If you are reading this as the top entry in my journal, it means that either you are not signed into LJ or you are not on my friends list. I post a picture every day (sometimes I miss a day, but I catch up); whether you are missing out on anything depends on whether you like to look at my pictures and read about my thrilling life.

To get on my friends list:
1 - get an LJ account
2 - add me as a friend
3 - send me a message telling me either how we know each other or why we should

Here is a picture of my dog in my backyard, so you won't feel as though you came here in vain:

Tasha has 7 puppies from one litter and 5 from another, all about 2 months old, right now. She brought 3 of them that were sold already to the vet (where my dog is now, waiting for the groomer to wash him and clip his nails) for their first set of shots; after that, the new owners take care of them.

She has 2 females still unsold. If I got one, I would have to set the alarm to wake up at 1:30 or 2 to get up to walk it until it is paper or pad trained. I might get a video and/or book about training when I go to the library later. I have never had a puppy before, only a 100% outside dog, the senior dog that died last year, and the senior dog I have now. Tasha says it needs puppy food for a year; also, I have to give it a nutritional supplement because yorkies have trouble with blood sugar levels.

Andrew says I can get it, but that will make 2 cats and 2 dogs, and there will be no 5th cat or dog. Also, I'm not allowed to complain about taking care of it or whatever it eats, chews, or pees on.

Should I get a puppy at this time? Please discuss.

( The two other puppy pictures are behind the cut so they won't sway you. If you look, you will be begging me for Tasha's phone number. )

The holidays are over, and Gary needs a rest. He was due for 2 days off beginning about 16 hours after this picture was taken on Sunday afternoon.

I chose Gary's restaurant as the meeting place for the holiday party of the Greater NYC Chapter of the Betsy-Tacy Society. Last year no one could agree on a place... people did not like my suggestion of dim sum. They wanted somewhere not too noisy (although 15-20 women in one place can get pretty noisy themselves), better than fast food, and no more than $25 including tax and tip. We got all that at Prince Street Cafe & Catering in SoHo, at 26 Prince Street near Mott Street, only 2 short blocks from our bimonthly book club meetings at the McNally Jackson Bookstore. I stopped in there for gnocchi once before a meeting and was blown away.

For our $25 including tax and tip we got: baskets of nice bread with butter; choice of soup or a giant bowl of salad (I had butternut squash soup, done to exactly the right viscosity of puree with no lumps and no annoying gagging amounts of herbs and spices); plates of delicous sandwiches and wraps brought to the table to pass (and some women didn't like the selection and asked for, say, tuna salad and were accommodated at no extra charge); soda, coffee, and/or tea, with plenty of refills brought; and plates of cookies, cupcakes, and Danish passed around.

I didn't take too many pictures, because I don't like to bother people when they're eating. Here's a picture of Suzanne, who collects all the suggestions and the reviews thumbs up and down on those suggestions and then makes the calendar of what books we read when.

The Giants were busy eating it on the TV behind her.

We have a book grab bag at every holiday party. I left before the three hours we had reserved were up, because I get too stiff sitting in a little chair in a small space for too long and it was getting loud in there, too. I chose the book I took away based on the pretty wrapping, and I'm glad I didn't open it there because I might have said something unpleasant. It was a $5 paperback edition of Anne of Green Gables, which we read as a group about 2 years ago. You would think whoever had that book would have remembered why she had it and not pass it along to someone else who by definition would also already have it or at least have read it. At least Harry loved the ribbon that was around it. He has played with it every day from Sunday to today.

It was a good book, anyway... if you want it and will be at Mystery Hunt, let me know and I'll pass it on. Ditto on the electronic children's sudoku that inexplicably arrived in yesterday's mail to my husband from my mother.

The books I contributed were The Poisonwood Bible, by Barbara Kingsolver, which I recently read and enjoyed very much, and Poetry in Motion, a collection of short poems that have appeared in place of public service announcements on NYC subway trains that I've had for a while and figured I'd never get around to reading.

Harry and Poppy representing how all the residents of our house rang out the old, rang in the new.

12/31/08 daytime:


12/31/08 nighttime:

They are friends, but their closeness is probably due less to their interest in each other than to their shared interest in The Red Blanket.

