We went to the zoo again on Sunday for a work celebration. They have these new red river hogs and as we walked up, this woman with a young girl kept saying ‘how cute!’. I was surprised that she thought they were so cute, but then I realized they are Pumba’s relatives, so they’ve got to be cute!

That’s right. No more pictures of the house until after the Open House!

Granite was installed yesterday and this morning the plumbers showed up bright and early to get all the stuff hooked up.

Our oven now has gas heat running to it, so, Seth, I’ll start on those brownies right away.

Today is a big day for 2 reasons:

1. Dexter is squatting to pee now. This may sound like a small step, but it is a signal of greater muscle control in his hind legs. We’re seeing progress everyday, and its very exciting. He is still not able to walk, and cannot stand up from the squatted position, but its the first step.

2.  Our house should be pretty much done by the time we get home. We’ve been waiting on the electrical to be finished and had a snafoo with one of the sinks, so they couldn’t put the granite in last week. But both of those should be done today. They are also moving furniture back into place so we can put stuff away. Finally! A functional house!

I used to think dog kisses were gross. I mean, why would you want a dog to lick you on your mouth with the same tongue they…you know?  Well, try going a few days without them after having them for years, or even worse, try having your dog not want to kiss you cause he’s so anxious or in pain.

We were soooo excited to pick Dexter up yesterday. Even moreso because he kissed Jason and me right away, whereas two days ago, he wouldn’t even look at us.

Dexter’s surgery went really well but he is still not able to move his back legs much yet. They say it will seem worse before it gets better. We tried water therapy this morning, but I’m not sure I have the hang of it yet.

Of course, they decided to do the second coat of polyeurythane today so we have relocated to the Loews Vanderbilt Hotel for the night. Nice set up. Its a little pricey but its close, comfortable and dog friendly.

Dex and Clem are sleeping comfortably on the king duvet. I make sure to get some kisses every now and then.

After looking at the CT Scan and reexamining Dexter this morning, the surgeon has decided that we should do the surgery now. Like, they’ve already started the IV and are prepping his back right now. I have a lot of faith in this surgeon, but I guess I have to. We’re doing all we can and that has to be good enough, whatever the outcome.

We should hear from him in about 2 hours and then we have to go pick him up and take him to the all-night emergency clinic so they can monitor him overnight. We’ll take him back to the animal hospital in the morning where they will continue to monitor him throughout the day. We should hopefully be able to bring him home sometime tomorrow.

Dr. Calfee says that, because of what he is able to see on the CT Scan, this should be a very predictable surgery. Of course there are risks, but we got him in as soon as we possibly could and the cause seems to be very clear.

Clementine is confused and worried about her “brother” but she is also a great comfort while Dexter is undergoing this procedure. The power of cuddling should never be underestimated.

Our wiener is broke.

Nine days ago, Dexter could walk perfectly. He could jump up on the couch, run up the stairs, and chase the squirrels. But something happened during the night of the 10th. On Sept 11th, Dexter displayed a noticeable lethargy and general slowness. So much so that I stayed home and ended up taking him to the vet that afternoon. Thinking he might have an obstruction or other intestinal bug, I was expecting to walk outta there with some antibiotics and a promise of success.

Instead, the vet shook his head and confidently asserted that it was classic dachshund back pain. He gave him a steroid injection and sent us home with 3 new medications to try for two weeks with the charge to bring him back if he’s not better by then, or, dog forbid, he gets worse.

He got worse.

Monday morning Jason got up before I did, which is rare, and when I heard him coming back up the stairs shortly after he left, I knew something was wrong. His speed and light-footedness were very different from his normal return from the bathroom.

That morning Dexter had a noticeable wobble to his back legs and that sent us scrambling. We immediately took him to the vet who confirmed that the wobble was a display of neurological damage and suggested we leave him for x-rays. After a few hours, the vet informed us that Dexter had noticeable calcifications on his spine and space between some of his vertebrae. She suggested a consult by a local canine orthopedic surgeon. He wasn’t able to come to the hospital until 5pm, so we met him there at 5:30pm.

