Happy Valentines Day All!

I (heart) all my readers!  Thanks for taking your valuable time and reading my ramblings, looking at my quilts, soothing my ruffled feathers, and calming my worst fears!

This is my Sweet Valentine!  Check him out!  And you thought it would be Frank!  Ha!  It's DiNozzo, of course.  He has to be the closest dog to me, just like Max had to be closest to me.  So when Chloe the Smelly Basset curled up in my lap to knit the other day, DiNozzo resolved then and there to never let her get that close ever again.  So here he is, claiming his rightful spot as near to me as he can be.

Chloe was easier to knit over, she sort of collapses, he requires effort to knit around.  I have one wristlet made.  Somewhere.  I wore it to bed last night just to see if it made a difference, and I think it does keep my wrists warmer.

Chloe's because
she has a black saddle

DiNozzo's because
he doesn't have black

For Valentine's Day, I got the dogs two new bowls.  They were drinking out of the 5 quart bowl that Bonnie Doon required because of her diabetes insipidus.  She didn't use the water she took in normally, so she would constantly drink large large quantities of water.  These bassets seem to drink nearly nothing compared to Bonnie Doon.  So I downsized their bowls.

And I cooked a chicken and sausage gumbo this afternoon after I got mad at Frank for scheduling to come to the Care Plan Meeting for my mom at the nursing home, then calling me to say he was having lunch with a friend since his business lunch cancelled and he came back to town early.  He "forgot".  So to assuage his guilt we are going out for dinner.  Gumbo will keep.  I can't eat it anyway.

I did purchase two gi-normous t-bone steaks for me though!



I had a rough night last night.  A Swissy friend from Maine called me on the way to her Emergency Vet.  I showed her dog Viggo in the Cotton Classic Regional Specialty two or three years ago.  (None of these are actually Viggo, but he looks like any one of them!)  Her vet did an x-ray and found what he thought to be a spleen tumor.  In Greater Swiss Mountain Dogs, it is not uncommon to have a spleen that is doubled in size.  When that happens it may twist or fold.  Health is compromised very very quickly if it twists, much like gastric torsion where the stomach twists.  She called me because she was unsure what to do next.  Her husband is the Garret of the QOV Swissy Quilt I put up not too long ago for you to look at.  Garret is deployed right now, so she and the boys were on their own to save this dog.  And me.

Through a series of phone calls, I put her vet in touch with the vet who wrote the protocol for spleenic surgery in Swissys.  An amazing man who will drop everything to talk a vet through the procedure.  Right now, Viggo is recuperating at the regular vet clinic and so far so good.  He still has a day or two of touch and go issues, but if he can hang on, he will be fine.  His spleen had split rather than ruptured and had folded rather than twisted.  Two things that contributed to the successful outcome.

I had another medical emergency phone call, where hopefully calmness prevailed and a new doctor is scheduled.  Then a phone call to the InRegister, who got our CAAWS volunteers all excited about doing a dinner fundraiser when they really meant Companion Animal Alliance will get the fundraiser.  (Geez! what a lousy mistake for them to make.)  Then I was on the phone to the gym people who are nutso idiots and think everyone else is buying their flack.  So that was a fun phone call.  Whew!  What a day.

glen:  I may just sew until it is time to go out to eat!