Happy Howl-O-Ween!

What a tease...

When I was 6, my dad put me in the car and we went on a road trip.... He told me we were going to an Ancient Indian Artifacts museum and a dog show. I said, "a dog show! fun!!" with genuine child-like enthusiasm. He just shook his head lauging at me and took me to Disneyland, Universal Studios and Sea World instead. Of course I wasn't disappointed, however I've always wanted to actually go to a dog show.




So, Eldon and I took Wesley and Rikka to the Vancouver Kennel Club dog show today. I watch them all the time on TV, but have never had the chance to go to one. It was really cool to see all the different breeds of dogs and see them looking their best. We only stayed for the Weimaraner and Chinese Crested best of breed because we were both really tired, but I really liked it. Wesley was losing it though. He was pretty good, but he kept whining like crazy. Most of the Weims were female, and a couple of them arrived in diapers as they were in heat! I'm sure he was well aware. It sorta drove him out of his puppy mind. He spent the rest of the day grumbly. I think he was mad at us that we took him to the doggy equivalent of a strip club and then he went home unsatisfied. :P

October is Weim month...

At least for me it is. Not only do I have a weimaraner, (the best one in the world,) but I have a 2 year old female in my intermediate class. Today, I spoke with a lady who has a 16 week old weim puppy, and she signed up for my 3pm class that starts tomorrow. Not more than 10 minutes later, I was walking around and ran into another couple, who had a 10 week old weim puppy in their shopping cart! I talked to them for a bit, showed them pictures of Wesley, and SOLD! They are also joining my 3pm class tomorrow!
When I finished with them, I saw a woman walking around with another 16 week old weim puppy! They were everywhere!! The lady explained to me that this one was the last of her litter and she was looking for a home for her. Then the groomer walked out with the mom, and Wesley got to greet her. It was just crazy! The best part, is I may be able to connect the puppy looking for a home, with a loving home. The couple in my 6pm class want a weim puppy. What a great day to be a Weim lover. :)

After work I went with Eldon, Warren, Abby, Peter and Emily to see Saw 2. A really bad idea to go on opening night, by the way. We couldn't sit together, and as a matter of fact, Peter and Emily got the LAST TWO tickets to the showing! I'm glad I got to see it though. It was really well done. I like the thrillers that actually keep you guessing. It wasn't predictable like most horror movies. It was plenty gory, but not in the cheezy "check out strange noises in your underwear and get hacked to bits gratuitous nudity and blood" gory. We were discussing this afterward, but although there were some female characters in the movie, I thought it was great that there was absolutely zero nudity in the whole movie. How non-traditional for a horror movie!~

It came from inside the fridge....

I haven't been spending a lot of time at home, so today was the first day I actually had more than just a few minutes to spend in my apartment. When I went to get something to drink, I noticed my ice cubes smelled a little funny. When I opened the fridge, the smell got even worse.....

I wish I found a small husky puppy inside. That would explain why there is no edible food in there. Unfortunately all I found was some foul leftovers that I should have gotten rid of quite some time ago. It was horrible! There was nothing in my fridge salvageable except of course the condiments. Isn't that always what ends up remaining in your fridge after you clean out all the yucky stuff? Good ole ketchup. At least the stench is gone, but now I really need to go grocery shopping.

Stop! Thief!

So my internet has been down for a day and a half and I just got it back up this morning. It was nothing I could fix on my own and they had to send a tech out to fix it. I was pleasantly surprised when she arrived a half hour earlier than the time window they gave me. She poked around at my computer and my modem and then went outside. Apparently my cable was out as well, which I didn't know. Now you can see where my priorities lie.
When she came back in, she explained that the reason my cable and internet was out, was because my neighbors were stealing my cable~!!!
I wouldn't care so much that they were doing it, except that they are too dumb to do it in such a way that doesn't eff up MY service!
So anyway, it's fixed for now until they realize they no longer have cable and sneak out to put their line back in and screw up my service again. The only way to rectify the problem completely is for Comcast to get off their lazy asses and come put a new box outside that has a functional lock, because the one out there now doesn't lock.
Free cable for everyone! But if it screws up my service I'll own you.

