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…