If that didn’t quite scratch your creature itch, there are plenty of others over on the modulator’s ark! Have a fantastic weekend!

This morning, I wanted to whip up a quick couple of loaves of bread. [...] No hot water. So I spent a while in the basement relighting the hot water heater. I don’t know why it randomly goes out, but that happens a couple of times a year.

This afternoon, I took the dog for a quick walk though the neighborhood. [...] She found one of those weeds that leaves little clingy, green, caper-sized balls all over her fur. So when we came upon a spot in the shade of a tree, we chilled for a bit, and she wiggled and rolled in the grass while I picked the burrs out of her coat.

And so on…

The good news is that it was a gorgeous day, and even though I didn’t get as much done as I wanted, the dog and I had a great time enjoying the beautiful weather, and house smelled of fresh bread when we got home.

There are a couple of notable things in the picture. First of all, check out the daffodils in the background. This photo was dated March 7th — we really did get an early spring this year! Also, for some reason, this image draws my attention to Nonnie’s tail, half of which got cropped out of the picture. Now, Nonnie is a lucky dog, because she didn’t come from a breeder or a puppy mill — if she had, her tail (one of the most expressive things about her!) may have been docked down to next to nothing. I don’t understand why breeders and others continue to torture dogs in this way, but if people refused to buy their mutilated dogs, perhaps they’d stop doing it. It’s something to think about.

Anyway, have a great weekend, full of fun, rest and relaxation! As always, you’ll find a lot more creatures on the modulator’s ark!

After I got home, I realized that it was warm enough to turn off the heat and throw open the windows. The air moving through the house smelled wonderful while I cleaned up the mess I made yesterday when I took all the plants outside — there was plant detritus all over the laundry room (the winter home of my herb garden) and one of the bathrooms (the winter home of the porch ferns).

Then Nonnie and I went out to the backyard and she lounged about in the grass while I trimmed off her winter coat. When I was done, it looked like there were two dogs on the lawn — one Nonnie, and one big, curly pile of hair. I did my best to clean it all out of the grass, but the breeze had scattered it a bit, so I expect to see a few blond highlights in the nests of the neighborhood trees over the next few weeks.

Tomorrow is supposed to be even warmer…

But anyway, back to the subject at hand, which once again, is my dog (who recently became her own category). But just to keep things interesting, I dug out some photos from back in the fall of 1999, when Nonnie first came home to live with us. The top image is from that first evening — she was hungry, scared and covered in fleas, so we fed her, gave her a bath and let her have run of the house, so she could make sure there weren’t any cats lurking about. The second image is from a day or two later — she was still barely bigger than that cereal bowl.

More creatures await on the modulator’s ark! It’s supposed to be sunny and in the 70s this weekend, so Nonnie and I will be out playing in the yard all we can — I hope your weekend proves to be enjoyable!

This has been one of the stranger days in my adulthood.

Last year, after Nonnie had her annual visit to the vet — complete with immunizations — things went south quickly and stayed pretty awful until they finally became much, much worse. After a couple of months of sick dog, she was finally fixed by pretty drastic surgery.

Now, there might very well have been two, separate, things going on there. First, the immunization-induced canine autoimmune hemolytic anemia. And then there was the intestinal inteceception. They might be connected and they might not. But we’re pretty sure the shots made her immune system freak out, and we’d like to avoid doing that again. And we really don’t want her insides to get all knotted up again. So, the vet came up with a plan.

The county requires pets to be registered, and you can’t register without proving an immunity to rabies. Now, the easiest, cheapest way of doing that is with a certificate of immunization — give the dog the shot, and you can be sure she’s immune. But you can also test the dog’s blood for antibodies, and if the immunity is there, then there’s no need for the shot. Most people don’t bother with the test because it’s (much) easier and (far) cheaper to just give the pets the shot.

But my dog is a special case. So this morning we went to the vet’s for a blood draw. Then we came back home and I did a bit of research about how to get a spun serum to the rabies lab in Kansas while keeping it cold (this is not a routine activity at the vet’s office, so he gave me the job of figuring this part out). After lunch (the La Paz de Dios luncheon!), I headed back over the vet’s to pick up the prepared blood sample. Then I swung back home to pack the sample with one of those freezer blocks that’ll keep your cooler cool in the summer, and rolled it up in bubble wrap — hopefully that’ll keep it cold until tomorrow morning. Then I took the forms, payment and my parcel to the UPS store to have it wrapped and shipped off. It’s all supposed to arrive at the lab in Kansas by 10:30 tomorrow morning.

So, how was your day?

UPDATE: as of 2:30 on Tuesday afternoon, our little vial of dog blood is still out there somewhere. According to the tracking data, today’s blizzard in the midwest has it sitting in Kansas City, MO…

UPDATE: delivery was made at 10:05 on Wednesday morning. We’ll see if the sample was still any good — hopefully it was sitting on a truck out in the cold somewhere…

Have a great weekend, everyone! Stay where it’s warm and be safe! More creatures await on the Modulator’s Ark!

Have a great weekend, everyone! Stay warm, get some rest and remember to check in with the Modulator’s Ark!