me a little crazy though. It seems like 90% of the kata is spent moving forward, with very little backward motion, yet somehow I need to end up exactly where I bowed in. I've improved over the last couple of weeks, going from ending up five feet forward and three right to only two feet forward and one right, but it's still not close enough. That I get 1-2 practice sessions a week where I can accurately track my starting and finishing positions isn't helping any - but I'll get there. Thank God ending where I started isn't a requirement for the weapons katas.

In other news, Robbie is doing extremely well with his guitar lessons this time around. What a difference a year makes! Last year he had to be threatened or bribed into practicing and just never developed much forward momentum, so after six months we gave up. This year he wanted to start again. We told him that if we were going to pay, he needed to practice. Well, he's holding to his side of the bargain. He's missed maybe three days of practice in the last six weeks, and he's improving by leaps and bounds. His teacher is telling me pretty much weekly what a wonderful memory Robbie has, and how amazingly fast he's progressing. Even more interesting, the middle school where he'll go next year has free music lessons for band instruments. Robbie wants to take percussion and seems completely unfazed by the idea that this means practicing two kinds of instrument each day. I'm crossing my fingers that this works out - especially as rhythm is the one thing Robbie is having consistent trouble with (in the more problematic "can't hear what he's doing wrong" mode, rather than the "can hear the problem but can't seem to fix it") Percussion training could do wonders for him in short order if things go right.

The dogs are settling into their new pack order. Unexpectedly, Nicky (up until now known as the world's most submissive dog), has stepped up and started enforcing his standards of behavior. This has resulted in a blissfully quick drop in the amount of barking around here, as Nicky *does not approve* of random noise for no good reason. The ultimate shake out seems to be that Rascal (henceforth known as the WLD or Wee Little Doggie for his unfortunate attitude towards house-breaking and marking) is technically alpha dog, but largely ignored by the others because he's elderly and simply doesn't get around much. The WLD still barks the house down regularly, but as Nicky steps up as the de facto pack leader, the other two are starting to walk away when the WLD gets going instead of joining him.

There's no two ways about it, though. We're going to have to replace the carpets in this house when the dog situation is history. They're already past salvage (not that they were in great shape before), and we've only had the full pack for a month.

Double-Barrelled Bassets

As of a week and a half ago, we have two bassets in the house. This makes quite a change around here. Nicky, who I've talked about here before is a very quite, laid-back dog. Other than a bad garbage habit, he's about as low-maintenance a dog as can be imagined.

This is not Toby.

Nicky may bark once in a day - may, not will. If someone he doesn't know comes to the door, he'll probably bark. Other than that, no. Toby barks at the mailman, at the UPS dude, at our neighbors leaving for work, at our neighbors coming home, at the neighbors dog, at the squirrels, at people eating food and not supplying him with some. Barking is pretty much his default state. Ironically, the only time he doesn't bark is when he wants to be let in from the back yard. Then he stands at the door, completely silent, and attempts to get his wishes across via telepathy.

He's also a very nervous dog. Anything different will send him pacing and barking at best, and looking frantically for a place to hide at worst. And since he had never been further from Dad W's house than the vet until last week, pretty much everything around here is new to him.

Fortunately, as time goes on, Toby is gradually adjusting to the idea that this is his new home, and not everything is scary and dire. Some of the barking has even started to ease off as Nicky has decided he is senior dog, and is starting to enforce his standards. This is funny as heck to watch, as Nicky is also about the least dominant dog I've ever seen. However, Nicky knows full well that we don't hand out treats to barking dogs, so starting about two days ago, when Toby started barking at the dinner table, Nicky turned on him and drove him out of the dining room. Now Toby is only allowed near humans with food if Nicky deems him sufficiently quiet and meek.

With that in mind, I ponied Toby to Nicky the other day and took them both down to the school to pick up the boys. This was great fun, as half-a-dozen drivers slowed down to watch the paired bassets trotting along. Toby did pretty well up until we got to the school and he had to deal with actual children. Toby has only ever met four children in his life, and he really didn't know what to do with these small creatures - so he hid behind my legs and barked at them. The funny thing was that he was really curious about them, so if they ignored him, he would approach very cautiously, but if they looked at him, or (God forbid) tried to pat him, he would skitter back behind my legs in terror. Fortunately he shows no signs of being a fear snapper, just mashes himself harder into my legs if scared.

