How Do You Feel Today? v4

[Cameraman Jenn]

Well they are pack animals. In the beginning it was Salacious Crum (gangster nickname is G-pig) and Moose. They loved each other. Back then the enclosure was on the floor and they used to rub noses over the top of the sides of the cage and they would hang out in my lap together while lounging on the couch. Then Moose passed away and a few months later I was at the pet store and she was in an enclosure being absolutely picked on by the other guinea pigs so I couldn't help myself and brought her home. They fell in love immediately and had quadruplets, two boys and two girls. Both the girls got adopted as a pair and both the boys got adopted as a pair. Then I had the two of them in separate cages, I had to separate him out from her while the kids were little so a second enclosure was here for a while. The bad thing about that is they would cry for one another even though the cages were up against one another and they could touch noses etc. I did some research and ended up getting her spayed which cost over $600 bucks but they are so happy together that it was all worth it to me. He's totally a momma's boy and she's a sweetie but not as aggressively affectionate. He literally tries to climb out of the cage to get to me for his love sessions. I'll post some pics...

[Cameraman Jenn]

Sorry for the double post but I had to let Sorus know I uploaded a pic in "The Muttley Crew" album.

[Sorus]

They're adorable. I can almost hear their little moink moink moinks.


So sorry to hear about Moose.

[Cameraman Jenn]

He started having episodes of not knowing where he was and what was happening and he would bark and whimper and shake and it was difficult so I made the humane decision. I cried randomly for weeks and it took me over three months to sleep through the night without waking up and freaking out because he wasn't there snuggled up at my belly. That was two years ago in November. I still cry thinking about him sometimes. And yes, the piggins are stupid cute.

[Avatar]

Ah shame, that's rough.

Well, Monday. Here we go again...

--A

[Sorus]

I'm so sorry. That's heartbreaking.

I still have my three cats, though Min was diagnosed with cancer a while back, and has a prognosis of about another year, best-case-scenario. She's doing well for now, though she's on a lot of meds. It's never enough time.

[Avatar]

Yeah, this is why I don't want pets. (For all the good such wanting did me. )

No more after these.

Happy Tuesday all. Today I shall be insanely productive.

--A

[Cameraman Jenn]

Av, it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. I know losing the Mooseman was hard and it's still hard but the joy and love he brought into my life is so much more than if I never had him. All the good times and bad times were all worth it. When he was a baby I almost lost him. I was hanging out with my friend Terry, Atrium from FBH and Moose had buried a greenie dog chew in one of the plants and then dug it up and ate it and it had developed toxic mold. I found him in convulsions in the entryway to the house and we had to rush him to the emergency vet and he nearly died. I was up all night and a total wreck but when they called and told me he made it through the night but might have brain damage I was nothing but relieved. I didn't care if he had brain damage as long as I had him. He was normal for years and I'm pretty sure his dementia was a latent result of that. For many years though he gave me such amazing love and incomparable companionship that I will forever be grateful for. Many an evening was spent with a good book and him snuggled up with me on the couch. He got to be Lord Foul's chihuahua in our show and he got to put an arrogant jackass in his place because of that. After we got front page of the San Francisco Chronicle on what to watch on TV, I was dropping off the next tape at the station and I had him with me. The new director came into the lobby and saw me yammering with Alexa, the amazing transgender woman who worked the station desk and the director told me to get that dog out of the station. Alexa looked at him and said in a total head moving Oprah show way, "Do you know who that dog is? It's Lord Foul's chihuahua!" and then pointed at the framed copy of the Chronicle article on the lobby wall. The director then apologized and left the room. He was never a small dog because he acted like a big dog. I have tons of pics of him running on the beach with labs and Dobermans and all sorts of dogs twenty times his size. He was a joy I'll never forget and never regret. His favorite treat was not dog biscuits but raw red peppers or carrots. When I moved to Albuquerque and my landlord needed to get into my apartment I told her to go to the fridge and get a carrot from the lower right drawer and give it to him and he would shut up and she did and he did and she thought that was the funniest thing. All the little memories and moments make up for the loss a thousand fold. I remember when he was a puppy and I was making spaghetti sauce and I dropped a raw garlic clove on the floor by accident and he snarfed it down and for the next few days he stunk so bad it was horrific. Even his skin smelled of rotting garlic. The first night I brought him home I put him in his puppy bed to sleep and I woke up around two am to find him wrapped around my neck. I put him back in his bed and around four I woke up with him wrapped around my neck again. He figured out how to shinny himself up between the nightstand and the bedframe a full three feet to get into bed with me and he slept with me the rest of his life. I'm going to post a pic in the muttley crew that will say it all...

[Cameraman Jenn]

Ok, yes I'm double posting again. Is there anything cuter than a pic of a baby guinea pig sleeping with a sleeping chihuahua head on his butt? Not so sure that's possible.

