I’m wearing my glasses today instead of my contacts, and my eyes have been sending signals to the sleep centers of my brain for hours now (“No contacts! That means it’s bed time.  You’re getting very sleepy…”), but I’m fighting the urge to nap.  It’s too late in the day for that.  Perfect time for a walk, though.

It’s the end of the weekend.  I hate that.  John and I were talking this morning about how the conventional life (9-5 jobs, living for the weekends, tiny suburban house with neighbors we don’t know right on top of us) isn’t really working for us.  We want something different (set our own hours, work for ourselves doing something we like, live further away from people), but what if something different doesn’t work?  So we’re talking about it.

We’ve never really made a big deal out of the 4th of July.  I think we’re too lazy.  A couple or three years ago, we had some people over and played with sparklers, but that hardly took any effort.  Last year, we tagged along with other people’s plans and spent the afternoon at the pool and watched the fireworks in Falls Church (really good fireworks).  This year we had tentative plans to do that again, but then the band got a gig, and that ended up taking up pretty much the whole day.

Tomorrow will be all about trying to keep cool.  It’s supposed to get ridiculously hot, but I don’t have to do anything that’ll keep me outside.  I think I can safely skip running.

And this:

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And lots more.  Those two pictures are of opposite corners of the first floor of our house.  There was blood EVERYwhere.  It was on the dishwasher, the blinds, the walls, all over the floor, the couch, and, of course, the dog.  Who was fine (and not really bleeding anymore).  John spent a couple of hours cleaning up, and then he brought Roxy upstairs to sleep and left Riley downstairs.  Roxy spent all of Tuesday at the vet, who didn’t have much to say.  She had a shallow gash along her shoulder, which apparently bleeds like a scalp wound would on a person.  As far as we can tell, Roxy had a seizure while John was a rehearsal and Riley did his crazy holding her down thing and in all the thrashing around, managed to scrape her shoulder.  Blood flew during the seizure, I’d imagine, and then Roxy did her recovery thing, which consists of her wandering aimlessly around the first floor, rubbing on everything and bumping into every hard surface.  This time, she tracked (and rubbed) blood all over everything within reach.

She really is fine.  John said she wasn’t bleeding anymore by the time he got her into the bathtub.  The vet didn’t even have to shave her.  We realized we can’t leave the two of them loose in the house when we’re not home after this, and so we can’t use the pet-sitting service anymore.  We can crate them while we’re at work or when we go out, but if we’re out of town, we can’t crate them all day and all night except for the three hours a day the pet-sitter is visiting.  Maybe if we had a house-sitter…  Luckily, the kennel had an opening (two – they have to be boarded in separate runs now, too) for the RI trip, so John left them there Wednesday morning and came to see me Wednesday night.

While I’m documenting seizures, she had that one Monday night two weeks ago (6/14), another short one the following Tuesday night (6/15), and she had one yesterday around noon (6/27).  Short, we were home, no big deal.  Every person who answers the phone at our vet’s office knows who we are.  I called this morning to update her file with yesterday’s seizure, and all I had to do was say just that: “This is Susannah, and I’m calling to update Roxy’s chart.”  They used to have to ask for my last name, my phone number, all that stuff, but not anymore.  On a positive note, two weeks ago she only had two seizures in a row, 24 hours apart instead of 12.  This time, she had one yesterday around noon and hadn’t had another one by the time I left for work this morning.  She seems to have broken the three-in-a-row-12-hours-apart pattern.  Yay!

I am looking forward to tomorrow.  Very much.  I asked for the day off a couple of weeks ago, just because (and also because I thought I’d need the escape since I was convinced I would be less than a month from unemployment by this week), and earlier this week I thought about not taking the day off and just going to work anyway, but then my boss reminded me that this was meant to be an easy week for us trainers (to give us a break from all the stressful traveling) and I don’t have anything to do, so why not take it?  I saw her point.  So now I have plans for tomorrow.  Plans to run, to get a mani/pedi, to get my very first ever massage, and to buy a new suitcase.  Almost in that order.  I need a new suitcase…do I?  Well, yeah, I do.  The one I’ve been using (big, rectangular, purple, on wheels) is coming apart at the seams.  I have another rolling bag, but it’s more of a rolling duffel and I have to travel with some stuff for work that wouldn’t fit very well in that.  I could borrow John’s (and I will if I don’t find something pretty easily tomorrow), but eventually, I’ll need one of my own.  I’m putting too much thought into this.

Hamburgers tonight!

I gave the dogs a little bit of leftover turkey from my sandwich (Wegman’s sub – SO good), and they’re drooling at (and on) my heels now.  They’re not letting me out of their sight in case I have more goodies in my pockets.  Smart dogs.

One of the few errands I did run today took me to Home Depot.  John needed grass seed, and while I was there, I bought a rosemary plant and an oregano plant ’cause MY FACE POTS WERE DELIVERED!  Yay!  And I already have a basil plant, so I’ll put all three into my new pots and put them…somewhere…to grow.  The deck, maybe?  I could put them on a plant stand on the front porch (if I had a plant stand.  I think I just added that to my shopping list for the weekend.).  I definitely can’t put them anywhere in the yard.  The rabbits will get them.  Like they’ve already eaten the three (maybe it was four) black-eyed susan plants that came back this year.  I need plants rabbits don’t like.

John stayed home with Roxy today.  No seizures.  She napped the day away.  I wish I could be home.  But it’s Wednesday night already (isn’t it?  I can’t tell.), and I only have one more work day to go.

Forgive me, Internet, for quitting now.  I haven’t been sleeping well in this hotel bed (I think I hate the pillows – too squishy), I haven’t gone for a run in I don’t know how many days, and I’m really tired.