Author: Elaine

Orion – 10/20/08 to 11/04/21

In July, Rion’s veterinarian discovered via an x-ray that Rion probably had a mass in or near his bladder. A specialist vet with advanced imaging equipment determined that he had a five cm inoperable mass growing from either his abdominal wall or his bladder. She very gently explained what we could expect as the mass continued to grow and how to keep him comfortable as long as possible.

Thursday morning, Rion ate his breakfast with his normal enthusiasm. Three hours later, something major happened internally, and Rion looked like a dog on the edge of collapse. He spent the rest of the day in what resembled a coma, and was euthanized by his vet late that afternoon, two weeks and one day past his thirteenth birthday.

New Stove

When we had our house built, the builder asked us whether we wanted a gas stove or an electric stove. We went with gas, but never really liked the stove. After a lot of debate, we decided to get an induction stove. This is a stove with a glass top that uses magnetics to warm pots with certain percentage of iron.

Somewhat miraculously, the plumber to turn off the gas to the stove showed up the same morning the stove was delivered, so we were only without a stove for two hours.

Habitat for Humanity will be picking up our old stove.

Drain Snake

I had a very slow drain in my bathroom sink. We had the plumber here for something else, and he quote $200 to snake the drain. Jack found something similar to this plastic snake in his plumbing supplies, and ten minutes of fiddling the clog was gone.

Recommended Camera Manual

An unexpected windfall led me to decide to get a new camera. Although I had an old DSLR camera that still works well, the camera and lens is so heavy that I ended up using my camera phone instead of wearing myself out carrying the DSLR. I saw a relative using her Sony DSC-RX100 VI, a very small point and shoot camera. I wanted one, but decided it was too extravagant when I learned the price.

I ended up buying the camera for a discounted price at Newegg. My husband was helping me do the research, and discovered people saying that the manual that comes with the camera is useless, but that the Photographer’s Guide to the Sony DSC-RX100 VI was excellent. Despite being published by a small press, it is a very professional book. It has an excellent index and table of contents, and apparently covers all of the features of the camera. I say apparently, because it is going take me a long time to become familiar with the features of the camera. Despite being a point-and-shoot camera, it has a lot of additional capabilities that I probably want to learn to use.

Polly

Polly

We are taking care of Polly for a few days while her people travel. For her first few hours here, she followed our Boston Terrier Bandit around. She knew Bandit from when her people took care of him for a while. Polly doesn’t see very well, but it didn’t take her long to figure out where everything is our house. She is a cheerful little soul, despite her first few years of mistreatment before she was rescued than adopted. There is nothing quite like having two Boston Terriers snoring in stereo.