Inane Chatter » dogs

Strike up the band

Zannah — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:42:45 +0000

Stand back, people, history is happening. This post, this very special (not all that special) post, is my 1000th post. That’s a lot of zeroes. That’s a lot of inanity. I always miss little milestone like this. It’s only dumb luck that I happened to look at the number of posts this morning. I missed my car’s odometer passing 100,000 miles when we drove to Long Island to visit John’s grandmother on Christmas Eve, even though I knew it was coming because I noticed how close it was the day before. I remember birthdays (usually) and anniversaries (sometimes), but even though I try every year, I blow right by the smaller things (like the anniversary of our first kiss, or the anniversary of adopting Roxy and Riley). I remember it a few days early, think to myself “don’t forget this year”, and then I remember again a day or two after it’s passed.

My point is that the fact I noticed this and am doing something about it (however little) is as momentous as the fact that this is post #1000. Where’s my musical episode? I should have had ten of them by now. I guess I’ll have to settle for these. The last one isn’t from a sitcom, but you’ll have to forgive me because 1) it’s awesome, and 2) it’s my special blog day!

Chasing some thoughts as they flit through my tired brain

Zannah — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:15:21 +0000

I like tea. Might have put too much sugar in this cup, though. I gave Roxy a kong toy with frozen peanut butter and dog treats stuffed inside. She chewed happily on it until she chased it under my desk. She was heading my way to tell me to fetch it for her just when I noticed that the gnawing sounds had stopped. Smart dog. I think I chose the wrong book to read. I want to read it, and I want to want to read it more, but I clearly don’t want to read it enough since I’m here typing instead of reading. I’ll read it. Tomorrow. Tomorrow is Tuesday. Tomorrow is almost February. Technically, today is also almost February. When does almost start? Definitely not earlier than halfway through the month before. I was having this conversation with someone about age recently. I’m almost 33. Who says that at this age? When you’re a month away from your 13th birthday, it makes sense to say you’re almost 13. Almost 9. Almost 16. But almost 33? Three weeks to go. So do I give in and just say I’m 33? I’m closer to 33 than 32. Or do I hold on to 32 (“as long as you ca-an”) until the actual day? Seriously, I wonder about this almost every day. The cardio machines at the gym ask me for weight (depressing, but that’s not one of the choices) and age. From a purely physiological (is that the word I’m looking for?) standpoint, 33 would be closer to the truth. I hope the machine doesn’t mind that I’ve been lying to it for almost six months. Almost.

Musing on nothing in particular

Zannah — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 23:27:44 +0000

John caught Riley drinking my coffee this morning. Later, he (Riley, not John) knocked the trash can down the basement steps and possibly ate some of the coffee grounds that spilled out. Is my dog a caffeine junkie? How did this happen? How did I not notice? It would certainly explain the high-strung behavior…

John made a pot roast (roast beef? Is there a difference? I don’t really care – delicious either way) for dinner tonight. The house smells fantastic – like red wine and onions. Warm red wine and onions.

I got a 96% on my fourth homework assignment in my data modeling class. I was debating whether or not to argue with the professor because I think (and John agrees) that she’s wrong about that one answer. I decided not to. I got a 96%. Arguing for a 100% isn’t necessary. I’m letting it go.

I’m drinking white wine instead of red even though we’re having pot roast (or roast beef) for dinner tonight. Ask me if I care. (Hint: I don’t.)

Things that have nothing to do with each other

Zannah — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:33:21 +0000

Car trouble. Not the big kind. The annoying kind. I drove my car last Friday. Then I left it in the driveway over the weekend, and the temperature dropped Monday night. Tuesday morning, I went out to start the car. Nothing. Not even engine sputters or clicking. Completely dead battery. John jumped the car, we checked for the culprit and found nothing (no lights were on, no doors were ajar, the radio was off) and I drove to work (about 20 minutes). That afternoon, around 2:15, I tried to start the car again. (I needed to get home so I could give Roxy her medicine around 2:30. More on that later.) Nothing. Completely dead battery. I got the woman who was parked next to me to help me jump the car again. I crawled all over the damn thing once it was running, looking for any doors not shut all the way or lights on that shouldn’t be – still nothing. I drove home, taking the long way. John did a ton of googling. Turns out this car often has battery drain problems. Something is draining power even when everything is off. The problem is that everyone’s solution is different. And we don’t have one yet. For now, we have a workaround (it helped that I was going to Baltimore today and didn’t need a car). Last night, after I got home, John unplugged this power connector thing that’s inside the dash on the far left (facing the driver’s side door). This morning, he plugged it back in and the car started right up. He drove it to work today, unplugged it again, and was able to start the car to get home. So something in the group of…things that the power connector controls is what’s draining the battery. The next step is to figure out which thing it is so we can fix it. Or replace it. Or…something. Now that I know I can start the car, it’s not an emergency. It’s just super annoying. And it turns out that this is why my power locks don’t work half the time. There’s not enough power left in the car to trip the locks, and I have to actual open the door with the KEY. How barbaric.

