Posts (page 2)
Godspeed, little Queso.
That which is inevitable is not necessarily just or fair.
Queso has a vet appointment tomorrow. I am trying not to think about anything too much. I just want him to be better.
Here is some recent cuteness from the house:
Ham and Cola like to play with this toy together. Also, note that this is not a camera trick. The cat is really bigger than the Corgi.
When Ham has had enough playing, he proceeds to hide under the couch. Very, uh, effectively.
Queso has developed some impressive yoga techniques during his convalescence.
Cola wanted me to remind you that she is the dog.
We're going to see Andrew Bird at the Moore in Seattle tonight. I've raved about him before. Today I will limit my raving to sharing three tracks.
Last week: food and veterinarians.
Veterinarians: Queso had been eating, playing, and moving around less and less. We took him in to the vet to discover that he was anemic and dehydrated with an undetermined cause and therefore no immediately obvious solution. The vet gave him subcutaneous fluids and sent us home with antibiotics on Saturday; by Monday he had us come back for corticosteroids as well. Today is the 1-week mark with both the steroids and antibiotics, and Queso is looking better, although we still have no answer as to what the problem is. We hope he had a blood parasite we couldn't diagnose, because the antibiotics would kill that while the steroids would allow him to build up his red cell count again. If it's not that, we fear it could be an autoimmune condition, which is impossible to cure and would leave him feeling exhausted and on steroids (and therefore with a compromised immune system) for the rest of his life. (He has tested negative for FeLeuk, FIV, FIP, Bartonella, and distemper.) If you have good thoughts to spare, please direct them Queso's way.
Food: We spent 3 weeks corning our own beef brisket. Corning, as it turns out, is a process that has nothing to do with corn. In our case, it involved a dry rub of salt, bay leaves, allspice, black peppercorns, and paprika, which we applied to a 4-pound brisket that was then sealed in a ziplock bag and turned daily for 3 weeks. Two days before grill time, we took it out and soaked it in three successive baths of fresh cold water, followed by an overnight marinade in Sam Adams White Ale. We grilled it over charcoal and hickory chunks, and it came out looking for all the world like a prime rib. It was fabulous with some tomato, romano, and watercress salad, and it made divine sandwiches on little rolls with provolone, too.
I think that particular mixed metaphor is neither effective nor funny, but what I'm getting at is that I've literally been shamed into updating here, and thus, here I go:
This is Queso. Queso is, in this photograph, sitting with his hind legs up around his face. He does this willingly. Queso came to our household from the Tacoma Humane Society, because 1) Ham needed a playmate who was 2) going to help him outnumber the dog who moved into the house because 3) the dog (see next photograph) belongs to the guy (see 2nd next photograph) who is good to me and a great friend to my little boy and smart and funny and surprised me at Christmas by asking me if I would marry him, to which I said yes, but we'll wait a couple of years. How's that for an update?
This is Cola. Cola does cute little human things with her hands. Cola is a Pembroke Corgi who is now about 8 months old, and who thinks she is either a cat or a human. Her primary influences are, of course, cats and humans. Queso treats her as though she were furniture, and she shows her appreciation for this by sitting on Queso. Ham is bigger than she is, and thinks she is too spastic, and he shows his appreciation for this by hiding behind things and leaping out to scare the living bejeebus out of Cola while she's running around the living room. Cola enjoys snow, long walks in the city, and baked goods. Cola does not enjoy other dogs, because she is a total sissy-dog who pretends that she is being killed with fire when other dogs look at her directly. Except for Sampson. She is friends with Sampson.
This is Dan (with Cola). He is wearing a silly Russian-style hat that he bought in St. Petersburg. Florida. He is a former programmer and now a technical writer, and he plays video games and board games with me and my little boy, and hikes (as pictured) with his dog, and writes and draws, and goes to trivia and game night with me, and has had all kinds of interesting jobs doing top secret things I really can't tell you about because I would hate to have to kill you afterward. Also, I took this photograph, but not with my own camera.
So, right this second Ham and Cola are playing "which one of us is the herding dog?" -- a game in which Cola tries to herd Ham into a location of her choosing, but Ham keeps smacking her in the face and backing her into a corner. Then Cola honks like a goose in protest, and afterward, she meows like a cat. If she gets really frustrated, she says "Burf!"
