Visitors to Knott's Berry Farm, the redheaded stepchild of Anaheim amusement parks, are well familiar with Montezooma's Revenge, a nasty torture device masquerading as a roller coaster in the heart of jam-land. The ride is basically one long curlique. You get dragged up one side, shoot down through a loop, and zoom up a tower on the far side. You pause for one horrifying moment at a terrifying height, then slide back down the tower, backwards through the same loop, and then you crawl off to ... Read more »
Daily Life
We are Newtown
I haven't watched TV much this week. Between packing up the apartment and taking care of a really sick little dude, I've had plenty to keep me busy, but the reassuring background murmur of the TV isn't something I could bear this week when it was nonstop coverage of little ones' funerals. We've been watching Christmas DVDs instead, a distraction for me, and the only way I can keep my kids from overhearing news I'm not quite ready to explain to them. I knew right after the news started on ... Read more »
The path to canine enlightenment
I'm a dog person. I've always said this. Which is why December is one of my favorite times of the year. I'm getting geared up for the big Celebrate Dogs event in Orlando this weekend. I'm really excited about the whole event, because in addition to the actual AKC/Eukanuba National Championship, they've really expanded the show to become one that encompasses all aspects of dog-dom way beyond the conformation ring. There's dock dogs, Super Dogs, Soccer Dogs, agility, obedience, and Meet the ... Read more »
Santa Baby
One of the little perks of doing what I do happens at Christmastime, when I get to go on Fox 5's local morning show with the Rancho Coastal Humane Society and present "A Dog's Holiday Wishlist." I don't have the video downloaded yet, but I'm working on it because it's really silly but also just fun. I'm with the anchor while each adoptable pet goes up to Santa. They (and by they, I mean one of the producers or camera guys behind the scenes talking in a goofy voice) tell Santa what they want for ... Read more »
Next Step Baby Monitors: Exonerating pets since 2012
It's been a long time since I've needed a baby monitor. Not that long, mind you, but long enough that technology has apparently been soaring by me in leaps and bounds since the year I slept with static-y radio by my side. When I was asked by Next Step Baby monitors if I wanted to review their cameras to see what my dogs were up to while I was gone, I agreed, because oddly enough- and this never ever happens- my husband had JUST SAID "We really need a baby monitor or something to figure out ... Read more »
The Long Dark Tea Time of the Brode
This is my life right now: Commute kids to school. Get loan documents. Get more loan documents. Write. Provide more loan documents. I have done this house buying thing once or twice in my life, but it's never been like this. I get it, things are different now. But it feels almost violating, some random 20 something loan intern combing through the minutiae of your life's history, eyeing you with mistrust, as if YOU'RE the one responsible for the current housing mess. While our mortgage history ... Read more »
I am grateful
Normally, I'd be spending today running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Thanksgiving is MY holiday, the one I normally host at my house. My mom gets Easter, my mother in law gets Christmas, but this is the one I take because I love going overboard on things like caramelized squash bisque and focaccia sage stuffing and pretty much every kind of turkey shaped serving dish one can own. Well, all the turkey shaped serving dishes are currently in a storage facility and I barely have ... Read more »
Awkward Massage is Awkward
So I made it back safe and sound from lovely Granda. The Technical Animal Rescue course was absolutely amazing and a fantastic program for anyone who is interested in animal rescue- but before I go into the water rescue, the ropes course, or all the exciting things World Vets is up to in Nicaragua, I promised Sarah I would share the story of the world's most awkward massage so my stories are going to be in reverse chronological order. The last day on our trip was a free day, to wind up loose ... Read more »
Be the Change with a Shelter Drive By! Small effort, big reward
As many of you have heard, it's National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week, though to be fair the news cycle has been dominated by other events. Such is life. As regular readers may remember, I usually end this week with the Blogathon, a 24 hour marathon of posts with prizes and fun, and potentially zombies. But life happens and things evolve, and as it so happens I will be on a plane on Saturday, on my way back to Granada, Nicaragua. I am doing a one week course in Technical Animal Rescue ... Read more »
