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Another Soggy-Doggy Day

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Glub!!  It is SO WET out there under the a.m. cloud cover, you feel like you’re walking through a bathroom where the shower has been spraying.

Truly an  unpleasant Arizona day.

Ohhh well. Such is life, eh?

The poor little dawg has developed a reaction to her collar. When she drags (as she often does), it tightens on her esophagus and gives her a CHOKING FIT No kidding:

ack ack ack gag gag ack ack eck eck eck gasp aaaaack!

People must think I’m hauling her up the sidewalk by her leash. But that’s not the case. Our normal doggy-walk stroll has her trotting along beside me, dawg and human on the same slab of any given sidewalk. No, she is NOT dragging me up the road. No, I am NOT dragging her, either.

Well. We do have a harness, which we’ll have to use after this.

It’s extraordinarily inconvenient to use, and Ruby drags like crazy when she has that thing on. Plus she goes after every other dog she spots. That’s why the collar and leash — used humanely — seem to work better.

*** hmmmm….   What does Wonderground predict for this extraordinarily balmy day?

  • 86 degrees Fahrenheit at 7:30 in the morning
  • 78% chance of rain
  • High of 106 degrees predicted
  • Low of 87 tonight
Their house in Sun City

Ugh! WhatEVER possessed my parents to drag us to this place, make me skip my senior year in high school, and warehouse me at the University of Arizona in Tucson so they could live in dreary Sun City? This has got to be one of the most gawdawful places on the planet to dwell!

Well. They liked the political conservatism. And compared to California, it was cheap. Plus my father disliked kids. So the appeal of horrible Sun City was obvious.

What. A. Place!

Doggy Update

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Ruby the Corgi seems a little better today. She’s been gagging and horking every time she laps up a sip of water…but this morning she gets through a lot more water before a cough-fest starts.

I’m hoping she’ll be better by the end of the day. Mostly because…well, I’m hoping she’ll GET BETTER. But also because today is Sunday: we’ll play Hob trying to find an open veterinary, and you can be sure any vet who will see us today will charge through the wazoo.

Truth is, it looks like she really is likely to throw off whatever-this-is. She ate all her food without a cough-fest, and did manage to scoop up a fair amount of water before she started choking. So…we know she IS getting enough water, despite the unholy heat. Probably it will be safe to wait until tomorrow to try to get her into a vet.

Apparently the cause can range from pretty benign — gulping up water too fast — to pretty awful: collapsing trachea or laryngeal paralysis.

The fact that she managed to scarf down a lot more water today, without the choke-fest, makes me hope that it’ll be safe to let this go until tomorrow. Our vet is right across the street, which means I won’t have to hire cabs to get to and from the place. And…if we’re REALLY lucky, maybe whatever ails her will pass between now and tomorrow morning.

<3  She’s such a good little dog! Mellow and well-behaved and…doggish. A great pal and easy to care for. If I thought this current phenomenon was anything serious, I’d have taken her to an emergency vet yesterday. But pretty clearly, she’s getting over it…so I think there’s some reason to believe it’s safe to wait until our vet’s office opens tomorrow morning.

Sure hope so….

Biggest Mistake of My Life…

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Loafing under gray skies, I find myself gazing back on the major decisions of my life. Ever-entertaining….

It strikes me that the single worst decision I ever made was NOT to have majored, as an undergraduate, in a subject that would have landed me a decent job. Without benefit of a graduate degree.

As it is — stupidly having majored in English and pursued not one but two graduate degrees — I can’t get a “decent job” for love nor money.

Consider the likely possibilities:

An Ed.D. would have gotten me a principal’s position in some high school in a desirable location — like the San Francisco Bay Area, for example.

An MBA almost certainly would have led to a decently paying corporate job. Just about anywhere.

An MS in microbiology (my favorite subject) would have landed a job at a hospital or a university, pursuing interesting challenges.(nevvermind that women were not welcome in the sciences at the time…TOTALLY not welcome!)

Any of those jobs could have led me to a career far, far away from hot, muggy, intellectually backward Arizona.

But ohhhhhh  no!  I had to chase a Ph.D. in English…so that I wouldn’t have to go back and change my undergraduate major to a subject that would have made economic sense.

What? Me? Make sense? 

Surely you jest…

Augh!!! The Joy of Living in Arizona

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Yeah. In the absence of a car, Ruby and I didn’t make to the vet through the 110-degree heat.

This morning she’s still squawking HORK HORK HORK! very time she laps up a drink of water. Dayum!!!!!  

It seems a little better today, though: doesn’t go on and on and on. Whatever the problem is, she may be throwing it off.

