Broken Hearts and Farewells

I haven't posted in a long long while. I was too busy living to write about it. I've had lots of ideas, but no urge to type. I find now that I must.

Over the time I blogged, something that started as a business and craft site very quickly became Guess What The Dog Did. Bander has always had a way of doing that, making everything revolve around him.

I've posted endlessly about his fears, his quirks, his anxieties and his need for prozac. I've shared his surgeries and his truly mind-boggling level of financial support. There are also things I didn't say much about, and I hope they were understood - his dignity, his endless patience, his courage, and his unbelievably sweet disposition. Along with his high level of dependence on us, came a level of trust in everything we asked of him. He was a perfect gentleman in restaurants, at the vet, or in noisy crowds.

Yeah, that's past tense you're reading. Because he is crossing the bridge tomorrow, and we are already reeling with pain and loss.

With Bander's death, the blog ends.

Love Shack

I both love and hate our current house.



(No, this is not our actual decrepit shack. It's close, though.)

I love the trees, of course. And I love the fact that we have workroom and workshop space. I love that it's an older house, and has some character and charm that you just don't find in new cookie-cutter houses. It reminds me of my grandmother's farm house from early childhood. When I look out at the yard I keep thinking I should plant tomatoes or keep chickens. (Neither of which I have time for, mind you.)

I hate the neighbors, or at least their hellspawn kids. I hate the fact that since our house is old, the rooms are very very small. Our queen-sized bed is damn near wall-to-wall, and that's in the biggest bedroom. And right now I hate the landlord.
Here are the things that have broken, since we moved in:

1. The heater, twice, during January. It was forty degrees in the house one night.
2. The plumbing. Apparently the pipes for the washer and dryer were installed by chimps, because if you do more than a very small load of laundry, the sink in the garage overflows.
3. The fence. We had to do our own repairs, just for Bander's safety.
4. The plumbing some more. There's a leak in the backyard somewhere. Which I suppose means that I don't have to water, which is fine.
5, And now.... the air conditioning has decided to be fussy.
This is indeed the South. I can't describe our natural surroundings without using words like "lush", "green", "humid", and possibly "dank". "Moss-covered" and "languid" are high on the list, too. It isn't truly hot yet, not full summertime hot, but it's warm. And if the house is empty during the day, when we get home it's in the high 80's inside, and dammit, we need a little AC to bring it down to a balmy and tolerable 79.



What we've learned about the landlord is that they will wait until I raise seven different kinds of hell before they actually fix anything. The plumbing issues are something we've been discussing since mid-March, and we've seen a plumber exactly once. He scratched his head, opined that they needed to replumb half the house, and drove off. That was the end of that.


They did fix the heater, since it was broken when we moved in and it was actually possible to get frostbite in the living room. They promised to send tree trimmers and fence repairmen, but that never happened because there wasn't any health risk. I bet I have to bitch a LOT before they worry about whether I'm a mite warm this evening.

I'm sure I could use the plumbing issues to break the lease. But I just got all the boxes unpacked, not that long ago.

What should I do?

She's a Killer Queen

I am a murderer.

So, one of the things we have here in the new house is a cute little garden window in the kitchen - the sort where you grow herbs in pots and use them for cooking.

I've been making a lot of my own salad dressings lately, and fresh herbs are expensive, so I ran out and got some cute pots and hardy looking little plants, and spent part of last weekend planting and arranging my new friends.

As of today, I can no longer pretend that there is ANY way the cilantro is still alive or could ever stage a comeback. I have things in the outside compost heap that have more life left in them than this poor thing does.

Cilantro is generally pretty hardy, and tough to kill, but I did it in record time. The poor thing looks like I filled the pot with dirt, watered it carefully, and then set it on fire. From across the room with a blowtorch.

I guess I won't be making salsa any time soon.

I was going to take a picture so you could all be sad with me, but the battery in the camera is dead. I am reeling from the irony.

Please Stand By

So, we had some ongoing technical difficulties with our website. Until we get things fixed, we've changed everything over to the Etsy store for now. Which was a big pain in the butt because I have all the technical know-how of the average turnip.

This also gave me the chance to update the newsletter format - and it went out this morning. I think I managed to transfer all the subscribers over, but if I missed you, please let me know.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go break some stuff here at the house, too.

Connectivity!

Aaaaaand we're BACK!

A big shout out to The Geek Squad and our new router, and once again we join the computer age. Just in time for another rainstorm with dog antics, and just in time to wish everyone a Merry Christmas.

I might have more to say later, but right now I have to go deal with giblets. And probably the rest of the turkey while I'm at it.

(I may live in the South now, but I refuse to deep fry the damn thing. I will, however, serve biscuits. Mmmmmmm.)

Going Down With The Ship

Things with the day job are winding down, it seems. Well, to be quite frank, they've been in a long slow decline for months and months now - but the downhill slide has gotten a lot more downhill and a lot slipperier. I keep looking at our course, and I know for a fact that there's an iceberg, dead ahead.