Based on his reactions to the house and neighbors, I think Toby may actually come to like these child-creatures, but it's going to take some time. Nicky is having a good effect on him generally, I think. It's hard for Toby to keep thinking the world is going to eat him when Nicky is so placid about everything.

Which is good, because my ears could really use the break about now.

Photo Meme

Nicole tagged me for this, so blame her!

Rules are as follows:

1. Go to your Picture Folder on your computer or wherever you store your pictures.
2. Go to the 6th Folder, then pick the 6th picture in that folder.
3. Post that picture on your blog and the story that goes along with the picture.
4. Tag 6 other people that you know or don’t know to do the same thing and leave a comment on their blog or an e-mail letting them know you chose them.


As anyone who knows the movie will know, the photo in question is a scene from The Princess Bride, in which the Man in Black fights Fezzick the giant. While I love the movie, that actually has nothing to do with why the screen shot is in my photo-file. Instead it stems from my days writing for Damn Interesting! My last article for them (to the best of my recollection, there may have been another one or two), was on acromegaly, giantism, and the pituitary gland. My sixth photo file is my collection of photos of various people mentioned in the article, Andre the Giant (who plays Fezzick) being one of them. This shot didn't end up being used for the article, but it still sits in my files, mostly because I'm really lazy about clearing them out. This gives me a very odd assortment of pictures - the series on how to sex a mouse probably being the one that would give the most people pause.

As for tagging people - hmm. Becky, Martial Arts Mom (at your convenience, don't stress about it), Bill, Michele, somaserious, and CrimsonPhoenix.

In other news, we're snowed in at the moment, and well on our way to being iced in. Sensei just called to call off class for tonight, as he may not even be able to make it home from work, let alone to class. No school today, no school tomorrow, and possibly not Thursday as well.

Toby is starting to settle in. He's actually curled up on the couch and gone to sleep a couple of times (though never for long). He's discovered the back yard, though he hasn't figured out how to ring the bell to be let out yet. I've started working on training him to bark on command, prepratory to trying to get him to bark less generally speaking, but as food motivated as he is, it's still going to be slow going. We've always referred to Nicky as a basset with the optional brains package, Toby is a good illustration of a basset without the package. Other than the scaredy cat behavior, he's a sweetheart, but a definite numbskull. It's taken most of the afternoon to teach him "Speak", and he's still not terribly reliable about it - and this is a behavior he does all the time spontaneously! Nicky learned "Speak" in about half the time, is quite reliable, and almost never barked on his own at the time I taught him - still doesn't for that matter.

The good part is that he, like Nicky, would stand on his head for a liver treat, if he could only figure out how. It's just that he's much slower about the figuring out.

I'd say I have a pretty good chance of doing enough with Toby that things may not devolve into total chaos when the dachshunds arrive in two weeks. He may be a doofus, but he is willing to work and learn.

Random Updating

Today is the day my fil arrives with his basset in tow. Or actually in Rob's car, since there's no place to put Toby in the truck where he can't get in the driver's way if he gets nervous - and Toby is always nervous. You wouldn't think a basset, the world's most laid-back dog, could be a Nervous Nellie, but Toby has conniptions anytime things are the least little bit out of place. Lord only knows what he's going to think of living in our house. Eventually all three dogs will come up, but since DadW has to go back down for a doctor's appointment in a couple of weeks anyway, we thought we'd give Toby some extra time to adjust.

I'm about halfway through Kusanku Sai now. Now I have to work myself out of an unfortunate habit I've picked up with the new sais. For some reason I'm pushing my left index finger forward into the tines when I'm holding them by the hilt. I don't do it on the right, just the left. I think it's a stabilizing shift, because I have some trouble controlling the tip of my left sai. Sanchin is also about halfway through, but I'd better get a lot more material this week if I'm to stay on track.

