I Guess it's Just Monday?

Can't think of a good title, so whatever! :)

 

I'm really liking the new laptop.  I probably should have given in and got it earlier, but I'm glad that I finally listened to Bill and got one.  (Don't tell Bill I said I should have listened to him!  I'll never hear the end of it!)  It makes me realize that the old one was a lot worse than I realized.  Old age and a lot of use, mostly.  Just keep in mind that I'm still adjusting to Chiclet keys, frequently I'll be typing and the cursor will vanish because I've somehow managed to put it on a different line.  So, nonsense in the middle of a word or sentence are not on purpose!

 

My errand yesterday that allowed me to take Otter to work was to PetsMart.  They are in the same shopping center as her store.  Because it was a weekend, they had various pet rescue groups there. We always, always have to visit with all the doggies we can.  We pet most of them and quite frequently fall in love with many and want to bring them home - we don't, we just want to.  I mentioned to one of the ladies working with one of the groups that we'd adopted one of our dogs at that particular store and she asked me which one.  I was not prepared for her next remarks:  "you probably saved that dog's life."  Not the usual way of saving him from not having a home, either.  She elaborated and there are a lot of questions I had that were suddenly answered.  The group in question is essentially not in business any longer.  They never filed the required paperwork to be recognized as a rescue group, including the tax forms that the IRS requires.  They never were able to produce records that proved that their dogs had ever had any vet care OR inoculations.  When we adopted Frasier, we were told that he had been placed with a family that would never get proof of shots & care to the group but what I found out yesterday is that the group in question didn't usually use individuals to foster the animals and that the group itself was responsible for ensuring vet care and shots.  When she told me yesterday that I'd saved his life, she meant it.  Apparently, they also have a bad reputation for animal survival rates, probably due to not getting them the vet care they need.  We wondered at the time, Frasier came with a few health issues that should have been addressed and didn't seem to have been - his ears being one of them, he still gets ear infections occasionally but not as frequently as he did at first and his ears were really bad the.  He had been fixed and he was house trained - although we were told he wasn't housebroken as far as they knew.  Their ad, which is where we first became interested in him, stated that he did NOT dig or jump/climb fences - but he's a natural-born escape artist and he does dig.  A lot, in fact.  About the only thing we know to be true that we were told is that he does not like cats.  Well, he likes them - as toys, he kills them but a lot of that may be the coyote instinct and he can't help that.  But he's always had health issues, among other things he had a spot on either his leg or his tail (I can't remember) that didn't have hair and looked odd but wasn't mange.  We brought it to the attention of the person we got him from when we picked him up for our "try him out" visit and she acted like she'd never even seen it.  It wasn't huge but it was visible.  It healed up eventually, now I wonder if it might have been whatever it is that causes him to have those tumor-like spots.  I told the lady yesterday about some of his health issues, she basically told me that she isn't surprised and suspects that he never had vet care while he was with that group.  (His "try it out visit" was supposed to be several days but we knew within an hour or so that he was ours.)    They were also supposed to check references on us and follow up, but they never did.  Needless to say, when I got home I had to have a long play/petting session with him!  Which he liked, by the way.

 

I finally have house shoes!  Probably sounds like a strange thing to be happy about, but I have had a flare-up of Plantar Fasciatis and going barefoot is not an option for me at the moment.  I was going to get a new pair in December, but decided my old ones would last a while longer so I never did.  When the old ones did wear out, we discovered that most stores don't keep them in stock beyond Christmas time.  So, I've been using padded shoe inserts from the dollar store and they worked ok but they eventually get flat and need to be replaced.  At lunch today, I finished with my errand earlier than I though so I decided to waste some time in Tuesday Morning.  And they had a large selection of house shoes.  Otter was in the same boat I was, she needed new ones badly.  So, after I picked her up from work we went back and she found some immediately - she picked the red ones with black polka-dots that I thought she would as soon as I saw them.  I tried on almost every other pair there, and none of them worked.  Either my high arches, weather toes or they didn't have enough padding for my heel because of the PF issues.  I was about to give up when I realized that there was one pair I hadn't tried and they fit, don't aggravate my toes and are very softly padded.  They are a kind of maroon-ish red, but I wouldn't have cared what color they are.  So, it's not so strange that I'm about house shoes.  Sore feet can kind of be a problem!

 

When Otter and I got home, we got the vacuum out and took care of the car.  It needed to be vacuumed out badly, we hadn't done it in so long I can't remember.  It was pretty bad, but now it's nice and dog-hair-free.

 

Mama Robin has two babies, Bill thought that there was just one when he was hurridly cleaning the rain gutters the other day.  He was in a hurry so that she could get back to her nest and didn't look closely.  But I went out on the back deck yesterday and could see two little alien heads popping up.  Not sure when I'm going to put the hummingbird feeders up, but soon.  Maybe this weekend.