Right now I'm watching a circus outside our kitchen window - the neighbor kids are running around with bandanas on their heads chasing their own and our dog. Hero's having the time of his life, as usual. I wish we had a video camera.
Southern exposure
Turns out our pretty little girl dog? Has a bad case of PTSD from the vet's groomers. Seriously. For one thing, they shaved his ass, and this is apparently über traumatic for the small friend. Seriously. He runs around from one place in the house to another with his tail tucked under, as fast as he can, and then when he reaches his destination he throws his ass to the ground like it's on fire so that no one or nothing can touch it. It'd be funny, if he weren't so bummed (hahahaha, get it - bummed?).
I think he's genuinely upset about losing all his fur. We hypothesize that he feels more vulerable now. Who can blame him, really - did you have any idea he was so scrawny? Me neither! Since last night, most of his time is spent curled in a little ball snuggled up against either Hubs or me. He won't even chew on a rawhide! He usually never gets them because of the resource guarding (he'll take your hand off if you come near him while a rawhide's in his mitts) so they're a hot commodity. You know it's bad when a rawhide won't bring him around.
On the plus side, I always wanted a Whippet and now Hero vaguely resembles one... we discovered he's quite lean and leggy once you kill the overcoat.
Bottom line (get it, bottom!?): Hero's tradition of unfortunate grooming episodes continues (if you had any remaining doubt after viewing yesterday's photo).
The kicker? The vet charged us $15 extra because she needed "reinforcements" during Hero's session. Our dog is so naughty we get billed for his lack of compliance! I'm guessing there's a wide berth given for bad behavior before it starts impacting your total, so he really must have been a handful.
Then again, you saw the bows. A case could be made that aggression was justified.
Who's a pretty?
Look who I found when I went to go pick up Hero at the vet's grooming service! It's a pretty girl dog!
If he could speak, I bet he'd have some choice words for his stylist.
A crash course in neurology
I just got back from a long weekend road trip to Missouri because Mookie (my dad) is in the hospital after suffering a stroke in his cerebellum, which caused severe vertigo and affected his balance center. We're expecting a full recovery, and hoping he'll be back to his history-professing, race-car-driving, motorcycle-riding self within a few weeks.
Talk about a shocker though - I don't know anyone in better health than Mookie (or so we assumed!) - he's still young, eats a healthy diet, has been exercising religiously for decades, and is a very active guy! If ever there was someone you figured would gracefully sidestep a stroke... Regardless, it's been a seriously crap week for him. And for me: there's nothing worse than seeing someone you love in the hospital. He's on his way to a reputable rehab program and was in very good spirits but despite all that, it was difficult to leave this morning.
Tomorrow I start my new part time job as a nanny to an adorable four month old baby boy and I've hopefully landed an interview for a full time position in my actual field of expertise (I know - you'd totally forgotten I even have one of those, hadn't you?)! I came home to a message on the voicemail. Other than that I'm exhausted, stressed, battling allergies, and up to my eyeballs in hormones. Anyone wanna trade?
Back
Today was my first day back to the gym. It was fabulous. It felt so good to walk through the doors of Lifetime Fitness, knowing it's sanctioned - OB approved! So long as I don't lose any weight my OB felt that reintegrating more rigorous exercise (other than walking the dog) into my routine would be healthy. Yay! It's amazing how 30 minutes on the elliptical and a couple of crunches made me feel more like myself than I have in months. Like a fog lifting...
Much, much happier. It feels great to be physically tired.
Mystery?
I think I've mentioned our neighbor kids before - S (6) and J (9) live next door and luuuuuuurve to play with Hero. They come over daily, ring our doorbell about nine million times, and smile big gap-tooth grins that are impossible to resist.
Yesterday, they brought this note over to Hubs. Turns out, there was an unidentifiable rusty white Mustang parked across the street. A bald guy (sources say) with a computer and a cell phone sat in the car and watched our house intently for several minutes. S and J thought this odd, so they snuck up behind the car to write down the license (otherwise known as "lisnis") plate number. This citizen police investigation, they reported, resulted in the suspect promptly leaving the premises.
Hubs and I aren't too worried about the strange voyeur, seeing as we 1) aren't in any legal trouble 2) don't owe anyone money and 3) aren't in the mob.
My favorite part about all this is the detailed case file, pictured above.
