Prosthetically Hip

You know what else comes in twos?

June 1, 2011 3:59pm

Dog vomit. I’m not kidding. Almost every time I’ve cleaned up dog puke, the dog has done it twice, and usually inside a span of a minute or two.

Indy just threw up, and it was entirely bile. Every last ounce was bile, except for an almost-new Heartgard tablet:

 
Now, to some of you, this post is gross*. For those of you who have pets/kids or have ever gone on a whiskey bender, this is not such a gross post. It’s not like I’m actually posting dog puke photos.

Anyway, here’s the thing about this most recent puking incident: I fed him that tablet with breakfast.

WHERE IS THE REST OF THE FOOD? WHY IS THAT THE ONLY THING LEFT?

And, yes, in case you were wondering, I rinsed it off, broke it in half, and fed him a piece, which he gladly inhaled. He’ll get the second half with dinner tonight.

*UPDATE* – He threw that half up, all broken up and in tiny pieces, on the rug at the front door. <sarcasm>I guess it’s a good thing I stepped on it, barefoot, before Bea came home. </sarcasm>

*I know it’s weird to dust off Ye Olde Blog with a story about dog vomit, but really. What were you expecting? It’s me.

Maximum Capacity

January 5, 2011 1:22pm

Disclaimer: the number in this post isn’t what bothers me. I don’t want to hear bitching about numbers (mine especially or yours), unless you’re unhappy about yours and want to do something about it.

I hopped on the scale recently (something I’ve never owned before, and still rarely step on), the other day, and saw a number that was new to me: 167.5.

This is the most I’ve ever weighed, topping my post-Katrina expansion. And I don’t really care about that, because it’s all relative. I don’t care that I weigh that, I care that my BMI is high. I also care that I wasn’t able to button a pair of pants.

The problem is I have become sedentary. I’m traditionally used to a much more active lifestyle, and that just isn’t happening these days. Between the day job, the design/development LLC that Bea and I formed, the housework, and the less-than-happy knees, I just haven’t been exercising. And I /need/ to. I want to.

I just have to make the time. And I am. My friends Chum Dumpster and Everything Butt Sex have been meeting up at NOMA M-W-F at 6am-ish to run 5k. Chum and EBS are hashers who have been concentrating on the drinking part of hashing over the running part. While they run a slower pace than I do, they’re doing the hard part: getting up and doing it. This is what I need. So, Mondays I plan on bringing one dog, and Friday the other, leaving Wednesdays to myself. The pups need exercise too, especially chubby little Indy.

And as for the knees/etc, I’ve already taken the first step, so to speak: I went to the Louisiana Running Co to get fitted for a new pair of shoes: K-Swiss K-Ona C. They’re meshy on top and drain out of the bottom! THE BOTTOM! I really liked that place, too. Just a two-person startup, and I didn’t feel like I was being “sold to” – he just wanted to help me run how I wanted to (no races / half-marathons / full marathons). I definitely recommend them.

Now, obviously running won’t fix the problem alone. I have plans to mountain bike (at least a few laps at the spillway) every few weeks, and do Wii Fit on an almost daily basis.

There are of course dietary concerns, and all I’m going to say is that I’m already making a concerted effort to eat better, and especially cut out as much high fructose corn syrup / crap foods overall. I also understand that it’s just not practical to go whole-hog on that effort, so it’ll be within reason. The last thing I want to is stress out about what I’m eating. If you are (or if you aren’t) familiar with the next handful of months in NOLA, then you should read Pistolette’s excellent rationalization on eating and goals in NOLA.

And as usual, she has inspired Bea and I with our life this year. We have a list of goals, broken down into months, for the year. We’re gonna get a lot of shit done that we’ve been putting off. We’re tired of a project being 85% done.

 

Where’s the Oil? Oh, There it is.

September 7, 2010 9:48am

This past Friday, Bea and I packed up the 4Runner with both the dogs, a bunch of food and booze, and met up with the inlaws in Gulf Shores for a nice relaxing weekend.

And for the most part, it was just that. Here’s Sunday, in photo form:

When we got to the beach, Bosceaux, well, I don’t know what the hell he thought was going on but he barked at the waves while Indy stayed well away from them:

 
Eventually he got over it, and actually got in, a bit:

 
But then, we found oil. This is one of the bigger pieces I found, and these tarballs were all over the place:

 
We found other traces of petroleum byproducts quite easily too:

 
This only reminded me to keep Boz from drinking the water:

 
There were a decent amount of people out. All I know is that if those were my kids, they wouldn’t be in the water.

