Musings on a Small Life

I met this fellow, name of McBain, in HomeSense this morning. He's a three-year old lab mix. He was a VERY good boy, didn't approach me until his human gave him permission. (For which he got a treat, perhaps because I said for being so good he deserved one. 😁) It's always such a joy for me to get a bit of fur therapy when I'm out and about, and our HomeSense certainly seems to be a great spot for it! I hope none of you has to negotiate the holiday shopping crowds, but if you do, pack your patience...and maybe a treat for yourself !

The boys! Maybe I'm noticing it more because they aren't going out much now, too chilly for their thick fur, apparently. But in the mornings the two of them mope around more often than not and I end up with the back of disrespect as I'm readying myself for work. Nicki's play time is from about 2AM to 3:30AM-ish -- till I get up. Then he eats breakfast, might step outside for a minute or two, then comes back in to curl up on his foot stool and refuses most attempts to lure him into further play. Derry's just as bad, running off upstairs for a while or hiding out down in the basement. I wish he wouldn't hang out down there, gives me bad flashbacks to Annie being sick. Then I get the "If you loved us you'd stay home and wait on us with your every breath" treatment. Of course, when I do get home I'm tired from my day and only want to crash, whereas they want food, attention, food, food, food and attention.  I can't win. I would say I...

Wow, there really is such a thing, not to be confused with other anxiety disorders like agoraphobia. I've been wondering if there is something that would fit with my fear of leaving the fur kids. http://anxietypanichealth.com/reference/separation-anxiety-disorder-adult/ Interesting how this is a relatively new mental illness, perhaps created for the purpose of selling more drugs. (That's my cynical viewpoint.) On the other hand, while I don't think I qualify for an extreme case, it seems to fit quite well with how I feel about leaving the fur kids to travel, even for a day. With no offense or upset intended to my mom, I'm dreading going away in the fall to visit, dreading both the air travel and leaving the boys. I do get anxious to get home to them at the end of a work day, do get anxious to be back home with them after a handful of hours on the weekend spent doing errands. Naturally, this co-occurs with other mood disorders/mental illness (copied from the same site...

Acckk, what is this, winter? Okay, no, it's not technically winter...yet. But it's looking like a winter wonderland right now. The boys didn't seem to mind, though. Sure, it looks pretty...But it's not fun to drive in or slog on foot in.

Nicki had his two-week check-up, post dental-surgery, this afternoon. Update is on my Fuzzy Tales site, here . I took the entire afternoon off (why not?) and had a fabulous walk home in the sunshine, for a total of 8kms of walking today. Definitely feel better for having done that! Tomorrow should be a "normal" day, then I'm in training all day on Wednesday, and for an hour on Thursday morning. Then, mercifully, it'll be Friday. Please, Paycheque Gods, let our $ go in our accounts on Saturday morning!

...I'm not out at all. I had all kinds of ideas about what I could do today, where I could go. (It was supposed to be sunny, after all.) But have I made it out of the house? Nooooo . Instead, I started hemming two pairs of pants ("only" had them for 6 months), then had to hem a pair I got the other weekend at Value Village, and re-hem a pair I got last year that still were far too long. By the time I had all four pairs done, and the laundry and vacuuming completed, it was after 10AM. By that time of the morning, my day's half over and you can't get me out of my sweat pants. Nicki's not been feeling well today. I gave him a small handful of Temptation treats yesterday mid-afternoon, because they are soft on the inside. Well, around 1:30 this morning, he jumped off my bed and proceeded to barf up the entire contents of his stomach. Trust me on this one, that green colour (from the treats) is never going to come out of my beige carpet. Ugh and yuck and gross. It ...

Boy, did I have a meltdown, as my co-worker would put it, on Tuesday and then Wednesday morning. Post-Nicki surgery stress, compounded by PMS. Sheesh. I have such "great" life coping skills -- not. LOL! He's doing fine, as far as I can tell. Eating canned, going outside, playing. He's better than me! I still have a lingering tension headache (which had morphed into a migraine Tuesday evening/overnight) and am wondering if I ever am going to feel good again. Seems I haven't felt energetic and just plain good since I passed 40...some years ago. I remember the young doctor (resident) asking me, last month at my check-up, if I was happy. I looked at her (she's 26) and said I didn't know anyone in my age group who was happy. We're all bogged down with life/family/work/financial stress. Was I that naive when I was her age? Oh, yeah, you bet I was. I even was that naive well into my 30s. "To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements...

Worse than either I or the vet was expecting. The update is on my Fuzzy Tales site. At least he's home recovering now; I picked him up just after 6PM yesterday. And, amazingly, the dentist didn't charge me any more than the estimate, in spite of the fact that he ended up removing 8 (!) teeth, not just 4 incisors.