And he's out!

I got a call around 6pm today while I was at work from Eldon saying he's now out of the hospital! YAY! When I finished my 7:30 class I went over to hang out with him for his first night at home. He was happy that I had scoured his bathroom (which needed some desperate cleaning mind you) as a welcome home present.

My dogs were pretty happy to see him too. They really like him.

shut up and drive

I woke up late Sunday, as it was the first time in a week I got decent sleep. I got up and did my normal let the dogs out and feed them, shower and then planned on heading over to see Eldon. I took the dogs to his place and as soon as I parked my car in the hospital parking structure, I get a frantic phone call from my mother.
Apparently, she boarded her dogs while she went to Seattle. My brother was supposed to pick them up, but he had girlfriend issues and was so distraught there was no way he could even drive. So my mom begged me to go pick them up. Keep in mind, I live in Vancouver and the hospital is in Beaverton, so I just spent 45 mins driving around, and now she's asking me to drive BACK up to Vancouver, pick up her dogs, go to my brother's house and get keys to my mom's, drop her dogs off, and drive all the way back to Beaverton again. She knew I'd do it too.. because it was her dogs.
I reluctantly agreed, and went up to Eldon's room to see him. He was doing much better and said he wanted to have some REAL fresh air. We went for a walk down to the hospital's courtyard. The sign on the door was pretty amusing... No Smoking (exception for hospital patients). Ok, so you're not allowed to smoke UNLESS you're a patient of the hospital? I thought those were the last people they would want smoking... Anyway, he was glad to get some real air and then we went back to his room and chatted for a bit before I went to drive around and be a doggie taxi.


2 hours later, I got all that done, and just as I pulled BACK into the hospital parking garage, Warren calls me to let me know that Abby's taco soup dinner I was promised was now ready. I told them the sorted story and said I might have to pass because I just got back to the hospital again and have spent next to no time with Eldon. Got back up to Eldon's room and he had been doped up on pain meds so he could sleep soundly. He was already nearing his drug enduced coma when I arrived, so all I would get to do at this point was watch him sleep.
So, I decided to go have some taco soup. I drove over to Eldon and Warren's house, had some delicious taco soup and watched Eurotrip with them.
My mom called me to thank me for taking care of the dogs, and I said no problem, but that she would have to do the same for me sometime. It's nice to know I have a dog related favor waiting around....

Kryptonite

I got the latest news about Eldon from his mother on the phone today as I was unable to go see him on Friday. Apparently hospital diet #2 didn't fare so well with him and he is back on the liquid diet. :( I think he was really hoping to be able to go home this weekend and was pushing things too fast, maybe the doctors were too.

Most men, are more logical than women and like to solve problems, (Eldon especially) and I think in this case he is getting frustrated because he can't fix this one. Men like to think they are Superman and when they "lose their powers" they still try to pretend that they have them, denying that they need any sort of support or help.



I'm now getting the reference why there are dog training books that have nothing to do with dog training, but more to do with man training......see here . Being a dog trainer myself, I get it. Dogs don't show pain, because pain is a sign of weakness. Weakness could equal another dog coming in and taking over their territory. Hence the reason men don't like to seem weak. In doggie world, the female has more power because they get to choose who mates with them, and they always choose the strongest males. See the reference?

Hospital Diet #2

I slept at the hospital again last night. I've decided I can't do it anymore. I'm a zombie. This time it wasn't the nurses fault, although they did come in every two hours to bother him. Eldon is doing quite a bit better, and now is able to get up and move around fairly well. This includes being able to use the bathroom, and since he's being pumped full of IV liquids he has to go fairly frequently... As the saying goes, "no rest for the wicked" I must be pure evil.
Don't get me wrong, I don't regret spending every night in the hospital with him, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat, but it's just really starting to take it's toll on me.

