Remember my last entry regarding winter not arriving? Well…
Nevermind then.
2012 Winter / Abo / dogs / Life / Minneapolis-St. Paul / Nordeast Minneapolis / Samsung Galaxy II Pictures
Nevermind
It is Saturday night and my car glides through traffic on 494. Whip my Hair is on the radio and I am excited about tonight’s date. Things are awesome.
The awesomeness ends approximately 15 minutes later when I open my apartment door and get smacked by the smell of rotten eggs. Harley is sick and yarked everywhere.
I manage to clean up the copious amounts of yolk-like vomit, take the dogs out, drain the building boiler, and get dressed within 25 minutes. I am not going to be late for this date, dammit!
So of course, when I open the door to leave, I hear “BLARRG!”
Things got real bad on Friday night.
I come back from work around 10pm and find Mark, who lives on the second floor, waiting by the building door. Mark tells me that his sink kitchen clogged, so I call the emergency plumber.
The plumber dredges Mark’s sink while Alesus and I skip over to the Showplace ICON theater and watch the new Resident Evil1 movie.
We come back to my apartment, watch Jersey Shore, and go to bed around 2am.
I hear a knock on my at 4am. It’s Heidi, the tenant who lives under Mark. Her kitchen is completely flooded with stinky black water that is shooting from her kitchen sink. Heidi’s bathroom ceiling is also leaking.
Orientation training started today, so summer is officially over. Here’s what happened this summer:
May
I gave some snark during the dog walk:
Mousy Girl: “Oh god, I can’t believe someone would just tie them up like that!”
Gawky boy: “Yeah, how pathetic and inhumane.”
Mousy Girl: “Too many bad dog owners in the neighborhood…”
Me (coming out of the cafe) : “They’ve been pissing for the past five miles, so they can wait five minutes while I pee for a chance.”
Someone flipped the fall switch in Minneapolis because evening temperatures have been dipping to the 40’s.
This means it is scarf time!
I initially tried to take the picture for this post with Harley, but it didn’t turn out well:
I never have to coax Harley in the car…
…but the amount of time I spend vacuuming is ridiculous.
Dr. Smooth just graduated from vet school. He’s young. He’s hip. He has a soul patch.
Dr. Timid is middle aged, quiet and serious. She always looks worried, like she is about to tell you something went horribly wrong and your dog will, in fact, never regain control of his bowels. Have fun with the slip and slide!
So of course Dr. Timid was working today.
Harley: “Wait, wait, wait, so you’re telling me that the folded laundry wasn’t there for me to roll in?”
I am halfway through a habeas case at work when Jill, a coworker, turns to me and says:
Jill: “Tornadoes in downtown Minneapolis!”
Me: “What what?”
Jill: “That’s what they are saying on NPR. Check online.”
Yesterday, I got home from work around midnight.
Working long or odd hours usually isn’t a problem for the dog, unless he has an upset stomach.
So of course, when I open my apartment door I immediately smell that this is one of those nights where Harley made a bullmastiff-sized welcome home surprise.
I let the dog out of the kennel and he skips off to his food bowl. I then grab a trash bag, paper towels, and the bleach.
The little kennel-disaster made me forget about my parking situation: I parked in the nearby business parking lot again because the plan was to just quickly get the dog and move the car.
Now, some of you remember that the last time I parked in that lot, I saw a shooting and had to run from the shooter. And you’d think I would have learned my lesson, but I didn’t. Obviously.
So I finish scooping all of nast out of the kennel and stand up just in time to see a tow truck flying down the street towards my car!
I drop the trashbag full of dog-mess, grab Harley’s leash, and then flee the building like I just saw bejeweled crocs. I run across the street with the dog dragging behind me, waiving my arms – “STOOOOOOOP DON’T TOW MEEEEEEH! I’M A POOR LAW STUDENT!”
I look pathetic enough for the tow truck driver to let me off the hook.
Tower: “I didn’t have you hooked up yet, so you can go.”
Me (gasping): “Thank you, I was just getting my dog……and uh, thank you!”
The tow truck driver’s girlfriend glares at me from the truck. I wink.1
The closest parking space is a few blocks away. I park, walk the dog back to the apartment, chuck the trash bag of surprises, and then decide that it is a good time to go to Wal-Mart since my apartment reeks of bleach and dog poop.
So Harley and I walk back to the car, and go to Wal-Mart.2
What I really needed from Wal-Mart was canned food. I eat mostly fresh food, but once in-a-while I use canned vegetables. And canned vegetables are one of those things best bought in bulk, from Wal-Mart, in the middle of the night…sort of like tiolet paper.
So of course all of the canned-food isles are “closed for waxing” and I was the guy randomly buying nothing but dog treats at 1 a.m.
At least Harley didn’t seem to mind…
1 Now who the heck called my car in at midnight?
2Wal-Mart is by my job actually, so there was a LOT of backtracking that night.
Hey, as long as you’re comfortable.
I just finished a 10-hour shift at work.
