Feel Like Complaining

Winnie came last Monday morning. She's an adorable 9 year old Yorkie who loves laps (which means naps for me) and walks. Tony likes to walk her because he can go to the track and do a lap with his walker and she won't pull him.  I don't like to use potty pads at all but her owner places one in the bathroom at night so she doesn't have to get up to let her out. The first night I placed one in the hallway because our bathroom is so small. She peed on the bathroom rug and kitchen rug. Wash rugs. The next night I replaced rugs with old towels and put pads on top of them. She peed on the towel in bathroom. Wash towels. The next night and until the end, it was no towels and only pads. She didn't pee at all; go figure. She was a fun girl though and we'd have her back. After Orzo and Cous Cous were fixed, they got to come back for one more night. The Dr. elected not to do eye surgery on the one, so when Faith took them back to the clinic the next day, they were processe...

Sammy joined us last week, a 6 year old ball obsessed mixed breed dog. When he came to his meet and greet with a ball in his mouth, I silently said 'uh oh'. That's all he wants to do and isn't much into pets and cuddles; although by the end of his stay he did get better with being petted. He sleeps good but barks at every little sound during the day. Oh and he has nightmares and howls which is great way to be woken up. Faith was very excited to get her first kitten foster from the clinic. She had asked the vet a couple of months ago if there was a possibility of being hired there and the vet was very honest and said that she needs to do other things besides just the vaccine clinic. So she's still going just twice a week but staying all day and adding other things to her job list including post spay/neuter care. Every animal has to have sub Q fluids and she does them all as well as waking them up to put back in a cage. She got to see part of an amputation but then ha...

Other than still being hot all week (barely under 100), we've been keeping busy, especially the first part of the week. We had Mr. Chico with us who is so content to just sleep the day away.  Our younger brother arrived the morning of the 4th and we joined him at big bro's house for a BBQ. It was nice having all of us together. Deb's mom died last month and she's been having a real hard time. Now there are no Mama's left and I wish I could have helped her as much as she helped us. On Monday morning, the brothers and I drove to our hometown and placed some of Mom's ashes under our dad's memorial stone. His ashes were spread in Idaho but does have a little stone in the cemetery. We drove by the last house we all lived in and I cannot believe how much worse it looks than last time I saw it. Mom would not be happy. I wasn't looking forward to Mom's service on Tuesday; it just makes everything final and I guess I didn't want final, but it turned out b...

  To say it's been hot on the west coast has been an understatement. I start complaining when it hits 85. For part of it I was cat sitting and was told to turn the AC down as low as I wanted; so I did.  While I was gone, Faith kept the plants and back lawn alive the best she could. I've never seen things so droopy and burnt. Our AC really struggled to keep up but it never failed us. Our power company did some planned outages for a week, but thankfully we weren't affected.  Tuesday was the worst at 111 degrees. If I had to do something outside, I kept it at 5 minutes max. Tony's first test of Lidocaine shots in his back didn't help so they have abandoned the ablation plan and will move on to Cortisone shots in the bigger nerves. I don't know why it happened; maybe the Dr. just wasn't really listening to his symptoms or he didn't have a certain type of pain when she examined him but they will start on the 12th. The couple who had such a messy house actuall...