Dog Update

A good night's sleep at home did him well. Yesterday he was a shaky mess, barely able to stand, refusing to drink or even open his mouth, and softly crying all night as thick stringy drool hung from his jowls. It was gross and sad.

He's much better today, morphine free. This morning he ate heartily, drank most of his water dish in one dip, chewed lustily on his bone, and then turned belly up for some good old fashioned tummy scratches. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go inform my boss that tomorrow will be my last day.

Recovery

Swarlos is back and on the road to recovery. It's a sad situation. He's been laying around softly whimpering for the past four hours or so. He's all shaven and drugged up and generally sad.

But he's still managed to be adorable.

Man Down!

Swarleyface is in recovery right now, probably high out of his mind of painkillers. He's defective, a lemon. One of the bones in his left leg stopped growing prematurely while the other just kept right on going, bowing out grotesquely and jamming his cartilage into the elbow joint. This condition led to a pigeon-towed stance that was pretty cute in real life but turned out to be highly disgusting in the x-ray. So, unless we wanted to watch him slowly lose all mobility over the next three years, the only option was surgery. Expensive, expensive surgery. Laptop expensive. Nice laptop expensive. It's no picnic for him either, I imagine, as he had to get his leg cut open, excess cartilage scraped away, and one of his bones cut so it can extend to it's rightful length over the next 3 to 4 weeks. And no doubt he's going to have to wear one of those hilarious head cones so he doesn't eat his own sutures. Poor Buddy. Poor, poor Buddy.

In better news, we're out of here in less than a week now! It looks like UT is going to let me stay on remote until the axe falls at the end of the summer, which is great because it means I've got a paycheck and more importantly insurance until we get established up in Columbus. BONG. Of course, the plan is subject to approval by various higher ups so it could all potentially fall apart and leave us destitute with a broken dog. Poor Buddy.

Finally, I promise once we get to Columbus we'll finally send out some thank-you cards. We really do appreciate everyone being there and helping us get started and we're huge jerks for putting it off so long, but once we had reached a certain threshold of procrastination we just decided to wait until we got to Columbus (where most of our gifts are) and send them all out at once. For realsies to the max stick and needle in my eye.

Pecheeew, Pecheeew, Pecheeew!

Lizett and I went to the shooting range, it was pretty awesome. I know, guns are evil--I am of course opposed to firearms in the home or on the streets, but I figure if there's any appropriate place for their use it's a shooting range. I mean, I'm also opposed to tearing an SUV through a crowded shopping mall, but am more or less okay with driving back and forth to work. Don't think about it, just accept it.

It was a little freaky. I don't know if it's just because we're in Texas or if all shooting ranges are like this, but they basically gave us no instruction. Here's your gun, off you go! I had assumed there would be some kind of mandatory safety course, but nope. He didn't even actually show us how to load or handle it, he just verbally described its function, advised us not to point the barrel at anyone, and sent us to lane 2.

We started out with a .22 revolver, and honestly it felt a lot like shooting a BB gun. Having never touched let alone shot a gun before I was expecting to be blown through the back wall, but the kick was negligible. Unfamiliar with the hierarchy of ammunition calibers, I didn't realize I was using the little bitch of the pistol family, so when we traded up to a 9mm glock the first shot very nearly resulted in all loss of bowel control/my arms. It was fun though once I got the hang of it, and I wasn't a terrible shot. I was marginally better than the wheelchair bound 7 year old in the lane next to us anyway. Very marginally.

The highlight was clearly when Lizett took some piping hot brass to the cleavage. Let this be a lesson ladies, if you're going to the shooting range, don't wear a boob shirt. She took a shot, let's say nailed the bullseye for the sake of the story, and the shell casing flew up, back, and right back down to the money spot. There's not a lot you can do in the department of quick reaction time while holding a loaded glock, so pretty much she just bounced and wiggled and did a little dance I like to call Flaming Boobies trying to get that bad boy out of there. It was probably the funniest thing that could have happened at a shooting range outside of Lizett strapping on some bandoliers and shooting wildly into the air yelling Ariba, ariba, andale andale, ariba! At least it seemed that way at the time...it turns out that the piping hot brass was actually searing hot brass, and now she's got a nice little red spot hanging out right between the ladies, as if enough people weren't staring at her cleavage already. But it was still kind of funny.

And Then I Won $25

VICTORY! I always knew God loved me above all others, but now I have proof in the form of a $25 gas card. Lizett and I were on one of our bi-monthly Hooters outings, judging the waitresses, when opportunity knocked--there was to be a drawing for a $25 dollar gas card, and all you needed to do to enter was give up your name, address, phone number, birthday, and email! How could I lose?? So I entered with a bunch of information that is about to change in 3 weeks anyway and sure enough, when the moment came the winner was the very alias I had used, Santos L. Halper. Joy of joys, free gas! The guy next to me held out his fist in congratulations, and suddenly I panicked. How are the kids hitting the rock these days? Are they even calling it the rock anymore? Did they ever? I CAN'T REMEMBER! I went for the downstroke, followed by the upstroke, finishing strong with knuckle to knuckle contact, and then fled.

Unfortunately to collect my prize I had to get my picture taken with all the Hooter Girls so they could display my triumph on the wall...I know, it sounds good, but remember back in college when I always insisted on the no-touch hug? That was no act, my friends. I genuinely do hate physical contact with people I don't know very well, buxom and flirty though they may be, and being squeezed in between 10 strange women who smelled like chicken wings was my personal nightmare. I placed my hands firmly in my pockets, tried to keep as much distance as possible (which turned out to be none) and took the most awkward picture of all time. And then fled.