Sh*t Eating Grin

Yesterday wasn't a banner day for Nicki.

The puppy formerly known as either Goblin or Cotton, depending on whom you asked, but now named Claus (because he looks like a Santa beard) came back from UCD after he was neutered. We decided we'd try the two puppies together again. But it just wasn't working out. Claus is a big sweetheart who is already too big to be a lap dog, though he thinks he's one, and who just wants to have a good friend his age to play with.

It might work for two puppies of such different sizes (Claus is about three times Nicki's size, though they are the same age) to play together, but with Nicki's problems, she gets overwhelmed quickly. What starts out as a fun game, quickly gets out of hand and she becomes terrified and lashes out at anything that moves. She sometimes attacks her own foot, if she's lying on her back, because apparently she can see something moving in her field of vision and doesn't realize it's attached to her.

I tried several times letting them get together, but Claus always overwhelmed her quickly and she was too submissive to run away and let him chase her. It got so where even when I put her behind me in the recliner, she could hear him and would start growling and snarling and even tried to bite me, though she somehow knew I wasn't the enemy and she never chomped down on my skin. Once I picked her up and cuddled her, she stopped growlling.

I finally told Ashley that it wasn't going to work and asked her to please find another home. She put out a plea and within short order had found someone willing to take Claus.

This is one thing I just love about the SPCA. There are so many wonderful, giving people out there who are willing to open their homes to needy pets -- dogs and cats, though I only deal with the dog people -- at the drop of a hat, knowing very little about the dog at all, only that there is an urgent need now. Claus is not that difficult a puppy, but would do better with a more active family. And definitely not with a puppy who already is working on getting over some problems.

We had to get through the day until the new foster family could pick Claus up. Nicki stayed in the cage while I was at the doctor, but the afternoon needed more refereeing. I gave them very, very limited contact with each other, and broke things up as soon as I saw Nicki getting frantic.

For awhile I locked her here in my office with me and while here she pooped and before I could get to her, she ate it. Ashley says that this may be that because she's feeling threatened, she's eating her feces to remove traces of her scent (obviously people who came up with that theory have never smelled the breath of a puppy who has just eaten her own feces).

Fortunately, Nicki loves being outside, so I alternated, first putting Nicki outside and closing the sliding glass door, then after about half an hour or so, bringing Nicki in and locking Claus out.

Neither dog liked that arrangement, but it seemed to work out OK once they got over the fact that they wanted to be where the other one was. When Nicki got sleepy, I put her on a recliner, where Claus couldn't reach her and let both dogs in the house.

Then Claus discovered that he could climb into the recliner after all, so that didn't work. I cuddled Nicki a lot, but couldn't sit in a chair all day, so the one-in, one-out arrangement in the back yard seemed to work best.

It was Nicki's turn to go outside. I was fielding calls and on-line messages about my doctor's appointment and then got to doing other things. I don't know how long I sat at my desk but suddenly I realized it was dark and I had forgotten all about Nicki.

I rushed outside and called her and she came right away (I think this is the very first time she has responded to my voice calling her). I picked her up and she reeked of feces and was licking her lips. I got the idea she had been out cleaning up the yard by eating it all.

I put her in my lap to cuddle her, wondering if there was such a thing as doggie breath mints. Suddenly, she started retching. I grabbed a towel just as she vomited a huge quantity of foul-smelling stuff. I got her and me and my chair cleaned up and her settled down. A bit later on, I saw her retching again, and up came another load of vomitus.

I wasn't going to give her anything to eat, so I put her in the cage while I fed the others. She didn't seem interested in food anyway (no surprise!)

Just before the door rang when Claus' new foster family was picking him up, I glanced in the cage and saw that Nicki appeared to have exploded. I've never seen so much diarrhea from such a small dog. Walt and I were literally up to our elbows in shit when the bell rang. We kind of shoved Claus into this woman's hands and ran back to continue cleaning up.

Fortunately, she seems just fine this morning, and with Claus gone, she is back tearing around the house full of joy...and not eating her own excrement any more.

Thank goodness!

