Crusty

That's the best word to use to describe the current situation around here.

In the last week or so, the humans have all come down with some variation of the common cold and Jessie has done an amazing rebound and returned to life.  It's been amazing to see, first she perked up a bit, then quite a bit, now she's trotting and hopping and seemingly just fine.  After her collapse, I never imagined she'd bounce back.

It snowed yesterday for nearly 15 straight minutes.  Matt picked up milk, bread and eggs because we were legit out of all 3, but it was still pretty funny.  He mixed it up with some veggie eggrolls though.
Wednesday or Thursday, I woke up feeling like there was an entire pencil inside my ear canal.  My chest was achy and my nose was doing that WTF thing where just one nostril works at a time.  The other leaks at the rate of one tissue per 5 minutes.  Throat was a little sore, but the drainage knocked my range of speech to creepy level 3.  I sounded like a rusted man.  When Chan had this last week, when she talked it sounded like 2 people talking it once.  It was SO scary. It does not seem scary, but your child in stereo, with one voice a little lower than the other, is VERY creepy.  Suck in air and talk.  It was very much like that.

While it only snowed a dusting here, the schools were closed. We get made fun of ALL the time for shutting down when it snows at all, but the basis of that decision is made with the thought of little kids waiting for the bus in the early hours.  Many, many people here don't have a good coat.  So, make fun if you want, but next time it's sleeting, go stand by your mailbox before the sun comes up in a sweater and jeans for 20 minutes.  Not everybody's mama can drive them to school.

A couple snaps from the snow.

Kuma was having a blast until I pointed the camera at him.
I go back and forth with wondering if he dies via photograph if he would be vindicated for his lifetime of wariness or if his last thoughts would be of horror because-clicky thing, aaaaaaaa

I have slept a good 4 to 6 hours total in the last 2 nights thanks to, and I will say it, MATT.  And my cold, but mostly my adored hubby who walks in his sleep and makes the bed wiggle.  Move to the couch, you suggest?  I can't fall asleep easily in other places, even the next room.  So all that netted was nearly 4 hour of laying there without the bed wiggling.  I am the most exhausted light sleeper in the world.  I'll just stay awake if there's the slightest chance I could be woken up.  Plus, the living room is COLD with it's single (who planned that?) heat vent directly over the front door.

When I finally did fall asleep last night, I woke up today with my nose crusted TO THE PILLOW.  It cracked loose when I tried to roll over.  Matt took one look and ran for the medicine cabinet, though 2 Sudafed and a Tylenol cold and congestion dose later, I feel NO BETTER.

To that end, I have decided to withdraw some from life and to celebrate, I unfriended the worst of the Trumpers still on my FB feed.  There's supporting your party, there's hoping for the best, then at some point, it becomes a combination of willful ignorance and 'someone said'.  And hate.

I typed way, way, way more and then deleted it because it was unkind.  See?  I am getting better. ish.  I still can't stand a hate spewing idiot particularly and I do mean this-when they are a hypocrite.  People can see when you say one thing and do another.  I'm just done with observing and ready to call people out.  Or, in this case, cut them loose.  Some people are too far gone to fix.

Okay, I think I am wound down.

This weekend is a bust, though Matt is off at the studio and Jake and Chan are going to town.  Ben is still puny.

Next week, there are plans for backpacking Friday because while it's 19 right now, it will be 70 a week from now.  Aaaaaand, no wonder we all have colds.  Various other things scattered in the week, just have to see how this cold is going.

17 words from being level 4 in Swedish.  I really wish I could find someone who can speak it, so I can ask some questions particularly about pronunciation.  Only 2 more levels and I will be proficient.  I have started reading a few things.  Children's books, short articles online, a few blogs.  I need a LOT more words to fill in the gaps, but I can piece together pretty well by guessing the unknown words based on context.  I doubt I will ever be able to write or speak my own thoughts without more training in stitching the words.   Some sentences are word for word.  Han ar trott, sa han vill stanna hemma.  He is tired, so he will stay home.  But then "I will be home at 4" is 'Jag ar hemma clockan fyra" 'I am home clock four.'.

I have a feeling it's similar to English rules, like using I or me, or a or an and once I figure it out, it will all be more simple.  

These Final Hours

I am finding that here in what feels like my final hours, I have nothing at all to say.  Nothing queued up anyway.  Eloquence is something I gave up, unknowingly, but all the same when I started taking antidepressants.  Now, I'd rather just deal with the down cycle than screw up my brain like that.  I used to be able to rant, argue, keep long lists in my head, validate my point of view and remember to check on food in the oven.  Now, I have to write-so I can refer back to what I was just saying when I trail off in thought-or if I am speaking, pause for long moments while I come up with the word that I just thought of.  Names are the worst, my brain just does not repeat a thought with any sort of consistency.  Try arguing your point when simple nouns are beyond your reach.  Yeah.  

