Just call her "Grace"

I swear to you as I was laying* here in bed, I watched the dog curl up into a ball and poke herself in the eye with her back paw. She turned to look if I had seen, sort of licked her lips, and put her head back down. Who am I to judge, anyway?

*Again with my geek crush. Go learn something!

Before the 55 pound beast crawls onto my lap for the evening

The Beast does reasonably well during the strings of days when I work (of course, today was my last day until mid January, but whatever). I feel a little bad* because by day three, she obviously has accumulated energy that even Bob can't run off in two or three hours. Plus she gets all attention-needy. 

She has started doing this thing now when I get home and take her out to do business. She hobbyhorses down the hallway, doubling back to me, front paws in the air as she dances on her hind legs. And then when we walk out, she hops and pounces her way to the grass. The thing is, though, she holds her head up high, sniffing the air and everything she passes by. She's so giddy that it makes me feel like I'm taking a prisoner who has been in isolation for a month outside for the first time! She lollygags the whole way back inside and then tears and leaps back to our door. I laugh every time, but a little part of me feels guilty. 

And then I think about how I only work three days a week and that she goes to the dog park for several hours every day. At least. Dog? You and me, we're ok.

*bad vs badly? May I direct you here? I love, love, love this woman- I give you permission to geek out and read her other stuff.

Sounds about right

I think the Happy Hospitalist is onto something here. There's the positive Spaghetti Sign* and now I give to you the Twenty Sign.

*The inverse relationship between survival and lines, tubes, and drains.

What's "combover" in Italian?

Gazza's fauxhawk is getting really long. In fact, it won't stand up straight unless she's really dirty and the mud that's caked in provides structural support. So when I came home tonight from work I had to laugh. She'd gone out in the pouring rain today with Bob (dogwalker extraordinaire) and then obviously been cleaned off with a hose. Her poor little fauxhawk now looks like a bad combover as it lies on one side of her head.

The fashionistas of Seattle, that's us!

Got pain?

Just head to Germany for a short coma. Mmmm, ketamine. Interesting.

Then please get back to me with the 411!

Even harder to get at than my mother's wrapping jobs

Despite my beef with peppermint (Um, ew. Beef and peppermint should never be in the same sentence. My apologies), I still nibble on the occasional candy cane. 

Has anybody else noticed how every candy cane seems to have been shrink wrapped and requires dexterity and brain power beyond what you would expect to unwrap a piece of candy?

A little too close to home

I may have posted this before, but it bears posting again (and again and again). Seeing it this time around made me feel a bit more sick because of what I've seen at work recently. I didn't quite understand why the video portrayed the family's response so violently and in the way that they did. I'm beginning to understand, though.

The video was a bit of a catharsis for me. Please go hug your family as if it were the last.

You can keep your minty freshness!

I'm not a big fan of candy canes. There, I've said it. I'm not anti-Christmas or anything, I just don't like them is all. Maybe I used to, but I can tell you why I don't now.

Back in the days my parents fondly refer to as "the fog," I had a lot of migraines. Mercifully they are not so common anymore. There was one particular medication that worked best when given as a shot (usually in the bum by my mom). And it burned. So when faced with a choice of having jackhammers in my head or a burning bum (still with the jackhammers), I chose what seemed most reasonable at the time- to refuse the shot. 

The drug company wised up after a few years and made a sublingual tab. Unfortunately they never took psychology 101 where they would have learned about Pavlov's dog. So now the taste and smell of peppermint bring me right back to the horrible headaches, chalky taste of faux-peppermint, and nausea. If I want a flashback, just bring out the peppermint.

Incidentally, whoever embalmed our cadavers in college missed psych 101 as well (they must have been partying with the chemistry majors). We can all agree that formaldehyde smells pretty disgusting. Rather than masking the smell with something benign, however, they masked it with wintergreen. It took me years to pop in a piece of wintergreen gum without seeing the image of a cadaver in front of me. It still sometimes catches me off guard.

Every once in a while we'll use peppermint at work to help with nausea. I wish I could say I enjoy that refreshing smell, especially in the setting of the ICU, but I would be lying. I don't and it makes me feel nauseous.

Here's to hoping

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,

And sings the tune without the words,

And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chilliest land

And on the strangest sea;

Yet, never, in extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

Emily Dickinson

Days like today leave a lot to be hoped for.

Pillows shmillows

After the whole couch thing, I had begun to suspect The Beast was also sleeping not only on my bed but on the pillows when I'm at work. I chose to overlook the whole thing because, hey, she's staying at home, right? After all, what's a little dog hair?

After three straight days of rain, I'll tell you what it is- a whole lot of mud on my pillows tonight!

And yet... she's staying at home, right?