Innocent

Doggie Xanax doesn't seem to be any match for spring fever.

Galileo

This is Galileo. Apparently its a dog toy, but to me it looks like something entirely different. Its even made by a very reputable brand, Nylabone. Did no one else at Nylabone see its resemblance to a phallic object? Seriously? No one during the time it took to bring this thing from concept through to the shelf?

Am I the only one with a mind in the gutter? I hope not...but seriously - doesn't this look like it belongs on he shelf at the Hustler Store? Its claim to fame could be - looks like a dog toy, but works like a dream.

Today's post brought to you by facebook

What was the last thing you made into a heart?
My fingers.

How tall is the last person you hugged?
6'2"ish

What color is your underwear?
Sporting the floral today

What are you listening to right now?
Printers and other people's conversations

What is something you wish you had more of?
Time and money

Last time you had the butterflies, who were you thinking of?
The future.

Do you like poetry?
I prefer the rhyming kind

What were you last sad about?
Chino's cancer scare. Thankfully he's on the mend!

Has anyone ever said they would die for you?
No

Do you always answer your phone?
Its usually on vibrate and I can't hear it, so no.

Do you like thunderstorms?
I don't mind them, as long as the power is still on.

Have you ever been into drugs?
Nope.

Say you were dying tomorrow, what would you want to eat last?
Vincent's pizza with sausage, an M&M's blizzard with chocolate ice cream and a margarita on the rocks, with salt.

What is your current mood?
Optimistic

What'd you do today?
The usual, woke up, ran around, made it to work on time.

If your best friend made out with your boyfriend/girlfriend, what would you do?
I'd probably laugh, but not in a funny way - in a "I'm going to kill both of you way"

Who do you know that can make you feel better if you're not feeling happy?
Nick, Chino and my parents. Chino is usually the go-to man though, even though sometimes he needs encouraging from Nick to find his inner canine.

Do you hate when people call you when you're sleeping?
YES. NICK.

What is the worst thing that has ever happened to you?
Pass.

Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
My sister

Biggest annoyance in your life?
Depends on the day - but lately its been people with a sick sense of entitlement.

Do you think your first love affects the way you go on with life?
Yes because I'm married to him.

Has anyone ever told you they're in love with you?
Every day :o)

Do you miss anyone?
My family in Pittsburgh and friends that I don't see very often anymore.

What's going on between you and the last person you kissed?
Living the dream - married with a house in the 'burbs and a lab mix. What more can you want?

Your number 1 walks out of your life, do you go after them?
Yes. I've done it before and I 'll do it again.

Could you ever be friends with someone who hurt you before?
Do in-laws count? I have a really hard time holding a grudge, so I'll say yes.

Are you wearing any makeup right now?
Basic stuff.

Do you like to cuddle?
Yes, but not in bed. I know, its weird...but I need my space when it comes down to bed time.

Honestly, do you really love the last person you said "I love you" to?
YES!

Are you a good friend?
I try very hard, even though I know that I have selfish tendencies.

When was the last time you were told you were cute?
No idea. I think I'm beyond the "cute" stage.

Who did you text first this morning?
No one.

Do you look better pale or tanned?
With a splash of color.

From cone head to airhead

From disgruntled to gruntled: A recap of the last several days in the life of Chino.

At this point, he was too drugged up to care what we were doing. I think that he'd have been bumping into walls even without the cone. Ketamine is some powerful stuff. Poor guy was drooling and crying and just really out of sorts. Because of where his stitches were, he had to have the cone on at all times. We gave him a reprieve when we were watching him. He enjoyed himself thoroughly to the point of an almost-running fit, which about gave me a heart attack.

This is day 4 in the recovery process. At this point, no one in our house has slept all night. Chino can't get comfortable and since he's not comfortable, he wanders around, bumping into things, and all we hear is the scrape of that stupid cone on our furniture. When he gets frustrated, he just sits and crys, which is a heartbreaking, infuriating sound to hear at 4am. I found a potential solution at PetSmart - an inflatable e-collar. Could this be the answer to our prayers and our ticket to a full night's sleep? Chino looked up at me skeptically, as if to say "ok lady, what kind of hairbrained scheme have you gotten me into now?" You can't tell from the picture, but his tail was definitely wagging, as if to say, that he was up for anything so long as he was no longer walking around with a damn cone on his head.

