More poop disaster *sigh*

I have a good reason for saving up posts. I actually when I thought of something I wanted to say just made a one word post and saved it so I could remember what the hell I was thinking.

The Widget is still sick. While I'm trying to contact references, re-writing my resume in three forms, and applying for jobs, the dog is puking and pooping and doing some strange stretching and twisting. She was so uncomfortable but didn't seem in pain. I can't figure it out, I call the vet and in we go on a Saturday. I have to drop her off and leave her there. We're going to give her barium and watch as it moves through her tummy. Something appears to be in there that doesn't belong. Now mind you, we've already paid a ton of money for this whatever it is and here I am making more bills to pay.

So, several hours later the vet calls and back we go. We're looking at x-rays of Widget's tummy and there IS something in there, heaven knows what. It appears that while she was at the bed and breakfast during our trip home for the holidays she's ingested *something* The something is causing chaos in Widgie's body and her white count is going skyward and she's a mess. Now we have to either get the something to come out, or have surgery to get the something out. Vet wants to delay surgery for another day to maybe let the magic barium "push it through." Ok. Home we go, armed with more antibiotics, pain killers, food supplements.

Back we go the next day. More x-rays. OOO Look! The lovely chalky barium stuff has moved the something. YAY No surgery. But it's still in there. Home we go. Keeping watch on the Widget. More puke, more poop.

The next day, we're walking our morning walk and whatever the something is COMES OUT. Back to the vet, more x-rays. YAY It's OUT. Still antibiotics, food supplements (of good enzymes like we eat in yogurt...yogurt is HELLA cheaper than THIS stuf though, trust me.) But finally, she's eating and not puking and not pooping.

Now for cleaning the entire house carpeting for the second time this month...

Total bill: $732

The Widget will never be going back to that bed and breakfast again, she will be staying with the vet, who puts her in with the cats because in the vet's words "the dogs are too loud and boisterous for her." and won't let her eat things that make her sick and cost us nearly $1,000 dollars. Lord, help me.

I want to hold MY husband's hand.

I'm jealous. I've seen the Obamas holding hands all damn day and I would just like to hold my husband's hand.

It sounds silly doesn't it? Everyone talks about what being a military family is like, what we miss, what we sacrifice. For me, I was thinking, it's not being able to hold my husbands hand. Sometimes its just as small as that and those small things add up to a big price we pay for being a military family. Small things, all day, every day.

So anyway, I'm done whining.

We have a new president and lets hope he is a good one. I sent my husband a smart-ass text message telling him he had a new boss at noon. He was too busy working yet another 17 hour day to pay attention to the inauguration. Imagine that.

As always, I will respect the office and support our president.

I am happy that the new first lady appears to be paying attention -- perhaps this will help keep what few benefits we have intact and keep the military budget from being shredded into oblivion. Mostly though, I hope the new guy actually listens to boots on the ground.

Carry on. :)

Janelle

When I was a little girl, growing up in a suburb of Baltimore called Towson, I had lots of little friends. Today Janelle came to mind. Janelle was one of my favorite friends and she was black. I remember clearly that when we visited each others houses we were always escorted by my mother or her grandmother. There was some particular line, going into each others neighborhoods, we didn't cross it without having an adult with us. This was 1962 or 63. (I know, I'm old) Little white girls didn't go to Janelle's neighborhood and little black girls didn't go to mine without an adult. I'm not sure we actually knew why, but we knew those were the rules.

Thinking about the coming inauguration and Dr. Martin Luther King...I am so happy that if it were today, Janelle and I could be friends without escort, without fear. There has been some progress and progress is good.

"Call on God, but row away from the rocks."

Yeah. I was listening to some random thing on tv and working hard to get through the federal application system before a Saturday deadline when the news popped in with a plane in the Hudson.

Part of what I was thinking was about how the people of New York City must have felt as they witnessed that sight or heard that sound. The other part was how absolutely, without question, I am not a sheep. I am a sheepdog.

I have traveled a great deal over the course of my career and my life, almost always by plane. There is never a time that I settle in my seat (which I have always chosen to be in the front of the plane or by the wings)without knowing which direction and how many seat backs are between me and the exits, without sizing up where are the children, the elderly, who will need assistance, without having put my little tiny travel purse through the loops of my jeans so that it stays attached to my body and not in my backpack which WILL be left behind. I wear jeans when I fly and I have actually shown up at board meetings in some "other" city, wearing jeans and boots because my plane was late and I refuse to travel in heels and a skirt and insist on wearing cotton and sensible shoes. Yep, I actually do all these things when I fly. Nobody knows it but me, and now you. I suppose I have always thought of how much fun would be made of me if people knew I did this ritual getting on a plane.

The flight attendants, they aren't there to give you coffee or a coke or pretzels, they really aren't. They are there for just this reason, to bark orders at you to do the right thing at the right time so the odds of your survival in an emergency go up. The crew in the cockpit, all those hours of training, all that experience. Sometimes I will laugh to myself when we have a particularly hard or short landing and think "this guy flew for the Navy" and all the while I am grateful for their experience.

Those people all lived. Part of that was luck, but luck IS made and that crew, and particularly that captain, are sheepdogs.

The other thing I thought and Lisa said, was how wonderful it must have been for the first responders to be able to successfully rescue people, scared, cold and grateful people. That had to be good for them.

I'm not afraid of flying, I just like to have all the tools I can at my disposal for "just in case".

random thoughts...