It's so much fun being a foster puppy mom sometimes!

I can see clearly now

Well, not exactly, but I have a diagnosis, finally. And...duhhh...it is cataracts. Ironically, I had just received a survey from Kaiser-Davis to ask about my interaction with the doctor I saw there. I filled it out, but added a letter talking about how I'd been in a panic for two weeks since he told me it wasn't cataracts and how what I learned today directly contradicts what the ophthalmologist told me.

The day started much too early. Goblin/Cotton/Claus returned last night, all sterilized and needing a foster home again. He slept in Nicki's cage last night and Nicki slept in a smaller cage in the living room. They both went to sleep just great, but at 4:30, Claus was up howling, so I got up with him at 4:45 and tried to keep him quiet so that all the other critters in the house, both 2 and 4-legged, could sleep until a decent hour. Lizzie didn't even get up with I fed Claus at 5 a.m. Amazing.

I checked in with election results, hoping that by some miracle the numbers had flipped overnight and that Prop 8 had been overturned, but no--it has passed. We have elected our first African American president, and voted to add discrimination and inequality to the California state constitution. I don't understand.

I couldn't believe how nervous I was as the clock crept closer to time to leave. We got the dogs fed, put Nicki in a cage to protect her and headed off to Sacramento. This was not a bad vision day, it was a very bad vision day. On some level I was glad of it because it would be easier to diagnose when it was very bad, I told myself.

Walt and I didn't really talk on the way to Sacramento, but sat there listening to "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on my iPod. He parked across the street from the hospital and I realized that I couldn't see the traffic coming in one direction because it was so bright outside.

We sat in the waiting room, side by side, not saying a word. He was reading The New Yorker and I was thumbing through CSAA's Via magazine, unable to really concentrate on anything.

Finally my name was called and I was taken to an exam room by a medical assistant who did some preliminary examinations and, since I guess she was still in training, she had someone else come in to double check her results. Then he said "dilate her eyes and put on the tape about cataract surgery.'

What? What did he say? The videotape about cataract surgery? Were they just assuming this was cataract surgery?

My hopes went waaay up.

Then I saw the video. The people in the video describing their symptoms echoed everything I've been saying about my problem since it started. Every. Single. Thing.

The video also said that it used to be believed that you had to wait until a cataract was "ripe" before removing it, but with the newer procedures, you could remove a cataract as soon as it began to affect your vision.

Well--that's what the optometrist has been telling me for years: the cataracts aren't "ripe" enough for removal. That's what he told me two weeks ago!

By the time the ophthalmologist arrived, I was positively giddy with hope. Obama was our president and it appeared that my problem was an easily fixable cataract.

The exam was thorough and he spent a long time typing up his chart notes before talking to me about what he discovered. I learned a lot about cataracts. I also learned why my "bad" eye is "bad." He said it looked like I've had a cataract on that eye since birth and that the eye never developed properly. He finally, finally was a physician who understood how I "don't see" out of that eye. The eye sees things, but it doesn't focus with the "good" eye. When I close my "bad eye" I don't really notice any change in anything except there isn't quite as much information coming in on the right side. But he understood that and explained exactly what was happening. Years and years of doctors telling me that of course I see out of that eye, and I finally have someone who not only believes me, but could prove it by testing and could explain why.

The upshot is that if he operates on the "bad" eye, it could get "exciting" (i.e., opportunities for things to go wrong) and ultimately it would take a couple of surgeries and probably wouldn't improve my vision all that much in that eye. I laughed and said that I was 65 and had lived with that eye for 65 years and could just as easily go through the rest of my life with it as it is right now. So we agreed that the cataract on the "bad" eye will remain.

As for the "good" eye, I didn't realize that you can actually choose the degree of correction you want. The problem with correcting my vision to be good enough to go without glasses is that there will be too great a discrepancy between the two eyes. If he gives me enough correction so that I still need glasses, but a weaker prescription it could also cause some vision problems because of the problem with the right eye.

