Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

Gina flew off to the Philippines on Friday the 28th and arrived on Sunday the 30th. While, this isn't necessarily a normal definition of time travel, the there are several things to keep in mind here.

For instance, I spoke with her while I was making dinner this evening (Monday night), this while she was on her way to breakfast on Tuesday morning.

The is already in tomorrow, while I am still in Today!

Ok, Ok I know she isn't really in the future. But that type of mindset may help you understand this next bit.

So my wife's birthday is on the 29th. She was on the airplane for her birthday. However, I would like to think that she was crossing the international dateline (though I am pretty sure she was a few hours away from that when the airplane crossed that median).

However, as far as I am concerned she ended up skipping the 29th, thus negating her birthday for this year.

And as it so happens, this year is her 30th birthday.

Which means that if she skipped the 29th of March, then technically she never turned 30, so she gets to be 29 for another year.

Apparently someone at work made a joke about how she isn't turning 30, she is just going to be celebrating the first anniversary of her 29th birthday.

Anyway, Gina is having a good time in the Philippines so far. She is going to be there for about 2 weeks, returning to Austin on the 12th.

That means that I am living it up bachelor style with the dogs.

I am trying to get them to respect me more. I am pretty sure they think I am just one of the pack, except I'm extra tall and have thumbs (which come in handy for opening things like cans of food and treats).

John finished up the gate he was making for Gina. It is custom fit to go across our wider than normal opening between the living room and the dining room. The height is perfect, not too high and not too low. The couple of previous gates we have had (from Wal-Mart or Target) tended to be too high, tends to make for banged up shins.

John does great work, when I get a chance I will post some pictures. John stated that if anyone else is looking for a custom crafted gate he might start doing them as part of his side woodworking business.

Well, I am going to see if I can finish my expense report tonight.

Laterz

Gina and I went to a different farmers market today, down at 4th and Guadalupe.

In comparison to the one that we have been going to down on 290, it sucked.

The one we went to today was about 1/3 the size. The vegetables available were not as good looking or nearly the same variety.

We did get some bread, it looked better than the baguette that we bought previously. They also had Main Rootbeer for sale, good stuff. We also picked up some more organic eggs.

After the farmers market we picked up the dogs and headed up to the "Bark Park" in Georgetown, a dog park that is fully enclosed and has separated large and small dog areas.

The dogs all had fun, as did I. I had the chance to play with a cute little mutt named Trixie. About 1 year old and full of spunk, Trixie reminded me a lot of Emma at that age. I had to ask Trixie's owner how old Trixie was to verify that she was still a puppy. I figured Trixie was a puppy, because of the fact that Trixie immediately had started to nip at my hands when she ran up.

We spent about an hour and a half before taking the dogs home.

Emma did very good. Buddy did pretty good. Curly wasn't very excited to be there, but he had fun marking the place. And Basil actually seemed to really enjoy himself.

Well the pizza just showed up, gotta go.

Laterz

Gina has some better pics of Peanut. I will have to get them from her tomorrow, right now it is very late and I need to get some sleep.

Night

Peanut //RIP: 2003 to 2007

Peanut passed away tonight at about 9:05. Before I get into any of details of what happened, let me just tell everyone that reads this that Peanut had the most character of any dog that I have had the pleasure granting a permanent visa to.



She has gone by several names, most of which I will take credit for. I gave her the name Peanut, I completely had the little funky chihuaha like dog from Pauly Shore's movie Jury Duty in mind when I gave her that name. Then there was the moniker of being the 'Pea-Chee' course that is how Gina would usually write it, I always meant it as 'Pee-Chee' because well as most tiny, tiny dogs she liked to pee just about anywhere she felt like. While I would like to take credit for Princess P, I think Gina made up that one. Princes P came from the fact that Peanut was always very particular about her sleeping arrangements and more often than not notice if you even remotely touched her bed, ie 'The Princess and the Pea' story.

She will be sorely, sorely missed. It just isn't a five dog quartet without the Princess P. I won't be able to say that we have '4 and half dogs' anymore either, it was always a great intro into the story behind Pee-Chee.

