Friday random thoughts...

So the last couple weeks have just been up and down, what with the Chicago move being ripped away from us, and Echo cycling between “sick” and “okay.” I haven’t had a chance to really think about anything coherent to write about. So instead, I shall lean on my tried and true “random thought” arrangement:

So Echo was doing really well for about a week, and then all of a sudden stopped eating again. I’m thinking it may have been because of her arthritis, as opposed to any kind of stomach ailment, because we were forced to take her off the anti-inflammatory drug she’s been on for a few years. It’s been great for her arthritis, but it has the unfortunate side-effect of possible liver damage. And since her liver enzymes were too high when she was at the vet a couple weeks ago, he decided to take her off the drug. She was okay for about a week, and like I said, had started eating normally again – but then she started hobbling around like she was in pain, and wouldn’t eat anything. So we asked the vet for some pain medication that WON’T damage one of her organs, and after I gave her that, she seemed to perk up again. (And that reminds me, I have to give her all her pills now… I HATE giving her these pills, because she obviously does NOT appreciate it at ALL. I wish it were possible to talk and reason with animals…)

Okay, THAT’S taken care of… well, until tonight when I have to do it all over again. (And can someone tell me WHY they can make medicine that tastes good for KIDS, but they apparently can’t do the same thing for animals?? I mean, I can remember when I was kid and I had ear infections, I’d have to take some kind of liquid antibiotic – and I think it tasted like grape or something. So couldn’t they make, like, beef-flavored antibiotics for dogs? And tuna-flavored pills for cats?? It would make this twice-daily medication dosing routine a lot easier… for Echo AND for me…)

Moving on to other random topics… So my favorite commercial right now is that one for Hotels.com, where the guy is in the hotel bathroom and he goes, “hey honey, look – they gave us two bottles of shampoo…” and his wife says something like, “maybe they’re hoping you’ll write a good review” and then the guy starts pouring the bottles of shampoo on his head (even though he’s just standing in front of the mirror, fully clothed) and says, “it’s working! Aw, they got me! It’s working!” That commercial totally cracks me up every time I see it. It also makes me think I should visit Hotels.com once in a while, as my preferred travel-planning site of choice right now is Trip Advisor. But Trip Advisor doesn’t even HAVE commercials…

It’s been much too warm here the last few days. It’s still February, but it’s been in the 80’s all week. It makes me miss the brisk Chicago air… even if walking outside for too long meant the loss of all feeling in my face. It was very refreshing. (Of course, I’m sure if I’d been in Chicago for a while, I’d be writing, “I miss the warm Februarys in Austin… I could always feel my face when I walked outside…”)

We are getting dangerously close to running out of our seemingly-never ending supply of candy from the Tootsie Roll company that Rick brought home many weeks ago. I thought we’d never finish it all, and yet here we are, down to a few measly lollypops and a bunch of chewing gum (the Double Bubble gum has lasted the longest, because really – it’s just gum… :)). I’m glad it’s gone, actually – it’s much too tempting to have mountains of candy in the pantry (as is evidenced from the fact that it’s almost gone…).

And along those same lines – I’ve been TRYING to get back into my good eating and exercise habits lately. We’re two months past Christmas, so you’d think I could be back on track by now. Of course, I think the Chicago job kinda messed things up for a while, since our schedules were crazy and I made several trips to the City of Many Many Yummy Restaurants. One of the reasons I was really looking forward to moving there was all the opportunity for walking – if you choose the right location, you can pretty much walk EVERYwhere. The grocery store, the Starbucks, the bookstore, the Best Buy, the Home Depot, Many Many Yummy Restaurants, etc. But I guess I shall make do with my treadmill and occasional walks to Walgreens or CVS (which are the two places that are quite easy to walk to in my neighborhood… but I’m still wondering why they built two drugstores right across the street from each other…).

Argh! The fantasy baseball draft is less than a month away! I’m so unprepared! (Just realized that, so I thought I’d throw it in with my random thoughts…)

Okay, that’s about all I can come up with for now. Hopefully I’ll have something more interesting to write about soon…

Such a good dog...

Well, it’s been a bit of a crazy week. When Rick got laid off, we made plans to fly back to Chicago one last time (on Dell’s dime, fortunately) to retrieve the car – we drove it up back in October so Rick would have his own car up there. That way, he didn’t have to rent a car every time he flew up, and he could keep extra shoes/clothes in the car to make packing his little carry-on bag much easier. He had negotiated a great rate at a downtown hotel and found a parking garage a couple blocks away where he could park for 9 dollars a day. That’s outright cheap compared to the 30 or 40 dollars a day most hotels charge.

