Life – Page 28 – Five Acres with a View

Dudley

January 2000-February 14, 2005
Dudley
Last Tuesday morning, Dudley came in from his dog run holding his right hind leg three inches off the ground. He had been his usual self when he went out an hour before.

My vet came out on Thursday and gave him a shot of cortisone, and we agreed to have him x-rayed if he hadn’t improved by Monday. She couldn’t palpate the stifle well enough to see how badly damaged it was, and the sedation required for the x-rays would allow a better exam as well.

Unfortunately, the exam revealed that not only had he ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament, but that he had advanced dysplasia in both hips as well. Jack and I decided that we were not willing to put Dudley through the multiple surgeries he would have required for even a faint chance at being “normal.” I asked the vet to put him down, and held him while it was done.

The house is very quiet this morning.

Hap Massage

Occasionally, I get a pain in the neck. I’ve had the tendency for close to twenty years, but the spasms are infrequent enough that I don’t think of myself as having a “bad neck.” I have to be careful about several motions, including stretching and reaching overhead. (I have a Rubbermaid step stool in the kitchen, craft room, and downstairs so I never have to do so.)
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Sci-Fi Fans Embrace Worlds Beyond

A website I haven’t heard of is reprinting the Gazette coverage of COSine Sci-Fi Fans Embrace Worlds Beyond. We who worked on the convention were pleased with the article, since it lacked that all too typical “look at the weirdos” tone some reporters adopt.

Smoke

This weekend was hectic, becaue I spent approximately 20 hours working as Registrar at COSine, so I didn’t really have the time to worry about Smoke until Monday morning.

I noticed he was acting a little oddly when I fed Sunday morning. (Saturday night I was too exhausted to have noticed anything short of horse being down.) He left some crumbs of his chow after breakfast, which he never does if he has enough time to eat. However, he was about as bright-eyed as a 28 year old horse gets, so I decided to worry about it Monday. Monday morning I found email from Jack (who had considerately not awoken me) that Smoke had once again failed to clean up all his food when Jack let horses out of their stalls Sunday night.
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Missing

No, I didn’t fall off the face of the earth: our Internet connection did. We get wireless broadband access from a relatively small company, and they don’t have weekend tech support. We lost our connection on Saturday, and wasn’t able to get hold of anyone at the support desk until this morning. Half an hour later the problem was fixed when they rebooted an interface card on the tower from which we get our signal. I knew it was probably something simple like that, so it was very frustrating.

Undistracted by the WWW, I spent Sunday converting the static pages of my website to use the Perl Template module for page templates. and fixing up broken xhtml code. The former was a lot faster and easier than the latter. I have plans for a little redesign, now that the housekeeping is done. I only added one page, and you are welcome to visit my recipe list.

Dear AOL

Dear AOL,

I think it was so nice of you to send us that nifty plastic DVD case in the mail a few days ago. It didn’t take more than a few seconds to remove the stickers and the trash inside. I am not sure why you keep sending us stuff, when we have never been your customer, and are far outside of your customer target group, but the plastic DVD case was a winner. (I was about to write that you couldn’t pay us to use your service, but decided we are open to offers.) Anyway, thanks again.

Love, Elaine

Diminished

It has been decades since I was in an APA together with Anna Vargo, but I still remember distinctly my disappointment when she decided to drop out. I was distressed when I learned that she was seriously ill last fall, and grieved when I learned that she died last night. kinzel has a lovely tribute to a lovely person.

Lose a Kangaroo?

I am trying to imagine what it would be like to go out and feed my horses one morning, and find a kangaroo hopping near the barn, like this woman in Wisconsin. (via Pewter Gryphon’s Lair) The horses would certainly freak.

Colorado passing lane law violators now get tickets

Attention Coloradans: A friend warned me about this law that Colorado passing lane law violators will now get tickets but this is the first online reference I have seen.

Furnace Fixed?

Yesterday afternoon, the furnace repair person made yet another call and the furnace may finally be working as designed. Since Thursday, the central furnace has been working, but only when it could draw air from the house, which means we had to leave the front door to the furnace open, exposing the firebox. We gated it off with a child gate, but it was still unnerving to look down and see the jets. However, the furnace fire box is now shut up again, and drawing its air supply from the outside world. Although the weather is too mild to make much demand, the furnace seems to be turning itself off and on in response to the settings on the thermostat.

We had planned to take a trip to visit family in Santa Fe over the New Year’s weekend, but decided that we didn’t want to leave the house when we still don’t trust the furnace to continue working.