In the end, I told him that (a) I like the way I look in glasses, more than without glasses, so having glasses is no problem for me, and (b) I'd be perfectly happy if he removed the cataract and left the vision essentially as it has been for all these years. and if he did that, there would be no problem with vision incompatibility.

We agreed that was the way to go. He was able to get me a surgery date in December, but it would be close to Christmas and on the off chance that there is a problem, I will be 400 miles away in Santa Barbara. So we put off the surgery until late-ish January (the 20th). I can easily live with this situation for two more months now that I know what it is and that it can be corrected.

He also assured me that he sees no symptoms of diabetic retinopathy (which had been my biggest fear).

We probably confused the heck out of people in the waiting room. I came out and saw Walt sitting there reading a magazine. He looked at me inquisitively. I said, "It is cataracts." He brightened and said "it IS??? That's great!" and started tearing up. In fact, I was kind of tearing myself. I felt I had to explain to the people around us why we were so happy that I had cataracts.

I called my mother and sent text messages to the kids on the way home. Jeri responded almost instantly with "Hooray! Right?" Loved it. "Right!" I texted back.

They had dilated my pupils and that must make it so that you see around the cataract because everything was clear and bright when we left the hospital and I was amazed that letters on the computer screen were black again when we got home and all the colors were bright. The pupils have now gone back to their normal size and so things are starting to blur again, but that's OK. Two more months of blurry vision and then I'll have the cataract removed and maybe I'll be able to exclaim, as so many people do after this surgery, about how bright everything is again.

Misbehavior in the Polling Booth

"Are you ready to vote?" the woman inside the polling place asked me.

"Oh, I am so ready to vote!" I answered.

We all laughed.

Today was the day. After what seems to have been an endless campaign, voting day was finally here. As I write this, the polls haven't closed anywhere yet and I'm trying so hard not to listen to everyone who says that McCain has no hope of pulling off a coup. Bad luck...bad luck...bad luck....

Walt and I walked over to the polling place around 10 a.m. this morning. I had to decide what to wear to vote. This was a big day and I wanted to dress appropriately. I finally decided on the t-shirt from our family reunion a few years ago. Why? Because (a) it was blue, and (b) because the family motto (printed on the shirt) is "I make sure." I wanted to make sure to vote for Obama and against Proposition 8.

Walt says "I was trying to decide what to wear to the polling place" is the quote of the day. But--hey!--this was serious business.

As we arrived at the polling place, I received this cell phone photo from Jeri.

She says she and Phil waited in line 30 minutes to place their vote. I immediately whipped out my cell phone and took this one to send to her:

We waited about 30 seconds to vote here. One of the real perks of living in a small town. But I was heartened to see that 111 people had already voted before us. It's rare to see that many at that hour of the day. Sometimes I vote at 10 a.m. and I'm the third person to vote. It was a good sign, I hoped.

Of course, there is little question about whether Obama will get California's electoral votes or not. California is pretty much a democratic lock. But still... And there is still Prop 8 to worry about.

I took a picture of myself casting my vote for what I hope will be the first African American president. This was an historic moment and I wanted to record it. Win or lose, my vote was historic.

When I finished voting, I picked up my "I voted" sticker and went outside to wait for Walt.

I stuck it on a table just outside the door and toook the photo above. Then I looked at the door into the voting area to see if Walt was coming out and saw this:

Oops! Owell, the damage had already been done and I only took a picture of my own ballot. I've had such practice at stealth photography that the camera was in and out of my purse, and held in front of me to take the picture, that I don't think anybody knew. According to Flickr, there were a lot of people who did the same thing.

But it's all over but the counting. So far, I haven't had a single request for money for Obama or to fight Prop 8, or for any other political cause today. It's a brief respite and I'm sure we are all enjoying it.

I hope you voted today -- no matter who got your vote.

My historic vote!

---

President Obama. He won. He really won. I am speechless, and sit here, on this momentous occasion with tears streaming down my face. Our long nightmare is over...and our days of hope are ahead of us. God has indeed blessed America.