Flash Mountain
All right, all right, I know this has been a very emotionally draining week for everyone. Some of you may be hung over. I wanted to talk to you all about National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week, and I will, but I think I'll wait until everyone has calmed down a little from whatever ecstatic/ despairing/ ambivalent coma in which you were left yesterday, and for today, I'm just going to talk about Disneyland in a nice, calm voice. Pretty, pretty lights. Benign Mouse. Yes, I went to ... Read more »
Disaster Response, Sandy, and Good People
It's been a rough week, right? I think everyone can pretty much agree with that. There has been an awful lot of awful going on. That being said, it's also been an earth-shattering shake-by-the-shoulders to everyone mired in the mud leading up to Tuesday's election that maybe it isn't the only thing in the world that matters. Oh yeah, there's an election tomorrow! I almost forgot. Amazing how quickly things become less important when people's lives are getting washed away on a large ... Read more »
Discombobulated
dis·com·bob·u·late transitive verb \ˌdis-kəm-ˈbä-b(y)ə-ˌlāt\ : upset, confuse <inventing cool new ways to discombobulate the old order — Kurt Andersen> We are now in our new apartment. Just like that, I flew out to Atlanta one day, I came back to a packed house, and the next day we said goodbye and left a decade behind. I would have had a little more mental space to process this, but then a hurricane hit and I felt too guilty and concerned about other people's devastation to ... Read more »
Postcards from Purgatory
I am saying goodbye to my house next week. I didn't think I would be so suddenly sentimental about the place, given how keen I was on getting out of it for the last year or so. But now that it's time, I realize that wow, there's a lot of memories here I'm leaving behind once and for all. We brought home two new babies to this house, celebrating milestones like first birthdays and first steps and first days of school. This is the only place they've ever called home. We said goodbye to two most ... Read more »
Instant Stress Relief: Awesome Penguin is Awesome
I don't do stress very well. I get antsy. I eat too many cookies. I spend a lot of time staring vacantly into space listening to my heartbeat drum in my ears as I resist, with variable success, the urge to overreact to every little thing. You'd think I would be better at dealing with this sort of thing by now, but of all the curveballs I've weathered in life, this particular move has really unsettled me in a way that makes me entirely sympathetic to those who are simply steering clear of me ... Read more »
3 Ways to Show your Tech You Love Them
Continuing with our celebration of Veterinary Technician Week, I wanted to offer all of you a quick and easy 3 ways you can make your tech shine like the top of the Chrysler Building next time you go to see your vet. Because they deserve it. 1. Bring food But make sure you specify those cookies are for the TECHS. Because I have seen it. I have seen plates of cookies come in for the vet, and the vet does not interpret "for the vet" as "for the team" and takes them all home. NOT COOL. This was ... Read more »
Have you thanked your tech today?
This week marks the 20th iteration of National Veterinary Technician Week. I can't tell you just how happy I am to see this group of professionals get recognized for the work they do. They have one of the most ridiculously challenging jobs on the planet for what is, comparably speaking, miniscule pay, high risk of injury, and often emotionally draining work. As so often happens in many professions, vets get all the glory and all the kudos, the cookies at Christmas and the hugs for a job well ... Read more »
It’s Bad Poetry Friday: Emails and spam
This is what happens when you leave me alone in the first rainstorm of the year with a bottle of port, a pile of Dr. Seuss books, and a backlog of emails asking, asking, asking, asking for me to once again be a Nice Veterinary Writer/ Pet Blogger and do some more free work. Mostly, it's just a silly Friday I need to Apologize to Dr. Seuss Once Again kind of post. I dedicate it to all of you who know this feeling all too well. E-Mails and Spam I'm Dr. V. Dr. V is me. That Dr. V! That Dr. ... Read more »
Good thing we didn’t get those chickens
I've made it no secret that I want chickens. A bevy of Bantams. Little fluffy fancy egg layers that would make me feel, in some teensy way, a bit more connected to my food production. Our house is in a rural enough area, and our yard large enough, that a couple hens running around would be no big deal. But my husband said no, and out of respect for all the other times he also said no but I went ahead and did it- whatever it was- anyway, I respected him, this time. But then we sold our ... Read more »