If only I had a video camera.
As I am wont to do on occasional occasions, I'm sweeping in to update the 'hood on things going on in my world.
Exciting news: I have a new title. I am now a Triathlete. I finished the Seafair/Benaroya Research Institute sprint-length triathlon on July 20th. My time was not stellar, but I was not going for stellar, I was going for "finished and didn't die." I can report that open-water swimming in a large crowd is a colossal pain in the ass, and that I may never be a good runner, and that the triathlon committee will be hearing sharp words from me about the lack of bathroom facilities in the transition area, given how hard it is to run when you have 20 ounces of Gatorade in you looking for a way out.
I must also report the sad news of Clio's passing over the Rainbow Bridge. At the ripe age of 17, after sharing fully half of my lifetime, she decided that eating was not something she wanted to do any longer. She remained sweet and affectionate to the very end, and went on her own terms, and while the loss is palpable it is also a natural part of life, and I am so glad that I had so many years with her.
Ham, now 14 pounds, rules the roost unopposed for the time being. He seems not too bothered by the disappearance of his torment target, and maybe he is more sociable, but that'd be hard to judge given his propensity for flying-leap-to-headbutt greetings. He spends his days watching "kitty TV" - the various wildlife visible and smellable through the screen door of my porch slider.
Work is fabulous and my young boy is faring passably, attending a sports camp during the day that you'd think would wear him out but rarely does.
I'm a huge fan of Wii Fit. It makes me do stretching and strength training and yoga that are not part of my triathlon-training regimen, and it's well worth the price of admission.
In a little more than a week I'll be off to Montana for the annual two weeks of wilderness. This year we're hitting Glacier National Park as part of our travels, and I haven't been there since I was a child. I'm totally excited. It's like two weeks of deep renewal.
In closing, I recently saw Andrew Bird and Josh Ritter play at the Woodland Park Zoo here in Seattle. They are both amazing artists, and I submit to you two gorgeous tracks for your enjoyment, with a nudge to pick up their albums via mp3 from Amazon if you're so inclined, because they're really worth owning and loving.
Thanks to those who replied to my question a while back about whether people read stuff about politics.
As a volunteer for a campaign, it's a big part of my life right now. But I'm not one of those aggressive people who gets in people's faces. So in respect for those who aren't big fans of the subject or whose opinions differ, you can find me on the Barack Obama website or in blog form at Daily Kos.
When the primary season is over, you'll see more of me in my non-campaign-volunteer form. :)
I've been doing a fair amount of blogging lately, but obviously it hasn't been here.
It's not that I don't like the peeps here. I like y'all a lot.
I just sort of wonder whether this is the place for me to talk about the things that are on my mind lately -- politics and our culture and my upbringing and what I need to learn how to change so that I teach my son better lessons than the ones I was taught or the ones I learned by myself.
So there's the question. Do people read that stuff, or do they want to skip over it? The common silence on such posts in the past is what led me to have those conversations in places where there seemed to be more reception for it.
When you travel, do you use a guidebook so that you're well prepared, or do you go without much prior knowledge so that you're surprised?
Submitted by Jack Yan.
Within the US, I wing it. I am a huge fan of the "we have 12 days, let's get in the car and see where we end up" brand of road-tripping, complete with stops at every largest ball of twine, insect circus, and interesting-looking side road.
Outside of the US, I like to be prepared in terms of having my lodging and transportation pre-arranged and ideally pre-paid. However, I did follow the "road trip rules" on my first trip to Peru, where I knew I wanted to see the Nazca Lines and I started out in Lima. I rented a car and, accompanied by a local, started driving south. Didn't have lodging arranged, didn't have tickets to anything, asked at the hotels about the tour companies they recommended, stopped off at lots of random things we saw along the way. It was fabulous.
Going without a guidebook or without doing any research is dumb, though, internationally. Mostly because it'd be dumb to get home and find out you were 50 feet from something awesome that you didn't know you should see. :)
Show us the ugliest thing you own.
Of course, I mean to call attention to the big stone guy sticking his tongue out, and not to They Might Be Giants, who are delicious.