But anyway, as I was saying, we had plans to fly up to Chicago on Sunday. On Friday night, Echo started acting a bit “off” – panting a lot and not showing any interest in her treats (which are usually her favorite part of the evening). Some time in the middle of the night, she started throwing up – and she was pretty much up all night heaving and pacing and generally not feeling well. So the next day (after steam-cleaning the bedroom carpet…) I kept an eye on her, trying to decide if I should go ahead and go to Chicago, or just let Rick go by himself and hope he didn’t fall asleep trying to drive the car all the way back by himself. But I managed to get her to eat some dinner (although I had to mix her regular hard food with a bit of canned soft food), and she kept it down all night. So we thought she was over her little stomach issue and took her to Rick’s parents’ house Sunday morning on our way to the airport.

Once we got to Chicago, we called for an update and learned that she was refusing to eat ANY of her food. Not even the soft food. Sunday night all she ate was a bit of chicken, so Rick’s mom and my mom took her into the vet on Monday. This is when I wish animals could talk – was something hurting her? Was it her teeth? Her stomach? Was she simply feeling nauseous, or was she in pain? The vet ran some blood tests, and her liver and kidney enzymes were elevated. Her liver enzymes have always been elevated, but usually just slightly – the medication she was on for arthritis is known for raising liver enzymes, so the vet took her off that medicine. But the kidneys are a mystery. She also has a high white blood cell count. But the vet had no definitive answers…

So after another day of barely eating anything (although Rick’s mom was able to coax her into eating some roast beef and a bit of cubed steak…), we made the decision to drive back to Austin as quickly as we could. We had wanted to take our time on the drive back – an easy drive to St. Louis the first day, another easy drive to Oklahoma City the next, and then a nice, pleasant jaunt to Austin on the third day. But after Rick talked to his mom on Tuesday morning, we thought it would be best if we just got home as quickly as we could. Unfortunately, since we’d been planning the “easy” drive, we didn’t make it out of Chicago until around 12:30 that afternoon. Which meant we were driving until 11:30 Tuesday night so we could make it to Tulsa. I don’t know what it is about driving all day that wears me out, but I was exhausted by the time we got to the hotel. (I think it’s worse in the winter, too – because it starts to get dark by 4:30 or 5:00, so then you’re driving in the dark for hours… and dark = sleep… It’s much easier to take a road trip in the summer, because it’s still light at 8 or 8:30…)

But we made it home yesterday afternoon, and have been attending to our poor, sick Echo ever since. The vet gave us some antibiotics and some anti-nausea medication, to see if those might have an effect. That’s a bit difficult, because Echo has never liked taking pills… she’s very sneaky… you can try to get the pill on the back of her tongue and then hold her mouth closed, but as soon as you let go, she just spits the pill out. So you REALLY have to make sure she actually swallows the thing before you let go of her mouth. She’s eaten a bit of chicken, and I actually just managed to feed her some potato, too. Although I had to surround it with chicken first – but I was encouraged, because she was finally acting like she WANTED the chicken. She’s been sort of reluctantly eating the little bits we’ve fed her, but this was the first time she looked interested in what I was feeding her. I only gave her a small amount, to make sure she keeps it down, but I’m HOPING maybe the medication the vet gave us is helping.

I have to thank Rick's mom and my mom SO MUCH for helping out while we were away and showing Echo all kinds of love. I'm so glad I have family that understands how important our pets are. :) We did have a couple nice days in Chicago, and I think once I’m not worrying about Echo so much I’m really going to miss the idea of moving up there. But maybe it’ll still happen eventually, who knows. In the meantime, I guess we try to enjoy the warm winters while we can…

Random picture post!!

I haven't done a random picture post in a long time... so here we go, in no particular order and with no rhyme or reason:



Cool ocean picture Rick took in Kauai...


Jellyfish at the Maui Ocean Center... I just love that place... :)


Allegro and Piva kicking back in a sunbeam... it's so hard to be a cat...


A park in Costa Rica... the bench and gazebo were badly in need of new coats of paint, but they actually looked sort of cool the way they were...


Purple flower in Key West -- and yes, the only reason I took this picture was because the flower was purple... :)


An old church in Mallorca... they were renovating part of it, but I kinda like how the cross is right between the uncovered part and the part covered in scaffolding...



The hoards of people on the Spanish Steps in Rome...


And the hoards of people at Trevi Fountain. We were there in October, I believe -- so it kinda makes you wonder if there's ever an "off" season for tourists in Rome...


I love this picture of me and Eric... Eric rules...


This is a picture dad took of a church in Palermo, Sicily. I wish I would've been there myself, because that would've meant that I was NOT getting attacked by a rouge umbrella in another part of town and heading back to our cruise ship for stitches...