Earlier today, Gina told me she had run Peanut into Dr. Farmer's office because something wasn't right with her. She said that Peanut had been making funny noises, which meant that it had to be a very odd and bad noise, as Peanut made funny noises all the time.

I honestly thought that maybe Gina was just being a little over protective of Peanut, since Gina had mentioned that it might have been another hypoglycemic episode. Because of Peanut's tiny size and almost complete lack of body fat it is really easy for her to not eat as much as she should and then have an episode. Mind you since we changed up her food she has been eating like a drunken cow, I mean almost all the time the food dish is empty (and not because Emma has been stealing all of the food).

Dr. Farmer ran some blood work and as he was examining her he made mention of something I think Gina also said might have been a problem, that Pee-Chee was not acting properly, like not moving around responsively, ie neurological issue. As the day continued, Gina kept in communication with Dr. Farmer, it was not looking like Peanut was going to get better.

I mean, Emma got better, she had a stroke of the spine (FCE) and she got better. Peanut could too, right? That is what my thought was when I heard stroke. But, the stroke that Peanut had (we are pretty sure she had a stroke early this morning or late last night) was different from the one Emma had. While, it had left Peanut pretty much without the use of her right front and rear legs, it must have caused some brain damage as well.

Peanut just was not her usual self. She wasn't barking at all, at least not while I was holding her. She would normally at bark a little bit while you were holding her (even if she was in her little bag) or at least growl at you when you put your finger into her bag to scratch her head. Nope, nothing.

I will admit that when I got home, I was selfish. I started cooking dinner, I offered to make Gina some of what I was making, but as usual my crazy idea for dinner didn't appeal to Gina. I say that I was selfish, because I didn't want to spend time with Peanut when I first got home, I didn't want to sit and watch another dog that I cared about go through something that I couldn't do anything to help. I did poke in on Gina and Peanut once or twice as the night went on. The Princess P was as pathetic as I had thought she would be, just laying there in her little sleeping bag not really moving. Mind you, she would normally just lay in her little bag and not move normally, but this was different. Usually her eyes would follow you when you looked at her, this time around one of them seemed to look at you the other just seemed to be staring off into space.

Gina took her out of the bag at one point to see if she could stand up. She fell down, needless to say this shook me up a little bit, since that was what really upset me about Emma, while Emma was at the vet. I mean, Pee-Chee loved her little bags, laying in them, sleeping in them, occasionally peeing in them (but just a little bit, I mean I didn't start calling her Pee-Chee for nothing). That is when I knew that Peanut wasn't going to get better, that tonight one way or another was the last night that she was going to be with us. With the fact that her personality seemed like it was completely gone and that she couldn't stand up, in all honestly there was just no way to expect her to snap out of it.

I asked her if it was ok for me to hold Peanut. As I didn't want Peanut to get cold, the last thing Pee-Chee needed right then and there was to feel cold and in my mind unloved. So I grabbed a blanker and we sat down in the big red chair in the living room. I rested her on my chest and laid one of the blankets we keep in the living room on top of her to help keep her warm. She felt like she was warming up after a few minutes. She was making odd noises, which I can only imagine were the same noises that prompted Gina to take her into Dr. Farmer's office earlier that day.

Gina had to step out of the house. She had to step out and get a pack of smokes. Between the two of us she was making the big decision of whether to take Peanut into the Emergency Vet and put her to sleep or give her Valium to try and make it a very peaceful transition. Gina told me that Dr. Farmer said that the Valium was going to take several hours to kick in. She didn't want to take her into the Emergency Vet, as they just about every vet Peanut has ever visited has had a very hard time hitting a vein. And whether you believe it or not, a pet knows when they are in a strange place or whether they are at home. No pet should have to be at a Vet's office when their time comes, it is best if they are at home with the people (and fellow pets) that love.

We sat on the couch and watched TV, I looked down at her and told her that I loved her and that I was going to miss her. I told her that it wasn't going to be the same without her. At one point she sort of stuck the tip of her tongue out of her mouth, I sort of thought that maybe she was yawning, she used to do these really big yawns where her tongue would come rolling out of her mouth. However, then I realized that it was an involuntary action, it was just sort of sticking out at me.

