Here's something that's extra fun...

We went to a lovely barbecue on Saturday at my friend Christina's house. We had a fabulous time, and left later than we had planned, which meant that I had to visit some kitties later than I had planned, but it was all good because we had a fabulous time.

We arrived home around 12:30 to find some drops of some weird substance on the floor. It kinda looked like.....pudding? Except kind of chunky and light brown/marroon colored. It was not poo, too thick and brown to be blood, didn't smell. A mystery substance. With drops all over the place. There was also some brownish spots on our ~white~ duvet. SB took Gabby out for her walk because she is old and he likes to walk her first quickly then take Charlie for a longer walk.

While he was gone I did some investigating, and lo and behold, Charlie's neck had exploded.

Let's back this up a bit.

A few years ago we took Charlie to the vet because he had always had this little lump on his neck, but within a space of a few weeks it had seemed to double in size. The vet poked it and said it seemed like some sort of benign something that was surrounded by infection (the infection which made it double in size) so we did a round of antibiotics and it shrank. She told us that if we noticed it grow again, to come back.

It's been a few years, and I guess it's been growing at such a slow pace that we didn't even notice his neck was full of pestulant disease until it EXPLODED ALL OVER OUR HOUSE.

The lump is probably the size of a golfball, and the hole that ended up in it is about the diameter of a pencil. I spent a couple of minutes squeezing out grossness until I almost vomitted, and then SB came in and I told him about the EXPLODING NECK and then he took over cleaning.

Of course it was Saturday night, and Sunday none of our regular vets are even open, so we had to take him to the emergency clinic. SB called and the wait time was about half an hour, so rather than wait for daytime Sunday, which is probably what a lot of people would do if their dog's neck exploded in the middle of the night, we decided to get it over with while the getting was relatively quick. Because Gabby is a whining old lady, I didn't want to leave her alone in the middle of the night to wake all of our neighbors just because she felt left out, so SB took Charlie alone.

Now we have a twice daily washing and medication regimen which seems okay but is still totally gross because the wound is healing. Charlie totally doesn't seem to care at all about the whole situation, except that his meds make his poo soft.

I had noticed the past week or so he had been really grumpy, and he bit me in the foot last week. I guess I would be grumpy too if my neck was fixing to explode.

Snapshots from my week

1. I am in love with HGTV and the Food Network. I have always loved watching them like on a Sunday or something, but lately I've even been watching in primetime. I can't get enough Flipping Out, Location Location, Relocation Relocation, Kitchen Nightmares, Restaurant Makeover etc. I wish there was a live feed of Jeff Lewis's life. I wish I could be best friends with Kirstie Allsop, that crazy Brit from the Location Location show. If I could marry one of the HGTV guys, it would be Igor from Restaurant Makeover - he can fix everything and cracks me up.

2. Thinking about going back to Bikram classes - they opened a new studio down the street, so it's much more convenient, plus I have been running and am in better shape to start out so can kinda jump in (hopefully) with less recovery time between classes. I love the way that Bikram changed my body the last time I was a "regular", but even more I loved the way it improved my mood, which is something I could use these days.

3. I think my neighbor is conducting kick boxing classes in the condo above us. I hear what sounds like banging and hopping around all day long. Dude, the floors between us are concrete - what are you doing that makes me able to hear you? and why are you doing it every day?

the root of it

Another birthday has come and gone. Meh.

Actually, Saturday night was amazingly fun - dinner out with my ladies. I wish one of us had a birthday every week because we have such a great time when we get together. They spoiled me, as always, not only with their lovely and thoughtful gifts, but with their presence, love, and laughter.

Monday, my actual birthday, was underwhelming. SB and I had lunch together, which was great, then in the evening we did a rousing round of groceries. Probably my least favorite thing in the world, and there we were for two hours grocerizing. Ugh. We made up for it Tuesday night by visiting a French restaurant I've been dying to try for months and months. The food was fantastic, plus it's bring your own wine which is always a bonus.

And that's the story of my birthday. SB asked me yesterday when I was going to blog again, and I said I would when I had something nice to say. And those are all nice things. Fantastic things. But my heart is hurting.

I have one more year to thirty, which is possibly the most depressing sentence I've typed in my whole life. I never thought turning thirty would bother me, but now as it approaches, and I take stock of my life, this is not where I thought I'd be. I may not be the most ambitious person, but it doesn't mean I didn't have goals for myself, and as thirty approaches those goals seem ever so far away, and I feel completely jammed up in a life that is totally preventing me from even taking a step in the right direction. I know I have a lot of good things, and a lot of great things, but I'm not who I want to be, and sometimes nothing is worse than being disappointed in yourself and feeling like you can't change it.

Four pigeons pigeoning

Have you ever seen a baby pigeon? Until about a month ago SB and I hadn't. Now we can't get rid of them.

A lovely pigeon couple decided to roost above our storage area - the lattice on our neighbor's side had a hole in it so they had easy access. They built a nest, and before we could get rid of it they laid some eggs in there. Being not blackhearted assholes, we left the nest alone until the babies were hatched, but one day two weeks ago we saw them teaching the babies to fly and decided with our neighbor that it was time for them to go.

We cleaned out all the nestages, which included a lovely half-ripe egg which cracked and I don't even want to tell you how horrifying that was. Ugh. SB pulled out all the nest, and re-rigged the lattice so they couldn't get back in there. Bye bye pigeons.

But, no, not really. Because now they are confused because they are pigeons and therefore dumb. Now they just fly around our parking lot, landing on the telephone wire/our back steps/the balconies of the people across the way and coo coo coo at us all day. They aren't even afraid of a our cat, nor are they scared of the sander the guy has been using to refinish our decks (which is another annoying matter altogether, since it has been two weeks we can't use our deck grrr.)

Help me be rid of these pigeons. I have read that we need to twine some CDs together on dental floss and hang it like a mobile - they will be scared of the shininess and will go away. SB doesn't want me to hang CDs because he thinks it's ghetto. Umm, more ghetto than pigeon shit everywhere? No sir, I think not.