Platforms and barges decorated the horizon:

 

 
On the way back, Indy wasn’t walking on his right front paw and Bea decided to carry him. I decided to check his paw, and removed the burr:

 
Overall though, the weather was beautiful:

 
Not all the local wildlife was dead though – this crab had a lot of fight in him:

 
A couple of miles on the beach is a bit of a workout though. Always remember: a tired dog is a good dog:

Indy, the “Heartworm Kid”

July 13, 2010 10:59pm

Last November, my friends Jason and Sarah rescued a starving, dirty, smelly, but utterly lovable from the street and named him “Stinky”. After posting up pictures to his blog, we dropped by Sarah’s house the very next day (Thanksgiving Day) to take a look at him and introduce him to Boz – our dog to which he bore a striking resemblance.

 
After 3 more days at her house, and then 7 at Zeus’ Place, we brought him home and named him “Indy”, and I got the feeling that I’d have a lot of good memories of this dog. Thankfully, Bosceaux and Indy became fast friends – these photos are from his first or second night with us:

 
When February rolled around, it was checkup time for Boz, so I brought Indy in too. What we discovered though, was that Indy had a severe case of heart worms, and the treatment wouldn’t be cheap. We decided that he was due this shot after being treated so poorly, and went along with the treatment.

From what I understand, the treatment for heartworms isn’t exactly fun, easy, or painless. The treatment starts with an injection of an arsenic-based drug. Really. When the first step is an arsenic injection, the entire treatment can’t be fun. The problem is, that kills a lot of the heartworms, but since they’re in the heart and the arteries and veins, where do the dead worms go?

If you guessed that the host’s system has to absorb the flood of dead worms, you’re right. I can’t even imagine the strain that puts on a body. And when you add to the already stressed body the fact that when they die, the bacteria inside the worms get released and the immune system has to deal with that, it begins to sound like much less of a party.

Roughly two weeks into the treatment, Indy started coughing very early in the morning, and wouldn’t stop. I got up to check on him, and noticed he was coughing up bright red blood – fresh from the lungs, not the stomach. When he wasn’t coughing blood, he was wheezing.

After a long and expensive weekend at Southern Veterinary Specialists that involved many hours in an oxygen cage and eventually a blood transfusion, I got this photo from Bea:

 
That photo was taken and he came home the day before the Superbowl – I guess he was our own little good luck charm. A week or two later, Indy was back at the vet for his second – yes, second – heartworm shot, and then back on kennel lockdown for a month to keep his heart rate down. It wasn’t until we got back from our honeymoon that he had served his time and was allowed to play again.

That was a happy day.

Today, I took them both for their regular checkup – Indy’s first since the last heartworm shot. The “Heartworm Kid” came back from the vet with a clean bill of health. No heartworms.

 
At one point in the animal ICU, we’d given up on him. It was a very difficult decision especially considering that we’d had him for such a short amount of time, but you don’t choose dogs – they choose you. Every day since that impossible morning at the ICU, this little dog has put a smile on my face, and I’m glad we made the hard to decision to save him. Twice.

We’ve designed buttons and magnets to help recoup the cost of the heartworm treatments and the weekend in ICU – so if you want to buy some or just donate, then I thank you for helping to Save Indy!

Travel Day

July 11, 2010 9:38pm

I know this is another non-post, but I think I get a little slack as it was a wedding weekend, and I officiated.

Today was an almost complete veg day. We watched some T2 while getting ready to check out from the hotel this morning, and managed to snag our first Mississippi geocaches on our way back home. I even managed to update the map on my Geocaching profile. Nerd.

From there, it was all about the TV. Watched the new Eureka (yay!) and a handful of Stargate episodes – both SG-1 and Atlantis.

While being worthless on the couch though, I was able to snag this photo of Bosceaux:

 
I think that a funny photo of your dog with just the slightest bit of his tongue sticking out totally makes up for this non-post. Zombie dog to the rescue!

