Winnie at the dog park

I wish I hadn't messed up and cut off the first video I tried to record--it would have contained the longest burst of Winnie playing with another dog.  (I think it was a boxer.)

Edit: I just listened to the audio (forgot that I had said anything in this video, as often I just record without comment. And I noticed that I had mentioned the mud puddles, but they weren't really featured in the video. Trust me--there were plenty of them. And lots of dogs absolutely *wallowing* in them.  Fortunately, Winnie didn't seem interested. And she was only really interested in the other dogs when they came up to her.

When I took Brady to the park, it was apparently his job to "secure the perimeter" before he could settle down and enjoy himself. (Read: lean against any human who would allow it.)

Winnie's job, as far as I can tell, is to sniff *everything*. She did run around some too, and seemed to enjoy herself.  Then I took her to PetSmart to try to find her a few toys.  All she really had was a few tennis balls, which seem to have become one with our yard and lost their appeal as toys. I thought I could let her choose something that caught her interest, but once again, it is her job to sniff *everything*. She can't "play favorites".

45 and 33 1/3

I woke up, not too long ago, from a dream. Well, I guess it started as a dream, but I can't actually remember a location, or the other people involved--so really at this point what I have is a "morning musing".


For some reason, the topic of records came up. And there was some song of which I said, "I remember having that on a '45'." To which the other person asked "45? 45 what?"
"RPM"
"Which stands for...?"
"Um...Rotations per minute." (Sometimes I'm a little amazed at how much old information I have tucked away somewhere in my brain. This sort of thing is hidden most of the time, but still can be dug out without too much bother should the need arise.)


So, I woke up thinking about this. "Back in the day" I was a lot closer to being able to tell you how the music happened than I am now. Mind you, the music sounded like crap--I guess. (But at the time I had nothing to compare it to.) But I actually had to set a needle down in the little groove, and I could watch and see that one kind of record spun faster than another kind.


We've got much cooler stuff these days, but I have NO idea how any of it works.

In which I sing...

sing a song.

In ancient times....

I found this in an Introductory Psychology text. For anyone who can't make out the words, the caption starts out, "In ancient times, people actually had to write or type their first, second, and sometimes third drafts on real paper."

Shouldn't there be some sort of indication that "this is hyperbole"? Even quotation marks around the word "ancient" would have helped. :p

Piggly Wiggly

That's actually this dog's name. I stopped by a local shelter and walked a couple dogs who really seemed to need it. Dogs really appreciate it when you do stuff for them, I've noticed.

Morning walk

Follow-up testing

I'll admit to being a little anxious about the endoscopy today, but figured that in the grand scheme of things, it had to be less traumatic than my time in this hospital last month. For one thing, this time,  I only had to fast from midnight until the time of the procedure. Although, it seemed a little insensitive for the waiting room to have a sign on the refrigerator telling family member to help themselves to complimentary refreshments, but reminding patients: NO FOOD FOR YOU!

And right after I notice that, I heard a voice from the hallway inviting family member to come and get some coffee, tea, or hot chocolate--but of course patients awaiting an endoscopy could not have any. Really, couldn't you have found some way to discreetly make the family members aware of this, without reminding me of how hungry I was. In the grand scheme of things hot a huge thing, but I did have a bit of a rumbly in my tumbly and could have done without any additional reminders of how much I really would like to eat something.


The procedure today wasn't all that bad, and it's nice to know that my stomach and esophagus have healed.

Whew!

Brady gave us a major scare yesterday. I know that he's unsteady on his feet, and has a hard time "taking care of business" outside on his own. So I walked him on the leash several times throughout the day, being careful to not hurry him or do anything that would make him fall down.

But then, when it was time for us to watch something together as a family in the evening, I left him out in the yard for like an hour.

I now know that, apparently, Brady cannot be left unsupervised for that long. because when I went to let him in, I found him lying on the ground, with his front leg stuck in the gate (in the area I've got circled, you can see a bit of his fur there.)

The ground was wet and covered with mucky leaves. Apparently Brady was lying down, tried to get up, and his leg went through an opening in the fence. He struggled to get it out, but couldn't. He obviously thrashed on the ground a bit trying to free himself, because when I went outside, what I found was a very wet, dirty, bedraggled collie.

I had to carry him into the house, and was really concerned that the leg might be broken. We laid him on the kitchen floor and Demetrius brought me some soapy water so that I could start to clean him off.

After working at it for a while, and at least getting some of the wet leaves out of his fur, I decided that this was going to take all night unless I got him into the bathtub. I used the sprayer to rinse out a huge amount of muck from his fur.

By the way, Brady freaking hates the bathtub. So, it was at this point that I learned, yes, actually he could stand up--and he wanted out of there NOW.

So I obliged, and cleaned him up just a bit more using some "waterless shampoo and conditioner".

He's doing pretty well today, thank goodness.