Saturday night, 11 pm. I am drifting off to sleep, in preparation for Sunday's trip to Vegas for the conference. I distinctly remember the glorious silence, thinking to myself the famous last words: It's so nice now that the kids are older and sleep through the night. 1 am: Screaming. Wheezing.My daughter, who was sleeping in my son's room, yelling for me that my son can't breathe. My son has had off and on bouts of croup since he was a little one, but it's been about a year since he had any ... Read more »
Musings
Much Love to the Cat Guys
I had no idea it was National Cat Guy Week. I knew it was Pet Dental Health Awareness Month and For the Love of God Please Don't Get Me a Vermont Teddy Bear Week (I made that up, but I think it could catch on), but it's also Black History Month, American Heart Month, National Grapefruit Month, and National Snack Food Month. Needless to say with the plethora of festivities and momentous occasions one can celebrate this week it can be hard to pick, but when I saw this great brainchild of the ... Read more »
Have Blendtec, will veg
I have decided, after a bit of time off the wagon, that I again need to re-commit to a vegetarian diet. I did it once for a year, felt great, then got lazy, overcompensated with pasta and unhealthy stuff, and just decided to throw in the towel. But I didn't feel good about it. I did it for health, yes, but also because I wanted to make a more conscientious choice about what I eat. I wanted to avoid contributing to factory farming and the multitude of ills it visits upon the world. Finding ... Read more »
Holy cannoli spicy guacamole
To steal my 4 year old son's favorite saying. It's been TWO YEARS since I started this blog! Two years since my inaugural post about the dog who pulled my shirt down in front of the surly bulldog owner, and it's been downhill ever since. Lots of things have changed, the passages of life we all deal with when we have animal companions, hellos and goodbyes and the like. Even those things that remain the same have evolved over time, my children growing up and teaching me about myself, the ... Read more »
Life as a pillow
The news is filled to the brim with stories of pets who show us each and every day the extent of their loyalty, of their dedication to being there for us. I can only aspire to be deserving of it. Brody is almost 2 now, and probably similar in age to Emmett when I adopted him. He's still got lots of goofy puppy in him, but he is slowly maturing into an intuitive and loving dog. I need to remind myself whenever I start to make comparisons that Emmett introduced himself to my 5 foot tall mother ... Read more »
You Will Love Me
Since we had the day off yesterday, I schlepped the kids to our local Safari Park for a little walk on the wild side. If you know anything about San Diego, you've probably heard about the World Famous San Diego Zoo (and that is how it refers to itself, the World Famous San Diego Zoo- there's confidence!) but you might not have heard about its wallflower sibling, the San Diego Wild Animal Park/Safari Park/whatever it's being called these days. Aside from its location in an often sweltering ... Read more »
I Have a Dream Too
In honor of Martin Luther King Jr day, I just re-read the "I Have a Dream" speech. 48 years ago, which seems hard to believe, and although I was born after this time and I hear it only in echoes, it still resonates with me. We all have dreams, for ourselves, for our families, for the future of the world. As we choose our path, or maybe sometimes it's partly chosen for us, the seeds of those dreams are planted and take root in our soul. They are what stirs us, what drives our longing, what ... Read more »
The Pet Blogger Challenge: State of the Pawion
Under the wire as usual, I forgot about the Pet Blogger Challenge from Will My Dog Hate Me and Go Pet Friendly until today when all the posts started showing up! I call this "stream of consciousness blogging." 1. When did you begin your blog? February 2, 2009. Shoot, our anniversary is coming up! I better plan something! Got any ideas? 2. What was your original purpose for starting a blog? I've been blogging on LiveJournal for years, so this was just a logical next step. I was kind ... Read more »
These are not the droids you’re looking for
Anyone else catch the new Grey's Anatomy last night? I know, I know, it's way over-melodramatic. Two mass shootings in less than a calendar year? It's not exactly rooted in reality. There was a part where a guy was crashing, a guy that they really wanted to save, and Bailey starts yelling at the sky. "YOU DON'T GET HIM, YOU BASTARD!! YOU SEND HIM BACK RIGHT NOW!" or something to that effect. And boom, just like that, the defibrillator works and Chuck is spared. Then Bailey apologizes ... Read more »
