Three Things Thursday

Posted on November 17, 2011 by KO

1. Today was the last day of teaching prior to Thanksgiving break. Hooray!

Last day of teaching before Thanksgiving. Favorite work dress and argyle tights.

As excited as I am about this, I was just not feeling like work this morning, so I psyched myself up with fashion. Favorite teaching dress + argyle tights and I was … somewhat more ready to be at work.

Normally I try to arrange things so that I don’t have any grading or other paperwork to do over the break, but this time it just didn’t quite work out, and now I have this pile of 75 literature essays staring me in the face, not to mention about a bohillion other bits of paper requiring my attention. The week of sloth (aka “leisure”) I envisioned may not come to fruition, but I surely will do my best. I am going to designate just a couple of hours each day to attacking the piles, and then I’ll be sure to designate more hours for such activities as reading, watching movies, snorgling the dog, and staring at the wall. This I do solemnly swear.

2. Egon’s walk has improved a lot, and he has passed the halfway point in his enforced crate rest. Less than two weeks to go! He no longer walks like a stumbling drunk all the time, but he does walk like a bit of a sidewinder, with one back leg taking larger steps than the other. Still not sure he could pass a road-side sobriety test, but things are improving! If I get a chance to video his walk again soon, I’ll post another clip to flickr.

3. In other creature news, the cat finally seems to have realized that the dog is confined to a crate, and therefore has been out and about more often in the house, what with the fact that no small dachshund is chasing after her. She occasionally even takes a moment to stretch out on the floor like a big goof. Right now, however, W’s two dogs are visiting and they are running crazy laps around my living room and yelping in each other’s faces while we attempt to watch the Colbert Report. Just another post-happy-hour Thursday night.

So what’s up with you today?

ProcrastiNation

Posted on November 11, 2011 by KO

Grrrrrreetings! It’s a beautiful fall day here in Alabama.

When I woke up this morning it was actually freezing outside — yes, 32 chilly degrees. Exciting. This means winter really is approaching (I love fall and winter both, and look forward to them each and every year), and it also meant Egon got to try out his new fleece jacket on his brief walk this morning. Check it out:

Yes, that’s a miniature dachshund in a red jacket. I submit to you that this is a remarkably cute phenomenon. Please enjoy it. Egon, as some of you know, has alopecia (also sometimes called “dachshund pattern baldness”) which makes him lose his hair on the backs of his ears, his throat, chest, and undercarriage. All that, combined with his back being shaved from surgery, means the little guy most definitely needs a jacket on mornings like this. See? I AM BEING PRACTICAL. I’m not just some girl who likes to dress her dog up in clothes.

(Not just, anyway.)

So the little guy is doing much better. His walk is improving. He is generally much calmer in his crate, and is letting me get some sleep at night. The current situation is that his crate stays in the living/dining/kitchen area all day so he can be in the middle of things, and then I bring it into the bedroom at night. I’ve also got W. and his two dogs in there, and although our night-time pack usually involves all five of us piled up in the double bed (I… I know), we can at least achieve 80% dogpile completion, with the other 20% on the floor in his crate. This seems to be working for now, and (despite the crowding) the extra warmth is definitely appreciated now that we are waking up to frosty mornings like today.

In spite of my love for cold weather and my general fearlessness when it comes to running in the cold, I was not feeling up to a run right away when I woke up at 7:00 this morning, so I waited until the afternoon to go out. It was sunny and a bit warmer (capri tights and short-sleeves style temperatures) and it was just plain beautiful outside.

We are rocking that stage of fall where there are pleasantly crunchy leaves on the ground and still some rich color in the trees. I had a lovely five-mile loop around town and then tacked on an extra mile in my neighborhood at the end, just because it was so beautiful out and I am young and alive. Pretty nice day I’ve got going so far.

I’ll be honest, I am supposed to be grading essays today, but I just don’t feel like it. There’s always tomorrow right? It’s that time in the semester where procrastination seems, despite all logical evidence to the contrary, to be the right thing to do. I am just going to roll with it for the moment. In a little while I’m off for an early dinner of pizza and beer and then seeing my friend PSP perform in the community production of Hairspray.

So tell me: do you ever just take the day off and enjoy it for your own purposes? I know I’m not the only procrastinator ’round these parts. ‘Fess up.

I need a hug. And some bleach. Mostly the hug, I think.