My left knee is officially recovered from the sprain/strain thing this summer. Tuesday was thirty minutes of working on Kusanku Sai, followed by being the demonstration dummy as Sensei D illustrated how to trap and torque a kick. My right knee was annoyed at me for a couple of days, but my left knee was fine. Though why it didn't occur to me until after class was over that perhaps I should have bowed out of demonstrating the torques, I don't know. I'm usually Sensei D's choice of demo dummy, because I have the only reliable roll-out in the class other than him and Sensei, but using me for knee-straining stuff is probably not the best choice.

ChoreWars is coming along swimmingly. I added my friend L and her son to our group, which has given a shot of motivation to all concerned. We did have to explain to her son, though, that picking up books wasn't something you could get credit for six times a day. He picked up all the books in his room, and then every hour or so was wandering back in, looking around, and giving himself credit for having picked up all the books in the room, since there weren't any. If he'd done it once, he might have gotten away with it, but we got suspicious around the fourth reiteration. I've added some of the FlyLady stuff to the list as well, and our adventures are getting nicely personalized.

Off now to finish spiffing up the guest room for DadW's arrival.

Have a Novel - and a Basset

Done! I'm done, done, done, done, done!

The novel, tentatively entitled Drowned Deep, is finished. The first draft stands at 50,646 which includes two (2!) prologues, an epilogue, and various other word boosters. As I noted before, I actually hit the end of the story at about 43,000 words, the epilogue, first prologue and a couple of internal scenes got it to 49,644 as of this morning. Whereupon we hit the road home, and between car troubles, dinner, and getting back in gear at home I didn't actually get back to the file until eight tonight. Fortunately, 300 something words is a cinch at this point - though figuring where to stick them was something of a problem. Hence the second prologue. One or both of them may eventually go away. One or both of them may eventually move into the body of the novel. But right now they're prologues. The epilogue is probably staying. I like it, and it matches the epilogue at the end of Ghost Dancer fairly nicely.

Now I'll ignore the file for a month or two, because if I go read it right now, I'll be convinced it's a pile of crap. Whereas if I wait until my memory has faded somewhat, I may be pleasantly surprised - or not - but at least it won't be certain that I'll hate it.

In the meanwhile, have a basset. Nicky is glad to be home. Being one of four dogs is exhausting. Unfortunately for him, he's going to have to get used to it, because sometime in January or February, my father-in-law is moving in with us (until we can get the house sold, and him into an apartment, which will probably take some time), complete with his three dogs. Rest up while you can, Nicky!

Bassets Make People Smile

Growing up my family never had dogs - or any other furry pets for that matter. Mom was allergic, so the issue never really came up. Yet I loved pets, and doted on other peoples' whenever allowed to. I eventually developed an allergy of my own to cats, but dogs remained safe, and I generally loved nothing so much as snuggling up to someone's pet.

Rob's family was the opposite. Not only did they always have a dog when he was growing up, they pretty much always had two dogs. When I started dating him, they had a beagle and a Doberman. The Doberman was a sweetheart, friendly and protective (of me) from the get go, while the beagle never forgave me for stealing her boy.

So it's not exactly surprising that Rob and I started looking for a dog to love nearly as soon as we moved to a place that would allow dogs. Our first dog found us, more or less by accident. He was older (8), a pre-rescue placement, as his original owner was getting ready to dump him in favor of his new dog-hating bride. Cosby was as sweet as they come. A poppy-red Golden Retriever with the kind of manners that make you understand why dog training is said to make other dogs behave like Goldens. Cosby lived another eight years, to the ripe old age of sixteen. Yet in all that time, he was never really our dog. He was always looking for his person to come back; always waiting for the boy he grew up with to come take him home again. We were just the nice caretaker people.

So the next time we were dogless and feeling it, I wanted a puppy. A dog to be our dog, not always looking past us. At this point the boys were very young (2 & 4) and we wanted something we could rely on to be tolerant. Rob had fond memories of the dog he first remembers - his parents' first dog, Sam, a tri-color basset. I liked the idea, so we looked around and ended up with Nicky.

Nicky is anything but a show basset. Sometimes for fun I'll list all his faults that would get him thrown out of an AKC showring (assuming we hadn't had him neutered). I can get over a dozen without even trying hard. He's about 4" too long, 2" too tall, swaybacked, crooked forelimbs (ricketts as a puppy), and double-coated, just to hit the highlights. But as a family dog, he's perfect - endlessly tolerant, good-natured, adores children (all children, not just ours), not at all territorial or food protective. He's also undeniably my dog. Not even the family dog - my dog. He sleeps beside my side of the bed at night (in fact he's curled up on my feet right now and won't go to bed until I do).

