On another note

After two weeks of hell -- for everybody -- Joey lost his plastic fashion accessory over the weekend. The beast has butted heads with door frames, furniture, walls, etc., so many times, that the collar was no longer round. It was time for it to go away.

Amelia came to visit for a few days, approximately 48 hours after Joey's surgery and was initially, rather wigged over what became known as Joey's "hat."



We've always been a vet's nightmare in the dog treat department. Our other Goldens were frequently treated to DQ children's sized soft ice cream cones. So it was no surprise when John promised Joey an ice cream cone when he regained his neck freedom. Only, John didn't buy a child's cone.





Considering what happened to the dog, an ice cream cone seemed rather cheap. As Megan put it, "If he'd been a girl, this whole thing should have demanded a Tiffany box."

There's a toddler in the house......

Pictures tell the whole story.

Happy Summer!

This offering is brought to you by local berry farmers. Mmmm mmmm good!

Feng Shui

Okay People. Help me out here.

I've read a little about Feng Shui over the years. I know that if you walk in the front door and the back door is dead ahead, you're gonna have issues. "Issues" being the capture and rotation of positive energy, or Chi, within the house.

To offset the potential that all that wondermous Chi will escape out the back door, Feng Shui advocates placing some form of wall decoration inside the front door to keep the Chi moving away from the back door.

Witness: the grandfather clock. A swinging pendulum. How better to move positive energy?



First of all, I must confess, I didn't put the clock on that wall years ago because I wanted to rotate the family Chi. I did it because that was the only place the clock fit. Secondly, in order to truly utilize the pendulum/Chi movement theory, don't you need to wind the clock regularly?

I ask this because it suddenly occurred to me that maybe my lack of clock winding diligence is the reason why 2009 has sorta sucked so far! John: two surgeries in three months; the death of a very close friend; the winter from hell in general; and now, playing Nancy Nurse to a one-eyed 90-pound Golden Retriever with a plastic fashion accessory.

Sorry. No photos. He does have some dignity left.

We found out a week ago Joey had a cancerous tumor in his left eye. Labs and x-rays revealed no other cancer presence so the solution was to remove the entire eye. He'd probably been loosing his sight gradually for a while, even though we had no clue, so this wouldn't be a hard adjustment for him. And hopefully, solve the medical problem. The poor guy loves to ride in my truck. Between our vet and the veterinary specialist appointments, (yes, Virginia, I hauled Joey into a Veterinary Opthomologist) he was beside himself over so many car rides.

And look what I did to him. Still he's been my shadow these last two days and hasn't yet found the energy, apparently, to get really po'ed and pee in my shoes.

Ya gotta love a Golden.