The Problem with Internet Relationships

There is a big problem with the personal/interpersonal nature of the Internet. I have made some of my best friends through the Internet. People like Peggy and Steve and Ron and Olivia and all of the folks I met through CompuServe. Every single one of them has become a face to face friend; all of them are people whose friendship I value.

But there is another class of internet "friends," those people whose lives we follow by reading blogs, sometimes for many, many years. So many years that you come to think of them as friends, though you have never met them and perhaps haven't even exchanged more than half a dozen e-mails over all those years.

You get to feel like part of their lives, you know about their kids, their pets, their jobs, their political views, their likes and dislikes. Especially the people who update frequently. When people like that suddenly stop writing their blogs, it's like a death in the family. That's when you realize that you don't really know these people at all.

People like Marn (who rarely updates any more) or SecraTerry (who never updates any more) are sorely missed, even though we were never "real" friends (tho I did meet SecraTerri a few times and went riding bikes with her)

Today one of those "close" blog relationships came crashing down on me. This is a blog I have followed for more than five years. I doubt if the writer has ever read my blog, though we have exchanged a few e-mails over the years, mostly when I was writing to be supportive of something going wrong in the writer's life.

I thought that we were pretty much in agreement with political views, in fact, the writer is significantly more outspoken than I am.

So it was a shock to check out the latest blog entry and to see an ad in support of Prop 8 and a plea for a return to traditional marriage. This was totally diametrically opposed to everything I had ever thought about the blogger and I immediately sent off an e-mail:

I've agreed with just about everything you've ever published, but I have to admit I was taken aback to find a Yes on Prop 8 widget on your web site today.

Are you really opposed to gay marriage and in favor of writing discrimination into the constitution? I was very, very surprised and disappointed to discover that.

Almost by return e-mail, I received

WHOA. Where did you see that? There is no such widget on my site.

You should know better than to think I might support something like that, especially given the fact that I've written at length about my support for gay marriage in the past. I'm saddened that you've jumped straight past "Why don't I ask first?" to "very surprised and disappointed".

I apologized for jumping to conclusions, but sent a .jpg of the ad and explained that I'm inundated with "No on 8" messages having preconceived ideas about the blogger's views, seeing the ad just hit me like an electric shock.

The message I got in return was kind of a brush off and a reiteration of offense that I would even think that this ad would have been approved for the blog.

I'm still profoundly saddened that you jumped to a conclusion that you surely should have known better. And I think I'm done talking about this for today.

The blogger has made many references to having a quick temper and not always treating people kindly. I guess that in my haste to clarify the reason for the ad on the blog site, I have become one of those people who are persona non grata. I feel like I've been slapped in the face. I don't feel comfortable contacting this blogger again, though I will, of course, continue to stay connected to the story of the family life, because I just care too much not to continue to follow it.

But it saddens me that in sticking up for gay marriage and the California proposition, I somehow seem to have become the bad guy.

What would YOU think if you saw this on someone's blog?

Hope...and Disappointment

The big day is almost here--and I'm more scared than I've ever been. More scared, even, than the thought of GWB winning a second term...and believe me that was pretty darn scary (and I think history has proven me right to be scared).

I finally turned off TV 24-hr news. I couldn't take another pundit predicting an Obama win, or another talking head letting me know how McCain was creeping up in the polls. I've seen polls be wrong before. Horribly, horribly wrong. In both directions--the one I wanted and the one I didn't. I don't want to know the theoretical outcome of Tuesday's vote; I want to know the vote. And I'm afraid to hope for the best.

Obama's whole campaign has been built around hope. It was his ability to instill hope in a heart (mine) that I thought had lost all ability to hope that our leaders could inspire us. They call it soaring rhetoric without any practical experience. Well, I think we need soaring rhetoric right now. We've had 8 years of a man looking like a deer in the headlights, tripping over his own words, saying "nucular" and unable to put two words together to form a coherent sentence. We need someone who is going to inspire us to want to do more than "go shopping" to rebuilt the economy. We need someone who has the words to inspire us to want to do public service, to feel a part of building this country again.