I think I've mentioned that I work for a real estate developer - I'm the person who handles escrow and loan closings on very large-scale deals. Of which there are NONE at the moment. And nothing on the horizon, not for long time to come.

I've been in and out of real estate for quite a long time now. I actually went through this sort of thing once before, in the very early 1990's. I worked in the savings and loan industry, which led to me working for government regulators. This included a huge flood of foreclosures, so I got to manage a pretty big portfolio of properties that had been taken back. It wasn't pretty. I'll spare you the details, but I got to deal with toxic waste, mismanaged nursing homes, and crack houses. Eventually the properties were cleaned up and sold, and that was the end of my career, until the industry recovered.

That crash was limited somewhat, because it was really S&Ls and the drop in value was pretty well centered in California. This time, of course, the problem is a hell of a lot bigger. Given that the last little hiatus made my line of work pretty well non-existent for five years, and that I'm getting older... my tenure in real estate is very likely over. By the time the jobs come back, I'll be too old, and frankly too tired, to start over.

I'm okay with that, really I am. It was fine while I did it, but it's never never been anything that lit me up inside. It's time to move on and move forward.

But like any other change, it's a little sad. And more than a little nerve-wracking. It'll take a couple of months, maybe less, but here we go....

Parting Shot

Just a short update, because I have a ton of stuff going on – but remember Sally, my dearly departed Mustang? We got a receipt in the mail saying that she fetched $1100 at the charity auction, money that’s helping to send needy kids to day care. That’s at least $500 more than I was expecting, so good for her.

And kudos to Father Joe’s Villages for doing so much good with something that was of no more value to me.

Thanks, Sally – you were a good girl, right to the end.

MHWS Server Issues

For the past few days, our site host has been having issues with their hardware. They just informed us that they will be moving us to a new server. As far as I can tell, this is gobble-de-gook mumbo jumbo for our site being offline for a little while today, and apparently off and on for the last week.

So if'n ya looked at our site and it is and or was down, it's only a temporary thing and should go away soon. Nothing more than the electronic sniffies.






P.S. - Jackie's working on a new post about more crazy people. It would seem that there is no end to the crazies around us. Look for it tonight or tomorrow morning!

Everybody Loves the Bander

I think I mentioned earlier that Jesse and I went out of town for a few days. We met my mom and her husband in Carmel-by-the-Sea, one of the most gorgeous little towns I’ve ever seen.

Carmel is tiny, one mile square, and it’s known for being one of the most dog-friendly places in the world. We tested the boundaries, because Bander went on the trip with us, and we took him everywhere.

EVERYWHERE.

If you want a lot of attention, I recommend getting a big white dog with soulful eyes and putting a bright red cast on his leg. Then go for a very slow walk. Honest to god, people were pulling over and jumping out of their cars to look at him. Then they’d say something stupid, usually a variation of this: “Oh my god! Is he OKAY?” while staring at the cast.

Well, to be quite honest, no, he isn’t okay, which is why he has a cast on. But I spent money I didn’t actually have yet in order to get him terrific medical care so that he would be okay someday, and that’s why I dress like a bag lady and he has a big red cast. But Carmel is lovely and I was in a good mood so I didn’t say that.

I did briefly toy with the idea of looking at the dog in horror and screaming to Jesse “Honey! The dog has a cast on his leg! When did that happen? Who did this to him?”

I also considered saying “Oh, he’s perfectly fine, but I’m trying to train him to limp so I bandaged him up.”

Since people were eyeballing me suspiciously to make sure I wasn’t a dog-abuser, I didn’t do either of those either. I just told the story of him jumping off the roof to try and follow our cars and then watch their eyes well up. The dog and I can really work a crowd for sympathy. If I had had the foresight to have Jesse pass a collection plate, we could have made out like bandits.

Anyway, Bander got to go everywhere, and be the king of Dog Mountain. Even his 'doggiesitter' du jour, thought their matching casts were cute.

He sat in various restaurants, and servers brought him plates of diced grilled chicken, generally serving him before serving us. He sat inside the Post Office, under the “Service Dogs Only!” sign while I waited in line to mail a package, and the line would have moved faster except that the employees were all petting him instead of opening another window.

He laid in the middle of a king size pillowtop bed, managing to hog the entire thing. I swear he was smiling while he did it. He got petted by strangers so much that he had bald spots where the hair wore off. The B&B where we stayed took his picture for the guest book. If I hadn’t had to sign the credit card slip, they never would have noticed I was leaving.

Then he took a fistful of Benadryl (wrapped in liverwurst by his sneaky mama) and snored in the back of the SUV all the way home.

He had a much better time than we did.

Everybody loves the dog.

Bite Me.

Well, crap.

I’ve managed to get behind on ranting again.

I had been putting off some long-needed dental surgery, because I was reserving money to make someone an offer. That fell through, so off to the periodontist I went, and had the surgery done.

I regret it, of course.

Let me start out by saying that I had somewhere between 25 and 30 shots before they even got started. I got twelve – TWELVE – shots in the roof of my mouth. I was a wreck before they even started the procedure.

