I'm Not Dead ...

... I just disappeared from blogland for a week. But my most faithful reader (that would be Shelby) keeps complaining that her favorite blogger (that would be me) hasn't updated in a while, so here goes, all in one big chunk:

• The House: Moving right along! Our final-inspection walkthrough is tomorrow.

  Our expected move-in date is November 1st, or thereabouts. Of course, we'll be sleeping on an air mattress and eating fast food standing up around the kitchen counter until we figure out how we want to get our household goods down from San Jose, but still -- our own house! In less than two weeks!

• THE RAIN!: My God, it's been RAINING here!!!! If this keeps up, I might have to switch back to wearing long pants (excepting a few moderately dressy occasions, I've worn nothing but shorts since getting back from Germany, mostly just to celebrate the fact that after months of living in the rain and cold, I can!). Sunny Southern California just doesn't know what to do with itself once it starts to rain -- to Shelby and me, the first rains seemed like a couple of hours worth of a half-strength version of the weather we used to get for days in Hamburg, but the TV newscasts were full of pictures of traffic accidents, mudslides, and flooding caused by the FREAK STORM that had POUNDED THE SOUTHLAND!!
• Poor Dog!, Part the Thousandth: Scout spent the past week acting like she might have injured her back again, skulking around the house and being reluctant to jump onto Shelby's parents' waterbed, ordinarily her favorite perch in the whole world. We took her to the local urgent-care vet-in-a-box; after a long wait and a cursory examination (boy, both Scout and I miss Dr. Bielan in Hamburg!), they diagnosed her with a possible back injury and sent us home with steroids.

  This latest back injury prodded us into doing something we'd been meaning to do once we got back to America: taking Scout to see a specialist in order to determine whether or not her pattern of recent back injuries (three in the past two years) is mere bad luck or emblematic of a deeper injury. After soliciting reccomendations on the Web, Shelby drove Scout down to Veterinary Surgical Specialists in Orange County. The surgeon there said that a few weeks of steroids was the right course for her current injury (but with the addition of a daily Pepcid for upset doggie tummies). He didn't recommend surgery until the dog was in obvious and unending pain, and that's thankfully not Scout's condition. She fell below the threshold for a spinal MRI, too (apparently doggie X-rays are totally useless; you'll always find something strange-looking, so you need the greater definition of an MRI), so that's good news. So, it's just a couple of daily pills and restricted jumping for our small dog -- and daily attempted guilt trips for us as she stands vigil at the closed door that leads into the room where the waterbed is, staring up with the pleading soulful brown eyes: I feel better now! Won't you please let me in?

• Linky-Linky: Interesting links I've seen recently:
  • Irritated by too-loud televisions in public places? Upset when your restaurant dinner companion stares at the TV over your shoulder, instead of looking at you? You need TV-B-Gone! It's the remote with only one button: Off. (from BoingBoing)
  • Lab-Tested -- dog toys tested by a Lab, not in a lab ... (from An American Girl In Germany)
• Gratuitous Beagle Picture:You've probably already seen it on Shelby's blog, but I'll repeat it here:
  

Posted by Kevin at October 22, 2004 10:29 AM