I spent most of this morning cleaning up the code on some of the pages of my site. Mostly the animal pages needed some work. Whewwww, that's exhausting, my eyes are tired, and there is more to do. I'm ready for a nap ;-) but food shopping the cleaners and the more mundane tasks in my life will take precedent.

I do need to get crackin' on updating the issues pages. There are so many issues, I post what (IMHO) I feel are most important, but there are truly so many, not only in the US but abroad as well, that it's a humbling task. Still I am glad that someone can stop by and find out something they didn't know before and maybe then one more person can help. Those are my favorite e-mails.

Gone----------->

Good news for the day: Bogey's blood test was negative. The test was to determine the amount of insulin in his blood. It would then have shown that his low glucose was caused by too much insulin, thusly caused by an insulin producing tumor. However the amount of insulin was definitely within normal range, not even borderline elevated that would be suspect. Another good reason to be happeeee!

Phone call this A.M. (from Mom):

"Susan, you know you looked terrible yesterday. Your hair was a mess, you looked so thin and drawn."

"Thanks Mom, well, seems I had a bad day.....remember????!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Mom's - ya gotta love 'em.

That in itself called for desperate measures. Shopping was definitely in order. A chance to spend my money, your money, anyones money, plastic money makes me happpppppppeeeeee.

If you've never been to the Short Hills Mall in NJ, this is a must on your next shopping extravaganza.

Three pair of shoes, two suits, and some "stuff" later, I am happpeee.

Here are two of the least horrid, retrospectively funny, parts of my day:

I rush into the salon to get my nails done (thinking I am late) and I discover, as three people come rushing up to me in amazement, that it's the wrong day, and the wrong time (my appointment is tomorrow and it's one hour later). So now after having had a little bit of a bad day, and feeling totally confused, I attempt to make my exit only to spin around and walk right into the extension of a salon chair (the feet part) that I knew was behind me but forgot about in my exasperation and spend about 30 seconds flying through the air, landing with no poise at all and spending another what seemed like endless seconds attempting to right myself from the obtuse and erratic stance I had landed into. Upon finally regaining my composure I look up to see an entire audience from this crowded salon, stopped dead, nail polish in hand, scissors suspended mid air, staring. I smile at them thank them for their time and get the heck outa there pronto.

I make it out of the salon a bit more gracefully only to get into my suv, begin to back out of the parking lot when some Kamikaze pilot in a Firebird, obviously bought by his father or better yet probably stolen from his father because he does not look old enough to drive, comes flying behind me at light speed and then stops dead behind me as I slam on the brakes, stopping at what was honestly a hair breadth from his car. I yell at him, he gives me the finger, I yell again, he gives me the finger again, we go to our opposing corners and all is right with the world.

I make it home, no small feat I can assure you, (is my vehicle marked for destruction?) and attempt to make a pot of coffee but as I spin around from the sink where I have washed my favorite mug I slam the mug into a dish in the drain and the dish breaks into a million pieces. I am then trying to pick up these pieces while at the same time shooing out two dogs who are certain that I have spilled some delicacy onto the floor and are quite willing to lap it all up in one lick. As I grab Bogey, I trip over Buddy and land smack dab on my butt with 60 lbs of Shar Pei on top of me. This was not a memorable moment I can assure you.

The good part: My favorite mug didn't take a hit.

If my hair stylist could get my locks a bit redder I could change my name to Lucy.

I am in dire need of a Calgon moment.

The earlier part of my daymare involved The Wiz (an electronics store in New Jersey et.al. which does not have a website..boy would I like to make one for them - title - "Do Not Shop Here If You Actually Want To Purchase Anything"). The largest conglomerate of incompetent ...ahem...people I have ever seen. I wasted three hours today and two days previous and as I told their corporate office today (you bet I called them, named names and a letter will follow) I am dedicating my life to spreading the word about their incompetence. It involved as well an 82 year old woman (my Mom) who's been without a TV for two weeks due to their incompetence with a simple delivery, and a just makin' 5 foot 100 lb person (me) attempting to lift an 88 lb TV (I wish I was that strong - sigh).....thank you Frank for all of your help...and mostly idiots, idiots and more idiots...are they growing them somewhere in Jersey? It's the pod people I tell you - run for your lives!!!

You know there are just some days that you just shouldn't awta get out of bed. This day was one of them.

It turned out to be a beautiful hot sunny day here. I sat in the yard for a while with da boyz. It's really too hot for them and at the time there wasn't much shade so we couldn't stay long. T.V. delivered at 2:30. Not bad. Nice big screen on this one. My old TV was just a bitty 20" thing. This serves to remind me in large size, that there is just nothing on.

I'm heading out to dinner with some friends. Chinese anyone?

I finally broke down and purchased a new TV. It's been over a month now that mine has been broken. I guess it was time. I guess too that because I don't watch it all that much it wasn't a priority but I have to admit that there are some things I miss.