With a wind-up that bad, you know the actual work was horrific. To keep from disgusting everyone, I will just say that it’s been two weeks and the sutures are really really bothering me, plus I am concerned because my supply of Vicodin is getting a bit low.

Furthermore, dammit, I am getting mighty tired of mashed potatoes and squishy overcooked pasta. I want some actual food, something I can – you should pardon the expression – sink my teeth into.

I want a crunchy salad.







I want a nice crusty loaf of French bread.






I want an apple, and my sympathies are completely with Barbossa when I watch Pirates of the Caribbean.


So I’m drugged and cranky. Jesse and the dog are both somewhat pleased about this, because the drugs slow me down and make me confused. So I haven’t found their new hiding place just yet.

I hate the damn dentist.

Bander, the Bionic Dog

You may have noticed we haven't mentioned anything about Bander getting the cast off yet. After a week with no improvement, we shelled out money for some MRI soft tissue scans, and learned that the damage to his wrist was a lot worse than anyone thought - as in, he snapped every single connecting ligament.

That gave us three options, per the vet - one, very expensive surgery. Two, amputation of the leg. Three, put him down. Since both two and three were impossible, unthinkable, and just generally not happening, we went for the expensive surgery. This involved fusing the affected joint and inserting a steel plate to stabilize the whole thing.

It's been eight weeks now, and here are the first x-rays of the nearly-healed repair job:































Impressive, no?

The downside is that we still aren't allowed to walk him much, and he needs another four weeks in the cast. He always had a lot of energy to burn, and has a bad case of cabin fever, so any little behavioral problems are magnified a million times. The separation anxiety that caused him to jump off the roof in the first place? Yikes. Bring on the puppy Prozac! (so not kidding, here.) And some training. And he needs company while we're at work.

So. He now has a vet, an orthopedic surgeon, a behaviorist, and a pet sitter. The freakin' dog has a staff of FOUR. I, of course, just have Jesse, but since he only has me we just order each other around a lot and nothing gets actually done, because we're too busy catering to the dog.

It's a good thing he's cute.

It's About Fricken Time.

Well, I got the computer fixed.

First he slowed down. Then he hung up. Then, in his infinite wisdom, Calculon the Third (C3) decided it would be fun to turn off the sound. And as a last bit of defiance, he told our printer, Gutenberg, to stop the presses.

Now I know that some of you would say that I neglected the poor thing, and that really he was sick, and needed to be taken care of. I know that some of you will recognize these symptoms as some attention seeking cry for help. But the truth is, our machines are on a Machiavellian machination of machina über alles. They hate us.

They're trying to kill us.

Really.

We've had more coffee machines than Angelina has had kids, hers or others. Jackie has been electrocuted by the crock pot. I've had various fingers almost severed by hovercraft, fans, and other sharp pointy electrical things. We may be the first people, ever, to hurt themselves with a clock radio not in a bathtub.

So.

They're trying to kill us.

Really.

For Bander's Blog Buddies

Just a quick pic, for those who miss our dog.

A Quick Bander Update

It's been a few days, and he's gone through a couple of splints. He's like the rest of the family, tough on things. He's not as sad as he was, although on his last trip to the vet, they decided to try and used a couple of sheep worth of padding and a bit of green tape to keep it together.

So here he is all happy, on the way to the vets.

Since then, he's been more tired. But I think that's because without the splint, he feels the ankle/paw soreness more. I guess it keeps him from doing further damage; it must be working, because he certainly has spent more time not trying to drag me across the planet.

In fact, he's spent all his time doing what he does best; being a doorstop. This is where he stayed for about an hour, before I had to carry him down the stairs. He's not allowed up or down them, so if he wants to hang out with me while I do stuff, I've gotta carry him.

But he's adapting. I mean, he found the most comfy place in the house, and staked his claim.

So if'n you're wondering how he doing, he's a little better and a little more shrweepy.

It'd be nice if I could work this hard.

Crazy comes on four feet, too.

I am posting this quickly while I wait to hear from the emergency vet. I had some fun stuff planned for today, but I didn't get to it, because I've been entirely focused on Bander.

And here's what Bander did to distract me: while I was gone doing a massage, and while Jesse was at work, he jumped out a second floor bedroom window. I'm pretty sure he broke his right front leg. At the very least, he has some pretty heavy bruising and sprains.

The neighbors heard breaking glass, and ran out to see what the noise was. They called Jesse at work and told him what happened, and then took care of Bander until I could get home and drive him to the emergency animal hospital.

I was pacing too much, so they sent me home, but he's getting pain meds and xrays and a splint and all sorts of expensive things. I get to go pick him up in an hour or so.

What kind of crazy dog jumps out a second floor window? He had to get up over the top of the computer desk to do it, too. And he launched himself right through the screeen, and broke a couple of roof tiles. I know he landed on his feet because there are toenail divots in the asphalt.

This is not the kind of crazy I enjoy. Poor dog.