THE DEVIL'S SPAWN

Yesterday was kind of a bad day. I was feeling very down about losing Cooper, and I was impatient about not knowing when a puppy would be available. Nigel was very active which meant up and down off the bed and wanting to go outside. My leg was bothering me from falling off the bicycle. It was raining. It was grey.
I called my sister=in-law, Alice, the one who was hit by the car but she was going out to PT.
The mailman brought me a beautiful pendant to work with and I was very excited. I wrote the sender and said the pendant was exquisite before I took it out of the little plastic bag.
Whuh oh.
There are minute chips where the pliers dug into the stone while doing the wirework, it is unmistakable, and it means that I cannot put the price tag on it that I need to. How do you put your name and reputation on something that is damaged before you even touch it?
So I called Pat and she said to contact the seller so I did, but reluctantly.

And then I told John, I have to get out of here.

So I went to Target.

And I looked at a cute little purse (I almost never carry one) and I discovered that in order to buy nice clothes I have to become pregnant again because that's all that is going to fit. Or lose weight. Trying, I am trying. Really.

And I turned around in the aisle and there they were.......the spawn of the Devil: Cell Phones.

Smart phones.

Now I should explain about my phone. It is called the "Tundra". It is made for construction workers and is heavily encased in rubber. It would be a dog toy under any other circumstances but I bought it especially because I kept dropping the damn Razor.

But I didn't want one from Target so I drove over to the cell phone store and I knew I didn't have the money for a hot iPhone. I bought a cheapie. A "smart" phone but a cheapie.

I know from nothing about these damn phones.

This is my new phone. DS for short: Devil's Spawn. It is a Motorola. (And don't do that hissing noise my husband made just because it isn't what HE has.)

I had to ask Reggie, the salesman, how to turn it on. When I got home I had to ask John how to answer it.

I am trying to get my email on it. BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH.
I tried to download some free apps. BWAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH.
I tried writing to someone but my fingers are approximately the size of spatulas compared to the keyboard and just entering a password took --seriously now-- 40 minutes.

I tried to put Cooper's pretty face on it as wallpaper but all I got was his nose. It is a handsome nose to be sure, but not quite what I had in mind.

Here it is turned on. This is about as far as i have gotten. I miss my Tundra. You turned it on and it was on. It didn't "go to sleep". Especially when I flung it on the seat of the car because a cop was passing.

Also.

Here is the worst part:

I no longer have my "Margaritaville" ring tone.

And.
I found out that MY idea of 3/4 Cup of cereal is not Weight Watcher's idea of 3/4 of a Cup of cereal. They want me to MEASURE it! Shit. And here I thought I had finally found something. I did wonder why the box only lasted half a day.....

Well it is almost daylight. Time to see if there is any wine in the fridge.

THIS IS THE WAY THINGS HAPPEN

Yesterday I bought a bicycle. I rode it around the block a few times and then later repeated the performance. The second time some a-hole yelled at me, just a nasty, changing neighborhood comment which I ignored, but which made me wish I had had a K-9 officer trotting along with me.
Today it is raining.
When I got up a started a laundry consisting of my clothes.
Then:
I dropped the little do-hickey that holds the window shade up and couldn't find it. Got the flashlight. Discovered a disgusting mess under my work table so I pulled everthing out and cleaned up under there. I took the dustpan full of crap to the kitchen and learned the bin was full so I took it out and put in a new liner and in doing so pulled out the bin and found all sorts of dirt behind it. I got the broom and swept that spot but there was a stickly spot on the floor and the dirt stuck to it.
So I took the rug out and shook it and then swept but there were also two glops of raspberry on the floor that now had hair and dirt stuck in them.
I got out the Swiffer thing and the pad was filthy so I got under the sink to find a new one and discovered that nothing was where it was supposed to be and so I pulled everything out and cleaned under the sink and put stuff back where it belonged but the Swiffer pads weren't under there anyway, they were over by the Swiffer.
I put a new pad on and set the old one on the counter for the moment and saw that the counter was dirty. I cleared everything off the counter and washed and bleached it and dried it and put it back and put the new pad on the Swiffer and did the kitchen floor. I let it dry and then put the rugs back.

I heard that the washing machine had stopped so I started moving stuff to the dryer and discovered that the little credit card wallet john gave me yesterday had gone through the laundry with all my credit cards and membership cards and medicare card in it.

I got the clothes in the dryer and emptied out the soaked wallet and laid everything on top of my currently inkless printer to dry.

And here I am and it is not even 8 o'clock in the morning....

And now John has looked in all the same places I looked for the little gizmo that holds my shade up (which is now held by a bobby-pin) and been as unable as I to find it.