That collar has earned an A for acceptance. I mean, seriously - he's now got a pillow around his neck at all times...what could make this lazy mutt happier? Well, I do know - we could remove the kitchen chairs from the furniture and give him his all access pass back, but that's not happening until he gets the all clear from the Dr. He seems to be enjoying himself, in a constant state of traction. Low and behold - everyone slept over 12 hours on Saturday night, reveling in the freedom that the new collar provides. As an added bonus, he doesn't run away from us when we try to put it on, which is good for the healing of his incision. He'll be back to normal in no time, in fact, yesterday I pronounced him "bright eyed and bushy tailed". He'll be ready for playdates in about two weeks, especially since he's heard that bitches (and you know who you are) dig scars.

Good practice

When I originally sat down to write this post, I had every intention of writing it as a recap of the last couple of days and the emotional roller coaster that Nick and I have been on because of Chino's surgery. I know that he's a dog, but he's also a member of the family and the fact that he needed surgery at all was so sudden that it threw us all for a loop. Things were finally settling down and then we get hit with dog surgery and the tax man, all in one week. Don't get me wrong, there was never a question as to IF we'd get him his surgery, although I waited until THE last minute to pay the tax man. We both agreed that we would do whatever it took to get him well and healthy. The issue was that our finances were finally rebounding from a couple of admittedly frivolous purchases and the amount of money in the checking account had actually reached triple digits.

Regardless, its amazing how much this little guy keeps teaching us about each other and about our priorities. As I said - it was never a matter of if, it was when he'd get surgery. We'd figure it out later, all the while grateful that the vet takes Visa. We also have divided the chores that have resulted in Chino being out of commission. I take the medicine, Nick takes the heavy lifting and we both fill in the in-betweens.

We both feel so lucky that he's rebounding nicely and is basically back to his normal self. The cone is still a necessary evil right now as his stitches heal and when we can't watch what he's doing. His natural reaction is to lick at his wound, which is counterproductive to the healing process that we're trying to expedite by sheer will.

**Update - We just received the good news from the vet that the lump was benign!!!! He was almost 100% certain that it was a mast cell tumor and was elated to tell us that he was wrong. Chino is cancer free and on the mend.**

Kissing cousins

Louie: Whatareyoudoing? Huh huh huh? Can I come up there? Lemme have the ball. Wait, let me lick your nose. Oh, or your teeth, let me lick your teeth. Wanna play ball? I love you I love you I love you.

Its a love hate relationship: Louie loves Chino and Chino loves to hate Louie.

Conficker

The Conficker computer worm has made recent news. I'm not sure what the virus actually does, but I am sure that conficker is one of the best words that I've ever heard. Click here to see if your computer has been infected with this conficking conficker virus. A few of my Facebook pals and fellow LILL Reps have tried to adopt that word into as much of our daily vernacular as possible. We've figured out that it can be used in a similar manner as many curse words, but with a funnier sound. A few recent examples:

What the conficker is up with this weather?

I am getting the conficker out of here.

On a good rainy day, its always nice to conficker

You conficking know it.

Tell him to go conficker himself!

WTC!?

I think that conficker has the potential to be 2009's supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. It can mean anything you want and can be used as a noun, verb, or adjective, although according to dictionary.com, the real supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is an adjective.

A point to ponder

While on the treadmill last night, I was gazing out the window, desperately seeking a distraction. What I watched was the most ridiculous scenario, especially considering the fact that the scenario was playing out in the gym parking lot.

A Honda backed out of a spot, approximately 1o spaces from the door.  A few minutes later, a Charger came up the aisle and sat in the middle of everything with its turn signal on, just a few feet back from the open spot.  I'm wondering if this lady is just incapable of driving her big ass car, all the while thinking that she's being over dramatic about parking lot etiquette.  Next down the aisle comes a Ford Fusion (Charger is still sitting in the middle of everything with the turn signal on).  Fusion thinks that Charger is waiting for the open spot., but can't go around it because Charger is in the middle of the whole aisle.  (Charger continues to blink, but is now in reverse and turning its front wheels in a pointless pattern).  Finally, Charger backs up.  Fusion pulls into the originally vacant spot.

FINALLY I see why the Charger was sitting and blinking.  It was waiting for a spot that was TWO SPOTS CLOSER TO THE DOOR.  REALLY!??!?!  TWO SPOTS CLOSER.  AT THE GYM. WHERE YOU'RE COMING TO EXERCISE.  So really, isn't two additional spots worth of walking an added bonus to whatever workout you've got planned for the evening?

Good news!

We got home last night after our marathon weekend of caloric intake to find a message from the vet. All systems are go and there are no cancer cells in any of Chino's blood work that was taken on Friday morning. All of his blood counts and organ functions are normal. When I heard that message I was able to breathe again. I tried to give Chino a hug, but of course I must have been too enthusiastic, because he ran and hid under the table. With a little coaxing, he came out for a little love, before he passed back out into his Benadryl induced slumber.

Surgery is scheduled for Wednesday. Think happy thoughts!!!!