This morning, Eldon got to choose his breakfast. He had scrambled eggs, some sort of oatmeal looking thing, strawberry yogurt and cranberry juice. They even offered me breakfast as well. I had rubbery french toast things. It was just nice watching Eldon eat solid food, alth0ugh the morphine kills your appetite, so he didn't eat a whole lot of it.

The most amusing part of the morning was his new nurse. Her biggest concern is that Eldon pass gas. (Passing gas is important because it shows them that his intestines are acutally starting to work.) Now the punchline: His nurse for today's name is Windy!

Hospital Diet #1

Eldon is doing much better. They took out the epidural last night, and this morning he had the first thing by mouth he's had since he got there.. A nice glass of cranberry juice. Right after he tasted it, he said.. "This is REALLY good!" Honestly, I had some of it too, and it didn't taste like pure cranberry, I think it was cran apple, but I'd think after not having anything to eat in 5 days, a tennis shoe with bacon grease on it would taste pretty damn good.

In addition to that, he said that he had some chicken broth and jello this evening as well. I laughed, and said, "Wow, after I had my gall bladder removed, that was my first meal as well.. Chicken broth and cranberry juice... and of course, the jello." We determined that must be standard hospital diet #1.

I had to leave to go to work, but when I talked to him this evening he said that he was actually able to take a real shower today and it felt awesome. He said he's starting to feel like a real person again and that because he's doing so well, they might even let him out sometime this weekend! I'm really excited that he's doing so well. Of course, the real test is when he's no longer on IV pain meds....

I had a decent day except for one thing. I felt bad about not spending much time with my dogs since Eldon's been in the hospital, so I thought I would take Wesley to work with me today. He's a really great dog, and is always well behaved when I take him to work, but.... because he has to stay on leash in the store, he can't always tell me when he needs to go out. I'm using him for demonstration in my 2pm class, and as I'm talking he squats down and takes a big messy POOP right in front of my students! Doh!

Issues

I slept at the hospital again last night with Eldon. We actually got some decent rest because instead of poking and prodding him every hour like they did the night before, they just peeked in to see he was still breathing and then left. So much more manageable!
Around 10 am we awoke to Warren's smiling face. We chatted with him for about 10 minutes before a very millitant CNA came in and told Eldon he had to get up in the next ten minutes so she could change his sheets like it was a friggin emergency.



I stayed till around 1pm watching Warren pimp out Eldon's room. Then I had to go take care of my dogs. I went to Eldon's and fed Wes and Rikka, and decided to take Rikka with me back up to Vancouver to run my errands, as she is small enough to take in everywhere I needed to go.

Why I hate NY #47: I've been trying to get WA plates on my car for quite a while, but as it turns out its incredibly difficult because of NY. I figured all I had to do was call my lienholder to get a copy of the title to the WA DMV.... Not quite. I did call them, and they said, "We don't have your title, YOU do."
"Um... No I don't. If I did I wouldn't be calling you for it."
"Well NY sends the title to the person with the car. If you don't have it it may be because your address was wrong, if it comes back to them, they don't resend it."
"Great."
Getting ahold of NY DMV is next to impossible, and if you aren't at the address they have on file you can't do it online! My only option is to call them, which of course isn't possible because they don't even have an automated phone system, I got a busy signal! It's like calling a radio station, you're never going to get through when you want something. Even when I get through, they're going to mail me my title in 6-8 weeks!

So....I went up to everyone's favorite place, the DMV, to beg them for an extension on my temporary permit, which expired yesterday. The lady was amazingly helpful and gave me a 60 day permit, well not really GAVE it, I had to pay $75 bucks for it. But anyway, at least I don't have to worry about getting an expired tags ticket for 2 months.

Laughter is the best medicine....

I spent most of the day with Eldon at the hospital. He was even instructed to get up and walk around 3 times a day. We played a little "patient bingo" where a volunteer from the hospital comes around and gives you some bingo cards, and you fold the numbers down when they are called from a special channel on the hospital's closed circut channel. We didn't win. We came to the conclusion that it must have been rigged though, because the only winners came from the 8th floor.
My dogs are camped out at Eldon's house, because he lives about 10 mins from the hospital, and I live 45, so I left in the afternoon to go let them out and feed them. When I came back, Eldon's response was, "I'm drugged!" One of the pumps he's connected to had an epidural drip, and it kept failing during the day, so while I was gone, the anesthesiologist came in to replace it, but he gave him something else to ensure that he wouldn't be in pain while they changed out the pump. The nurse had also given him something, so he was really loopy! Look at the teeny tiny pupils!