John McCain won't do that. Barack Obama will. From the very early days I listened to him and felt I should go volunteer to do something. Something to prove that Americans care about each other and the country, that we all want to work together to make this a better country.

I've never had that feeling listening to a McCain speech.

And so I want to hope. I want to hope that this is going to be a clear victory for Obama. I'll even settle for a marginal victory. Just so it's a victory.

But you see, I'm afraid to hope.

I've been a Cal Bears fan for too many years and remember how many times we sat in the stands at a football game groaning 'Oh Cal...you're so....bad!"

I've been a Giants fan for too many years, watching them blow yet another game.

I've been a 49er fan for too many years, especially post-Joe Montana years, watching yet another losing game.

I know about hope, and about having those hopes dashed. I sometimes get so superstitious that I won't watch a game because I know that if I'm there, or watching, the team is going to lose. It's me. I know it's me.

So I'm almost afraid to vote for Obama for fear it will be his kiss of death.

I turned on Fareed Zakaria's show on CNN today and a group (including Madeline Albright) was talking about what Obama should do about Iran. I wanted to scream "STOP TALKING...DON'T JINX IT!!!"

When a guy came around last week to talk about Obama, I agreed to help get out the vote on Tuesday. He explained this would mean calling people in our precinct to remind them to vote.

But then I got a call from a woman who wanted to know if I'd walk the precinct and post information about voting on Tuesday, and I agreed to do that. I didn't exactly walk it, because the area was "a hefty schlep" (she said) and it was raining, but I did drive around and post my flyers giving information about polling place and reminding people to support Obama. She promised I wouldn't have to talk to anybody (and I didn't).

It's not exactly working at Obama headquarters and being intensely involved in the campaign, but it's something and the first active campaigning I've done for a candidate since I was part of Scientists and Engineers for Johnson, back in the 1960s, when I was campaigning against the other Senator from Arizona: Barry Goldwater.

But Obama is the kind of candidate that makes me want to do something, even if it's calling people to remind them to vote, or walking in the rain to distribute poll place information.

I so want to hope.

I so hope my hopes aren't going to be dashed.

Tears

The fur on Nicki's head was wet. It was wet because I was crying and the tears rolled down my cheeks and onto her head, snuggled up under my chin(s).

We had a good night last night, after the initial problems with Goblin (whom, I learned, someone had already named "Cotton," also a good name for the puppy...but I'll keep calling him Goblin, because I probably won't see him again anyway).

I worked with the puppies, keeping Nicki close to me, petting her and letting Goblin sniff her, picking her up when she seemed to be feeling threatened. After about half an hour, something seemed to snap in Nicki's head and she leaped at Goblin in a playful way. The two of them chased each other around the house, rolling over and over like normal puppies, for about half an hour.

When they stopped playing, they could just as easily be "calm" with each other. Goblin lay down and pretty soon Nicki was there licking him, and then he her.

I didn't know how the night was going to go. I set up a second cage so each of them would have his/her own place to sleep. I knew Nicki would be fine, since she always sleeps in the cage, but wasn't sure about Goblin. He fussed a little, but settled down before I actually went to sleep. He woke up crying at 3:30 a.m., but I ignored him and he went back to sleep and slept until nearly 7. In fact, he might have slept longer but apparently I forgot to lock Nicki's cage and she was walking around, looking a bit dazed at being alone in a dark house.

The morning went well, except for some spectacular pooping on the part of both dogs, which, since they were also playing a lot, got spread around. Oh how I love that part.

Around 10 or so, two girls showed up to get the dogs. They were going to their first obedience class and then Goblin was going to UCD for a few days, to be neutered and then remain for observation by the vet students.

While the dogs were gone, I had the chance to steam clean the Pergo so I don't stick to the floor any more. I'm discovering that one unpleasant offshoot of my vision problem is that I have a hard time differentiating between a brown leaf, a darker speck in the Pergo, and a bit of puppy poop. Of course that's not the case with Goblin's, which are unmistakable. But I apparently don't always get all of the stuff when I wipe it up with a cloth and some Pergo cleaner.