Posted on November 3, 2011 by KO

I am having a seriously rough day, y’all. Egon is not loving the crate life (as evidenced here), and his pain meds, after the last dose, made him pretty sick with some digestive symptoms I can’t even describe to you, that is how foul they were. I will not be surprised if the clean-up experience leads to some PTSD. I’ll just tell you that he sullied two different crates, one of them twice, and I had to throw away two blankets. OMFG.

There’s been minor stress at work — nothing major or worth mentioning, but enough that it’s bothersome and on my mind and it seems like one more little thing on top of it all could be the last straw. Don’t push me ’cause I’m close to the edge, as Grandmaster Flash says.

So! To cheer myself! A list of good things:

1. I taught Shakespeare’s sonnets today and one of my students alerted me to this, starring David Tennant and Catherine Tate, my favorite Doctor/Companion duo:

Hooray for my nerdy students!

2. Speaking of The Doctor, the second half of season six arrives on disc next week!

3. I have already purchased the champagne for post-race consumption in Savannah.

4. There is a delicate pitter-patter of rain outside. Look, I’m reaching here.

5. For the moment, knock wood, the dog is quiet.

And how are YOU today?

Updates: Egon, Savannah Half, and NaBloPoMo

Posted on November 2, 2011 by KO

Greetings, friends of the internet tubes! Did you know today’s date is a palindrome? It’s 11.02.2011. Neato, right? I enjoy patterns in numbers (one of the many things that “earns” me points on the spectrum test, but also something that makes it very easy for me to remember passwords, telephone numbers, and such).

I thought I’d pop over here for a couple of updates today:

1. Mister Egon came home from the hospital yesterday! After a long day teaching and holding student conferences, I headed straight over to the AU Vet School hospital (best place around; excellent care) to pick him up. They went over his treatment and recovery with me and I learned that I’d need to keep him on strict crate rest for the next four weeks. He used to be crated sometimes when he was little, to help with house training, and he used to sleep in the crate at night. I’m hoping he and I both remember how that works! He was never a big fan of the crate, but he’s going to have to become one for now.

He’s only allowed to go out for bathroom breaks, and what I’ve been doing (W’s good idea) is carry the crate out to the grass and let him out there, on the leash, where he can do his business and get right back in the crate. As W said, right now, for Egon, an inch is like a mile, so we’re minimizing the inches he has to go. His walk right now is very pathetic and drunk looking. He’s able to get around, but he stumbles and falls pretty often and can’t quite get those back legs moving normally yet. It’s just day two at home now, though, so I am looking to see lots of improvement while he continues to rest, and then hopefully he’ll gradually get moving more and more afterwards. It just kills me though, watching him walk. I had thought to make a little video of it, but I seriously don’t want to make y’all cry.

Little dude's back home, and crates for the next four weeks.

Couch time + crate time. Slightly awkward.

Eegs in the crate with the rawhide bone.

Despite the hard parts, I am just SO happy and relieved to have him back home again. I can sit by the crate with the door open and pet him and stuff, and we have even tried putting the crate on the couch with us while watching TV and hanging out. He’s happy to be back in his familiar surroundings again (even if he’s not allowed to explore them yet). He’s cutely wagging his tail all the time, eating and drinking with his normal appetite, and I can tell he is in good spirits. Big thank you to everyone for all your sweet comments and good thoughts for the little dude.

2. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Savannah Half Marathon is coming up on Saturday! B. and I will be leaving town on Friday and spending the weekend there. I am super excited to have a fun trip to a city I love (here’s my post and pics from our trip there in March — it was fabulous!) and to run another race with a friend. We are going to have a great time no matter what.

As far as my plans and goals for the race, I’ve been saying all year I wanted to run a sub-2:00 half marathon this year, and I was hoping to meet that goal in Savannah. Speed has been harder to come by than I thought. I can easily keep my long runs around a 9:30 pace, but I’ll need a 9:09 average pace to meet my sub-2:00 goal. Race-day “magic” and adrenaline can only shave off so much time, so I’m not really sure now how feasible that is. If the course is really as flat as I think it is, and the weather stays cool, it could be a possibility. Right now the temps for Saturday are predicted to be a low of 50 and a high of 63, which is about 10 degrees warmer than I’d prefer, but I can deal. I’m going to focus on a few different possible goals, though:

A+ Goal: 1:59:59.
A Goal: 2:04:59.
B Goal: a new PR at 2:07:06
C Goal: 2:09:59
D Goal: Finish without injury!