Big Fish
Did I ever say why I started this blog? I know I have mentioned the usual "I wanted to share stories and blahdiblahblah" but I don't think I ever talked about the exact incident that made me take the step to start writing. My husband has a good friend, Kevin. Well, he's my friend too, but they were friends first. Roommates, to be exact, when we started dating oh so many years ago. Back in the days only half of you will remember when the internet was accessible only by dial-up and people got ... Read more »
Top 10 Pawcurious Posts for 2010
With only one day left in the year, it's time to dust off the old archives and pull out my favorite posts from the last 12 months. These represent the best, or just the most fun, of what we do here. :) So without further ado and in no particular order, here are my choices for the Top 10 Posts of the Year: There's One in Every Office: A Pet Doctor Barbie Post It's not that often I make myself laugh out loud with my own posts, but something about the Wicked Witch shoving the broom in the ... Read more »
On breed and health and what we love best
I'll finish recapping the AKC Eukanuba experience this week (in between building my gingerbread houses and working on the 12 Days and all the other things that manage to pile on this time of year), but I wanted to deviate for one moment into this large cloud that looms over any sort of dog discussion, and that is the vast and gaping chasm separating two equally passionate groups of pet enthusiasts. I had some very interesting conversations with some of my fellow bloggers at the conference ... Read more »
Give thanks
I was recently asked, "What are you grateful for?" Well shoot, what am I not grateful for? I am blessed with a healthy family and people and pets who love me. The rest is gravy (to start throwing in Thanksgiving puns.) But I think the question was more specific to veterinary stuff, so let me start with telling a story: When one of my dogs was diagnosed with melanoma, I did what any good general practitioner would do and bundled her off in the car to the specialist. In our area, we are ... Read more »
Mercy, not mercenary
A client whom we have never seen previously arrived at 6 o'clock to euthanize her cat. "Who made this appointment?" I asked, miffed. My staff, usually well versed in how to handle these situations, made the appointment without so much as a "Why?" Or, even better, "Let me make sure that's OK with the doctor." "I told her she needed to talk to you first," said the person who made the appointment. "That is not the same thing," I re-explained, "as telling her she needs to talk to me to ... Read more »
Security Beastie
With Halloween approaching, it's only natural to start thinking and talking about things that scare us. How I long for the days of my youth and a good healthy scare- werewolves and zombies and vampires and all of that, made-up monsters who retreat into myth at the end of the day. But as we all know, that mythos is a cover for the real monsters that lurk out there- rare, fortunately, but flesh and blood humans with something wrong in the head. And they terrify me. When I was a senior in high ... Read more »
Sometimes I forget I’m not like other people
Scene: Joann's fabric store. Dr. V on her lunch break, perusing fabrics for an upcoming very special crafting project. In the background, two 'normal' looking women pushing babies in carts. The carts are piled high with calico, fabrics with little kewpie dolls, and fuzzy velour. As Dr. V looks on, the two women begin arguing loudly over which gingham best matches the fabrics they're selected for their quilt/baby bedding/whatever. Woman 1: Excuse me, can you help settle an ... Read more »
Little Earthquakes
When I was little, we lived across the yard from my father's parents. In the morning, I would burst out the backdoor, run across the small but immaculate vegetable garden my grandmother faithfully tended, and jump through my grandparents' front door in search of hugs and cookies. Ignoring my mother's moratorium on 8 am sugar, there was always a plate of Stella D'oro cookies on the table in the foyer. Mary was as close to the personification of Mother Nature that you could ever hope to find. ... Read more »
Under the harvest moon
When I was little, there were two things I wanted to be when I grew up, neither of which ironically enough was 'veterinarian.' One was a palaeontologist since I loved dinosaurs so very much. The other was an astronaut. I could stare off into space for hours, transfixed by the infinite nothing stretched out before me. My life is very terrestrial these days, involving neither digging for fossils nor soaring into the clouds, but little things can take me right back to where I was as a kid. When ... Read more »
