(Modified) Joy to the World

"We're fixing your DSL," said the man across the street, waving cheerily from his AT&T truck. "We know," I said back, waving back, as we got into the car.

We knew they were working on the DSL line because the internet had gone out about half an hour before. But I wasn't concerned because we were going to be spending the day in San Francisco and it would all be fixed when we got home.

Oh how naive I can be!

We were going to a Christmas party thrown by our friend Roger, whom we have known through The Lamplighters for many years. It is always fun and there are always good Lamplighters friends there.

First I wanted to make a stop in the Castro District to see if I could find a post card. The new person on Postcrossing that I'm supposed to send a postcard to mentioned that he liked "gay themed" postcards and where better to look for that than the Castro?

Walt dropped me off at Walgreen's across from Harvey's restaurant (named for Harvey Milk) and I set off exploring. I didn't find any post cards, but I did see these musicians performing in front of the big Christmas tree. I gave them a donation. I also stopped to talk with an animal rescue group huddled in dog cages with adoptable dogs. We compared notes on our organization vs. their organization and my fosters vs. their fosters.

The place I was looking for, a card shop, had gone out of business in the 5 years or so since I was last there and all the shops I tried didn't have any cards, but I did stop in a shop where all income went to help AIDS organizations, and I found a greeting card that I really liked, which I will cut into a postcard. Definitely gay-themed.

Then we drove out to Roger's. He lives across from the ocean beach and we parked about a block away, across from a sandwich shop. "Is that the Sykeses?" a voice called out. We turned, expecting to see some Lamplighter friend but instead saw Sara (Sarge), a friend of our kids.

She asked us what we were doing and Walt mentioned we were going to a party at a friend's house and that he just lived around the corner. "Oh, Roger?" she asked. She knows him well and, in fact, had been invited to the party.

The last time we were at Roger's it was night (and pouring rain) and I hadn't noticed the view. In the bright sun, it was breathtaking.

That's the Cliff House up on the hill,overlooking what used to be Seal Rock, before the seals moved to Pier 39. And the expanse of ocean continued off to the left. If I lived in that house, I'd never leave the living room. My desk would go right where those bubble Christmas candles are!

The house was decorated beautifully...

...and one of the house cats had taken up residence in the cat tree with Snoopy, where he could oversee everything.

Among the things that were set out was this wonderful music box, which played the Nutcracker and had several scene changes.

It delighted this little girl and later, a young man with Downs Syndrome sat in front of it literally all evening long, applauding each time one scene ended and another scene started. Even Walt was fascinated by it, especially how quickly the scenes changed.

The guests were a nice mix of Roger's work friends, neighbors and Lamplighters (and probably other people).

I spent a long time talking with a couple of nuns (how women in religious orders have changed since I was in Catholic school!) Delightful women.

I also talked with a couple of guys who had graduated from Skyline High School in Oakland and had been classmates of our friend John Gilkerson (who died in the late 1980s) and Tom Hanks (who mentioned John in his Oscar acceptance speech for Philadelphia). One of the guys had a friend on the faculty of Berklee College of Music and wondered if Jeri knew him (she doesn't), and said over and over and over again how impressed he was that Jeri was on the faculty there.

We finally left the party around 5 and drove home, expecting to find our DSL line restored, but no luck. Once again, we had no internet. I made plans to go to Mishka's in the morning to post this, but after Desperate Housewives was over, Walt did some investigating and discovered that somehow they had switched lines on us. We have two phone lines coming into the house, one for the phone and one for the DSL. He found that if you call our house phone, you get a busy signal. If you call the DSL line, the house phone rings.

He switched the two wires and now I have internet connection, but we have no house phone. However, that arrangement will work all right until morning when we can call AT&T to come back and fix it again.

All in all, it was a nice day and it was particularly nice to get an e-mail saying that Shiloh and his new friend Angela had bonded nicely, and were having a good time with each other.

Santa Read My Letter

I got my Christmas present early....

...SHILOH GOT ADOPTED!!!!!