Yesterday, Andrew, dj_rose_red, Poppy, and I went to my mother's house to celebrate Rose's being home, a sorta belated Thanksgiving, my 46th birthday on the 28th, and my mom's 71st birthday today. Poppy doesn't like to be picked up by anyone, and doesn't even like anyone but me and *sometimes* Andrew to touch him, but yesterday he decided to make nice with Andrew, who let Rose sit up front in the car. The dog climbed into Andrew's lap to look out the window, and I took this picture while Rose was in the florist getting her grandmother's birthday gift.


On the way home, the dog again climbed into Andrew's lap and let Andrew pet him all the way home. However, when the car was stopped and Andrew went to take the dog out of the car, the dog bit Andrew's hand and didn't let go, so now Andrew has some scabs from the bleeding and a painful bruise.

( More pictures here )

New mural found; the gentleman in question died 10/27/08.


Poppy is currently in dog jail because he would rather go berserk than have Andrew within 6 feet of him. Harry is doing better; he loves the new scratching pad I bought him and hates the 3 medicines I squirt into his mouth twice a day. I got the back support and it is like a girdle. It doesn't help me walk faster or have less pain in my hip, but it keeps the pain from radiating into my lower back when I walk.

My athletic young friend Eugene at work told me that he sprained his hip in the past and was also in a lot of pain until he went to a Chinese acupuncturist near the East Broadway F-train stop in Manhattan's Chinatown. He said they put a couple of giant needles in his hip, running parallel to his spine, and pulsed vibrations through them for about 45 minutes. He said he fell asleep during the treatment, and after 2 visits, he felt better. I called my chiropractor and she said there was no reason to avoid it other than my revulsion at giant pulsing needles. So I am going there Saturday morning.

I was going to go to my favorite cheap dim sum restaurant afterward, but it turns out that that place is too far from a train for my tolerance this week. So I will assuage myself during the giant pulsing needle treatment by thinking about lunch at the Whole Foods on East Houston Street, which is right over the F stop for 2nd Ave. Come have lunch with me and, depending on how you act, I might show you my track marks.

Well, I suppose they are farm animals these days, even in NY State, but not in the stone ages when I was a kid!

( Urban animals behind the cut )

First, look at my damn dog.

LOOK AT HIM!!!
( Laundromat art, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, behind the cut )

An unrelated picture, to get today's sign done, since I'll be very busy later:

It might be a direct translation; I'm not certain, but the 2 characters in the upper right corner are the same as the starts of several lines in an Arabic handout I have for a personal hygiene checklist.

( Continuation of the bittersweet saga of the cats out back )

At the end of the long walk of August 31 was the trip over the Williamsburg Bridge back to Manhattan.


( A few more pictures from a few weeks ago. )

We all had a great family-style dinner at Good n Plenty (not fam.Squonk/Cecil unfortunately). The desserts there aren't anything special, but that's ok, because there's no room for them. The buttered noodles alone were worth the all-you-can-eat price.

I would love to do a day trip at Philly Con with an early morning maze visit (they open at 10) followed by lunch at Good n Plenty. I guess breakfast would be on the bus on the way down, although Cherry Crest does sell watermelon and cookies and other foods that could pass for breakfast.

Most of us visited the petting zoo at Cherry Crest after dinner.

You can find 3 pictures of the baby goats and chickens here

( More animal pictures, sunset pictures, and a bit of narrative here )

We picked up Pops this morning. He will not let me clean his feet when we come in from a walk -- the only time he growled and tried to nip -- otherwise, he is just quiet and a little nervous. He ate and drank, but unlike Guapo who marked everything in sight and peed like a racehorse, he hasn't gone yet despite 3 walks. He also hasn't napped yet and has barely sat down. On the 3rd walk, the longest, we went to the pet store and I got him a sinew, which he immediately became obsessed with once I gave it to him:





We left the leash on at the very good suggestion of the foster mom, who said leave it on for a week because he won't trust us enough to let us touch him very much. She was right -- once I pick up the leash, he minds well -- but he is still not sure that Andrew and I aren't bears waiting to eat him.