It looked dry to me and I thought about getting one of the syringes that Gina has in the animal stuff (no needle, just the plastic part) and filling it with water. That way I could wet her little tongue, anything to try and make her a little bit more comfortable. Worried that I might make things worse, I called Gina first. She told me not to worry that Pee-Chee had plenty of fluids. The reason I was concerned about it, was that I didn't want to accidentally drown Peanut, given that she didn't seem to be in control of her faculties, last thing I wanted to do was make things worse.

So instead I shifted her position on my chest slightly, she looked like she seemed a bit more comfortable. A minute or so later, Emma came galloping up to the chair and leaped onto my lap, in doing so she came within inches of crushing Peanut. If your gasping, this is pretty normal behavior for Emma so I was prepared and had already shifted Pee-Chee up a little to avoid a crushing body check from Emma.

Odd thing was that Emma was shivering a little bit, Emma pushed herself under the covers and calmed down a little bit. Given what came a few minutes later, I would like to think that maybe Emma knew what was about to happen and wanted to be near her little older sister in her last moments, but I won't every really know what made Emma jump up into the chair. I do know that Emma was scared about something.

A few moments after Emma had hopped into the chair, Peanut made some more of those noises. Her little tongue was sticking out more than before, not at all like the little royal Princess I was used to seeing. Then she started shaking in the bag. If not for the fact that I knew something was wrong, I would have thought she was just stretching. Because when she stretches a really good stretch, she sort of does this shaky thing, I mean if she was say like a 75 lb dog this shaky thing would likely knock over tables and chairs, if you know tables and chairs were close enough to be knocked around by the shaking of a 75 lb dog. Normally Peanut's shaky thing only causes herself to lose her balance and fall over.

It wasn't a stretch.

It was a seizure. It was her last seizure.

Maybe it was a seizure brought on by another stroke. I really, really have no idea, as I am not a vet.

All I know is that it broke my heart.

I saw her shake it out and then she just sort of peacefully lowered her head down into the little bag.

She had stopped looking up at me and to be quite honest I couldn't bring myself to poke into the bag and see if she was alive or not.

I mean, I looked into the bag to try and see if her chest was moving because of her breathing, but I was a bit nervous. And I didn't want to set her on a table or anything, that just seemed like a cold hearted thing to do. So I held her to my chest and frantically called Gina.

About 30 minutes or so had passed since Gina had left and I wasn't sure when she was going to get back. But I hoped it was going to be really, really soon. I decided to get out the front and see if Gina was possibly in the driveway, she had just pulled up and was on the phone, which explained why my calls had been going straight to voicemail. I told her what happened and she took Pee-Chee's sleeping bag from me, at my request. I couldn't bring myself to verify that she had passed away.

I don't deal with death well. Luckily for me, any of the pets that I have had before that died, did so in the middle of the night while I was asleep or while I was away at school (we are talking about fish, mice and gerbils, not cats and dogs).

So that is how Peanut passed away. She did it at home, with her big little sister Emma near her, while resting in her little sleeping bag on my chest under the covers.

And to be quite honest about all of it, I have cried tonight, shit I have shed several tears while typing this entry up. What can I say it is hard not to get broken up about a dog that weighs less than 1.5 lbs, yet will bite a grown man because they were foolish enough to poke a finger into her little sleeping bag (to the best of my knowledge she never broke the skin, not that she wasn't trying).

I will miss spending time on the couch with Pee-Chee, watching Saturday afternoon TV (well not so much watching but sleeping while the TV was on).

I will miss her bark that would fill the entire house when she would hear us feeding the rabbits, the sound of their food hitting the food bowls sounded apparently a little too much like her food I guess.

I will miss her little funky walk, it was sort of like she was marching, she always seemed to high-step around on the tile.

I will miss the fact that she would usually run right up to me (normally I was on the couch) whenever Gina would let her out of her bed.

I will definitely miss the fact that she would usually stop along the way from her bed to the couch and pee on the tile.

She will forever be my Pee-Chee.