I have some sort of stomach...thing.  Again.  Having them used to be my hobby, it filled my spare time and supposed-to-be-sleeping hours with horrible hours in the bathroom floor, trying to gauge which end is next and hoping if I am totally, totally still, it will fade.  It got better for a long time. This is the second round in a month and it was BAD this time.

Since I don't want to detail the details, I will post a few recent pics so there's no gap in my narrative.

Ben and I were home alone, so I sang the birthday song by myself, which did nothing to disguise that I am tone deaf.  Which does nothing to stop me singing anyway, so Ben just braced himself and thought of cake.  He looks to be blowing out candles, but that's a sigh of relief.

His footprint from when he was a year old.  I used to have his handprint, too, but one of the dogs coming through our lives chewed it up.

I made them because I woke up one morning convinced Ben had stopped growing.  I'd blame all the crack, but I've never even smoked a cigarette.

Nia can be stopped by any amount of sunbeam, I have a theory that a yellow laser pointer would knock her out,  She's the Green Lantern Doggie.

The cousins are all getting grown.  Adam is 22, in training to be an airline pilot.  Chan is nearly 18 and about to finish high school, Jake is 20, working full time, Ben is 16 and still adverse to physical contact of any kind.  He cracks me up with that pose. *can't touch anyone*  Butterbean is 14 months old, finally neutered and a MUCH better dog now.  Jackson is 17 and Maddie is 16 and working after school.  They (her family) just moved back to Tennessee after living in Florida for several years.  They live half a mile from my sister, it's all very cozy.

I imagine we will see them again next year, possibly the year after.  I have given up trying to sort any actual relationship with my family.  I didn't say what Jackson was up to because other than his middle name and date of birth, I know NOTHING about the kid.  I always thought the cousins would all be such great friends, and they were for a few years.  Chan and Maddie were very close as kids.  Then my mother went (even more) insane and they flocked to her side and that told me enough.  I don't want drama, if they do then dram away, yo.  Just keep that shit away from mine.

I redid the purple in Chan's hair and it is QUITE bright!

Monday, Jake did not have Explorers, but was off early anyway, so I picked him up and we went to see the new Frankenstein movie.  Here's a spoiler-James McAvoy spits when he talks with any level of conviction.  Maybe his character does, but Jake and I were both yelling 'SWALLOW' at the screen.  It was horrifying.

Daniel Radcliffe was so good as Igor, I liked the whole movie-it looked exactly how I wanted it to. Other than the spittle bit. 

Before the movie, we had to pick up gerbil food and the pet store had these hoodies half off.

Nia goes totally stiff and falls over like a fainting goat.  You have to bribe her to move with cookies.  Then she pouts, *stupid hoodie*

Murphy Jones has NO IDEA he's wearing a shirt. 

We left them in the house Monday for a few hours and they went on a destroying rampage!  ALL the tissue boxes were emptied one Kleenex at a time ALL over the beds,  I had just bought a box per person because we all get the sniffles this time of year.  Then they got in the trash and distributed all the used tissues as well.  Then they ATE the cover off the new heating pad and Murphy destroyed his bark collar.

I imagine they had a wonderful run of things jumping on the beds and making a huge mess.  It is ALL Murphy's fault because Nia is 3 and we have had her all but 8 weeks of that time and she has never made a mess, not once.  She doesn't even pull the squeaks out of her toys.

On Friday night, Matt got rear ended.  He was stopped, signal on, waiting for traffic and a guy plowed right into him.  It was a bad few days while Matt fumed, but insurance hooked him up with a rental car so he's suddenly in a MUCH better mood.  Still no news on the car, so the bank is letting us skip this month's payment in case they total it.  The other guy's insurance is being REALLY nice, it makes me suspicious.

Sick:Update

Starting right after getting home last week from Huntsville, the boys started running fevers.  It's a week later and Jake is STILL in the bed.  He has never been sick this long.  Ben is much better.

By Thursday, I had been hit.  I did not even get out of bed the whole day.  Friday, I was a little better.  I am still not 100% by any means.  Saturday, Chan and Matt both got hit with fevers and she recovered, he did not.  Monday he spent the day at home in bed running a fever wearing gloves and a hat so he could sleep.

He's back at work today, but not much better, just unwilling to let things fall totally apart.  It's amazing how very many $100k and up men they have working there and it all seems to rely on Matt doing his job at less than half that amount for anything to actually get made there. So much so they have openly admitted he's not going to get promoted any time soon because-who would do the work?  Oh, BTW, we hired another person  for the position you thought you were getting!  They start this week, can you train them, k, thnx, byby.  Yeah, they'll make $30k more a year than you, but they don't know what they are doing.  SEE that's why we need YOU!  Pick up the slack for that project, too.  I saw you breathing twice just last week-you have enough free time.  I'll be at the golf course, don't call.