Fuzzy nighttime Chicago skyline. There was a storm this night, and I was standing on Eric's balcony attempting to catch a shot of some lightning. Never got a picture of the lightning, but this one isn't so bad... :)

The best-laid plans...

Well, it’s been a crazy week. And not a fun sort of crazy – not like riding roller coasters, or bungee jumping, or getting on the wrong train in a foreign city and ending up in the part of town where the circus performers hang out (“dude, that was CRAZY!”). No, this has been the kind of crazy that pops up at annoyingly inopportune times to cancel the happy opportunities you’d been comfortably getting used to…

Last Saturday, I decided at the last minute to fly up to Chicago with Rick on his usual Sunday afternoon flight. It was a good week to go, since Rick only had a few appointments to take care of, and Eric was off work until Thursday night. So not only were Rick and I able to hang out all day on Monday, but I was able to hang out with Eric on Tuesday and Wednesday when Rick was working. We went to the Art Institute, we ate at a cool little breakfast place called Toast, we bought some DVDs at Best Buy and some popcorn and orange cream soda at the grocery store and had a movie marathon – and then at night, we met up with Rick and had dinner at a few of our favorite Chicago restaurants. All in all, it was a fun visit, and served to reinforce my excitement about our impending move to the city. Rick and I had even seen some great condos when we were out wandering around on Monday – and many were well within our price range, too. Chicago was so close I could taste it… even literally, when I was at those restaurants (yuuuum… Basil Leaf Café… tastes like Chicago…)

Thursday morning, we packed up our suitcases and got ready to run out to the train to catch our flight back to Austin. But before we could leave, Rick had a conference call with his boss – so I ran downstairs to the Starbucks in the lobby of the hotel and bought a couple of cappuccinos. When I walked back into our hotel room, Rick had four words for me: “I’ve been laid off.” I only had one word, myself: “WHAT??!?!?!?” He was still on the phone, so I placed his coffee on the desk and then took my own cup over to the window and, feeling stunned and disbelieving, stared outside. What else was there to do?

We’ve known for a while that Dell was layoff-happy this past year. People have been dropping like flies, left and right. But we’ve been pretty secure in Rick’s position with the company, and he’d been repeatedly assured that he was in a good area for avoiding layoffs. And besides, Rick is GOOD at his job. I mean, not just good – like awesomely super good. Rick is the reason someone coined the phrase “he could sell ice to an Eskimo” or however that saying goes. If you want someone who’s dedicated, and ambitious, and willing to go to great lengths to make sure customers are happy, you can count on Rick. Tootsie Roll isn’t gonna give away bags of their entire candy line to a guy who has no clue what he’s doing. So this really was a case of, “if Rick can be laid off, ANYONE can be laid off.” Those who remain must be afraid. Very afraid.

Needless to say, there go our plans for a move to Chicago. I’m a bit crushed, to tell the truth. I was starting to really look forward to my new home, even though my moving plans weren’t finalized. I was having so much fun looking through my new Chicago books and finding restaurants I couldn’t wait to try or places I couldn’t wait to visit. I had visions of walking to a farmer’s market in the middle of summer and purchasing fresh produce for that evening’s dinner. I was looking forward to spending more time with my brother and inviting him over for my farmer’s market dinners (and biscuits, of course, Eric… lots of biscuits). I thought maybe I could find a job at one of the many publishing giants with locations in Chicago. I was already anticipating a cheerful and wonderfully cold Christmas, and hoping everyone could come to my fantastic new condo for Christmas dinner and presents. And sure, I had plenty of worry, as well – like all the packing I’d have to complete once the house sold… or wondering how to transport my very old cat and dog to a new place… or thinking about whether I’d be able to manage navigating traffic downtown… or just being concerned for my general safety in a city so much larger than my own, with millions of strangers and many dark alleys…

But for the most part, I felt a sense of hope and adventure, and I couldn’t wait to embark upon the next chapter of my life. But apparently I wasn’t quite finished with THIS chapter. What’s funny is that Rick truly feels like a chapter of his life has come to a close, and he’s moving on to something new... I, however, seem to be back where I started…

The good news is that Rick did get a severance package, and has a profile on LinkedIn, where he’s been networking with various people. It seems that getting laid off is a bit like attending your own funeral – suddenly people are saying all kinds of great things about you that you never knew they were thinking. Dozens of Rick’s friends and co-workers have written recommendations for him, and he’s already heard about a few possible opportunities. And knowing Rick, he’ll attack his job search with the usual tenacious determination he always displays when he’s working toward a new career goal. He’ll find something – I have no doubts about that.

But I WILL miss that great Chicago winter weather…