But there's one side of owning a basset I hadn't expected at all - how much people like them.

Since Cosby was both friendly and strikingly beautiful, I was pretty used to getting commentary when out for walks. I had, without thinking about it much, expected that this wouldn't happen as much when we had Nicky. He's a handsome boy, but bassets just don't hit many people's lists of gorgeous.

So I was a little surprised the first time somebody pulled over to the curb and leapt out to come exclaim over my dog. And even more surprised when it happened again a few weeks later. In all the time I'd had Cosby, no one ever pulled over to tell me how beautiful my dog was. The people who commented were the people who were already out walking or in their yards. But with Nicky, people would get out of their cars, come out of their houses, or cross the street to come see him. And nearly all of them would be grinning ear to ear as they patted Nicky and told me about their neighbor's basset when they were little, or their own bassets at home.

I finally decided that bassets just make people happy. Something about that goofy amiability is so endearing that people will go well out of their way to experience it. Not everybody of course - we hardly have traffic jams when I take Nicky to school to pick up the boys. On the other hand, it's a rare month when somebody doesn't pull over to ask about him. Nicky with his easy-going temperament and open face (white blaze with freckles) seems to attract this more than most, but even my father-in-law's current basset, Toby who is nervous and distrustful, comes in for some of the generalized basset love that seems to be floating around.

Even the pizza delivery guys, who have every reason to not like having dogs crash the door, don't seem to mind when it's Nicky. Instead they reach down and ruffle his ears (after turning over the pizzas). Nobody seems to believe for even a second that a basset could possibly be hostile to them. Which, in Nicky's case at least, seems justified. The first Christmas after we got him, we came down in the morning to find that my Dad had come over and let himself in. He was reading on the couch with Nicky, who had never met Dad before in his life, happily curled up beside him, having never made a noise.

Nicky's getting older now himself. He's six now, and just starting to slow down and realize he's not a puppy. He's not likely to make Cosby's sixteen, but we can probably hope for 12+, and he's in good health thus far, despite the ricketts. And as long as he's up for it, I'll keep taking him around the neighborhood, even though we have a fenced back yard, because it's so delightful to see people smile just because they've seen a basset.

Moments in Basset-hood

*sounds of dog scratching at door*

"Robbie, could you let the dog in?"

"He's not here."

*sounds of dog scratching at door*

*Wander off to look -dog is not at back door *

*sounds of dog scratching at door*

*Check bathrooms & bedrooms to see where dog got trapped. Nada*

*sounds of dog scratching at door*

*Open FRONT door. Dog trots in.*

"Nicky! How the $*#!! did you get out front?"

School! and stuff

Four more days of school left. Starting next Wed. I have to figure out what to do with my crew all day, every day. Rob, the stinker, is out of town all next week (and part of the week after), so I'm on my own for the first several schoolless days. In the effort to get a head-start on things, I've made both boys an offer: If, working together, we can get their rooms actually clean and organized, then I will help them to redo/decorate them as they see fit. This is up to repainting, new curtains, painting a mural, or putting up posters, but does not include new flooring or furniture. Since Robbie's room most recently belonged to a little girl, while Aaron's room belonged to a sports nut teenager, the offer intrigues them. Whether they'll follow through with actual cleaning effort? Who knows?

All the exercise time is really beginning to pay off. Exercise sessions at the beginning of karate, which used to be doable but strenuous, are becoming easy. I can grab the balls of my feet on a straddle stretch now, which is further than I could get when I was 12 and in gymnastics! My hamstrings have always been my tightest muscle, but the yoga seems to be getting to them. Plus muscles are starting to pop up all over. I'm ready for next week when the dojo switches to summer casual - no air-conditioning, so we can ditch the jacket and wear gi pants, t-shirt and belt.