I’m pulling three 10-hour days to make up for my absence from the office during finals. And although the longish hours aren’t ideal for the dog, the hours are compatible with his strict-bed bed rest requirements for the heartworm treatment. 1
My first official day2 of summer started at the auto-parts store. One of my headlights died last night, and Gibs offered to install it for me so I wouldn’t get ripped off by my Nissan dealer again – Gibs was horrified to hear that last month I shelled out something like $40 to get a headlamp replaced at the dealer.
The $40 charge seemed less outrageous when I watched the ordeal Gibs went through to replace the lamp. Apparently the owner’s manual suggests taking off the bumper to replace the lights, but instead of dismantling my bumper, Gibs unscrewed the coolant tank, which was blocking the back of the headlight.
I left work late, so the only street parking was a few blocks away.
When I got out of my car I noticed someone peering from the dirty white car across the street – it was Terry, the toothless man who sleeps in his car.
I nodded politely but Terry just kept giving me this blank-yet-rabid-stare. I could sense his eyes following me as I walked down the block…ugh.
After getting home and walking the dog, I realize that I left my laptop in my car. I decide that it is more prudent to fetch the computer than to explain to the cops why I left a laptop in a car parked next to a crazed semi-homeless man.
Harley is afraid of fireworks and gunfire-like popping noises.
So, he’s spent the past week cowering in the bathroom because it’s the only room in the apartment without windows.
It’s 1am. I’m in my boxers, crouched in my living room, wiping-up a massive pile of diarrhea.
I lysol. I wipe. I lysol again.
The trash can fills. I get a strong whiff of the nast and shoot the dog a “fuck you and die” glare.
He cowers in the corner.
Actually, yesterday I decided that there was no way that my 9am vet visit was going to happen because I was out late at Jack’s b-day extravaganza and Gib’s afterparty.
But for whatever reason I wake up at 8am and decide that I probably should drag myself out of bed and take the dog to the vet.
So, an hour later I’m standing in an examination room listening to a chipper veterinary assistant run down a list of extensive care plans for the dog.
I was quietly calculating how many hours worth of wages I was going to burn on this visit when the young-ish vet comes in.
The vet looks freaked out.
Vet: “ Oh my god, your dog’s heartworm test is positive!”
The assistant (gasping): “Oh my god!”
Me: “…um, okay, what does that mean?”
Vet: “Oh my god, I can’t believe he tested positive! I mean, I haven’t had a positive case in two years!”
The assistant gasps again. We all look at the dog as if we expected him to drop dead right there. Cue the ominous music.
Me: “Well is he going to die or…?”
The vet then adopted that tone that TV doctors use when they tell parents just how painful their child’s cancer death is going to be.
Vet: “No, well, I mean, probably not. We don’t know how serious it is because if he has had the worms for a while then they may cause heart failure. See what happens is that the heart enlarges…lungs filled with fluid…then horribly painful death… gory details… But I need to do some x-rays to be sure they are about $200. Sign this paper.”
While the vet left to re-check the test results, I called madre.
Me: “I’m at the vet’s. Harley has heartworms.1 It’s going to be like $700.”
Madre: “Hm. Well, how good is the prognosis? Because that’s a lot of money to spend on a dead dog…”
The vet did not take my mother’s practical question very well – although the vet explained the three levels of heartworm (and the fact that the third level was basically untreatable) he seemed aghast at the notion of putting a dog down.
Vet: “Well, we will talk about our, uh, options, when we get there. We need to keep him here today to observe him just in case he has an adverse reaction to the medicine and faints or dies or something…”
Me: “Dandy. I’ll be at work.”
Vet: “Great. See you at 5. You have to go to the reception desk and put down a down payment. That’s our policy for all of our costly procedures.”
Dandy.
So I drive off to the suburbs and worke for 5 hours before heading back to the animal hospital.
Apparently Harley did not take his stay very well.
Assistant: “So I took him out but he didn’t go. But when I put him in the kennel he just looked at me and started peeing a lake!”
Me: “Oh my.”
Assistant: “Oh, and you were right about the flatulence.”
Me: “I wouldn’t joke about such things.”
Assistant: “Oh, and he also pooped in the kennel as well. It was soft just like you said it would be!”
Me: “I wouldn’t joke about such things either!”
They brought the dog out. He looked tired, unamused, and like he just got beaten up.
Vet: “He’s going to be a little sore, but that’s to be expected. Here’s his medicine. And remember he cannot get excited or exercised for the next few months OR HE WILL DIE. Okay? Short walks are fine, but nothing strenuous.”
Well, gee.
Brought Harley home and went back to work for another 5 hours.
When I back home Harley and I are going on a brief, non-strenuous non-death-enducing walk.
1 So about this heartworm business…according to the assistant it takes 6 months for heartworms to show up in test results. I got the dog in March, so he had heartworm when I bought him. I call the animal rescue where he came from and the rescue manager says, “Oh, that’s a surprise! But yeah, we don’t test the dogs for heartworm. That costs extra. You gotta tell me first if you wanted that done.”