Around 11:30, one of the girls returned Nicki. The dog trainer agrees with my assessment that her problem is related to vision--not seeing well, though the ophthalmologist says she can see. There are no charts for dogs to read so we know how close to 20/20 their vision is. She said that Nicki seems to rely on touch rather than her other senses, which I'd already observed. Perhaps, she thinks, a problem with her occipital lobe. Her hearing isn't acute, her sense of smell seems to be non-existent and her vision isn't the best. We'll see what the neurologist thinks is the cause. In the meantime we're going to treat her as if she's blind, even though we know she isn't actually blind.

I took Nicki out of the girl's arms and felt her trembling, just like she was the last time Ashley tried having her at placement, when she freaked out and had to be sent home. I sat in the chair and cuddled her and she trembled for a good 15 minutes, her head buried in my chest, gradually getting calmer and eventually falling asleep. As I soothed her I was crying. I hate sending her off on these jaunts. I know it's necessary. She has to learn how to live in the world and as much as I've come to love her, I can't adopt her. So this has to happen, but I hate it when she comes home so stressed out.

She slept for a very long time after returning home, as she did after her Farmers Market day. She seems to "turn off" after one of these days and it takes awhile for her to come back to her normal self again.

This poor little baby. I know there is the perfect someone out there for her and that when that person is found, she will start a very happy life. But in the meantime, I die a thousand deaths when I have to send her off when I know she's going to come home so scared.

Goblin

This is Goblin, a 4 month old sharpei mix (judging from the brown patches on his back, I'm wondering if it is a mix with a Jack Russell terrier).

We exchanged Tara for Goblin today. The tension between Tara and Nicki was just escalating. Tara hated Nicki but always wanted to be in my lap, so whenever Nicki came up to me, Tara would snarl and lash out at her. It's really too bad because otherwise she was a very sweet little dog, even if she did take over my office chair! (First dog who has ever done that...and please note my screen saver, which I love...the dog is continuously licking the screen.)

Ashley had talked to me about Goblin (or rather Sharpei Mix puppy 68595), who came to the shelter as a stray and "has some issues with his back legs." It was the thought that Nicki would get along better with a puppy, and I thought having a Sharpei would be kind of cool, so it seemed the perfect solution.

Megan showed up tonight, with Goblin in a carrier and I nearly didn't let her in because I wasn't answering the door since I wasn't planning on doing trick-or-treaters tonight, so she called me from the driveway and brought him in. He burst out of the carrier, full of life and exhuberance, an adorable puppy who looks a lot like Marley, a big dog who doesn't know he's a big dog. In short order he had peed about a cup of pee on the floor, and followed it up with a pile of poop that would do a cow proud.

Clearly this was going to be a higher maintenance dog than Nicki, but if they would become friends that would be fine.

Only that doesn't seem to be happening. At first she jumped up on him, like she does Sheila and Lizzie, but they ignore her, and Goblin was ready to play. He happily tried to play with her, but it freaked her out and she ended up on her back, her legs waving like a bug flipped onto its back, her teeth bared, and moving her head rapidly back and forth to bite at whatever came near her.

In truth, watching her strengthened my opinion that her main problem is that, while she can see, she can't see well. She appears to make out shapes all right ("this is dog shaped, so I'll jump on it") and she has no problem picking up all sorts of things to carry around the house, but I don't think that when someone like a big happy puppy is trying to play with her, she can figure out what it is, so she just freaks out.

I picked her up and she reacted exactly the way she had done the day she freaked out at the Farmers Market. She put her legs around my neck and clung to me, her heart beating fast.

I held her until she'd calmed down and then put her on the recliner, where she has remained ever since, while I've been chasing after Goblin.

As it turns out, Goblin is going to UCD to be neutered this weekend, and won't be out of there until Tuesday and, based on how Nicki reacted, Ashley will put him somewhere else. . But obviously Nicki needs socialization with other dogs, so we have to work out a plan for that too.

Sheesh...any day now I'm going to start a dog therapy practice. But I guess I don't need to because Ashley already seems to be running one!