[Cameraman Jenn]

OHH triple posting... you guys should ban me again. Guess I'm not done talking about Moose and the love of pets. I used to play this game with Moose where I would get down face to face with him in dog play mode, you know on front paws, ass in the air and we would be eye to eye but facing opposite directions and I would sing this stupid ditty I made up that goes like this (phonetically it has to be written this way so you can hear my atrocious baby talk meets Jamaican accent)

"I am the keesing mah-ohnster, theese is what I say"

and then we would switch face direction and he would lick my nose as I kissed him

"I'll get you leetle chee wha wha and keese you every day"

and then we would switch sides again with nose lick and a kiss

"I am the keesing mah-ohnster, that is what I said"

another switch and kiss

"I got you leetle chee wha wha and keesed your tiny head"

then I would pounce on him and kiss him and he would roll over and be all belly up wriggling and grinning. You can't trade those moments for anything in the world. The first time my friend Jen saw that she said it was the most amazingly adorable and disgusting display of cuteness she had ever seen in her life. When I would be getting ready to take him to the beach I would just look at him and sing, "Sand in the moose toes makes me happy and sand in the moose toes makes me high." and he would be at the door ready to go. Lucimay didn't like dogs until she met and bonded with Moose. My friend Alfonso was very anti small dog until he met Moose and realized that dogs are all the same size in their brains and he loved Moose. Not sure if I have told this story on the watch but here goes. When Steve Donaldson first came on our show as Higgins O'Higgins we went out to dinner and then came back to our house to talk about the show and just hang out and Moose was a tiny puppy. Steve, Julie and I were hanging out in our living room talking about stuff and Moose decided that he would discover sex at that moment. I had been throwing a toy for him to chase down the hallway and he kept bringing it back and getting on the couch and humping it. I kept grabbing the toy away and throwing it and trying to downplay it because Moose had never humped anything before and finally I gave up and said to Steve, "I'm sorry, my puppy has just discovered sex so I'm just going to be totally embarrassed and apologize." I then put a throw pillow over Moose and his bunny toy and continued my conversation with SRD while the couch pillow moved up and down in an entirely sexual manner. He was gracious and amused. Moose got fixed a week later....So there you have it Av, we are not so much devastated by the loss of our critters but defined by our love for our critters.

[Avatar]

Or you're weird.

--A

[Linna Heartbooger]

Yes, Av. But, like....
<pause for emphasis>

Anyway, this...

...(phonetically it has to be written this way so you can hear my atrocious baby talk meets Jamaican accent)...

"I am the keesing mah-ohnster, theese is what I say"

and then we would switch face direction and he would lick my nose as I kissed him

"I'll get you leetle chee wha wha and keese you every day"

..."I got you leetle chee wha wha and keesed your tiny head"

then I would pounce on him and kiss him and he would roll over and be all belly up wriggling and grinning. You can't trade those moments for anything in the world. The first time my friend Jen saw that she said it was the most amazingly adorable and disgusting display of cuteness she had ever seen in her life. When I would be getting ready to take him to the beach I would just look at him and sing, "Sand in the moose toes makes me happy and sand in the moose toes makes me high." and he would be at the door ready to go.

Theeeeese eees adoore-uh-buhl.
love imagining keesing a tiny chihuahua on its tiny head!

I got back from visiting my friend in California, and a continuous stream of fairly wonderful things have been happening.
(thank you guys for your kind words in response to my post on this thread when I was there.)

Math competition went VERY well. And also, I spent all the time having exciting conversations with different parents of students I've taught over the years. It was fairly wonderful.

I feel more free in my conversation.. and more free tackling dreams and ideas.

I joined a local writing group, and went to a meeting of theirs ...I'm pretty psyched!

I got Menolly to counsel me about some of my worries and she was awesome.

Aforementioned writing group had a SHAKESPEARE Reader's Theater this past Saturday!
*swoon*
And I got to participate.
First 3 acts of Julius Caesar
I have wanted to do something like this all my life.
For me, it was a bucket-listable offense.
Pretty much ecstasy.
I got two of the most amazing parts. (You don't necessarily get to have the same part in more than 1 scene though, so people can "rotate through.")
Oh yeah! Brought both of my kiddoes with, and they were welcomed & participated as well!

[Sorus]

So there you have it Av, we are not so much devastated by the loss of our critters but defined by our love for our critters.

Yup. They'll break your heart (and your bank), but there were days when the only thing that kept me going was knowing they were waiting at the door for me to come home.

[Menolly]

I'm so freaking excited!

While I'm sad my long time nurse practitioner retired in November, the one thing he and I disagreed on is taking me off of my two diabetic medications, even though my a1c numbers have been exceptionally good for the past several years. Today I met my potential new PCP, a very young doctor, but not a resident, so hopefully he'll be long term instead of leaving in a couple of years.

With today's a1c number, and those I've had for the past several years, he is willing to titrate me off of those medications, and test my a1c in the next three months and six months to see if my low carb/keto way of eating is enough to keep me out of diabetic range.

If this works out, and my hematologist takes me off of my chemo for the trial this summer, that will be 3 medications/4 pills a day I'll no longer have to take.

woo-hoo!

[Avatar]

Good luck with that.

--A

[Lazy Luke]

I noticed some spring flowers yesterday. Or at least I seem to remember long ago daffys and snowflakes popping up in april, not february. It felt like I should be sad the wold has become dysfunctional, but then, Big Jeff will be donating 10 $billion to scientists so they might do something about it.

So come on guys, sort it out. We want our spring flowers in spring, not in winter.

[Avatar]

Yeah, being seeing it here for years. The Cosmos that used to bloom at Easter is also now blooming in Feb.

Anyway, on the plus side, I thought today was Wednesday, but it's actually Thursday, so that's nice.

--A

[Lazy Luke]

Anyway, on the plus side, I thought today was Wednesday, but it's actually Thursday, so that's nice.

--A

knob head

oops, (nob) wrong spelling

[Avatar]

It happens.

--A

[Sorus]

We have confused trees here too, and we're having the driest February since 1864.