New York City in December

Long time no post.

K and I finally made it into The City.
New York City for a small town person is a bit overwhelming.
To pass buildings so high they blot out the sky:


And the Lights:


Art in a tunnel in Central Park:

K and C in Central Park near the Boat Pond:

Things have been well.
K and C are still so busy at work and up to our waists in boxes.
We are healthy and well. Not much more need be said.

We hope you all are well, as well.

Maybe more soon, maybe not.
Tune in again.
Thanks for reading.
C

Lumps and bumps and Vets, oh my...

Well, as we grow older, we get lumps and bumps. So do our furkin.
I have found several lumps on Puppette in the past 6 months and have felt them almost daily to monitor growth.
She developed an ugly red thing on her tummy and it got opened on Sunday. I took miss thing to the Vet yesterday.
I had a lump chart our last vet had started so I whipped that out and then proceeded to freak out the vet as I pointed out5 more lumps that were not on the lump chart that was last updated 2 years ago.
She felt them all and agreed that most of them are fatty and really need no investigation, just observation.
But the three lobed red thing on her tummy that opened up and BLED on Sunday, that had her attention.
The Vet finished looking Puppette over and left the room. She came back and asked if Puppette had recent blood work. I handed over the small book that is Puppette's medical record and let them look. The Tech came back in and I said:
"Let me guess, you need a new blood sample because her last blood panel is over a year old."
Yup.
She then made as if to take Pup out to the back and I stopped her and told her I hold Puppette for all minor procedures. So I held her while the Vet herself drew the blood. I told the vet, "I suppose you might as well clean her teeth while she is out"
She nodded and looked at me kinda weird.
I am guessing that she does not work with many "in the know" pet guardians.
She wanted to do Puppette today but I can't free the schedule until next Tuesday.
So my princess needs a biopsy and a teeth cleaning and I will be just as freaked out as I was three years ago at her last tooth cleaning.
I will keep you all posted.
She is 100% otherwise, good appetite, not angry poo, no weight loss, although she needs to lose a pound or two. But then again, so do I. Hmm, do I see more walkies in the near future?
Ahhh feel those grey hairs growing.

Peace
C

One Year Later

Just over 365 days ago, we loaded our lives and loves into a mini van and left our long time home.
In that year, we learned some important things:
Jack Links beef jerky is manna
DO NOT EVER eat "moisturized" chicken
Nut rolls are great protein on the road.
Waffle House ROCKS!
Cherry lime aid and tots from Sonic ease the pain of travel
Kansas is flat
Never move 4800 miles unless it is a very good reason (Like your nephew calling you up to ask if you can swim underwater)
WiFi is your friend
Mini vans can be good
Parrots do not drink or eat in bouncy cars
Texas feels weird
Alabama has a lot of Helicopters
New York is expensive
Read the fine print
Communicate very well to keep your clients
You will always be right where you are supposed to be ( you probably will not always know it though)
A good companion is priceless


There is no place like home

I will keep writing when I can.
I have no idea if anyone still reads this, but I will keep it out there.

A new year begins.

C

Do you smell that?

The sense of smell is an incredible memory trigger.
Today, driving to work, I was three cars behind a school bus. The car ahead of me, the person was smoking a cigarette.
The smell of burned off diesel and smoke took me back to any given Christmas morning in my child hood.
Early Christmas morning, Mom would bundle us up into warm clothes and we would take the bags we had packed the night before.
We would go down to the Greyhound Bus station and board the big grey behemoth that would take four kids to Seattle for our Christmas break in Seattle with our Father.
The cold morning air, dawn still hiding over a distant horizon, held the warm exhaust and cigarette smoke close to the ground. High rafters with cold sleepy pigeons did not allow the heat to rise so it could get cloying after too long.
We were never allowed to go into the bathrooms alone. No one ever said why, just that we could not go. The cold would make me have to pee and I could not go until I was on a moving bus across the snowy state.
We would arrive in Seattle 5 to 9 hours later and encounter the same cold darkness with smoke and fumes. Punctuation of transit with a week in Dad's house and then the same sentence in west to east instead of east to west. Same closing paragraph of cold dark evening with a long pause until next time next year.
I saw the yellow behemoth turn off into a school and the air cleared of uphill poorly incompletely combusted diesel fumes and the fool in the car ahead threw a still smoldering butt out their window and sped off to the left where I turned right.
Over thirty years later and I am transported back to a place and time because two unique smells went up my nose and tickled my olfactory bulbs. Synapses connected and I remembered the good and bad and agonizing times of my child hood.
It all comes together in the present as I drive to work, a grown man looking back at a scared confused small human bundled up against the bite of more than winter.
It helped shape who I am.

