Missy

Missy passed on about an hour or so ago. I am afraid I didn't get anywhere on top of it until I noticed that she wasn't eating anything. I tried to hydrate and feed her, but too little too late.

When I discovered her distress, I was pretty sure all the vet could do was put her to sleep.

So long, sweetie.

Looking at the date on the picture, I realized that she was with us almost five years.

Which means she was about 17.

(Griffin's butt in the foreground.)

Thumper (and Me)

 Just before Jen left for home last month, we noticed Thumper was limping. Our working theory was that, in digging into the compost bin and bouncing it up and down with his snout, he had managed to guillotine his paw and injure it. I got him some doggo aspirin, which seemed to take care of the issue. 

He would go for a few days without limping, then start again. Give him aspirin, limping stopped. Lather, rinse, repeat until this past Monday.

He suddenly became a tripod dog, not using the injured paw to walk on at all.  Aspirin did nothing. So, Friday (yesterday), we went to the 24 hour emergency vet (our regular one was booked up and waitlisted). We did the intake, a tech came out to the car and got Thumper, and home I went. 

Calls back and forth, talked with the vet. Basically, the x-rays showed no breaks, but one of the bones in the 'elbow' looked fuzzy. We didn't get the radiology report, so the vet released him, along with doggo Ibuprophen and gabapentin. I was instructed to get some Pepsid to make sure he wouldn't get an upset stomach from the ibuprofen. I was chuckling during his lecture, and finally told him that I've been on nsaids and gabapentin for quite a while, and was confident I could handle this. 

Thumper was pretty well stoned when we got home. The idea is to give him 10 days of rest, followed by 10 days of slowly bringing him back up to speed, assuming the limp is gone. The 10 days of rest is what the gabapentin is for.

So, that is Thumper, in a nutshell. 

I wound up not sleeping in this morning. In fact, I think I was awake at about 6:30 - 7:00. I gave up and got up, and started the day. Got Thump out to the back yard for a bit, then took him around the corner early afternoon. At about 2:30, I decided to go up for a nap.

When I woke up, it looked like early morning light. My phone said it was about 5:30, so I was expecting to get up and face the new day, in a while. Read my mail fiddled around on my dating site, and decided to get up.

So here I'm thinking it's Sunday AM. My phone told me it was still Saturday evening. And down the rabbit hole I went. I honestly was worried that something had happened to the internet clock, but the timeline as I remembered it didn't make sense either. I was confused. 

I bounced around with it for a while, until I realized that it was way too dark for 8:30 in the morning, even with the rain clouds overhead. It slowly dawned on me that I had taken a nap at 2:30, and a) either I'd slept for almost 30 hours, or b) it was in fact 8:30 on Saturday night.

Occam's razor prevailed, and so here I am, sharing this at (now) 9:30 Saturday evening.

I'm pretty sure this is another reminder that I don't have as much stamina as I did before my surgery. 

And, as any IFR pilot will tell you, "You gotta trust your instruments."

Fauci Knows

 He always did.

Wade leaves it to the reader to draw conclusions. 

The case for 'escaped virus from the lab' is certainly more presuasiven the 'it came from the jungle.'  It has a couple of particular features that haven't been found in the wild, that can partricularly target humans.

Yes, Fauci knew they were doing 'gain of function  work' (making new, more virulent virii). It was the whole point of our funding.

We've been using cheap chinese labs to do our virus research. Not up to standards, and cutting corners.

He's covering his tuchus.

Don't believe me - here's the whole thing.

God. One possible scenario

Once again, I find I am merely transcribing what Gerard has written. This comes a couple of day after  my retired flight attendant friend asked me if I'd gone back to a church yet. I tried to explain that I hadn't because I wasn't sure if my peculiar perspective on things would fit into the Catholic framework. That's probably a conversation I need to have with a friendly Jesuit.

Anyway, this popped up this morning, and since it answers my friend's question better that I did, I felt the need to post it, and send her a link. So here we go:

 The Spark Gap

I’ve long had a theory about why prayers are answered but answered rarely. I think that God, for all his omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience is pretty much nailed to the present as far as humans go.

Yes, I know all the arguments for predestination and preordination but those strike me as a one-way street to Dullsville even for God. If, as God, You let Yourself know everything that was going to happen everywhere for all time (Not that You couldn’t if You wanted to.), what’s the entertainment value in that proposition? Slim to none, if you ask me. 

RTWT: Sunday sermonette: While You Were Out

Coronavirus Prep

I've been keeping an eye on the progression of the coronavirus of the Johns Hopkins map:

Johns Hopkins Coronavirus map

It focuses on Mainland China, but you can scroll the list on the left to select another country.

Meanwhile, over on Twitter, @BryanDeanWright is (rightfully) grousing that the CDC is saying "Get prepared" without saying about the 'how'!

So, as a public service, I am posting a link to @TreeHuggingSis' blog post on hurricane prep. While you don't need to board up the house, it's got tons on infor for all of your prep needs.

Coalition of the Swilling Disaster Prep

I did mention to Bryan that the CDC does have prep info on line, at the Zombie Apocalypse page. So here is a link to that:

CDC Zombie Apocalypse Page

Because you never know!

Family

I just got the following from my daughter. Please, prayers for her uncle.

Hi Dad,
IMPORTANT NEWS.
In the last two weeks, my Uncle Kevin has been in and out of the hospital. He had a stent put in for a other than heart organ issue and went home. During that time other issues were found and he was in pain and weak. As of the other day, he is currently back in and is facing a diagnoses of pancreatic cancer. As you know, that is what my Grandpa was diagnosed with, and passed from, in 1995.
He is at Hoag Hospital where both Grandma and Grandpa were at before they passed.
As of news today, Kevin is in good spirits and joking, much better than the last few days. More tests to happen this week. Due to his health, chemo and radiation versus surgery are his options.
Please keep Kevin, and all of us in your prayers. We will know more this week to know what's possible but it is pretty scary and devastating.
I especially ask for your prayers and kindness for strength for my Mom. She is the go to sibling. And, as I imagine, very difficult to be again at Hoag where she lost her parents.
I ask for your prayers and strength for me as well.
Love,
Jennie

Thank you all.

More Garden...

...And A Sad State Of Confusion

The garden this year has been a sort of controlled "Let's see what happend when I do this!" Here are the main contenders:

Somdewhere, there is a picture of two bags of this stuff, gutted open, and planted. I decided that eight openings on the ground was easier.

Interestingly, the lettuce leaves here are darker than the ones that took in the garden bed.

Tomatoes. I had given up on ever growing decent tomatoes; I gather there's something in the soil that races up the vine to see how many fruit it can kill before they are ready to be picked. So, when a  random plant sprouted in the corner of the garden bed, I thought "OK, let's see what happens."

There is a clutch of seven tomatoes hiding in the middle of the bush. Plus six or more green ones of various sizes.  Not to mention the four I have sitting in the kitchen.

They are all roughly the size you see me holding here (pretty close to actual scale!):

One woud think that, in the middle of small garden in a small town in Pennsyltucky (or Pretzelvania, if you prefer), we would be immune from gender self-identification type issues. But, no...

It seems that Basil has decided to identify as a strawberry.

Even more discouraging, one of the Romaine offspring has chosen to identify as a common weed, and go sprout in a crack in the sidewalk.

There's no talking sense to either of them.

I fear that neither will grow to be happy.