Happy Effin Thanksgiving

Well, technically it is the night before Thanksgiving. Tonight I am sitting in Kirby's drinking cosmo's and happy to not be packing or unpacking. My computer is running painfully slowly which makes me want to hurt someone. I have no internet at home, so I should be grateful for what I can get.

I am sleeping on the floor for the 5th of 7 nights. My back is killing me, but do you know what? No one is yelling at the dogs or me. It is good.

Today? All in all it was a good day.

Today, I wasn't at school. We had 7 proof batches to finish yesterday. My ads managers managed to do 2. By 7pm I decided it was time to call it a night. So, we left. With the batches not done. The good part of being old and having done a job for a long time is that I know it really doesn't matter. I wasn't working, so that was cool. Sure, Monday will be a beating, but what the heck.

Today I discovered that my new next door neighbor? Besides being the most beautiful black woman I have ever met, she's a vet. She likes dogs. Thank you, Sweet Jesus.

Today? I filed a police report for my circular saw and sander. There is a chance that they are just packed and missing, but there is a better chance I left the garage door open as I did stuff and they were stolen. The policeman who took the report was a total sweetheart. He talked to me about making marijuana legal. He was fun, and I'm all for it.

Today, I took Sabrina for her 3rd laser treatment. When we left, she effing JUMPED into the car. Trust me when I tell you, it was a big deal. Please God let her keep healing. I love the fact that we are trying something new and fairly untested, and it is working. IT IS WORKING.

Tonight? I'm grateful for all the things going well in my life. And there is a lot. I'm a lucky girl.

HER TAIL MOVED

It's been 50 days since Sabrina had her stroke.

I started giving up hope a couple of weeks ago. She is walking again which is fantastic, but she has no control over her bladder or bowels. I spend a lot of time cleaning up the messes she leaves behind.

I had begun to cry (often), trying to accept putting Sabrina down, and just in general being utterly depressed and sad.

As a side note, I don't know how people survive having small children in the house. My entire world has shrunk down to the size of my living room. The size of my plastic covered living room.

I have been going home every day during 3rd period to "express" Sabrina's bladder. She has no sensation so she doesn't know when she needs to pee, I literally have to squeeze her bladder to make her pee. There will never be photos of that maneuver, trust me.

She doesn't know when she has to poop so she just does it as she walks. Yeah, you can see the need for plastic. (Although please note that she can still manage to find a way to get her butt on the ONE SPOT that is uncovered.)

Occasionally I have let her get on the big comfy chair with me (layer of plastic, blanket, then us) ...well, until she pees on me.

She walks pretty well now. Still a little like a one year old... all wiggly and some times surprised when her butt shows up beside her head, but we can walk almost 2 miles now. THAT is really good.

Buddy is doing pretty well through all of this. He gets a little jealous, so he can't stand it when I cave and let Sabrina on the chair. Little me sandwich. (I was in my little pjs so I put a photoshop skirt on me : )

And the truth has come out...turns out, Buddy is the one eating on the red chair (that's why there is plastic around the arms.) Buddy is the one that eats blankets etc. He is the one causing all sorts of trouble. Guess he didn't think that when he was the only one allowed to run free if he was bad, he wouldn't be able to hide behind the "it wasn't me, it was her" defense.

Buddy constantly wants to play with her, and she does a little but she does still snap at him when he catches her by surprise.

At any rate, we hang out when I'm not making their special dinners or cleaning up after the messes or trying to make her potty or doing the laundry. I snuggle with her as much as possible because I'm worried and I don't know how long she will be around. I love her with all my heart, but I know that I can't keep this up forever. It is really, really hard.

And I have been taking lots and lots of pictures. Ode to Sabrina, if you will.