Sure hope so. I could do without another $100+ vet bill.

Arizona: what a horrible place!!!! 

My mother used to go on and on about how much she loved it here. And I suppose by comparison with Saudi Arabia, where we spent ten hideous years on the shore of the Persian Gulf, it looks…uhm…good.

To my mind, it looks like an outpost of Hell. You can be sure I’d be someplace else –– a good long way else — if my son weren’t here.

We’re here because his dad landed a job, fresh out of law school, with one of the most prominent firms in the Southwest. After 20 years of marriage to that guy, I was well established and in no position to seek a job anywhere else than in the Phoenix area. And our son had no desire to move away from where his dad and I lived.

So.

Here we are. 

Ugh.

There’s a fate for ya.

I do hate it here, and if I could escape, I’d head for the Bay Area in a trice.

But a) I ain’t leavin’ where my son lives; and b) I couldn’t get a decent job in San Francisco or the East Bay on a bet. A Ph.D. in English a decent job does not buy…

But honestly…

I hate Arizona!

Wait-Listed onto the Wagon!

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{chortle!!} Freshly back from the Albertson’s Stupormarket, where I decided to jump on the Wagon…and this time, stay on it!

😀

No kidding. An hour ago I went over there — in the absence of a car, walking through unholy heat and humidity* — picked up a six-pack of beer, and repaired to the check-out stand.

And…

Stood in line…and stood in line…and stood in line…and stood in line….

The line wasn’t that long. Not at all. It was that the service was slower than molasses in January.

Finally I just gave up. Put the beer down on the counter and walked out.

And you may be sure that will be the LAST time I shop there for just a few small items.

We really don’t have much choice, though, here in the ‘Hood. It’s that Albertson’s; or the Fry’s to the north of us, where you have to travel through a pretty scary district even to reach the entry to the parking lot; or the Sprouts across Main Drag West, where you navigate across 7 lanes of hectic traffic to reach the front door.

Maddening!!! 
___________________________

*Just now Wunderground says it’s 102 out there, but a mere 1% humidity. Couldn’t prove that last by me: the sky is full of fat, floating clouds and the air is so soggy it feels like you’re swimming through it!

Moving Crabbily On…

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As we scribble, come 6:00 in the evening it’s freakin’ hot outside. Yeah: 98 degrees in the shade of the back porch, according to our thermometer. About right: Wunderground says it’s 99 degrees out there, “feels like 102.”

😀  Is THAT all?

***

A small fiasco is under way, one that will require the attention of my amiable lawyers. So: tomorrow it’s over to their office, wherein to have a chat. Just what I need to blow away half my day.

***

Meanwhile, the poor little dawg is about fried. Now that she’s had a few bites to eat and had a chance to flop on the kitchen tiles, she seems a little better. And as we scribble, she has retired to her favorite spot on the cool tiles under the toilet…

Dayum!  I hope she’ll be OK.

Give her half-an-hour or so, and then retrieve her from the toilet cave. Put her on the bed. And let’s see how she does.

Hope she recovers fully. I’m not sure where the nearest animal hospital is…which doesn’t matter, because Caligula has kiped my car, so I can’t get her to an emergency vet, anyway. If that’s necessary, though, I hope one of the neighbors will drive us.

Really….I probably ought to chat with the WonderAccountants (they live across the street) and ASK — in advance!! — if they will please help me get Ruby to an emergency vet should that ever be necessary. Maybe beg the same (in-advance!) favor from some of the other neighbors.

***

This mother/son squabble and automobile rip-off flap has gotten SO stupid that I’m thinking I probably need to sell the house and move to some other venue: one where I can buy and use another car to get myself to key destinations.

Where to go, where to go??  Well…Sun City probably.

Yuch!

My parents decamped to Sun City. They LOVED it…because that sort of stodgy atmosphere and whitey-white exclusivity was right up their alley.

Personally, I prefer a more liberal atmosphere and a more diverse set of neighbors. Plus (really!) I do love the sound of children playing outside. In Sun City, instead you get the melody of jet warplanes blasting out of nearby Luke Air Force Base. Loverly….

***

Oohhh gawd! Now Ruby has taken to choking frantically every time she laps a few sips of water!

KEEEripes! WHAT is causing that?

Well, she gets over it quickly. Now it’s stopped…

Tomorrow morning I’ll call the vet. Maybe I can put up one of the neighbors to driving us over there. Otherwise, it’ll be a half-hour hike, each way, though gawdawful heat. Carrying the sick dog in my arms…

What next, Lord?