After a good hour wait, Dr. Trey Calfee came to speak with us to give us the odds. If we did nothing and confined Dexter to a crate for 6 weeks, he has a 50/50 chance of getting better, and the same chance of getting a lot worse. If we did surgery now, he has a 95% chance of fully recovering. The choice was obvious to us and we scheduled the surgery for Friday morning, as well as a CT Scan for Tuesday (yesterday) so that the doc would have a better idea of the exact problem.

Yesterday we took him to get the CT Scan and were told he did great. They gave him a tranquilizer to calm him so they could easily administer oral anesthetic. We were told this tranquilizer would exacerbate his symptoms for a while, but would wear off throughout the day. However, from the moment I picked him up from the radiologist, I noticed a concerning lack of control of his hind legs, more-so than before. This did not/has not worn off and we are scrambling again.

Except now we are playing the waiting game. Dr. Calfee is in surgery this morning and we have to wait for him to call us to find out if he can do the surgery before Friday. The longer we wait, the more permanent damage is done to the spinal cord, which means more likelihood that Dexter will not regain function in his hind quarters.

Its just all happened so fast. Not to mention that he’s only four years old, and this is just sucky timing with the home renovations and everything. We, of course, will do everything in our power to heal our baby, but its going to be very difficult. We have an Open House in 2 weeks and I’m thinking of making it a charity event to help pay for his surgery, which is going to set us back quite a bit. Anyway. Words of encouragement, prayers, whatever, are very welcome.

Hug a wiener today.

My newish automobile is in the body shop for a few days. While performing work business a few weeks ago, I ran into an inconspicuous yellow parking pole and cracked the bumper. It wasn’t what you’d call “major damage”, but enough to make me cry about the fact I’d damaged my new car transporting computers so a lazy computer guy didn’t have to come get them.

I reported it immediately to my supervisor and within 2 weeks, I received a check from the risk management department to the sum of about $600, which was the average of the two estimates I had to get.

So anyway, I am without my car for a few days now, which stinks. I always hate that feeling. But I do have a scooter and we do have a truck I could drive if I got desparate. Although, I think it is still “expired” according to the county, so that’s probably not a good move.

Regardless, Jason and I both work for the same establishment, even if we don’t work in the same building, so he can give me a ride if rain makes scootering impossible.

Since our cabinets are a good deal taller than our old cabinets, and coincidentally taller than me, Jason convinced to buy a little stool so I could better reach the top shelves. Taking his suggestion, I didn’t want to buy just any old stool, so we went to Michaels where I found this cute wooden stool that I could decorate. I cannot find a picture of the unpainted stool, so just picture it without paint when you see the pics below.

Seeing how our kitchen is going to be headed in the direction of a wine theme, I thought something to do with grapes or vines would be appropriate. I bought some stencils and finally painted last night, after spray painting it last weekend. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

I may add something down the middle, like a wine bottle or something, but I don’t have a stencil for that. And I’m not very good at free-handing anything really. We’ll see!

• letting pedestrians have the right of way
• making eye contact and sharing smiles with a total stranger
• aforementioned smile is most gratifying when shared with another woman, like we’ve bonded somehow
• slowing down in the MAPCO parking lot so the Loomis Fargo man can cross the lot with the loot
• not sitting in the MAPCO parking lot driveway while waiting for my turn to cross 21st, thus letting the woman who rides a tandem bike with her 6 yo son use the sidewalk instead of having to go around me
• not being the first one in the line to turn left from Acklen onto West End (when you’re the first, 1. you run the risk of being hit by the people turning left onto Acklen and 2. the pressure’s on you to make sure you’re over the weight to change the light (or so I believe)

A lot of simple things can start my day off right. That’s pretty cool.

Duh. Way to state the obvious, huh?

What’s not so obvious is that today is the 15 year memorial of my father’s death. FIFTEEN years. That seems like such a long time. Every year I try to tell stories about him or at least tell a joke in his corny sense of humor way, just to keep the spirit alive, ya know?

He was a great man and, what little of him I do remember, his humor and his generousity are traits I like to think I can pass on. As an example, around Thanksgiving, he would fly down to the indian reservation in Taos, New Mexico every few years to deliver turkeys to the native americans. He was part of a few of those types of groups and always seemed to be doing something social. I guess I get that from him.

Anyway, just a quick shoutout to my daddy, may he rest in peace.