I hear he has to wear a satellite dish on his head - I'm thinking of painting it to look like a daisy.

An interesting observation

Neurotic dog mom struck again and thank goodness she did. This morning I took Chino to the vet to have a little lump on his leg checked out. When we noticed it, I immediately started worrying about it - Nick, not so much. He assumed that it was a clogged hair follicle or a bug bite. To appease and calm me down, we scheduled an appointment to have it looked at. Of course, our worst fears were confirmed and its most likely a mast cell tumor. The vet wants to treat it aggressively and Chino is scheduled for surgery on Wednesday morning.

Of course, as the vet is explaining it to me, I'm listening intently, paying attention and reading estimates as he explains the anesthesia, recovery and blood work. When I walked in the door and told Nick that it could be the "C" word, I lost it. I'm mad and nervous and anxious about the whole ordeal that is coming up.

Nick, on the other hand, handles things completely differently. He's Mr. Calm, Cool and Collected and somehow knows that everything is going to be ok. This is how he handles most situations of stress. He just knows things are going to be ok, although in this instance he was admittedly thrown for a loop since he thought I was slightly overreacting.

Later this morning, after I calmed down, I made an interesting observation. When I had my own health scare a few months ago, I didn't cry for myself. Was I nervous? Yes. Was I scared? Yes. Could it have been bad? Yes. Yet, here I was, bawling for my dog. I guess the important part was that I held it together at the vet and listened and retained most of what he said and was able to explain it to Nick so that he understood the next steps and what to expect. When I mentioned this to Nick, he told me in a matter-of-fact tone, "That's just how you are."

Another list

One of the many items on my many lists and lists of lists has been our pantry. The pantry had landed itself on the "List of things that piss us off". The Piss off list is important because this is how we prioritize our home improvement projects. If it annoys us on a daily basis, then its on the list. That's that, end of story. The pantry annoyed us on more than a daily basis for a number of reasons which included:

Cheapo, stupid wire shelves (Thanks, Dominion)

Inefficient use of space

Did I mention the stupid wire shelves?

We weren't sure what we were going to do with this space until we went to the Central Ohio Home and Garden Show and visited the Closets by Design booth. We were just browsing, looking for ideas, when we met Nancy. She scheduled us for a free in-home estimate for our pantry, since that was numero uno on our Piss off list (when it came to closets anyway).

Well. Tuesday was the day that the new pantry got installed. Saying that it was everything I hoped for and more is an understatement. Its fantastic. It made the other one seem more awful, if that was even possible. Saying that Chino was happy to have an installation man in our house, couldn't be further from the truth. Nick had to tie him to the kitchen table.

Rather than keep you in suspense any longer, I present you with the new and improved pantry. When we open the door, its no longer an annoying closet, its a state of the art food storage facility.

Here it is, ready and waiting to be filled!!!

Notice the U shaped shelves, which give us a wall of space that we didn't have before!

A shot looking in and down - now we can hang the shelf organizers!

As I was posting this, I realized how many pictures that I actually took of the new pantry, kind of crazy, huh? I'm looking forward to going to the grocery store this weekend, coupons in hand, on a mission to fill this bad boy up. Yes I just wrote that and yes, I realize I sound like a crazy suburban housewife, but I don't care.

Pardon the disaster area

Someone apparently took full advantage of his 9+ hours of beauty sleep today. Hmmm...wonder who? Nothing like running around the couch and playing lazy tug of war to brighten an otherwise ugly day. That damn dog, if he's not driving me to need therapy, he's just what the Dr. ordered and 'round and 'round we go (sometimes around the couch actually).

Puppy face

You know that song, "The Things We Do For Love", you've probably heard it in the dentist's office or in a random waiting room. Its a soft rock, easy listening type of song. Well, substitute the word food for love and you'll have landed on Chino's motto. Food makes him do things that he wouldn't normally do. Food brings out the canine within him, canceling out the feline tendencies of indifference. Food gave me permission to stand him up on his hind legs and pose for this picture. Feline tendencies are responsible for the look on his face that says, if it weren't for the brownie that my "dad" is holding up - I would be running away from you, crazy lady.

Multi-talented mutt

In addition to Chino's talents when it comes to eating chicken wings, he's also mastered the art of eating whipped cream out of the can. The cackling in the background is me, because when Chino heard the whipped cream spray onto Nick's Jello pudding cup (low-cal snack, only 80 calories), he got up, ran into the kitchen and assumed the sitting position, which is the most conducive to him getting what he wants. His talents also extend to the realm of spray cheese, but I think he prefers the sweet stuff. The quality of the video is kind of crappy, so I'll "force" the mutt to do this again in some better light.