Fragments....

Sarah's birthday is june 26. this year she wanted a birthday party, and so was born the pig roast. It was a great party, no doubt! There were some challenges with the pig and the pups, however, so, when about four days after the party, Gracie showed signs of diarhea, I was particularly concerned about blockage or contamination. Friday night, I stopped to say fare well to a coworker who is moving on, and got home about 8:15 PM.
Gracie didn't greet me at the door. First and fore most clue something was wrong. Gracie's diarrhea was heavy with a blood presence. I called her vet, and got a message for an emergency hospital. I called the VET ER, and, of course - bring her in.
I brought her in and they treated her for colitis. They also treated her for infections in both ears. Gracie has long pendulus ears. They don't dry out. The cause of "colitis" is anybody's guess. They kept her overnight, no extra charge. Gracie was sent home with a full pack of meds - a couple of anitbiotics, washes, ointments... Five hundred dollars later...


This was the 4th of JULY weekend. Monday the 5th I was happy to know that Gracie's vet, Doctor Patterson, was open for business.
I Love Doctor Patterson. Every pet owner should have a Vet like Dr. Patterson. He was straight up with me: damned if you do, damned if you don't. regarding treatment of Gracie's ears... I' m good with that!
Gracie bordered on being totally spoiled when the ER Doc put her on a bland diet (chicken and rice/ ground beef and rice). I was boilin' chicken and steamin' rice for my delicate darling for several days.,

Do You Like Strawberries?

Tonite I'm listening to a mix of classical music that my daughter put together for me as a gift a few years back. We finished a dinner of a fresh garden salad with poached chicken and blue cheese dressing. We topped it off with some chocholate sponge cake and strawberries and fudge. YUM MY.
Gracie's in the atrium barking - either at the frog or at the absence of frog.
Ruca's sprawled out on my bedroom floor.
Mozart plays on my new Bose speaker system.
I sip a stemware half full of DiSorrano over ice..nice after dinner cocktail.
Y'know...Life Is Good....

Lessons Learned In Pig Planning

Trash pick up in my neighborhood is on Wednesday. We probably should have had better planning when it came to disposing of the pig carcass. "Mom, do you have any heavy duty trash bags?" Sarah called from alongside the carved pig. I guess the trash bags I bought weren't heavy duty enough, but, that's all I had. Sarah and her friend disposed of the carcass and the party continued.

A few hours later, when my brother and sister in law were leaving, they pointed out a box sticking out of a trash bag in the side yard. "The dogs are getting into that, whatever it is..." my sister in law said. I went over and picked up the bag and put it along side the garage, out of dog's reach. It was swarmed with black flies, so I figured it was the pig remains.

The next morning, while waiting for the plumber to come and fix the broken hose bib, I took another trash bag and placed it over the top of the box, trying to contain the contents (it was gross) and tied it off and put it in the garage next to the (full) trash bin.

When I pulled in the garage after work on Monday, I stopped short of pulling all the way in: The gross box/bag of hog carcass was oozing fluid on to the garage floor, and said fluid was crawling with maggots. I donned industrial strength rubber gloves, grabbed a plastic table cloth cover that was waiting for the washing machine, and a large roll of duct tape. I purposely squinted to blurr my vision so the image of squirming maggots wouldn't be permanently imbedded in my mind's eye. I spread out the plastic sheet of table cloth cover and maneuvered the oozing blob of carcass onto the plastic cover and taped it closed. I poured bleach on the garage floor and swept the bleached maggots out to the driveway. I had 24 hours before I could put it out to the curb for trash pick up. What a stinky, nauseating mess.

A couple of hours later, Sarah was in the garage carrying on about how GROSS it was and THEY'RE EATING THROUGH THE PLASTIC! and other such exclamations. I grabbed a tarp and a quilted drop cloth that we used to cover the kegs before tapping them. We wrapped the maggot-fare in the tarp and then in the quilted cloth. We secured it with a mile of duct tape, placed it in the bed of Kev's truck, and he and Sarah took it to......... well, a commercial dumpster a short distance away. I'm sure someone would have thought they were dumping a dead body...heaven help anyone who chose to dumpster dive to investigate. It truly makes me wonder how crime scene investigators can stand the stench of decomp or the sight of maggots and smell of rotting flesh.

Lessons learned regarding the disposition of the pig carcass - better planning indeed should there be another pig roast!

morning after

I opened my eyes and looked at the clock: 9:54 AM. My head felt cloudy and my mouth felt like cotton. The kitchen had all the signs of a marathon party the day/night before. I took a glass from the cupboard and pressed it against the dispenser in the door of the refrigerator. Nothing happened. "What's the matter with this thing, now?" I wondered. The power was on, so that wasn't it...I opened the fridge and took out a bottle of seltzer and poured a tall glass. The effervescence will cut the cotton. "Did you see the note I left?" Sarah called as she came from her bedroom. " I had to shut the water off.." It seems that as the party was winding down, and most of the kids were gone, 'someone' pulled the hose bib out of the wall outside and snapped off the copper pipe. Water gushed like a rainstorm. At least they had the good sense to turn off the water, I thought. I slowly began picking up the party leftovers... empty champagne bottles, half-filled solo cups of beer (from beer pong), plates with rib bones and barbecue sauce, watermellon rinds, cupcake papers. It sure was one heckuva party, I must admit. Cleaning up, though, can only go so far without water. What was I going to do, I wondered.
After about an hour of loading trash cans and emptying cups of stale beer and half filled soda cans, I pulled out the phone book and called a plumber. It was a sunday, and it's going to kill me, but I don't know how to do it myself, and I'm not about to burden any of my family or friends. It took the plumber longer to quote a price and write up an invoice than it did to replace the hose bib. It was probably a five dollar part that took him maybe 10 minutes to put in at the cost of $165.00. (ouch).

Celebrate!

June is a celebratory month in this household. Both daughters were born in June, 2 years apart from each other, so we celebrate birthdays! When they were young girls, we'd frequently have joint parties and they were always big blowouts with pinatas, cakes candies and lots of kids. Some were held at parks, some at pools but all were quite the celebration.
This June, the girls are 21 and 23 years old. The pinata was replaced with a 66 lb pig, and the koolaid cooler became a keg of yuengling.




The party went from 2 P to 2 A.... gee...sure hope we didn't tick off the neighbors!