No one feels like doing anything, I keep getting up enough steam to run through the chores, keeping us in clean clothes, the trash out, the things wiped, the carpets cleared and the wood pile refilled.  Then I collapse. When I recover, I run to the store for more medicine or drinks or soup.  Chapstick, tissue, dog food, cat food, more laundry detergent.  Gloves on, scarf over the face, hat pulled low.  Back home, fall back out.  I feel like I have been running races.

My appetite has been nill, I don't think we've all eaten a full meal in nearly a week.  I keep soup on the stove-the 'add water' mix type soup, nothing I have to stand over.  Nutrition secondary to just having something hot.  The weather is horrid-cold, windy, wet, rainy, snowy, icy, bleak.  It's foggy and closed-in, the wood pile is down to the last 30 or so logs, but it should get us through the next drop in temps.  The central unit is working, it's just nice to have something cranking out heat, there's no way to keep the house really warm when it's in the teens outside and the wind is going 20 MPH.  The wood stove gives it a small break-it's not on every minute at least.  The power bill will be phenomenal.  The meter for the past month is well over twice the usual reading.

Ah, it's all doom and gloom!  I am sure when this week is over and the warmer temps are on the horizon and we are all feeling more or less back to normal, that I will read back over this and be amused at how crabby I get at times.

Anyway, nothing going on here, no plans either.  Just trying to get through this and see what's next.

Cliffs of Ruth

There's this cliff in the woods we like to walk back to that we have taken to calling the Cliffs of Ruth after Matt's aunt who lived here in this house when he was born.  It's a major Dog Event around here and in warm weather is often combined with the steep descent to the creek to the dog swimming hole. I have not headed that way in a long time, though Matt took all 4 dogs there just at the end of November..

I was ready for something cheap and local, maybe involving a ton of carbs.  I settled for 'lower carb' since I don't really need the empty calories and 'not leaving the property' since it's Christmas Day.  I made a frittata and set that off to cool and we headed into the woods to walk with the dogs.

Nia has been sick, I have been like a crazy person.  I think she's clear of it now, but I am not sure I can handle one more 'thing' right now.

I was surprised at the amount of mushrooms that were out.  But I think I say that every December.

We made it to the cliff with no trouble.  I had it in mind to scope a spot to put a fire pit and make a regular camping spot over there.  But I got busy watching the dogs tree squirrels and did not think about it once I was actually there.

I am so glad we feed them, they'd starve in about 12 hours without us.

That's the tree I look for every time.  It does not look huge in this picture, but you can see it from a good distance.

We headed down under the cliff after standing on top listening to the creek below.  It's been raining for the past few days and the creek is only a few feet wide, but the way it is located in the bottom of a steep V canyon makes it sound much bigger than it is.

We decided to walk down the hillside to the creek, the cliffs are above this hill on another bluff back a little way.  It's a fairly long climb down.  Which I forget until I have to get back up it.

This tiny fall makes a LOUD noise, we laughed when we reached it.  We must have been expecting the valley to have caved in and there to be a 30 foot drop, the noise it was making.

It was warm enough to swim, I guess.  She and Jessie both played in the water.

We walked along the creek all the way back up to where the old log road comes down from the pasture.

Between the wet ground, slick leaves and hidden rocks, I stumbled around a few times and my ankle was achy.

Back out in the pasture!  

One of several groves of sweet gum and false pear trees.

I don't think Jess will ever tire of putting her whole face in holes she finds in the ground.  I have seen her so swollen from stings that she looks like a balloon dog.

Nia seems to be feeling better.  She threw up and of course I went into psycho mode.  We made her anise tea and had her drink the whole pot over the course of about 36 hours.  We mixed it with almond milk and Vienna sausage juice and raw egg.  She sucked it down, there was no coercion.  Anise is the basis of Tamiflu and that has been shown to stop Parvo damage caught early enough because it stops the virus from replicating.

I gave her papaya enzymes in case it was worms making her ill.  Papaya breaks down protein in the gut, the enzymes can break down intestinal parasites anywhere in the digestive tract and the stomach acid will dissolve the rest.  Wormer without the gross of seeing the worms.

This is all 'stuff I had on hand because the vet is closed until Monday' and not necessarily my first choice for dealing with sickness, especially if Parvo is suspected. I suspect it was probably eating Christmas goodies too rich for her tummy.  Either way, it did her no harm and may have done her a world of good.  I needed to be doing something.

Anyway, tomorrow we have a hike with friends planned and I am looking forward to that.  Other than the repair shop ordeal (dropped off the car and the check engine light started flashing in the van.  They fixed that, took the car back, it's still there), I have not left the house since I took Kai to the vet last Thursday.  It today proved anything, it's time to get out and get some air.  Just need to wrap my ankle better!