Justin came to visit, and while he was there, he invited me to go with him to Harvey's Comedy Club. He had free tickets and was looking for some people to go with him. I said I would let him know later, and he left shortly after to go back to work.
Then Ildiko came over. She showed us the Petting Zoo. (Don't click on the link if you are easily offended, especially don't click on it if you are at work!!!!) We laughed our asses off.
While I was at Eldon's house, I got in contact with Nivarni, and told her she too should come to visit Eldon. She was really grateful that I told her and she showed up shortly after. She was also very happy to see Warren.
Eldon made sure that even in the hospital, he proved he can have an "Eldon Moment" tm.

I decided to go to Harvey's and give Eldon a break from me, as I'd been there all day and I'm sure he was getting tired of me. You know, even too much of a good thing is a bad thing! It ended up being me, Justin, Asa, and Ben. We had a little food and a couple drinks while waiting for the comedians to start. Both comedians were very funny. I feel bad because although I have pictures of them, I can't for the life of me tell you what their names were.

They were both very good though...

Mell of a Hess...

After visiting Eldon at the hospital for a while, I came back to my apartment. I'd been gone for nearly 24 hours. I expected a lot worse. Wesley had the run of the apartment and I would never expect him to hold it for that long. I figured there would be a pee trail from my front door to my back door as he paced back and forth wishing someone would let him out. Amazingly, there was no such trail, nor even a puddle. Poor Wesley held it the entire time. He really is the best dog ever.

I went into the bathroom and it was a whole nother story.... Rikka isn't housetrained yet, so she was in my bathroom. I knew I'd be gone for a while and it would be cruel to leave her in a crate for that long. It was worse than I expected.... I knew there would be a mess to clean up. I figured a little puddle and a couple of little poop pieces to pick up.

The whole bathroom looked like a monkey grabbed handfuls of it and flung poo all over my bathroom floor! I can't blame her for going, and I didnt even so much as yell at her, but man, why'd she have to track it all over in there? :( So after letting both dogs relieve themselves outside, I came back in to sigh heavily as I completely scoured my bathroom and cleaned it top to bottom. Ah well, such is life when you are the sole caregiver of dogs and you can't always be there.

Change of plans...

My original plan for Sunday was to go to a murder mystery dinner party hosted by my friend Glen. I borrowed a drop-dead gorgeous dress from my mother and started dressing for my part as the wine princess turned Hollywood actress. (A part I was looking forward to playing.)


Sunday afternoon, I got a phone call from a very distressed Eldon. If I didn't have caller ID I wouldn't have even known it was him. That's how bad he sounded. He said he was in the most excrusiating pain he'd ever felt in his life and was going to be going to the hospital. What kind of person would I be if I got a call like that and went to the party anyway? Naturally I rushed down to the hospital to be with him. He ended up having emergency surgery at around 9pm and it looks like he will be in the hospital for at least a week if not two. I won't go into the gory details here, but I will show you a gory picture. :P

While waiting for the outcome of the surgery, Warren, Abby and I went back to Eldon's to wait for results. I didn't want to waste the chance to wear this fantastic dress, so we decided to do an impromptu photo shoot to take our minds off worrying about Eldon.

As soon as we got the call that he was out of surgery, Warren and I went back to the hospital to see him. He was awake and looked pretty good considering. We talked with him for a bit, and teased him about his "foot massager booties" that made a fart sound every couple of minutes as it spurted air to his feet to keep the bloodflow going while he can't move around much.

I didn't leave the hospital until around 5am when Warren and I started to pass out. I went down to Eldon's house and crashed on his couch for 3 hours of fitful uncomfortable sleep before going back to see him again.