He had arrived here on August 7 and he was a sweet little guy. I never understood why he hadn't been considered before. But he was adopted by someone who also adopted Angela...

...who wasn't with us, but who looks like she'll make a perfect match for him. Polly returned home with us, and is probably going to be happy not to have any competition for a place in my lap tonight.

When we drove to Petco to pick her up, we were also going to get canned puppy food to mix with the puppies' kibble. "They only have beef at Petco," Walt said, asking me if beef would be OK. I said it would. "They have chicken and lamb at Nugget," he said, "and they don't have any puppy food at all at Save-Mart."

I had to giggle that (a) we were having that conversation and (b) that we know which pet foods are sold in which store! Our knowledge base has obviously been expanded, thanks to involvement with the SPCA.

On the home front, it hasn't rained in a couple of days and I decided that the puppies should have their introduction to the Great Outdoors.

At first they weren't sure what this strange texture under their feet was, but after awhile they started investigating their surroundings.

They seem to have enjoyed themselves, and all collapsed when they got back in the cage again.

So it seems we're starting a new era...down to 6 dogs, Shiloh at a forever home, and puppies taking the next steps toward their own eventual forever homes.

Divorcing CVS

That's it. I'm finished with CVS. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

I've finished sending out the e-mail notices of our Christmas letter (save for a few stragglers). I've created a print version of the letter, without photos, and decided I could make a collage of the photos and have them printed to include in the letter.

So I spent a long time this morning putting together a collage, one of the dogs, and one of the family pictures. I could get them from CVS in an hour, so I put in my order. One hour pick up at CVS. (Remember the problems I had with Ashley's book?)

I went to pick up the photos and they weren't there. But we have two CVS locations in town. I always pick up prints at one location, but had picked up Ashley's book at the second location, which thus became the default location.

OK. That was me being stupid. I drove to the other location (which isn't that far away). I picked up the photos and thank goodness I looked at them first.

When you order photos, they show you on the computer screen what they will look like. The size of the collage was the same size as the size of a single picture if it came right from my camera.

The prints only showed the top 2/3 of the photos. On all three prints. When I complained about it, the clerk told me that I should have cropped them better...but there was no way to know that the prints would not print properly. My god, there is a guy who sits at a machine all day long and prints these things. Couldn't he see there was a problem?

I ended up rejecting the prints and went to the rest of the store. I need to get a few more kitchen-type mats for the puppies "yard" area, to make clean up easier. They always had them when the store was Longs. But when CVS came in, it reduced the amount of inventory and apparently kitchen mats were a category that was reduced.

The new CVS stores are carpeted and loook prettier than the old Longs store, but I never go in without leaving disappointed because something has gone wrong.

Just easier to divorce them completely and try to find a work-around. I will send the snail mail cards with letter and no photos.

Dammit.

---

Shiloh is the very first dog we've had here who has gotten worse while here. Before he got here, Ashley decided, on a whim, to do a skin scraping on him. She just had a "feeling."

Well, it came back positive for Demodex so he arrived here with the usual medicine for Demodex. We've certainly had a lot of experience with Demodex.

Only it seems that instead of getting better, he's gotten much, much worse. I don't know if you can tell from this picture. The fur on his neck is thinning. He has no fur on his elbow. The fur on his entire body is thinning.

They did another test this past week and found that he has another infection, so now he has two medications to try to build up his fur and cure him of whatever is going on inside him. In the morning we have medication time around here. Shiloh gets his two medications mixed in peanut butter, Polly has her doggie Prozac in peanut butter. Lizzie and Sheila just have peanut butter because they see the others getting peanut butter. We go through a lot of peanut butter in this house. I hope that the routine is going to start showing visible improvement in Shiloh. I've had bald puppies leave here looking normal. I'd hate to have a normal-looking puppy leave here bald!

The Return of Shiloh

It was almost noon. Bella and Buttercup were having their last cuddle, though neither of them knew it.

I took a few more last pictures of Bella before it was time to leave.

