Lisa had a birthday yesterday, and a party to go with it! I didn't take my camera but Lisa B. Rockmeier got photographic evidence. The party was great fun, though the most hi-larious moment was Rick! and me acting out finger puppet amateur porn. Actually it was almost all Rick!: my sole contribution to the effort was the line "I've got a really big brain," because of course the brain is the sexiest organ. (Also because my finger puppet did indeed have a really big brain.) There are rumors that the finger puppet porn flick was captured on video, but I haven't seen it. Another amusing moment was comparing gross foods we have eaten with Lisa B. None of us had ever tried haggis, but I had had blood sausage once. My memory of it was "What's all that dark stuff?" "That's blood." "What are those white chunks?" "That's fat." "I don't think I'll have anymore, thanks." Lisa B. impressed us all with her extensive description of Marmite. Which sounds really gross.
We left a little before midnight, which was earlier than I would have liked but unfortunately not soon enough for Thirteen. She's on painkillers, but I'm supposed to be weaning her off them. So I don't give them to her until she starts acting like she really needs them. Which means that I shouldn't be away from her for any length of time unless she's recently had the pain pills. By the time we got home she was in bad shape, then she woke me up again in the early am.
Besides the problem with her spine (which we think is the problem, but at this point it's still a guess) she's also developed a severe limp in the past couple of days, heavily favoring her left front leg. Georg and I suspect that it's unrelated: when she's trying to get our attention she kicks furniture, knocks over trash cans and so forth. (Thank god the only trash cans she can tip over are the small ones that contain only paper trash.) We think maybe she knocked something over and it landed on her leg or something.
I talked to the vet this morning and she agreed with our speculation. So for the meantime, we're allowed to give her the pain pills when she needs them, and call the vet's office again on Monday for another status report. Unless her limp gets a lot better tomorrow I'm going to ask them for an appointment to check out the leg.
We had two parties to go to tonight, at David's and Rick!'s, but we blew them both off. Partly because of the weather, which threatened ice and may have produced some, but mainly because of Thirteen. Going to a party and having fun and then coming home to her pacing because she's in pain was just awful. I couldn't stand to do that to her two nights in a row.
I feel really bad about missing the parties, but in truth I'm so exhausted that even if the weather had been fine and I had given Thirteen her pills right before leaving, I wouldn't have enjoyed it. I don't know why I'm so tired. Work has been stressful, but not unusually so. And I haven't done much yardwork because of the weather. I guess it's just all the worry about Thirteen is wearing me out. Also not sleeping so much because she keeps waking me up.
Today all I did was split some wood, watch TV and take a nap. Well, I did do a little work, but only a teeny tiny bit that hardly counts. Also I started working on the plan for the vegetable garden. It's kind of complicated, but it seems like things will go better if I plan it all out rather than just buying plants and sticking them into the ground willy-nilly. I have a template with the outline of the bed so I can draw different versions of the plan in pencil. I tried doing the whole thing in Illustrator but pencil and paper seems easier.
I did learn some important facts about wood splitting: First, logs that already have a crack in the end are easier to split. Second, small logs are also easier to split. Third, logs that are so small they tip over with every strike are still easy, but annoying.
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