Poor Old Dog

Tommy has been our foster dog for nearly two years.  He's effectively ours as it seems unlikely he'll get adopted.  He has a myriad of minor problems that make him a difficult adoption, perhaps the worst of which is that he's 13 and people don't want older dogs.

This morning Tommy slipped or stepped funny and badly sprained his front right leg.  With two weak hind legs already, he was having a lot of trouble getting around.  We took him to the vet and nothing is broken, which is the good news.  The bad news is he appears to be in pain and is on bed rest for the next two weeks.  We'll have to help him get outside and back inside to do his business.  Yes, that's as much fun as it sounds.  If there's a bright side, it's that Tommy isn't very active and we don't need to crate him to limit his activity.  He does that on his own.

He's resting comfortably now, but is basically stuck downstairs until further notice.  And he doesn't like to be picked up to be moved outside or brought back in.  Fun, fun, fun.

July Update

It's pretty clear that my blog has been neglected the past month.  Even without a 9-5 job July is pretty crazy busy.  I looked at the start of the month and there were about 5 days where Monica and I were actually free in the evenings and two of them were last night and tonight.  A couple others opened up, but it's busy, busy, busy.

Softball really becomes a dominant factor in July.  We have weeknight games which are always challenging to field a team. The playoffs start and takes a lot of time to get my team RSVPs and get ready for games.  As league commissioner there are a lot of little things to deal with -- questions, complaints, issues, players going postal on umpires, etc.  Oh and then I actually have to play softball.  We won our first two games, including knocking off the #1 seed which was a great start.  But then a bit injured and a bit shorthanded dropped our next two to finish in 3rd place.  3rd out of 11 teams isn't bad but when you think you have a championship caliber team and there are only 4 real contenders, 3rd of 4 isn't that exciting.  Still we had a pretty good year, had a lot of fun, and were well behaved.  My team actually likes each other which is a good thing.

Mariners.  Yuck.  Still going to a lot of games and watching/listening to my team.  Cubs, ditto though obviously I'm not going to games.  Can baseball season be over yet?  I can't recall a year where my teams had so much "potential" and were so terrible.  Can't believe the excitement is the Cubs reaching for .500 and the Mariners trying to avoid 100 losses.

Busy around the house.  Deck is done.  Hardwood floors are done.  I put in grout between the hardwood floor and the tile edges.  Learned a lot and will be easier next time.  Of course, "next time" will probably be 20 years down the road and I won't remember anything.  Don't you hate when that happens.  Have been watering plants and the lawn now that summer has arrived and it doesn't rain anymore.  Sadly everything is too wet in May and June and then dies in July and August.  Re-arranged the art with help from my parents.

My mom and dad visited for 5 days last weekend and I spent a lot of time running around town with them.  We mainly spent time at the Belleve Arts Fairs.  Monica and I bought a few things for our house and my parents found an anniversary gift for us -- though we have to pick what we want and order it -- but I'm not sure they actually bought anything despite hours of looking at arts and crafts.  They also helped with hanging art as noted.  They are helpful, but it's really more their presence inspires me to hang things up.  And dad likes putting up pictures.

Tommy has been getting acupuncture twice a week and will start the underwater treadmill next week.  We're trying to strengthen his back and legs or at least make sure they don't get any worse.  Cocoa has horrible yeast infections in his ears that won't quite clear up.  They're better especially in one ear, but we're still working on it.  Hunny Bear is good.  He's suddenly the easy one.

With all that, I really haven't played much poker.  I active in online forums thinking about my game, but really need to find time to play.  Hard to believe, but someone it never quite happens.

Week 2

After another typical weekend -- Mariners lose, softball team wins -- it's back to work.

This week I've been keeping an eye on our dogs while parts of the remodel are in progress.  I was going to put them in daycare, but they're actually been pretty good about staying out of the way and not barking at the workers or all the noise.  Nailing in a hardwood floor is noisy, but Tommy sleeps right through it.

Monday the hardwood guy got to work installing boards and my painters arrived.  Fortunately the were working around each other.  When we moved in we removed a divider from the bottom of the stairs and patched the walls and ceiling but never painted.  I picked up some paint six months ago to see if I could get a match, but it was never on the top of the to do list.  Sort of out-of-sight, out-of-mind but more after staring at the ugliness every day, we just learned to live with it.  But with hardwoods going in, we wanted to paint first rather than risk getting paint on the new wood floors.  In the end, we cut out a chunk of the wall and did a color match.  They were able to feather in the paint to avoid painting the 15" wall above the stairwell and perhaps other walls to match which was a great saving of time and money. Hard to explain really; you have to see it.

Tuesday the hardwood installer got most of the floor done and Wednesday he finished up with the hallway and the edges.  Looks great and it hasn't been sanded or finished yet.

Meanwhile I've been working on planning my trip to Las Vegas and it looks like it's a go.  I'll be there May 24th through June 4th.  Have airfare, hotels, and a rental car booked.  I'm staying off the strip at Alexis Park the first week to keep my costs down.  Even Imperial Palace wants $200 for Saturday over Memorial Day weekend, then moving to IP the second week where I have 4 nights for $85!  My plan is rather than to play poker non-stop to actually have a vacation.  See some shows, walk down the strip, maybe sit by the pool.  Get away from the strip to see some other parts of Vegas.  And really before 11 AM the poker action isn't that good. 

Also working around the house.  It seems the laundry never stops, even for just the two of us. I've been catching up on entering our financial records into MS Money in preparation for doing our taxes.  Yes, I haven't even started taxes yet.  Finished reseeding the back yard.  Dogs and dog "output" do a number on a lawn.  I can't believe how bad it looks just a year after we put down sod.  Seeding is more work than it sounds like.  Had to loosen up the soil in lots of places and work the seed into the dirt.  Otherwise it just washes away.  The lawn eeds a lot of TLC (and a lot of water) this year.  Hope to see some grass and hope in a couple of weeks. 

I installed a keyless entry for the garage.  That was actually a fun project where I felt like I accomplished something rather than started something that will eventually finish.  Our garage is attached to our house but is external so the door is locked and it's a pain to unlock it, every time to go into the garage.  I looked at doing this when we first moved in, but didn't see one that would work.  Maybe it's a new model, but this was pretty easy to install and only took an hour and works great.already.

Also made a trip to the vet.  Hunny Bear and Cocoa are fine -- still needs another round of meds for his yeast infection -- but Tommy has problems with ears and eyes.  And it's almost impossible for us to medicate him.  He sees the dropper bottle coming for his ears or eyes and he runs.  When you catch him he shakes and jerks his head.  Try putting eye drops in while shaking -- impossible. That's my challenge foe the week.