Sister visit

Brigit is on her way - currently somewhere over South Dakota if you believe Continental Airlines - hooray!!! Considering that it was -15 at our house this morning and -17 at the nearest "official" temperature guage, I hope she's got thick socks packed!

The Lizard King

Beth's blog - read it. Be amazed.



http://rightanglesareforsquares.blogspot.com/2011/11/how-we-figured-out-what-funk-was-coming.html

Our dog can't handle her drugs

Bella had to go to the vet last night for some toenail repair, after badly cracking a couple of them over the weekend. Considering that she tried to bite a vet once for attempting to stethescope her, it was agreed by all parties that Bella would be sedated. This involved one powerful but reversible drug, plus a non-reversible opiate used to lower the amount of the other drug that was needed. So basically once the she was given the antidote to the first drug, our dog spent the rest of the night in an opium-induced haze.

These things that are all happening are sooo amazing...

 Of course its hilarious to watch your dog point in one direction and then start staggering in another. And we got to watch that a lot last night. Unfortunately that staggering was often accompanied by a lack of bladder control, so we went through a lot of paper towels, too. The constant light sprinkling of pee was definitely a problem, and although we could get her to go outside we couldn't get her to empty her bladder out there.

Then, once she came down just enough to realize that things were feeling really wierd she started whining. She kept this up all night, whining and going to the back door, making someone put her outside where she would stare at the mysteries of space for a few minutes (in the first sub-zero temperatures of the season, I might add) before wandering back inside without having gone to the bathroom.

Needless to say, Beth and I are very disappointed that Bella seems unable to handle her drugs. I mean, there was a whole spectrum of positive experiences available from eating tons of snacks, watching the moon, sleeping for 14 straight hours (Beth and my unanimous choices for what we would have done), talking to one of her stuffed toys... but instead she chose the freakout and lose bladder control route, which is the exact opposite of the "Beth and Eric sleep for 14 straight hours route."

Anyway, I am pretty sure that now our dog will be addicted to opium. We'll go home at the end of the day to find our TV gone, sold for $20 to someone via Craigslist. There will be a bunch of filthy, dazed, drugged-out-of-their minds cats all around the house. And we will follow a trail of pee sprinkles back to the bedroom where our beloved pet is passed out next to a pipe made from an old tuna can and our fireplace bellows... I already miss our old Bella...

Are you here to buy the Blu-Ray?

Halloween

This year was only the second time in my life that I had snow for Halloween. Of course, since we got a couple inches and places on the east coast got a couple feet, it turns out to not be a very impressive story. But I'll bet that our snow sticks around longer than theirs.

Anyway, we celebrated Halloween by having a couple friends over and making fondue. Our neighborhood is prime trick-or-treating territory, so we were kept busy all night going to the door to give out candy. Bella was shockingly well behaved, both towards the strangers at the door and our friends' dog - a puppish vizsla with about as much energy as a lightning bolt.

Usually Bella doesn't like posing for pictures when there are props involved, but she's willing to make exceptions when the props are lickable and taste like pumpkin.

Beth's pumpkin all aglow outside our front door.

My pumpkin wore a beard to cover up its embarrasingly bucked teeth.

Did I say beard? I meant beard and moustache - although the 'stache does grow alarmingly high on his face.