I have no segue for this next thing. I was going to go with “You know what else is barbaric?”, but it doesn’t make any sense. So I’m skipping the segue. Sue me. Also, I keep trying to spell segue “seque”. I’m not sure that’s a word in any language. What do I know? Maybe it is. Maybe it’s what a sequin becomes when it grows up.

My point is that I want to talk about Roxy now, but I can’t get there from power locks that don’t work.

I don’t even have a whole lot to say about Roxy, except that she’s doing okay. She had a seizure this morning, and she’s still having them every week to week and a half, but she’s recovered pretty quickly from her last few. The biggest headache has been the change in medication. We added a new one (the third) that we had to give her three times a day, 8 hours apart. That is HARD. No matter how we schedule it, we either end up having to give her a pill in the middle of the night or be home in the middle of the afternoon (2-ish – like yesterday), which is difficult when we have to be at work. And it’s so new (and so different from her regular medication schedule – twice a day, 12 hours apart) that even I’m working from home, I can’t remember to give her the pill on time, so we either end up giving it to her really late and skipping the next one or we skip the one I forgot and give her the late one. Thankfully, the drug company just started making an extended release version. We picked it up yesterday and started this morning. Twice a day, 12 hours apart. That we can do.

And here’s a video of my adorable puppy.

Roxy doesn’t want to play my games from Susannah Brewer on Vimeo.

This holiday snuck up on me

Zannah — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 21:33:55 +0000

I don’t know why I expected to be productive today. I really really wasn’t. At all. Nope. The only good thing I did all day was keep the dogs company so I could put off the guilt of dropping them off at the kennel. Something I will be doing within the hour. The guilt is rising. At least it’s only two nights. We’ll be back before they know it (I hope), and they can spend the whole weekend draped over our toes as we spend lots of quiet hours working on our schoolwork (John plans to put in some quality thesis time, and I have my last calculus quiz to work on). We may watch the rest of Twin Peaks. We started it a few days ago, and we’re five or six (seven or eight) episodes in. We’re looking for stuff to put off getting caught up with Doctor Who and Torchwood. I’m not ready to not have any new episodes of those to watch. So I’m treating Twin Peaks like a movie, kind of. The end isn’t far off (it wasn’t on the air that long), and I want to know what happened! I could do without the music, though. Truly awful stuff.

I’m not ready for Thanksgiving. Mentally. How did it get to be late November? Wasn’t it August, like, yesterday? What happened to August, anyway? Well, crap. I must be old. Maybe I can find a way for the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas to slow down a little so I can enjoy them. Unlikely. I can’t get today to slow down – how could I get whole weeks to stop rushing by?

On the other hand, no work for four whole days! Yay! Save some green bean casserole for me. That’s all I care about this year. That and sweet potatoes. And stuffing/dressing/however it’s made – I love it either way. Really, it’s just the turkey I can do without.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wait for it….

Zannah — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 02:19:52 +0000

Watch this. See if you can find Fenton.

We’d never get Riley back. I saw this on reddit somewhere and at The Daily What.

Death by brisket or barking pug – your choice

Zannah — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 02:30:24 +0000

We have had an eventful couple of days. I tried to poison us, and then we got attacked by a pug. Not on the same day, thank the whatever from high atop the thing (because I am a DORK), because I don’t know if I could have handled that.

First things first: I made brisket for dinner on Sunday. It cooked all day long, smelled fantastic. Last time I made it, I didn’t cook it quite long enough, so I added time this weekend. I kept an eye on it, added water, and kept it tightly covered, but I guess I didn’t add enough water at the end. Maybe. I’m not sure, but the bottom was not edible. Very tough. The rest of it tasted fine, so we ate it anyway and put away the leftovers. Within a couple of hours, by bedtime, I was not feeling so hot. Like so not good that I was contemplating sleeping on the floor next to the toilet. The smell of the brisket was SO strong we had to open the windows, and when I did crawl back into bed (bathroom trashcan nearby), I tried to sleep sitting up, knees up, head tilted forward and toward the fresh air coming in from outside. I didn’t have a good night. By about 3am, John wasn’t having a good night either. Neither of us could sleep facing the hallway (even after John closed the door) because the overpower smell of brisket was nauseating to us both. That’s a tragedy. Brisket is one of the best smells in the world. We were a little woozy the next morning, but we got over it. John even made a brisket sandwich out of the leftovers for lunch today. He’s braver than me. We’ll see how he feels tonight.

