Mindless Chatter

Big hair. That's me all this week. Doesn't help that I need a haircut.

Tracy, that dinner sounds amazing. I'm drooling.  I bought some Rainier cherries this weekend. We don't get them in the stores here very often. They were delicious.  :)  

Karen, I'm glad about your contract but sad too.  

They said it was going to rain today but so far nothing. Back to work.

In all my waxing nostalgic about my fabulous dinner last night, I forgot to tell you guys that Ruby was sick again yesterday.  DH went home at lunch and found she'd pooped in her crate.  It looked fairly normal, but it was still a mess to clean up.  Her walk was fine and she acted normal, but when I got home less than 3 hours later, she'd had diarrhea in her crate.   And since we changed to a wire crate, of course, it went out onto the carpeting.  I had to haul everything outside to hose it off, do two loads of laundry, and tackle the carpet.  Ugh, ugh, ugh.

We gave her just a little bit of white cooked chicken last night, and some rice water.  She made it through the night just fine.  Gave her the same for breakfast.  We'll see what DH finds when he goes home shortly.  Sigh.

Oh poor Ruby and poor you having to clean up all that mess.  There's nothing worse than diarrhea on carpet.  I hope whatever upset her tummy is short lasting.  

Ruger, my coworkers Weim has had diarrhea and has been vomiting today. I asked my coworker if he'd had anything unusual to eat lately. He said his wife gave Ruger the round bone from a ham steak that had been cooked. :(  I was furious inside but didn't say anything because I couldn't trust myself to be civil. I've known Ruger since he was a puppy.  He's 7 years old and has been coming to the office every day so I'm very attached to him and sometimes forget he's not my dog.  I'm hoping he'll be ok and I know I'm going to worry all evening about him.

Poor Ruby..get to feelin better pretty girl.  

Karen I am sending you some "head clearing"  vibes so you can make a decision.  To add....life is short, money and job security is good  but sometimes it can interfere with living.  "Jumping off the soap box now :)"

Tracy your Dinner sounded amazing.  Now I am hungry for cocktails and Italian

ETA: Sending Ruby and Ruger get well vibes

I don't know what kind of things you're having to decide between Karen, but Ginger's point is a good one.  However, that is easier said than done when we're thinking about things like our budgets and retirement savings and all that!  I hate making difficult life decisions -- sending you good decision vibes!

Well, all was fine when DH went home for lunch, so fingers crossed all is well when I get home later this afternoon!

Poor Ruger -- hope he's going to be okay.  It is hard to bite your tongue when you hear people say that they've done something rather ignorant with their dogs.  I'm far from a perfect owner or trainer, that's for sure, but some things are just no-brainers.

I wonder what is going on with Ms. Ruby's gut? I hope it works it's way soon!

And I hope the wiem turns out OK. Hopefully it's just the richness of the bone

We had my uncles funeral today. It was different but he would have liked. It really wasn't a funeral per say. They had rock music playing like led Zeppelin lol definitely better than normal funeral music. I was amused. Then the funeral director read the obit, a few people spoke and that was it. More funerals should be like that ;p

Sounds like my kind of funeral, Julie, if that doesn't sound too weird. I'm sorry you've had so much loss lately, Julie.  

Glad Ruby was ok when your DH went home to check on her.

I saw that Johnny Winters died.  He was such a great musician.

Speaking of musicians, Paul McCartney is playing a small venue concert here in a few months. Tickets sold out quick. I can't really see paying the kind of money they were getting for tickets.

Good news -- no kennel messes when I got home!  Gave Ruby a light dinner, so hopefully all is well.  I'm watching her like a hawk while were outside right now.  If she tries to eat any dirt, bamboo, or leaves, she's going inside!

Definitely sounds like a unique funeral, Julie.  There's something to be said about making it a true celebration of a life, and not so somber.  I guess that's easier to do when the person lived a relatively long life.  I've been to a couple Irish funerals, and while the church services were formal and somber, the parties afterwards were anything but!

Another arts professional who died today is Elaine Stritch.  She was a broadway  star for decades, but I learned to love her when she played Alec Baldwin's mother on 30  Rock.  Man, she was funny! 

Tracy since I can't seem to see where I can send you a message, are you still feeding Orijen? Sadly in March Bugsy had some gut issues - all extreme gas - I finally figured out was the food. We swapped bags and all was fine. Had another bag, all was fine. Then the next bag he immediately had the huge amounts of gas again.  So we are finished with Orijen after many years. They swear they haven't changed anything but clearly they are mixing something up. Perhaps she isn't tolerating whatever they changed.

Hoping Ruger is doing fine by morning - I do know someone who gave their golden a ham bone and she had terrible diarrhea

People just don't think - and that has been evidenced all day by me.

Thanks for the support and good advice. Sometimes I am prone to over-thinking - this is likely one of those times. FWIW the job situation is a factor but only one factor.