Thus begins my Saturday.................................................

DOING THE SENSIBLE THING

First off I want to change the default font on this computer. Can anyone tell me how to do it so it stays changed?

Secondly yesterday we tried an experiement with Nigel. Well no. I tried an experiment with Nigel since John was gone. I put a good belly band on Nigel and fastened it with straps to a harness on the sides so he could not pull it off and I let him loose in the house.

Now I have a fabulous diaper thing that Val Brewer made for him and it fits but when I put it on him he freezes. My dogs, un-used to clothing of any kind, find this idea terrifying. He is getting better about it, but he still needs a pad in there to catch the dribbling urine.

So I put this on him and of course, he slept all day. I did all the dog laundry and I steam-cleaned the rugs. And my house smelled GORGEOUS. CLEAN. And so I took the belly band off to change the pad and OH MY GOODNESS!!!! A wall of ammonia and a doggie crotch the color of our local fire chief's SUV. Little bumplettes everywhere that the pad, soaking and dripping with urine, had been.

Oops.

And Nigel....well poor Nigel did not smell gorgeous or clean.

So I got out the doggie dry shampoo (I just ordered a gallon) and the Gold Bond powder and I went to work while he whimpered and squirmed. I think I got all the urine off. Then I dried him, kind of gently I hope, and then I poured on the Gold Bond (those people must make a fortune just from Drool members)  and left him to air out. The pad went in the outside garbage and the belly band into the washing machine.

Clearly I need to acclimate him to this slowly. And to change the pads every hour or so which may make it more trouble than steam cleaning the rugs.

He seemed very relieved (no pun intended) to have his naked self back.

And after all that housework I went to my WWatchers meeting and had gained a pound.

Sometimes I hate everything.

THINGS

When the kids left home our water bill dropped dramatically, and it stayed a pittance for a long time. Then Nigel went down in the rear.
The other day John pointed to the water bill, his mouth working soundlessly, eyeballs red and bulging.
I in turn pointed to Nigel, enscounced on my bed, which is covered with thick, waterproof padding, and to his pen which is likewise covered with padding and to the bottles of enzymatic cleaner, odor killers, dry shampoos and towels.
Every morning I get up and the very first thing I do is to start the dog laundry.
Today I have at least three loads because I am also washing the comforter and blanket and sheet from my bed, all of which are covered with the waterproof stuff and a comforter and pads to prevent urine leakage.
Also all the pads from the living room (couch and John's chair) need to be washed and later, all the pads from Nigel's pen need to be washed. Ok, four loads.

And someday I will get to my clothes, and John's clothes one of these days... maybe next week.

Meanwhile, the robins are back. This has nothing to do with laundry. The robins build a nest in a faux nest-box hung on the eaves of the building in back of the house which is falling down. (The other building, not the back of the house.) The squirrels also nested in that building for awhile, driving the birds out but the floor to the squirrel playground fell last winter and now they are gone and the robins back, which I much prefer.

The above photo shows what it looks like now, with the paranoid robin on the nest, but soon there will be eggs-- maybe already, and then a nest of hideously ugly baby birds which grow into cute baby birds of which, inevitably, one will fall to the ground at the feet of an otherwise oblivious Basset who suddenly finds himself confronted with Manna from Heaven-- not only a snack, but a LIVE SNACK.

Baby birds are harder to rescue from the dogs than baby squirrels, which were also always falling out of the damn nest. Plus, the baby robins do not bite as hard as a baby squirrel, altho the parents are usually more difficult. I have never had a Mother squirrel attack, altho they raise holy hell, but I have been dive-bombed by robins.

This adds a note of nature to our little corner of the world, not counting the Coyote I have seen trotting down our street three times now, early in the morning, always alone, always going the same direction, once carrying a rabbit. (The rabbit was not a voluntary passenger, I do not think.)

This means i go out with the dogs the first thing, or the first couple of times if it is still dark or dawnish the second time. Usually they sleep until around 8 or 9 after they have gotten me up to feed them at between 5 and 6 in the morning.
Life goes on, Basset-style.

(Photo from Google)

THREE AM

I don't need sleep. Silly me to think I do. But there is something else. I am listening to my husband, in his room at the other end of the small house, coughing and coughing and coughing. He has been sick. The first few days he tried to plow through (and did) but the cold, if that is what it is, got worse and worse.
Now he claims it is breaking up.
I claim he needs to see a doctor.
About once every 5 years he gets genuinely sick.

When Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, Spouse was in bed, piled under blankets, shaking with the Hong Kong Flu. Remember that? Boy, I do. I never got it but he sure did. For my hollow-eyed spaceflightaholic, I dragged the tv into the bedroom so that he could watch and he did, with alternating current: sometimes his teeth chattering and other times the sweat pouring off him. I honestly think it helped him get better, seeing those first images from the moon. THE MOON!!! It means so little to us now but my God, what an accomplishment.
We can walk on the moon but we cannot cure the cold.
************************************

Yesterday Nigel was laying on the bed which is right next to this table. I can reach him from here anytime for a belly rub or whatever. I was rubbing under his jaw and neck and when I quit my hand was all....yukky. I give him dry baths frequently but it is mostly concentrated around the nebbeminds and he was just plain filthy all over.

So first I did not want him in the tub because he is incontinent to a point and I had visions of him, how do I put this delicately?-- shitting in my bathtub. Having worked in grooming I have encountered this before and it is a holy mess and I have to shower in that same tub and I knew no amount of bleach would ever convince me it was clean again.

So John found me a tub he had used to mix cement in, and I spent a half hour cleaning every speck of dried quik-set off it and we dragged Nigel into the bathroom and put him in that little tub in the big tub. But he had pooped just before all this, while I was looking for the shampoo and so when I discovered that I was never ever going to get the soap off his undercarriage I dumped him out of the the little tub and did it right.

Despite his looks of misery I cannot believe he didn't feel better.

I had put extra waterproof padding on my bed and extra towels because I worked hard at drying him but he was still soaking wet. It took about 4 or 5 hours for him to actually get about 90% dry, and then of course, his hair started falling out in huge quantities. He has the heaviest coat of all the Bassets, it is technically probably an incorrect coat because it is thick and soft, not sleek and hard.

But I do think he feels better. I hope so. I can barely move after leaning over that damn tub.

THE DECISIONS WE MAKE

      This is Nigel.

This is also Nigel, on the top.

This is Nigel now, in his pen in my room, wearing a belly band that comes off when he scoots along like a seal.

Nigel has a cart. He has his own 4X4 foot pen in my room. He is routinely taken outside and sometimes he is able to let us know that he really NEEDS to go out and we try hard to accomodate him but sometimes it just isn't possible and then we have cleaning up to do.

Today he has pooped 4 times. The last two times were in his pen while I was making lunch. John had just taken him out. The poop extended from one end of the pen to the other, hitting every pad I had in there and Nigel was squished in one clean corner looking mortified.

And I began to wonder.

Was this the right decision? Keeping him alive? Keeping him in a situation where his every whim is either met or he is at our mercy. What happens on the days when I don't feel well? There are parts to Nigel's care that John cannot do. He cannot catheterize him, which I do twice a day or once, depending on how many times Nigel has been out to pee and how much and whether he actually peed or not.

And that's another thing, our obsession keeping him running with fair regularity.

So he eats special food, designed to produce firm stools.

And he gets UTI infections.

And he cannot climb up and look out the windows, or even lay on the couch without assistance.

Is this what we wanted for him?

No, but. BUT.

On the other hand, when he originally went down in the rear his tail quit being waggable and he has gotten that back.

When this happened, he could not support himself at all for any length of time, not even a second. And now if we position his feet he can stand (kind of) for 10 or 15 seconds before he begins to sink.

So of course on the bad days I remind myself that Nigel certainly didn't ask for this, and that some improvement might mean more improvement will come in time.

That's what I tell myself, anyway.

GOODMORNINGMOMITSTIMETOGETUP

HEYMA ITS TIME TA EET
Hey hey hey
It's almoss FIVE THIRDY!! You up? You up? Dis Conley youse leddin me sleeps wif you you UP?? Here lemme stick my nose in you eer. YOU UP??
Ya let we ousside an forgot??
How meny times gotta tellya not  to put youse hedbone beke on da pilow once we ousside!!
HEY MA WE AT DA DOOR WANNA EET

Ok Ok I nose dey sleepin next dore.

Oboy she mekin food, oboy, lookit dat clck it almoss 5 fordy fibe. HEY MA HURRYZUP

Oh dat ole ledy so slow she moob like a.....like a.....

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooZOMBIETIME. Guess it too errly for she.

hey ma comeon feed we. We no buyin da Zomby aact.

Aaaaaahhhh, dat much bedder. Brekkas in beddy. Now for naptime. MomPerson gonna start londree. Affer all it fibe fordie nine. Time da get sheself started.

OK NIGEL AND LLEWIS, NAPTIME!!!

Dis bin gettin up in da morning. Brung to youse all by'
Nigel, Llewis and Conley