This morning, after a light dinner last night and a normal night’s sleep (I’m feeling much better, thank you), I took the dogs for a jog around the neighborhood. We turned down this one street, and every dog on the block started barking at us. Making a HUGE racket. Roxy and Riley were really good, though. They stayed on the sidewalk with me, didn’t bark, didn’t lunge. About halfway down the block, a woman across the street from us was admonishing her barking ankle-biters and eventually scooped one of them into her arms. We got past them, but all that little-dog barking was getting louder and louder…I looked back and I saw a pug charging across the street toward us. I grabbed Riley’s collar to keep the crazy down, and the pug stopped short right in front of Roxy, who didn’t even flinch. That pug was inches from her face, barking his head off, and Roxy stood her ground and looked at him, head cocked to one side like she was confused. Maybe she intimidated him (’cause Roxy’s SO scary). He ran back home a few seconds later.

For those of you who were wondering, John feels fine. Maybe it wasn’t the brisket.

I probably jinxed it. I do that a lot.

Zannah — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:56:41 +0000

Cold weather = dry air = dry skin = can I just spend all day every day in a bathtub full of moisturizer? That wouldn’t be weird, right?

Here, have an insane puppy. I’m tired. Too many interrupted nights for sick puppies. But yay! No incidents last night or all day today! I think we might be able to sleep through the night tonight.

I’m going to regret saying that, aren’t I?

Avoiding an egging

Zannah — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 23:05:40 +0000

We weren’t particularly in the mood for Halloween this year. John picked up some candy yesterday, but we didn’t decorate, we didn’t look for costumes for ourselves, and as of this morning, we’d decided to pretend we weren’t home. I had visions of us leaving all the downstairs lights off and hiding in our room with dinner, the dogs, and the Roku, blinds closed. I would have put a bowl of candy on the front porch, but that would have been it. Then John got home and decided we weren’t going to be those neighbors. Instead, the lights are on, the doorbell is ringing, the dogs are going nuts (Riley LOVES Halloween – he’s so excited he gets to say hi to all the little kids), and we’re holding dinner until the rush is over. But the kids are cute. This one little boy was pretty clearly dressed as Thor, so I asked the idiot question: “Are you Thor?” “NO. I’m FIVE.” I stopped asking. Another little girl ran back to her parents yelling, “I petted the doggie!” That’s SO much better than candy.

Allons y, Alonzo!

Zannah — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 23:29:48 +0000

Two sick dogs does not a happy household make. They’re miserable, we’re miserable, and I can’t believe I’m looking forward to seeing solid dog poop again. I mean, really. We haven’t made it through a night without some cleanup necessary in the morning. It’s been almost a week, but at least in the beginning, it was just one dog. Last night I shot downstairs at 2:30 in the morning because I heard Roxy’s collar jingle. I thought maybe she was just getting up and I could get her outside in time. Nope. There was already a mess. I cleaned it up while they were outside and went back to bed. Got up at eight this morning – another mess. I’m fairly certain the second mess was Riley. We were thinking about crating them tonight, but honestly, it’s easier to clean up the floor than it is to clean up the crate AND give each dog a bath. Before work.

Enough about dog poop? Okay. The only other thing on my mind is my DE midterm tomorrow morning. And Doctor Who.

[Beginning of Doctor Who section - if you're not interested (I'm looking at you, family), you can quit reading now.]

We finished Season 4 of Doctor Who today (and Season 2 of Torchwood). I have two things to say:

Rose got her Doctor! Yay yippity yay yay! Makes me very happy. And maybe a little teary.
I am NOT ready for a new Doctor. Do I have to?
Does this mean we get Martha on Torchwood? And maybe Mickey? I could live with that. Don’t answer me. I’ll find out soon enough.
Donna was my favorite. She was AWESOME.
GREG. The fish-head episode is long over. Unless there’s another one even MORE literal than the one I’m thinking of. What on EARTH were you going to tell us?

I could go on, but John is making dinner and it smells SO good.