C

Absent

Still here, still kicking.

Work has been fast then slow, an amazing variety of patients that keep me on my toes, to be sure.
We are getting more settled in the house.
We are now just up to our chests in boxes, not our armpits like we have been.
Poppy is settling nicely, but the flight patterns still give him troubles. He will circle and circle until he loses so much altitude that he crash lands on something. We bark at the dogs to leave him alone and they are pretty good about that.
Bugsy loves to chase the laser pointer on the laminate flooring. He has just about learned how to stop or apply the brakes soon enough so he does not crash into the walls.
Poni runs about the back yard, a rolling gait that makes us smile and laugh a little.
Puppette has taken to lying on front of the door in the morning when I leave, as if to say I cannot go without her.
Not much to say.
Thought I'd post so those that still stop by would have a read.
More when I am not so damn tired.

Be well.

C

Movies

We went to the X files movie today.
One of K's favorite things is to go to a nice air conditioned theater in summer, enjoy a nice bag of pop corn with butter and get lost in a movie. She says it is a child hood thing she always enjoyed.
So we saw X files.
The movie was average. It was nice to see Scully and Mulder.
But, unfortunately, I was very distracted and annoyed by the person two seats over from K.
She kept popping her knuckles. Not just the knuckles from hand to base of fingers (MCP joint) but each individual joint on each finger (IP joints).
It is a pet peeve of mine anyway, being of the school that believes the popping of finger joints can lead to joint laxity and future joint problems like arthritis.
So I would be into the movie, waiting for the next twist inthe plot and these little snicking pops come from K's right side.
Common courtesy is dead.
Bring it back people. Please.
I, for one, miss it terribly.

C

Welcome... home...

It has been a whirlwind of boxes, bags, packing and hauling to get our life out of the rental unit and finally into the house to become a home.
We had the floors professionally cleaned but it seems that wiener pee soaked in a bit too much and decided to turn amonia-y after the windows were closed on a hot muggy night.
So we will pay for new carpet out of our damage deposit and wave good by to the house one block from the water.
We are surrounded by boxes of speakers, phones, kitchen stuff, clothes, electronics, the art supplies that K was afraid would freeze and die in the storage container we rent elsewhere.
C put away his knives and moved the fiddle in so all is right with the world.
We do laundry almost every day since the miracle "space bags" left everything smelling stale and ewwww.
The dogs love the back yard and run about frolicking.
Ok, so not really.
They sniff all over and bark at the neighbors.
Puppette can't seem to roll around enough in the grass all four paws up inthe air, bent at the ankle and then she thrusts her back legs up and down a few times. She rolls over and chases Bugsy who gets scared of 75 lbs of gold running at him. He turns tail and runs for the end of the upper yard where he turns to face the golden avalanche and then panicks and manages to run between her legs only to be over taken and passed in a cyclone of shedded golden fur. Poni looks on with bewilkderment why anyone would carry on so...
The crickets increase in volume as the sun grows huge and red-orange in my western sky. The off schedule cicadas wind down for the night and the humidity threatens to smother us in its embrace.
Fans on, air conditioner humming, we crawl into bed, the frame re-assembled now, and sleep in our new home. Dreams of the west, of friends we miss, of adventures to be had chase each other like the night birds and stars in the heavens.

Dream big, live your adventures.

C