I am trying to get back on an even keel.  I feel beaten down and I don't like that at all.  I need time to process everything-without a new thing popping up-and I have not gotten that, not this whole year.  Maybe that's life, but that's not how I am able to manage things.  I need my list, my plan, things I can count on, people I can count on.  I feel like I have been pared down to the core this year on all accounts and left that way.  That probably does not make sense.

I just know I am looking forward to the long walk in the woods and the campfire lunch we have planned and having a few hours of nothing more that putting one foot in front of the other and seeing the scenery.  Maybe take a picture or two.  That's all I want.

Sick Puppy

Tuesday, while we were all off at the funeral, Kaiju threw up.  No one was here to see if she had overeaten or eaten a bug or grass or half a cat...we did not worry.  Wednesday (yesterday) she ate a little kibble-not her usual 3 pounds, but no one was alarmed.  She threw up again.

Following the vet's advice, I made her some bland food and she ate and kept that down, went and played in the pasture and ran around. She had no fever, no lethargy, no diarrhea.  They thought she had gotten into something gross and was on the rebound.

I took Ben and Chan to town to hang out with friends and Jake stayed here with the puppy.  Last night she and Nia wrestled and played.  Just before bed, she threw up again.

I woke up around 1 this morning and went to check her.  She was pitiful.  I told myself it was because it was the middle of the night and she was groggy, but I knew better.

Every hour or so, I gave her an ounce of fluids with the turkey baster.  She seemed to keep it down fairly well.  By 6, I knew there was something really wrong.  Her eyes were so sad and she was so still.  And she did not want anything to do with food-not even bacon or tuna.  At 7:30, I was at the vet's office and at 8, when they actually arrived, I got her in to be looked at.

They took her history-one round of vaccinations at 8 weeks, one due now (tomorrow in fact), the last at 16 weeks, a month from now. She tested positive for parvo.  They had 2 courses of action, neither great.  The first was keeping her there for round the clock meds and fluids.  That was $300 down and $100 a day until she died or went home.  Treatment lasts around 7 days.  The other was taking her and her meds home.  I opted for that explaining there was no way I could justify a thousand dollars for a puppy that might not live. She was given a 50/50 chance either way and basically as long as  was sure I could keep her hydrated, it did not matter to them which option I took.

We talked a long time, I have to say that for the vet, he answered a ton of questions.  I can also say that if you go online, you can find a vet who will agree with any viewpoint you might want to have.  The discrepancy in information for this single disease is terrifying.  I have found if she lives three days, she will make it.  That's today!  I have read it will be 2 weeks until she is really in the clear. That's next year! I have read she will be immune, that she will always shed the virus and is now a carrier, that the virus will be gone from the soil anywhere from 6 months to 10 years.

I decided to use the money we had set aside for Christmas to cover it, so it was not coming out of savings or going on the credit card.  And we should know by Christmas if she's going to make it, so I hope it turns out we get a miracle and not another funeral.  Oh, that's morbid.  I want to put out all the positive vibes I can, she needs lots of love and good thoughts along with her forced liquids.  Poor baby!!

As still as I am likely to catch her.

When I took this one the other day I thought of it as the first shot of the 'adult' version of Kai-that muzzle and beautiful line of her head.    

Here she is in the van waiting at the vet's.  So super sad!  She looks younger. 

It will be worth missing our Christmas festivities to see her all better.  I am so glad I had money set aside, we were just going to use it to go camping anyway, since Matt has forced vacation the next 2 weeks.  That will be more fun when she and Nia are both full of sass and cramming in the tent with the boys.  I will be cramming in the camper with the heater.  hahaha! 

I want to be positive and see all the positive signs-she's walking around, still curious.  She's wagging her tail, she's drinking a little on her own and she's keeping down what I am getting in her.  Matt is coming home with some unflavored pedialyte and I think that will help even more.  She seems able to rest once she settles.

But she's weird-wandering and staring at corners, her feet and tail are freezing-that's the dehydration making her colder.  She seems so restless and keeps looking at me like I can fix it and make her feel better.  And all I am doing is poking hard pills in her throat and forcing her to swallow fluids she does not want at all.  I see now why so many people hand over their puppy to the vet for the IV and isolation, despite the cost and knowing their puppy is probably scared to death.  I'd rather not see her pooping blood or hear her groaning as she tries to get comfortable. I'd really rather not smell her. Parvo has it's own reek that is unmistakable and it hit her body around 2 today.  Even her breath is horrible.  I have already done 3 loads of laundry, she's gross!

I want to be on the other side of this and know what happens to her.  Waiting is the worst invention ever.