It's being delivered today. The store I bought it from told me they would call me the day before delivery to give me a time frame. They did call me. The time frame is somewhere between 10:30am and 4:30pm. Seems that's a fairly good part of the day. With my luck I'll be slated for 4:30 and they will be late.'tis ok, it's raining again here, but I'm thankful we had two glorious hot days. I'd probably just go out and spend money anyway.

This is too rich, too good not to share. I love to laugh, and this will keep me laughing for hours, days, maybe even years. This email came to me in the wee hours of the morning. The "incoming" remarks are highlighted in red - my responses in black.

Oh mister, before you say it you are 100% correct. Your email is more interesting than anything I had to say today.


This is probably a moot point -- an absolutely inane issue to dwell on. But it must be said.
Yes I agree -moot and inane.

My imagination raced. Was there actually a blog emulating the hard-nosed detective novels of Hammett, Cain and Thompson? Was there some soul out there who was capturing the elan of the great Bogie? Would we see in the great blogging form some tough-talking traditionalist from the 1940's instead of the I'm-so-hip-and-angry cliched Internet writing of the last five years?
Do you ever leave your home?

I clicked. I had to check it out. And I was greeted with dogs, a cutesy design and quotes from Don Henley.
Gee thanks.

And I'm probably going to sound like an asshole for my next paragraph.
Yes but you could dispense with the probably.

That title has got to go.
No.

And I say this only because, at a cursory glance, I can see no relation to the testosterone-charged, balls-to-the-wall promise that the title had led me to anticipate.
I'd say you awta read Mickey Spillane or do the paint ball thing or get a life maybe?

I'm sure you've received similar e-mail about this.
Never, but now don't feel foolish ( I didn't want to use the word asshole) I imagine there is an entire flock of people out there with enough time and energy to worry about it as you have.

And I'm sure that there's some rational justification for using the Casablanca quote.
There is but it's classified info.

But with such a title, you misrepresent your site and sandbag those of us who are looking for something nutty.
Sandbag, that's it, it's a sandbag. So sue me.

This is just a consideration and a minor one at that. But there are some of us who worship the films of Bogie and hard-boiled detective films and immediately click on anything related to this topic. And it particularly disappoints when one is greeted with the exact opposite of what one expects.
I am sure you are a very special person and your feelings and ideas are of utmost importance as is your well-being. I will file your letter under "when I want a laugh" and will consider your wishes in the year, ummm, let's see, how does 2100 strike ya? Now if you want to hold your breath, you won't find me stoppin' ya.


Susan

Gawd.........This is a Blog fer Gawd sake!!! What can I say? This letter speaks volumes in and of itself.

4 years ago I lost Misha. She was the first Chinese Shar Pei to own me, the first dog to own me for that matter. To make a long story short, she had been ill for a while, she had lost about 15 lbs and each time the Veterinarian thought he had the problem under control, each time I thought he had the problem under control it would rear its head. Perhaps I was remiss, in retrospect, to make an attempt to fix her, via medical intervention rather than surgical, initially. When we finally visited the surgeon, a specialist in oncology at a Veterinary Hospital some distance from me, she was probably just too far gone.

My own Veterinarian sent me to this specialist who performed the exploratory surgery. She died the following day.

I was way too attached to Mish, way too attached for my own good. There is a bit of a story that goes with that attachment but I'll spare you. But it still haunts me, 4 years later.

So now it's Bogey, who hasn't been feeling all that well and who has, in the past month, undergone a number of tests, the focus of which seems to be this continuously low blood sugar. Feed him and test, fast him and test, more extensive tests and none of the simpler illnesses are confirmed. My Veterinarian now wanted me to see a specialist, and that's ok. He gave me the name, the hospital not being that far from me, and I made the appointment; this morning it was at 10:30 am.

I walked into the hospital with my usual wariness and discomfort and worry but I was unprepared. As I entered the waiting room I heard a voice that sparked a familiar note in my memory and I came face to face with the surgeon I'd lost Misha to. I'd never recognized the name.

He was discussing another dog with another client and I think that my heart stopped dead. I know that I stood firmly planted in the doorway with my mouth hanging open until the girl behind the desk who had apparently been calling out to me for a few minutes, tapped me on the shoulder.

The fight or flight syndrome. I wanted to scream, I wanted to run. And I felt just like a character in a movie, one that I frequently want to shake and say "get with it!", semi paralyzed with the scene.

I didn't run, nor did I scream but sat calmly while the receptionist took my information. Frankly I didn't know what to do. 4 years had passed and he remembered my voice, remembered my face and remembered Misha.

Several blood tests, several X-rays, another blood test in the morning.

Frankly I still don't know what to do. I still want to scream, still want to run, I'm still sitting calmly. Way too calmly.