Two days ago, I came home 3rd to find a MESS, so I threw the dogs outside because I didn't have time to clean and headed back to school. The dog hater started calling an hour later and called 6 times in two hours. I finally had to start hanging up on her. She then sent me a nasty email using my worries about Sabrina (which I wish I hadn't blurted out) against me, you know ...if you can't take care of your dogs you should find someone else to do so. BITCH.

It just has all been throwing me into a total depression.

BUT. Last night. She stood up, and her tail was sticking STRAIGHT OUT. (No, I didn't manage to get a picture, I know, I know.) This may not sound like much, but trust me...it is something. AND this morning she was standing still, but I could see the top part of her tail moving...AAUUGGGHHHHHH I am so excited.

Draft hag and dog haters

I have a lot of blog post drafts. Things that I start to write about but decide, nah. Or, I wander off, forget to finish and then come back and think, no, not so funny.

Let's see if I can get through this one.

I think I mentioned that there are two girls that live behind me that are not in love with Sabrina and Buddy. They wrote me a couple of notes, I responded immediately. Doghater #2 calls, I call back immediately. I got the electronic dog door back from being fixed and installed it immediately so that the dogs wouldn't be outside all of the time. Set the timer so that they would not be able to go outside until late in the afternoon. Seriously, I know the dogs can be annoying, so I have been trying to do what I can. HOWEVER, when she calls and I'm in the middle of class, I really am limited on what I can do at that moment.

Yesterday she calls me at 1:00pm. Her opening gambit? "Do you know why your dog has been barking through the lunch hour?" No, I don't. I can't remember what she said next, but I did tell her I was in the middle of teaching a class and that I had classes all afternoon, so I couldn't get home until school was out. She said something else nasty to me and got off the phone. I talked it over with Blondie, and she said she could watch my class, one of my editors would lead the class (yes, I was actually teaching) and I raced home.

I'm almost there when I get a call from a guy asking if I had two dogs. "Yeessss"

"I just found them running down Greenville Ave." Coincidence? I think not.

So, I get home, and he helps me get them in the house.

Yes, I went straight to Home Depot and bought a lock for the gate.

Then I went back to school and called her several times...no answer. Finally left a nice message asking her to call me back.

Then I called her boss, and I left a nice message saying it was about her employee Dog Hater #2 and could she call me back. (I figured odds are good, she'll call DogHater#2 and ask who I am. If she did call me back, I was just going to ask when a good time to call was because this is the only number I have and I am hard to reach too, so I was hoping to be able to call at a time when she could pick up, benign, but pointed.)

Then this morning I called Dog Hater #2 again. She answered the phone. (Shocking.) I was extremely nice. I started by asking her if she went over to my house after speaking to me. She didn't say no. She didn't ask me why. She said she left the house right after talking to me. (Anyone else think it is interesting that she was pissed I wasn't going straight home yesterday but she left the house immediately so why did it matter? Or that she didn't ask me why I thought she was at my house...) I told her that I wanted to let her know that I checked the timer, and it wouldn't open until 2 and that I went home right after we spoke because I got someone to watch my class. I also mentioned that when I got home there was someone on the front side of one of the houses next door and Buddy does bark if he hears someone... so perhaps he was barking at someone specifically.

She did mention that one day she was so frustrated she posted on Facebook asking for help. So, I found her facebook post:

Need advice: Lady next door has 2 HUGE dogs that bark all hours of the night, and day. When I called her to ask her to put them away, she copped a HUGE attitude and told me to "get over it". She said "I am sorry you hate my dogs, but there is nothing I can do". They bark at NOTHING..(air, wind, butterflies..etc) HELP!She said, "I am a teacher and have long days...what I am supposed to do?"

Really? They don't bark at all hours of the day and night (They are in by 10pm) I guarantee I didn't say get over it. And I might have said there is nothing I can do right now BECAUSE I'M IN THE MIDDLE OF A CLASS.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I did more Google research. She goes by an alias (literally) because under her real name all you find is an incident when she was a teacher (one year) when she had inappropriate relations with a student. Uh, yeah.