Dog Fighting

July 3, 2010 3:05pm

Bad luck wind been blowin’ on my back
I was born to bring trouble wherever I’m at

– Danzig, 13

Some days, you look for a fight. Other days, fights look for you.

I took Indy and Bosceaux to the new dog park in City Park today. To make a short story shorter, Indy decided to pick a fight with a Great Dane (a fight Indy was winning, I’d like to point out) and we left early.

Not even five steps outside the dog park, an old drunk guy asks me to swipe my magnetic card to let him in. After living in the Quarter for so long, I instinctively replied with “Sorry man, no can do.”

Apparently, no can do would not do. This old guy lost it, started yelling at me. He had a clear plastic go cup half filled (empty?) with a brown colored liquid – in all likelihood it was booze.

To make a middle-length story short, he yelled things like “faggot queen” at me, then proceded to get in his car and block me in so I couldn’t leave. Well, fuck that shit – I just called the cops – but by the time the City Park Police came by, he was gone. After giving the officer the license plate and a description of the guy, his dog, and his car, he took off and so did I. I did call NOPD first, but since I couldn’t give them an address or street corner, I was S.O.L.

I kept my distance from him at all times though – nothing takes the fun out of a fight as much as having your opponent be a drunk septuagenarian. The whole drive home though, I couldn’t let something go. I kept mulling over what it was he called me, and whether it was better to be a “queen faggot” or “faggot queen.”

I’d rather be the Faggot Queen with a fabulous army.

Alice Cooper Lied.

April 17, 2008 11:00pm

School, as it turns out, is not out forever.

This past Wednesday marked my second week back at school. Class is only an hour long, and once a week. Plus, there are a few other friends in the class, which I must admit make it better. I haven’t been to school since 2001 (1/2 semester in English), and before that it was ’98.

But I’m not doing this for me – I’m doing this for Bosceaux. Bea and I, Kate and Neptune, and Cookie have enrolled our respective pups ( Bosceaux, Drexel, and Chachere (that’s Sash-er-ee for you non-Louisianians ) into obedience school. I’ve noticed an improvement in Bosceaux already, and have adapted how I handle him.

And how can you resist this? I already know that a certain someone is hatching evil plans to dognap him.

 
Bosceaux photos will be posted here as they are taken.

Oh, to have Wolverine’s Healing Factor.

February 15, 2008 4:20pm

I now have three less stitches in my body than when I awoke. I went to see Doc Og™ this morning, so that he could check the progress of my healing.

He was pleased.

He tested the flexibility of my knee, how much give there was. I was quite surprised to see how far it goes without hurting. Upon lessening the downward force he was applying on my leg, it seemed to spring back to where it started: unbent. Whether this is due to tightened ligaments/tendons, swelling, my brain listening to some primal urge to keep it straight, or any combination, it was a bit amusing to me; almost cartoon-ish.

In two weeks, I am to return. Until then, three times a day, I am to sit on the bed, leaving my knee and below to hang off. I’ll be putting my right foot over my left, and pushing the left down. If that is to be the extent of my physical therapy, then color me overjoyed.

Unfortunately, I am not the only one under my roof to be in less than ideal form: Bosceaux has worms. It’s an easy fix: a shot, a few days of antibiotics, and not eating for a day and a half. Bea seemed to think it was something we did wrong as “parents” already – when in truth, we have handled the manner in a dare I say, exemplary manner. The gestation cycle of these worms is approximately a month, meaning he ate that fateful flea before he came into our life. The day after I saw he had the worms (it was at evening), he had been treated and even started on heartworm prevention.

One day, hopefully soon, we will all be in proper working order. Till then, it’s one limp at a time.

Bosceaux da Gama

February 14, 2008 6:42pm

This past Saturday, Bea got adopted. Well, not so much adopted, as she was chosen.

This is what happens when a dog enters your life. So, Bosceaux da Gama is in ours.

Bea came up with his first name, but I brought the spelling and the surname. The part I love is that unbeknownst to her, my girlfriend had picked the nickname that my mother and her sisters had given their brother in their childhood. The moment she uttered it, I grinned. It was right.

Bosceaux is ours, in every sense except paperwork, as the St. Charles Animal Shelter has been flakey in getting us the adoption paperwork – he is with us in a “foster” program.

We may have missed the first six months this Beagle/Lab’s life, but really, it has just begun.