My other goals for the trip include the following: Enjoy a carb-tastic dinner the night before and do a glam pre-race pedicure in the hotel room (for fast, fashionable feet). Pop a bottle of champange after the race to share with B. Eat a fabulous post-race dinner somewhere fun, and have a couple of fancy cocktails. Enjoy the beautiful sights of Savannah, take lots of pictures, and buy a couple of postcards. Have a blast with B. Relax and enjoy the post-race glow that results from setting goals, working hard, training consistently, and feeling good — no matter what the time on the clock might be!

3. NaBloPoMo: If you don’t know, November is National Blog Posting Month (among other things), and it’s a time when many bloggers pledge to post every day for the entire month. I missed yesterday, November 1st. Nonetheless, I’d like to make a pledge to post more often this month. I am going to shoot for posting three times a week for the month, which will hopefully get me in the habit of tellin’ mah stories here instead of spoiling them all on Twitter in the 140-character Readers’ Digest versions. So I hope to see you all around here more often in the coming month!

Egon the Dachshund

Posted on October 26, 2011 by KO

If you already follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you already know about this (and if you don’t already, why the hell not?!), but I have news to report about Egon.

He’s currently spending the night at the university veterinary school’s animal hospital where he just had emergency surgery for a ruptured disc in his spine. This is not an uncommon problem for dachshunds, but it’s one that I hoped would never affect my little dude. He’s very lean and, now that he’s almost 6 years old, not terribly rambunctious (the two risk factors are being overweight or jumping a lot). Nonetheless, he managed to injure his spine.

I’m not sure what happened, but I took him to the vet for a suspected UTI on Monday, which he tested positive for. The vet also determined that he had a strain in his back, so he was prescribed antibiotics for the UTI, anti-inflammatories for the strain, and tons of rest.

At some point Tuesday night, while I was out, he managed to hurt himself. He’d been feeling better and had been okay with staying voluntarily in his crate (crate door unlocked) in my bedroom, where there’s no tall furniture for him to jump on. It seemed safe enough to me, especially since he used to panic a lot when I’d crate him with the door locked. With the crate plus his favorite blankets on the floor, he hadn’t even tried to climb on the (low, platform) bed all day. I would have noticed the little dents he leaves in the down comforter, so I know he never went up there. What I found after the fact was that he’d apparently gone in my closet, climbed into the laundry basket, peed in it, and climbed out. He’d had some incontinence issues from the UTI, and I think he didn’t want to pee on the floor. Poor guy. That must’ve been when he really hurt his back.

I came home to find him hiding under the blanket on the floor (his usual burrowing M.O.), and when I lifted up the blanket to peek at him he yelped in pain and tried to move, but he wasn’t able to use his back legs at all and was dragging them behind him. In about 14 seconds I had called the emergency vet at the university and was on my way there, with W. (who was in bed and nearly asleep at the late hour) awake and arranged to meet us.

Emergency visit to the vet last night for my dog's injured spine. He's still there today.

They kept him last night and the neurologist saw him today, confirming after tests that he did have a ruptured disc. He underwent surgery for it today, but I haven’t spoken to the doctor yet. It sounds like he went home without remembering to call me (MOTHEREFFER), but the front desk tells me Egon is out of surgery and in the neurology ICU. Hopefully I will get to talk to the doc tomorrow and possibly even come in to see Egon.

The financial aspect of all this is a whole other matter and is almost equally as stressfull. The estimate was for between $3000-5000, and I had to put down half of the high end before they would take him (which I was — barely– able to do). In order to give them the go-ahead for surgery I had to make sure I could come up with the rest, and I did manage to get financing for that after begging my dad to cosign for it. I may be 33 years old with a nice middle-cass job, but I am only a few years out of grad school with student loans and credit card debt (It was almost paid off until today, but now I’ve more than doubled it!) and I guess I wasn’t a good enough candidate for the stupid financing on my own. Anyway, I’m more than covered, now. Oof. Many thanks to my unfailingly kind and generous father.

And this is all the news I have at the moment. I will update with more when I can, but I wanted to post something here for all my friends who don’t follow my every move in 140-character bursts. Thanks so much to everyone who has gotten in touch with me to offer words of support — you are very much appreciated.