And overall the contract extension ad infinitum is a good thing. I generally like the work and the challenges. It is a busy industry and I am getting some good stuff and some not so good stuff but it all seems manageable (as of today LOL)

I'm still around and reading, not posting much, but never really did.  

Question...does anyone else get bitten by fleas like I seem to?  I am working on eliminating them, as I know Buffy is as miserable as I am.  We don't usually have this problem, but this year...  I've just never  heard anyone else complain about humans getting bitten also.

Marty - it's always nice to hear from you -- pop in and say hello more often!  As for your flea question, I don't have personal experience, but I've heard people say that they are more susceptible to bites than others.  My former coworker rented an apartment where the previous tenant had cats, and the landlord didn't make sure it was flea-free after they moved out.  Within days of  moving in, my friend's daughter was getting eaten alive, but my friend never got one bite!  They eventually got it taken care of with professionals brought in by the landlord.  Anyway, maybe it depends on individual body chemistries.  Ugh -- I hope you can get some relief soon!

Karen, you've really got me thinking about the Orijen.  Yes, we still feed Ruby that.  We swap between the Regional Red and the Fish formula.  When she had the multi-day bout of diarrhea 2 or 3 weeks ago, we wondered about her food since all her fecal tests were negative.  We buy a very large bag, and she's been eating of this one for a while, so it's odd it doesn't bother her EVERY day, but maybe that's possible.  We've loved the food, but honestly, after 3 years on it, she might like a change herself, so I'll tell DH we should research some options.  What did you switch Bugsy to?  

Tracy Bugsy only had the Fish version.

At the moment he is on Canidae Pure Sea, and seems to be doing fine. I just bought some Innova's Nature's Table - we haven't opened that yet. I don't think either is the quality of Orijen but I just have to move away from them for now. FWIW Orijen and most pet stores will take a bag back for exchange or return if you are unsatisfied. This all reminds me that I intended to write to Champion Foods (Orijen) and express my disappointment.

Another beautiful day here and I will share that these cool mornings have Mr B acting like a wild puppy - dang he can be a nuisance. I am off to let him swim at the lake until the tank is completely empty so I can have some peace! Look out geese!

We had a storm move through early this morning.  A huge clap of thunder/lightning that shook the house and, boom, no electricity.  I tried to get back to sleep but ended up getting up at 3 AM.  The dogs all thought it was a great idea to have an early breakfast and a romp through the new "pond" in the backyard.  As I was leaving for work, I saw a little toad hopping across the living room floor. lol  Gathered it up and put it outside.

I'm glad you're still having some cooler weather Karen.  It's cooler here today because of the early storm but I think this afternoon will be brutal and extra humid.  

Karen, I'll add those two foods to our list for research.  For a while, we fed Tonka an Innova food and he did well on it.  Fortunately, there are so many more great food options out there now compared to 15+ years ago when we were starting to educate ourselves on food.  We had so much trouble finding anything for Tonka -- at that time, only one shop near us carried anything besides the "standard" grocery brands, and their selection was limited.  Now we can get just about everything.

Jackie, the image of your dogs having a breakfast pool party in the backyard at 3am is quite funny.  How did the poor toad get in the house?  Hopped in the backdoor, or did one of the dogs carry him in without injuring him?  Too funny.  

Temps dropped significantly last night -- we slept with windows open and it was great. This morning it was 56 degrees at about 7am -- brisk!  But full sun, so it'll warm up nicely as the day goes on.  Almost fall-like, which I love.

My coworker and I planned earlier in the week to celebrate Friday with a walk to Baskin Robbins for "lunch."  I brought some tuna fish -- I'll eat a little of that first, so I don't feel so guilty about eating ice cream for lunch.  We both said that we were excited this morning to come to work because we knew of our upcoming ice cream date.  Kind of sad that looking forward to going to work requires something unrelated to one's job, but oh well!  

Tracy there are some great options out there - I just have a lot fewer because of his allergies. I think I need to feed a bit more of this Canidae as I was looking at him earlier and he is looking slightly too thin. Hard to imagine in a 100+ dog but he really is on the lean side of normal at 104 and these days I would guess he is down from that.

LOL Jackie why didn't you feel it was fun to be playing outside at 3?? B woke me up for no reason at all at 4:15. If they could talk I bet he'd be saying, "mom come on we won't have many days like this for months!"

I hope your power is back on

Hmm well done on the toad in the living room. A few weeks agp I woke up and went downstairs in the pitch black and B was clearly indicating something was in the sunroom. I didn't have the lights on so I could just see the size. It was a toad and not a mini-one. I wasn't very calm, cool or collected in doing so, but I did catpure it and put it outside. Still makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up LOL

I imagine you were more professional in your frog capture and relocation Jackie

I got bit by a mosquito on the edge of my ear last night and it is ridiculously itchy - I truly hope that mosquito died miserably