When it was time, I loaded Bella in the car, which was a comedy of errors. I'm so used to all the dogs being so good at the front door, but today when I opened it, Lizzie and Polly raced out and down the street, in the middle of the street. I got Bella in the car and ran after the other two dogs. Fortunately, Polly was already on her way back, and I got her into the house, then like a stupid idiot started shouting about treats to Lizzie, who thinks with her stomach and, after a momentary hesitation, followed me back into the house for the promised treat.

Bella and I went up to Petco, which, because of the holiday weekend wasn't having the usual SPCA adoption day, but just meeting people who had asked about specific animals. I traded Bella for Shiloh, who seemed happy to see me.

There was none of the usual "adjustment period" when I brought Shiloh back. I didn't have to be as careful of him as I did before. His collar is gone and he is starting to put weight on his broken leg. It wasn't long before the three little dogs were playing.

With two dogs her own size, Buttercup quickly became one of the gang. She's going to be such a big dog that I know that she will soon be bigger than her older playmates.

When dinnertime rolled around, I fixed a special bowl of puppy food kibble and puppy canned food and mixed it up for Buttercup and locked her in the cage. She ate it all. Obviously there was not going to be any problem with nutrition after losing her mom.

She whined a bit and wanted to be picked up. I cuddled her until she decided to teethe on my chin, and then I put her down. But she seems to have adjusted effortlessly. She's made the big leap to the big guys.

As for Polly, she has been sharing my lap with Bella, and not really happy about it, but she and Shiloh settled into their old positions in my lap and Polly even rested her head on Shiloh's back.

So it seems that our new situation is good.

But it's a bittersweet day, because it ended with the news of Ashley's leaving the SPCA, for good, personal reasons, which I applaud. But she has been our rock and I just don't know if things will be the same without her.

Dog Days of Summer

Shiloh is back home again.

He went up to UCD a few days ago for them to re-evaluate his leg and decide whether to do surgery. The decision was yes, do surgery. He was actually at UCD for several days, arriving home yesterday, with instructions that he is to have strict cage rest for six weeks. Yikes! Puppy in cage constantly for 6 weeks. And he has to wear the collar for 10-14 days to keep him from biting at his stitches, which he is literally itching to do!

He can go outside on a leash to pee, but that's all. Yesterday didn't seem to go too badly. He slept a lot and whined a little. But this morning he is feeling better, so is less happy at sitting in the cage all day long.

We've come to a compromise that he's willing to live with.

Polly is happy about the compromise.

Since Polly is happiest with 23 hours of lap time a day, she thinks this is just about the best thing since doggie beef jerky. As for me, I've watched The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which came from Netflix this week, and most of the things I've recorded on DVD. If I'm going to sit in a chair for the next six weeks, I may have to take up soap operas.

Actually, Ashley is looking into having one of the vet school students foster Shiloh, which would be nice because they have the expertise (and experience of putting up with crying puppies in cages!) But if a vet student foster home can't be found, I'm fine with keeping him here.

I took him outside this afternoon to pee and instead he flopped down in the grass and went to sleep in the sun. I figured the sun exposure on his stitches, briefly, might be a good thing, so I just got a chair, sat down and watched him sleep.

As for Miss Polly, her weekly ordeal is over again. She trembled all the way to Petco and licked me happily all the way home again. Ashley says she's getting better being at Petco and doesn't hide all the time any more. She also lets other people touch her, which is a very good thing.

Then Ashley sprang a surprise on me. She is thinking of having another SPCA volunteer, who is a behaviorist, take Polly to her house and foster her and work with her on overcoming her shyness. I was surprised at how my stomach did somersaults when she said that. Someone ELSE foster my Polly? It was at that moment that I realized how sad I'm going to be when she leaves here. She's been here nearly 9 months--it will be 9 months in a week, longer than any other foster we've had. In my heart of hearts, I know I don't want to adopt her and that she needs her own home. But it will be sad to turn her over to someone else. I love this little girl.

Ashley says if I want to keep her until they find a home, that's OK too. I told her that what I wanted was whatever was going to be best for Polly, and that I would leave that decision up to her (Ashley). So we'll see what happens.