We are going to have her cremated and Gina told me that John has offered to make a little box to hold her ashes. Given that she weighed less than 1.5 lbs, I am not envisioning that it will be a very large box. It will not doubt be a box fit for royalty, after all she was the Princess P.

Good Night and Thank You.

Ben D. Benner

So this morning, Emma jumped down off the bed (I think she went halfway down the little doggy stairs we have in the bedroom, then jumped).

However, since I was going to be getting up soon anyway I didn't feel like getting up to pick her up and put her on the bed. Did I forget to mention we was doing this little Emma style bark whine thing?

And then out of no where Emma appeared on the bed.

SHE JUMPED ON TO THE BED!!!

This amazed me, even though she has been pretty much back to normal since her FCE episode, this was the first time I saw her jump up onto the bed since.

I mean the bed it pretty tall and while Emma isn't tiny like Curly, she hasn't ever been as vertically capable as our dog Buddy.

Still amazed by the feat of doggy acrobatics I asked Gina she knew that Emma could jump up on the bed. And as most things related to the dogs, I am the last to know. She told me that Emma has been doing that for a while.

Oh well, I was very excited and proud that my little schnauzer mix is probably at about 95% of her normal self after her FCE episode. The last 5% relates to the fact that she doesn't have control over her back left leg as much as she used to and that she still has her left front paw turned over more than we would like.

Lunch is about over back to the grind.

Laterz

Gina called me a few minutes after I had posted and shutdown the computer.

She was on her way back, Curly was fine. I did cough up some foamy stuff in the car she said, but when they got to the Emergency Vet all was well with Mr. Curl.

The Vet did a decent checkup on him and gave him a clean bill of health.

They only charged Gina $49 or so, rather than the usual $75. That was very nice of them.

The Vet on duty was the same doctor who looked at Emma originally and inquired about her condition. Gina gave him a full update, as he had not been even remotely informed by the other Vet.

I point that out, because the Emergency Vet she took Emma too also is the practicing daytime Vet who took care of Emma. I was just thinking that some sort of information would have been passed back and forth, even in sticky-note form or something.

Oh well.

Back to the grind.

Laterz

Shortly after Jeremy and I got home, Curly started coughing. He does this sometimes for attention or just because his throat is dry.

Gina told me to give him some bread and make sure he got a drink.

I couldn't find any bread in the fridge, so I gave him some left over penne pasta that was in the fridge.

He coughed after wolfing it down and yakked it back up.

I gave him another piece, same effect. Wolfed it down, coughed and it was back up.

So Gina picked him up and ran him into the emergency vet.

I think we need to see if they have like a club card or some sort of 5th visit is free kind of thing.

She hasn't called me, so I am hoping it is just something he has stuck in his throat or what not. I tried her a minute ago and no answer.

I will try her again in a minute.

Laterz

Well I paid about $12 of the total, being the purchase of the Buffy The Backside Slayer from Lush last night. Actually I bought two, because when you do that they give you a free tin to store it in.

Emma ate one of the buffy bars. We aren't sure exactly when Emma managed to eat it but it was after we got home.

Gina called poison control. That is where the rest of the money went. It would have been about a $150 exfoliating bar, except Emma yacked up almost everything she ate before they reached the emergency vet's office. At the vet's office they would have forced Emma to yack up the bar, but would be there in case she had managed to eat it mostly whole, and possibly form an obstruction of her airway.

The sort funny thing was. As I was sort of half passed out on the couch, before we found out what she had done, she was near me and I asked Gina if she had used this lavender scented organic cleaning spray she has on the floor or something? Because I could smell lavender on Emma (in all actuality I asked Gina if she has sprayed some lilac stuff on the floor, but i was half a sleep).

One of the ingredients in the Buffy bar is lavender. So when Gina noticed that the Lush bag was missing a Buffy bar, Gina put 2 and 2 together and realized why Emma smelled like lavender.

Emma seems ok. I am sure she will have an upset stomach.

Keep ya posted.

Laterz

The dogs are happy to see me and I am happy to see them.

Now, I need to scrounge up some food.

Laterz