As expected my PCP put me on a statin (Crestor to be precise). This caused a rapid weight-loss in the short term, as I was one of the lucky 5% who ends up with nausea from Crestor. After several days of diddling around and trying various things, a simple suggestion from a friend proved the key. A, who takes multiple medications and so is wise to their ways, suggested that I time when the nausea occurred, and then time swallowing the Crestor such that the nausea is happening while I'm asleep. Presto! As long as I don't have to get up in the middle of the night, I'm set. Thanks, A!

Fortunately for future midnight emergencies, the nausea is supposed to fade out over time, so mainly I need to get through the first month or two.

Nicky is completely fine again, having mystified two vets. His recovery was too fast for spinal injury, too slow for a pinched nerve, epileptic fit or blood clot. TIA is possible, barely, but there's no evidence of such a thing. Plus the progression really doesn't fit any neurological condition either vet can think of. Timing would be about right for a toxin, but the only toxin with a front-to-back progression of paralysis is ethylene glycol (antifreeze), and if he'd gotten enough of that to paralyze him, he'd be dead. Paralysis tick might work, but a) no ticks in our yard that we've ever found; b) Nicky has a monthly tick treatment; c) the paralysis progression should go the other direction with a paralysis tick; d) the emergency people checked for ticks and didn't find any. In the end they shrugged and said "If it happens again, maybe we'll be able to compare and figure it out." Thanks, but I'll skip if I can.

Book Report/Basset

I'm reporting on a couple of kids' books this time around. The boys' elementary school just had their semi-annual book fair, and Robbie brought home two books which he promptly devoured.

The first is Ferno: The Fire Dragon, the first book in the BeastQuest series. Robbie liked it a good deal, and is intending to look for the next one. It's not the best of this kind of book by a long shot, though. You know the wish fulfillment is running heavy when even your eight-year-old finishes a chapter (wherein the 11-year-old protagonist is chosen by the king to save the kingdom from a fire-breathing dragon), looks up and says "But Mommy, he's never trained with a sword!" There were several such moments in the book. Plus the foreshadowing was running heavy. As in being dropped on by a backhoe. I'm 90%+ certain I have the surprise ending of the series figured out. I figured it out in chapter three. That's a bad sign. I guess my final say on this one is: for what it is, it's a decent read for a kid, but it makes me think of the Opus's line "Foreshadowing: your guide to quality literature."

The second book fared much better. The Sea of Monsters is the second book in the adventures of Percy(Perseus) Jackson, half-blood son of Poseiden and a mortal woman. Set in the modern day, where the Greek Gods have followed the heart of Western civilization and come to America (the Empire State Building is now Mt. Olympus). I won't say too much because this is one of those books that makes little sense by description unless the listener is already familiar with the world. Nonetheless, this book is entertaining enough for me to sneak off and read it on my own. It also stands alone pretty well, though both Robbie and I intend to find the first book (The Lightening Thief) and read it ASAP.

And finally, the Basset. We spent an entertaining night (midnight to 3am) at an emergency vet clinic when we discovered about bedtime that Nicky couldn't get up. His forelegs had no muscle tone. They couldn't support his weight. He'd thrown up a couple of times in the afternoon, which we attributed to a morning garbage raid, but otherwise he'd been behaving normally. The vet was puzzled. He showed no paralysis, just muscle weakness. The X-rays showed no problems with his spine, and were equivocal about his front legs - puppy rickets have left them short and twisted even by basset standards, so their hard to read. She decided evetually that he must have strained them with the vomiting, gave us a painkiller and told us to rest him.

By this morning, Nicky's hind legs weren't working either. Since he seemed in no other distress, breathing well, not in any discernable pain, cheerful, we put him out on the lawn with water, so he wouldn't have to move at all, and kept an eye on him. We seem to have made the right call. After sleeping the whole morning away, Nicky was able to get his forelegs under him for just a few seconds somewhere around 2pm. By dinner time, he was able to stand up for about ten seconds. We still have no clue what hit him, be it infection or some kind of toxin, but at this rate of recovery, he should be back to normal in another day or so. I wish I could have saved the nearly $500 the vet visit cost, but we couldn't take the chance that he'd injured his spine or gotten into something that needed immediate treatment (like anti-freeze, which needs very rapid treatment, and presents in much this way). Sigh. That's what emergency funds are for anyway.