About the first thing he did after walking in the house was to try to eat everything in Harry's food bowl. Harry won't eat the dog's food -- one of the 3 times in his life that he puked was when he ate Guapo's food once; besides, he's a picky eater -- but I want the dog not to eat Harry's food, since Harry is a grazer rather than a gobbler. Thus, another purchase at the pet shop was a bowl for Harry that is small enough to fit on the windowsill, heavy enough on the bottom that he won't knock it over, and unbreakable in case he somehow does. Harry *loves* having food up on the windowsill instead of on the floor:

From http://www.petfinder.com

Chihuahua, Dachshund [Mix]
Small Senior Male Dog

We're hoping for Sunny's days ahead to be brighter. When little Sunny was tossed out of a car, he didn't know which way to run first! If you can imagine, this little 10lb dog lost in NY. He was running in the busy streets for over a week. He was dodging traffic and rumaging thru garbage at night.. It took the shelter staff over a week to corner him and finally catch him. He didn't know who was friend and who was foe. His story was so sad that we had to give him a chance at his senior years being spent lounging in the sun with a companion that will cherish him for the little love that he is, and NEVER discard him like old trash. If you think you can open up your heart and give Sunny his golden years, please email our group for more info on how to meet him.

This pet is up to date with routine shots.
This pet is already house trained.

Tomorrow morning, Andrew and I are driving to the foster family's home to meet the dog, who has been there four months, and possibly take him home. This evening, we bought a harness and leash, a little dog bed, a no-spill water bowl, food, and poopy bags.

The foster mom says her husband called him "Pops" once as a nickname because the dog is like an old man grampa, and it has stuck. I don't know what the dog looks like (it was one of the few with no picture on petfinders), but Pops is a great dog name. Foster mom says the dog is great, but she is eager for it to move on because she already has 3 permanent dogs as well as a couple of kids. Of course, it shows signs of abuse. We will let him stay in our house for at least a few weeks before we get his teeth cleaned and possible get him neutered.

***

I got a week or two behind in reading f-list. I've read a few dozen posts tonight; haven't commented too much because of the volume, but I want you to know I'm reading and enjoying it.

Two of my three current pets came from this animal placement charity:

( Cute kitties, with and without signs, behind the cut )

What do those 2 signs say at the top of the stairs from the ambulance garage up to HQ? Who can be living in there?
( Come in and find out )

And 2 cats, but the dog is new. His name is Guapo (Spanish for "handsome" or "ladies' man"), he is possibly somewhere between age 10 and 13, and he looks like a mixture of Chihuahua and Jack Russell, but with blond coloring like a blond Lab. I have never had a dog in the house before. This one was dumped at a local shelter and was just about finishing the Green Mile when a local rescue group retrieved him and then Kevin the cute vet tech where my cats go talked me and my husband into adopting him.

This is partly why I have not posted anything in over a month. The animal is very time-consuming. He is blind in at least one eye, with an ulcer on the right eye (definitely blind) and cataracts in both. He might be hard of hearing, too, or else he just sleeps like a rock. He has an obstructed airway (which means he doesn't smell very well), which could be due to congestive heart failure or to a sinus infection, or some combination thereof. He had infected gums (which means he didn't smell very good), so we had his teeth cleaned and scaled (following ultrasound to make sure his heart condition would allow him to survive the anesthesia), and was prescribed additional meds as we monkey around with them by trial and error to figure out what he has and how to help him. We stopped the 2 oral drops, the painkiller because there were too many meds and he was getting frustrated and biting us during dosing time, and the oral antibiotic because we figured out that it was the reason for his anorexia and diarrhea.

The dog's current meds are:
- 2 oral pills, once a day. He will accept them in a meatball when he feels like it; otherwise they have to be dropped into his mouth and then his snout held closed and his throat stroked to get him to swallow them.
- Drop of antibiotic in each nostril, twice a day.
- Drop of antimicrobial in the right eye, twice a day.
- Squiggle of ointment in the right eye, twice a day.

I think we are running a nursing home for vision-impaired animals. My 3yo tomcat Harry is blind in one eye from pre-adoption eye herpes. My 18yo female cat Pinky still gets eye drops every day (in addition to *her* twice-daily meatball of geriatric meds) because she had drug-resistant eye herpes several years ago.

Other reasons for not posting:
- Rose visited for a couple of days in August.
- Watching Big Love and Grand Slam on TV.
- Studying for the Supervising Inspector promotional exam I took 2 days ago.
- Seeing the latest Harry Potter movie 3 times, including twice in 3D Imax. I would go almost every day if I could. The effects were Awesome, Dude.

Now I am at the annual Happy Horseshit for my job. I got here a couple of days early and have access to the University computers. Hope everyone is well. I will try to catch up with the over 200 unread emails and read a week of friend-posts. Please let me know if there's something that happened earlier that I should know about.